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For screenwriter Paul Rudnick, he wrote the “Coastal Elites” script a year ago before the pandemic started, “when I realized everyone I knew was angry and heartbroken on every side of the political divide,” he said during the show’s Summer Television Critics Association virtual panel on Wednesday. He’d been following how some entertainment entities were utilizing Zoom, whether that be for unscripted television or dramatic readings, but hadn’t witnessed it in a scripted show....

“CODA” also stands as the biggest Sundance acquisition ever, courtesy of Apple, which picked it up for $25 million. “Coda” smashed the Sundance sales record just a year after “Palm Springs” did the same, courtesy of Hulu and Neon’s estimated $20 million buy. Per the film’s official synopsis: “Gifted with a voice that her parents can’t hear, 17-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the sole hearing member of a deaf family — a CODA, which means a Child of Deaf Adults....

It’s tough to make precise comparisons, but the effort is worthwhile. Studios will look at this data point and apply it to their platform strategies for future releases. The total box office for the three-day weekend will come in at around $15 million. Last year, led by the second weekend of “Frozen II,” it grossed $181 million. Of course, this comes with fewer than half of domestic theaters open, and without its two largest markets....

Dalí is a more sympathetic character than either Manson or Andy Warhol, for starters — as low of a bar as that may be to clear. He’s self-indulgent and allergic to work, but what famous artist isn’t? That just necessitates the insertion of handlers like James (Christopher Briney), a recent art school graduate with an eye for detail and the face of an angel in a Renaissance painting. The former is what draws James towards the Dufresne Gallery, where he gets a job as an assistant....

With the opening days of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” still included in our four-week rolling average of 2021, it falls to 61 percent compared to 2019. October should be better — or to be more precise, it needs to be considerably better. The lack of prime new films since the latest Marvel release is the main alibi for the overall weakness of September, but that changes next week....

And then there’s Discovery+, which launched in the United States on January 4. Discovery+ hasn’t made waves in entertainment news like its nascent contemporaries and it doesn’t have a show as universally recognized as “The Mandalorian.” But that’s not to say the streaming service’s launch fell on deaf ears, and it certainly doesn’t say anything about the popularity of its content. Discovery+ boasts a mix of original programming and library content, and the platform’s offerings are immense....

Star Simu Liu didn’t hesitate to let the world know that Disney CEO Bob Chapek lacked nuance in describing the strategy for distributing the big-budget film, as if the studio regarded its first franchise led by an Asian character as some kind of litmus test, but Chapek’s interests lie elsewhere. We are the underdog; the underestimated. We are the ceiling-breakers. We are the celebration of culture and joy that will persevere after an embattled year....