Special airing of ‘Black Panther,’ Fox News lead Nielsens
First COVID-era film fest opens in Venice
LOS ANGELES » A special airing of “Black Panther” in the wake of the death of star Chadwick Boseman was a bright spot for the broadcast networks in a ratings week otherwise utterly dominated by Fox News Channel’s coverage of the Republican National Convention.
ABC’s last-minute scheduling Sunday night of the Disney and Marvel film about the African superhero drew 6.27 million viewers two days after Boseman died of colon cancer at age 43.
An accompanying tribute to Boseman brought nearly 5 million viewers and was fifth among broadcast shows for the week, the Nielsen company said Tuesday.
But the week overall belonged to Fox News, which had nine of the top 10 and 14 of the top 20 prime time shows.
At No. 1 was Thursday night’s airing of the convention and the nomination acceptance speech of President Donald Trump, which drew 9 million viewers.
VENICE » Venice is reclaiming its place as a top cultural destination with the opening of the Venice Film Festival — the first major in-person cinema showcase of the coronavirus era after Cannes canceled and other international festivals opted to go mostly online this year.
Italian director Andrea Segre, whose documentary of an ethereally empty Venice during lockdown was screened Tuesday, said the festival is sending the message that despite the risks and complications, “we need theaters for cinema.”
“It’s like if you say to a painter that he can show his painting, or his fresco, only through the web,” Segre said in an interview on the Lido. “It’s exactly the same for us: Without the theater, our art has a handicap, it has a big handicap.”
But don’t be fooled. The 77th edition of the world’s oldest film festival, which opened Wednesday, looks nothing like its predecessors.
The public is being barred from the red carpet, Hollywood stars and films are largely absent and face masks are required indoors.
Those strict measures are evidence of the hard line Venice and the surrounding Veneto region took to contain the virus when it first emerged in the lagoon city in late February. Unlike neighboring Lombardy, which became the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in Europe, Veneto largely kept the virus under control with early local lockdowns and broad testing once the virus was widespread.
La Biennale chief Robert Cicutto said the decision to hold the festival at all was an important sign of rebirth for Venice and the film industry, and said the experience on the Lido will serve as a “laboratory” for future cultural gatherings.
“It will be an experiment on the ground of how to confront an important event” in the COVID era, he said in presenting this year’s Venice lineup.
The festival, which runs through Sept. 12, marks Italy’s return to the art world stage after it became the first country in the West to be slammed by COVID. Even Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible 7,” in Venice at the time for three weeks of filming, had to pull out.
Italy’s strict 10-week lockdown largely tamed the virus, but infections are now rebounding after summer vacations. Health authorities are scrambling to test passengers at airports and seaports to try to identify imported cases before they can spread.
Guests to the glamorous film festival are not exempt. If they arrive from outside Europe’s open-border Schengen area, they will be tested upon arrival.