Last Dance Tiger King Screenwriting
Credit: C/O

In today’s Movie News Roundup: Great ways to get a screenwriting MFA; COVID-19 cases doubled over the weekend at Tiger King Joe Exotic’s prison; inside the race to finish the Michael Jordan doc The Last Dance; and one of of Hollywood’s darkest movies turns 70.

Go Back to School: Almost every academic program is online now, but only a few were designed to be. If you’ve always dreamed of getting a screenwriting MFA — especially lately — a low-residency program might be ideal for you. We looked at five of the best.

Tiger King‘s Covid-19 Connection: The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases doubled over the weekend at the Texas federal prison that is now the home of Joe Exotic, we can exclusively report. Prison officials have considered sending some high-risk inmates home. Could Joe Exotic be freed because of a once-in-a-century global pandemic? It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing connected to Tiger King.

Venice Still Happening: The Venice Film Festival, the world’s oldest film festival, is still expected to go on as scheduled in September, Variety reports. But a collaboration between Venice and Cannes, which is delayed, is not looking likely.

Sundance Institute’s $1 Million: The Sundance Institute will pay out $1 million in COVID-19 emergency relief money for independent artists and organizations. “When history looks back, this will either be the moment when we invested in artists, making it possible to turn what we’re feeling during these scary and surreal times into powerful, lasting creative work — or it will be the moment we lost a generation of art and artists because we failed to support them when and how they most needed it,” the institute said Friday.

The Last Minute: Most films have been deleted by COVID-19. The Last Dance was sped up. Deadline has a long, interesting talk with The Last Dance executive producer Mike Tollin about how the new Michael Jordan documentary was speedily completed to bring a little joy to sports fans in quarantine.

Sunset Boulevard Turns 70: “It is something that haunts my entire life,” actress Nancy Olson tells The Hollywood Reporter of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. Olson was just 21 when she played a a script reader who falls for William Holden’s desperate screenwriter.

 

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