ACORN TV
Programming from several countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand, and UK.

ViacomCBS-owned cabler is planning to move out of long form series television and instead focus its efforts on made-for-TV movies featuring big name stars. To that end, the network will be rebranded as the Paramount Movie Network. The rebrand will take place globally within the next year. The current plan is to program 52 original movies per year on the network, or one movie per week. Each movie will have a budget in the low-to-mid-seven-figure range. Once per quarter, the network expects to program a miniseries or scripted series on the scale of its hit drama “Yellowstone,” potentially spinning off characters from those projects into their own films or sequels in the future.

The Nashville Film Festival will celebrate the impending 20th anniversary of the release of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” with an online reunion of principal cast members, plus musical performances from figures who appeared on the soundtrack and others. George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson and Chris Thomas King will be getting the old chain gang back together for the event, which is part of the festival’s Oct. 1-7 virtual proceedings.

Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut “The Human Voice” and British artist Steve McQueen’s “Lovers Rock” have been added to the British Film Institute London Film Festival. Almodovar’s short, loosely based on Jean Cocteau’s play, presents a woman on the edge portrayed by Tilda Swinton, who is waiting for her lover to call. It will play in the festival’s shorts program, and screen at BFI Southbank on Oct. 17, accompanied by a pre-recorded introduction and Q&a with Almodóvar and Swinton.

Multiplex giant Cineworld Group’s half-year results have been severely impacted by the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic, as expected. All cinemas remained shuttered from mid-March to late June or early August in some cases. Consequently, the Group reported an operating loss of $1.34 billion, compared to a profit of $389.2 million in 2019. Group revenue plummeted to $712.4 million from 2019’s $2.1 billion and group adjusted Ebitda fell to $53 million from 2019’s $758.6 million. The company has made clear that there is no certainty around its Covid-19 outlook. In a forward-looking statement, Cineworld said, “If governments were to strengthen restrictions on social gathering, which may therefore oblige us to close our estate again or further push back movie releases, it would have a negative impact on our financial performance and likely require the need to raise additional liquidity.”