Reuters Entertainment News Summary
Following is a summary of current entertainment news briefs.
Prosecutors drop sex assault case against actor Kevin Spacey
Massachusetts prosecutors on Wednesday announced they had dropped a criminal case alleging that former "House of Cards" star Kevin Spacey sexually assaulted an 18-year-old man at a bar in Nantucket over three years ago. Prosecutors said they made the decision to drop the felony indecent assault and battery charge against the Oscar winner after the alleged victim invoked his right under the U.S. Constitution against giving self-incriminating testimony.
Netflix deletes suicide scene from popular youth show, '13 Reasons Why'
Netflix Inc. is removing a controversial graphic scene depicting a youth suicide from its popular young adult drama "13 Reasons Why", following advice from medical experts, the company said on its Twitter account early on Tuesday. The show, based on a book of the same name, depicts the suicide of the protagonist in the last episode of season 1, with a scene of the youth Hannah slitting her wrists in a bathtub.
'Game of Thrones' dominates and 'kick-ass' women break through at Emmys
Medieval fantasy "Game of Thrones" scored a record 32 Emmy nominations on Tuesday, but the contenders for the highest honors in television were dominated by newcomers, many of them women, and shows about political and social justice. The 2019 lineup for the Emmys represented the widest array of first-time nominees in eight years, the Television Academy said, with nine new shows contending for the top prizes of best drama and best comedy series.
South African musician Johnny Clegg dead at 66
South African singer and songwriter Johnny Clegg, one of the few white artists to openly confront the apartheid government in the late 1970s and 1980s, died on Tuesday aged 66, his agent said. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015.
R. Kelly pleads not guilty, denied bail on U.S. charges of sex crimes
R&B singer R. Kelly pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to a raft of federal charges accusing him of running a scheme to force women and girls to provide sex for himself and others, and a judge ordered that he remain in jail without bail. A federal judge said the main reason he was denying bail was obstruction of justice charges, part of a multi-count indictment unveiled on Friday in Chicago and New York.
Disney goes high-tech to draw fans to a new 'Lion King'
Walt Disney Co has taken a high-tech route to remake animated classic "The Lion King" with the look of a nature documentary, an update it hopes will lure audiences to a new version of a film considered a masterpiece the first time. The re-telling of the 1994 tale about the lion cub Simba, which opens in theaters around the world this week, was created with computer animation, gaming technology and virtual reality, plus live-action filmmaking techniques, director Jon Favreau said.
HBO sets Emmy nominations record, tops Netflix
AT&T Inc's premium cable network HBO scored a record 137 Emmy nominations on Tuesday, topping streaming service Netflix Inc in what has become an annual battle for bragging rights in the contest for television's biggest awards. A large chunk of HBO's tally came from medieval fantasy "Game of Thrones," which received 32 nominations, the highest total for a drama series in a single year. Limited series "Chernobyl" about the 1986 nuclear disaster hauled in 19.
Pop culture hit 'Gossip Girl' gets a makeover for HBO Max
"Gossip Girl," the show that became a youth culture phenomenon with its trend-setting fashion and chronicling of the romantic lives of elite New York teens, is on its way back to television, this time in a new series for upcoming streaming service HBO Max. HBO Max, owned by WarnerMedia, said on Tuesday it had ordered a new, 10-episode series that will be set eight years after "Gossip Girl" ended its original run in 2012, and will follow a new generation of private school kids.
