As countries all over the world slowly begin to reopen, it’s important to stay safe by remembering to maintain social distancing. Or, do what Tom Cruise is doing and blast yourself into space. More on that later. First, let’s discuss a brand-new video series Variety has put together by writers, for writers. It features interviews with some of the industry’s top showrunners sharing their knowledge with aspiring writers.

VARIETY LAUNCHES A NEW SERIES BY WRITERS FOR WRITERS
Self-isolation may seem like the perfect time to open your laptop and write, but remaining productive while spending every second at home can be more difficult than it seems. Thankfully, the Final Draft blog, videos, and more for ways to stay creative and push through that script. But, if you’re craving a little more inspiration, Variety just launched a new video series called Hollywood How-To that features A-list writers answering a series of questions for viewers. The first episode is called Conquering Writer’s Block and the second episode is all about Developing a Character. Variety appears to be releasing two episodes a week and is pairing each video with a longer, more in-depth interview with a single writer. Sometimes all it takes to get a little inspiration is listening to other writers discuss their craft and dole out some helpful hints.

TOM CRUISE TAKES STORYTELLING INTO OUTER SPACE
Tom Cruise has become known for his death-defying stunts in each new Mission: Impossible movie. But once you’ve scaled the world’s tallest building, hung from the outside of a plane, completed a HALO jump, and learned to pilot your own helicopter, what else is there to do? Why, explore a new frontier, of course: Space. While very little is known about the project, what we do know is that Cruise is teaming up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and NASA to film an action movie in outer space. Take that, Sandra Bullock! How do you like them apples, Matt Damon? You thought Gravity and The Martian were realistic? Well, Tom Cruise is here to make the most realistic outer-space movie of all time—and he will do it on the International Space Station. No creative team has been announced, but the death-defying actor has been very hands-on with selecting the team he’s about to hand out one hell of a job assignment to. Even if Cruise read a completed script that inspired him to launch himself into space, the writer will still have a lot of adapting to do based on—what I can only assume will be—the difficulties of leaving the planet to shoot a movie. And what happens if they need rewrites while filming? Do they wait around to have the pages beamed to them? Personally, I can’t wait to watch the behind-the-scenes on this one to see how it all comes together.

TELEVISION IS NOT DONE WITH THE TIGER KING
Do you want more Tiger King or are you all Tiger King-ed out? Imagine Television is hoping you haven’t yet had your fill of Joe Exotic and the other wacky cast members from one of the year’s most buzzy new series and are going ahead with a scripted show based on the zoo-keeper/presidential candidate’s life. In case that’s not intriguing enough, they’re upping the ante and have attached American Vandal showrunner Dan Lagana to captain the ship. Still not convinced? The studio is going all-in and cast Nicolas Cage in the lead role. Netflix dropped the docu-series Tiger King at the perfect time; with most of the world’s population under self-isolation the streaming service had a captive audience that drove the show to become one of the most talked about series this decade. I’m just now realizing the decade is only four months long so far, so that’s not as impressive a feat on paper as it was in my head. But this project has been in development since last year and is based on a Texas Monthly article, and it’s not alone. A show from Joe Exotic nemesis Carole Baskins’ point-of-view based on the Wondery podcast is in the works with Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon, and Rob Lowe has said he’s working on a Joe Exotic project with Hollywood creator Ryan Murphy. While competitive development is not rare, it’s certainly rare for it to become a gold-rush when the subject turns into a cultural zeitgeist. None of these shows has a network attached yet, so stay tuned to see which one lands a home first.

MGM GETS CAUGHT STEPPING OUT ON STARZ
It can be really easy to succumb to the siren’s call of streaming media, but no matter how tempting it is, you have to remember that you made a commitment to premium cable. MGM forgot about its vows and stepped out on Starz to spend some nights with Amazon Prime. Unfortunately, a Starz employee did the digital equivalent of digging through MGM’s texts while it was in the shower and discovered that Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a movie that was supposed to be exclusive to Starz, was available to stream on Prime Video. Starz dug deeper and discovered that movies like Mad Max, The Terminator and the Bond franchise were being sold by MGM to multiple buyers and were occasionally put on Epix, a competing premium cable service owned by MGM. Starz is suing MGM over the breach, claiming that the movies were supposed to be exclusive to Starz and that their availability elsewhere has made the channel less lucrative to both subscribers and distributors. MGM shot back and said that this is all Starz’ fault, and if it treated MGM right then maybe it wouldn’t have been talking to Amazon in the first place.

VIACOM READIES CBS ALL ACCESS AS ITS NETFLIX KILLER
When the dust settles on the streaming wars, Netflix will be the only service alive that’s not owned by a massive media conglomerate. In a bid to beat Netflix at the game it created, this year will see AT&T, Comcast, ViacomCBS and Disney all launch massive streaming services that combine all of their assets into one place because it took them five years to figure out people like watching on-demand content not tied to a set schedule. Now that the CBS merger is complete, Viacom will beef up CBS All Access with a sexy new name and content from CBS, Showtime, Paramount and Viacom’s slate of TV channels. Much like we saw AT&T close down services like Filmstruck and Audience Network to merge the content into HBO Max, expect Viacom to make similar decisions on BET+ and Showtime’s stand-alone service to get that content into its new mega-service. Viacom has also struck a deal with YouTube TV to have its slate of channels shown on the vMPVD service. This brings channels like MTV, Nickelodeon, TV Land, The Paramount Network and BET to YouTube TV for the first time and will inevitably lead to an increase in cost to subscribers who have to foot the bill for the channels whether they want them or not. It seems like the same corporate tactics that are killing cable television are now affecting internet television. But that doesn’t matter to Viacom, because they’re making money off the deal and if people cancel YouTube TV there will be a shiny new CBS All Access waiting for them.