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WIRE Buzz: Frozen 2 2020's most streamed movie; Lord of the Rings; NBC orders sci-fi drama

By Josh Grossberg & Trent Moore
frozen 2

Audiences just can't let Olaf and friends go — even where there's a whole lot of other options. According to The Wrap, Disney's Frozen 2 was the number one streamed film of 2020, as determined by the ratings-obsessed folks at Nielsen.

The CGI fantasy sequel racked up 14.9 billion minutes, besting Walt Disney Animation Studios' 2016 blockbuster Moana, which nabbed 10.5 billion minutes. The rankings are the result of the company's Theatrical On-Demand (TVOD) list, a new metric Nielsen unveiled Tuesday for film and TV programs that are offered for rental or purchase via streaming platforms.

The Mouse House's Disney+ had seven other family flicks making the top 10, including Pixar's Onward coming in fourth and 2019's live-action Aladdin, Toy Story 4 and Zootopia snagging the eighth, nine and ten spot respectively. Netflix had the remainder – including Universal-owned Illumination's Secret Life of Pets 2, which garnered third place.

On the 'tube side, Netflix topped all rivals with nine of its series making the top ten, starting with Ozark earning 30.4 billion minutes for 1st place. That's followed by all three seasons of Lucifer (2nd place), The Crown (3rd), Tiger King (4th) and The Umbrella Academy (6th) while the Force was with Disney+'s The Mandalorian for 5th place.

In Nielsen's Acquired Series category, The Office was the big boss with a whopping 57.1 billion minutes. But of note was Supernatural, which took 6th place and Vampire Diaries 10th. For the full listings, visit Thewrap.com.


NBC is digging itself a big hole.

Per Deadline, the Peacock network has greenlit a pilot order for La Brea, a sci-fi drama starring Natalie Zea, Zyra Gorecki and Chiké Okonkwo hailing from NCIS: New Orleans showrunner David Applebaum who wrote the script.

NBC describes La Brea as centering on a Los Angeles family whose lives are upended when a massive sinkhole mystery opens up, separating mother and son from father and daughter. The bizarre incident leaves part of the family stranded in an unexplainable primeval world where they encounter a group of strangers and all must work together to survive and figure how where they are and find a way back home.

Shades of Lost perhaps? Or maybe it takes its inspiration from Sid and Marty Croft's Land of the Lost with its animated dinosaurs?

Either way, Keshet Studios and Universal Television are producing with Applebaum, who served as co-executive producer on NBC's The Enemy Within, co-executive producer of The Mentalist where he worked for six seasons, co-executive producer of CBS' Wisdom of the Crowd and supervising producer on NCIS: New Orleans.


We're still waiting for solid details on Amazon Prime's Lord of the Rings series, but some fresh intel from a potential synopsis has reportedly made its way out into the wild.

The One Ring has reportedly obtained and confirmed a new synopsis for the series, which offers up a few more hard details on the Second Age-set fantasy saga. It's all expectedly a bit vague, but it sounds like this project will have all the J.R.R. Tolkien hallmarks: big evils, a large ensemble cast of heroes, and grand fantasy adventure.

Here's the synopsisAmazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

No word yet on when we'll get to see the Lord of the Rings series, but it's been in production for a while, so hopes are high it will arrive by the end of 2021.