Movies

LOS ANGELES — It was once a prospering kingdom, the envy of all the land. But in crept an invisible menace.It could be the story line for a classic Disney movie. Instead, Disney is living it — and happily ever after is nowhere in sight.After a decade of spectacular growth, the entertainment conglomerate has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. Its 14 theme parks (annual attendance: 157 million) delivered record profits in 2019. They’re now padlocked. Its movie studios (there are eight) controlled a staggering 40 percent of the domestic box office last year. Now, they’re sitting at a near standstill.“From great to good to bad to ugly,” Michael Nathanson, a leading media analyst, wrote in a report of Disney’s extreme reversal in fortunes. “Recession will cause further pain.”On Tuesday, Disney’s new chief executive, Bob Chapek, and Robert A. Iger, Disney’s executive chairman, will offer their first assessment of the damage. Disney is scheduled to report quarterly results after the stock market closes. Analysts are expecting per-share profit of 88 cents, down 45 percent.The true scale of the pandemic’s impact on Disney will not be known until late summer, when Mr. Chapek reports results for the current quarter — the one in which Disney has furloughed an estimated 100,000 employees, slashed executive pay up to 50 percent and taken out a $5 billion line of credit to bolster its liquidity (on top of $8.25 billion secured in March). The Disney board must decide in June whether to pay the company’s usual summer dividend; management is unlikely to recommend it.Disney turned itself into a colossus over the last 14 years. It bought Pixar, Marvel and the “Star Wars” franchise. Most recently, to withstand Silicon Valley’s incursion into Hollywood, Disney swept up media properties like “The Simpsons” and National Geographic with its $71.3 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox assets.Now, however, Disney’s vastness has become a liability, creating a mind-boggling collection of holdings, some of which are often overlooked: four TV studios that together produce about 70 shows; 42,000 hotel rooms and time-share units across three continents; the world’s largest licensing business, with annual merchandise sales of $55 billion; a publishing arm that churns out children’s books, magazines and digital products in 68 countries and 45 languages; a chain of 25 Disney English schools in China.And that is just the tip of Mickey’s toe. Here is a look at the state of some of its operations:ABCThe good news? ABC, which Disney bought in 1995, has been outperforming rival broadcast networks in recent weeks, according to Nielsen data, as young-adult viewers have flocked to comfort-food ABC shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” headed toward its 17th season, and “American Idol,” one of the few series still shooting. A whipped-together special, “The Disney Family Singalong,” attracted 13 million total viewers, a big number that underscored the power of the Disney brand, especially among families starved for new content during the shutdown. A second singalong is scheduled for Mother’s Day. More

Here are a few of the best events happening on Monday and how to tune in (all times are Eastern Daylight).A Virtual Celebration of Met Galas Past6 p.m. on YouTubeThe first Monday in May has long marked one of fashion’s biggest nights: The Met Gala. This year, with the Metropolitan Museum of Art closed and the gala canceled, Vogue is hosting a virtual event in its place called “A Moment With the Met,” a retrospective of the gala’s most memorable moments and iconic looks. It will feature an address by Anna Wintour, a live performance by Florence and the Machine, and a DJ set from Virgil Abloh. Vogue will make a donation to the museum’s Costume Institute, and viewers can contribute as well.When: 6 p.m.Where: Vogue’s YouTube channel.‘Love, Loss, and What I Wore’ With Tracee Ellis Ross, Natasha Lyonne, Rosie O’Donnell and Others8 p.m. on 92Y OnlineWhat will wearing sweatpants for months on end eventually say about us? At least we were comfortable, right? The play “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” — written by Nora and Delia Ephron, and based on Ilene Beckerman’s book — is a funny, touching look at the stories of women’s lives through their clothes, which may have a special resonance nowadays. In 2017, Lucy DeVito, Tracee Ellis Ross, Carol Kane, Natasha Lyonne and Rosie O’Donnell, who all at one time appeared in the production, came together at the 92nd Street Y for a one-night-only performance, directed by Karen Carpenter. Now the 92Y, in association with the Tony Award-winning producer Daryl Roth, is releasing it online. Tickets are $10.When: 8 p.m., and it will be available to stream through to May 25.Where: 92Y Online. Buy tickets here. More

Sam Lloyd, a longtime television and film actor who appeared in the television shows “Scrubs” and “Desperate Housewives,” died at the Barlow Respiratory Hospital on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 56.Kevin Turner, a representative for Mr. Lloyd, confirmed his death on Saturday. He died of complications from lung cancer, his family said in a statement.In January 2019, Mr. Lloyd began experiencing headaches and sought medical attention, according to a GoFundMe set up for the actor.A scan revealed a mass on his brain, and he soon underwent surgery, but the tumor was “too intertwined” to be removed, the website said. Mr. Lloyd was told that the cancer in his brain had metastasized from his lungs. Additional scans showed that the cancer had spread to his liver, spine and jaw.Samuel Lloyd Jr. was born on Nov. 12, 1963, in Springfield, Vt., to Marianna McGuffin and Samuel Lloyd Sr.The son of two aspiring actors, Mr. Lloyd spent his life in theater and in music, said his sister, Laurel Lloyd.In Vermont, he was a part of their mother’s children’s theater group, the Green Mountain Trolls, and later a member of the Weston Playhouse, where he continued to act on the stage as recently as 2017.Mr. Lloyd’s sister said the actor had had an innate sense of humor that he honed over time. His deadpan comedy and pratfalls were Mr. Lloyd’s craft, his wife, Vanessa Villalovos, said, but the man she knew “was just a tender, genuine soul.”On Saturday, she praised her husband’s looks: “If he had hair,” she said, he would rival some of the most handsome actors in Hollywood.Mr. Lloyd acted in dozens of television shows and films, including 95 episodes of “Scrubs” as Ted Buckland, a sad-sack lawyer with a hangdog look and low self-esteem.Zach Braff, one of the stars of “Scrubs,” said on Twitter on Friday that Mr. Lloyd was one of the funniest actors he had worked with.“Sam Lloyd made me crack up and break character every single time we did a scene together,” he said.Mr. Lloyd also appeared in several episodes of “Desperate Housewives” as Dr. Albert Goldfine, according to IMDb; in episodes of “Seinfeld,” “Modern Family,” “The West Wing,” “Cougar Town” and “Malcolm in the Middle”; and in the films “Flubber” (1997) and “Galaxy Quest” (1999).Mr. Lloyd was also a musician, according to his talent agency, Daniel Hoff Agency.He sang in the Blanks, an a cappella group that made several appearances on “Scrubs” as the Worthless Peons, the agency said in a statement. Mr. Lloyd also played bass guitar in the Butties, a Beatles tribute band.In addition to his wife, Mr. Lloyd is survived by his son, Weston; his stepmother, Barbara Lloyd; sisters, Laurel Lloyd, Robin Lloyd and Sandy Yaple; and his uncle, the actor Christopher Lloyd.“It doesn’t feel real,” Ms. Villalovos said. “It never will. It just feels like he will walk through the door.” More

CAIRO — An Egyptian filmmaker imprisoned over a music video that mocked President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi died at a maximum-security facility on Friday after two years in detention without trial, his lawyer said.The cause of death of the filmmaker, Shady Habash, 24, was not immediately clear. But it brought new scrutiny to conditions in Egypt’s notoriously crowded prisons, where the death of an American this year caused a rare rift with the Trump administration, and which have been the subject of growing calls for a mass release of prisoners to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.Mr. Habash was imprisoned in March 2018 after he directed a music video by an exiled musician, Ramy Essam, that mocked Mr. el-Sisi as a “date.” When the video spread widely on social media, Mr. Habash was arrested and jailed, said his lawyer, Ahmed el-Khawaga.The writer of the song, Galal el-Behairy, was also arrested and charged, as was a third man who set up Mr. Essam’s Facebook page. In August 2018, a military court sentenced Mr. el-Behairy to three years’ imprisonment.Although Mr. el-Sisi has amassed greater power than any other Egyptian leader in decades, he has consistently shown little tolerance for those who dare to mock him. In 2015, a 22-year-old student was jailed for three years after posting a cartoon on Facebook that depicted the president as Mickey Mouse.In 2016, a comedian who played a prank on the police in Tahrir Square, the site of the Arab Spring protests in 2011, was arrested and remains in jail. Numerous other Egyptian actors, writers, satirists and sports stars have fled into exile to avoid Mr. el-Sisi’s wrath, and some have been prosecuted in absentia.Mr. Essam, the singer, became popular during the Arab Spring, but later fled to Sweden after he was briefly detained. He hired Mr. Habash, who had worked with other musicians, to make his video about Mr. el-Sisi.In a letter from prison in October that was later published by friends on Facebook, Mr. Habesh spoke of his despair. “Prison doesn’t kill, loneliness does,” he wrote, describing what he called his struggle to “stop yourself going mad or dying slowly because you’ve been thrown in a room two years ago and forgotten.”Political prisoners in Egypt are often held for years without trial, frequently in what rights groups say are dirty, overcrowded conditions with poor medical treatment. In March, Amnesty International called on Mr. el-Sisi to release thousands of prisoners who are vulnerable to an outbreak of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.Mr. el-Sisi released 4,000 prisoners last month, in a traditional gesture of clemency for Sinai Liberation Day, marking Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai in 1982. But those released were convicted criminals, and political prisoners were not included.Lawyers, lawmakers and translators are among those who have been arrested by the security services in recent months, including Kholoud Sayed Amer, the head of translation at the prestigious Library of Alexandria.Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent political prisoner, started a hunger strike on April 12 to protest what he called his unjust detention. He is subsisting on water and tea, said his aunt, the writer Ahdaf Soueif, who was herself arrested in March for protesting about his conditions.Although President Trump has generally offered unstinting praise to Mr. el-Sisi, the death of an imprisoned American, Moustafa Kassem, in January caused a rare chill in relations between the two countries.Mr. Kassem died after six years in prison and despite pleas from Vice President Mike Pence for his release. He had been on a hunger strike at the time of his death, and the State Department later considered cutting military aid to Egypt in retaliation for the death.Egypt sent a planeload of medical aid to the United States in late April, in what many analysts viewed as a gesture of coronavirus diplomacy. But the issue of prison conditions remains an American priority.In a call on April 23 with Egypt’s foreign minister, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “emphasized that detained U.S. citizens be kept safe and provided consular access during the Covid-19 pandemic,” a State Department spokeswoman said.Nada Rashwan contributed reporting. More