Entertainment News Roundup: Disney signs deal to stream 'Spider-Man,' other Sony films;Picasso, Mondrian artworks go on show in London and more

Disney also secured rights to offer hundreds of older Sony films much sooner, including "Jumanji" and "Hotel Transylvania." The company said it will add a significant number of Sony titles to Hulu starting in June. Picasso, Mondrian artworks go on show in London Paintings by Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and Vincent Van Gogh went on display at Christie's in London on Thursday ahead of a May sale, with the auction house encouraging art fans to book viewings while museums remain closed in Britain.

Following is a summary of current entertainment news briefs.

Hollywood ponders post-pandemic future of cinemas

As Hollywood prepares to celebrate the Oscars on Sunday, movie theaters are trying to lure back audiences that have been streaming films at home for over a year. Some cinemas have closed permanently while others are trying to recover and hope that a string of delayed blockbusters will produce a moviegoing rebound. Reuters asked actors, directors, writers and producers what they see for the future of cinemas. Their replies have been edited for length and clarity.

Hollywood loves a reboot - now Oscars show gets its turn

The biggest cliffhanger at Sunday's Oscars may not be who wins the top prizes - or even if Netflix can finally snag a coveted best picture trophy - but how the movie industry's biggest night reinvents itself after a tumultuous year. Forced to rethink the ceremony because of the pandemic, and with a slate of diverse but mostly smaller films, organizers are promising a show unlike anything seen in the 93-year history of the Academy Awards.

BRIT music awards to host 4,000-strong audience in UK pilot event

Some 4,000 people will attend the BRIT Awards next month, in what organisers of Britain's pop music honours said would be the first major indoor music event with a live audience as the country emerges from COVID-19 lockdown. The ceremony, to be held on May 11 at London's O2 arena, will form part of the UK government's Events Research Programme, looking at whether major events can take place in closed environments without social distancing.

Five years after the death of Prince, fans gather at his Paisley Park estate

Draped in shades of purple, fans of the late artist Prince huddled in a line outside his Paisley Park estate in Minnesota, waiting to enter the museum to remember the musician's life on the fifth anniversary of his death. "We came to pay our respects to the best, greatest, most, amazing musician ever. You know, we've been fans forever. We're family. We've made family from all over the world through this man ... It was important for us to be here," said Barbara Rodgers, who traveled to Minnesota from Florida with her husband Ali and her friend Sara.

Lead singer of Bay City Rollers, Les McKeown, dies

Les McKeown, the lead singer of the pop band The Bay City Rollers, whose catchy songs and tartan-heavy outfits made them famous among teenagers around the world in the 1970s, has died aged 65, his family said on Thursday. McKeown sang the Scottish band's biggest hits including "Bye, Bye, Baby" and "Saturday Night" which reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Beyond Oscars glitz, movie theaters face uncertain future

Maryo Mogannam snuck into the Empire theater in San Francisco with his older cousins to watch "Animal House" when he was 14. He watched most of the James Bond movies at the historic art house and took his wife there on some of their first dates.

The cinema, which had been showing movies since the silent film era, served notice in February that it was permanently closing because of the impact of COVID-19. The marquee is now blank, and cardboard and paper cover the box office window.

Disney signs deal to stream 'Spider-Man,' other Sony films

Walt Disney Co said on Wednesday it had reached a deal with Sony Pictures to bring new "Spider-Man" movies and other films to Disney's streaming services and TV networks in the United States after they play on Netflix. Disney also secured rights to offer hundreds of older Sony films much sooner, including "Jumanji" and "Hotel Transylvania." The company said it will add a significant number of Sony titles to Hulu starting in June.

Picasso, Mondrian artworks go on show in London

Paintings by Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and Vincent Van Gogh went on display at Christie's in London on Thursday ahead of a May sale, with the auction house encouraging art fans to book viewings while museums remain closed in Britain. The three oil paintings are the highlights of the upcoming "20th Century Evening Sale" on May 13 in New York. They were previously on show in Hong Kong.

Searing Romanian Oscar contender tackles botched response to nightclub fire

For Romanian father Narcis Hogea, who lost his son Alexandru in a Bucharest nightclub fire in 2015, the botched response to the disaster shown in the Oscar-nominated documentary film "Collective" remains an open wound. Alexandru, a 19-year-old computer science student, was among 65 people who died as a result of the blaze at the Colectiv nightclub, a tragedy that exposed incompetence and corruption in Romania's healthcare system.

Space drama 'Stowaway' puts Kendrick, Kim and Collette in tight spot

Actors Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim and Toni Collette star as a space crew whose two-year mission to Mars is thrown into turmoil when they discover an unplanned passenger on board their spacecraft in the new Netflix movie "Stowaway". The unexpected presence of an additional person on a damaged space ship, already pushed to its capacity with a three-member crew, forces the trio to make tough choices in order to survive.