| | | | | | What's news: On this week's special digital cover is Steven Zeitchik's feature on the AI civil war in Hollywood. The Stranger Things S5 teaser is out. The NYT is reassigning 4 of its top critics. The Eminem doc is heading to theaters. And, of course, we have all the reaction to the Emmy nominations. — Abid Rahman
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Rise of the Machines: Inside Hollywood's AI Civil War ►On the digital cover. Hollywood is currently in the midst of an AI insurgency. Though still fragmented, the effort is increasingly looking like a full-on takeover, a Pixar-like artquake that aims to change the provenance of images, the business of production and (not to put too fine a point on it) the language of cinema itself.
THR's Steven Zeitchik reports that the movement is building from several directions — from Hollywood-adjacent startups like Asteria and Runway AI; from AI-curious traditional entertainers like the directors James Cameron,Timur Bekmambetov, Natasha Lyonne and Darren Aronofsky; from studio executives aflutter with the thought of massive cost savings; from an assortment of effects and other below-the-line specialists attracted to (if slightly wary of) the whizbangery; and, of course, from executives at companies like Google and OpenAI, who gaze upon the possibility of an automated Hollywood with the same disbelieving glee of an insulin dealer who has just stumbled upon a diabetic convention. The cover story. |
Emmy Nominations 2025 ►🏆 Stellan robbed! 🏆 Severance leads the nominees for the 2025 Emmy Awards, which were announced Tuesday. The Apple TV+ series nabbed a total of 27 noms, including best drama series, where it will compete alongside Andor, The Diplomat, The Last of Us, Paradise, The Pitt, Slow Horses and The White Lotus. The Penguin was next with a total of 24 noms; followed by The Studio and The White Lotus with 23 apiece; The Last of Us with 16, Andor and Hacks with 14 each; and Adolescence, The Bear and The Pitt with 13 apiece. The nominees.
—Diego robbed! HBO and Max jumped back into the front of the Emmy field with Tuesday’s nominations for the 77th annual awards. The sibling platforms earned a combined 142 nominations, the most ever for HBO and its sibling streamer. The combined total beats HBO’s previous high of 137 in 2019, a year before HBO Max launched. The big haul, along with nods for Warner Bros. TV Adult Swim, Discovery and Food Network, also puts Warner Bros. Discovery at the front of the media conglomerate pack with 170 total nominations. That’s well ahead of Disney’s 137 and Netflix’s 121. Apple also had a strong year with 81 total nominations, beating the 72 it received a year ago. The scorecard.
—Genevieve robbed! Aside from the grand larceny committed on the Andor cast, the 2025 Emmy noms were full of snubs, surprises and shutouts. Past winners Squid Game, Elisabeth Moss, Jon Hamm, Ted Danson and past nominees Yellowjackets and Selena Gomez missed out this year. The Handmaid’s Tale, once so adored by Emmy voters, only scored one nomination for Cherry Jones’ guest role, leaving out the rest of its acclaimed cast, including star Moss, who also could have scored a directing nod. Yellowjackets landed 10 nominations for its first two seasons but zero for its third, recently wrapped season. Also shut out this year were A Man on the Inside (including its star and past Emmy winner Ted Danson); Ellen Pompeo for her starring role in Good American Family, which failed to receive any nominations; and acclaimed series Running Point, St. Denis Medical and Taylor Sheridan’s Landman. The snubs.
—Denise robbed! THR's executive editor of awards Scott Feinberg offers his expert take on the Emmy nominations. Scott writes that, on one level, the biggest surprise about Tuesday morning’s nominations was how unsurprising they were. But when you put them under a microscope, Scott thinks they tell an interesting story about today’s TV landscape. The analysis.
—Elizabeth robbed! THR's very own Order 66, is sixty-six of Scott Feinberg's Emmy nominee podcasts collected into one easy-to-access place. Enjoy! The podcasts. |
Critics' Conversation: Emmy Noms Take a Typically Shallow Dive ►"It’s a myopia that leads to the consistent impression that Emmy voters watch a maximum of 10 shows on the drama and comedy sides and the exact same five limited series." THR's TV critics Daniel Fienberg and Angie Han offer their take on the Emmy nominations. The duo write that in a slate dominated by returning faves like Severance and The White Lotus, more offbeat choices like The Rehearsal, Common Side Effects and Somebody Somewhere were particularly refreshing. The conversation.
—"You can’t take anything for granted with the Emmys." The Primetime Emmy nominations arms race shifted back in HBO Max’s favor on Tuesday morning, with the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned platform’s historically dominant slate commanding 142 nominations across 23 originals. With particularly strong showings for limited series The Penguin (24), drama The White Lotus (23) and comedy Hacks (14), HBO and HBO Max content chairman and CEO Casey Bloys hopped on the phone with THR's Mikey O'Connell to dig into some of the surprises (two nominations for the outgoing Somebody Somewhere), smaller showings (House of the Dragon) and offer up some updates on a slew of nominated originals ( The Penguin, The White Lotus, The Pitt) and 2025 offerings like the new season of The Gilded Age and the upcoming The Chair Company. The interview.
—"I also love it when we work with this incredible talent who are first-timers." On Tuesday morning, Netflix received 120 nominations for the 2025 Emmy Awards. That’s a ton, only outdone by HBO Max. THR's Tony Maglio caught up with the Bajaria a few hours after the Emmy nominees came out, and she spilled on which Netflix nominee she messaged first, what show was her snubbiest snub, and if four nods for The Residence is making her second guess the decision to cancel the one-and-done whodunit series. The interview.
—"We don’t take for granted the amount of effort that all of these creators and talent put into these shows." It's a big year for Apple TV+, with a whopping 23 nods for The Studio, setting a record for a first-year comedy series and tying The Bear’s overall comedy record, set last year. In most years, a show with 23 nominations would lead any platform’s haul — except this one, where season two of Severance earned 27 nominations, leading the entire field. Those two shows made up the bulk of Apple’s record 81 Emmy nods (up from 72 last year), but a dozen other series on the service also scored nominations. THR's Rick Porter spoke to Apple TV+ head of programming Matt Cherniss about a banner year for the streamer. The interview. |
Why Do Emmy Voters Hate Taylor Sheridan's Dramas? ►It wasn’t like nobody tried. Major-name actors starring on at least two Taylor Sheridan shows recently made the rounds at “for your consideration” press events in the lead up to this year’s Emmy nominations. Yet, once again, when the nominations were read Tuesday morning, the prolific hitmaker’s eligible dramas — all six of them — were shut out of the major categories. This includes the debut season of Landman, which Paramount+ had high hopes might break Sheridan’s Emmy curse. THR's James Hibberd digs into the reasons why Sheridan is continually snubbed. The story.
—First-timers. The 2025 Emmy noms saw 35 first-time acting nominees, including Harrison Ford, Aimee Lou Wood, Cooper Koch, Kristen Bell and Colin Farrell. Adolescence’s Owen Cooper landed a historic nod for best supporting actor in a limited/anthology series or TV movie, making him the youngest nominee in the category’s history. Plus, if Cooper wins the award later this year, he will become the youngest male winner of an acting Emmy ever. The story.
—Another type of first. Filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard received their first ever acting Emmy nominations on Tuesday for their appearances in Apple TV+’s The Studio. The two were nominated in the best guest actor in a comedy series category alongside The Studio co-stars Dave Franco, Bryan Cranston and Anthony Mackie, as well as The Bear’s Jon Bernthal. The story. |
L.A. County Votes to Streamline Local Filming Processes ►More good news. On Tuesday, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors approved a motion aimed at eradicating bureaucratic hurdles for filmmakers and preparing the region for a brave new world of entertainment production. The board unanimously gave its blessing to a host of measures, including a sweeping review of the county’s film permitting process and a collaboration with the Sheriff’s Department to reduce approval time for hiring deputies for productions. Beyond those immediate changes, the motion calls for an exploration into steps the county could take to prepare for a future production landscape. It directs the county to look into partnering with outside funders on an $80-$100m “Evergreen Fund” that would, for example, be dedicated to supporting "new industry technology start-ups in the film and television industry." The story.
—The latest. An arrest has been made after longtime American Idol music supervisor Robin Kaye and her husband, Thomas Deluca, were killed following an apparent double homicide. Los Angeles police found the couple in their Encino home on Monday with gunshot wounds. Kaye, a veteran of music reality series, worked for American Idol from 2009 to the present day. She was responsible for clearing all songs used or performed on the show and was instrumental in getting Led Zeppelin to sign off on an Idol performance of “Whole Lotta Love” — a standout of season 8 when future Queen frontman Adam Lambert brought down the house. The story.
—Shock move. The New York Times is reassigning four of its top critics to new roles. According to a memo to culture desk staff Tuesday from Times culture editor Sia Michel, the four critics: TV critic Margaret Lyons, pop music critic Jon Pareles, theater critic Jesse Green and classical music critic Zach Woolfe, will be “taking on new roles” with the venerable news outlet. The Times is beginning a search for new critics to serve on the beats. Michel praised their work as “best in class,” while noting that “our readers are hungry for trusted guides to help them make sense of this complicated landscape, not only through traditional reviews but also with essays, new story forms, videos and experimentation with other platforms.” The story.
—New plan. The satellite radio company SiriusXM wants to take the streaming music platforms on more aggressively, launching a new and less expensive plan meant to provide a value offering to consumers. The new plan is called SiriusXM Play, the new plan will be ad-supported and cost under $7 per month, the company says. While SiriusXM’s talk channels have had ads for some time, its core music channels have generally not included them. SiriusXM Play will have about half the ad load of traditional FM and AM radio stations, the company says. The story.
—🤝 Deal extension. 🤝 The U.K.'s Sky and ITV have extended their long-standing partnership, meaning Love Island and I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! will continue to sit alongside the likes of Sweetpea and The Day of the Jackal. ITV’s content and services will remain available across all Sky TV platforms in the U.K., so Sky Stream, Sky Glass and Sky Q viewers will retain access to the ITVX streaming service, as well as all of ITV’s free-to-air linear channels, with the channels and ITV’s on-demand content also available on the Sky Go app. Sky Q customers will also continue to enjoy a choice between on-demand catch-up content available on their set-top boxes, alongside the ITVX app. Financial terms of the new carriage and content deal weren’t disclosed. The story. |
'Legend of Zelda' Stars Revealed ►🎭 Here they are. 🎭 The live-action Legend of Zelda movie from Nintendo and Sony has cast its Zelda and Link. In a post on X on Wednesday, legendary Nintendo boss Shigeru Miyamoto shared that Bo Bragason will star as the titular character, with Benjamin Evan Ainsworth playing Link. He attached photos of the pair, seemingly in costume. Miyamato also confirmed the film is set to be released in theaters on May 7, 2027. Wes Ball, who helmed last year’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, is directing the feature. The movie is set to adapt the Nintendo gaming franchise of the same name that launched in 1986, focusing on the young Link and Princess Zelda, who attempt to save the kingdom of Hyrule from the evil Ganon. The story.
—🎭 Leads in place. 🎭 Ariana Grande and Josh Gad are set to begin quite a journey. Warner Bros. Pictures Animation announced Tuesday that the pair will lead the voice cast for directors Jon M. Chu and Jill Culton’s forthcoming animated adaptation of the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go! The musical film is set for theatrical release in Imax on March 17, 2028. Rob Lieber penned the script based on Dr. Seuss’ acclaimed children’s book. Hailing from Dr. Seuss Enterprises and Bad Robot, Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is seen as a priority for the studio. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are writing original songs for the project that counts Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams and Gregg Taylor as producers. The story.
—Back in action, again. THR's Borys Kit has the scoop that Cameron Diaz has signed on to star in Netflix's Bad Day. The action comedy is set to be directed by Jake Szymanski, who helmed the well-regarded comedy series Jury Duty as well as Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. Beau Bauman, who produced in the Diaz-starring Netflix film Back in Action, is producing with his Good One Productions. Written by Laura Solon, the original script for Bad Day centers on a single mom fighting to keep one little promise to her daughter on the absolute worst day of her life. The story.
—Heading to the big screen. A new documentary about rap legend Eminem is headed for a limited run in theaters. AMC Theatres has come aboard to distribute Stans in the U.S., and has committed to playing the doc in more than 135 of its domestic locations beginning Aug. 7 and ending Aug. 10. Overseas, Trafalgar Releasing will release the doc at the same time in more than 1,600 theaters across 50 markets. The pact follows in the wake of AMC directly distributing Taylor Swift’s concert pic The Eras Tour and Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé. The story. |
'Stranger Things' S5's First Trailer Released by Netflix ►The end is nigh. After a three-year wait, the first look at the final season of Netflix's monster hit Stranger Things is finally here. The footage is heavy on special effects, spectacle and the sprawling cast looks full of intense emotions while keeping the storylines largely under wraps. The teaser.
—Another first-look. HBO's Harry Potter series has released a first-look at Nick Frost as Hogwarts gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid. The move comes a day after the production released a first look at Dominic McLaughlin as young Harry Potter and announced a few more castmembers playing key roles: Rory Wilmot as Neville Longbottom, Amos Kitson as Dudley Dursley, Louise Brealey as Madam Rolanda Hooch and Anton Lesser as Garrick Ollivander. The story.
—🎭 Filling out. 🎭 Natasha Henstridge and Joshua Close have joined Josh Hartnett in Jesse McKeown’s upcoming untitled Newfoundland-set Netflix show now shooting in Canada’s easternmost province. McKeown is the showrunner of the limited series centering on a mysterious sea creature terrorizing a remote seaside town. Close will play Officer Jaxon Noseworthy and Henstridge will play Jan in the series where Hartnett is a hard-bitten fisherman having to fight to protect his family, his community and his vanishing way of life. The story.
—🤝 Rights deal. 🤝 Hill 5.14, the Black female-led production company founded by Tobi Olujinmi, has optioned J.L. Seegars’ New Haven romance novel series for television adaptation. The deal marks the first literary option for the London-based scripted label since its launch in 2022. The adaptation of the self-published titles Restore Me and Revive Me (Parts 1, 2, and 3) will be developed in collaboration with Sony Pictures Television and Eleventh Hour Films, as part of Hill 5.14’s ongoing first-look agreement with the two companies. A UK broadcaster is also attached, with further details to be announced. The story. |
For Songwriters to Earn a Living Wage, Spotify Must Step In ►"The tech giants don’t need music to survive. But Spotify? It only works if the song does." In a guest column for THR, music industry veteran Jeff Rabhan writes that the same old rules that helped build Spotify's empire are the ones still starving songwriters. But now Spotify can do something about it. The column.
In other news...
—Nick Cannon to launch podcast giving relationship advice
—Camila Cabello signs with management firm Full Stop
What else we're reading...
—Catherine Lucey and Myles Miller report that Trump team’s handling of the Epstein Files is deepening schisms on the right [Bloomberg]
—Anna Peele talks to Ari Aster about his new film Eddington, and how he takes his own anxiety and puts it onscreen [NYT]
—Reflecting on Lena Dunham's Netflix rom-com Too Much, Alison Willmore writes that the trope of the "funny fat lady" might be going away for good [Vulture]
—In an in-depth investigation, the FT goes inside America’s booming immigration detention industry, and it's all rather bleak and frightening [FT]
—Kevin B. Blackistone writes that Trump’s immigration policies make the U.S. an unfit World Cup host [Washington Post]
Today...
...in 1993, Warner Bros. unveiled the drama Free Willy in theaters, where it would go on to gross $154m globally and pave the way for two theatrical sequels. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Will Ferrell (58), Rosa Salazar (40), Phoebe Cates (62), Alexandra Shipp (34), Scott Derrickson (58), Katrina Kaif (42), Rubén Blades (77), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (55), Corey Feldman (54), Jayma Mays (46), Daryl Mitchell (60), Kate Berlant (38), Erin Doherty (33), Laura Carmichael (39), AnnaLynne McCord (38), Milly Shapiro (23), Eleanor Matsuura (42), Andrew James Allen (38), Mark Indelicato (31), Cooper Koch (29), Michelle Morgan (44), Jonathan Adams (58), Ann Turkel (79), Amiah Miller (21), Kira Buckland (38), Faye Grant (68), Kim Woo-bin (36), Karina Arroyave (56), Fabian Arnold (29), Tom Taylor (24), James Maslow (35), Denise Faye (62), Leila Kenzle (65), Sherri Stoner (66), Chris Pontius (51), Bob Joles (66), Robinne Lee (51), Alan Resnick (39) |
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