| | | | | | What's news: Shannon Sharpe is stepping away from ESPN. Natalie Kitroeff and Rachel Abrams will co-host The Daily with Michael Barbaro. Bill Maher has hit back at Larry David for his NYT essay. Kneecap have parted ways with their booking agency. Pedro Pascal blasted J.K. Rowling for her latest anti-trans tweets. — Abid Rahman
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Harvard Was First. Hollywood Could Be Next ►"If you give Trump and his acolytes a tool, they’re going to use it." Earlier this month, chatter surfaced of those in Donald Trump's orbit suggesting to Warner Bros. Discovery that it could curry favor within the administration by giving Donald Trump Jr. a hunting or fishing show. Whether or not that was a mere trial balloon or a suggestion, the type of soft power at play is one of Hollywood’s main assets. Look at Melania Trump’s lucrative Amazon deal, for example, as one way that the giant companies that own studios can now wield influence and bend, if needed, for politically expedient purposes. THR's Winston Cho writes that when Trump threatened Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, threats to revoke tax-exemptions for trade groups and nonprofits in the entertainment industry could be used as a bartering chip for the administration to get what it wants. The story.
—Stepping aside. Shannon Sharpe is “electing to step aside temporarily” from ESPN, he said on Thursday. “My statement is found here and this is the truth,” Sharpe, formerly an NFL star and now a prominent media figure, wrote and posted to social media. “The relationship in question was 100 percent consensual.” “At this juncture I am electing to step aside temporarily from my ESPN duties,” his statement continued. “I will be devoting this time to my family, and responding and dealing with these false and disruptive allegations set against me.” Sharpe is being sued for sexual assault by a woman who says he raped her twice in two months in her Las Vegas home last year. The story.
—The latest. Harvey Weinstein will remain at Bellevue Hospital while his trial proceeds. A civil court judge postponed making a more permanent decision on the stay Thursday. Weinstein is being retried on a criminal sexual charge and a rape charge related to respective claims from Miriam Haley, a former production assistant on Project Runway who alleges he forced oral sex on her at his TriBeCa apartment in 2006, and from aspiring actress Jessica Mann, who alleges she was raped by Weinstein in 2013 in a Manhattan hotel. Weinstein is being newly charged with a criminal sexual charge related to claims from former model and actress Kaja Sokola, who alleges he forced oral sex on her in 2006. The story.
—"LOSER behavior." Pedro Pascal blasted J.K. Rowling for her latest trans tweets, calling the Harry Potter author a “heinous loser” in a comment on Instagram. The Last of Us star was responding to a post by activist Tariq Ra’ouf, who criticized the author for celebrating the Supreme Court of the U.K’s landmark ruling last week that trans women should not be recognized as women and that “sex” should legally mean biological sex. Rowling had posted, “I love it when a plan comes together,” along with noting to a critic, “I get the same royalties whether you read [my books] or burn them. Enjoy your marshmallows!” Wrote Pascal in the comment section of Ra’ouf’s post: “Awful disgusting SHIT is exactly right. Heinous LOSER behavior.” The story. |
Hamdan Ballal Pens Op-Ed About West Bank Assault ►"Our movie won an Oscar, but our lives are no better than before." Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal has penned op-ed in The New York Times detailing the extent of his West Bank assault last month. Ballal, a co-director of the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, as well as two other men, Khaled Mohammad Shanran and Nasser Shreteh, were attacked and arrested late March. Another co-director of the film, Israeli creative Yuval Abraham, said Ballal “had injuries to his head and stomach, bleeding” after being assaulted by a group of settlers in his home village of Susiya. "Los Angeles and the Oscars were of an entirely different world from the one I know," Ballal wrote in the piece. "But my life is still at the mercy of the settlers and the occupation." The story.
—Parting ways. Controversial Irish hip-hop group Kneecap parted ways with their booking agency Independent Artist Group. It’s unclear what led to the band’s split from the agency, which took place between the first and second weekends of the Coachella music festival. Kneecap had faced significant backlash from Jewish music executives and groups after sharing a “fuck Israel, free Palestine” message during their Coachella set last weekend. The story.
—"Slope Day is about uniting our community, not dividing it." Cornell has canceled an upcoming Kehlani concert at the university over the singer’s past pro-Palestine statements, Cornell president Michael I. Kotlikoff wrote in a letter to the student body Wednesday. Kehlani was originally slated to perform at Cornell’s annual Slope Day event May 7, but her selection had “injected division and discord” into the event, Kotlikoff wrote in the letter, claiming that students had reached out “angry, hurt, and confused that Slope Day would feature a performer who has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments in performances, videos, and on social media.” The story. |
Bill Maher Reacts to Larry David's "Insulting" Essay ►"It’s an argument you kind of lost just to start it." Bill Maher does not approve of Larry David’s satirical “My Dinner With Adolf” essay. The Curb Your Enthusiasm creator wrote a satirical piece for The New York Times in response to Maher’s early April White House visit with Donald Trump. The Real Time host slammed David’s article on Thursday, stating that it was “insulting to six million dead Jews” for him to satirically joke about visiting Hitler and enjoying his company in the piece. “To use the Hitler thing — first of all, I think it’s kind of insulting to six million dead Jews,” he said during an interview with Piers Morgan. “That should kind of be in its own place.” The story.
—Doubling up. The New York Times has found not one, but two new co-hosts who will join Michael Barbaro on its flagship podcast, The Daily. The Times will add Natalie Kitroeff and Rachel Abrams as co-hosts of the podcast, per a memo to staff sent Thursday morning. Kitroeff has been the Times' Mexico City bureau chief for the past five years. “Her perspective on trade, border politics and immigration laws will be invaluable to The Daily during crucial news moments,” per Thursday’s memo. Abrams, meanwhile, established herself as one of the reporters covering the #MeToo movement, including reporting on the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves. The story.
—Monster Q1. Alphabet reported its first quarter earnings on Thursday, revealing a hugely-profitable start to 2025. The company, formerly known as Google, made $90.23b in revenue, with net income at $34.24b, a 46 percent increase from the comparable quarter last year (revenue was up 12 percent). This time around, YouTube ads alone made $8.9b — not as much as the prior quarter, but January-to-March didn’t feature a U.S. presidential election. From October to November 2024, YouTube’s advertising revenue topped $10b for the first time and the overall company profits reached $26.5b. The results.
—🤝 Resale pact 🤝 StubHub has partnered with ATG Entertainment to become the official resale partner for 16 of its venues, including ATG’s Broadway theaters. The partnership covers ATG’s six Broadway theaters, the Hudson Theatre, St. James Theatre, Al Hirschfeld Theatre, Eugene O’Neill Theatre, August Wilson Theatre and Walter Kerr Theatre. The first show available on the platform will be The Last Five Years, starring Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren, at the Hudson Theatre. The story. |
'Sinners' Sizzles Midweek as Pic Speeds Toward $100M ►The power of word-of-mouth. Graced with virtually perfect audience scores and the best reviews of filmmaker Ryan Coogler‘s already acclaimed career, Sinners has transformed into the rare title that becomes an instant water-cooler sensation. The period supernatural vampire pic starring Michael B. Jordan opened to a better-than-expected $48m over Easter weekend to topple fellow Warner Bros.’ event pic A Minecraft Movie. THR's Pamela McClintock writes that Sinners , buoyed by an ethnically diverse audience, has added another $23m since Monday for a domestic total of $71.5m through Wednesday. Its Monday haul was an impressive $7.8m, followed by $8.6m on discount Tuesday and another $7.1m on Wednesday. The box office report.
—🎭 Busy, busy 🎭 Sydney Sweeney will star in Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the video game Split Fiction. The game, from developer Hazelight Studios and publisher Electronic Arts, centers on a pair of authors, Mio and Zoe, who become trapped in the worlds they have created. The game was designed to allow a split-screen co-op gameplay. Sweeney's role in the feature has yet to be revealed. Chu will direct the film with Deadpool & Wolverine screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick penning the screenplay. The film marks the second video game adaptation for Sweeney. Last week, it was revealed the Euphoria star and Michael Bay are revving up a movie adaptation of the Sega video game franchise OutRun. The story.
—Not fake news. THR's Borys Kit has the scoop that Screen Gems’ 1990s slasher movie Urban Legend is getting a modern era reboot. The Sony genre division is in early development on a new version of the 1998 feature, hiring Shanrah Wakefield to pen the script. Gary Dauberman, whose video game adaptation Until Dawn opens Friday, will produce via his Coin Operated banner. Neal Moritz, who was one of the producers of the original, is in negotiations to produce as well. The original Urban Legend , directed by Jamie Blanks and written by Sylvio Horta, was a horror movie set in a New England university that featured a killer whose kills were inspired by popular urban legends of the period, such as death by Pop Rocks and soft drinks or being pursued in a car by a gang for flashing it a reminder to turn on their headlights. The story.
—🎭 Mon Dieu! 🎭 Two-time Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Salesman) has cast a who’s who of French stars for his next feature, Parallel Tales. Gallic A-listers Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, Vincent Cassel and Pierre Niney are set to headline the French-language feature, alongside Adam Bessa, an up-and-comer nominated for a French César as best newcomer this year for his turn in Jonathan Millet’s Ghost Trail. The film will also feature a cameo from French film legend Catherine Deneuve. Parallel Tales is set to begin shooting in Paris this fall, marking Farhadi’s first French feature since 2013’s The Past starring Tahar Rahim and Bérénice Bejo. The story.
—🤝 Sold! 🤝 The Bunker, a sci-fi horror feature led by the late Tony Todd, is getting ready to head out into the world. Electric Entertainment has acquired North American distribution rights to the movie that hails from Jackrabbit Media. Helmed by Brian Hanson, the film stars Todd, Tobin Bell, Chad Michael Collins and Chelsea Edmundson. The Bunker centers on Dr. Michelle Riley (Edmundson), a young scientist sealed in a secret bunker with a team of researchers tasked with developing a weapon to stop an alien invasion. However, Riley begins to have doubts about the true goal of the mission. The story. |
'Royal Pains' Update in the Works at NBC ►Sequel-itis. After bringing back Suits, NBC is looking to bring another former USA Network series into its fold. The network is developing a sequel to Royal Pains, a medical dramedy that ran for eight seasons on USA from 2009-16. Mark Feuerstein, is set to reprise his role as Dr. Hank Lawson, a surgeon who joined his brother (Paulo Costanzo) as a concierge doctor for wealthy residents of the Hamptons, and will also be an executive producer. Royal Pains co-creator Andrew Lenchewski and Michael Rauch, a writer and executive producer on the original, are penning a script and will exec produce with Feuerstein and Rich Frank, who was also an EP on the USA series. The show comes from Universal Studio Group’s UCP. The story.
—📅 Dated! 📅 The next Golden Globe Awards will take place on Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, the Golden Globes organization and its broadcasting partner CBS announced on Thursday. Following a 2025 telecast that received rave reviews, comedian Nikki Glaser will return to emcee the first major televised award show of the season. Glaser was the first female solo host of a Globes telecast and received rave reviews. The story.
—The enfant terrible of poker. The father-son writing duo of Eric Roth and Geoff Roth are set to create a limited series based on the life story of the late professional poker player Stu Ungar. The project is in development, with the writers planning to conduct interviews and research soon. Ungar, who died in 1998 at 45, is the only person in poker history to have won the World Series of Poker Main Event three times. Ungar’s dramatic life story has been told onscreen before, in the 2003 unauthorized film High Roller (with Ungar played by The Sopranos’ Michael Imperioli) and in the 2006 ESPN documentary One of a Kind. But now, for the first time, a creative team has secured Ungar’s life story rights exclusively from his family. The story.
—Making itself at home. Netflix’s murder mystery The Residence moved into first place on the streaming charts for the last week of March, and The White Lotus hit a high mark as it closed in on its third season finale. The Residence, starring Uzo Aduba as a brilliant detective investigating a murder in the White House, drew 1.84b minutes of viewing in the U.S. from March 24-30. That’s up from 1.36b for its premiere week, a gain of about 36 percent. Reacher, whose season three finale premiered March 27 on Prime Video, took second overall with 1.3b minutes, up from 1.1b the previous week. The White Lotus hit a series high with 1.11b minutes of watch time on Max, its first time over the billion-minute mark. The streaming rankings. |
Film Review: 'Havoc' ►"A blood-drenched ballet." THR's chief film critic David Rooney reviews Gareth Evans' Havoc. Tom Hardy, Jessie Mei Li, Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker star in the Welsh filmmaker's neo-noir about a compromised detective caught between Triad killers and crooked fellow cops. The review.
—"More safe than scary." THR's Lovia Gyarkye reviews David F. Sandberg's Until Dawn. Five friends find themselves stuck in a time-loop nightmare in this offering based on the PlayStation game and penned by Blair Butler and Gary Dauberman. The review.
—"Obvious and unrealistic, but intermittently satisfying." THR India's Anupama Chopra reviews Karan Singh Tyagi's Kesari Chapter 2. Akshay Kumar stars as renowned lawyer and statesman C. Sankaran Nair in a film about the court case that followed the 1919 massacre, from the first-time director. The review. |
Thank Pod It's Friday ►All the latest content from THR's podcast studio.
—Awards Chatter. THR's executive awards editor Scott Feinberg talks to the great and the good of Hollywood. In this live episode, Scott spoke to Jason Isaacs. The English film and TV actor reflects on the pros and cons of playing Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter film series, the heartbreak of the cancellation of The OA and his rollercoaster journey with Mike White's hit HBO drama series The White Lotus. Listen here.
—It Happened in Hollywood. THR senior writer Seth Abramovitch goes behind the scenes of the pop culture moments that shaped Hollywood history. In this episode, Seth spoke to legendary filmmaker Charles Burnett. The indie pioneer, who directed My Brother's Wedding (1983), To Sleep with Anger (1990) and The Glass Shield (1994) and who received an honorary Oscar in 2017, recollects making his 1978 masterpiece Killer of Sheep. Listen here.
In other news...
—SNL: Quinta Brunson, Walton Goggins, Scarlett Johansson Close Out S50
—John Krasinski, Natalie Portman reveal clues to eternal life in new Fountain of Youth trailer
—The Summer I Turned Pretty drops Taylor Swift-heavy teaser for final season
—UMG Nashville rebrands as Music Corporation of America
—Amy Landecker signs with Gersh
—Francis Ford Coppola unveils Megalopolis graphic novel
—Lulu Roman, popular Hee Haw comedian and gospel singer, dies at 78
What else we're reading...
—Douglas MacMillan reports that a giant tent has been built in Miami to house hundreds of detained immigrants [WaPo]
—Emma Jones writes that films like Sister Midnight, Santosh and All We Imagine as Light are part of a wave of "'anti-Bollywood" films fighting sexist stereotypes in India [BBC]
—Lucas Shaw talks to Paramount Global exec Chris McCarthy about creating a lucrative business empire around the Yellowstone franchise [Bloomberg]
—Nate Jones does the Lord's work and figures out which IRL papal candidate is which guy from Conclave [Vulture]
—Here's your Friday list: "Julie Christie's 20 best films – ranked!" [Guardian]
Today...
...in 2008, Warner Bros. released Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg's Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay in theaters. The sequel to stoner comedy classic Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle once again starred Kal Penn and John Cho and was a big box office success. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Al Pacino (85), Renée Zellweger (56), Jonathan Bailey (37), Meghann Fahy (35), Adria Arjona (33), Hank Azaria (61), Gina Torres (56), Jillian Bell (41), Talia Shire (79), Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu (62), Lynn Hamilton (95), Jason Lee (55), Marguerite Moreau (48), Sara Paxton (37), Allisyn Snyder (29), Richie Moriarty (45), Emily Bergl (50), Jeffrey DeMunn (78), Daniel Sharman (39), Laura Birn (44), Jason Wiles (55), Adam Long (34), Sean Harmon (37), Sofia Helin (53), Samuel Barnett (45), Melonie Diaz (41), Peter Jurasik (75), Manolo Cardona (48), Daniel MacPherson (45), Casey Deidrick (38), Josh Kelly (43), Daniel Kash (66), Yoon Chan-young (24), Giuseppe Andrews (46), Miguel Herrán (29), Laura Bach (46), Wilf Scolding (35), Ben Radcliffe (27), Sugith Varughese (67), John DeLuca (39) |
| Lar Park Lincoln, who portrayed the conniving Linda Fairgate on Knots Landing and Tina Shepard, a woman with telekinetic powers, in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, has died. She was 63. The obituary. |
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