| | | | | | What's news: Sam Mendes has revealed the cast and release date of his four Beatles biopics. Paramount+ with Showtime has renewed Dexter: Original Sin. Anton Levy has joined the board of WBD. A Frank Lucas doc is in the works. — Abid Rahman
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CinemaCon: Sony Opens Big With the Beatles ►📅 Meet the Beatles! 📅 Sony's long-awaited Beatles movie biopic plans are finally coming together. Director Sam Mendes took the stage at CinemaCon in Las Vegas to reveal the cast for the features and revealed that all four films are set for theatrical release in April 2028. Mendes also brought the cast onstage. Set to star in the films are Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr. Each of the four movies will focus on one of the members of the Fab Four. The story.
—📅 Across the universe 📅 Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse has finally set a new release date to swing into theaters. The Spider-Verse team appeared at CinemaCon on Monday to announce that the film hits theaters June 4, 2027, four years after the previous entry, Across the Spider-Verse, set records for the franchise. They also showed the first footage from the new film. The story.
—The ballad of Pete and MJ. Tom Holland's Spider-Man 4 is untitled no longer. The star appeared in a video clip to announce that the film is titled Spider-Man: Brand New Day, set to hit theaters July 31, 2026. Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton also took the stage at CinemaCon on Monday, and said the movie would be “a ride that we haven’t really seen before.” The title is a reference to a 2008 comic book storyline that takes place after a universe-altering event in which everyone forgot who Spider-Man was. The story.
—Come together. The stars of Sony's Karate Kid: Legends brought the martial arts franchise’s latest film to CinemaCon. The project’s elaborate presentation began with a group of onstage dancers, percussionists and individuals holding lanterns. After that, hitting the stage on Monday was first Karate Kid star Ralph Macchio, who played the titular hero Daniel LaRusso in Columbia’s 1984 original feature and the Netflix revival series Cobra Kai. Joining him was franchise addition Ben Wang, who plays Li Fong, a martial arts student who counts Daniel and Jackie Chan's Mr. Han as his mentors. The new footage included an emotional scene of Chan’s Mr. Han paying his respects to the late Mr. Miyagi and bonding with Daniel. The story.
—Run for your life. More info has been revealed about the Columbia's sequel to the 1997 slasher film I Know What You Did Last Summer. Sony debuted the first look for Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s horror pic during its CinemaCon presentation, and it brought cheers to the capacity crowd. There were claps when original stars Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. turned up on the big screen. Set for theatrical release on July 18, the update follows the events after five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident. The story.
—Helter skelter. The undead action of 28 Years Later helped bring life to CinemaCon. Director Danny Boyle took the stage for the Sony presentation, where he debuted the latest trailer. Also hitting the stage was Nia DaCosta, who directed the forthcoming second film, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Boyle also shared that the team has not yet finalized financing for the hoped-for third movie in the franchise, and encouraged fans to support the first two movies. The story.
—With a little help from his friends. THR's Pamela McClintock recaps the first night of CinemaCon where Sony and Tom Rothman took center stage. Pamela writes that the chairman of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, perhaps one of the most secure Hollywood executives when it comes to job security at the moment, returned to the annual convention of theater owners in fine form Monday night when helping to present the studio’s upcoming slate. The recap.
More from CinemaCon...
—Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell go on A Big Bold Beautiful Journey in trailer debut
—Sony brings Darren Aronofsky to Vegas to debut trailer of Austin Butler-starrer Caught Stealing
—James L. Brooks set to receive CinemaCon award ahead of release of new film Ella McCay
—Anaconda stars Paul Rudd, Jack Black kick off CinemaCon with Sir Mix-a-Lot song
—First Wicked: For Good poster spotted at CinemaCon
—Kinepolis orders new Imax screens amid box office recovery |
YouTube's Revenue Could Soon Surpass Disney ►$550b monster. By now everyone in Hollywood knows YouTube is a dominant player in the video ecosystem, but a prominent Wall Street analyst argues that YouTube still has a long period of growth ahead of it. MoffettNathanson’s Michael Nathanson writes in a March 31 note that YouTube should be officially crowned the “new king of all media,” with engagement topping all other media companies in February’s Nielsen Gauge report, and with 2024 revenue of $54.2b, second only to Disney. And he predicts that YouTube will surpass Disney this year. If YouTube was a standalone business, public comps suggest the business would be worth $475b to $550b, or about 30 percent of Alphabet’s current valuation, Nathanson wrote. The story.
—🏆 Yay us! 🏆 THR, Zoe Saldaña, Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter, Selena Gomez and Travis and Jason Kelce are among the nominees for the 29th Annual Webby Awards, which will be handed out next month in New York. THR landed two noms: one for best interview or talk show for its Drama Actress Roundtable and the other for best individual editorial feature for its 2024 Sustainability Issue. The nominees.
—"I would have been so terrifically mean." Just a couple of days after the White House Correspondents’ Association decided to cancel her planned performance at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, comedian Amber Ruffin addressed the controversy on NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers on Monday. Ruffin took the opportunity to mock the WHCA for folding to outside pressure, saying, "We have a free press so that we can be nice to Republicans at fancy dinners. That’s what it says in the First Amendment." The story.
—Extension. Performers’ union SAG-AFTRA and advertisers have extended their current labor deals as negotiations continue for successor agreements. The union and the Joint Policy Committee — which bargains on behalf of advertisers and advertising agencies — announced that they were prolonging their current three-year contracts until the end of the day on Friday. The contracts were initially set to end at the end of Monday, with the change allowing union performers to continue working under the old contracts as negotiations carry on. Both sides have been tight-lipped about their objectives with these talks. The story.
—🤝 Deal! 🤝 ITV Studios unveiled on Tuesday that it has acquired a majority stake in Moonage Pictures, one of the U.K.’s fastest-growing independent producers of high-end drama, including global hits The Gentlemen and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. The Gentlemen, directed by Guy Richie, debuted as Netflix’s top show and became one of the most-viewed TV shows of 2024. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, adapted for the BBC and Netflix, made the streamer’s global top-10 most-watched list. Moonage was established in 2018 by Will Gould, Matthew Read and Frith Tiplady. Its name is inspired by the David Bowie song “Moonage Daydream.” The story.
—New addition. Warner Bros. Discovery is beefing up its board of directors with a private equity and technology veteran, Anton Levy. Levy, currently an advisory director at the private equity giant General Atlantic, previously served as co-president and chairman of global technology for the firm. The addition of Levy comes after WBD faced pressure from the activist hedge fund Sessa Capital, which built a roughly 1 percent stake in the company and had been pushing to add board members and restructure itself faster. The story. |
'Coyote vs. Acme' Movie Saved by Ketchup Entertainment ►🤝 Hallelujah! 🤝 Ketchup Entertainment has made it official by acquiring from Warner Bros. Pictures the worldwide rights to Coyote vs. Acme, which stars Will Forte and John Cena opposite an animated Wile E. Coyote. The live-action/animated hybrid film that brings the iconic Looney Tunes character to the big screen ignited social media when the Hollywood studio canceled it after deciding against releasing that movie theatrically and included as part of a $115m impairment charge. But behind the scenes, Ketchup and Warners were hammering out an acquisition deal that would put the project in theaters. The story.
—"Pusherman is the best Behind the Music episode ever done about a non-musical figure." The legacy of heroin kingpin Frank Lucas, whose story was dramatized in Ridley Scott's 2007 narrative feature American Gangster, is the focus of a forthcoming documentary film. Pusherman explores Lucas’ life through the lens of the lore surrounding Black gangsters and is set for DVD release from MVD Entertainment Group on June 24. Documentarian and author Legs McNeil directs and narrates the movie. The film features interviews with Mark Jacobson, the journalist whose New York Magazine story initially shed light on Lucas’ operation. The story.
—📅 On the move 📅 Kendrick Lamar's forthcoming feature from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone will take a bit longer to squabble up into theaters. The untitled Paramount Pictures comedy is now set for theatrical release on March 20, 2026, after having previously been scheduled for July 4 of this year. The news comes ahead of Paramount’s CinemaCon presentation later this week, after the movie was teased at last year’s event. Plot details have not yet been revealed for the project that filmed last year with a script from Vernon Chatman. Lamar and Dave Free serve as producers through their company PGLang, while Stone and Parker produce for Park County. The story.
—📅 Mark it down 📅 Immersive technology company Cosm has inked a multi-film pact with The Matrix studio Warner Bros., as well as Little Cinema, which specializes in transforming films and TV properties into live events. Together, the companies will bring The Matrix to Cosm’s venues in Los Angeles and Dallas on June 6. It is billed as a “shared reality” experience. The film will screen as normal, but the audience will also be surrounded by an 87-ft diameter LED dome, which will display new elements inspired by the film. The story. | '1923' S2 Will End With Supersized Finale ►Epic finale. The second season of Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone prequel 1923 will end with an explosive two-hour finale event — double its usual running time — when it releases Sunday, April 6 on Paramount+. The streamer had not confirmed an episode count when announcing the second season of the prequel series. Season one had eight episodes. All season two episodes are written by creator Sheridan and directed by Ben Richardson. The season two finale, titled “A Dream and A Memory,” follows a killing spree in the penultimate episode. The story.
—Quick as you like. Paramount+ With Showtime has renewed Dexter: Original Sin for season two, following the conclusion of its 10-episode first installment in February. A writers room for the second season is set to begin work soon, with showrunner Clyde Phillips again at the helm. Original Sin's first season takes place in 1991 and focuses on Dexter (Patrick Gibson) as he makes his first kills, guided by his father, Harry (Christian Slater), while also working as an intern in the Miami Metro Police Department. The story.
—🎭 All set 🎭 Severance star Britt Lower and This is Us‘ Milo Ventimiglia have boarded Netflix's next Harlan Coben adaptation, I Will Find You — the first Coben show to be set in the U.S. Logan Browning and Erin Richards have also joined the cast alongside the previously announced Sam Worthington, who leads the show as David Burroughs. Based on Coben’s bestselling novel, I Will Find You is the next Netflix adaptation of the author’s through their creative partnership. Previous shows Fool Me Once and Missing You, set in the U.K. instead of the U.S., scored impressive numbers on the streaming service. The story.
—🎭 Away we go 🎭 The cast of HBO’s House of the Dragon is back in front of the cameras in the U.K. for its next season. The fantasy drama series has started filming season three, which will once again consist of eight episodes. In addition, the show has announced two actors for the new season: Tommy Flanagan has been cast as Ser Roderick Dustin and Dan Fogler as Ser Torrhen Manderly. The production also announced its new season’s directors: Clare Kilner, Nina Lopez-Corrado, Andrij Parekh and Loni Peristere. The story.
—VPNs at the ready. A docuseries covering the legal drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni and their dueling narratives that have riveted Hollywood is headed towards Discovery+ in the UK. The project, with a working title Baldoni vs Lively: A Hollywood Feud, will be produced by Optomen for Warner Bros. Discovery UK & Ireland. The Discovery+ series, to bow in June, follows ITN Productions creating its own documentary, He Said, She Said: Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni, about the legal standoff between the It Ends With Us co-stars. There’s no word on when Baldoni vs. Lively: A Hollywood Feud may be released in the U.S. market. The story.
—🎭 It's official 🎭 The Green Lantern Corps has found its Guy Gardner. Lanterns, the upcoming DC Studios series for HBO, has cast Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, one of the characters known for being The Green Lantern in DC Comics mythology. Fillion is set to play Gardner in James Gunn's summer feature Superman, and will reprise the role in the HBO series. Kyle Chandler is set to play another Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, in the series, joined by a new recruit to the Corps played by Aaron Pierre. Lanterns was picked up last year from Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and comics writer Tom King. The trio are co-writing and executive producing the series, with Mundy serving as showrunner. The story.
—Magic touch. Disney Branded Television, the company’s kids and family division, has renewed Wizards Beyond Waverly Place for a second season. The pickup comes about a month after the sitcom concluded its 21-episode first season. Production on season two is set to begin in April in Los Angeles. Disney ordered the update to its 2007-12 favorite Wizards of Waverly Place in March 2024. The series finds an adult Justin Russo (Henrie) living a normal, mortal life with his wife (Mimi Gianopulos) and kids (Alkaio Thiele and Max Matenko) — until his sister Alex (guest star and EP Selena Gomez) brings a young wizard named Billie (Janice LeAnn Brown) to him for training. The series airs on Disney Channel and streams on Disney+. The story. |
Theater Review: 'Glengarry Glen Ross' ►"With the rise of the manosphere, it’s not surprising that the tragicomic drama lands with a new sting." THR's David Rooney reviews Patrick Marber’s Glengarry Glen Ross. Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKean star in this Broadway revival of David Mamet's 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner about Chicago real estate hucksters driven to desperate measures. The review.
In other news...
—Netflix’s new releases coming in April
—Black Mirror S7 trailer and episodic details revealed
—Norman Reedus to lead Canneseries jury
—Cannes: Todd Haynes to receive Directors’ Fortnight honor
—Ambie Awards winners, presenters make case for truth and facts
—Audacy names Leah Reis-Dennis head of podcasts
What else we're reading...
—Nick Miroff has a shocking report on the supposed "administrative error" that sent a Maryland father with protected legal status to an El Salvadoran prison [Atlantic]
—Sam Schechner and Kim Mackrael report that Mark Zuckerberg, after cozying up with the president, is now trying to enlist Trump to help him fight an EU ad ruling against Meta [WSJ]
— Ryu Spaeth considers The White Lotus, the pernicious influence of the manosphere and a world without women [Intelligencer]
—Pierre Novellie reflects on Hollywood's treatment of autism and autistic characters and wonders why creators are so reluctant to state it openly on screen [Guardian]
—Jessica Testa talks to former cable news anchors Don Lemon, Joy Reid and Jim Acosta about their move to Substack [NYT]
Today...
...in 2011, Summit Entertainment released Duncan Jones' Source Code in theaters. The sci-fi action thriller, which starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright, was a big critical and commercial success. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Boots Riley (54), Lee Chang-dong (71), Mackenzie Davis (38), Tomas Alfredson (60), Asa Butterfield (28), David Oyelowo (49), Barry Sonnenfeld (72), Taran Killam (43), Troy Baker (49), José Zúñiga (60), Annette O'Toole (73), Ali MacGraw (86), JJ Feild (47), Jennifer Runyon (65), Ellen Hollman (42), Sam Huntington (43), Matt Lanter (42), Evan Jones (49), Jane Adams (60), Josh Zuckerman (40), Anamaria Marinca (47), Jessica Collins (54), Lachy Hulme (54), Jung Hae-in (37), Hannah Spearritt (44), Tess Haubrich (35), Siobhan Murphy (41), Samuel Blenkin (29), Royce Pierreson (36) |
| Sian Barbara Allen, a onetime Universal contract player who appeared in the films You’ll Like My Mother and Billy Two Hats and played a love interest of Richard Thomas’ John-Boy on The Waltons, died Monday. She was 78. The obituary. |
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