| | | | | | What's news: Disney has paused production on the live-action remake of Tangled. Tom Cruise held a moment of silence for Val Kilmer at CinemaCon. Vanity Fair's EIC Radhika Jones is stepping down. ABC has renewed Grey’s Anatomy, 911, The Rookie, Will Trent and Shifting Gears. — Abid Rahman
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THR's Power Lawyers 2025 ►Hollywood’s top 100 attorneys. Meet the dealmakers and litigators who made the cut for THR's 20th annual list of the entertainment industry’s most powerful legal advocates. These 100 standouts — listed alphabetically along with their practice area, firm and law school alma mater — negotiate the pacts and fight the battles that keep the cameras rolling. The list.
—"There is a pleasure in arguing and convincing someone to your point of view." For THR, Claudia Rosenbaum profiles Dan Scharf, one of the most successful in-house attorneys in town. Amazon Studios’ head of global business operations had an inauspicious start in Hollywood, but he’s more than made up for it. The profile.
—In-demand. THR's Julian Sancton profiles courtroom magician Joe Tacopina, who saved A$AP Rocky’s life. With the brawling style showcased in his successful defense of the embattled rapper, Tacopina has become one of the world’s most sought-after trial attorneys (just ask his client Donald Trump). The profile. |
Russell Brand Charged With Rape and Sexual Assault ►The latest. Disgraced former comedian and actor Russell Brand has been formally charged with rape and sexual assault. The U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service said on Friday that it has authorized London’s Metropolitan Police to charge a man, identified as 49-year-old Brand, following an investigation by detectives. Brand has been charged with one count of rape, one count of indecent assault, one count of oral rape and two counts of sexual assault, the Met said. He will appear in court on Friday, May 2. The story.
—Not good. A snapshot of production levels in Los Angeles shows a steep decline in soundstage occupancy over the past two years, highlighting the plunge in filming in the region. Seventeen studios that operate the majority of stages in L.A. posted average occupancy rates of 63 percent last year, down from 69 percent in 2023, according to the new report from FilmLA, the nonprofit group that handles film permits for the city and county. The figures mark a dramatic departure from the 93.5 percent rate that studios reported their stages were occupied from 2016 to 2022. The story.
—Hedge fund face-off. Last month, shortly before Silver Lake completed its $25b deal to take Endeavor private, Carl Icahn disclosed that he had acquired a massive stake in Endeavor. By appearances, it was an unusual buy. Endeavor had been trading above the $27.50 per share stockholders were slated to receive as part of the deal for most of the past year. He saw a play hedge funds have been jumping on in recent months: a form of merger arbitrage that could force Silver Lake to increase its payout to investors. Several funds are taking to Delaware Chancery Court seeking revaluation of their shares. THR's Winston Cho reports that on Thursday, four funds filed petitions targeting the transaction. The story.
—Looking for protections. Teamsters leaders are leveraging a relationship with the Trump administration to push for worker protections in the $8b Paramount-Skydance merger as the future of one of Hollywood’s legacy studios hangs in the balance. The union’s general president and head of its entertainment division met with Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr on Monday to raise concerns about the corporate marriage’s potential impact on the Hollywood workforce. Sean O’Brien, Lindsay Dougherty and two other union leaders called for Skydance’s past “pro-worker commitments” to be a condition of the merger or for some other kind of worker protection agreement, according to a recent FCC filing. The story.
—"It was a difficult decision, because it was a tremendous privilege to lead this team." There will be a changing of the guard atop Vanity Fair, one of the flagship publications in the Condé Nast portfolio. Editor-in-chief Radhika Jones told staff Thursday that she plans to leave the publication in the spring. Jones joined Vanity Fair from The New York Times in December 2017, succeeding its longtime editor Graydon Carter. The story. |
CinemaCon: Tom Cruise Pays Tribute to Val Kilmer ►"I wish you well on your next journey." Tom Cruise arrived at CinemaCon during a somber moment, earning big applause as he took the stage to debut explosive new footage from Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning during Paramount's presentation. But he started off by paying tribute to the late Val Kilmer, his co-star in Top Gun who died Tuesday. “I’d like to honor a dear friend of mine, Val Kilmer, for a moment,” Cruise said to applause. “I can’t tell you how much I admired his work,” he continued, adding that he cherished Kilmer as a human being and was grateful that he made a cameo in Top Gun: Maverick. The story.
—We may have a winner. This is truly going to be a good year, as Paramount‘s new Naked Gun movie debuted its first teaser trailer. The studio shared the video online just before the start of its CinemaCon presentation Thursday, where extended footage was revealed to huge laughs and resounding applause. The comedy stars Liam Neeson as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Police Squad legend Frank Drebin, initially played in the franchise by the late Leslie Nielsen. The story.
—Glen ready, Glen set. Paramount put Edgar Wright’s The Running Man in the starting block at CinemaCon with seven months to go before the film's Nov. 7 debut in theaters. Lead actor Glen Powell joined his co-stars Josh Brolin and Colman Domingo and filmmaker Wright to debut the footage in Las Vegas. “I have never worked harder on a movie in my life,” said Powell, known as one of the busier actor-producers in Hollywood of the film, which just wrapped a week ago. The story.
—"It is a really, really special movie." CinemaCon’s distinguished decade of achievement in film award winner Channing Tatum took the Colosseum stage on Thursday to talk up his new Paramount film Roofman. The feature, set for release on Oct. 3, comes from filmmaker Derek Cianfrance, who also wrote the script with Kirt Gunn. Based on a true story, Roofman casts Tatum as a former Army Ranger and struggling father who turns to robbing McDonald’s restaurants by cutting holes in their roofs, earning him the nickname “Roofman.” The story. |
CinemaCon: Disney Sets Colosseum Ablaze With 'Avatar 3' Footage ►Are you ready to go back to Pandora? Disney screened the first footage from Avatar: Fire and Ash for exhibitors at CinemaCon on Thursday, introduced by James Cameron in a video segment. Cameron explained that he is in New Zealand finishing the film but was pleased to share a "glimpse at the increased emotional heart and soul." Cameron also teased that our heroes "face not only the human invaders but new adversaries, the Ash people." Fire and Ash opens of Dec. 19. The story.
—Rapunzel is rolling back up her hair. Tangled, Disney’s live-action reimagining of its 2010 animated film focused on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale heroine, has been put on pause, according to studio insiders. The project had been in active development, with The Greatest Showman helmer Michael Gracey on board to direct and a script by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. The pause occurs in the wake of the rather underwhelming release of Disney’s latest live-action adaptation, Snow White. The story.
—First look at the female Silver Surfer. Marvel's First Family arrived in Las Vegas, with new footage from Fantastic Four: First Steps unveiled at CinemaCon. Kevin Feige introduced the footage in a video segment. In the new trailer, which was not released online, Reed Richards and Sue Storm learn that they are expecting a baby, leading to a conflicted reaction. The story.
—"Such a special time with so many unique experiences." True to the misfit nature of the characters they play in Thunderbolts, the stars of Marvel’s upcoming film — Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hannah John-Kamen and Wyatt Russell — made an unconventional entrance at CinemaCon. Entering from the back of the Colosseum, they meandered down the aisle and blamed a clearly disheveled Russell for the delay, as he was presumably having a little too much fun in Vegas. They eventually made it to the stage for some quick banter (and a few adorably flubbed lines from Pugh) before introducing an electric and extended nearly five minute look at the film. The story.
—"It will hit you right in the grid, wherever that is." The lights went down in the Colosseum just after 3 p.m. on Thursday as a spectacle was about to unfold. Blue, green and red lasers shot out from every corner to fill the venue with light as Jared Leto and Jeff Bridges entered from the side of the stage to talk up their new film Tron: Ares. Disney's follow-up to the 1982 seminal film Tron and the 2010 sequel, Tron: Legacy, stars Leto as Ares, a computer program sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission to introduce AI beings to humans. The story.
—"We all had Bruce’s blessing on this film." CinemaCon was rocking thanks to the Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere. The 20th Century film stars Jeremy Allen White as the New Jersey-born music legend, known around the world as The Boss. Jeremy Strong co-stars as Jon Landau, Springsteen’s manager and record producer. Both actors took the stage at the Las Vegas event to present the movie’s first trailer. The story.
More from CinemaCon...
—Jamie Lee Curtis, Emma Mackey honor their Ella McCay director James L. Brooks
—Glen Powell thanks Cheech Marin for invite to sit at “cool table” on Spy Kids 3 set
—Ana de Armas once told Keanu Reeves she hadn’t seen The Matrix
—Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman go to battle in raunchy trailer for War of the Roses remake
—Predator: Badlands unveils surprising premise, tense first-look
—Zoe Saldaña shows off "heartfelt" 3D footage of Pixar’s Elio |
'Grey's,' 'Shifting Gears' Among Five ABC Renewals ►Fab five. ABC has locked in most — but notably, not all — of its scripted series for the 2025-26 season. The network announced renewals for veteran drama series Grey’s Anatomy, 911, The Rookie and Will Trent and first-year comedy Shifting Gears. They join the previously renewed Abbott Elementary and High Potential on ABC’s roster for next season, along with 911: Nashville, a spinoff of the first-responder series that earned a straight-to-series order in February. Not on the renewal list at the moment: Doctor Odyssey , the first-year drama from Ryan Murphy Television that stars Joshua Jackson as a cruise-ship doctor. Sources say ABC and the show’s team are talking about the show’s creative direction, and a decision on season two has yet to be made. The story.
—A TV first. The 2025 MTV Video Music Awards will make its debut on CBS. The awards show, which celebrates the best music videos of the year, will air on the broadcast network for the first time. The three-hour broadcast will also simulcast on MTV and stream on Paramout+. A one-hour live pre-show will air across Paramount Media Networks. The 2025 VMAs will air live from the UBS Arena, on Sunday Sept. 7 at 8:00-11:00 PM ET/5:00-8:00 PM PT. The story.
—Unscripted push. In an effort to keep viewers engaged outside the traditional Christmas season, Hallmark is doubling down on reality competition shows on both its linear channel and streaming option. Hallmark on Thursday will announce that it is developing a full slate of unscripted fare, including new seasons of the Hallmark+ shows Finding Mr. Christmas and Celebrations with Lacey Chabert, as well as concepts like a baking competition and a murder mystery competition series. And while Hallmark’s previous efforts were focused on Hallmark+, moving forward the shows will debut on Hallmark Channel, branded as “Reality TV with heart,” and then streaming the next day. The story.
—Blast from the past. A long-running TV show with a huge library of episodes making Nielsen’s streaming charts is nothing unusual. But a show making the streaming top 10 almost half a century after it last aired? That is a horse of a different color — or black and white, as the case may be. Gunsmoke, which had a 20-season run on CBS from 1955-75, claimed a spot among the top 10 acquired series on streaming for the week of March 3-9. The show, which streams on Paramount+ and Peacock (which together carry 404 of Gunsmoke ’s 635 episodes), amassed 646m minutes of viewing time for the week, good for eighth place among library shows. Not surprisingly, the show’s audience skews older than the average streaming series: Nielsen says about half its viewers are 65 or older. The streaming rankings. |
'The Handmaid's Tale' and Trump, Reunited ►"The show’s topicality sometimes hit so close to the bone that it became difficult to watch." As the sixth and final season of The Handmaid's Tale lands on Hulu, THR’s chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg reflects on how the dystopian series was shaped by the first Donald Trump presidency — and how it hits differently during the second. The critic's notebook.
—A secret, a security guard and a Jennifer Coolidge Halloween party. THR's Lacey Rose goes inside the process of how The White Lotus assembled its sprawling cast for season three. The cast and crew dish on how the Mike White drama recruited an indie icon, a global pop star, a fan favorite and one well-kept secret. The story.
—"The second act is the tough act." Ahead of the season two premiere of HBO's The Last of Us, THR's James Hibberd spoke to co-creator Craig Mazin. The prolific writer, director and producer reveals how the sophomore season raises the bar, how Game of Thrones influenced a sequence (addressing an online gripe) and spelling out the future of the hit series. The interview. |
Bruce Springsteen to Release 7 Lost Albums ►Boss move. Bruce Springsteen will release seven “lost” albums as part of an extensive box set to come out this summer. Springsteen is releasing Tracks II: The Lost Albums on June 27 through Sony Music, the singer announced Thursday morning, made up of an overwhelming 83 songs across seven different records recorded between 1983 and 2018. The collection comes 27 years after Springsteen dropped the first “Tracks” collection back in 1998, though the first edition was demos and unreleased songs, not full complete albums. The story.
—Denied. A federal judge denied Universal Music Group’s request to delay discovery in Drake's defamation lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar's “Not Like Us,” allowing the Canadian rapper’s team to ask for documents UMG had called “highly commercially sensitive,” such as Lamar’s record deal. UMG had filed a request to delay the discovery process back in March, stating that the company had presented enough of a case for Drake’s suit to be dismissed in its entirety, and that the request was an “undue burden” on UMG. Judge Jeannette Vargas denied that request during a conference held in New York on Wednesday. The story.
More music news...
—Ed Sheeran drops first single "Azizam" from eighth studio album Play
—Miley Cyrus drops single "End of the World" from upcoming Something Beautiful album
—Elton John and Brandi Carlile release collaborative album Who Believes In Angels?
—Kanye West raps about Split with wife Bianca Censori on new album
—Coldplay featured on new version of League of Legends Arcane song "Ma Meilleure" |
Theater Review: 'Good Night, and Good Luck' ►"This dark chapter of American history has something vital to impart to us in 2025." THR's David Rooney reviews George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck. Co-writers Clooney and Grant Heslov retool their screenplay for the 2005 film about CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow’s 1954 takedown of Senator Joseph McCarthy. The review.
—"A scrappy delight." THR's Lovia Gyarkye reviews Siobhan McCarthy's She's the He. Writer-director McCarthy's first feature, which premiered at SXSW, sends up conservative bathroom panic to fashion a scrappy tale about self-discovery. The review. |
Thank Pod It's Friday ►All the latest content from THR's podcast studio.
—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 Pam Grier. The first female action star remembers the making of Quentin Tarantino’s third film, Jackie Brown. Listen here.
In other news...
—James Gunn releases Superman sneak peek online
—Jack Black playfully tries to fight Elton John in SNL promo
—The Rehearsal S2 trailer: Nathan Fielder believes he has the answer to recent air disasters
—TCM Classic Film Festival: Michael Mann, Rob Reiner, Paul Schrader, Kathy Bates, Aaron Sorkin to attend
—Amanda Hirsch, host of Not Skinny But Not Fat, signs with WME
—Yorn Levine elevates Alison Asaro, Asheley Dean to partner
What else we're reading...
—Zack Beauchamp suggests the real reason Trump is destroying the economy [Vox]
—Tom Nichols reflects on the chaos at the NSA as MAGA conspiracy theorist and bigot Laura Loomer seems to be calling the shots [Atlantic]
—Charlie Campbell looks at whether Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's attempt to take on Big Tech with a social media ban for kids will work [Time]
—Rachel Wolfe and Xavier Martinez report that Americans are rushing to buy TVs, soy sauce, Lululemon workout gear and more before the tariffs come in [WSJ]
—Here's your Friday list: "The 10 best Val Kilmer movies you can stream right now" [Vulture]
Today...
...in 2014, Marvel Studios released Anthony Russo and Joe Russo's Captain America: The Winter Soldier in theaters. The film, the ninth entry into the MCU, was a big critical and commercial success, earning $714m at the box office. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Robert Downey Jr. (60), Natasha Lyonne (46), Hugo Weaving (65), David Cross (61), David E. Kelley (69), Sarah Gadon (38), Barry Pepper (55), Eric André (42), Aki Kaurismäki (68), Graham Norton (62), Derek Kolstad (51), James Roday Rodriguez (49), Cherie Lunghi (73), Amanda Righetti (42), Craig T. Nelson (81), Marcus Rutherford (30), Lorraine Toussaint (65), Collette Wolfe (45), Christine Lahti (75), Nancy McKeon (59), Heidi Berger (28), Daniela Bobadilla (32), Xenia Seeberg (58), Mary-Margaret Humes (71), Matthew MacCaull (47), Rachel Korine (39), Chris Conner (50), Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (37), Jeanne Goursaud (29), Julie Carmen (71) |
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