| | | | | | What's news: Conan O'Brien has joined the voice cast of Toy Story 5. Ryan Murphy is adapting Bret Easton Ellis' novel The Shards for FX. Apple has set its first original Peanuts musical. Netflix is releasing a Peppa Pig game. Wendy McMahon is the latest exec to exit CBS News. — Abid Rahman
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Diddy Trial: 3 Witnesses Take Stand to Confirm Cassie's Testimony ►The latest. Three witnesses took the stand at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering trial in Manhattan on Monday, all of whom backed up or confirmed details around physical and emotional abuse the defendant allegedly inflicted on his ex-girlfriend of a decade, Cassie Ventura. One of those witnesses, singer Dawn Richard who was part of the group Danity Kane, told jurors Combs threatened to kill her if she told anyone she saw him physically abusing Ventura. The story.
—"I referred to him as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Jessica Mann, the third accuser in the Harvey Weinstein retrial, took the stand Monday and described how Weinstein would turn into a “monster” during their relationship that was at one point consensual. Mann described how at times she felt he would validate her beauty and acting career, but then would turn when it came to sexual situations. “The word ‘No’ specifically was like a trigger to him.” Mann, an aspiring actress, testified that she had first met Weinstein around 2013 at a party in Hollywood and had then gone with him to Book Soup, where he bought industry-related materials for her. She was later invited by Weinstein up to his hotel room, where he said he wanted to give Mann and her friend a script for Vampire Academy. After calling Mann into the bedroom, Weinstein performed unwanted oral sex on her. The story.
—"It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward." Wendy McMahon is exiting CBS, stepping down as the executive in charge of CBS News, the CBS TV stations and the company’s syndication arm. McMahon’s exit comes amid a tumultuous moment for CBS News, which is in talks with Donald Trump about resolving a lawsuit he filed against the network over an interview conducted with Kamala Harris on its flagship newsmagazine 60 Minutes. Bill Owens, 60 Minutes' executive producer, resigned earlier this month citing a similar disagreement with management, though the program has continued to not pull punches. The story.
—Keepin' it classy. Donald Trump is further escalating his online feud with Bruce Springsteen and other major recording acts, posting a rant on Truth Social early Monday morning calling for a “major investigation” into Springsteen, Beyoncé and Bono’s support for Kamala Harris during her presidential campaign. “HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT,” Trump wrote in all caps. “WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ?” The story.
—Charged. Arlo Willner, the 20-year-old son of late Saturday Night Live music sketch producer Hal Willner and wife Sheila Rogers, an Emmy-winning producer who has worked for SNL, The Late Late Show and The Late Show With David Letterman, has been charged with attempted murder after a knife attack outside of a bar in Manhattan over the weekend. Willner was arrested after he allegedly stabbed three people outside of Sally’s Bar on Lexington Ave. The story. |
AI Is Disrupting Commercial Shoots, But Actors May Get New Guardrails ►More teeth. In 2023, SAG-AFTRA film and television performers stayed out on strike for a grueling 118 days in no small part due to AI. With DALL-E and ChatGPT still a relatively recent phenomenon but the tech rapidly encroaching on Hollywood, the pressure was on, and the union eventually struck a deal that left some members pleased and others dismayed, fearing the union had ceded too much ground. THR's Katie Kilkenny reports that a year and a half later, the performers’ union is starting to refine its approach to the technology, as a new tentative agreement covering commercials work demonstrates. The Commercials Contracts, whose in-depth details were released on May 8, represent the first time in a major deal that SAG-AFTRA has restricted access to its members’ performances to train generative AI systems. The union also contends that the contracts are poised to disincentivize producers from using AI-generated performers over human performers specifically as a cost-saving mechanism. The story.
—Well, well, well. SAG-AFTRA has filed an unfair labor practice charge against Fortnite’s production company, alleging that its use of an AI-powered James Earl Jones Darth Vader voice infringes on the union’s right to negotiate major changes to its collective bargaining agreement. The union claimed that a signatory to its collective bargaining agreement, Llama Productions, made “unilateral” changes to terms and conditions of employment when Fortnite began employing the use of an AI-powered Vader voice starting Friday without giving the union notice or the ability to negotiate. In its filing to the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, SAG-AFTRA argued that using this generative AI voice essentially displaces “bargaining unit work” — suggesting that actors could have been employed to play the Star Wars character — for the massively popular games platform. The story.
—Yikes! The latest delay for Rockstar Games' highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI will cost the video game industry $2.7b in 2025, according to the latest data from Ampere Analysis. The overall spend on games content and services will still cross $200b for the first time ever — albeit by a narrower margin than it would have otherwise — thanks in large part to the June 5 release of the Nintendo Switch 2. Ampere forecasts very modest growth: from $199.4b in 2024 to $201.3b in 2025. That’s just about 1 percent in growth, down from last year’s 3.5 percent and less than half of Ampere’s 2026 prediction of 2.2 percent. The story.
—Pig, pig plans. Netflix is betting that Peppa Pig can help it gain a foothold in the fast-growing kids gaming business. The streaming giant on Monday will debut a new exclusive game called The World of Peppa Pig, which will include puzzles, mini-games, coloring [er, colouring] books and other interactive elements, as well as clips from the long-running British children’s show. The Peppa game comes just hours after Netflix inked a deal with Sesame Workshop to debut new episodes of Sesame Street beginning with season 56 of that show alter this year. Notably, Netflix says that it also has the rights to develop new games based on both Sesame Street and Sesame Street Mecha Builders. The story.
—New gig. Mike Richards, the veteran TV producer who briefly succeeded Alex Trebek as the host of the quiz show Jeopardy!, has landed a big job in conservative media. Richards has joined The Daily Wire as its next president of Daily Wire entertainment and chief content officer, leading all the entertainment operations of the conservative media company founded by Ben Shapiro. Richards joins after the exit of Jeremy Boreing, who stepped down as CEO of the company back in March, and is expected to work out of its Nashville headquarters. The story. |
'Toy Story 5' Lands Conan O'Brien ►🎭 More Coco at Pixar. 🎭 Disney is unboxing more of its Toy Story 5 cast. The studio announced Monday that Conan O’Brien has been added to the film’s voice cast as Smarty Pants, a character that is new to the animation franchise. Andrew Stanton is directing Toy Story 5 alongside co-director McKenna Harris, while Jessica Choi produces the film. Toy Story 5 is set to hit theaters June 19, 2026. Plot details have not yet been shared, but the movie will involve the toys dealing with modern-day kids’ fascination with electronics. The story.
—🎭 A bit of Ruff and tumble. 🎭 Mark Ruffalo and Tucker Pillsbury, the singer-songwriter known as Role Model, will star opposite Natalie Portman in Good Sex, a romantic comedy that Lena Dunham is directing for Netflix. Good Sex centers on a pragmatic couples’ therapist named Ally (Portman), who after spending a decade in a failed relationship and now turning 40, reluctantly dips her toe back into the New York dating scene. But, per Netflix’s logline, Ally gets more than she bargained for when she meets two men, one in his twenties and one in his fifties, who show her there is no set formula for good sex. Dunham wrote the script and is also producing with her Good Thing Going Productions partner Michael Cohen. Portman and Sophie Mas are producing their banner, MountainA. The story. |
'Handmaid’s Tale' Team Goes Inside That Tragic Penultimate Episode ►"This is not a show that needs a male savior." THR's queen of chat Jackie Strause spoke to the actors, showrunners and writers behind The Handmaid's Tale about the latest season six episode, "Execution." Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—Song & S’mores. Apple TV+ has set its first original Peanuts musical. Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical is the first new Peanuts musical special in 35 years. Ben Folds (of Ben Folds Five, and also the guy who composed “It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown”) will write original music for the July 18 release, as will Jeff Morrow. A Summer Musical has a 40-minute runtime, and the story sees Charlie, Snoopy and the Peanuts gang host a concert to save a summer camp. This year marks the 75th anniversary of Peanuts. Apple became the home of Peanuts in 2019. The story.
—Next up. Ryan Murphy’s next project at FX will travel back to the early 1980s. The mega-producer is developing a drama based on Bret Easton Ellis’ novel The Shards, which takes the author’s high school years in Los Angeles as inspiration. Kaia Gerber is attached to star in the project, with Max Winkler set to direct. Disney’s 20th Television, where Murphy is based, is the studio. The Shards is set in the early 1980s and contains some autobiographical elements for Ellis. It centers on Bret, a student at an elite L.A. prep school (that’s the autobiographical part) whose world is upended by the arrival of a mysterious new student, which coincides with the murders of a serial killer. The story.
—250 up. PBS is going all-in on America’s Semiquincentennial in 2026. You, of course, know what that word means: the country’s 250th birthday. From June 27-July 4, 2026, PBS will run an entire week of programming celebrating the milestone, which it is calling “the largest national and local engagement effort in its history.” A host of programming in the months leading up to that week is also in the works. The initiative will be headlined by Ken Burns’ next big doc, the six-part, 12-hour The American Revolution. On Nov. 24, the network will debut A More Perfect Union: Inspiring Civic & Civil Conversations Across America, which airs following the Burns doc. On tap for spring 2026 is a two-parter from BBC Studios, Lucy Worsley Investigates: The American Revolution. And in summer 2026, Antiques Roadshow will air a “250 Years of Americana” special episode. The story.
—Nepo slayers. Sarah Michelle Gellar revealed that she knew some familiar names on the audition roster for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot. The actress who played Buffy Summers in the original series, which ran for seven seasons from 1997 to 2003, recently chatted with Us Weekly with her former Buffy costar Alyson Hannigan, who portrayed Willow Rosenberg. During the interview, Rosenberg confessed, “I know somebody who auditioned for something on the show.” However, Gellar also knew some people. “I know somebody who was on the show whose child auditioned on the show,” she revealed. “I know a few people from the show whose children came in.” The story. | Jafar Panahi: The World's Most Acclaimed Dissident Filmmaker ►"Professionally, I am not banned anymore, I’m not forbidden to work as I used to be. But to make a film in the official way in Iran, you have to submit your script to the Islamic Guidance Ministry for approval. This is something that I cannot do." Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director behind The White Balloon and The Circle and one of THR’s Legends of the Croisette, talks to THR's Scott Roxborough about prison and censorship, why he plans to stay in Iran, and how, in his new film, It Was Just an Accident , he turns oppression into inspiration: "If cinema is really what is sacred for you...then no regime, no censorship, no authoritarian system can stop you." The interview.
—Big night for Denzel. Spike Lee and Denzel Washington helped make Cannes mo’ better Monday night with the gala premiere of Highest 2 Lowest. Washington, currently playing Othello in a 15-week run on Broadway, flew to France for the evening premiere, his first collaboration with Lee since 2006’s Inside Man. It was a short visit. Washington will be back on stage in New York on Tuesday. He was joined on the Cannes red carpet by Highest 2 Lowest co-stars Ilfenesh Hadera, Wendell Pierce, Jeffrey Wright, Aubrey Joseph and rapper A$AP Rocky. Prior to the screening, Washington was surprised with an honorary Palme d’Or, a career achievement acknowledgement that had been presented only 21 previous times. The story.
—11-minutes! Count on Julia Ducournau to leave Cannes speechless. The French director, who shocked and stunned the world’s biggest film festival in 2021 when her body horror masterpiece Titane won the Palme d’Or, returned with her latest genre-mash up, Alpha. Ducourau walked the red carpet with her cast, including Tahar Rahim, Golshifteh Farahani and Emma Mackey, with Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche and actress Vicky Krieps also in attendance. The Cannes crowd gave Ducournau and her team enthusiastic applause and quite a few cheers for the AIDS-coded horror drama about a mysterious virus and the fear and social exclusion it evokes. The home crowd continued to cheer Ducournau on through a solid 11-minute standing ovation. The story. |
Film Review: 'Once Upon a Time in Gaza' ►"A small-scale, deadpan epic with broader implications." THR's Jordan Mintzer reviews Arab and Tarzan Nasser's Cannes Un Certain Regard selection, Once Upon a Time in Gaza. The latest feature from the directors behind Gaza Mon Amour, takes place back in 2007, when Hamas seized power and Israel began its ongoing blockade. Starring Nader Abd Alhay, Majd Eid, Issa Elias and Ramzi Maqdisi. The review.
—"Too much of a new thing." Jordan reviews Julia Ducournau's Cannes competition entry, Alpha. The newest film from the Titane director is a gory period piece exploring a teenage girl’s coming of age during a deadly epidemic. Starring Mélissa Boros, Tahar Rahim, Golshifteh Farahani, Emma Mackey, Finnegan Oldfield and Louai El Amrousy. The review.
—"Smart and timely." Jordan reviews Tarik Saleh's Cannes competition entry, Eagles of the Republic. The latest feature from the writer-director of Cairo Conspiracy follows a film star who gets in over his head playing Egyptian President El-Sisi in a biopic. Starring Fares Fares, Zineb Triki, Lyna Khoudri, Amr Waked, Cherien Dabis, Ahmed Kairy, Sherwan Haji and Suhaib Nashwan. The review.
—"Artfully controlled domestic chaos." Jordan reviews Michael Angelo Covino's Splitsville. Covino and co-writer/star Kyle Marvin return to Cannes after their feature debut The Climb premiered on the Croisette six years ago with an indie comedy that puts two divorcing couples through the wringer. Starring Dakota Johnson, Adria Arjona, Kyle Marvin, Michael Angelo Covino and Nicholas Braun. The review. |
Film Review: 'Highest 2 Lowest' ►"All highs, no lows." THR's chief film critic David Rooney reviews Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest. Premiering out of competition in Cannes, Lee's film is a New York City-set reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s masterful 1963 police procedural High and Low, about an abduction and ransom plot. Starring Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, Ilfenesh Hadera, A$AP Rocky, Aubrey Joseph, Dean Winters, LaChanze and John Douglas Thompson. The review.
—"Compelling premise, uneven execution." THR's Lovia Gyarkye reviews Scarlett Johansson's Cannes Un Certain Regard selection, Eleanor the Great. Thelma actress June Squibb plays an older woman who tells a lie that takes on a life of its own in a film co-starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Erin Kellyman, Rita Zohar and Jessica Hecht. The review.
—"Adolescent angst by way of The Fast and the Furious." THR's Angie Han reviews Amazon Prime Video's Motorheads. The grease monkey drama series by John A. Norris (All American) follows a group of high schoolers restoring and racing sports cars in a tiny Rust Belt town. Starring Michael Cimino, Melissa Collazo, Nicolas Cantu, Uriah Shelton, Josh Macqueen, Mia Healey, Audrey Gerthoffer, Johnna Dias-Watson, Nathalie Kelley and Ryan Phillippe. The story.
In other news...
—SmartLess sets live taping at Avalon Hollywood
—Dag Johan Haugerud named jury head for Venice’s Giornate Degli Autori
—Regal adds 4 Imax theaters in U.S., including at L.A. Live
—THR names Heidi Linnebach vp entertainment and awards strategy
—Brody Jenner signs with UTA for music and touring
—Douglas E. Turner, Deliverance and Elephant Man sound man, dies at 93
What else we're reading...
—Lauren Feiner reports on the Take It Down Act that sailed through Congress, which focuses on deepfakes and other nonconsensual intimate images [Verge]
—Constance Grady tries to understand the public's fascination with Bill Belichick and relationship with his young girlfriend Jordon Hudson [Vox]
—In a lengthy and fascinating piece, Nick Summers looks at how Trump defeated Columbia while other colleges fought back [Intelligencer]
—Ryan Faughnder looks into what Sesame Street, Netflix and HBO Max tell us about the state of streaming [LAT]
—Kyle Buchanan spoke to Ari Aster about his new film Eddington, and how it encapsulates his fears for America and the world [NYT]
Today...
...in 2011, Disney released Rob Marshall's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in theaters. The fourth film in the Pirates franchise, Stranger Tides received mixed reviews, but still topped $1b at the global box office. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Cher (79), Mike Flanagan (47), Tony Goldwyn (65), Josh O'Connor (35), Louis Theroux (55), Timothy Olyphant (57), Robert Emms (39), Bronson Pinchot (66), N.T. Rama Rao Jr. (42), Jane Wiedlin (67), Naturi Naughton (41), Matt Czuchry (48), Jack Gleeson (33), Michaela McManus (42), Emilie Blichfeldt (34), Tahmoh Penikett (50), Constance Towers (92), John Billingsley (65), Joel Fry (40), Ray Chase (38), Alex Høgh Andersen (31), David Proval (83), Owen Teale (64), Kim Shaw (41), Matt McCoy (69), Mindy Cohn (59), Louisa Krause (39), Dean Butler (69), Dave Thomas (76), Gina Ravera (59), Daya Vaidya (45), Fra Fee (38), Yon González (39), Kyle Harris (39), Marla Sucharetza (60), Juan Minujín (50), Darya Ekamasova (41), Alice Hewkin (30) |
| Dalene Young, the screenwriter whose credits included the coming-of-age comedy-drama Little Darlings, featuring Tatum O’Neal and Kristy McNichol, and the Mary Steenburgen-starring drama Cross Creek, has died. She was 85. The obituary. |
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