| | | | | | What's news: Disney has confirmed a sequel to Lilo & Stitch. Anna Wintour is stepping down as EIC of Vogue U.S. Sony has inked a theatrical deal with Artists Equity. Neon has snapped up the U.S. rights to Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice. — Abid Rahman
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Behind Tyler Perry's Controversial Hollywood Workplace ►"On a feature with Tyler you’d shoot eight pages a day — four times what you’d normally shoot. Then on a [TV] show, it would be 25 pages." Derek Dixon’s recently filed $260m litigation against Tyler Perry alleges sexual harassment, battery and assault — claims that the Atlanta entertainment mogul has called a shakedown. THR's Gary Baum and Winston Cho write that the sensational details of the suit, however, may obscure a more prosaic assertion found in the filing, one that has long trailed Perry — that he is operating his namesake studio without standard workplace guardrails. The story.
—End of an era. In a changing of the guard at Condé Nast, Anna Wintour will step aside as the editor in chief of Vogue, which will seek a new head of U.S. editorial. Wintour isn’t leaving the company: She will continue as chief content officer for Condé Nast, as well as global editorial director of Vogue, overseeing the fashion media brand’s worldwide output. As CCO, Wintour has oversight of all of the company’s editorial brands (with the exception of The New Yorker), including GQ, Wired, Glamour and Bon Appétit. Condé Nast has been restructuring many of its marquee brands, with Vogue veteran Mark Guiducci taking the helm at Vanity Fair as global editorial director, following the exit of editor-in-chief Radhika Jones. The story.
—Burgled. A Los Angeles home reportedly owned by Brad Pitt was “ransacked” by burglars Wednesday night, according to police. Officers with the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a home in the Los Feliz neighborhood at around 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday. “Three suspects broke into the residence via the front window, ransacked the location, then fled the location with miscellaneous property,” according to police. LAPD would not identify who owned the home or the items that were stolen, but the Oscar-nominated actor reportedly bought the house for $5.5m in April 2023, according to the commercial real estate website Traded. Pitt has been on a promotional tour for his new film, F1: The Movie, in recent weeks. The story. |
Film Academy Invites 534 to Become Members ►Big intake. 2025 Academy Award winners Mikey Madison, Kieran Culkin and Lol Crawley and nominees Ariana Grande, Sebastian Stan and Brandi Carlile have been invited to become members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as have other notables including incumbent Oscars host Conan O’Brien, his predecessor Jimmy Kimmel and their respective producers; top executives Tom Quinn of Neon, Jason Ropell of Mubi, Ravi Ahuja of Sony and Shannon Ryan of Disney; plus WME president Ari Greenburg, entertainment lawyer Nina Shaw and Christian Hodell, managing partner of talent agency Hamilton Hodell. The list of 534 invitees, released Thursday morning by the Academy, is the largest one issued since 2020, the last year of a half-decade stretch in which the organization recruited huge classes of unprecedented diversity, ranging in size from 683 to a record 928, as part of its response to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy of 2015 and 2016. Subsequent classes were smaller: 395 in 2021, 397 in 2022, 398 in 2023 and 487 in 2024. The story.
—🏆 Congrats! 🏆 The Sing Sing Chronicles won the coveted title of best documentary on night two of the 2025 News & Documentary Emmy Awards. The film, from MSNBC, spotlights the connection between a journalist, Dan Slepian, and a man incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez, who was wrongfully convicted of murder. Also during the ceremony, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Jon Else was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Carrie Lozano. On Wednesday, longtime NBC Today weather anchor Al Roker also received the honor. The winners. |
Spielberg Feted at Universal Theater Dedication ►"I’m making a lot of movies and I have no plans…ever…to retire." Not far from where a replica of Jaws never stops snapping or the Jurassic Park ride always draws a long line at Universal‘s L.A. theme park, the filmmaker behind some of the other most iconic titles in Hollywood studio history — Steven Spielberg — found himself the main attraction Thursday night as a state-of-the-art theater on the adjacent studio lot was dedicated in his honor. The roster of notable executives, celebrities, old allies and creators on hand to celebrate Spielberg’s legacy included NBCUniversal Entertainment chairman Donna Langley, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and president Mike Cavanagh, as well as actors ranging from John Travolta, Vin Diesel and Seth Rogen to Colman Domingo, Dakota Fanning, Jeff Goldblum and Goonies stars Ke Huy Quan and Jeff Cohen, as well as writer-directors such as Jon M. Chu, Daniels and Kevin Williamson. The story.
—🤝 Theatrical deal. 🤝 Sony Pictures is now the theatrical home for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity. The studio has signed a three-year agreement that will see Sony distribute Artists Equity’s theatrical films globally. Sony will finance the films and handle all ancillaries, with Artists Equity having the option to co-finance individual projects. Artists Equity, run by Affleck, Damon and RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale, has upcoming features that include the action movie RIP starring Affleck and Damon, and the Affleck-directed thriller Animals, both for Netflix. Artists Equity will still develop and produce features for streaming, outside their theatrical pact with Sony. The story.
—🤝 International pact. 🤝 Amazon MGM Studios has tapped Sony to release a handful of its upcoming high-profile movies at the international box office as it goes about building its own foreign operation. Under the pact, Sony will handle overseas duties for After the Hunt, Mercy, Crime 101 and Project Hail Mary. Following those releases, Amazon MGM will directly distribute theatrical titles in territories overseas where it launches its own offices, with Sony supporting the studio in other international markets. This doesn’t include the next James Bond movie, which will be handled overseas by Universal. The story.
—🤝 Expanded deal. 🤝 In a surprise move, Disney and cable giant Charter have inked a new deal that expands their landmark 2023 carriage agreement to bring Hulu to Spectrum TV customers, while returning eight linear cable channels that had been pulled from its lineup. Back in 2023, Disney’s channels (including ESPN and ABC) went dark for Spectrum customers as the companies were unable to come to terms on a carriage deal. The new deal brings those channels back (eight, in total), to Spectrum TV lineups, while also making Hulu available to subscribers via its ad-supported tier later this summer, as well as access to ESPN’s forthcoming streaming service in the fall. The story.
—🤝 Sold! 🤝 In a major shakeup of the European television market, German broadcast giant RTL Group has signed a deal to acquire pay-TV group Sky Deutschland from Comcast. The deal includes a $176m upfront payment plus a variable component of up to a maximum of $442m, with the actual sum determined by RTL‘s share price, if it ranges between €41 and €70. Comcast can trigger the variable payment at any time within five years. By combining Sky’s subscribers across Germany, Austria and Switzerland with RTL’s own premium RTL+ service, the company can boast of a streaming service reaching 11.5m paying subscribers, leapfrogging Disney to become the third-biggest provider of streaming services in Germany after Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The story. |
'Lilo & Stitch 2' a Go at Disney ►No-brainer. Walt Disney Pictures is officially moving ahead on a sequel to the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch. The announcement was made via social media Thursday, timed to June 26, aka 6-26. That number ties to Stitch as the wild blue-haired alien is known as Experiment 626 in the movie. That a sequel is in the works was never in doubt. The first Lilo live-action movie had humble origins that are in keeping with a Stitch-like, gleeful and chaotic vibe: It was initially headed to Disney+ as an original movie for the platform before execs reconsidered its release and upgraded it to theatrical. It has since grossed over $923m worldwide on a budget of about $100m. The story.
—🤝 Sold! 🤝 Neon has reteamed with Korean director Park Chan-wook and Parasite studio CJ ENM by taking the North American rights to the violent comedy thriller No Other Choice. Korean film royalty Lee Byung-hun and Son Yejin star in the thriller about Man-soo (Lee), who is abruptly laid off by the paper company where he worked tirelessly for many years. Man-soo grows increasingly desperate in his hunt for new work, and eventually resolves to kill his job competitors. Son plays Man-soo’s wife, the warm-hearted Mi-ri. Chan-wook’s 12th movie is an adaptation of American novelist Donald Westlake’s 1996 novel The Ax. The story.
—🎭 If he can't do it, it can't be done. 🎭 Rapper turned actor and entrepreneur Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has joined the eclectic cast of Street Fighter , Legendary Entertainment’s feature adaptation of the classic Capcom video game. And what a diverse bunch it is. The call sheet ranges from A-lister Jason Momoa as Blanka to heartthrob Noah Centineo as Ken to gay country singer Orville Peck as Vega. Joe Anoa’i, aka WWE superstar Roman Reign, and martial artist-actor Andrew Koji, are on the roll call as battler Akuma and lead character Ryu, respectively. Callina Liang is playing Chun-Li. Jackson will play Balrog, a disgraced boxer who is also the bodyguard of the villain. Sources say he is deep into training for the part and will be doing his own stunts for the picture. The story. |
Lalo Schifrin 1932 - 2025 ►Music icon. Lalo Schifrin, the six-time Oscar-nominated composer, pianist and conductor renowned for his electric, jazz-infused themes and music for Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Starsky & Hutch and Bullitt, died Thursday. He was 93. Schifrin, who received an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in November 2018, died of pneumonia at a hospital in Los Angeles, his son Ryan Schifrin told THR. He lived for the past few decades in a Beverly Hills home once owned by Groucho Marx.
The workaholic Schifrin received Oscar nominations for his scores for Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Fox (1968), Voyage of the Damned (1976), The Amityville Horror (1979) and The Sting II (1983) and for the song “People Alone” from The Competition (1980). The obituary. |
'Squid Game' Finale Ends With Shock A-Lister Cameo ►Stone the bleeding crows! Fans around the world were ready for some big twists from the series finale of Netflix‘s smash-hit dystopian thriller Squid Game — but arguably no one saw this surprise coming. In the final moments of the show’s last episode, the Squid Game universe suddenly gets a lot more global, when the camera jumps to California to find a character played by none other than [Spoilers!] on the streets of Los Angeles, recruiting potential American players to enter a U.S. version of the show’s eponymous death game. (THR's full review of Squid Game season 3 is below.) The story.
—Shirtless as standard. Bert Kreischer has made five stand-up specials for Netflix, and now he’s taking the time-honored path trod by many comedians: starring in a sitcom. Kreischer will play the title role in and is a co-creator of Free Bert, a six-episode comedy the streamer has ordered. Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel co-created the show with Kreischer and will serve as showrunners, writers and directors. The cast also includes Arden Myrin, Lilou Lang and Ava Ryan. In Free Bert, Kreischer will play a version of himself — a “shirtless comedian, party legend, perpetual wildcard,” as the show’s logline puts it. He finds himself in unfamiliar territory when his daughters (Lang and Ryan) are accepted at an elite private school in Beverly Hills. When his antics turn the family into outcasts, he decides to put a shirt on and stifle his true self in order to fit in. The story.
—📅 Dated! 📅 Black Rabbit, the hotly anticipated Netflix limited series starring Jason Bateman and Jude Law as reunited brothers that centers on the city’s next hotspot restaurant and lounge (called Black Rabbit), now has a release date. The eight-episode series launches Sept. 18 on Netflix. The streamer released the first photos along with the date announcement, previewing Bateman’s new, gritty look for the thriller drama. Bateman and Law executive produce the series, with Bateman also directing. The story.
—Going out with a bang. The series finale of The Handmaid’s Tale helped bring the show one of its biggest weeks ever in Nielsen’s streaming ratings. The Hulu series based on Margaret Atwood’s novel drew 900m minutes of viewing for the week of May 26-June 1; the final episode began streaming on May 27. That’s the third-highest weekly total on record for The Handmaid’s Tale, behind the final season’s premiere week (921m minutes) and the opening week of season four in 2021 (1.04b minutes), both of which had three new episodes. (The show’s first three seasons predate Nielsen’s streaming charts.) The streaming rankings. |
The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience ►Dangerous times. Donald Trump’s latest crackdown on undocumented workers — from sweeping ICE raids to the deployment of federal troops in Los Angeles to quash pro-migrant protests — has turned America’s immigration debate into a national flashpoint. But in cinema, the immigrant story has long been front and center: a lens through which filmmakers across the globe have explored identity, resilience, dislocation — and the systems that dehumanize or deny belonging. From Ellis Island to Lampedusa, from Seoul to Senegal, filmmakers have used cinema to chart the hopes, heartbreak and quiet heroism of those who cross borders in search of something better. THR drew on cinema from every continent and spanning genres from noir to animation, satire to melodrama, for its list of the 40 best films about the immigrant experience. The list. |
TV Review: 'Squid Game' S3 ►"Exhausted and exhausting." THR's Angie Han reviews season four of Netflix's Squid Game. In the aftermath of a violent rebellion, the contestants press onward through high-stakes competitions as outside forces continue searching for the operation's mysterious location. Starring Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun, Wi Ha-joon, Park Gyu-young, Park Sung-hoon, Kang Ae-shim, Yang Dong-geun, Jo Yu-ri, Im Si-wan, Roh Jae-won and Jeon Seok-ho. The review.
—"A great cast carries it, even when twists fizzle." THR's chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg reviews Apple TV+'s Smoke. Dennis Lehane adapts the Firebug podcast about the search for a serial arsonist into a nine-episode drama series. Starring Taron Egerton, Jurnee Smollett, Greg Kinnear, Rafe Spall, John Leguizamo, Hannah Emily Anderson and Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine. The review.
—"Time to get off the road." THR's Frank Scheck reviews Jonathan Hensleigh's Ice Road: Vengeance. Joined by Fan Bingbing, Liam Neeson headlines this follow-up to his 2021 Netflix film The Ice Road. Also starring Marcus Thomas, Grace O’Sullivan, Saksham Sharma, Bernard Curry, Geoff Morrell, Mahesh Judu, Amelia Bishop, Shapoor Batliwalla, Monish Anand, Shivantha Wijesinha and CJ Bloomfield. 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 Kate Hudson. The beloved actress talks about her mom Goldie Hawn and stepdad Kurt Russell, her Oscar-nominated breakthrough in Almost Famous, the pros and cons of becoming a rom-com star with How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and what led her to TV to play a version of Lakers owner Jeanie Buss on a buzzy new Netflix comedy, Running Point. Listen here.
—Awards Chatter. In another live episode, Scott also spoke to Sam Rockwell. The Oscar-winning and Emmy- and Tony-nominated actor reflects on early milestones (Box of Moonlight, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Choke, Moon and Conviction), stage and screen collaborations with Martin McDonagh (most famously Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and his showstopping monologue in the third installment of Mike White's hit HBO show, The White Lotus. Listen here.
In other news...
—Is Emma Stone an alien in Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia trailer?
—Lorde summer officially arrives with new album Virgin
—SiriusXM goes all in on K-pop programming
—The Weeknd kicks off sold-out four-night stand in L.A.
—NBCU will bring Universal Horror Unleashed concept to Chicago
—Bill Moyers, longtime PBS and CBS journalist and documentarian, dies at 91
What else we're reading...
—Matthew Haag and Emma Goldberg profile Zohran Mamdani's parents, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mira Nair and the Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani [NYT]
—Annie Karni reports that right-wing Republicans in Congress are attacking Mamdani with openly racist and disgraceful Islamophobic comments [NYT]
—Peter Bradshaw speculates on what Denis Villeneuve joining as director of the next 007 film tells us about the new James Bond [Guardian]
—Alex Reisner reports that generative AI chatbots are an existential threat to the media, with traffic to publishers falling off a cliff [Atlantic]
—Here's your Friday list: "The 20 sexiest TV shows of all time, ranked" [THR]
Today...
...in 2008, Pixar unveiled WALL-E, a sci-fi adventure that would become a summer hit with critics and audiences. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Tony Leung Chiu-wai (63), J.J. Abrams (59), Tobey Maguire (50), Wagner Moura (49), Emma D'Arcy (33), Courtney Ford (47), Joseph Sikora (49), Isabelle Adjani (70), Drake Bell (39), Janusz Kaminski (66), Sam Claflin (39), Terry Serpico (61), Christian Kane (53), Jeremy Swift (65), Oliver Stark (34), Chandler Riggs (26), Madylin Sweeten (34), Matthew Lewis (36), Julia Duffy (74), Martin Sensmeier (40), Alanna Masterson (37), Kimiko Glenn (36), Anthony Howell (54), India de Beaufort (38), Jay Karnes (62), Shannon Purser (28), Michael Reilly Burke (61), Meera Syal (64), Emma Lahana (41), Kelley Jakle (36), Mitchell Hope (31), Erin Agostino (40), Elena Lyons (52), Sam Hoare (44), Yancey Arias (54), Martina García (44), Sistine Rose Stallone (27), Taimak (61) |
| Rick Hurst, who portrayed the good-hearted Deputy Cletus Hogg on the long-running CBS action comedy The Dukes of Hazzard, died Thursday. He was 79. The obituary. |
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