| | | | | | Prepare for an insufferably polarized box office debate about a film that may earn $8 million in its bow. Elsewhere, The Weekender has cinematic news cycle snapshots, magazine deep-cuts and narratives to follow. — Erik Hayden
+ Ticker: Joe Carnahan's legal war; Ben Swinburne's Disney gig; Russo Bros.' layoffs; Brian Robbins' Big Shot; Adam Aron's sale.
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Making Melania Inside the highly unorthodox road to theaters for the lightning rod project as the director opens up about his involvement ( "I didn’t do this to get me back into Hollywood") and Trump signals her lifestyle mogul ambitions. Both Brett Ratner and Melania Trump give their first on-the-record interviews about the movie. Benjamin Svetkey's report. + THR 's review: "The expensive propaganda doc is glossily shot and lushly scored, although for some reason Ratner keeps inserting segments shot on what looks like Super 8 film, as if to infuse the Trumps with some of that Kennedy-era aura." |
Safdie Mudslinging For the past year, rumors have swirled surrounding the nature of the professional split of Benny and Josh Safdie, brothers and directors who together made defining A24 films of the 2010s, like Good Time and Uncut Gems. Two tabloid reports threw gas on the fire this week. But there's more to the story. David Canfield's report. |
In Memoriam Catherine O'Hara, 1954-2026
"She turned out to be a perfect performer for any era. And I mean ANY era. One thing that’s striking if you watch the clips from SCTV that are floating around YouTube is that O’Hara could do anything. SCTV let her sing, dance, explode with zaniness and offer quiet support. Put a young Catherine O’Hara in the 1930s and she would have been a screwball comedy star without equal, which I’m not just saying because O’Hara’s Katharine Hepburn impression was one of her very best bits. Put a middle-aged O’Hara in the ’50s or ’60s and one can only imagine what Billy Wilder might have written for her." Daniel Fienberg's appreciation.
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Odessa Supreme In I Love LA, she’s a manic TikTok striver. In Marty Supreme, she’s a combustible climber keeping up with Timothée Chalamet. In reality, Hollywood’s newest It Girl Odessa A’zion is a baggy jeans-wearing homebody with three roommates, seven pets and a complicated family legacy. Seija Rankin's cover story. |
Apple Chief Speaks Speaking with THR just before the Grammys, Apple Music, TV+ and Sports chief Oliver Schusser details Apple's new fraud policy and how AI music influenced the decision, as well as why Bad Bunny was the right choice for the Super Bowl, despite backlash. Ethan Millman's interview.
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Quoted "I will not be silenced. I look forward to my day in court." — Don Lemon, to reporters outside a L.A. courthouse after his arrest over an incident at a Minnesota church ICE protest. "Our goal is to ambitiously scale that vision and grow Track Star into the MTV of today." — Rolling Stone heir Gus Wenner, upon launching his venture capital firm backing the popular music show. "We’ve been given exclusive postcards promoting the new Beatles movies!" — Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, on stashing the first-look photos of the Fab Four in Sony's four biopic movies throughout the city. "This project is a glimpse at what thoughtful, creative, artist-led use of AI can look like." — Ben Bitonti, president of Time Studios, on Darren Aronofsky's AI Revolutionary War series, aka "high-end AI slop."
"Wild Things proves that even Siegfried & Roy’s story can be told without repeating the same cruel animal exploitation." — Lauren Thomasson, PETA’s head of animals in film and TV, after claiming the Apple TV show will use only CGI tigers. |
Ratings Mystery According to HBO’s first-party data, Heated Rivalry is averaging 9 million viewers per episode in the U.S. One place it hasn’t yet shown up, however, is in Nielsen’s streaming charts. The ratings provider has released data for all five weeks of the show’s run, but in none of those did the series crack the top 10. Why is that? Rick Porter explains. |
A Few Questions for... Mel Brooks, Hollywood legend I'm very excited about the Spaceballs sequel. Were you the one who got Rick Moranis to come out of retirement? I did. How? "I said, 'Look, do you want to go to your grave without ever coming back to show business again in any way?' Then I said, 'This is the way. This is the only way. Spaceballs, Dark Helmet — that's your re-entrance.' I got him to do it. He's never been better. He's even better than in the first edition. He's so good. He's a strange, wonderful, lovely guy and a very talented comic."
Seth Abramovitch's full Q&A.
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Oscars '70s Vibes The similarities between then and now are hardly an accident. Those great '70s movies grew out of the desperation and dysfunction of the studio system at the time, which opened the door to visionaries with something to say. The desperation and dysfunction these days comes with a lot more Wall Street and techno-dystopia. Steven Zeitchik's column. |
Treasure Keeper Amy Homma, who has served as the Academy Museum’s director and president since 2024 and will now also oversee the Academy Collection, made up of some 52 million film-related items, gets candid on the Hollywoodland exhibit and YouTube deal. Scott Feinberg's Q&A. |
The Dress Code Take note: SAG-AFTRA’s Actor Awards now have a dress code. "For the very first time I can recall, starting at WWD in the early ’90s, an awards red carpet will have a specific theme, created by Elle, which has partnered with the Actor Awards for the occasion in a 'landmark collaboration.'" Merle Ginsberg's report. |
Around Town Annabel O' Hagan, Kyle MacLachlan and Frances Turner celebrated the season two finale of Fallout in Las Vegas. Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie brought Wuthering Heights to Hollywood. Ben Watkins, Jeanine Mason and Matthew Lillard debuted the second season of Prime Video's Cross in L.A. Jonathan Roumie, Kevin James and Kim Coates brought their film Solo Mio to NYC. Steve Young, Jerry Rice and Joe Montana walked the carpet at the San Francisco premiere of docuseries Rise of the 49ers on Tuesday. All 20 photos from this week's premieres and parties. |
So Long “ Boulder won’t replace Park City, but it can create its own kind of magic. The festival’s heart can thrive anywhere it’s nurtured,” writes the head of UTA's Independent Film Group, Rena Ronson, of Sundance. "It sounds insane, and it was, but that intensity was oddly part of the magic." Guest column. |
The Bottom Line Snapshots from THR's team of critics: Walter Thompson-Hernández's Sundance coming-of-age drama If I Go Will They Miss Me is "bold, ambitious and thrillingly emotional." Petra Volpe's prison drama Frank & Louis is "restrained but affecting and superbly acted." Adam Meeks' docudrama Union County , starring Will Poulter and Noah Centineo, is "low-key to a fault, but bristles with authenticity." Jonny Campbell's sci-fi horror feature with Liam Neeson, Cold Storage, is "not quite infectious but not totally deadly either." Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr.'s road trip movie The Shitheads is "a movie that’s way better than its first impression." David Borenstein and Pasha Talankin's Oscar-nominated doc Mr. Nobody Against Putin is "a small but moving act of resistance in itself. **Read this far? You'll probably appreciate THR's latest 76-page glossy magazine (flip through it here). And it's even better in print. |
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