| | | | | | What's news: Ryan Coogler is having the greatest morning of his life. 800 film industry professionals have slammed the Iranian government over recent deadly protests. Netflix has canceled The Abandons and The Vince Staples Show. Christina Hodson will pen the Batman movie The Brave and the Bold. And Peak TV is well and truly over, with the number of original TV series declining for the third year in 2025. — Abid Rahman
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Oscar Nominations 2026 ►🏆 Congratulations to all! 🏆 The 2026 Academy Award nominations have been revealed, and Ryan Coogler's Sinners (16) and Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another (13) lead the way. Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman announced this year’s nominees in 24 categories, including the new casting award, in a live presentation from the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The nominees.
—Woof! Sinners’ remarkable run hasn’t finished just yet. Coogler’s genre-busting drama amassed 16 Oscar nominations this morning, the most for any movie in history — topping the previous record shared by 1950’s All About Eve and 2016’s La La Land. The story.
—Lindo! Plemmons! Infiniti! Hudson! As always the Oscar nominations had plenty of surprises, a few notable snubs and some brutal shutouts. Among the surprises were Sinners star Delroy Lindo righting the wrong of his Da 5 Bloods shutout with supporting nod, and Kate Hudson scoring a best actress shout for Song Sung Blue. OBAA's Chase Infiniti missing out on best actress can be counted as a snub, as can Jesse Plemons (Bugonia) and Paul Mescal (Hamnet) missing out on acting noms. And of course, poor Jon M. Chu's Wicked: For Good, was Shut Out City, with a whopping 0 noms. The snubs, surprises and shutouts.
—Nossa! The streak continues. Last year, I’m Still Here became the first Brazilian film ever to be nominated for the best picture Oscar. This year, The Secret Agent has become the second. It’s an astounding turn of events with the Academy Awards, given that until I’m Still Here, Brazil had been shut out of the Oscars’ best international film (formerly best foreign-language film) category for decades, going back to 1998’s Central Station. The story.
—Wonder woman. Emma Stone‘s two 2026 Oscar nominations on Thursday — best picture for producing and best actress for starring in Bugonia — broke a few Oscar records. The 37-year-old has become the second-youngest person — and the youngest woman — in Oscar history to accumulate seven nominations. Stone also became the first woman to be nominated twice for producing and acting in a single film. The story.
—Trailblazers. This year marks the first time that the Film Academy will present an honor for best casting, with the inaugural nominees as Nina Gold (Hamnet), Jennifer Venditti (Marty Supreme), Cassandra Kulukundis (One Battle After Another), Gabriel Domingues (The Secret Agent) and Francine Maisler (Sinners). The story. |
Hollywood Stars Launch One of the First Big Anti-AI Campaigns ►"Theft on a grand scale." Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are among the big Hollywood names backing a campaign blasting tech companies for training generative AI tools on copyrighted works without express permission. The “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” campaign from the Human Artistry Campaign, which launches Thursday, protests tech companies’ alleged mass theft of human-created works in order to produce tools that could theoretically compete with real creatives. The Human Artistry Campaign debuted the awareness campaign and revealed more than 700 supporters behind it, while The New York Times ran an ad for the push. The story.
—Proxy fight kicks off. David Ellison and Paramount will continue to battle for Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount on Thursday said that it had filed preliminary proxy materials in anticipation of a proxy fight, and extended its deadline for WBD shareholders to tender their shares to the company for another month. Earlier this week, Netflix changed its deal to acquire Warner Bros. to be all-cash valued at $27.75 per share (plus the Discovery Global spinoff “stub”), but despite that change Paramount says that it is sticking with its $30 per share offer for the whole company. The story.
—Moving fast. With its deal to have its U.S. operation acquired by a consortium of U.S. investors just days away, TikTok is making an aggressive move to court Hollywood, planning an expansive presence at the Sundance Film Festival. The social video platform Wednesday said that it was launching a pair of new ad products: Streaming Ads and New Title Launch, both geared toward Hollywood, using Sundance as a jumping off point. The story.
—This guy again. The Federal Communications Commission and its outspoken commissioner Brendan Carr are taking aim at daytime talk shows like ABC’s The View and late night shows like NBC’s Tonight Show. The FCC said Wednesday that it is clarifying its guidance on its political equal time rules, a change that could end long-standing exemptions for interviews with politicians on shows like The View, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show and The Late Show. Many of those shows, most notably The View, frequently include guests from the world of politics. The story. |
Taylor Swift, Alanis Morissette Join 2026 Songwriters Hall of Fame Class ►Legends all. Taylor Swift, Alanis Morissette, Kenny Loggins and Walter Afanasieff will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on June 11 in New York City. Other 2026 inductees are Terry Britten and Graham Lyle, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons of KISS and Christopher “Tricky” Stewart. To qualify for the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction, artists have to have penned a major catalog of songs with successful commercial releases. Additional special award honorees for the 2026 gala will be announced soon. The story.
—Full house. The entire slate of this year’s best new artist nomination class will perform for a special segment for the upcoming Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy announced Wednesday. Young buzzing stars Olivia Dean, Leon Thomas, Alex Warren, Katseye, Addison Rae, Sombr, Lola Young and The Marias are all performing for a best new artist segment, live from the Crypto.com Arena on February 1 during the Grammys telecast. The story.
—🤝 Sold! 🤝 In a deal that feels both strategic and oddly overdue, The Only Agency — the high-powered styling firm founded by Kent Belden and home to celebrity stylist Law Roach — has acquired The Daily Front Row, the cult fashion publication that’s been chronicling (and canonizing) the industry’s insiders for more than two decades. Founded in 2002 by IMG (now part of WME), The Daily Front Row began life as a physical newspaper handed out during New York Fashion Week. Over the years, it evolved into something rarer: a fashion publication that treats editors, influencers and industry power players like bona fide celebrities, tracking their every move alongside runway reports, beauty coverage and designer interviews. The story.
—🏆 Champion yappers. 🏆 Call Her Daddy, Crime Junkie, Pod Save America and more have been nominated for the 2026 Ambies award for best podcast. Other contenders include Pablo Torre Finds Out, Question Everything, Reveal and The Last Invention. Wisecrack, a six-part podcast series that combines investigative true crime with stand up comedy, leads the nominations list with five nods. The Ambies, presented by the Podcast Academy, will honor 227 nominees across 33 categories, including six new categories: podcast advertiser innovator award, best ad read, best branded podcast, best emerging podcast, best use of video in a podcast and Vanguard podcaster of the year. The nominees. |
800 Film Professionals Condemn Iran for Protest Killings ►"The Islamic Republic has chosen not to listen to the voices of its people, but to respond with live ammunition, mass killings, widespread arrests, torture, enforced disappearances." Some 800 film professionals, including Oscar winners Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard and director Yorgos Lanthimos, have signed a joint statement condemning the Iranian government’s brutal crackdown on protestors, calling out Tehran’s killing and torturing of its own people. “We, the undersigned, with anger, grief, and a deep sense of moral responsibility, condemn in the strongest possible terms the organised crimes committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran against protesting civilians,” reads the statement. The story.
—"Nothing in our recent history compares to this moment of reckoning." For THR, Dan Bilefsky spoke to Iranian-British actress Nazanin Boniadi about the recent protests in Iran. With thousands feared dead and information tightly controlled, Boniadi warns that inaction will only embolden repression. The interview. |
THR's European Cinema Roundtable ►"We are kidnapped by the films." THR's award-winning Roundtable Series continues, next up are the European filmmakers. THR's Scott Roxborough sat down with Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value), Masha Schilinski (Sound of Falling), Oliver Laxe (Sirât) and Jafar Panahi‘s (It Was Just an Accident ) for a wide-ranging discussion on whether filmmaking is inherently political, how trauma echoes across generations, and why cinema — especially on the big screen — still matters. The roundtable.
—🤝 Sold! 🤝 THR's Hilary Lewis has the scoop that Tribeca Films has acquired the documentary We Are Pat, focused on the legacy of the androgynous Saturday Night Live character played by Julia Sweeney. The film, directed by Rowan Haber, premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival and earned a special jury mention for new documentary director. Tribeca Films, the distribution label from Tribeca Enterprises and Giant Pictures, will release the doc digitally in June. We Are Pat features Haber and a number of queer and trans comedians and writers, including Sweeney, exploring the significance of “It’s Pat,” more than 35 years after the character first appeared in an SNL sketch. The story.
—🎭 Lead in place. 🎭 Sydney Sweeney is set to star in a forthcoming literary adaptation after her latest one, The Housemaid, was a big success. Sweeney will produce and star in the feature Custom of the Country for StudioCanal and Rabbit’s Foot Films. Josie Rourke directs the film from her own script that adapts author Edith Wharton’s classic 1913 novel. Sweeney will star as Undine Spragg, an ambitious Midwestern woman seeking to climb the social ladder in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. A series adaptation from Sofia Coppola was in the works at Apple TV in 2020, but Coppola explained in a 2024 interview that her project was no longer moving forward. The story.
—Writer reveal. Christina Hodson, known for her work in the big IP and action spaces, is working on a Batman movie for DC Studios. The Brit scribe is writing The Brave and the Bold, the feature project that is centered on Batman and Robin. Robin, in this version, is Damian Wayne, the murderous tween raised by assassins who also happens to be the son Batman never knew he had. It is unclear how far along is Brave and the Bold in the writing process. One source said Hodson had been working on the project since at least the fall. Another source said that it would be some time before a definitive draft comes in as the studio is taking a measured approach to its development. The story.
—🎭 Filling out. 🎭 Love and diplomacy are in the air again as sequel feature Red, White & Royal Wedding begins production. Amazon MGM Studios announced the full cast Wednesday for director Jamie Babbit’s movie follow-up to its 2023 queer romance Red, White & Royal Blue . Stars Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine were previously confirmed to reprise their roles after originating them in director Matthew López’s initial film that adapted author Casey McQuiston’s 2019 novel. The castmembers who have been newly confirmed to return from the first movie include Uma Thurman, Sarah Shahi, Rachel Hilson, Ellie Bamber, Clifton Collins Jr., Stephen Fry, Thomas Flynn, Aneesh Sheth and Malcolm Atobrah. Newcomers to the cast include Henry Ashton and Alex Høgh Andersen. The story. |
TV Series Count Declines for Third Straight Year ►Past the peak. If the period from the mid-2010s to about 2022 was the Peak TV Era, the industry is currently — and firmly — in the midst of its Downslope Days. The number of original series running on networks and streaming services in 2025 was down for the third straight year since a high in 2022. According to a year-end report from data firm Luminate, 1,122 shows premiered last year, an 11 percent drop from the 1,266 premieres in 2024. Since hitting a high of 1,695 shows in 2022, per Luminate, the TV landscape (excluding live sports and news programming) has shrunk by a third. The story.
—📅 Dated! 📅 Reality fans rejoice, MomTok is coming back to television screens sooner than you think. Hulu’s reality hit The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is officially returning for season four on March 12. In a first-look teaser, the Utah-based influencers turned reality stars are finally sharing a behind-the-scenes look at their recent ventures ranging from The Bachelorette to Dancing With The Stars. The series centers around MomTok, a group of young women made up of castmembers Taylor Frankie Paul (also next season’s Bachelorette lead for ABC), Whitney Leavitt, Layla Taylor, Jen Affleck, Mikayla Matthews, Mayci Neeley, Jessi Draper, Miranda Hope and Demi Engemann. The story.
—Condolences to Prue Believers worldwide. Long-serving Great British Baking Show judge Prue Leith is leaving the series. Leith announced her departure in an Instagram post, writing that “After nine series and judging more than 400 challenges, I have decided to step down as a judge on The Great British Bake Off. Bake Off has been a fabulous part of my life for the last nine years, I have genuinely loved it and I’m sure I’ll miss working with my fellow judge Paul [Hollywood], Alison [Hammond] and Noel [Fielding] and the teams at Love Productions and Channel 4. But now feels like the right time to step back (I’m 86 for goodness sake!).” The story. |
Netflix Abandons 'The Abandons' ►Brutal. Netflix has canceled Western drama The Abandons and the comedy series The Vince Staples Show. The Abandons, from Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter, was abandoned after just one season. The western drama set in the 1850s starred Lena Headey and Gillian Anderson. It will be remembered for Sutter’s early exit: he departed as showrunner with just a few weeks of filming left citing "creative differences." Vince Staples Show, starring the rapper/actor as a fictionalized version of himself, managed two seasons before getting the chop. The story.
—Family affair. Staying with Netflix, the streamer has given Hot Mess podcaster Alix Earle her own reality show, which is set to debut this year. The presently untitled “all-access unscripted series” will feature Earle’s “modern family,” per Netflix, “including her sister, creator and trendsetter Ashtin Earle, alongside her vibrant group of friends.” Ashtin Earle, is a digital creator/influencer has her own rapidly growing online following quickly approaching 2m. The story.
—Quick as you like. Amazon Prime Video will continue to explore the formative years of Elle Woods. The streamer has given an early second season pickup to Elle, a Legally Blonde prequel series that follows the title character (played by Lexi Minetree) as a high school student. Prime Video has also set a July 1 premiere date for season one. Elle scored a series order in May 2024, with Reese Witherspoon — who played the character in two Legally Blonde movies in the early 2000s — among its executive producers. Minetree was cast in the title role Feburary 2025; June Diane Raphael, Tom Everett Scott, Gabrielle Policano, Jacob Moskovitz, Chandler Kinney and Zac Looker also star. The story.
—Who watches the watchers? What if you could not only watch the 2026 World Cup this summer, but also watch other people watch the World Cup? That’s the idea behind a forthcoming YouTube show hosted by Trevor Noah. The comedian and former Daily Show anchor will host a live World Cup watch party during some 25 matches in the tournament, which begins in June in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Noah will share a couch with “friends, elite footballers and top digital creators” while watching and providing commentary and conversation on the games. The story. |
'Magic Mike Live' Comes to New York ►📅 Start saving up those dollar bills. 📅 Magic Mike Live is coming to New York City this fall. Created and directed by Channing Tatum, the star of the Magic Mike films, a new production of the show will play a custom-built venue near Times Square (268 W. 47th Street) starting Oct. 8, ahead of an Oct. 22 opening night. Versions of the show, featuring male strippers, are also playing in Vegas and London. The 90-minute show is described as a combination of “world-class dance, athleticism, and acrobatics, layered with music and comedy, grounded in a message of confidence, celebration, and empowerment." The story.
—Slow months. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child continued its reign as the top-grossing show on Broadway, as the play brought in $2.65m. The show, which currently features Tom Felton from the Harry Potter film series, played to 98 percent capacity with an average ticket price of $207. Hamilton was the second highest grossing with $2.1m, followed by Wicked with $1.942m. Mamma Mia was hot on its heels with $1.941m, as the musical revival nears the end of its Broadway run at the Winter Garden Theatre. The show is scheduled to play its final performance Feb. 1, before Death of a Salesman, starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf moves into the space. The Broadway box office report. |
TV Review: 'The Beauty' ►"Enjoy, but don't think too hard." THR's chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg reviews FX and Hulu's The Beauty. Ryan Murphy’s satirical body horror thriller series stars Evan Peters, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, Ashton Kutcher, Bella Hadid, Isabella Rossellini and Rebecca Hall. Created by Ryan Murphy and Matthew Hodgson. The review.
—"As funny as you’re expecting, but wildly emotional, too." Daniel reviews HBO's Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man! Directed by Mike Bonfiglio and Judd Apatow, the four-part docuseries celebrates the Blazing Saddles auteur, his friendship with Carl Reiner and his marriage to Anne Bancroft. The review.
—"New depth but not new humor from the popular comic." Daniel reviews Netflix's Free Bert. Bert Kreischer plays Bert Kreischer in the six-part series about a stand-up comic who tries to change his ways to help his family. Starring Bert Kreischer, Arden Myrin, Ava Ryan, Lilou Lang, Christine Horn, Chris Witaske, Mandell Maughan and Sophia Reid-Gantzert. Created by Bert Kreischer, Jarrad Paul and Andy Mogel. The review.
—"Hardly medal-worthy." THR's Angie Han reviews Netflix's Finding Her Edge. The overlooked middle daughter of an athletic dynasty finds herself torn between her new ice skating partner, a brash but talented bad boy, and her ex, now their rival in competition. Starring Madelyn Keys, Alexandra Beaton, Alice Malakhov, Harmon Walsh, Cale Ambrozic, Meredith Forlenza, Olly Atkins and Millie Davis. Developed by Shelley Scarrow and Jeff Norton, based on the book by Jennifer Iacopelli. The review. |
Film Review: 'Mercy' ►"As exciting as watching 90 minutes of surveillance footage." THR's Frank Scheck reviews Timur Bekmambetov's Mercy. This action thriller is about a man on trial for murder who has to prove his innocence to an artificial intelligence judge. Starring Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Annabelle Wallis, Chris Sullivan and Kylie Rogers. Written by Marco van Belle. The review.
In other news...
—Nicholas Galitzine’s He-Man is stuck in corporate America in Masters of the Universe trailer
—The Night Agent returns with action-packed S3 trailer
—TV writer Raelle Tucker sets debut novel in 2-book deal
—Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady set new video podcast series Cousins
—Select Management launches Canada office
—Jordi Hays and John Coogan’s TBPN signs with CAA
—Painter Amy Sherald signs with CAA
What else we're reading...
—José de Córdoba, Vera Bergengruen and Deborah Acosta have the scoop that the U.S. is actively seeking regime change in Cuba by the end of the year [WSJ]
—Mark Gurman reports that Apple is set to revamp Siri as a built-in iPhone/Mac chatbot to fend off OpenAI [Bloomberg]
—Anna Merlan is of the opinion that image-based abuse predates Elon Musk’s sleazy Grok, but AI is making it worse [Mother Jones]
—Esther Zuckerman writes that Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme has a lot to say about being Jewish in America [NYT]
—Ezra Marcus digs into what really happened at Horses, the controversial L.A. restaurant that closed in 2021 amid a blaze of wild allegations [Grub Street]
Today...
...in 1992, Alexandre Rockwell’s indie comedy In the Soup, starring Steve Buscemi, Seymour Cassel and Jennifer Beals, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before going on to take the top festival jury prize. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Diane Lane (61), Jim Jarmusch (73), Gabriel Macht (54), O-T Fagbenle (45), Linda Blair (67), Tim Dillon (41), Guy Fieri (58), Daryl McCormack (33), Michael Cristofer (81), Olivia d'Abo (57), Beverley Mitchell (45), James Murray (51), Raquel Cassidy (58), Sami Gayle (30), John Wesley Shipp (71), Balthazar Getty (51), Rishi Nair (35), August Wittgenstein (45), Katie Finneran (55), Jennifer Spence (49), Willa Ford (45), Lee Jun-young (29), Katie Barberi (54), Mara Davi (42), Kevin Sheridan (44), Matt Iseman (55), Keeley Karsten (16) |
| Bruce Bilson, the Emmy-winning director who worked on such series as The Andy Griffith Show, Get Smart and Hogan’s Heroes as a member of a four-generation Hollywood family, has died. He was 97. The obituary. |
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