What's news: THR won big at the SoCal Journalism Awards. The Violinist won best film at Annecy. Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour will star in a Netflix spy series. Amazon has renewed Every Year After. And John Oliver has landed a guest role on General Hospital. — Abid Rahman
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Comcast to Split: NBCU/Sky Set for Spinoff |
►Seismic. In a major move, Comcast plans to separate into two independent publicly traded companies through a tax-free spin-off of NBCUniversal and Sky, the company said on Monday. Brian L. Roberts will continue to be “actively involved” in the leadership of Comcast and NBCU, working in partnership with the CEOs of both companies.
Current co-CEO Mike Cavanagh will serve as the CEO of NBCU, while Comcast’s former CFO Michael Angelakis will become the CEO of Comcast, following the completion of the separation.
NBCU is anchored by its growing theme parks division, the Universal film and television studios, the NBC and Telemundo networks, streaming service Peacock and the Bravo cable network. In addition, NBCU’s portfolio will include Sky, its European media business.
The conglomerate previously separated Versant Media, the home of most of its cable networks, in another move to create more focused businesses. The story.
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THR Tops 2026 SoCal Journalism Awards! |
►🏆 Always outnumbered, never outgunned. 🏆 THR came out on top at the 68th Southern California Journalism Awards, which were handed out at a gala ceremony Sunday night at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. THR took home 20 first-place trophies at the ceremony — more than any other outlet. The SoCal Journalism Awards honor excellence in journalism across multiple categories, including entertainment, politics, lifestyle, environmental, gender, race, sports, technology, travel, food/culture and more. The story.
—Latest. A state appeals court has upheld Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction in California while ordering him to be resentenced. The disgraced mogul is currently serving a 16-year sentence for his California conviction, the higher end of the maximum term because of his prior guilty verdict in New York. A three-judge panel of California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal found on Friday that the sentence should be revisited after that conviction was overturned. The story.
—Saga continues. Brad Pitt can sue a Russian billionaire who bought a 50 percent stake in a winery from Angelina Jolie in the wake of their messy divorce, a state appeals court has ruled. Pitt and Jolie purchased the winery in the South of France where they married, Chateau Miraval, in 2008. Jolie planned to sell her half to Pitt until negotiations broke down over his insistence that she sign an NDA barring her from publicizing allegations of abuse leading up to their split. Jolie balked at the term and struck a $64m deal with the alcohol magnate, Yuri Shefler. In 2022, Pitt filed a lawsuit, claiming that the actress reneged on an unwritten agreement. The story.
—"I’m sorry to whoever has seen that video and has been offended by it; that was never my intention." Casa Amor bombshell Alannah Keyser is breaking her silence after she was removed from Love Island USA season eight when a video resurfaced of her using the N-word. On Sunday, she took to her TikTok to address her exit and the resurfaced clip. "The video is from six years ago, and that word is just not in my vocabulary anymore," said Keyser. The story.
—New Scandoval. A video has surfaced of reality television star Tom Sandoval pushing his ex-girlfriend Victoria Lee Robinson’s father into a lit fire pit. TMZ shared the footage on Thursday, in which the Vanderpump Rules alum got into a heated conversation with Victoria and her father, J. Will Robinson. Things took a turn when Sandoval accused Victoria of filming him, and Will appeared to pull him away from his daughter. Then, in the video, Sandoval pushed Will and he toppled over the fire pit. The story.
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Brown, Harbour Reunite for Netflix Spy Drama |
►🟢 Greenest of green lights. 🟢 Netflix has given a straight-to-series pickup for a spy drama that will star Stranger Things duo Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour. The currently untitled show comes from A24 and creator Jack Thorne, the man behind Netflix's Adolescence and Enola Holmes. Harbour will play a disgraced former FBI agent turned security consultant. He’s drawn back into the world he left behind when his estranged daughter (Brown) — now an FBI agent determined to follow in his footsteps — vanishes on a mission. The story.
—Woof! The big audiences for the 2026 men’s World Cup on Fox Sports have extended to the programming around the matches. Fox’s pregame show has more than doubled its audience from the 2022 World Cup, according to Nielsen figures for the first 12 days of the tournament. Through the second round of the group stage, which concluded June 23, the pregame show is averaging a shade over 2.4m viewers, a 117 percent improvement vs. the same point in 2022 (1.11m). The story.
—Back to Barry’s Bay. Prime Video announced on Saturday that its series Every Year After has been renewed for a second season. Season two will expand the Barry’s Bay universe and follow Carley Fortune’s novel, One Golden Summer, while continuing to explore the fan favorite stories and characters from the first season. Amy B. Harris will continue to serve as showrunner with Fortune continuing to serve as an executive producer. The story.
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John Oliver Lands 'General Hospital' Role |
►Dream come true. John Oliver usually appears on TV screens late at night, but the Last Week Tonight host has long harbored a desire to appear on daytime TV. Later this week, he will. Oliver will appear in a “significant” three-episode guest role on ABC’s General Hospital, he revealed on Sunday’s episode of his late night show. His first appearance is scheduled to air Thursday, with his other episodes set for Friday and Monday, July 6. The role came about after Oliver pleaded to be cast on a daytime soap on Last Week Tonight’s March 8 episode. The story.
—"Green, smelly, good communicator though — three stars." John Oliver likened the current condition of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. to “sex with the Grinch” on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight. The newly-minted General Hospital star eviscerated the Trump-led pool debacle. "Another of Trump‘s pet projects continues to unravel,” the host said of the pool’s $15m renovation, which has become a national embarrassment. The recap.
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'Supergirl' Bombs With $38M Opening |
►Kryptonite. Toy Story 5 continued to soar at the box office, while Supergirl experienced some turbulence in its weekend debut with $38m domestically and $68m globally. Pixar‘s latest installment in its iconic animated franchise unboxed $70m in North America in its sophomore frame to retain the top spot. It dropped 56 percent after last weekend’s strong start, when it notched 2026’s biggest domestic opening thus far with $160m. Toy Story 5 now holds a domestic sum of $297.2m and $585m globally.
Ahead of its release, Warner Bros.‘ Supergirl had been eyeing a start of around $50m before coming down to earth a bit over the weekend. The superhero feature marks the second big-screen project for the planned slate from DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran, arriving a year after Superman picked up $618m globally. Supergirl received a B- CinemaScore from audiences, whereas Superman scored an A-. Reviews for Supergirl have been mixed, with THR's critic deeming it an "uninspired slog."
Also debuting this weekend in wide release was Paramount‘s Jackass: Best and Last, with the latest installment in the gross-out comedy franchise heading for a fourth-place finish. The fifth and supposedly final feature in the series picked up $8.4m domestically for a global cume of $10.3m. While previous franchise entry Jackass: Forever opened with $23.1m in February 2022, the new one has the benefit of a budget of just $10m. The box office report.
—Staying the course. DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran weighed in after Supergirl experienced some turbulence opening weekend. The executive, who leads the company with James Gunn, told the NYT on Sunday that he remains confident in the strategy and slate that the pair laid out in early 2023. “While Supergirl didn’t meet our box office expectations, it’s just one component of a broader, long-term strategy at DC Studios that we remain confident in,” Safran said. The story.
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Singapore Period Drama 'The Violinist' Wins Annecy
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►🏆 Congratulations lah! 🏆 The Violinist, a hand-drawn feature from Singapore, has won the Cristal Award for best film at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The period drama from directors Ervin Han and Raúl García traces the history of Singapore and Malaya, from 1929 to the present, as it follows two childhood friends, both gifted violinists, who lives are torn apart by war and the Japanese occupation. The film is the first Singaporean feature to play in competition at Annecy. The story.
—Tragedy. Mexican animator and illustrator Luis de la Rosa has died in a train incident while attending Annecy. He was 34. The Vancouver-based animator was struck by an express train locomotive on Wednesday evening near a downtown train station, festival organizers confirmed to THR on Friday. A police investigation has been opened to determine a cause of death. The animator was in Annecy to present his latest work, Ash Raider World, as part of the festival market. The story.
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Musk Posts Banned Film 'Citizen Vigilante' on X
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►Societal collapse latest. Alas, Elon Musk is a fan of the Armie Hammer-starrer Citizen Vigilante. After the film was banned in Germany because regulators refused to grant the film an age rating over concerns that its violent content could incite violence against immigrants, Musk posted the full movie to his X account which has more than 240m followers. The trillionaire tech oligarch made the film available to watch for 48 hours. Uwe Boll, the German filmmaker who wrote and directed Citizen Vigilante, also shared the film. While it’s no longer available on either account, the movie has since been reposted by X users. The story.
—Limbo. Jonah Hill’s upcoming comedy Cut Off, co-starring Kristen Wiig, is currently awaiting a new release date. On Friday, Puck reported that the film — which was originally slated for July 17, the same day as The Odyssey — no longer has that date because it was viewed as “unreleasable” and is now not scheduled. However, a source close to the situation tells THR that the film wrapped production in January and that Warner Bros. wants more time in the run-up to its release. THR has learned that a new release date is forthcoming. The story.
—"These industrial policies are not new." Luca Guadagnino says it wasn’t surprising Amazon MGM dropped his nearly-finished Sam Altman movie Artificial shortly after Amazon announced a $50b investment in OpenAI. “I can’t say much because we are right in the middle of this situation,” Guadagnino told Italian television. The story.
—Scribe found. Gary Dauberman, who has had a hand in the making of some of the biggest horror franchises of the past decade, has been tapped to write the script for the third installment of Blumhouse Atomic Monster and Universal’s hit video game horror adaptation Five Nights at Freddy. It is the first known creative move on the project since Freddy’s 2 opened in December and grossed $240m worldwide. Emma Tammi, who directed the first two movies and co-wrote the first one, is expected to return as director. The story.
—🎭 Stuffed with Oscar winners. 🎭 Tim Robbins and Sissy Spacek have joined Emma Stone and Chris Pine in The Catch, a romantic comedy from Universal. The two Academy Award winners add some luster to the call sheet, which already includes SNL's Ashley Padilla and comedian Druski, on top of Stone and Pine. Dave McCary, who acted as a segment director on SNL in the 2010s and is married to Stone, is helming the feature, which begins shooting in July in New York. The story.
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THR Critics Digest 'The Bear' Series Finale |
►"Was it strictly necessary?" As FX/Hulu's buzzy restaurant dramedy The Bear serves its last course, THR's award-winning TV critics Daniel Fienberg and Angie Han debate the show's lessons, its flaws and strengths, and how much they'll miss spending time in that chaotic kitchen. The conversation.
In other news...
—Prime Video drops first teaser for The Love Hypothesis
—Euphoria star Chloe Cherry to release memoir
—Michael J. Fox and creator of Nickelodeon Green Slime recognized in Order of Canada list
—Penelope Keith, British sitcom star best known for The Good Life, dies at 86
What else we're reading...
—Kejal Vyas reports that authorities in Venezuela are still searching for more than 50,000 people following the devastating double earthquakes [WSJ]
—Irin Carmon wonders if the sunny optimism of NBC's Today show can survive the Nancy Guthrie disappearance [Vulture]
—We're all rather numb to the corruption and chaos by now, but this Paul Sonne and Eric Lipton story about a Trump family billion dollar mining deal is genuinely jaw-dropping [NYT]
—Centrist Democrat Rex Huppke has some thoughts on all these recent DSA wins [USA Today]
—Khanyisile Ngcobo goes inside The Polygamist, the Netflix South African drama that is going viral worldwide over its portrayal of polygamy and infidelity [BBC]
Today...
...in 1972, Warner Bros. hosted the world premiere of Robert Redford’s political drama The Candidate at Sutton Theater in New York. The film went on to be nominated for two Oscars at the 45th Academy Awards, claiming a win for its screenplay. The original review.
Today's birthdays...
Colin Jost (44), Will Kemp (49), Melora Hardin (59), Lily Rabe (44), Bret McKenzie (50), Matthew Weiner (60), Addison Timlin (35), Sharon Lawrence (65), Luke Kirby (48), Christina Chang (55), Nicole Scherzinger (48), Camila Mendes (32), Amanda Donohoe (64), Zuleikha Robinson (49), Adam Sevani (34), Brian d'Arcy James (58), Tom Weston-Jones (39), Sarah Power (41), Riley Stearns (40), Katherine Jenkins (🏴46)
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