| | | | | | What's news: UMG and TikTok have agreed a new licensing deal. Paul Walter Hauser has joined the cast of the Naked Gun reboot. Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close are teaming up once more for a comedy feature. Rosie O'Donnell will feature in S3 of And Just Like That. Amazon is adapting Colleen Hoover's bookVerity. Lifetime has released a trailer for its Nicole Brown Simpson doc. — Abid Rahman
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Schneider Sues 'Quiet on Set' Producers for Defamation ►"For the sake of clickbait, ratings, and views." Dan Schneider has sued Investigation Discovery for defamation over his portrayal in Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, accusing the company of falsely implying that he sexually abused children who worked on the Nickelodeon series he created and ran. Schneider, in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, says his depiction in the five-part docuseries is a “hit job.” While it’s true that two child sexual abusers worked on network shows, he says he had “no knowledge of their abuse,” condemned it and “was not a child sexual abuser himself.” The story.
—New date. Harvey Weinstein is looking at a new trial in New York after Labor Day. The disgraced movie mogul appeared in court in New York Wednesday for the first time since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned. Judge Curtis Farber set a May 29 hearing for discovery and for prosecutors to file a certificate of compliance. If the certificate is filed by that date, the judge anticipated that a trial will begin sometime after Labor Day. The story.
—🤝 Good news for TikTok, finally! 🤝 Universal Music Group and TikTok have announced a new “multi-dimensional licensing agreement” that will bring to an end a months-long and very public dispute over royalties that saw music from UMG artists such as Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Drake pulled from the social media platform. Under the agreement, UMG says that its “global family of artists, songwriters and labels and will return their music” to TikTok. The story.
—🤝 Data deal 🤝 SAG-AFTRA has cut a deal with Nielsen to be a third-party provider of streaming content measurement. The Nielsen data — from its Streaming Content Ratings service — will "complement first-party data from streaming platforms." When SAG-AFTRA cut a deal with the studios in November to end the actors strike, it included a streaming bonus for shows that are bona fide hits. The deal saw the streamers agree to release some data privately to the union to help gauge what shows are hits, and which are not. The story. |
Study: Sex in Movies Has Dropped Sharply ►Prude era. A new study has found that the amount of sex in major theatrical films has dramatically declined this century, but that individual instances are more graphic than ever before. A study by film data analyst Stephen Follows tracked sex and nudity in major live-action films — with each instance ranked on a scale from “none” to “severe” — found the level of sex content in cinema has fallen by almost 40 percent. The number of films with no sexual content at all has risen from 20 percent per year to roughly 50 percent. The story.
—🤝 Unscripted JV 🤝 Tyler Perry Studios and unscripted production company Asylum Entertainment Group have launched a joint venture to develop and produce unscripted series for the world market. As part of their creative partnership, Antoinetta Stallings has been named vp of unscripted programming for the Madea filmmaker’s Atlanta-based studio, and will work alongside Asylum to produce unscripted formats. Stallings’s credits include 106 & Park, Rising Icons, Black Girls Rock, Grand Designs and Fox’s dating game show Take Me Out. The story.
—Hungry for more. Hospitality company The h.wood Group is launching a multimedia production arm. The group behind popular L.A. spots Delilah, Bootsy Bellows and Bird Streets Club have created h.wood Media that is looking to harness their industry connections. Partner Jeremy Allen will oversee the film and TV slate from development to studio projects, and former HBO exec Emma Slivers serves as director of development. The company says it is working on projects with Kid Cudi, Machine Gun Kelly, Post Malone, and more. The story. |
Stone, Fielder and A24 Reteam for Carlsen-Niemann Chess Scandal Story ►Absolute pin. THR's Borys Kit has the big scoop on A24 beating the studios and streamers to Checkmate, a hot feature package centered on a book proposal by The Social Network author Ben Mezrich. The film is about the infamous chess cheating scandal from September 2022 that arose from a match between Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann that rocked the world of chess. If deals close, The Curse's Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder will be involved in the project, the former as a producer and the latter as director. The story.
—🎭 We want more PWH! 🎭 Paul Walter Hauser is ready to fight crime alongside Liam Neeson in the reboot of the Naked Gun franchise. Hauser is set to play Captain Ed in director Akiva Schaffer’s untitled new Naked Gun film that Paramount Pictures plans to release July 18, 2025. George Kennedy previously played the role in the original film trilogy that kicked off with the 1988 comedy The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! The story.
—🎭 Fourth time's a charm 🎭 Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close are reteaming once more for retirement home comedy Encore. The actors, who co-starred in Reversal of Fortune, as well as the Broadway play The Real Thing and the 1993 film The House of Spirits, will play two former Broadway icons, Marie and Nigel, who become residents of a retirement home. Once there, they discover a community of forgotten talents and Marie decides to put on a show. My Week with Marilyn's Simon Curtis is directing and Henry Winkler and Don Johnson are attached to co-star. The story.
—It's happening. Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel Verity is getting the Hollywood treatment. Amazon MGM Studios is developing a feature adaptation of the novel, with Eat the Cat’s Nick Antosca and Alex Hedlund on board to produce. Hillary Seitz is currently writing the script. Verity was self-published in 2018 before being acquired by Grand Central Publishing in 2021. It grew into a phenomenon, spending months on The New York Times bestsellers list and selling more than 1m copies in 2023 alone. The story.
—📅 Dated 📅 The long gestating, live-action Masters of the Universe film is finally getting a release date. Amazon MGM Studios has dated the Mattel film, which Travis Knight is directing from a script by Chris Butler, for a June 5, 2026 worldwide theatrical release. Other films set for June 2026 include Toy Story 5 and the untitled Universal movie from Everything Everywhere All at Once duo Daniels. The story. |
Sandra Lee Is Back on TV ►"Everybody’s got to eat." THR's Mikey O'Connell spoke to Sandra Lee, the doyenne of pantry hacks, who discusses her new Roku show Dinner Budget Showdown. Lee also talks about the lessons from her tenure as the de facto First Lady of New York, "tablescape" pushback and sharing a name with Dr. Pimple Popper. The interview.
—"It’s been 30 years. Maybe it’s time to rekindle the flame of Nicole." Lifetime has officially announced its forthcoming docuseries on Nicole Brown Simpson, timed to the 30-year anniversary of her death. Titled The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and billed as an explosive two-night event, the four-part series will premiere June 1 and 2 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Lifetime has also released a trailer for the docuseries. The trailer.
—Dominance. With the Netflix Is A Joke Festival underway, the streamer has announced its slate of seven upcoming comedy specials. The lineup includes specials from Ali Wong, Michelle Buteau, Bert Kreischer, Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Jo Koy, Dean Cole and Fortune Feimster. Like the festival itself, the collection is an overt flex of Netflix’s dominance in the standup arena, even as HBO has been muscling its way back in with buzzy hours from Ramy Youssef and Alex Edelman. The story.
—🎭 Sibling sizzler 🎭 Elizabeth Banks and Jessica Biel are going to play siblings in a new Amazon Prime Video series. The streamer has handed out a series order for The Better Sister, based on the book of the same name by Alafair Burke. The thriller revolves around Chloe (Biel), who moves through the world with her lawyer husband Adam and teenage son Ethan by her side, while her estranged sister Nicky (Banks) hustles to make ends meet while trying to stay clean. When Adam is brutally murdered, the prime suspect sends shockwaves through the family. The story.
—🎭 "Here comes Mary" 🎭 Rosie O’Donnell is joining the cast for season three of Max’s And Just Like That. The comedian shared on her Instagram Wednesday the front cover of the script for the upcoming season’s premiere episode of the Sex and the City spinoff. The photo also reveals her character name is Mary, as well as the episode’s title, “Outlook Good,” which will be written and directed by executive producer Michael Patrick King. The story.
—🎭 Mystery in the sun 🎭 Niamh Algar and Tom Hollander head the cast of Iris, a Sky original thriller series that will begin filming this month in Sardinia, Italy. The eight-episode series follows "a rootless but enigmatic genius, Iris Nixon (Algar) who steals a code from a charming philanthropist (Hollander) before vanishing." Luther creator Neil Cross will serve as writer, creator and showrunner, while Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul helmer Terry McDonough will be lead director. The story.
—"He is the reason I am here and have stayed here for all these years." Art Moore, who has been with ABC for 53 years and is currently the executive in charge of production for Live! With Kelly and Mark and its earlier iterations, is retiring. The vp of programming at WABC-TV has been with the network since 1966 and will leave in the fall at the start of the new TV season. Moore made the announcement on Wednesday’s Live! but co-host Kelly Ripa wasn’t ready to accept it. The story. |
'Fall Guy' to Kick Off Summer Box Office After Brutal Late Spring ►A Guy for all seasons. David Leitch's action-comedy The Fall Guy isn’t the normal kind of stunt Hollywood usually relies on to herald the start of the summer box office, but these aren’t normal times, writes THR's Pamela McClintock. For years, a superhero pic, invariably a Marvel Studios offering, marked the start of the summer moviegoing season, but that all changed with the pandemic and Hollywood's historic labor strikes. The box office report.
—"Nasty work." A line of dialogue in The Fall Guy is already causing some controversy among some viewers, prior to it opening in theaters. In the film, Hannah Waddingham’s character, Gail Meyer, at one point makes a reference to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's turbulent relationship. In the scene, Waddingham, who plays an executive producer in the movie, reportedly walks into a trailer while looking disheveled and tells director Jody Moreno (Blunt), "It’s like Amber and Johnny were just in here." The story. |
Airbnb Goes Hollywood ►"We want to be in the business not just of places to stay, but experiences and more." THR's Alex Weprin reports that Airbnb is embracing pop culture to offer its users the ability to stay in iconic properties, both real and fictional. It’s an effort the company is calling "Icons." Among the places people can stay include the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, as featured specifically in the Marvel series X-Men ’97, the house from Pixar's Up and the control room from Inside Out as well as real locations like Prince’s Purple Rain house, the Musée d’Orsay and the Ferrari Museum in Maranello. The story.
—"It became very overwhelming to the point where I had to decline." Maria Georgas revealed that she was nearly the next Bachelorette on ABC’s hit dating show. The Bachelor alum, who came in fourth place on Joey Graziadei’s season earlier this year, opened up on a new episode of Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast about her decision not to become the next leading lady. "It was mine until I said it wasn’t," Georgas explained. The story.
—"She thought I looked good." Melissa McCarthy is happily accepting Barbra Streisand’s compliment. The Unfrosted actress took to social media Tuesday night to post a cheery video in which she responded to the iconic singer asking in a since-deleted Instagram comment if McCarthy had used Ozempic. Streisand later explained her remark, saying she was merely praising McCarthy’s appearance. And that’s exactly how McCarthy took it. The story. |
Columbia Film Professor on Israel-Gaza Campus Unrest ►"The media has blown the situation out of proportion." In a guest column for THR, Annette Insdorf, who has taught at Columbia University since 1987 and served as the university's director of undergraduate film studies for decades, shares her perspective in the aftermath of the NYPD's raid of the university's Hamilton Hall. The column.
—Violent clashes. Dueling groups of protesters clashed overnight on Wednesday at UCLA, shoving, kicking and beating each other with sticks after pro-Israel demonstrators tried to pull down barricades surrounding a pro-Palestinian encampment. After a couple of hours of scuffles between demonstrators at UCLA, police wearing helmets and face shields slowly separated the groups and quelled the violence. The story. |
TV Review: 'A Man in Full' ►"This glass isn't even half-Full." THR's chief TV critic Dan Fienberg reviews Netflix's A Man in Full. Jeff Daniels stars in this David E. Kelley adaptation of Tom Wolfe's 1998 novel about excesses in the Atlanta real estate bubble becomes a limited series co-starring Diane Lane and Lucy Liu. The review.
—"The message lands, even when the story stumbles." THR's Angie Han reviews Peacock's The Tattooist of Auschwitz. An 80something Holocaust survivor relays his memories of Auschwitz, including his romance with a fellow prisoner, in a miniseries adapted from Heather Morris' 2018 bestseller, starring Melanie Lynskey and Harvey Keitel. The review.
—"Merced bolsters an empathetic portrait." THR's Lovia Gyarkye reviews Hannah Marks' Turtles All the Way Down. Isabela Merced plays a teenager navigating her mind’s unruly terrain in the Max film that is an adaptation of the John Green novel. The review.
In other news...
—Kate Winslet, Josh O’Connor explore life of war photographer Lee Miller in Lee trailer
—Chloe Fineman fills in for Dua Lipa as the musical guest in SNL promo
—Amazon Prime Video’s new releases coming in May 2024
—Peabody Awards: Mel Brooks, Quinta Brunson tapped for special honors
—Jessica Lange to receive Munich Film Festival honor
—Selena Gomez wants to show you L.A.’s hottest restaurants
—Stampede Ventures names Jim Meenaghan as COO
—Josh Rosenbaum promoted to partner at Ken Kao’s Waypoint
—Richard Tandy, keyboardist for Electric Light Orchestra, dies at 76
—Duane Eddy, twangy guitar hero of early rock, dies at 86
—Tony Pigg, longtime rock radio DJ in New York, dies at 85
What else we're reading...
—With Netflix Is a Joke Fest about to kick off, Sean L. McCarthy looks at how the streamer became the dominant power in stand-up comedy [Daily Beast]
—Hanna Flint writes that The Fall Guy shows how stunt people are severely undervalued in cinema [BBC]
—Amy Amatangelo does some sleuthing and picks out 8 Bluey episodes that suggest where the beloved show is heading [LAT]
—With the social internet becoming worse, unusable or in some instances dying, Kyle Chayka reports on how the humble home page is making a stunning comeback [New Yorker]
—Ellen Ioanes and Nicole Narea try to explain what the backlash to student protests over Gaza is really about [Vox]
Today...
...in 1968, Paramount’s big-screen adaptation of stage hit The Odd Couple opened in New York at Radio City Music Hall. The film went on to be nominated for two Oscars at the 41st Academy Awards, for editing and for Neil Simon’s adapted screenplay. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Matt Berry (50), Dwayne Johnson (52), Ellie Kemper (44), Mae Martin (37), Christopher Doyle (72), Stephen Daldry (64), Bruce Robinson (78), Engelbert Humperdinck (88), Lone Scherfig (65), Elizabeth Berridge (62), Christine Baranski (72), Jenna Lamia (49), Golda Rosheuvel (54), Claudia Doumit (32), Jenna von Oÿ (47), David Suchet (78), Robert Buckley (43), Andrea Bang (35), Lily Allen (39), Brian Tochi (65), Gaius Charles (41), Thomas McDonell (38), Josh Bolt (30), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (51) |
| Paul Auster, a prolific, prize-winning man of letters and filmmaker known for such inventive narratives and meta-narratives as The New York Trilogy and 4 3 2 1, has died. He was 77. The obituary. |
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