| | | | | | What's news: Netflix has renewed One Piece for the S3. F1: The Movie is inching near $600m worldwide. Lori Evans Taylor will pen Final Destination 7. The Sympathizer co-creators Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar have been expelled from the WGA. U2 have released statements on Gaza.— Abid Rahman
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'Weapons,' 'Freakier Friday' Open Big ►We are so back! The communal experience of seeing movies in theaters was on full display at the weekend box office as audiences across the country screeched, screamed and hollered together when watching New Line’s original horror pic Weapons. THR's Pamela McClintock writes that thanks to winning over critics and audiences alike, director Zach Cregger’s buzzy movie came in more than $10m ahead of expectations to win the weekend with $42.5m in yet another notable victory for New Line and parent company Warner Bros., as well as for original stories. Overseas, it also won the race with an equally impressive $27.5m for a global debut of $70m. Weapons is the seventh WB release of the year to open in first place, an unrivaled feat, as well as its sixth title in a row to open to more than $40m domestically, also an unrivaled record.
That wasn’t the only freakishly good headline of the weekend. In a double win for the late-summer box office, Disney’s body-swapping comedy Freakier Friday landed on the high end of expectations with a $29m domestic start to come in second and become the top August opening ever for a PG-rated pic (or G-rated film for that matter). Overseas, it launched to a better-than-expected $15.5m for a global bow of $44.5m, virtually on par with its modest $45m budget before marketing. The box office report.
—Another big win for theatrical. Heading into summer 2025, no one could have ever imagined that F1: The Movie would drive some of Hollywood’s biggest tentpoles off the road, breaking the Formula One movie curse and delivering high-octane milestones for all involved. Over the Aug. 1-3 weekend — its sixth weekend in release — the movie surpassed the $540.4m earned by World War Z to become the top-grossing film of Brad Pitt’s career in a leading role with more than $546m in worldwide ticket sales through that Sunday. F1 remained among the top 10 performers in its seventh weekend, and has now earned nearly as much as Superman , or $570.7m globally. The lion’s share may come from overseas, or a whopping $392.1m, but its domestic total to date of $178.8m is incredibly impressive. The box office report. |
Drescher Won't Run for SAG-AFTRA President ►✊ Runners and riders. ✊ Fran Drescher, who led the actors’ union during its historic 2023 strike, will not be running again for SAG-AFTRA president. A list of national candidates seeking political office in the union’s 2025 elections that was released to members on Friday confirmed that the actor isn’t seeking a reappointment to the union’s top job after four years in charge. Instead, a member of her 2023 political slate and negotiating committee, Sean Astin, is running for president. So too is Chuck Slavin, a SAG-AFTRA New England Local board member. Ballots will be collected between Aug. 13 and Sept. 12. The story.
—Not his decision to leave. Legendary Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook and his co-creator on the HBO Max series The Sympathizer have been expelled from the Hollywood writers’ union after allegedly working during the strike. The director of Oldboy and The Handmaiden was booted from the Writers Guild of America alongside Don McKellar after working on the 2024 series during the work stoppage, the union told members Friday. Park is the most high-profile figure yet to be identified by the union as a rule-breaker during its 148-day strike. According to the union, Park and McKellar did not appeal their disciplines. The story. |
Rock and Resistance Meet on the Music Fest Circuit ►Inflection point. Musical activism is nothing new. So it should come as no surprise that the most contentious political issue of our time — the ongoing war in Gaza — is being voiced, debated and fought over on stages at music festivals and in clubs worldwide. On the festival circuit, artists condemning Israel or calling for a “free Palestine” have become as common as a chorus sing-along. Pop stars — Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey, The Weeknd, Olivia Rodrigo, and many more — regularly take to social media to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in the region. THR's Scott Roxborough and Lily Ford write that as festivals like Glastonbury become flashpoints for pro-Palestine protests, event organizers wrestle with how to keep the peace — and the profits — in a deeply divided moment. The story.
—"The Government of Israel is not the nation of Israel, but the Government of Israel led by Benjamin Netanyahu today deserves our categorical and unequivocal condemnation." The four members of Irish rock supergroup U2 have weighed in on the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict, with each member — Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. — releasing their own individual statements. The four statements were shared on U2’s official Instagram account and website on Sunday, alongside the following joint message: “Everyone has long been horrified by what is unfolding in Gaza—but the blocking of humanitarian aid and now plans for a military takeover of Gaza City has taken the conflict into uncharted territory. We are not experts in the politics of the region, but we want our audience to know where we each stand.” The statements. |
Paramount Inks 7-Year, $7.7B UFC Deal ►🤝 Showing some fight. 🤝 ESPN has gained WWE’s premium live events, but it is losing a lot of real fights. On Monday, Paramount announced a new seven-year, $7.7b deal with UFC (and WWE) parent TKO, making Paramount+ the new streaming home to UFC events in the U.S. — including the MMA giant’s 13 numbered pay-per-views (on top of its 30 “Fight Nights”). Some of the numbered events, formerly pay-per-views, will be simulcast on CBS. The deal is backend-weighted, but will be amortized at $1.1b annually, per Paramount. The company says it plans to go after international UFC rights when they become available. The story.
—Quick as you like. Netflix has given an early season three renewal to its live-action adaptation of One Piece, announcing the pickup at an annual celebration of Eiichiro Oda’s long-running manga in Tokyo. The renewal comes several months ahead of the season two premiere, which is slated for 2026. That, incidentally, is much sooner than the season two renewal for One Piece , which came a couple of weeks after the series premiere in 2023. Additionally, Netflix announced that Ian Stokes will join Joe Tracz as co-showrunner on season three, which is set to begin filming later this year. Stokes wrote two episodes and was a co-executive producer of season one. Former co-showrunner Matt Owens departed the show in March; he and Tracz were co-showrunners on the second season, while Owens and Steven Maeda ran the first season. The story.
—Having a moment. After the much-talked-about season 27 premiere of South Park, on-air viewers turned out in significantly larger numbers for the show’s second episode. The Aug. 6 installment, which mocked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (who was not pleased, to say the least) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, drew 838,000 viewers for its initial airing on Comedy Central — almost double the 430,000 who tuned into the season premiere on July 23. That’s the third-highest initial tune-in for South Park in the past three seasons, behind a March 2023 episode about ChatGPT (in which the AI bot is credited as a co-writer with Trey Parker) that drew 1.04m viewers and the season 25 premiere in February 2022, which logged 844,000 viewers. The ratings. |
'Final Destination 7' in the Works ►Can't stop death, so why try. Warner Bros.'s New Line is moving forward with a follow-up to its horror hit Final Destination: Bloodlines, hiring that movie’s co-writer, Lori Evans Taylor, to pen the next installment. The hiring comes after Bloodlines, released in May, grossed over $286m at the worldwide box office, $138.1m of that domestically. That movie was the sixth installment of the horror franchise and the first one since 2011. It was by far the most successful outing of the movie series, with its domestic total more than double the next movie down, 2009’s The Final Destination. The story.
—🎭 Wiig in place. 🎭 Kristen Wiig is joining Jonah Hill in the Warner Bros. comedy feature Cut Off, with the stars playing a pair of entitled siblings. Hill directs the movie that the studio has set for worldwide theatrical release on July 17, 2026. He and Ezra Woods penned the script for the film that Jesse Ehrman and Zach Hamby are overseeing for the studio. Production is set to begin this fall. Cut Off centers on a pair of siblings whose wealthy parents stop supporting financially. Hill, Matt Dines and Ali Goodwin produce for Strong Baby. The story.
—🎭 Back to his roots. 🎭 Romanian auteur Radu Jude world premiered his much-anticipated new feature Dracula (THR's review for the film is below) at the Locarno Film Festival on Sunday, but he is already writing a movie about a popular character from another iconic horror novel – Frankenstein. And none other than MCU star Sebastian Stan is set to star in it. The filmmaker tells THR that he envisions Stan, who was born in Romania, playing “both roles,” that of Victor Frankenstein and his monster. The story is understood to combine the real-life existence of a secret CIA prison in Romania in the past with the legend of the Frankenstein monster. The story.
—📅 Awards run? 📅 Is God Is has landed an early summer release date from Orion Pictures, a division of Amazon MGM Studios. Playwright Aleshea Harris is directing the big screen adaptation of her acclaimed, award-winning stage play of the same name will open in cinemas May 15, 2026. That’s just around the time of the Cannes Film Festival, although there’s no word yet whether the movie will make an awards play, although Orion is known as a home for prestige fare. Is God Is marks Harris’ feature directorial debut, and stars Kara Young and Mallori Johnson as twin African-American sisters who were burned badly as babies in a fire that left them with permanent, disfiguring scars. Now 21 years old, they embark on an epic quest for revenge and, and along the way, confront a charged family history that will push them to extraordinary lengths. The story.
—📅 Dated! 📅 The coming-of-age feature Griffin in Summer has landed a theatrical release in an appropriate season. Writer-director Nicholas Colia’s film that debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival is set to hit theaters Aug. 29 from Vertical. Everett Blunck, Owen Teague, Melanie Lynskey, Abby Ryder Fortson and Kathryn Newton round out the cast. Griffin in Summer centers on Blunck as ambitious 14-year-old playwright Griffin Nafly, who lives with his mom (Lynskey) and is attempting to self-produce his divorce drama Regrets of Autumn. But things change when Griffin begins a summer friendship with Brad (Teague), a handsome 25-year-old performance artist and handyman. The story. |
The Late Night Shows That Failed to Launch ►Et tu, Magic? From Alan Thicke to Chevy Chase to Pat Sajak and Magic Johnson, the history of late night TV is littered with short-lived disasters and low-rated also-rans. THR's Seth Abramovitch goes back through the archives to pick out the most memorable misfires. The story.
—Seven decades of schtick. Who doesn't love a random list to kill time on a Monday morning?! From Tiny Tim’s wedding to a cigar-chomping dog dissing Star Wars fans, THR celebrates late night’s biggest moments. The list. |
RZA on His New Movie 'One Spoon of Chocolate' ►"Everything about me as a filmmaker, I think, has evolved." Yours truly spoke to one of his idols (yes, you should sometimes meet your heroes), the incredibly talented RZA who after mastering music has seemingly hit his stride with filmmaking. RZA discusses his new film, the action revenge drama One Spoon of Chocolate, as well as how writing scripts mirrors his method for writing lyrics, his growth as a filmmaker and his future plans. Wu-Tang forever! The interview.
—"I was writing from a place of catharsis. Writing where the process is the reward." THR's Mia Galuppo spoke to the in-demand Zach Cregger about his new film Weapons. The filmmaker reveals he began writing the feature after the death of a friend, but its final section came from mining his childhood. He also discusses Hollywood bidding wars and casting re-dos. The interview.
—"I love action. But it’s important to me that the roles make sense and that they’re with directors I want to work with." THR's Brian Davids reviews Red Sonja star Matilda Lutz. The Italian actress discusses the harrowing day atop her horse during Red Sonja training, as well as her valid reasons for not watching 1985’s Red Sonja starring Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The interview. |
Carrie Coon Talks 'The Gilded Age' S3 Finale ►"She’s always thinking ahead that Bertha." For THR, Ronda Racha Penrice spoke to Carrie Coon about the season three finale of HBO's hit period drama The Gilded Age. The Emmy-nominated actress discusses rocking the foundations of the Russells' relationship and the huge price Bertha pays for being right. Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—"I wouldn’t count anything out." For THR, Josh Wigler talks to the latest victim on the latest episode of Paramount+'s Dexter: Resurrection. The actor reveals that they may not be as dead as they appear: "We're keeping our fingers crossed." Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—"We're all really proud of the show that we've made — I think people will enjoy it." THR's Lily Ford spoke to Outlander: Blood of My Blood star Harriet Slater. The English actress discusses what it is like joining the tight-knit Outlander universe, and what fans can expect from Starz's new spinoff. The interview. |
TV Review: 'Outlander: Blood of My Blood' ►"Totally enchanting." THR's Angie Han reviews Starz's Outlander: Blood of My Blood. Years before Jamie meets Claire, his lovelorn parents defy their rival clans in 18th century Scotland while hers strike up a passionate connection through letters during World War I. Starring Harriet Slater, Hermione Corfield, Jamie Roy, Jeremy Irvine, Conor MacNeill, Tony Curran, Séamus McLean Ross, Sam Retford and Rory Alexander. The review.
—"Lots of sucking, not a lot of blood." THR's Jordan Mintzer reviews Radu Jude's Locarno international competition entry, Dracula. The prolific director of Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World and Kontinental ‘25's latest feature is a fellatio-filled vampire flick. Starring Adonis Tanta, Gabriel Spahiu, Oana Maria Zaharia, Andrada Balea, Ilinca Manolache, Serban Pavlu, Alexandru Dabija and Lukas Miko. The review.
In other news...
—Mr. Scorsese: Apple TV+ unveils first look at Martin Scorsese doc
—NY Film Festival adds Bruce Springsteen biopic as spotlight gala
—Ethan Goldman’s Anchor Entertainment signs with Verve
—Pee-wee’s bike debuts at the Alamo on 40th anniversary of Big Adventure
—Pinewood to name Toronto soundstage after late Paul Bronfman
—Colin Farrell to receive Zurich’s Golden Icon Award
—iHeartMedia hires Lisa Coffey to lead digital advertising products
—Ray Brooks, Mr Benn narrator and The Knack … and How to Get It actor, dies at 86
What else we're reading...
—Esther Zuckerman talks to The Naked Gun filmmaker Akiva Schaffer and the writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand who break down that incredible Mission: Impossible spoof interrogation scene [NYT]
—Hershal Pandya writes that with Greg Gutfeld's appearance on the Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon has decided to kiss the conservative ring [Vulture]
—Amrith Ramkumar and Robbie Whelan report that Nvidia and AMD have incredibly agreed to give the Trump administration 15 percent of sales from their AI chips to China [WSJ]
—Mehul Srivastava and Nic Fildes report that Israel has killed a prominent Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza and four other employees at the television network in an air strike targeting their tent [FT]
—Fascinating piece from John Burn-Murdoch about the troubling decline in conscientiousness, and what it could mean for society [FT]
Today...
...in 2017, IFC released Michael Winterbottom's The Trip to Spain in select theaters. The third installment of Winterbottom's The Trip series once again featured Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as fictionalized versions of themselves as they go on a food tour of Spain. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Viola Davis (60), Chris Hemsworth (42), Ian McDiarmid (81), Joe Rogan (58), Merritt Wever (45), Alyson Stoner (32), Embeth Davidtz (60), Anna Gunn (57), Will Friedle (49), Henry Lloyd-Hughes (40), Úrsula Corberó (36), Roger Craig Smith (50), Sophie Okonedo (57), Ashley Jensen (56), Gray O'Brien (57), Liz White (46), Calem MacDonald (25), Jacqueline Fernandez (40), Miguel A. Núñez Jr. (66), Elya Baskin (75), Lawrence Monoson (61), Catherine Cohen (34), Lara Grice (54), Suniel Shetty (64), Isy Suttie (47), Chris Fogel (57), David Horovitch (80), Adam LeFevre (75), Alexis Tipton (36), Emily Bevan (43), Rob Kerkovich (46), Jemima West (38), Priscilla Quintana (33) |
| Janet Nelson Berger, who began her career as a secretary at CBS in the mid-1950s before rising to become a production assistant and casting director in an era when few women held managerial roles in network television, has died. She was 87. The obituary. |
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