What's news: Shondaland has renewed its Netflix deal for another 5 years. Sam Register is leaving Warner Bros. Animation. Dan Stevens will play RoboCop in Amazon's TV reboot. Roku and the NWSL have inked a rights deal. And Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now the No. 2 highest-grossing film ever domestically with $858.4m. — Abid Rahman
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►Legend. Icon. Queen. Dolly Parton, the irrepressible singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur who penned chart-toppers such as "Jolene," "9 to 5" and "I Will Always Love You" and turned her namesake Tennessee theme park Dollywood into one of the world’s top amusement destinations, died Tuesday. She was 80. Parton died peacefully after a “brief battle with cancer” at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, a rep announced. The obituary.
—"She brought the light, and we are all better because she was here." Following the news of Dolly Parton‘s death, prominent people from around the world paid tribute to the global icon. Billy Ray Cyrus, Jane Fonda, Reba McEntire, Oprah, Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban, Kevin Costner, Sabrina Carpenter, Linda Ronstadt, Eminem were among the host of stars to share their memories of Parton. "I know that millions are mourning and I want to say this – more than anyone I have ever known, Dolly will always be with us because she was so present, so powerful, so generous and playful that she is woven into all our lives and hearts forever," wrote Fonda. The reaction.
—"A Hollywood treasure who lit up the screen with her authentic self." Though she was best known for her music, Dolly Parton also starred in some iconic movies. THR's chief film critic David Rooney reflects on Parton's screen career, writing that the country superstar was a luminous natural in a small but indelible body of much-loved feature films, chief among them 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Steel Magnolias. The critic's appreciation.
More on Dolly's incredible life...
—Dolly's life and career in pictures
—Dolly's 10 most essential hit songs
—Taylor Swift remembers Dolly's "true grace and grit"
—Beyoncé remembers Dolly as "bold and brilliant"
—Paul McCartney remembers "magnificent star" Dolly
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Raquel Lee's Secret Settlement With Mark Curry |
►New revelations. The former child actress Raquel Lee has sued Disney for negligence, alleging an unidentified “middle-aged, male employee who was involved in the filming of” the 2001 Disney Channel original movie The Poof Point sexually abused and assaulted her. At the time, she was 14 years old. THR's Gary Baum has separately learned that Lee reached a confidential settlement agreement with actor Mark Curry in 2015. He played her father in The Poof Point. Gloria Allred, known for representing accusers against prominent individuals in sexual misconduct claims, represented Lee in the private resolution. The story.
—"Much more to this story." Hayden Panettiere‘s rep is encouraging anyone with helpful information into the sudden death of her former client, who died on Aug. 16 at age 36, to reach out to law enforcement instead of speaking out in the media. "Many people who were not close to Hayden are using her death as an opportunity to fuel gossip and speculation about a situation they knew very little about," says a statement from her rep to THR. "It is deeply disrespectful to her memory and to those who knew and loved her and are actively grieving this tremendous loss." The story.
—The latest. Perez Hilton‘s brother-in-law has provided an update on the celebrity blogger’s health, telling podcast host Chris Booker that he remains hospitalized as he’s treated for broken bones and wounds from a self-inflicted cutting incident that he livestreamed on TikTok earlier this month. Hilton fell during the livestream while suffering blood loss and was later treated for an overdose. The incident took place on Aug. 4 and was streamed on TikTok for 30 minutes before being removed from the platform. The story.
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Shonda Rhimes Signs New Overall Deal at Netflix
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►🤝 Re-upping. 🤝 Shonda Rhimes and her Shondaland company, which she leads with Betsy Beers, have signed a new, five-year overall deal with Netflix, the company she has called home since 2017. The new deal covers development of series, feature films and games for Netflix along with live events and merchandise tied to Shondaland’s IP. Netflix will also continue supporting Shondaland’s inclusion efforts, including a program to train underrepresented below-the-line creatives called the Ladder Program. The story.
—🤝 Extension. 🤝 The Rookie creator and showrunner Alexi Hawley is staying home at Lionsgate Television. Hawley has extended his overall deal with the studio. Under the renewed multi-year deal, he’ll continue shepherding the Rookie franchise while also developing and producing new projects for Lionsgate. The story.
—Surprise exit. Sam Register, the long-serving head of Warner Bros. Animation, is leaving the studio in a move that even his boss, Channing Dungey, acknowledged was unexpected. In a memo to staff Tuesday, Dungey — chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Television Group and WBD U.S. Networks — wrote that “I know this comes as a surprise and you have a lot to digest.” The memo says that Dungey and Register “mutually agreed” not to renew Register’s contract as president of WB Animation, Cartoon Network Studios and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe. Register’s current contract ends next week. The story.
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Dan Stevens Cast as RoboCop in Prime Video's Reboot |
►🎭 Dead or alive, they're going with him. 🎭 Dan Stevens is the new RoboCop. The Brit actor has been cast in Prime Video‘s TV series reboot of the iconic 1987 movie. Stevens with play police officer Alex Murphy and his cyborg alter ego in the series. The new Robocop will be an eight-episode series from showrunner Peter Ocko and EPs James Wan, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett. The show is from Blumhouse Atomic Monster. The story.
—🎭 Two more. 🎭 Breakout gay hockey drama Heated Rivalry is continuing to add to its season two cast, with Daniel Diemer set to play Ryan Price, a tough guy enforcer battling anxiety off the ice. Shaheen Jafargholi will perform the role of aspiring musician Fabian Salah. Ryan and Fabian’s love story drives Rachel Reid’s novel Tough Guy, the third installment in her Game Changers series, which Heated Rivalry is based on. The story.
—🟢 YES!!! 🟢 Alice and Steve will return for another season at Disney+. Created and written by Sophie Goodhart, the Canneseries winner — available on Hulu in the U.S. — will be back following a successful first installment on the platform, prompting acclaim and heated online discourse over the age-gap relationship depicted in the show. In season one, Alice (Nicola Walker) is devastated when her best friend Steve (Jemaine Clement) starts dating her 26-year-old daughter Izzy. She’s going to lose her best friend and her daughter in one fell swoop. Alice tries everything she can to end the relationship. The story.
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►🤝 Rights deal. 🤝 The National Women’s Soccer League is expanding its streaming footprint. Roku and the NWSL have signed a deal that will make the Roku Sports Channel the exclusive home for a package of Sunday night games for the rest of the 2026 season and the 2027 campaign. First up is an Aug. 30 match between the Seattle Reign and Houston Dash. The pact is the latest live sports rights deal for the free streamer — and arguably the highest profile one in Roku’s current portfolio, which also has rights to X Games, Formula E and the Bassmaster pro fishing circuit. The story.
—🟢 Greenest of green lights. 🟢 A new romantic comedy-drama created and written by acclaimed playwright Kate Cortesi is coming to Disney+. Mad Love (working title) is produced by Element Pictures, a Fremantle company, and Sinestra. The six-part series will follow Maddy Caruso, a British wedding planner for an eclectic list of clients in the Italian countryside, whose chaotic love life comes back to bite her. The story.
—🟢 Blue skies thinking. 🟢 USA Network has picked up a medical drama called Diplomatic Immunity, about a doctor assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome. The series comes from Fox Entertainment Studios and creators and showrunners Matt Corman and Chris Ord. The order comes on the heels of another drama, Anna Pigeon, premiering to solid ratings earlier this month. Both shows, along with USA’s John Grisham adaptation The Rainmaker, harken back to USA’s “blue skies” era of the 2000s and 2010s, when the network had a steady lineup of procedurals and light dramas. The story.
—🟢 Leaning into K-content. 🟢 Netflix is adding to its already-packed Korean content slate with The Shooter, an action-noir series starring Lee Jung-eun and Kim Moo-yul. From the director of A Shop for Killers, the new series casts Parasite's Lee as a woman in her 70s who is driven to pick up a gun after her grandson is attacked. The story.
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Oscars: Japan, Canada, Germany Make Selections
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►🏆 Ganbatte! 🏆 Japan has selected Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s luminously cerebral French-language feature All of a Sudden as its submission for the best international feature category at the 99th Academy Awards. It marks the second time a Hamaguchi film has represented Japan at the Oscars, following Drive My Car, which was selected five years ago and went on to win best international feature while also earning nominations for best picture, director and adapted screenplay. The story.
—Kept apart. THR's Scott Feinberg has the scoop that Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, who shared the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for their performances in Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, will not be pitted against one another this awards season. Neon, which will release the film in the U.S. on Nov. 25, will push Efira for best actress, and Okamoto for best supporting actress. The story.
—🏆 Bonne chance! 🏆 Canada has chosen the transatlantic drama Nina Roza as its contender for the 2027 Oscars. The Canada-Belgium-Bulgaria-Italy co-production is written and directed by Geneviève Dulude-De Celles and world premiered in Berlin, where it earned the director the Silver Bear for best screenplay. Nina Roza centers on an art expert, Mihail, who fled Bulgaria 30 years earlier and returns to authenticate the work of Nina, an 8-year-old Bulgarian artist and possible child prodigy. The story.
—🏆 Viel Glück! 🏆 Sandra Wollner’s Everytime has been selected as Germany’s entry for the 2027 Oscars. Wollner’s third feature premiered in Cannes this year, winning best film in the Un Certain Regard sidebar. The movie stars Birgit Minichmayr as a mother who loses her daughter Jesse in a tragic event and then struggles to cope with her grief and her complicated relationship to her younger daughter and Jesse’s boyfriend, who many blame for her death. The story.
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Snoop Biopic Finds Its Tupac
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►🎭 Snoop scoop. 🎭 THR's Borys "2 Legit 2 Skewp" Kit has the scoop that Camron Jones, the actor best known for his work on Amazon Prime’s young adult drama Panic, is set to portray influential rapper Tupac Shakur in Snoop, Universal's biopic of entertainment mogul and music icon Snoop Dogg. Outer Banks star Jonathan Daviss is playing the titular rapper, with Myles Bullock Be as Dr. Dre and Lauren London as Snoop's mother. Craig Brewer is directing the feature. The story.
—Yabba-dabba-don't? The Flintstones is getting ready to rock the big screen again. Warner Bros. is developing a live-action The Flintstones feature that Ryan Gosling and Jessie Henderson are set to produce for their Open Invite banner. This project is still in early development and is currently seeking a screenwriter. Although planned plot details have not yet been shared, the story is said to focus on Bamm-Bamm Rubble, the son of Fred Flintstone’s good pal Barney Rubble. The story.
—Another record! Spider-Man: Brand New Day keeps swinging to new box office heights. Sony's superhero blockbuster has now soared to become the No. 2 highest-grossing film ever domestically with $858.4m, surpassing the $858.3m for 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. The title to beat on the all-time North American chart remains 2015’s Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens, standing strong at $936.6m. The box office report.
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Film Review: 'The Dog Stars'
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►"Ridley Scott in a rare ruminative mood." THR's chief film critic David Rooney reviews Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars. A big screen adaptation of Peter Heller’s novel tells the story of survivors trying to stay alive in a post-apocalyptic future. Starring Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Benedict Wong, Guy Pearce, Ewen Bremner, James Craze, Sam Spruell and Sai Bennett. Written by Mark L. Smith, based on the novel by Peter Heller. The review.
In other news...
—The Gilded Age drops S4 teaser ahead of November return
—Maserati: The Brothers teaser: Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Alba and Andy Garcia star in motorsport biopic
—The Love Hypothesis trailer: Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman embark on fake dating scheme in STEM romance
—NYFF adds Gaza doc NAZA to lineup
—TIFF: Helen Mirren, Seth Rogen, Fan Bingbing to receive honors
—TCM Classic Film Festival sets dates for 2027 edition
—30 Rock cast to reunite for live benefit show
—Daniel Dae Kim and his production company 3AD jump to CAA
—Jaye P. Morgan, singer and bawdy Gong Show panelist, dies at 94
—Leonard Morpurgo, veteran Hollywood publicist, dies at 93
—Jim Green, former ABC executive and producer of Stephen King’s It, dies at 83
What else we're reading...
—Meghan Bobrowsky reports on the massive $18b settlement Meta has agreed with 48 states over child-safety claims [WSJ]
—Louis Staples wonders how the rabid British press will handle the return of their bête noires Harry and Meghan [Harper's Bazaar]
—Spencer Kornhaber writes that Dolly Parton's death comes at a time when her influence seems at its peak, with country music surging and female singer-songwriters on top [The Atlantic]
—Greta Rainbow (great name) has a piece on the rise of "biogossip" in the wake of Rachel Cusk’s Natalie Portman novel [Guardian]
—Jake Kwon and Kelly Ng have a shocking story out of Jeju Island, South Korea, after the discovery of more dead bodies feeds into an escalating national missing persons scandal [BBC]
Today...
...in 2011, Sony Pictures Classics released Vera Farmiga's directorial debut Higher Ground in theaters. The drama, which premiered in Sundance to strong reviews, was an adaptation of Carolyn S. Briggs' 2002 memoir This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost. The original review.
Today's birthdays...
Chris Pine (46), Macaulay Culkin (46), Melissa McCarthy (56), John Mulaney (44), Mike Colter (50), Andy Muschietti (53), Cassie Ventura (40), Barbet Schroeder (85), Keke Palmer (33), Dylan O'Brien (35), Amanda Schull (48), Tiana Okoye (35), Annette Badland (76), Taylor Richardson (25), Alison Steadman (80), Brett Cullen (70), Nazneen Contractor (44), Charlie Gillespie (28), Carl Marino (56), Patrick Kennedy (49), Danielle Savre (38), Meredith Eaton (52), Neeru Bajwa (46), Kirk Fox (57), Jane Merrow (85), Wanda De Jesus (68), Lars Ranthe (57), Evan Ross (38), Ryeoun (28), Chris Burke (61), Gene Stupnitsky (49), Kari Lizer (65), Tommy Bastow (35), Oleg Taktarov (59), Jonny Weldon (33)
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