What's news: Shia LaBeouf has pleaded guilty to battery charges. Hasbro is launching its own AI studio. Suno is now valued at $5.4b. Backrooms is A24’s highest grossing film of all time in North America. And Tony Dokoupil paid tribute to Scott Pelley on CBS Evening News. — Abid Rahman
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Pelley and Weiss Trade Barbs
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►"I'm only interested in working in a newsroom that is built on trust and mutual respect." CBS News EIC Bari Weiss addressed Scott Pelley's dramatic firing during a editorial meeting Wednesday morning. “We did not want that to happen, but that’s the path that he chose," said Weiss. In a statement of his own responding to Weiss’ comments, Pelley said, "these executives cannot gain the trust of the staff with lies." The story.
—"Journalist who valued truth at all costs." Tony Dokoupil shared some heartfelt words on CBS Evening News about his former colleague Scott Pelley. During Wednesday’s show, Dokoupil — who was appointed anchor of the evening newscast by Bari Weiss at the start of her tenure last year — took a moment to praise Pelley’s career. "He believed freedom of the press, to quote [James] Madison, was ‘the right that guaranteed all the others.’ And the stakes are always that high in that, if you’d made it to CBS News, you were among the best in the world. He worked every single day to live up to that standard," said Dokoupil. The story.
—"It's been disastrous." Former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft is weighing in on the major shakeup of the flagship newsmagazine. In a Wednesday interview, Kroft was asked his thoughts on recent events, including Pelley’s firing, and the dismissal of EP Tanya Simon and correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. “I think that this is journalistic interference. It makes no business sense whatsoever," said Kroft of CBS News under Bari Weiss' tenure. The story.
—"I think Bari wants to shake up the show, and she views being an outsider as an advantage." Firings, hirings, mic-drop news meetings — THR's senior editors Alex Weprin and Steven Zeitchik make sense of all the drama at CBS News, and what they think is Bari Weiss' plan for 60 Minutes. The conversation.
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Inside the UFC's $60M Made-For-TV White House Gambit
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►"Losing money is never fun. I did that for quite a few years in the early days, but you have to jump on an opportunity like this, no matter what it costs you." Dana White, the CEO of the UFC, is betting that the upcoming unprecedented spectacle on the South Lawn at The White House, sparked by a suggestion from President Trump, will deliver new fans to the sport and millions of eyeballs to Paramount+. THR's Alex Weprin takes a closer look at the prospects of the MMA biggest ever promotion. The story.
—🤝 Bubble latest, Part I. 🤝 Tired of seeing unauthorized AI-generated versions of its characters proliferate on various platforms, Hasbro is launching its own AI studio called Sixth Wall, which will enable the toy giant’s stable of characters to be deployed by third parties across the new experiences that the technology allows for. And of particular note to Hollywood: Hasbro is working with real voice actors, including the original voice actors for many of its most popular characters, to help it do so. Characters like Mr. Potato Head, Optimus Prime and Cobra Commander are among the initial list of Hasbro IP. The story.
—🤝 Bubble latest, Part II. 🤝 Suno, the most prominent AI music generation platform in the music industry, has raised $400m at a $5.4b post-money valuation, the company announced on Wednesday. Suno said Bond Capital led the round and notably, "leading artists, songwriters and producers” also participated in the round, though the company didn’t disclose who. The funding round comes just six months after Suno previously announced a $250m funding round that had valued the company at $2.45b. The story.
—Hold that L. Billionaire Bill Ackman is looking to sell the remainder of his stock in Universal Music Group after the company officially rejected his acquisition bid last week. Ackman and his firm Pershing Square will reportedly sell about 80.6m shares in an overnight placing, and that the shares would be sold for as much as 18.62 euros each. Pershing Square first floated a proposal to acquire UMG in April in a $64b deal, arguing that UMG’s stock had “languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business.” The story.
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Shia LaBeouf Pleads Guilty to Battery Charges |
►Guilty. Shia LaBeouf has pleaded guilty to charges relating to an altercation during an extended Mardi Gras bar crawl that erupted into violence. During an arraignment on Wednesday, magistrate Judge Juana Lombard issued LaBeouf a six-month suspended sentence with two years’ probation. He must also receive rehabilitation for alcohol abuse, sensitivity training and anger management classes. The actor was charged with three counts of battery for fighting two men involved in ejecting him from a bar, where he was allegedly causing a disturbance and displaying violent aggression. The story.
—New probe. Disgraced and imprisoned rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs could soon face additional legal jeopardy as he serves a 50-month prison sentence at a New Jersey federal facility, after the L.A. District Attorney’s Office confirmed it is reviewing sexual assault allegations made by a Hollywood publicist to authorities in Florida last year. The investigation stems from allegations of sexual battery made by publicist Jonathan Hay, who filed a report in September 2025 in Largo, Florida, just before Combs’ sentencing and after his federal trial ended in a split verdict. The story.
—"[She] should have been better protected back then." Wim Wenders has pulled his 1975 film Wrong Move (Falsche Bewegung) out of circulation, citing a controversial nude scene with the then-13-year-old actress Nastassja Kinski. The actress has been trying for years to get the German filmmaker to edit the film to cut out the controversial scene, in which she is shown lying on her bed, wearing only panties. In the scene, her 30-something co-star Rüdiger Vogler comes into the room, strips down to his underwear and lies on top of her, slapping her and then caressing her face. The story.
—"I didn’t really know until 10 years later what had happened to me." Sharon Stone has revealed for the first time that she was physically assaulted years ago by an unnamed perpetrator, claiming that a doctor discovered evidence of a “felony” crime during a medical exam. During a wide-ranging interview on a new episode of The Person Who Believed in Me podcast hosted by CBS correspondent David Begnaud, Stone launched into the story after detailing how a cancer scare led to the demise of her marriage to newspaper editor Phil Bronstein. The story.
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Who's the Next Curry Barker? Hollywood Insiders Make Their Picks |
►Jumping on that bandwagon. Do you hear that sound? That is the collective hum of assistant keyboards trawling Reddit and YouTube at the behest of their bosses, who are looking for the next big thing in the horror space. The YouTube-to-horror feature filmmaker pipeline has been proving particularly profitable over the past couple of weeks with Curry Barker’s Obsession and Kane Parsons' Backrooms tearing up the box office. Given the industry's tendency to glom on to trends, THR called insiders to see which creator could make it big. The hot list.
—Woof! Staying with Backrooms, Parsons' debut feature made another piece of history on Wednesday, passing the $100m mark domestically, and officially becoming A24’s highest grossing film of all time in North America. The $10m horror movie takes the crown from Marty Supreme, which brought in $96m domestically. The box office report.
—In 70mm, to boot! Westwood L.A.'s historic Village Theatre will welcome moviegoers one more time before it shuts its doors for an extensive and extended renovation odyssey later this year. Under a special arrangement between Universal and the Village Directors Circle, the collective of filmmakers led by Jason Reitman that bought the movie palace in 2024, American Cinematheque will screen Christopher Nolan’s new epic The Odyssey in a special three-week engagement beginning July 17. The story.
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Feinberg's Picks for Film Academy's Governors Awards
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►100 deserving icons. The board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will soon convene to determine the honorees for its annual Governors Awards, which will take place this year on Nov. 15. The board annually bestows Honorary Awards for lifetime achievement, and on occasion also chooses to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, in recognition of a great career as a producer and/or executive, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, celebrating remarkable service to others. Each of these honors now comes in the form of an Oscar statuette. Ahead of the Academy beginning its deliberations, THR's executive editor of awards coverage Scott Feinberg makes the case for a wide variety of movie stars, auteurs, craftspeople, executives, documentarians and outside-the-box candidates like a talent agent, a film historian, a film professor and a cable channel. The list.
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THR's Stand-Up Comedy Emmy Roundtable |
►"When I’m onstage, I behave in ways and say things that I would never say offstage." THR's award-winning Roundtable Series continues apace, next up are the stand-up comedians gunning for that Emmy. Marc Maron, Nikki Glaser, Wanda Sykes, Leanne Morgan and Julio Torres, all of whom have released specials in the past year, join THR's Lacey Rose for a wide-ranging, often raunchy conversation about comedy, politics, bombing and, yes, Glaser’s desire to be, as she puts it, “fuckable,” but “not actually fucked.” The roundtable.
—Finally! Amazon Prime Video is giving people a view into the most popular titles on its service. The streamer has released its first weekly list of the top original series and films on the service worldwide. Prime Video joins Netflix in publicly releasing global top 10 lists each week; the latter has done so for several years. Unlike Netflix, Prime will not — at least for the foreseeable future — accompany its rankings with any data showing viewing time or the widely adopted definition of streaming views (total minutes watched divided by run time). The story.
—"I am embarrassed." Vasana Montgomery is breaking her silence after she was removed from Love Island USA ahead of the season eight premiere after videos surfaced of her allegedly using the N-word. “I want to address a couple videos from my teen years that have recently resurfaced,” she wrote on her Instagram Wednesday. “In those videos, I used a racial slur. There is no excuse for it, and I am deeply sorry. I am embarrassed and disappointed by my words. I take full responsibility for what I said and understand why it has hurt and upset people." The story.
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Film Review: 'Scary Movie'
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►"Past its expiration date." THR's chief film critic David Rooney reviews Michael Tiddes' Scary Movie. Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris and Regina Hall are back, mixing legacy characters with fresh faces in peril in this sixth installment, dubbed a “rebootiquel.” Also starring Kenan Thompson, Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Kim Wayans, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Damon Wayans Jr. and Heidi Gardner. Written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans and Rick Alvarez. The review.
—"A shining star of a music documentary." THR's Frank Scheck reviews Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson's Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World). The director of Summer of Soul and Sly Lives! adds another notch to his music documentary belt with this upcoming HBO film. The review.
In other news...
—Ari Millen serves kids scoops of suffering in Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man trailer
—BIFAN international competition lineup revealed
—Most anticipated concert tours of 2026
—Emma Roberts signs with UTA
What else we're reading...
—Isabella Simonetti, Joe Flint and Jessica Toonkel have a must-read report on the meltdown inside CBS News [WSJ]
—Rachel Paula Abrahamson reports on the controversy surrounding author, actor and social media personality Jenny Mollen [NBC News]
—Rachel Pick has a fascinating, but depressing, story on the rise of "loneliness influencers" on TikTok [The Cut]
—Susie Banikarim goes inside TMZ much-talked about move to Washington [Columbia Journalism Review]
—Philip Marcelo reports on the baffling videos showing groups of people entering NYC sewers [AP]
Today...
...in 2009, Copperheart Entertainment released Vincenzo Natali's Splice in theaters. The sci-fi horror film, which starred Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, was a hit with critics and has become a cult classic. The original review.
Today's birthdays...
Angelina Jolie (51), Noah Wyle (55), Keith David (70), Maria Bakalova (30), Bruce Dern (90), Oona Chaplin (40), Vivien Lyra Blair (14), Bi Gan (37), Sean Pertwee (62), Lux Pascal (34), Rob Huebel (57), Tim Rozon (50), Robin Lord Taylor (48), Josh McDermitt (48), Theo Rossi (51), James Callis (55), Kerem Bürsin (39), Scott Wolf (58), Jordan Hinson (35), Izabella Scorupco (56), Parker Stevenson (74), Michelle Phillips (82), Amrit Kaur (33), Rebecca Henderson (46), Julie White (65), Kathryn Prescott (35), Lindsay Frost (64), Jillian Murray (42), Kim So-hyun (27), Michele Hicks (53), Amelia Warner (44), Derek McGrath (75), Gustav Lindh (31), Michael Greyeyes (59), Horatio Sanz (57), Mackenzie Ziegler (22), Bradley Walsh (66), Debra Stephenson (54), Gary Weeks (54), Quincy Brown (35), Kerry Shale (74)
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Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian graphic novelist, artist, and film director whose landmark animated feature Persepolis earned a Cannes Jury Prize and an Oscar nomination and made her one of the most distinctive voices in world cinema, has died. She was 56. The obituary.
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