| | | | | | What's news: WME has sold 160over90 to Publicis. Warner Music Group is acquiring Revelator. Lindsey Buckingham was attacked by a woman in Santa Monica. Zach Cregger and Zach Shields will pen the Weapons prequel Gladys. And Pierre Salvadori’s La Vénus électrique will open Cannes. — Abid Rahman
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Meet the High-Stakes Gambler Waging War on Paramount ►"I'm a master of cognitive warfare." R.J. Cipriani was previously an under-the-radar figure around the entertainment industry. But he is now at the center of one of its biggest stories in town due to his legal fight with Paramount president Jeff Shell, whom he may soon dislodge from a second major studio job in three years, having helped precipitate Shell’s fall as NBCUniversal CEO in 2023. In his first sit-down interview, the larger-than-life Cipriani lays out to THR's Gary Baum his $150m case against Shell, the Ellisons, and a Hollywood establishment he claims is running scared. The interview.
—Attacked. Former Fleetwood Mac guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham was attacked by a woman in Santa Monica. An incident occurred involving Buckingham last Wednesday, March 25, the LAPD told THR. According to NBC4, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was arriving to an appointment in Santa Monica when a woman threw an “unknown substance” at him. The outlet also reported that authorities described the woman as a “stalking suspect,” and is known by Buckingham due to past incidents. No arrests have been made in connection to the case yet, and Buckingham was not injured. The story.
—Hospitalized. Bob’s Burgers star Eugene Mirman is facing “serious injuries” following a car crash in New Hampshire. On Tuesday, a Lucid Gravity crashed into the Bedford Toll Plaza, with Mirman later being identified as the vehicle’s driver, per a press release from New Hampshire police. The accident was described as a single-vehicle crash. A veteran state trooper assigned to Governor Kelly Ayotte’s security detail responded to the crash, and noticed that the car was on fire with a passenger still inside. Mirman was pulled from the vehicle while it was burning through a window, as Governor Ayotte and other witnesses at the scene assisted the trooper. Mirman, 51, was taken to a nearby hospital. The story.
—"It honestly scared me." Megan Thee Stallion opened up about her health scare mid performance of Moulin Rouge! The Musical which led to her hospitalization. On Wednesday, the rapper shared an update on her health on Instagram. “Last night was a real wake-up call for me. I’ve been pushing myself past my limits lately, running on empty, and my body finally said enough. It honestly scared me. I thought I was gonna faint on stage, I really tried to push through my performance but I just couldn’t." The story.
—"The America that I love, the America that I’ve written about for 50 years, that’s been a beacon of hope and liberty around the world, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless, and treasonous administration." Bruce Springsteen kicked off his new tour in Minneapolis with perhaps the most militantly political show from a major touring artist in years. According to reviews, the first stop of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s 2026 Land of Hope and Dreams Tour was nearly equal parts anti-Trump rally and concert. The 76-year-old made several brief speeches throughout the show during song breaks, taking to task the Trump administration — along with ample doses of positivity and hope. The story. |
SAG-AFTRA Comms Staff Union Voluntarily Recognized ►✊ LFG! ✊ SAG-AFTRA has voluntarily recognized a union for its communications and marketing staffers after a card count found that a majority were in support of organizing. After a third-party checker examined union support cards this week, the union, aligned with National Organization of Legal Services Workers, United Auto Workers Local 2320 (NOLSW), was certified. NOLSW already represents organizing staffers at SAG-AFTRA. Staffers joining the union after the vote include writers, magazine staffers, social media workers, audio and video producers, event planners and publicists. The story.
—🤝 Sold! 🤝 WME Group continues to slim down outside of its core talent agency business. The company said Thursday that it has sold its sports marketing agency 160over90 to the French advertising giant Publicis (one of the big three ad agencies alongside WPP and Omnicom). Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though the Wall Street Journal pegged the value at more than $500m. WME’s predecessor company Endeavor had acquired 160over90 in 2018 for $200m, when it was still bulking up in preparation for its IPO. The companies also inked a strategic partnership, with Publicis securing early-stage access to WME’s roster of talent and IP for content partnerships and financing. The deal expands Publicis’ presence in the sports marketing sector. The story.
—🤝 Sold! 🤝 Warner Music Group is acquiring the B2B independent music distribution service Revelator, the company announced on Wednesday, the latest affirmation of the hot market for distributors as music companies are looking to capitalize on the indie market. Neither Revalator nor WMG shared financial details of the sale, though they said the deal is expected to close next financial quarter. WMG’s Revelator deal follows Universal Music Group subsidiary Virgin Music’s $775m purchase of Downtown Music, which gave the company distribution services CD Baby and FUGA. Concord, meanwhile, purchased indie distributor Stem a year ago. The story.
—Upped. Allie McLarty has been named the svp of global communications at Paramount Studios. The studio’s chief communications officer Melissa Zukerman made the announcement Wednesday in a note to staff. In her new role, McLarty will report in to the head of global communications, Brooke Robertson, working across Paramount’s film and television studios, as well as the nascent sports entertainment group. McLarty previously served as svp of corporate and financial communications at Paramount Global, with a focus on corporate, policy and legal matters. The story. |
On Set for That Bloody, Teary 'Survivor' Merge ►What the cameras didn’t catch. In a Survivor first, host Jeff Probst allowed a reporter to shadow him for the merge episode — which happened to be the craziest in the show's history. Here's what THR's David Canfield saw. Warning: Spoilers! The story.
—Woof! Major League Baseball’s new season — and its new media deal — got off to a solid start, with opening games on Netflix and NBC turning in multi-year highs for the first week of the season. Netflix’s telecast of the season-opening game between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants drew 2.97m U.S. viewers, based on Nielsen’s big data plus panel ratings for March 25. The next night, NBC and Peacock’s primetime telecast of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks’ season opener drew 3.2m viewers, per Nielsen and Adobe Analytics figures. Nielsen has the NBC portion of the game at 2.74m viewers, which would mean about 460,000 people watched on Peacock. The ratings. |
LMM to Direct Film Adaptation of 'Octet' ►Next up. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda will direct a feature film adaptation of Dave Malloy’s musical Octet, which premiered Off-Broadway in 2019. The a capella musical explores the topic of internet addiction as told through an eight-person support group meeting in a church basement. "I haven’t stopped thinking about Octet since I saw Annie Tippe’s premiere production in November of 2019. Dave Malloy’s score is versatile, brilliant and grows more relevant with each passing year. It won’t leave me alone so here we are," Miranda said. This marks the second feature film Miranda will direct, after adapting Jonathan Larson’s musical tick, tick…BOOM!, starring Andrew Garfield, in 2021. The story.
—Zachs attack. Gladys, the breakout character from Zach Cregger‘s Weapons, is ready to steal the whole show. Cregger and screenwriter Zach Shields, known for his work on the Monsterverse franchise, are penning the script for a planned prequel feature for the filmmaker’s 2025 horror hit. Gladys is the working title for the project that is in development at New Line Cinema. Centering on a group of children who go missing in the middle of the night, Weapons hit theaters in August from Warner Bros. and collected $270m at the global box office. The cast included Julia Garner, Josh Brolin and Amy Madigan, with the latter earning the best supporting actress Oscar for her role as Aunt Gladys. The story.
—Film d'ouverture. The 79th Cannes Film Festival will open with Pierre Salvadori’s 1920s-set La Vénus électrique. The French director’s movie will formally kick off proceedings with a premiere at Cannes’ Grand Théâtre Lumière on May 12, following the opening ceremony hosted by actress Eye Haïdara. La Vénus électrique is set in Paris, 1928. The fest describes Salvadori’s 11th feature film as a “delightfully burlesque romantic comedy.” It is the filmmaker’s “imaginings of the Roaring Twenties, marked by artistic effervescence, popular entertainment, and spiritualism,” which permeate the film. The story.
—Taking flight. John Travolta’s directorial debut, Propeller One-Way Night Coach, will world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in the Cannes Premiere Selection. The Apple Original Films movie is an adaptation of a 1997 book written and illustrated by Travolta, inspired by the star’s childhood memories and lifelong passion for aviation. Cannes didn’t immediately detail the premiere date. The film stars newcomer Clark Shotwell as Jeff, Kelly Eviston‑Quinnett as his mother, as well as Travolta daughter Ella Bleu Travolta and Olga Hoffmann as flight attendants. The story.
—He's back. Banjong Pisanthanakun, the Thai filmmaker behind genre landmarks Shutter and Pee Mak, is returning to the director’s chair for Inherit, a horror feature produced by GDH 559, Thailand’s most creatively versatile and commercially consistent studio. Korean sales outfit Barunson E&A, the production company behind Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite, has boarded international sales on the project. Banjong has long been regarded as one of Southeast Asia's premier genre directors. His 2004 debut Shutter became a defining title in the Thai horror wave of the 2000s, while the comedy-horror Pee Mak (2013) became Thailand’s highest-grossing film of all time. The story. |
Brown: All 'Paradise' Answers Will Come in S3 ►"Are these things coincidences? Or is there something at work, like a greater power?" THR's queen of chat Jackie Strause spoke to Sterling K. Brown about the season two finale of Hulu's gripping drama Paradise. The star and executive producer dishes about the big questions raised by the episode "Exodus." Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—"I think it’s a hopeful ending." Jackie also spoke Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen creator Haley Z. Boston about the finale of the buzzy Netflix horror series. Boston discusses the thesis for the show and how the final scene leaves the door open for another season. Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—Is Robert a monster? THR's Brande Victorian spoke to Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington and Kate Mara about the latest episode of Apple TV‘s Imperfect Women. The three actresses break down the latest goings on in the psychological thriller drama, with a focus on Joel Kinnaman’s character Robert Hennessy. Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
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What else we're reading...
—Sam Fleming, Adam Shaw, Joseph Cotterill, Amy Borrett and A. Anantha Lakshmi report on the global energy crisis unleashed by Trump's reckless Iran War [FT]
—Charlie Campbell looks at how Trump's Iran War cracked Dubai’s liberal facade [Time]
—Sarah Jones laments the fact that the risible former Fox News guy Pete Hegseth finally got his Holy War [Intelligencer]
—Jesse Hassenger rails against Hollywood screenwriters following a deluge of recent releases, including Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice and Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, that are riddled with self-satisfied smarm [Guardian]
—Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao interviews filmmaker David Lowery about his hotly anticipated new A24 film Mother Mary [Filmmaker Magazine]
Today...
...in 1978, CBS premiered its primetime soap opera Dallas, which would go on to run for fourteen seasons at the network. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Pedro Pascal (51), Tom Gormican (46), Michael Fassbender (49), Christopher Meloni (65), Clark Gregg (64), David Frankel (67), Jesse Plemons (38), Roselyn Sanchez (53), Emma Myers (24), Bethany Joy Lenz (45), Adam Shulman (45), Lindy Booth (47), Linda Hunt (81), Pamela Reed (77), Mayan Lopez (30), John Thomson (57), Simon Farnaby (53), David Rysdahl (39), Ceci Balagot (25), Briga Heelan (39), Adam Rodriguez (51), Ajay Devgn (57), Shawn Roberts (42), Adam F. Goldberg (50), Renée Estevez (59), Nicole Steinwedell (45), Jana Marie Hupp (62), Tiffany Brouwer (42) |
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