| | | | What's news: It's magazine day! This week's cover star is the loveable Tom Holland. Apple has renewed sci-fi drama Silo. Netflix has renewed Physical 100. Stephen Colbert has extended his CBS deal through 2026. Legendary Marvel comic book artist John Romita Sr. has died. Netflix is set to open a pop-up restaurant in Los Angeles. — Abid Rahman |
Tom Holland Breaks Free ►On the cover. After six stints playing Spider-Man, Tom Holland is eager for post-superhero adventures. The 27-year-old Brit actor opens up to THR's Seth Abramovitch about the pressures of mega-celebrity, his new Apple TV+ show A Crowded Room, his superstar girlfriend and his "Spider-Boys" group chat with Tobey and Andrew. The cover story.
—Sticking around. Stephen Colbert will continue to make CBS his TV home. The host and executive producer of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert has signed a contract extension that will keep him at the network for three more years, through 2026. His current contract was set to expire at the end of the year. The story. —Settlement. Priscilla Presley is surrendering control of her late daughter Lisa Marie's estate to her granddaughter, Riley Keough, according to a proposed settlement filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Keough moved to approve a deal on Monday that would name her sole trustee of her late mother’s sprawling estate. Under the agreement, Priscilla Presley will be paid an undisclosed sum to drop her petition challenging the “authenticity and validity” of a 2016 amendment to her daughter’s will that replaced her as a co-trustee. The story.
—Solid. The Denver Nuggets winning their first title gave ABC its biggest audience of the 2023 NBA Finals — but the series as a whole was down a little from a year ago. The Nuggets’ 94-89 victory over the Miami Heat averaged 13.08m viewers Monday night, a high for the series and slightly ahead of last year’s fifth game between the Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics (13.02m). The five-game series averaged about 11.64m viewers, down 6 percent from 12.4m for the 2022 Finals. The ratings. |
Cormac McCarthy 1933 - 2023 ►"He is the great pessimist of American literature, using his dervish sentences to illuminate a world in which almost everything (including punctuation) has already come to dust." Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose searing novel No Country for Old Men served as the foundation for the Coen brothers’ 2007 film that earned Oscars for best picture, supporting actor, directing and adapted screenplay, has died. He was 89. He won a Pulitzer for The Road, had his first bestseller with All the Pretty Horses and wrote the screenplay for Ridley Scott's The Counselor. The obituary.
—"He is a legend in the art world." John Romita Sr., the revered comic book artist who co-created Marvel characters including Wolverine, the Punisher and Mary Jane Watson, has died. He was 93. His death was announced Tuesday night on Twitter by his son, John Romita Jr., a successful comic book artist in his own right. The obituary. |
Disney Delays 'Avatar' Sequels, 'Avengers' and 'Star Wars' ►📅 Mark it down 📅 Disney is shaking up its theatrical release calendar. The studio announced a slew of changes on Tuesday, led by the news that it is setting two Star Wars movies for 2026 and pushing back Avatar 3 by a year, from December 2024 to December 2025. Additionally, Avatar 4 will now hit theaters in December 2029, followed by Avatar 5 in December 2031 — meaning 4 and 5 will now open three years later than previously announced. Avengers: The Kang Dynasty has been pushed a year to May 1, 2026 and Avengers: Secret Wars moves to May 7, 2027. Deadpool 3 will now open in theaters on May 3, 2024, instead of Nov. 8, 2024. The story. —📅 An Aardman Christmas 📅 As part of Netflix’s appearance this week at the Annecy International Animation Festival, the streamer hosted a sneak peek at upcoming work and the world premiere of Nimona, the anticipated adaptation of ND Stevenson’s graphic novel coming to the platform on June 30. Netflix also announced that Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget — Aardman Animations’ long-anticipated sequel to Chicken Run — will get a Dec. 15 release. Additionally, the company revealed details on a string of upcoming animated projects. The story.
—A f***ing first. Adam Devine, Kathryn Hahn and Idris Elba will lead the voice cast of Fixed, Genndy Tartakovsky's first R-rated comedy feature. Sony revealed the news at Annecy, with Tartakovsky and producer Michelle Murdocca showing multiple clips from the film, which is set to deliver in September. A release date has not yet been set. The story.
—Feature debut. Also at Annecy, Julien Bisaro and Claire Paoletti, the French director-writer team behind award-winning short Shooom’s Odyssey (2020), set their feature debut. The duo pitched the animated feature La Petite Cavale (On The Run) to co-production partners, as well as producers and broadcasters, at an industry session at the festival on Wednesday. Bisaro and Paoletti screened a two-minute pilot for the project, which France’s Picolo Pictures are producing. The story. |
Sarah Polley in Talks to Direct 'Bambi' ►Moving forward. Sarah Polley — who earlier this year won the best-adapted screenplay Oscar for her feature Women Talking — is in talks to direct the live-action Bambi film for Disney. The project is still in development, but should it happen, it would join the studio's lucrative classic animation–to–live-action roster. The Bambi project was first reported in 2020, with Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer set to pen the screenplay and Chris and Paul Weitz and Andrew Miano on board to produce. It’s unclear if this team is still in place. The story.
—Some details, finally. The FX-produced murder mystery starring Emma Corrin has a new title and a confirmed home. The limited series, formerly titled Retreat, will now go by the name A Murder at the End of the World. It’s set to premiere in August on Hulu, FX’s Disney sibling; previous news about the show didn’t specify whether it would run exclusively on the streamer or start on the FX cable channel. FX has also released a first look at Corrin’s character, a Gen Z amateur sleuth and hacker named Darby Hart. The story.
—Excellent decision. Apple TV+ has renewed the Rebecca Ferguson-starring sci-fi drama Silo. Based on Hugh Howey’s trilogy of novels and created by Graham Yost, the show is set in an underground community housing the last 10,000 people on Earth. The renewal comes ahead of the show’s eighth episode, which debuts on June 16. The 10-episode first season is set to conclude on June 30. The story. —It’s official. Netflix’s smash-hit Korean reality series Physical 100 has been renewed for a second season. The survival series, which pits 100 of Korea’s highest-profile athletes, bodybuilders and sports influencers against one another in a series of grueling fitness challenges, began with a modest cult following in Korea when it was released in January. But it quickly caught on globally, eventually becoming Netflix’s #1 non-English show for two weeks and in the top 10 in 78 countries around the world. The story. |
Box Office: Summer Tentpoles Cash In, Fueled by Diverse Stars ►"It represents an interesting shift." For three weekends in a row, pricey studio tentpoles winning the crowded box office race — and exceeding expectations — have featured leads who are Black and/or Latino: Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. THR's Pamela McClintock looks at the emerging trend and how studio executives now understand that they have to make content for all demos and feature stars who look like all members of the audience. The analysis.
—Reversal. A month ahead of the start of a defamation trial between music producer Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald and singer Kesha Rose Sebert, New York’s top appeals court set the bar higher for Gottwald to prove that Sebert defamed him by accusing him of raping her in 2014. The court ruled that the producer, as a public figure, will have to prove that the singer acted with knowledge that her statements were false or made with reckless disregard to the truth — a demanding standard to clear in defamation cases. The story.
—Charities chosen. Johnny Depp will be donating a portion of his settlement in his defamation case with Amber Heard to five separate charities. Make-A-Film Foundation, The Painted Turtle, Red Feather, Tetiaroa Society and Amazonia Fund Alliance are the five charities that will receive donations of $200,000 each, totaling $1m. The story. —No bingeing. Netflix will launch a pop-up restaurant in Los Angeles on June 30. Called Netflix Bites, the food concept will be built around an “elevated dining experience” featuring chefs featured in various shows. Among the chefs participating are Curtis Stone, Ming Tsai and Andrew Zimmern of Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend; Dominique Crenn of Chef’s Table and Iron Chef; Rodney Scott and Ann Kim of Chef’s Table; Nadiya Hussain of Nadiya Bakes; and Jacques Torres of Nailed It! There will also be cocktails designed by the mixologists from Drink Masters. The story. |
If the Writers Lose, It Hurts All Filmmakers ►"The writers strike is the inflection point for the future of how all filmmakers will make a living (or won’t)." In a guest column for THR, film and television editor Zack Arnold writes that if people in the entertainment industry divide themselves as above-the-line versus below-the-line or guild versus guild, sustainable career paths could cease to exist. The column.
—✊ Solidarity, innit ✊ The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain on Wednesday joined writers and other workers in the media and entertainment sectors around the world for “Screenwriters Everywhere,” a global day of solidarity with striking Hollywood writers. A few hundred WGGB members met up at London’s Leicester Square from around 1 p.m. local time, with the meeting point being full of symbolism: a statue of William Shakespeare in the square. The story. —"We have to figure this out." CBS head George Cheeks addressed Hollywood’s current labor climate as writers remain on strike, and actors hold talks on a new deal with the studios. Speaking at the Banff World Media Festival, Cheeks said he was "still hopeful that we will all find compromises" adding that the current situation was "existential for all of us." The story. |
Film Review: 'Milli Vanilli' ►"Hovers intriguingly rather than landing decisively." THR's Dan Fienberg reviews Luke Korem's Milli Vanilli. Premiering at Tribeca, the doc film looks at the Euro-R&B duo, their rise to Grammy-winning fame and their descent into lip-synching ignominy. The review.
—"Big protagonist, bigger ideas." Dan reviews Amazon Prime Video's I’m a Virgo. Boots Riley's show blends superhero tropes and anti-capitalist satire in telling the story of a 13-foot-tall Black teen (Jharrel Jerome) in contemporary Oakland. The review.
—"Delicious betrayal." THR's Caryn James reviews Alice Troughton's The Lesson. Richard E. Grant and Julie Delpy star in the filmmaker's debut feature, an exquisite sun-drenched noir about art and ego. The review. —"Not strictly necessary, but welcome all the same." THR's Angie Han reviews FX/Hulu's The Full Monty. Set 25 years after the events of the hit '90s comedy, the show checks back in with Gaz (Robert Carlyle) and the other Sheffield boys. The review. In other news...
—Jared Harris and Lee Pace clash in Foundation S2 trailer
—Pixar’s Elio trailer debuts; Jameela Jamil and Brad Garrett join voice cast
—World of Wonder founders tackle drag backlash: “We’re at this tipping point”
—Steven Weber set to host Lead with Love 4 telethon
What else we're reading...
—Sam Schechner and Kim Mackrael report that the EU may seek to breakup Google’s ad-tech business [WSJ]
—Mark Seal has a longread on the increasingly fractious battle between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie over the Miraval wine estate [VF]
—Critic James Poniewozik reflects on the long-career of Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak and his place in pop culture [NYT]
—Samer Al-Atrush and Tim Bradshaw report on Saudi Arabia's plans to spend billions in a bid to dominate the global video games industry [FT]
—Incredible Maxwell Strachan story on a Denver area worker, an Employee of the Month no less, being forced to work more hours despite exceeding all his targets [Vice]
Today...
...in 2002, Doug Liman and Matt Damon’s thriller The Bourne Identity hit theaters, kick-starting an action franchise that has spanned five films and one television series so far. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Yasmine Bleeth (55), Jay Roach (66), Traylor Howard (57), Kevin McHale (35), Daryl Sabara (31), Diablo Cody (45), Celeste Desjardins (27), Alexandra Castillo (52), Agathe Rousselle (35), Tamara Smart (18), Boy George (62), Will Patton (69), Lucy Hale (34), Kara Killmer (35), Tyler Johnston (36), Louis Garrel (40), Pascale Hutton (44), Sullivan Stapleton (46), Faizon Love (55), Fiona Vroom (40), Brianne Tju (25), Torrance Coombs (40), Phillip Rhys Chaudhary (51), Dayo Okeniyi (35), Eric William Morris (41), Regan Burns (55) |
| John Romita Sr., the revered comic book artist who co-created Marvel characters including Wolverine, the Punisher and Mary Jane Watson, has died. He was 93. The obituary. |
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