| | | | | | What's news: France's Mediawan is buying Peter Chernin‘s North Road Company. Don Lemon has been arrested over an anti-ICE protest. Joe Carnahan is facing a sexual battery lawsuit from his ex-partner. Kevin Couch has resigned as the head of artistic programming at the Kennedy Center. And Donald Trump and Brett Ratner attempted to defend the artistic merits of Melania, at the film's premiere. — Abid Rahman
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Latino Stars Urge "Accountability and Equity" Amid 'Deep Cuts' Casting Backlash ►"Casting decisions carry real weight." Eva Longoria, John Leguizamo, Jessica Alba, Gina Rodriguez, Danny Ramirez, Becky G, Michael Pena and Xochitl Gomez are among a group of over 100 Latino actors, artists and storytellers who have signed an open letter urging Hollywood to increase Latino voices across all avenues of the entertainment industry. In the letter, the group of creatives acknowledged backlash that ensued after Odessa A’zion was cast in Sean Durkin’s A24 film Deep Cuts as character Zoe Gutierrez, who is described in the book that the film is based on as half Mexican and half Jewish. Amid the controversy, the Marty Supreme star announced Wednesday that she had dropped out of the project. The story.
—Arrested. Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been arrested over an anti-ICE protest that took place in a Minnesota church during Sunday services last week. Lemon, who now hosts a show on YouTube and other social platforms, was on a livestream that began outside the church in St. Paul, but followed protestors a they went inside, alleging that a church official also worked at a local ICE office. The journalist proceeded to interview protestors, congregants and a pastor during the protest. The blowback to the protest was swift, and there are laws (most notably the FACE Act) that make it a crime to obstruct someone from practicing their religion, which would almost certainly apply to a Sunday church service. The story.
—Assault allegations. Joe Carnahan, director of Netflix's action flick The Rip, is facing a sexual battery lawsuit from ex-partner Michelle Crosby. Carnahan is accused of sexual battery, assault and stalking by Crosby, who says he physically attacked her several times across their four-year relationship. The allegations surfaced in a cross-complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court responding to a lawsuit filed by Carnahan, 56, over a Porsche he says he let her borrow. He claims that Crosby, 45, damaged the vehicle, which she allegedly refused to return, and is harassing him, including through instances of physical assault. Carnahan vehemently denies accusations of assault. The story. |
Peter Chernin's North Road Company Sells to Mediawan ►🤝 Sold! 🤝 In a global production mega-deal, Peter Chernin‘s North Road Company has sealed a deal to sell itself to the French studio giant Mediawan. The deal dramatically expands Mediawan’s presence in North America. North Road’s studios include Chernin Entertainment, led by David Ready; Chernin Entertainment Television, led by Kaitlin Dahill and Tracey Cook; Kinetic Content, led by Chris Coelen; Worlds + Pictures, led by Connor Schell; North Road Television Studio, led by Amy Israel; Perro Azul in Mexico City and Karga Seven in Istanbul. The story.
—New Wennture. Former Rolling Stone CEO Gus Wenner is launching a new investment firm, Wenner Media Ventures, and the first investment is in the company behind the popular social video show Track Star, which now has millions of followers across platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Wenner will make a strategic investment in the company, Public Opinion, and become its executive chairman, with plans to “accelerate the brand’s already dramatic growth by expanding its lineup, launching original series led by a new wave of creators, journalists, filmmakers, and music personalities,” the company says. The story.
—✊ Union inception. ✊ The Writers Guild of America West could soon have another strike on their hands, but not one involving Hollywood’s studios or streamers. Rather, the labor group’s own staff union — the union within the union, as it were — on Thursday authorized a strike as they claim that negotiations over their first contract have stalled as management has engaged in bad-faith bargaining. Eighty-two percent of the 100 staffers that participated voted to authorize a strike, the Writers Guild Staff Union announced on Instagram on Thursday. The story.
—✊ It's on. ✊ Production workers at Washington, D.C.’s popular venues 9:30 Club, The Anthem, The Atlantis and Lincoln Theatre have voted to unionize. In an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board onsite at the venues on January 15 and 21, 80 percent of stagehands, audio engineers, lighting technicians and other concert production workers chose to be represented by IATSE Local 22. Box office workers voted unanimously to be represented by IATSE Local 868. In total, about 150 workers took part. The story. |
'Melania' Premiere: Ratner Says $75M Doc Isn't "Corruption" ►"I think Amazon’s done a good thing to the culture." For THR, Carita Rizzo was at the world premiere of Brett Ratner's Melania Trump documentary, Melania, which took place at the Kennedy Center in D.C. on Thursday night. The Amazon MGM Studios film, which follows the First Lady in the days leading up to Trump's second inauguration, debuted with support from the president and much of his cabinet. On the black carpet, the president and Ratner were keen to stress the artistic merits of the doc, after pointed questions from the press about Amazon's reasons for acquiring the film. The recap.
—Banana republic latest. Kevin Couch, the newly appointed head of artistic programming at the Kennedy Center, has resigned from his post. Couch told The New York Times that he left his position of senior vice president of artistic programming Wednesday, but did not provide a reason for his resignation. The Kennedy Center had announced his hiring on Jan. 16. Jeffrey Finn, who previously held the position and was also executive producer of theater, left his post in September after close to a decade at the arts organization. The story.
—Final Boss. The Trump administration is definitely not a fan of Bruce Springsteen’s new anti-ICE protest song. The legendary singer released the track on Wednesday about what he called the “state terror” that ICE has committed in Minneapolis, including the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. In response, White House shared a statement to THR, “The Trump administration is focused on encouraging state and local Democrats to work with federal law enforcement officers on removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from their communities — not random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information." The story. |
HBO Orders Damon Lindelof Series 'The Chain' ►🟢 "Jaws for parents." 🟢 Damon Lindelof is returning with a buzzy new HBO project. The Emmy-winning showrunner behind Lost, The Leftovers and Watchmen has struck a deal for a new project, The Chain. The show is based on Adrian McKinty’s dark, twisty 2019 novel of the same name. The book is about a kidnapping scheme where the victim’s parents must kidnap another child to secure their own child’s release, creating a self-perpetuating chain of abductions. Author Don Winslow blurbed the book as "Jaws for parents," while Stephen King praised it as "nightmarish, propulsive and original." The story.
—🟢 It's not SVU. 🟢 Prime Video’s latest series order is for a show called Sex Criminals. The Amazon-owned streamer has picked up an eight-episode show based on the acclaimed Image Comics title Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky. Kumail Nanjiani, Emily V. Gordon and Tze Chun are co-creators of the series, and Nanjiani is also set for an acting role. The show centers on Suze, "a normal girl with an extraordinary ability: when she has sex, she stops time," the show’s logline reads. "One night, she meets Jon, who has the same gift. And so they do what any other sex-having, time-stopping couple would do: They rob banks." The story.
—📅 Dated! 📅 It’s time to report for Jury Duty season two. The second season of the breakout hit, officially titled Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat, is set to debut its first three episodes on March 20 on Amazon Prime Video. The next two episodes will premiere on March 27, with the final three launching on April 3. The coming Jury Duty season will have nothing to do with jury duty, alas. Instead, Company Retreat is set at a corporate offsite event for a family-owned hot sauce company. The story.
—🎭 God-tier casting. 🎭 Prime Video‘s God of War adaptation has found its All-Father. Mandy Patinkin has been cast to play Odin in the streamer’s take on PlayStation’s hugely popular ancient mythology-themed video game. The Princess Bride and Homeland actor’s character is described as “not physically imposing or particularly god-like: but looks can be deceiving. He is the most powerful Aesir god, a patriarch who leads with an iron fist, and an unrivaled seeker of knowledge. When it comes to seeking out prophecy, Odin is paranoid, manipulative, and dangerous — he will do anything to try and prevent Ragnarök, the Norse end of days." The story. |
Jane Lynch, Katey Sagal to Star in NBC Comedy ►🎭 2 queens, 1 show. 🎭 NBC is adding to its pilot roster with orders for two comedies. The two projects, both multi-camera comedies, bring the network’s total to eight for this season — one more than all the broadcast networks ordered last year. One, an untitled show from New Adventures of Old Christine creator Kari Lizer, will star Jane Lynch and Katey Sagal. The second, Newlyweds, is from creator Gail Lerner (Will & Grace, Black-ish) and follows a later-in-life marriage. NBC now counts three comedies among its pilot crop, with these two joining an untitled, single-camera show from Brooklyn Nine-Nine alumni Dan Goor and Luke Del Tredici about an L.A. private eye. The network has also ordered five drama pilots, among them a Rockford Files reboot, as it stages a mini-revival to the once frenetic network pilot season. The story.
—🎭 Three more to check-in. 🎭 Helena Bonham Carter, Marissa Long and Chris Messina are set to join the fourth season of HBO's Emmy-winning series, The White Lotus. Last month, THR reported that Steve Coogan, Caleb Jonte Edwards, Alexander Ludwig and AJ Michalka are also set to join the cast. Created by Mike White, the series will film in France and follows a new group of White Lotus hotel guests and employees over the span of a week, along with the chaos that comes with it. The location of the upcoming season was rumored, but the French setting was not officially confirmed until Nov. 20. The story.
—Epic run. Stranger Things ended its five-season odyssey on Netflix on top — of not just the weekly streaming charts, but also Nielsen’s all-time weekly numbers. The series had 8.65b minutes of viewing for the week of Dec. 29-Jan. 4; the series finale debuted on Dec. 31. That’s the largest single-week total since Nielsen began tracking streaming viewing in 2020, beating the previous mark of 8.46b minutes — also held by Stranger Things during the week of its final season premiere in late November. The series now has the four best weekly totals ever in Nielsen’s charts, including 7.2b minutes a week after season four premiered in 2022 and 6.89b minutes in the final full week of December 2025. The streaming rankings. |
Aronofsky Reconstructs Revolutionary War Using AI ►¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Benjamin Franklin and The Battle of Brooklyn — in AI? That’s the premise of an intriguing, provocative new series that Darren Aronofsky is producing via his AI-focused venture Primordial Soup. Drawing on the tech of Google DeepMind, with which the company has a deal, Aronofsky is dramatizing the scenes from some of the Revolutionary War period’s most pivotal moments and releasing them on Time’s YouTube channel. Titled On This Day… 1776, the short-form series will see each episode focus on a different key moment from that crucial year. The fact-based narratives will rely on SAG voice actors and AI visuals. The hook? Each episode will drop on the 250th anniversary of its occurrence. The story.
—First-look. Sony‘s four-movie Beatles biopic project is starting to come together. In a unique marketing strategy, the studio printed four different postcards — each showing one of the core stars in the first looks at the characters — that were dispersed throughout the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts for students to find. Director Sam Mendes‘ The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event hits theaters in April 2028 and star Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr. The story.
—🎭 "This is a film that will be universally spoken about and responded to." 🎭 Josh Gad has signed on to star in the Holocaust-set biopic Gerron’s Last Film from British director Simon Curtis. Gad will play Kurt Gerron, one of the most famous Jewish actors and directors in pre-Nazi Germany who, unlike his friends Marlene Dietrich and Fritz Lang, refused to leave the country when Hitler came to power. Ultimately sent to the Jewish ghetto in Theresienstadt (Terezin), Gerron was recognized by the camp commander, a huge fan of his work, and forced to make a propaganda film about the ghetto, to supposedly show the “humane” conditions Jews were living in under Nazi rule. The story.
—🎭 Filled out. 🎭 John Rambo is heading to the front lines. The latest feature in the revived Rambo franchise has started production in Bangkok, Thailand. Lionsgate will distribute director Jalmari Helander‘s movie that tells the origins of the titular character. It is set years before the events in First Blood, the 1982 film that starred Sylvester Stallone and adapted author David Morrell’s novel of the same name. Noah Centineo plays the lead in the new movie. Lionsgate announced Thursday that the ensemble cast will include Yao, Jason Tobin, Quincy Isaiah, Jefferson White and Tayme Thapthimthong. The story. |
Film Review: 'Cold Storage' ►"Not quite infectious but not totally deadly either." THR's chief film critic David Rooney reviews Jonny Campbell's Cold Storage. This goofy sci-fi horror is about a frantic rush to stop a killer fungus from spreading. Starring Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, Sosie Bacon, Liam Neeson, Lesley Manville, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Brake, Aaron Heffernan and Ellora Torchia. Written by David Koepp, based on his novel. The review.
—"Low-key to a fault, but bristles with authenticity." David reviews Adam Meeks' Sundance U.S. dramatic competition entry, Union County. Meeks expands on his short film of the same name in this debut feature, a docudrama about the opiate crisis in rural Ohio integrating professional actors with court-mandated drug program participants. Starring Will Poulter, Noah Centineo, Elise Kibler, Emily Meade, Annette Deao, Danny Wolohan and Kevin P. Braig. Written by Adam Meeks. The review.
—"A small but moving act of resistance in itself." THR's Leslie Felperin reviews David Borenstein and Pasha Talankin's Mr. Nobody Against Putin. Made with footage smuggled out on encrypted platforms, the Oscar-nominated film records how the war with Ukraine has intensified Vladimir Putin's propaganda machine. Written by David Borenstein. The review.
—"A movie that’s way better than its first impression." For THR, Richard Lawson reviews Macon Blair's The Shitheads. Premiering at Sundance, Blair’s new film is about a hellish road trip that gets better as it goes. Starring O’Shea Jackson Jr., Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Kiernan Shipka, Peter Dinklage and Nicholas Braun. The review. |
Thank Pod It's Friday ►All the latest content from THR's podcast studio.
—Awards Chatter. THR's executive awards editor Scott Feinberg talks to the great and the good of Hollywood. In this episode Scott spoke to Chloé Zhao. The Chinese two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker reflects on her path to America and film, jumping from indie Nomadland to Marvel's Eternals and how her subsequent four-year "mid-life crisis" prepared her for her latest film, Hamnet, for which she is again double Oscar-nominated. The podcast.
—I’m Having an Episode. THR’s Mikey O’Connell attempts to stay on top of the latest TV and entertainment news with a little help from his friends, colleagues and a revolving door of actors, writers, showrunners and filmmakers. In this episode, Mikey interviews actress and comedian Sherry Cola, who discusses the perks of therapy — both in real life and on the new season of Shrinking. And THR's David Canfield joins Mikey to live in Charli XCX's The Moment and examine the pop-star-to-Hollywood pipeline. The podcast.
In other news...
—Outlander: Starz drops emotional trailer for final season
—Danny McBride writing masculinity-themed book Thrilling Tales of Modern Men
—Charter adds 44,000 pay-TV subscribers in Q4
—Grammys: Chappell Roan, Charli xcx, Teyana Taylor among presenters
—Disney hires Ben Swinburne to lead investor relations and corporate strategy
—Adult Swim ups Cameron Tang to head of development and current series
—WNBA star Sophie Cunningham signs with 3 Arts Sports
—Nancy Seltzer, longtime publicist to Garth Brooks and Sean Connery, dies at 79
What else we're reading...
—Katie Robertson writes that the expansion of Rupert Murdoch's Post tabloid from its New York roots to the West Coast is the latest sign of the outlet’s national ambitions [NYT]
—Josef Adalian reflects on Bari Weiss' short tenure as CBS News chief, writing that the organization is "no longer the CBS News of Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, even Scott Pelley" [Vulture]
—Charlotte Klein goes inside the Washington Post’s existential meltdown [Intelligencer]
—Helena Hunt digs into the social media obsession with the year 2016, and wonders whether we really want to go back [Ringer]
—Here's your Friday list: "The 42 best Sundance movies, definitively ranked" [GQ]
Today...
...in 1931, United Artists unveiled the silent film City Lights, written, directed and produced by Charlie Chaplin. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Vanessa Redgrave (89), Olivia Colman (52), Christian Bale (🏴52), Phil Collins (75), Ann Dowd (70), Eiza González (30), Wilmer Valderrama (46), Charles S. Dutton (75), Kid Cudi (42), Brett Butler (68), Steven Zaillian (73), Rebecca Quin (39), Danielle Campbell (31), Darren Boyd (31), Braxton Alexander (19), Jen Richards (50), Lena Hall (46), Khleo Thomas (37), Markella Kavenagh (26), Kylie Bunbury (37), Valene Kane (39), Jake Thomas (36), Kang Han-na (37), Alex Hyde-White (67), Choi Hyun-wook (24), Christina Bennington (34), Mary Hollis Inboden (40), Kaya Kiyohara (24), Julie McCullough (61), Wayne Wilderson (60), Norbert Leo Butz (59), Daniel di Tomasso (43), Sandra Yi Sencindiver (46), Jordan Prentice (53) |
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