| |
|
|
|
|
What's news: Michael made $12m to $13.5m from Thursday previews. CBS Evening News hit a low of 3.5m viewers last month. Netflix is developing a show based on The Nanny Diaries. 38 movies were granted subsidies in the latest round of California tax credits. And The Devil Wears Prada 2 has sparked a racism storm in several Asian countries. — Abid Rahman
Do you have THR's next big story? Confidentially share tips with us at tips@thr.com. |
Can Richard Gadd Do It Again?►"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." He's back! Richard Gadd, the tormented mind behind Netflix's multi-Emmy winning limited series Baby Reindeer, jumps to HBO and returns with unflinching new drama Half Man. The searing Glasgow-set six-parter, on which Gadd serves as creator, writer and star, explores male rage and repression, arriving right as the culture’s so-called “manosphere” obsession begins to feel quite inescapable. Ahead of Half Man's debut, Gadd opened up to THR's Lily Ford about grappling with sudden tabloid fame, battling a $170m defamation suit and the dark roads his new show dares to travel: "It had to go to extreme places." The digital cover story.
—"I know the pressure’s there, and I know the expectation is there." Richard Gadd also spoke to THR at the New York City premiere of Half Man this week. The Scottish filmmaker addressed the expectations for the show given the massive success of Baby Reindeer and also broke down the comparisons and differences between his new show and the one that made him one of the most in-demand creatives in Hollywood. The story. |
Paramount-WBD Deal Gets Shareholders Green Light►But not so hot on Zaz's package. Paramount‘s $110b megadeal for Warner Bros. Discovery got the green light from WBD shareholders Tuesday morning, as they voted to approve the merger that would combine two of Hollywood’s legacy studios. The shareholders, however, rejected WBD CEO David Zaslav‘s lucrative compensation package, sending a message to its board in the process. The votes are preliminary, with WBD expected to release more complete results later on. The company’s secretary said when announcing the preliminary results that shareholders “overwhelmingly” voted to approve merger. The story.
—Bob's next act. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger is returning to the venture capital firm that he briefly worked at the last time he exited the entertainment giant. Iger is joining Thrive Capital, the New York-based VC firm founded by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of Jared Kushner. Thrive, which announced a $10b raise for a new fund earlier this year, has backed companies like OpenAI, Spotify and A24. Joshua Kushner announced Iger’s return Thursday, writing that “Bob leads with boldness and conviction because he knows what he is building and why. He is rejoining Thrive at a time when that kind of leadership matters most.” The story.
—Brutal. Facebook-owner Meta is laying off some 8,000 employees, about 10 percent of its staff, as it seeks to shift resources to other areas like its aggressive artificial intelligence investments. The company, which also owns Instagram and Whatsapp, informed employees of the looming cuts Thursday, with impacted employees set to be notified next month. Meta will also close 6,000 open job listings. The story.
—Cha-ching! Ari Emanuel saw his compensation package at TKO Group Holdings rise to $67.3m in 2025, a sharp increase from 2024, when his compensation totaled $18.1m. Emanuel is executive chair and CEO of TKO, which owns the UFC, WWE, IMG and PBR, among other assets. His 2025 salary remained $3m, while his bonus rose to $11.9m, his stock award rose to nearly $44m, and his non-equity incentive plan comp topped $8.1m. TKO disclosed its senior executive pay in its annual proxy filing Thursday afternoon. Mark Shapiro, the president and COO of TKO, saw his compensation package rise to $42.6m in 2025, up from $31.9m in 2024, while CFO Andrew Schleimer saw his pay rise to $23.1m. The story. |
YouTube Terminates Clavicular's Channels►Sadmaxxing. YouTube has terminated “Looksmaxxing” influencer and streamer Clavicular‘s two channels for “severe or repeated violations.” The controversial creator, whose real name is Braden Peters, took to X on Thursday to ask his fans to help recover his @LiveWithClav and @ClavLooksmax accounts. Though Clavicular claims YouTube didn’t give him an explanation for the move, in the emails he received from the video platform, it clearly listed community guideline violations as the reason. The story.
—"What made them think we’ll find this kind of racism funny?" The Devil Wears Prada 2 is still a week or so away from general release in theaters worldwide, but is already sparking backlash in some Asian countries over a minor character supposedly playing into racial stereotypes about Asians. On April 16, the main 20th Century Studios account tweeted out a short clip from the hotly anticipated sequel, featuring Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs interacting with her new assistant Jin Chao, played by Helen J. Shen. The reaction to Jin from social media users in China, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong has been swift and vitriolic. The story.
—Wait, what? Pretty much every other year since 2002, Graydon Carter — first as editor of Vanity Fair, then as founder and editor of Air Mail — has hosted a party during the Cannes Film Festival that has reliably been the most coveted invitation in a week packed with star-studded affairs. THR's Julian Sancton reports that this year, Carter's co-hosts will be the ultimate Hollywood insider, CAA co-chairman and CEO Bryan Lourd, and an industry outsider: the ascendant Silicon Valley tycoon Dario Amodei, CEO of the AI company Anthropic. The story.
—Woo-hoo! The sequel to The Simpsons Movie headlines the 38 movies granted subsidies in the latest round of tax credits granted to productions by California’s film office. Disney’s 20th Century Studios will get $21.9m for shooting the film in the state. The company is taking advantage of California’s recent changes to the tax incentive program expanding the eligible categories of production to include animated movies. Other projects that will get subsidies include untitled films from Paramount ($25.9m) and Dreamworks Animation ($24.7m), plus a Disney live-action title ($18.2m). In total, the 38 films will nab roughly $193.5m for $545m in qualified spending, which includes $373m in wages. The story. |
Meet the 'Mormon Wives' of Orange County►So many questions. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County cast was unveiled on Wednesday, leaving the internet with two burning questions about the women: Are any of them Mormon, and do they even live in Orange County? Hulu confirmed the first spinoff of the Emmy-nominated series at their second Get Real House event, where eight women were introduced to the world as official members of the SoCal-based #MomTok. Here, THR's resident reality expert McKinley Franklin introduces all the women. The list.
—Nanny revisited. Netflix is developing a show based on The Nanny Diaries , the 2002 novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Scarlett Johansson, who starred in the 2007 feature film, will serve as an EP on the project from Warner Bros. Television and Berlanti Productions. Amy Chozick and Jenny Bicks are adapting the novel and will serve as showrunners. The series description suggests a somewhat different take from the film. “Annie, a broke, aspiring writer in search of a story, takes a nanny job for a magnetic Upper East Side socialite, plunging into an elite world of unimaginable excess,” the logline reads. “When she lands the book deal of her dreams to go undercover and expose the salacious lives of the ultra-rich, Annie must try to keep up this double life even as she grows attached to the people and this world." The story.
—Back for more pain. Fox has renewed Fear Factor: House of Fear for a second season. Jackass star Johnny Knoxville hosts the reboot of the boundary-pushing staple of 2000s reality TV. The new version of the global format houses the contestants together. House of Fear premiered after an NFC Wild Card game on Fox, providing an excellent launchpad for the debut. The story.
—📅 Tribute to Todd. 📅 Deadliest Catch season 22 has set its premiere date: Friday, May 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Discovery Channel. Sadly, it will be a season remembered for a tragedy. Todd Meadows, a 25-year-old deckhand on the Aleutian Lady, died as a result of an accident during production. Meadows’ accident was indeed filmed, but it will not be shown on TV, a person with knowledge of production says. The season 22 premiere will include a tribute to Meadows, and subsequent episodes will include footage of Todd as filmed in the weeks documented prior to his death. The story. |
Peabody Awards 2026►🏆 Congrats to all! 🏆 The 34 winners of the 2026 Peabody Awards have been announced. Entertainment and documentary titles had a strong showing with a total of 11 and 10 wins, respectively, in each category. Among networks, HBO earned the most wins with six: three in the documentary category for The Alabama Solution, Pee-wee as Himself and Thoughts and Prayers, and three for the TV series Heated Rivalry, The Pitt and The Rehearsal. Apple TV, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix and PBS all tied in second place with two awards each. The winners.
—🟢 Greenest of green lights. 🟢 Apple TV has greenlit a comedy series starring Elizabeth Banks as a recently divorced woman — but the show will go well beyond that basic premise. The currently untitled series comes from creators Liz Heldens and Matt Ward and Disney’s 20th Television. Here’s the logline: “Fresh off a messy divorce, Heidi (Banks) sets out to secure a lively second act for herself and her kids. But when she stumbles into coordinating her father’s retirement community sex dates, Heidi is forced into an unlikely alliance with his girlfriend’s perpetually single son.” It’s set to begin filming later this year in Los Angeles. The story.
—Dokoupil disaster. On April 17, Tony Dokoupil ended his 15th week as anchor of the CBS Evening News — the same amount of time that the newscast’s previous anchors, John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, had this season. Dokoupil is still drawing more viewers than the tail end of Dickerson and DuBois’ tenure. But the anchor’s average audience has been falling recently, and the lead over the previous iteration of the CBS Evening News is shrinking. In three of the past four weeks, the CBS Evening News has fallen under 4m viewers per night, with a low of just over 3.5m in the week of March 23. The ratings.
—Black gold. A week after its newest batch of episodes put the show in second place on Nielsen’s streaming charts, Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black moved into the top overall spot. The Netflix drama recorded 1.36b minutes of viewing for the week of March 23-29. That’s down a little from 1.42b minutes the prior week, but with overall streaming volume down week to week, the small decline was enough for Beauty in Black to move up a place. The Pitt (1.21b minutes) essentially tied its all-time weekly high for the week of season two’s 12th hour. Taking it out one more decimal place, the HBO Max series had 1.208b minutes, just shy of the 1.209b for the week of Jan. 26-Feb. 1. Beauty in Black and The Pitt were the only titles to cross the billion-minute mark for the week as the previous week’s leader, Virgin River, fell 39 percent to 970m minutes of watch time. The streaming rankings. |
Sandy Hook Mom: 'The Drama' Exposes the Warnings We Ignore►"Awareness without action is not prevention." In a guest column for THR, Nicole Hockley, the co-founder and CEO of Sandy Hook Promise and the mother of Dylan, who was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, reflects on the much-talked about A24 feature, The Drama. Nicole writes that the controversial Zendaya and Robert Pattinson film contains exactly what we fail to see before violence erupts — and how to intervene. The column.
—🤝 Sold! 🤝 Focus Features is staying in the Curry Barker business. The company, which will release the Barker-written and directed movie Obsession on May 15, has picked up Anything But Ghosts, a separate feature that Barker directed and co-wrote with creative partner Cooper Tomlinson. The duo also co-star in Ghosts, which just wrapped production. Little is known about the project, but Aaron Paul has been revealed as among the cast, led by Tomlinson. Barker and Tomlinson rose to Internet fame as the duo behind That’s a Bad Idea, the YouTube comedy sketch channel that has drawn favorable comparison’s to Tim Robinson’s Netflix darling, I Think You Should Leave. The story.
—Woof! In North America, the Michael Jackson biopic Michael is on course to gross anywhere from $12m to $13.5m from Thursday previews and special Imax and other PLF sneaks on Wednesday night. That’s on par with the likes of event pics, including Dune: Part II or Oppenheimer, which both reported preview grosses in the $10m range, not adjusted for inflation. Michael is tracking to earn at least $65m-$70m domestically — some are now even floating $80m — which would make it the biggest opening ever for a music biopic. The box office report.
—"Legal considerations." Michael Jackson fans will not get to see actress Kat Graham portray Diana Ross in Michael. Graham took to social media Thursday to confirm that the scenes she filmed as the legendary Supremes singer did not end up in the final version of the Lionsgate feature due to “certain legal considerations.” “Ahead of the April 24 release of the Michael Jackson film, I want to share that certain legal considerations affected a few scenes, including ones I filmed with an incredible cast,” Graham posted to X. “Unfortunately, these moments are no longer part of the final cut, though the team worked hard to preserve as much of the story as possible.” The story. |
Film Review: 'Apex'►"Brutal, bruising and reliably gripping." THR's chief film critic David Rooney reviews Baltasar Kormákur's Apex. An adrenaline junkie’s Australian wilderness journey turns ugly when she’s hunted by a serial killer in this Netflix original. Starring Charlize Theron, Taron Egerton, Eric Bana, Aaron Pederson, Matt Whelan and Rob Carlton. Written by Jeremy Robbins. The review.
—"Narratively arid." THR's Frank Scheck reviews Rupert Wyatt's Desert Warrior. Anthony Mackie and Ben Kingsley star in this Saudi-set lavish period epic. Also starring Aiysha Hart, Sami Bouajila, Sharlto Copley, Lamis Ammar, Ghassan Massoud, Geza Rohrig and Numan Acar. Written by Davi Self, Rupert Wyatt and Erica Beeney. The review. |
Thank Pod It's Friday
►All the latest content from THR's podcast studio.
—It Happened in Hollywood. THR senior writer Seth Abramovitch goes behind the scenes of the pop culture moments that shaped Hollywood history. In this episode, Seth spoke to filmmaker Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer. The Imagine Entertainment duo discuss the making of the 1984 classic Splash, relay the David-vs.-Goliath tale of Hollywood’s dueling mermaid movies — and minting a superstar out of Tom Hanks in the process. The podcast.
In other news...
—Off Campus trailer: College students strike up dating deal in hockey romance
—Netflix’s Jinny Howe to keynote Banff World Media Festival
—Fashion entrepreneur Chriselle Lim signs with CAA
—Michael Tilson Thomas, renowned conductor, dies at 81
What else we're reading...
—IQiyi, considered China’s Netflix, expects that AI will create the bulk of the shows on it's platform in 5 years [Bloomberg]
—Once touted as a disaster, Katherine Sayre reports that the Sphere has become a phenomenal success for maligned billionaire James Dolan [WSJ]
—Jason Wingard believes that AI "vibe coding" will break people's companies as quality control measures collapse [Forbes]
—Charbel Mallo, Tamara Qiblawi, Sana Noor Haq and Dana Karni report on the shocking death of Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil who was killed by an Israeli airstrike [CNN]
—Aidan McLaughlin reports on the conflicts inside CBS News and the continued stumbles of "eighth choice" anchor Tony Dokoupil [Vanity Fair]
—Here's your Friday list: The 25 most eco-minded Hollywood stars [THR]
Today...
...in 2010, HBO released the Barry Levinson-directed telefilm You Don't Know Jack. The Jack Kevorkian biopic starred Al Pacino, John Goodman, Danny Huston and Susan Sarandon, and won two Emmys. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Barbra Streisand (84), Shirley MacLaine (92), Joe Keery (34), Aidan Gillen (58), Djimon Hounsou (62), Cedric The Entertainer (62), Eric Bogosian (73), Eric Kripke (52), Damon Lindelof (53), Jack Quaid (34), West Duchovny (27), Derek Luke (52), Kelly Clarkson (44), Tyson Ritter (42), Rory McCann (57), Michael O'Keefe (71), Eric Balfour (49), Austin Nichols (46), Sam Corlett (30), Melinda Clarke (57), Joséphine Jobert (41), Thad Luckinbill (51), Glenn Morshower (67), Rebecca Mader (49), Jordan Fisher (32), Stacy Haiduk (58), Kim Tae-ri (36), Sasha Barrese (45), Anastasia Barzee (55), Courtnee Draper (41), Viveca Paulin (57), Jasmine Trinca (45), Varun Dhawan (39), Julie Cox (53), Abigail Thorn (33), Steven Lisberger (75), Ashley Reyes (31)
|
|
|
Dean Tavoularis, the revered Oscar-winning production designer who collaborated with Francis Ford Coppola on 13 films, including all three Godfather movies, Apocalypse Now and One From the Heart, has died. He was 93. The obituary.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
