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What's news: Netflix posted a massive $12.250b in revenue for Q1. Sundance has hired Paula Dupré Pesmen as managing director. NBCU has canceled Law & Order: Organized Crime after five seasons and renewed SVU. David Bruckner will direct the Sydney Sweeney-starring thriller The Caretaker. And Disney wowed CinemaCon with 17 minutes of footage from The Mandarin & Grogu. — Abid Rahman
Do you have THR's next big story? Confidentially share tips with us at tips@thr.com. |
Reed Hastings to Exit Netflix Board of Directors►"Netflix changed my life in so many ways." After nearly three decades, Netflix founder Reed Hastings is stepping down from the board of directors at the streaming giant. The exec will focus on his philanthropic efforts and won’t stand for reelection at the Netflix annual meeting in June, the company said on Thursday. While it marks the formal end of an era, Hastings had stepped back from his day-to-day CEO role at the company in 2023 to become executive chairman, elevating Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos as his successors. The story.
—Who needs WB? Netflix reported better-than-anticipated Q1 revenue thanks to surprisingly strong member growth, particularly in Japan, where the World Baseball Classic was a massive hit. Better ad sales and higher subscription prices also kicked in. Netflix posted $12.250b in revenue in Q1, up 16 percent from the prior year. Net income was $5.283b; operating income was nearly $4b (up 18 percent). The bottom line was helped by a massive $2.8b termination fee Netflix received for not getting Warner Bros. (and paid out by Paramount). The results.
—Not too shabby. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos had a total compensation package of $53.9m in 2025, down from $62m the prior year. The majority of his salary, $41.4m, comes from stock awards. His base salary of $3m has remained unchanged for the past three years. In 2025, he also received a bonus of $7m, as well as $2.4m in other compensation, related to car services, personal aircraft and more. Co-CEO Greg Peters had largely the same compensation package, $53.2m, with the same base salary and bonus. Peters had a slightly lower amount of “other compensation.” His pay package also dropped from $60.3m in the prior year, where he also had a higher bonus. The story.
—He's back! Brian Williams is heading to Netflix. The former NBC Nightly News and MSNBC 11th Hour late night anchor is launching a video podcast for the streaming giant, called We’re Back! With Brian Williams. The podcast will see Williams interview newsmakers, actors, musicians, journalists and other prominent figures “in relaxed, wide-ranging exchanges about their work, their lives, and the moment we’re living through,” the platform says. The story. |
Sundance Hires New Managing Director►Home town hero. THR's Scott Feinberg has the scoop that the Sundance Film Festival has hired Paula Dupré Pesmen as managing director of festival and institute operations. Pesmen is an Oscar-nominated producer of narrative film franchises (Home Alone and Harry Potter) and documentaries (The Cove and Porcelain War), and the founder of a multi-state organization that helps sick children and their families (There With Care). She has lived in Boulder for 30 years — she helped the city put together its pitch for Sundance to move to the city and then was brought on by the fest as managing director of its relocation — is now the fest’s highest-ranking official based in town. The story.
—Broken model. QVC Group, the parent company the home shopping TV brands HSN and QVC, will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company disclosed the plan in a filing with the SEC. The specifics around the bankruptcy remain to be determined, though Chapter 11 allows a company to continue operating while it is restructured. A year ago, the company laid off 900 staffers as it consolidated its operations and plotted a shift to live shopping on social platforms like TikTok, which have emerged as the next-generation home for that type of content. The story.
—The latest. Singer D4vd, whose real name is David Burke, has been arrested for the murder of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, the Los Angeles Police Department has confirmed. “Homicide Division have arrested David Burke, a 21-year-old resident of Los Angeles, for the murder of Celeste Rivas. Burke is being held without bail,” authorities shared in a statement. D4vd was arrested in Hollywood on Thursday on a probable cause warrant, and that he’s being held without bail. The story.
—"All we’ve ever tried to do is protect our children." Birthday girl Victoria Beckham has opened up about her estrangement from son Brooklyn after he slammed his parents in an infamous Instagram post – and without uttering her wayward child’s name. "We love our children so much. We’ve always tried to be the best parents that we can be," the former Spice Girl told the WSJ Magazine. In a January Instagram post, Brooklyn Beckham accused David and Victoria of controlling “narratives in the press about our family” and “trying endlessly to ruin my relationship” with his wife Nicola Peltz Beckham, among other claims. The story. |
Ellison: Paramount and WB Will Be Theatrical Heroes►"Long live the movies." David Ellison made a unexpected appearance at CinemaCon on Thursday. He took the stage to reassure exhibitors they have nothing to fear, whether it be the new regime at Paramount, or his pending acquisition of Warner Bros. "I want to look every single one of you in the eye and promise once we combine with Warner Bros., we are going to make a minimum 30 movies a year. Every film will be released in theaters with minimum 45 day window and SVOD in 90 days,” he said. The story.
—It's official! Paramount film co-head Josh Greenstein said at CinemaCon that Top Gun 3 is officially happening. The follow-up to 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick has been in the works for several years now, with Maverick co-writer Ehren Kruger hired to write a script two years ago. Star Tom Cruise and producer Jerry Bruckheimer are on board for the third installment but there was no mention of a director. The story.
—No such thing as cancel culture. Johnny Depp appears to be back. The star, who has largely been working outside of the mainstream Hollywood system in recent years, took the stage during Paramount’s CinemaCon presentation to debut his new movie Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol. Depp walked out to Alex Warren hit “Ordinary,” in his signature hat, sunglasses and scarves, receiving hearty applause from the room of theater owners and distributors as he thanked them for the support and told them he loved them. The story.
—📅 Dated! 📅 Paramount’s Call of Duty has a date to invade theaters. The studio revealed it will open the feature on June 30, 2028, making the announcement as part of its CinemaCon presentation. Powerhouse TV creator Taylor Sheridan is diving back into the movie business as screenwriter of the project, penning the script with Pete Berg, who will also direct an adaptation of the first-person shooter game. The story.
—Shut up and take my money! Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s first film since 2022’s The Woman King has arrived, as the filmmaker brought Children of Blood and Bone to Paramount’s CinemaCon presentation. Prince-Bythewood took the stage alongside stars Thuso Mbedu, Damson Idris, Amandla Stenberg, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Regina King to offer up a first-look at the feature, which is set in an African fantasy kingdom as a young woman (Mbedu) goes on a quest to reclaim the magic that was violently stolen from her people. The story.
—By Jove, I think they've cracked it! Paramount revealed the full Street Fighter trailer on Thursday, and fans of the game’s campier aspects will not be disappointed. Others might be. Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) and Ryu (Andrew Koji ) are the focus of the upcoming film, but the whole cast of Capcom’s Street Fighter II characters is here, including Jason Momoa as green Brazilian man-beast Blanka and 50 Cent as boxer Balrog. The story. |
'Doomsday' Trailer Shakes CinemaCon►Enter Doom. Marvel showed off the first extensive look at Avengers: Doomsday, its multi-verse mashup movie that brings Robert Downey Jr. back to the fold. Studio honcho Kevin Feige took the stage in Vegas to close out Disney's presentation. "Doomsday picks up where Avengers: Endgame left off,” Feige said, also expressing his excitement in introducing the Avengers to the X-Men. The story.
—17 minutes! Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu, a spinoff film of Disney+’s The Mandalorian show, is coming to theaters and flew into CinemaCon with a very lengthy sneak peak. Director Jon Favreau was in Vegas to introduce his film. After screening the new trailer, Favreau said that he wished he could show more — and then he did just that, as the presentation screened the first 17 minutes of the film. The story.
—The gang's all here. Toy Story 5 came to life at Cinemacon with new footage from the film that debuts in theaters on June 19. The fifth movie in the classic Pixar franchise sees Woody, Buzz and the gang taking on their most formidable adversary to date: modern technology. In the movie, the group is still with Bonnie, now 8-years-old and obsessed with her new tablet called Lilypad (voiced by Greta Lee), and attempting to figure out their place in an increasingly tech-obsessed world as analog toys. The story.
—🎭 Witches brew. 🎭 Disney Animation’s original Thanksgiving movie Hexed has found its voice stars: Hailee Steinfeld and Rashida Jones. Josie Trinidad and Jason Hand are directing the feature, while Roy Conli and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jones are producing. It’s slated to hit theaters Nov. 25, 2026. Steinfeld will voice the role of Billie, an unconventional teenager from a boring town who accidentally discovers that she’s a witch and finds herself whisked away to a world of magic. Her type-A mom, voiced by Jones, also finds her world upside down. The story.
—Ubiquitous. Jacob Elordi is keeping booked and busy, with his latest project on display during Disney’s CinemaCon presentation. The Ridley Scott-directed The Dog Stars tells the story of Hig (played by Elordi), a young pilot who, together with a military survivalist, Bangley (Josh Brolin), has carved out an efficient but isolated homestead in a brutal post-apocalyptic world. The story. |
Behind the Leak of 'Legend of Aang'►Aangxiety inducing. The movie Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender leaked months ahead of its premiere on Paramount+. An anonymous X account claimed that a Nickelodeon employee emailed him the entire film. Within hours, the videos reached the far corners of the internet. THR's Winston Cho looks at how the film was leaked, the fallout of which has sparked a discussion over Paramount’s decision to forgo a traditional theatrical release for a valuable franchise. The story.
—Heading to NYC. The Tribeca Festival has revealed the feature and short film lineup for its 2026 edition. Highlights of this year’s slate, for the 25th anniversary of the annual New York event, include the world premiere of Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson‘s much-anticipated movie reunion in the Holmes-directed Happy Hours as well as screenings of The Accompanist, starring Susan Sarandon and Aubrey Plaza; The Revisionist starring Alison Brie, André Holland, Tom Sturridge and Dustin Hoffman; and Only What We Carry, starring Sofia Boutella, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lizzy McAlpine, Simon Pegg and Quentin Tarantino. The lineup.
—What's next? The Groundskeeper? Universal is capitalizing on the heat from Sydney Sweeney and the success of The Housemaid by stepping on the gas on its own Sweeney thriller, The Caretaker. Indie horror darling David Bruckner has been tapped to direct the feature project that adapts the upcoming book by Marcus Kliewer and that was initially set up as short story in 2022. Sweeney is producing Caretaker as are Michael Bay and Brad Fuller via their Platinum Dunes label’s first-look deal with the studio. The story. |
'Organized Crime' Canceled After 5 Seasons on NBC, Peacock►It was only 5 seasons, you sick f***! The organized crime task force in the Law & Order universe has worked its last case. NBCU has canceled Law & Order: Organized Crime after five seasons. The series, in which Christopher Meloni reprised his SVU character, Elliot Stabler, in a different branch of the NYPD, ran for four seasons on NBC before becoming a Peacock original in its fifth and now final season. The fifth season premiered almost exactly a year ago (April 17, 2025) and ran for 10 episodes; it had an encore run on NBC last fall. The story.
—Some good L&O news. Law & Order: SVU will add another year to its record run on NBC. The network has formally announced a 28th season for the show, extending SVU’s mark as the longest-running primetime drama ever on American television. Sources confirm that the renewal for 2026-27 has been in place for some time but hadn’t been made public before Wednesday. NBC has yet to make a decision on the future of the Law & Order mothership, which is in its 25th season and fifth after a 2022 revival. The story.
—Still got the magic. The long layoff between seasons of Euphoria apparently didn’t dull viewers’ enthusiasm for the show. The HBO drama’s April 12 premiere brought in 8.5m viewers across all platforms in its first three days, its best season opener by a wide margin. Euphoria emerged as one of HBO’s bigger shows in its second season, averaging more than 16m viewers per episode (measured over 90 days from the season premiere). Sunday’s premiere was up by 44 percent vs. the season two debut (which had about 5.9m viewers over the same time frame), which bodes extremely well for the show’s prospects the rest of the season. The ratings. |
'Pitt' Boss on Noah Wyle's S2 Storyline►"[It's what] can happen if you don’t take the time to resolve mental health issues." Rejoice Pitt Crew, we have a big one from THR's Hilary Lewis! She spoke to The Pitt actors Shawn Hatosy, Patrick Ball and Sepideh Moafi about their character's in the buzzy HBO medical drama. Hilary also spoke to showrunner Scott Gemmill on why the series is shaking up its cast. Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—Royal flush. Perfect Crown is Disney‘s new streaming king in the Korean drama category. The smash-hit rom-com, which launched on Disney+ on April 10, has achieved the platform’s biggest-ever viewership for a Korean series within five days of launch. Disney+ announced the record on Thursday but declined to release specific viewership figures, saying only that Perfect Crown has become the No. 1 most-viewed Korean series premiere on the platform globally. The series is set in an alternate-reality version of modern South Korea where the country remains a constitutional monarchy. The story.
—Milestone week. Grey’s Anatomy ranked among the top 10 acquired series for the 320th time in Nielsen’s streaming ratings, pulling in 918m minutes of viewing time on Hulu and Netflix. It already held the record for most appearances on the streaming charts, but 320 — the equivalent of six years and eight weeks — is a nice, round number. The show is on a streak of 24 consecutive weeks in the rankings, which follows a run of 120 weeks that ended in October 2025. Topping the charts for March 16-22 was Virgin River, which came in with 1.59b minutes of viewing, up about 15 percent from its season seven premiere a week earlier. Tyler Perry’s drama Beauty in Black returned to the charts with the back half of its second season, scoring 1.42b viewing minutes. One Piece (1.27b minutes) and The Pitt (1.14b) also had a billon-plus minutes on the series side. The streaming rankings. |
Film Review: 'Blue Heron'►"Memoir meets meta-fiction." For THR, Richard Lawson reviews Sophy Romvari's Blue Heron. Romvari directs this semi-autobiographical Canadian film revolving around a woman's recollection of her increasingly unmoored older brother. Starring Eylul Guven, Iringó Réti, Ádám Tompa, Edik Beddoes and Amy Zimmer. Written by Sophy Romvari. 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 live episode Scott spoke to Alec Baldwin. The veteran star of screens big and small reflects on how he stumbled into acting, what forced his pivot from leading man to character parts, how we wound up impersonating Trump and what his life has been like since the tragic accident that claimed the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in 2021. The podcast.
—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 Eric Roberts. The star of Bob Fosse’s final film Star 80 unpacks the obsession, ambition and moral rot behind one of Hollywood’s darkest true crimes. 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 Leslie Jones. She may be one of the highest energy working comedians, but, in this episode, she says she's rarely going above a five or six. She also talks about her vetoed SNL sketches, lessons from the Ghostbusters backlash and recently walking onto Ziwe's set... with zero awareness of Ziwe's rage bait schtick. The podcast.
—I’m Having an Episode. In this episode, Mikey interviews actress Linda Cardellini about her new HBO show, DTF St Louis, working with Miss Piggy and her career's horror pivot. But before that, THR critics Daniel Fienberg and Angie Han talk about the final season of Hacks, the probably final season of Euphoria and the final seasons that blew their minds — and broke their hearts. The podcast.
In other news...
—Netflix drops first look animated Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory
—Juilliard names interim leadership team, including Laura Linney
What else we're reading...
—Jesus memes, genocidal threats and fights with the pope! Katie Rogers reports on Trump flailing as the pressure of his disastrous Iran War ramps up [NYT]
—Paula Mejía reflects on TMZ invading Washington DC, and the fear it has struck in pols [New Yorker]
—Josef Palermo, a former arts curator, pens a monocle-popping essay on the chaos he saw inside the Kennedy Center under the rule of the second Trump administration [Atlantic]
—Alex Rogers, Joe Miller and Ian Hodgson have a troubling report that crypto and AI PACs have raised $250m ahead of the midterm elections [FT]
—Here's your Friday list: Hollywood’s 100 most powerful lawyers [THR]
Today...
...in 2015, Columbia released Andy Fickman's Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. The Kevin James action comedy was savaged by critics (6 percent on RT!) but still made $107m at the box office. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Adam McKay (58), Sean Bean (67), Jennifer Garner (54), Victoria Beckham (52), Rooney Mara (41), Redman (56), Phoebe Dynevor (31), Darci Shaw (24), Henry Ian Cusick (59), David Bradley (84), Nicholas D'Agosto (46), Jacqueline MacInnes Wood (39), Beau Knapp (37), William Mapother (61), Maïwenn (50), Joel Murray (63), Alaina Huffman (46), Luke Mitchell (41), Carlo Rota (65), Gia Mantegna (36), Lindsay Hartley (48), Lee Joon-gi (44), Monet Mazur (50), Leslie Bega (59), Lela Rochon (62), Kimberly Elise (59), Charlie Hofheimer (45), Samantha Soule (46), Niamh Walsh (38), Nick Hornby (69), Majid Majidi (67)
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