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What's news: Hamnet's Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley will reteam for Benh Zeitlin's new film. The Housemaid author Freida McFadden's new book is heading to big screen via Studiocanal. Fox has renewed Murder in a Small Town. And Yellowstone actress Q’orianka Kilcher is suing James Cameron and Disney over using her likeness for Avatar. — Abid Rahman
Do you have THR's next big story? Confidentially share tips with us at tips@thr.com. |
4,700 Film Pros Call for EU to Protect Funding►"Europe needs cinema, cinema needs Europe." Francis Ford Coppola, Juliette Binoche, Sandra Hüller, Stellan Skarsgård, Joachim Trier, and Vicky Krieps are among the more than 4,700 film professionals who have signed an open letter calling for the European Union to protect film funding on the continent. The letter, titled “Europe needs cinema, Cinema needs Europe,” calls on the EU to “future-proof” support or cinema under Europe’s MEDIA program, which has provided funding for thousands of films in the 35 years of its existence. The MEDIA program has backed virtually every acclaimed European film of the past decades, including recent Oscar winners Sentimental Value, Mr Nobody against Putin, Flow, Anatomy of a Fall and The Favourite. The story.
—Suit filed. Yellowstone actress Q’orianka Kilcher has filed a lawsuit against James Cameron and Disney for alleged unauthorized use of her likeness without her consent. In the suit, Kilcher alleges that the Avatar director extracted her facial features after seeing her performance in Terrence Malick’s 2005 film The New World, which she acted in when she was 14, and directed his design team to use it as the basis for the character of Neytiri. The complaint specifically cites an April 24 YouTube video of Cameron discussing his Tech Noir museum exhibit in Paris, where he recounted the making of Avatar. The story.
—📅 Schedule set. 📅 On Thursday, the Golden Globes organization released a list of key dates leading up to the 84th annual Golden Globes awards ceremony on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2027, the third in a row that will be hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser and that will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. The dates include submission opening dates and deadlines. The story. |
Lively Looks for Edge in Deal Amid Huge Legal Bills ►It never ends for us. New details are emerging of the 11th-hour deal between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni to avert a headline-splashing trial over alleged sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us. THR's Winston Cho reports that Baldoni indicated in a joint filing on Thursday that he waived his right to appeal the court’s order last year dismissing his $400m lawsuit against Lively, opening the door for the actress to recover legal fees and pursue damages under a California law intended to shield sexual harassment victims from retaliatory defamation claims. If Lively’s bid is granted, the court will schedule proceedings to assess the reputational fallout that flowed from Baldoni’s lawsuit. The actress also seeks punitive damages. The story.
—"He is racist." Wayne Brady has reignited a long-running feud with Bill Maher. In conversation with Sarah Jones on the newest episode of her podcast America, Who Hurt You?, Maher’s name came up and Brady took the opportunity to share his opinion on the Real Time host, with whom he has engaged in a war of words dating back more than a decade. "He’s racist and I don’t care Bill Maher can say that I have all these Black friends, dah, dah, dah," Brady told Jones after he mentioned how Dave Chappelle called out Maher on his comedy special late last year. The story.
—"F*** that guy." Seth Rogen took over L.A.'s iconic Greek Theatre for a star-studded Netflix is a Joke show benefitting his organization Hilarity for Charity. Rogen served as host on Wednesday evening, which was dubbed “Seth Goes Greek,” as he led a lineup that included performances from Jon Stewart, Nick Kroll, Eric André, Sarah Silverman, Nikki Glaser, Josh Gad, Michael Bublé, Busta Rhymes and magician Justin Willman. Rogen and Stewart took the opportunity to slam Kanye West and his attempts to comeback. "He had a song called ‘Heil Hitler’ and he’s back. What’s funny is I’ve said critical things about Jewish people; I think I got in more trouble than Kanye West did," Rogen said. The story.
—"The surgery went well and she is now recuperating." Swansea-born superstar Bonnie Tyler, best known for her 80s hit songs “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Holding Out for a Hero,” has been hospitalized. The 74-year-old Welsh singer was taken to a hospital in Portugal for emergency intestinal surgery, according to a statement shared on her website Wednesday. The story. |
IATSE Pickets Live-Action 'CoComelon' Series►✊ "Rather than provide fair wages and benefits to the crew the producer is trying to hire scabs." ✊ IATSE is striking the second season of the live-action YouTube series CoComelon: The Melon Patch as the show’s crew members endeavor to persuade the production to sign a union contract. The crew union announced the picket of the series on Wednesday after an unsuccessful attempt to unionize the production. According to the union, 22 crew members who previously worked on the first season returned for the second, where they encountered a decline in working conditions, with a greater workload expected of each crew member. The story.
—Anime! Anime! Anime! Sony Pictures Entertainment announced its full year results in Tokyo on Friday. The film and TV unit of the giant Sony Corp. revealed that operating income for the fiscal year ended March 31 2026 fell 11 percent to $687m. The drop in operating income owed to SPE shutting down visual effects and virtual production firm Pixomondo. Sales for the FY were essentially flat at $9.92b. Anime was a big driver for SPE in the period, with higher Crunchyroll subscription revenue and the stunning global success of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba InfinityCastle and Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc juicing box office revenue. The results.
—📅 New anime world order. 📅 Crunchyroll, the Sony-owned anime streaming and global fandom business, on Friday unveiled plans for a first-of-its-kind invite-only industry summit to convene Japan’s anime sector leaders alongside their Hollywood, tech, gaming and music counterparts. Dubbed the Crunchyroll Anime Future Forum, the one-day event will be held Oct. 7 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, adjacent to New York Comic Con. The theme is “Designing for Anime’s Future,” with sessions structured around fandom, technology, storytelling and IP protection. The story.
—Starzlight, starz fright. Starz Entertainment ended its first year as a standalone company after splitting from Lionsgate with lower overall revenues and a widened net loss as it looks to positive year-over-year streaming growth in 2026. The premium cable and streaming platform, which no longer discloses its subscriber counts, ended the three months to March 31, 2026 with $307m in overall revenues, compared to $330.6m in the same period of 2025. Streaming revenue came to $211.1m for the latest quarter, down from $223.4m in OTT revenue in the year-ago period. The results.
—Sounds good! Music major Warner Music Group posted $1.7b in revenue for the company’s second quarter, a 17 percent jump from a year ago. Recorded music revenue was similarly up 17 percent, up to $1.38b from $1.17b, and publishing revenue rose 14 percent to $453m. Net income spiked to $181m from $36m last year. The story. |
Paramount-WMG Sign Film Content Deal►Led Zep cinematic universe, who says no? Warner Music Group has entered into a first-look deal with Paramount, the companies announced on Thursday, representing another push for WMG into film content after it had announced a deal with Netflix for documentaries back in March. WMG is home to iconic acts including Led Zeppelin, Madonna, Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, Charli XCX, Cher and Coldplay among others. The companies said the partnership would focus on content “drawing on the lives and music of WMG’s legendary and contemporary roster of iconic artists and songwriters,” which could suggest even more music biopics down the road. The story.
—🎭 Dream team. 🎭 After a successful festival, theatrical and awards run with Hamnet, Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley will reteam for love story Hold on to Your Angels from Benh Zeitlin. Zeitlin, who was behind Beasts of the Southern Wild, wrote and will direct the movie set on the edge of South Louisiana. Mescal will play “a hell-bound outlaw,” and Buckley will play “a ferocious shepherd of lost souls”, who then “fall in catastrophic love as their crumbling bayou paradise drags them under,” according to the film’s synopsis. The story.
—Sticking together. After working together on Netflix's Apex, Charlize Theron and director Baltasar Kormákur are set to reunite for Six Clean Kills, an action thriller set up at Universal. Kormákur is set to direct and produce the feature project while Theron is also on board to produce with an eye to star. Details are being kept in the bodybag but the script is being written by Stan Parish based on his unreleased novel. The story.
—Can't get enough. The latest title from The Housemaid author Freida McFadden is heading to the big screen. Studiocanal is in early development on a feature adaptation of The Divorce after winning a competitive book option, the company announced Thursday. Studiocanal is fully financing the thriller movie that it is co-producing with Working Title. Centering on vengeance and survival, The Divorce is the forthcoming novel from McFadden and is set to hit shelves May 26 from Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks. The story. |
BBC Casts Its Fab Four for 'Hamburg Days'►🎭 Beatlemania. 🎭 The BBC TV series Hamburg Days, about The Beatles’ pre-fame origins playing nightclub gigs in 1960s Germany, has cast its Fab Four. Rhys Mannion has been tapped to play John Lennon, Ellis Murphy is Paul McCartney, newcomer Harvey Brett will play George Harrison and Louis Landau is Stu Sutcliffe, the drummer in the upstart band who walked away before replacement Ringo Starr took up the drumsticks. The six-part drama from W&B Television and Turbine Studios has also cast Patrick Gilmore as Pete Best, Luna Jordan as Astrid Kirchherr, Casper von Bulow as Klaus Voorman, Laura Tonke as Nielsa Kirchherr, along with Trystan Pütter and Max von der Groeben. The story.
—Rising Murder rate. Fox has renewed its drama series Murder in a Small Town, closing out decisions on scripted shows that it aired this season. The show, starring Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk, will get a third season on Fox in 2026-27. Fox also announced that Peter Gallagher will join the cast for the coming season. Murder in a Small Town joins fellow dramas Doc and Memory of a Killer and the hour-long dramedy Best Medicine in earning a place on the network’s schedule for next season. Fox will unveil its slate for 2026-27 at its upfront presentation on May 11. The story.
—🎭 Stacked. 🎭 Marisa Tomei, Kelly Macdonald, and David Harewood will lead season two of Sky and HBO‘s returning legal drama War, ahead of the show’s season one launch. Following a two-season order and created by Hijack‘s George Kay, War follows two of London’s most prestigious rival firms — Cathcarts and Taylor & Byrne — as they go head-to-head in a series of headline-making legal battles. “Each side is certain they’ll win. But as cases spiral and loyalties fracture, reputations are on the line, and everyone’s playing to win,” a plot synopsis reads. The story.
—🎭 Lots of new faces. 🎭 A new cast of characters is joining the We Were Liars universe for the Amazon Prime Video’s series second season. Josh Dallas, Costa D’Angelo, Parker Lapaine, Peyton List, Elysia Roorbach and Madison Wolfe have been cast as series regulars for the show’s second season. The series, which was renewed for a second season last year, will follow E. Lockhart’s 2022 prequel novel, Family of Liars as well as feature new stories about the current cast of characters, the author teased. The story.
—The Boys are back in town. The week of April 6-12 was a big one for R-rated superhero shows on Amazon Prime Video. The final season of The Boys returned to the Nielsen streaming charts in second place overall, and the animated Invincible followed the previous week’s series high with another solid performance. Neither show, however, could catch The Pitt, which spent a second straight week as the top overall streaming title in the U.S. The Pitt recorded 1.13b minutes of viewing for the week prior to its season two finale on HBO Max. That was off slightly from the prior week’s 1.16b but marked the ninth consecutive week the medical drama has had a billion or more viewing minutes. The streaming rankings. |
Behind Those 'Grey's Anatomy' Exits►"Those are always very difficult and very painful conversations. They came in here with grace, and they exited beautifully. There were a lot of hugs and a lot of tears between the three of us." THR's queen of chat Jackie Strause spoke to Grey’s Anatomy showrunner Meg Marinis about the latest episode of the long-running medical drama. Marinis opens up about having to say goodbye to longtime stars Kevin McKidd and Kim Raver with the season 22 finale. Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—"We got to humanize the experience for the audience, to let the audience understand what the migrant story really is and that they’re people just like any of us." For THR, Max Gao spoke to 9-1-1 star Ryan Guzman about the season nine finale of the ABC drama. After surviving another finale, Guzman opens up about fighting to be included in the ICE raid storyline, how playing Eddie has helped him come to terms with his own identity and the fan-favorite relationship with Buck. Warning: Spoilers! The interview. |
Karl Urban Is Lord of the Geeks►"I think that that’s a dangerous territory, because you start to pander to your audience. That then denies you the ability to discover fresh ground." Two decades after breaking out in Lord of the Rings, Karl Urban has cornered the market on big genre projects, from Star Trek to Dredd, and now The Boys and Mortal Kombat II. THR's second-nicest man Aaron Couch spoke to the Kiwi hardman as for the first time in years, he has an open schedule ahead as his zeitgesty Amazon show comes to an end and his video game adaptation punches its way into theaters. The interview.
—"A very big risk worth taking." Ahead of Cannes, THR's David Canfield goes inside the Rami Malek and Ira Sachs’ wrenching queer romance The Man I Love. The Oscar winner stars in the indie darling's new film, a vivid portrait of a beloved entertainer in '80s New York nearing the end of his life. Here, the two speak about their Cannes-bound collaboration for the first time. The interview. |
TV Review: 'Amadeus'►"A thrilling symphony of genius and jealousy." THR's Angie Han reviews Starz's Amadeus. Another dramatic retelling, this time a miniseries, of the rivalry between Antonio Salieri (Paul Bettany) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Will Sharpe) is based on Peter Shaffer's 1979 play. Also starring Gabrielle Creevy, Rory Kinnear, Jonathan Aris, Ényi Okoronkwo, Hugh Sachs, Viola Prettejohn, Jyuddah Jaymes and Jessica Alexander. Created by Joe Barton, based on the play by Peter Shaffer. The review.
—"Hits big and small." Angie reviews James Cameron and Billie Eilish's Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D). Shot in July 2025 over four consecutive shows at Manchester's Co-op Live arena, the film combines show footage with behind-the-scenes peeks into a day in the life of a pop star. The review.
—"A poor octopus movie but a charming human one." Angie reviews Olivia Newman's Remarkably Bright Creatures. Sally Field and Lewis Pullman star, and Alfred Molina supplies voiceover narration as an octopus who sets out to fix the loneliness he senses in the aquarium's night janitors in this Netflix feature drama. Also starring Joan Chen, Kathy Baker, Beth Grant, Sofia Black-D’Elia and Colm Meaney. Written by Olivia Newman and John Whittington, based on the novel by Shelby Van Pelt. 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 Audra McDonald. The legendary Broadway star — who has been nominated for and won more acting Tonys than anyone else — and TV character actress reflects on the early struggles that led her to attempt suicide, finding her voice and confidence on stage, overcoming her fear of screen acting and, most recently, highlighting a little-known chapter of Black history on three seasons of Julian Fellowes' critically-acclaimed HBO drama series The Gilded Age. 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 spoke to celebrated screenwriter and showrunner Craig Mazin who swings by to talk about his latest feature, The Sheep Detectives, as well as the juggling act of making The Last of Us for TV viewers and video game fans. Also, Mikey reveals a dark secret. The podcast.
In other news...
—Camerimage Festival becomes TorunCamerimage
—Charli XCX returns with “Rock Music”
—NBC News names Garrett Haake chief White House correspondent
What else we're reading...
—Dana Mattioli, Josh Dawsey, Andrew Beaton and Joe Flint report that Rupert Murdoch is lobbying Trump to preserve NFL air rights for broadcasters as powerful streamers encroach on their turf [WSJ]
—Mark Ruffalo and Matt Stoller pen a compelling essay on why the Paramount-WBD deal must be stopped [NYT]
—Jake Coyle looks at the growing cult of Shane Black's The Nice Guys (make a sequel WB!) [AP]
—Sooyoung Rhee and Timothy W. Martin report on a hot new beauty trend in South Korea: "Elf ears" [WSJ]
—Here's your Friday list: The 50 most powerful people in New York media [THR]
Today...
...in 2015, MGM and New Line released Anne Fletcher's action comedy film Hot Pursuit in theaters. The film, which starred Reese Witherspoon and Sofía Vergara, bombed at the box office and holds a 8 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. The original review.
Today's birthdays: David Attenborough (100!), Michel Gondry (63), Brian Tyler (54), Enrique Iglesias (51), Stephen Amell (45), Raoul Max Trujillo (71), Román Zaragoza (30), Melissa Gilbert (62), Kim Seon-ho (40), Matthew Davis (48), Jodhi May (51), Christina Cole (44), Laura Spencer (40), David Keith (72), Aneurin Barnard (🏴39), Vicky McClure (43), Martin Compston (42), Elyes Gabel (43), Josie Maran (48), Ariane Labed (42), Corey Mylchreest (28), Zach Tinker (32), Abby Trott (40), Ayesha Antoine (45), Marissa Neitling (42), Olivia Culpo (34), Jeff Wincott (70), Nikki Roumel (26), Ana Mulvoy Ten (34), Elizabeth Whitmere (45), Trisha Paytas (38), Bobbi Salvör Menuez (33), Louise Stratten (58), Sebastian Schipper (58), Anurag Basu (56), Rick Jaffa (70)
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