| | | | | | What's news: Black journalists have slammed the NABJ for inviting Donald Trump to their convention. A Queen of Versailles musical is heading to Broadway. Tim Allen is returning to ABC. Usher is releasing his concert film in theaters. Hollywood stars have invaded Paris is to see Simone Biles compete. Instagram users will able to build their own AI characters. — Abid Rahman
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Kimmel, Mulaney Pass On Hosting Oscars ►Double rebuff. The 97th Academy Awards have yet to land a host, though it’s not for lack of trying. THR's Lacey Rose reports that ABC made offers to both Jimmy Kimmel and John Mulaney, both of whom passed on the opportunity. Fortunately for the Academy and its host network, there’s still plenty of time, with the Oscars not slated to air until March 2, 2025. The story.
—Single and almost ready to mingle. Lionsgate is moving ahead with a plan to collapse its dual-class share structure into a single class of stock by offering a 12 percent premium to class A voting shareholders. The studio, in an SEC filing on Monday, said a special committee of the board explored ending the dual-class voting structure ahead of a spinoff of its studio business, and that Lionsgate’s board of directors approved the proposed plan at a meeting on July 25. The story.
—Welcome Liz!Liz Culley is joining THR as vp entertainment sales and head of special projects. In her new role, Liz will be responsible for partnering with advertisers to create bespoke integrated marketing solutions across THR’s platforms. She will focus on FYC Awards opportunities as well as podcasts, experiential events and other special projects. Liz will be based in Los Angeles and report to THR senior vp Lori O’Connor and president Joe Shields. The story.
—Wait, what? Meta is bringing its AI Studio to the U.S., allowing creators and Instagram users to build their own AI characters. With the tool, users with the creator account on Instagram can create a customized AI bot “as an extension of themselves” that answers commonly asked questions, including links to their clothing items show in posts and to past videos and facts about themselves. Creators can also customize the AI with topics to avoid. The story. |
Stewart Mocks GOP's Response to Harris Candidacy ►"Come on guys." Jon Stewart addressed Kamala Harris' newly launched presidential campaign on Monday night, following The Daily Show's hiatus last week when President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election. "What’s done is done," Stewart said addressing Republicans. "You’re going to have to shift gears and recalibrate. You’ve had ‘Crooked Joe’ and ‘Sleepy Joe’ on speed dial. You’re going to need a new line of attack." The recap.
—"This is the single dumbest and worst decision in NABJ history." Donald Trump is set to take part in a Q&A with Black political journalists as part of the 2024 National Association of Black Journalists Convention and Career Fair in Chicago. The event will not be open to the public but will be live-streamed on the NABJ’s YouTube and Facebook channels. News of the invitation created a furious backlash on social media on Monday night, with a number of prominent Black journalists decrying the move. The reaction.
—"Look at their record of actually giving money to society. It’s not big." Melinda French Gates says there is a new generation of billionaire activists who aren’t really philanthropists. In a new interview, the ex-wife of Bill Gates — who recently rocked the philanthropic world when she announced she was leaving the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — was asked her opinion on billionaires like Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, Bill Ackman and Peter Thiel. "They use their voice and they use their megaphones, but I would not call those men philanthropists," said Gates. The story.
—Cause of death. Sinéad O’Connor’s exact cause of the death has been revealed a year after her death. Media reports in Ireland say the singer died last year of “exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchial asthma, together with low-grade lower respiratory-tract infection.” The information was made available for the first time via her death certificate, which was registered last week. The story.
—Grim. Sandy Garossino, the mother of indie electro-pop musician Grimes, took to X this weekend to plead with Elon Musk, the platform’s owner and father to her three grandchildren, to stop withholding his and Grimes’ kids from the musician so that the kids can visit their dying great-grandmother in Canada. Grimes filed a suit for parental rights against Musk in September in the Superior Court of California. The story.
—Sentenced. Former longtime General Hospital actor Haley Pullos was sentenced to five years of probation Monday after pleading guilty to felony drunken driving and serving three months in jail. Pullos was also sentenced in a Los Angeles County court in Pasadena to 200 hours of community service. Pullos began appearing on General Hospital as a child, playing Molly Lansing-Davis on nearly 500 episodes of the ABC soap opera from 2009 to 2023. She left the show after the collision and has not returned. The story. |
A Haven for L.A. Movie Lovers Since 1937 Flickers to Darkness ►Closing it doors. On a balmy Thursday night last week, at the corners of Broxton and Weyburn Avenues in Westwood Village, a smattering of movie lovers bathed in yellow and blue neon lights snapped photos of a marquee. They came to pay last respects to the Fox Bruin Theater, whose 7:30 p.m. screening of Twisters would be its last, the first time the Streamline Moderne landmark would shutter since opening its doors in 1937. THR's Seth Abramovitch reports from the Bruin's final night, a storied theater that, unlike the neighboring Village Theater, no A-listers have tried to rescue. The story.
—📅 Dated 📅 The Queen of Versailles, a new musical based on TV personality Jacqueline “Jackie” Siegel, is scheduled to come to Broadway in the 2025-2026 season. The musical, which features a score by Stephen Schwartz, is currently playing an engagement in Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre, with Kristin Chenoweth as Siegel and F. Murray Abraham as her husband, David. The musical is set to open in Boston on Aug. 1, before opening Aug. 25 and then later heading to Broadway. The story.
—🎭 Three more 🎭 Andrea Martin, Melora Hardin and Ruthie Ann Miles have joined the Broadway cast of McNeal, starring Robert Downey Jr. The production also announced that “a highly realistic Metahuman Digital Likeness” of Downey will be used within the production, appearing alongside Downey himself. The technology was developed by AGBO, Anthony and Joe Russo’s independent studio and Downey. The play, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar and directed by Bartlett Sher, is scheduled to play the Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater starting Sept. 5, with an opening Sept. 30. The story. | Olympics Bring Huge Audiences to NBCUniversal ►C'est magnifique! The opening weekend of the 2024 Olympics has been a huge boon for NBCUniversal. Through the first three full days of the games, NBCU is averaging 34.5m viewers across all of its linear networks and digital platforms for its primary telecasts. After drawing 28.6m viewers for Friday’s opening ceremony, the weekend telecasts got even bigger: Saturday’s total audience was 32.4m, and on Sunday — which featured the first day of competition for Simone Biles and the U.S. women’s gymnastics team — 41.5m people tuned in. The ratings.
—Simone's world. Gold medals aren’t the only thing glittering in Paris. Stars have flocked to France to catch the Olympics live and in person in the first few days of competition. Lady Gaga, fresh from performing at the Opening Ceremony, cheered on superstar Simone Biles and the USA women’s gymnastics team from inside Bercy Arena where Tom Cruise, Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Greta Gerwig, Baz Luhrmann, Jessica Chastain, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Nick Jonas, Anna Wintour, Snoop Dogg, Lena Waithe, Jon M. Chu and Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav also caught the flips, tumbles and balance beam action. The story. |
'HOTD' Actor on How That Scene Just Changed the Show ►"The power shift is huge." THR's James Hibberd spoke to Ulf White actor Tom Bennett about the seventh episode of season two of HBO's House of the Dragon. Bennett discussed how his oppressed working-class character is "suddenly sitting on a nuclear warhead." Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—Returning home. ABC has given a series order to Shifting Gears, a comedy starring Tim Allen as a widower and owner of a classic car restoration business whose adult daughter (Kat Dennings) and teenage kids move back in with him. The series marks a return to ABC for Allen, who toplined 1990s hit Home Improvement and starred in Last Man Standing for six seasons before the show moved to Fox for its final three installments. The series will move ahead with a new showrunner in place, as Mike Scully and Julie Thacker Scully, who wrote and ran the pilot, have exited. The story.
—Good to go. FX has handed a series order to Snowflakes, an ensemble comedy about "a group of codependent housemates trying to be good people." Malik Elassal, Lucy Freyer, Jack Innanen, Amita Rao and Owen Thiele play the five twentysomething housemates. The series comes from FX Productions and writers Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw. Nick Kroll (who has a first-look deal with FX Productions), Baskets co-creator Jonathan Krisel and Atlanta and What We Do in the Shadows alum Stefani Robinson are among the EPs. The story.
—"I’m gonna probably kiss a fair amount of guys on camera." The Golden Bachelorette star Joan Vassos prepares her family for her upcoming journey in the new series’ first-ever promo. The ABC unscripted show launches Sept. 18 and stars the 61-year-old school administrator from Rockland, Maryland, who was a standout on Gerry Turner's season of The Golden Bachelor before walking away early in the process. The new Golden Bachelorette spot shows Vassos spending time with her loved ones before she sets out to find romance again. The spot. |
'Usher' Concert Film Heading to Theaters ►Yeah! Usher is coming to a theater near you. Following the footsteps of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, the R&B star’s concert film — titled Usher: Rendevous in Paris — will hit global theaters from Sept. 12-15. AMC Theatres Distribution, Trafalgar Releasing and Sony Music Vision have partnered for the film, which was taped during Usher’s eight-concert performance in Paris at La Seine Musicale last year. The story.
—We are so back! Theatrical movie giants AMC Theatres, Cinemark and Imax were all cheers on Monday after Disney/Marvel's Deadpool & Wolverine opened to a record-shattering $211m at the domestic box office on the weekend. AMC said it set new 2024 records for weekend attendance and admissions revenue in the U.S. market and for its Odeon Cinemas locations worldwide as over 6m moviegoers passed through its theaters Thursday through Sunday. The story.
—Zoragarria! New films from directors Mike Leigh, François Ozon, Edward Berger, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Costa-Gavras will vie for the Golden Shell at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival. Organizers on Tuesday announced the competition line-up for the 72nd edition of San Sebastian, which runs from September 20-28. Highlights include Leigh’s hotly-anticipated new film Hard Truths, which will see the iconoclastic British director reunite with his Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste. The lineup. |
TV Review: 'Batman: Caped Crusader' ►"A noir take on the superhero that's solid, not spectacular." THR's Angie Han reviews Amazon Prime Video's Batman: Caped Crusader. Hamish Linklater leads the voice cast in this latest take on Gotham City's masked crime-fighter, a 1940s noir-infused animated adventure developed by Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series). The review.
—"Like meeting a wise new friend." For THR, Caryn James reviews Lucy Walker's Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa. The Nepalese mother and survivor of domestic abuse is a warm, engaging presence in Oscar-nominated filmmaker's latest. The review.
In other news...
—Locarno Film Festival, Mubi team on new award for promising first feature
—Green Day’s The Saviors Tour kicks off U.S. dates in July: Where to buy tickets online
—Stacey Abrams launches new podcast with Crooked Media
—SNL's Ego Nwodim to launch podcast Thanks Dad
—Spencer Ela boards Miramax’s motion picture group as senior vp
—Saoirse Ronan marries Mary Queen of Scots co-star Jack Lowden
What else we're reading...
—With Deadpool 3 opening big and Robert Downey Jr and the Russo Bros. returning to the MCU, Ben Lindbergh feels that Marvel is turning into a nostalgia act [Ringer]
—Daniel Pink suggests Kamala Harris borrow a comic book trope and reveal a crack team to take on Trump rather than just a VP pick [WaPo]
—Brooks Barnes writes that with a film like Twisters, Hollywood is perhaps re-orientating to appeal to broader audiences and people in red states [NYT]
—Hugh Dougherty reports on another damaging leak from the Supreme Court, that exposes a deep split on abortion access [Daily Beast]
—Kyndall Cunningham puts the focus on Noah Lyles, the self-assured U.S. Olympic sprinter who has an uncanny ability to annoy NBA stars [Vox]
Today...
...in 2010, Paramount Pictures releases Dinner for Schmucks in theaters. Jay Roach's film, a remake of the French film Le Dîner de Cons, starred Steve Carell and Paul Rudd had mixed reviews but made $87m at the box office. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Christopher Nolan (54), Arnold Schwarzenegger (77), Hilary Swank (50), Richard Linklater (64), Laurence Fishburne (63), Frances de la Tour (80), Terry Crews (56), Vivica A. Fox (60), Lisa Kudrow (61), Joey King (25), Yvonne Strahovski (42), Jaime Pressly (47), April Bowlby (44), Eliot Sumner (34), Simon Baker (55), William Atherton (77), Christine Taylor (53), Gina Rodriguez (40), John Reardon (49), Jean Reno (76), Martin Starr (42), Carel Struycken (76), Mary Wiseman (39), Jacob Lofland (28), Delta Burke (68), Nico Tortorella (36), Ashby Gentry (23), Javier Botet (47), Ken Olin (70), Julia Ragnarsson (32), Nikolai Kinski (48), Tom Green (53), Molly McCook (34), Richard Burgi (66), Kerry Fox (58), Synnove Karlsen (28), Daniel DiMaggio (21), Aml Ameen (39), Gina Bramhill (40), Sofie Gråbøl (56) |
| Erica Ash, who spent two seasons on the Fox sketch comedy show Mad TV and also stood out on the BET reality spoof Real Husbands of Hollywood and the Starz comedy-drama Survivor’s Remorse, has died. She was 46. The obituary. |
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