| | | | | | What's news: Switzerland won Eurovision. A third Downton Abbey movie is in the works. Sigourney Weaver is in talks to star in The Mandalorian & Grogu. Jeff Bridges is set to play the monster Grendel and Dave Bautista Beowulf in a new film. Camryn Manheim is leaving L&O. Fox has canceled Housebroken and renewed The Cleaning Lady. ABC has canceled Not Dead Yet and will renewed The Conners for a final season. Apple has canceled Constellation. — Abid Rahman
Do you have THR's next big story? Confidentially share tips with us at tips@thr.com. |
Roger Corman 1926 - 2024 ►One-man film school. Roger Corman, the fabled “King of the B’s” producer and director who churned out low-budget genre films with breakneck speed and provided career boosts to young, untested talents like Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd and James Cameron, has died. He was 98. The filmmaker, who received an honorary Oscar in 2009 at the Governors Awards, died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, his family told THR. The obituary.
—"It was my privilege to know him." Hollywood spent the weekend paying tribute to indie filmmaking legend Roger Corman. Among those who took to social media to pay their respects and share their stories were John Carpenter, Ron Howard, William Shatner, Gale Anne Hurd, Nancy Sinatra, Robert Patrick, Adam Horowitz and Frank Marshall. The reaction. |
BAFTA TV Awards 2024 ►🏆 Going out with a bang 🏆 The final seasons of crime dramas Happy Valley and Top Boy were the big winners at the BAFTA TV Awards on Sunday night. Netflix's Top Boy topped out by taking the top drama prize and also saw Jasmine Jobson's tip-top performances win her best supporting actress. Happy Valley's Sarah Lancashire won best actress with Timothy Spall winning best actor for BBC drama The Sixth Commandment. Matthew Macfadyen won the award for best supporting actor for Succession. The winners.
—🤝 New contract 🤝 After mounting a strike threat that was later averted, Sesame Workshop writers have ratified a new five-year labor contract that their union president is touting as “groundbreaking.” Twenty-eight out of the group of 35 workers voted to support a tentative deal reached on April 19, while the remaining seven abstained from voting. The WGA East and West, which represent the workers, who write shows including Sesame Street, Helpsters and The Not Too Late Show With Elmo, announced the results on Friday. The story.
—Dropped. Spain's investigation into Shakira’s alleged tax evasion has been dropped over a lack of evidence, according to multiple media reports on Friday. The singer was the subject of a probe launched in July by prosecutors in Spain (where she says she moved in 2015) who claimed in this case that she had used a series of companies and tax havens to cheat the government out of approximately $7m in owed 2018 taxes. Shakira already paid the Spanish government the full amount in August to settle any debt. The story.
—Walkout. Several dozen students walked out of Duke University’s commencement ahead of Jerry Seinfeld's speech on Sunday. Though Seinfeld’s speech continued uninterrupted during the ceremony — with many in the audience cheering him on — groups of students could be seen leaving as university president Vincent Price introduced the comedian, with some reports asserting Price’s words were drowned out by protestors chanting "free Palestine." The story.
—"He is OK and appreciates everyone’s well wishes." Steve Buscemi was assaulted in New York last week. The New York Post reported Sunday that the actor was walking through the Kips Bay neighborhood on Manhattan’s East side when he became the victim of a random attack. His publicist confirmed the news and said Buscemi is OK following the attack, which occurred in broad daylight. The story.
—Placed under conservatorship. Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson was placed under a conservatorship, following a petition from his family after his wife, Melinda Ledbetter, died in January. Wilson, 81, who was diagnosed with a “major neurocognitive disorder,” was placed under the conservatorship at a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court last week. The hearing was the culmination of a series of proceedings initiated by Wilson’s family and friends after Ledbetter died at their Beverly Hills home on Jan. 30. The story.
—Listen to Billy Zane, he's a cool dude. Demi Moore, documentarian Frederick Wiseman and Billy Zane are among the actors, filmmakers and other industry professionals who will be featured at The American Pavilion at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Moore, Wiseman and Zane will be featured in separate sessions of the “In Conversation” series, along with a group of five American Filmmakers competing in the 2024 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and Critics Week programs. The story. |
Switzerland Wins the Most Divisive Eurovision Ever ►Finding Nemo. Switzerland's Nemo won the 68th Eurovision Song Contest in what was perhaps the most divisive competition in its history. The nonbinary singer won with their track “The Code” collecting 591 points from a combination of music industry juries in each participating country and the global public. Israel's Eden Golan placed fifth in what was a relatively uneventful show at the Malmö Arena in Sweden, despite the most tumultuous build-up the contest has ever seen. The recap.
—ICYMI. The Dutch Eurovision entrant Joost Klein was dramatically disqualified ahead of the competition’s Grand Final on Saturday night. The performer was sent home after an allegation of intimidation was made to Swedish police by a female member of the production crew. The story.
—Jaja Ding Dong. John Oliver had a favorite performer in this year’s Eurovision contest. On HBO’s Last Week Tonight, the host revealed that partially nude Finnish competitor Windows95man was his favorite: "A man with flowing blonde locks and pervert glasses, hatching out of a denim egg? It's like Botticelli's Birth of Venus — only this time, it's actually good." The recap. |
'Shōgun' S2 Chances Increase! ►Hope springs eternal. THR's Lesley Goldberg reports that there’s a strong chance that FX’s critical darling Shōgun will return for a second season. Hiroyuki Sanada has signed what sources say is an “if-come” deal that would see the series star and producer return, should FX successfully jump through the multiple hoops required for a second season of the limited series. That means if FX can sort things out behind the scenes and formally greenlight a second season, Sanada would return to the franchise. The story.
—One and done. Apple TV+ has canceled the sci-fi series Constellation after a single season. The series from creator Peter Harness stars Noomi Rapace as an astronaut aboard the International Space Station when an object collides with it. The cancellation comes just six weeks after Constellation completed its eight-episode season in late March. The series is one of a host of sci-fi titles at Apple TV+, among them For All Mankind, Severance, Foundation, Silo and Invasion. The story.
—Not coming back. Hulu has canceled the comedy series The Other Black Girl after a single season. First put in development in April 2020 before Tara Duncan signed on to serve as president of Disney’s BIPOC-focused studio Onyx Collective, the 10-episode satirical comedy about the publishing world dropped its full season in September to impressive reviews. The series, based on the book of the same name by Zakiya Dalila Harris, currently has an 86 percent rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, though the audience score sits at 50 percent. The story.
—🎭 Pops pipes up 🎭 Captain America star Frank Grillo will lend his voice to the second season of James Gunn’s DC action comedy series Peacemaker. On Friday, Gunn, announced Grillo was joining the cast in the role of Rick Flag Sr. for the next cycle of the original Max series. Among DC characters, Flag Sr. led the first Suicide Squad, or Task Force X. His son, Rick Flag Jr., is the current leader of the Suicide Squad. Grillo in Peacemaker will voice Rick Flag as an animated character as part of “Creature Commandos” during the second season. The story. |
Peak TV Is Over, Welcome to Peak IP ►"There’s a lot of decision fatigue out there." Peak TV may be over, but even in a time of industrywide contraction, another era is forging ahead unabated: Welcome to Peak Franchise TV. THR's Rick Porter writes that spinoffs have existed almost as long as TV, but executives are now leaning more heavily into familiar franchises — crowding out original ideas. The analysis.
—Business as usual. NBC's schedule for the 2024-25 season doesn’t look that different from its current lineup: The Voice on Monday and Tuesday nights, the three Chicago dramas on Wednesday and Law & Order shows on Thursday. NBC will have four comedies on the air in the fall, two of them are newcomers: Mockumentary St. Denis Medical will pair with Night Court on Tuesday nights, and the Reba McEntire-led Happy’s Place will join Lopez vs. Lopez on Fridays. The network’s other new series for fall is the medical drama Brilliant Minds. The story.
—"Celebratory weekend." NBC is rolling out the red carpet to celebrate Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary. The network on Friday announced that it has scheduled a three-hour primetime special to honor the anniversary. The special, which will also be live, is set to air Sunday, Feb. 16, from 8-11 p.m. ET. That will cap what NBC says will be a “celebratory weekend” honoring the sketch show. The story.
—Goodbye Kate! Law & Order is losing another veteran actor. The NBC drama will bid farewell to star Camryn Manheim on May 16, the season 23 finale. The actress was a key part of the cast when Dick Wolf revived the flagship procedural for its 21st season. Manheim becomes the second star to depart L&O this season with her upcoming exit coming on the heels of original star Sam Waterston, who exited in February as D.A. Jack McCoy. The story.
—Seven heaven. ABC is bringing back a big chunk of its unscripted shows for the 2024-25 TV season. The network has renewed seven series — American Idol, The Bachelor, Celebrity Jeopardy!, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, Dancing With the Stars, Shark Tank and What Would You Do? — for next season. They join The Golden Bachelorette on the 2024-25 slate. (The Bachelorette is also set for its usual summer run.) Notably missing is America’s Funniest Home Videos, ABC’s longest-running entertainment series, with a decision yet to made on a 35th season. The story.
—Not living up to the title. ABC has canceled Not Dead Yet, the comedy which stars Gina Rodriguez, after two seasons. The show drew the smallest audience of ABC’s three half-hour comedies this season, averaging about 3.2m viewers in Nielsen’s seven-day ratings (which don’t include streaming). The cancellation leaves ABC with just two comedies on its 2024-25 schedule for the moment — Abbott Elementary, which is going into its fourth season, and The Conners. The story.
—The last dance. The Conners will get one final run on ABC. The network has picked up a seventh season of the comedy, which will be its last on the network. It’s also set to be the shortest of the show’s seasons, with an episode count likely in the single digits. The shortest previous season of The Conners was its first, which ran 11 episodes; this year’s strikes-shortened edition has 13. The series as a whole will have 106 episodes to its credit after the May 22 season finale. The story. |
Scripted Dramas Return to Fox's Fall Schedule ►The lineup. Fox unveiled its 2024-25 schedule Monday morning ahead of its upfront presentation to advertisers in the afternoon. The early part of the week will be anchored by 911: Lone Star and newcomer Rescue: Hi-Surf. On Tuesdays, season two of the courtroom anthology Accused will lead the night, followed by Murder in a Small Town. The Floor will pair with The Masked Singer on Wednesday nights. New seasons of Hell’s Kitchen and Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test will run on Thursdays. The story.
—Floored. Fox has renewed its Rob Lowe-hosted game show The Floor for two more cycles, both of which are slated to air next season. Additionally, Fox and Lowe — who’s also a producer of The Floor — have signed a first-look deal to develop unscripted projects. The renewal comes just ahead of Fox’s upfront presentation on Monday, but it’s not a big surprise: The Floor was quietly one of the best-performing shows on the network this season. It averaged 3.47m viewers over seven days of linear viewing, according to Nielsen. The story.
—Cleaning house. Fox has renewed crime drama The Cleaning Lady for a fourth season. Along with the renewal will come a change in leadership, as executive producers and showrunners Miranda Kwok and Jeannine Renshaw will not be continuing in those roles. Kwok, who developed the series, will continue on as an executive consultant. The search for a new showrunner is said to be under way, with an announcement expected in the coming weeks. The story.
—Baring it all. Fox will show a new side — or rather, all sides — of a group of male celebrities in an upcoming special. The network has signed up Anthony Anderson, Taye Diggs, NFL All-Pro Chris Jones, Tyler Posey, Dancing With the Stars judge Bruno Tonioli and James Van Der Beek to take part in The Real Full Monty. The two-hour special, set to air in the fall, will raise awareness for prostate, testicular and colorectal cancer testing and research — and end with the troupe performing a striptease act. The story.
—Found once more. Fox has renewed the drama series Alert: Missing Persons Unit for a third season in 2024-25. The series will remain in production after season two wraps, which will bank episodes leading into next season and potentially serve as a hedge against a possible IATSE strike in the summer. Alert is one of just two dramas Fox has aired in 2023-24 as the network relied heavily on its unscripted and animated rosters, which weren’t affected by last year’s dual strikes. The story.
—Foreclosure. Fox has opted to cancel Housebroken, the animated comedy, after a two-season run. From creators Gabrielle Allan, Jennifer Crittenden and Clea DuVall and featuring a star-studded voice cast that included Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte and Maria Bamford, the second season of the comedy wrapped in August 2023. The cancellation, however, is not a surprise considering that animated shows take longer to produce, and if Fox wanted to bring back Housebroken, production on a third season should have begun months ago. The story.
—Bite-sized. Fox and Gordon Ramsay's Studio Ramsay Global want to take a bigger bite of the digital ad business by launching a digital food and entertainment brand called "Bite." The new venture will include original digital content, live events, consumer products and other food-based offerings. The content, which will live on the Bite Digital Network, will include a digital spinoff of Next Level Chef called Next Level Kitchen; a culinary competition series called Idiot Sandwich; and a Bite Digital Originals banner that will highlight up-and-coming culinary talent. The story. |
Sigourney Weaver in Talks to Join 'Mandalorian & Grogu' ►🎭 Ripley and the Force 🎭 Sci-fi legend Sigourney Weaver is in talks to join the cast of The Mandalorian & Grogu, the first Star Wars movie to go into production since 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Very little is known about the feature but The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau is directing, which is expected to film later this year. Favreau, Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni will produce the feature. The story.
—Heading back to the big screen. Focus Features and Carnival Films are working on a third Downton Abbey movie that will be written by Julian Fellowes, the scribe who created the acclaimed TV show that ran from 2010-15. Simon Curtis is returning to direct after helming 2022’s Downton Abbey: A New Era. Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, and much of the familiar cast will return. Paul Giamatti is reprising his role Harold Levinson. The story.
—MCU to MonsterVerse pipeline. Shang-Chi screenwriter Dave Callaham has been tapped to pen the next installment of Legendary’s kaiju movie series. The hiring comes in the wake of the box office success of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which has grossed close to $555m worldwide and counting. Adam Wingard directed New Empire and created the story with frequent collaborator Simon Barrett as well as Terry Rossio. Legendary has signaled it would like to see Wingard return to the director’s chair but has no deal at this stage. The story.
—📅 Dated 📅 28 Years Later, the third installment of Danny Boyle's cult zombie franchise, will release in summer 2025, Sony Pictures announced Friday. Plot details for the film are still unknown, but we do know that it will be directed by Boyle from a script by Alex Garland. The film will be a follow-up to 2002’s 28 Days Later and 2007’s 28 Weeks Later. The story.
—🎭 Monster mash 🎭 Jeff Bridges is set to star as classic monster Grendel in a new live-action movie from the storied Jim Henson Company and director Robert D. Krzykowsk. Dave Bautista is set to play Beowulf, with Bryan Cranston set as King Hrothgar, Sam Elliott as The Dragon, Thomasin McKenzie as Queen Wealhtheow and Aidan Turner as Unferth. T Bone Burnett will also star and provide original songs for the film. Palisades Park Pictures is set to launch sales for Grendel at Cannes. The story.
—🎭 Escape to victory 🎭 Sam Claflin and Rupert Friend have signed on to star in the WWII action thriller Perdition, from writer-director Henry Dunham and Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee of John Wick producers Thunder Road Pictures. Perdition is set in December 1944 as WWII hurtles toward its brutal climax. Clafin plays an American soldier who miraculously survives a POW camp execution and escapes into the freezing landscape to save himself and his precious cargo, Friend plays a ruthless Nazi SS officer hunting him down. The story.
—🎭 More war drama 🎭 Andy Serkis and Woody Harrelson have signed on to star in The Man with the Miraculous Hands, a WWII psychological thriller from Rampart and The Messenger filmmaker Oren Moverman. Based on a true story, the film is set in 1939 and features Harrelson as Felix Kersten, a renowned, apolitical medical masseuse who becomes the personal physician to Heinrich Himmler (Serkis), the head of Hitler’s SS and one of the chief architects of the Holocaust. The story. |
'Apes' Shows Heat With $129M Global Opening ►I love you Dr. Zaius! Wes Ball's Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes brought some much-needed heat to the early summer box office with a domestic debut of $56.5m and $72.5m overseas for a global start of $129m. The 20th Century and Disney event pic came in on the high end of expectations domestically after Universal’s The Fall Guy left nerves frayed across Hollywood after opening to a disappointing $27.7m over the May 5-7 frame.
THR's Pamela McClintock writes that Kingdom's performance is being fueled by a strong turnout by both younger and older males, as well as an ethnically diverse audience. One surprise: It received a B CinemaScore from audiences, despite plenty of glowing reviews by critics. Studio insiders aren’t overly concerned about the CinemaScore, noting that 85 percent of moviegoers gave it an A or a B.
Overseas, where the series has always been a big draw, Kingdom took in a solid but not spectacular $72.5m. It did big business across Latin America. China, however, was a mixed blessing. While coming in No. 1 with $11.4m, its potential was surely impacted by competition from a trio of new local titles. The box office report. |
Sam Rubin 1960 - 2024 ►"His laugh, charm and caring personality touched all who knew him." Sam Rubin, the popular entertainment anchor on KTLA-TV’s morning show, has died. He was 64. Rubin joined the L.A. station in 1991 and worked red carpets and morning shows. "Sam was a giant in the local news industry and the entertainment world and a fixture of Los Angeles morning television for decades," KTLA said in a statement posted to social media. The obituary.
—"Awards season red carpets will never be the same." Hollywood A-listers took to social media this weekend to honor Sam Rubin. John Mulaney, Ted Sarandos, Viola Davis, Ryan Reynolds, Tom Hanks, Jamie Lee Curtis, Paul Feig, Guillermo Del Toro, Ken Jeong, Richard Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Ben Stiller, Kiefer Sutherland and more stars paid special tribute to Rubin. The reaction.
—"Like so many who knew Sam and who felt like they knew Sam, I have lost a dear friend." In a guest column for THR, Scott Mantz, the reporter who filled in for Sam Rubin on the day he died, remembers the KTLA legend: "With Sam, what you saw was what you got. As exuberant, enthusiastic and charming as he was on camera, that’s exactly how he was in person too." The column.
In other news...
—Ari Emanuel to receive Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Humanitarian Award
—Writer Alanna Bennett signs with CAA
—The ultimate London pub crawl, according to Matthew Rhys
—The best post-desert recovery sanctuaries in L.A.
—Mark Damon, actor turned indie film exec and Monster producer, dies at 91
—Al Onorato, casting director and talent manager, dies at 88
—Bob Ellison, Emmy-winning Mary Tyler Moore Show writer and expert joke fixer, dies at 91
What else we're reading...
—Lucas Shaw reports that Netflix, Amazon and Apple are planning big changes to the way Hollywood pays big stars [Bloomberg]
—Living legend Ian McShane answers readers' questions, and discusses appearing nude on the cover of Cosmopoliton, playing Teddy Bass and Al Swearengen and how to make a perfect cup of tea [Guardian]
—Catherine Shoard looks at why The Fall Guy had such a muted launch at the box office, and what it means for cinema [Guardian]
—David Luhnow and Anat Peled report that there are few to no images of Gaza casualties on Israeli TV, leading to a growing disconnect between perceptions of the war inside and outside of Israel [WSJ]
—Erin Griffith reports on the couples using Slack, Trello, Notion and Google's productivity apps to maintain their relationships and the people weirded out about this [NYT]
Today...
...in 1964, 20th Century Fox unveiled the Shirley MacLaine-starring musical comedy What a Way to Go! in New York. The film went on to be nominated for two Oscars at the 37th Academy Awards, for art direction and costume design. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Stevie Wonder (74), Harvey Keitel (85), Robert Pattinson (38), Samantha Morton (47), Stephen Colbert (60), Iwan Rheon (🏴 39), Alan Ball (67), Lena Dunham (38), Zoë Wanamaker (75), Joe Johnston (74), Hannah New (40), Debby Ryan (31), Mika Abdalla (24), Jeremy Bobb (43), Taylor John Smith (29), Brian Geraghty (49), Candice King (37), Siobhan Fallon Hogan (63), Mark Heap (67), Tommy Dorfman (32), Hunter Parrish (37), Frances Barber (66), Senta Berger (83), Jake Borelli (33), Buck Taylor (86), Tom Verica (60), Zlatko Buric (71), Zohra Lampert (87), Fred Melamed (68), Sunny Leone (43), Eloise DeJoria (67), Caitlin McHugh (38), Leonidas Gulaptis (39), Ava Acres (20), Brian Thomas Smith (47), Melinda Casey (83), Hugo Becker (37), Mary Walsh (72), Ryan Piers Williams (43), Dennis Rodman (63) |
| Susan Backlinie, the stuntperson and actress who as a young skinny-dipper out for a nighttime swim off the coast of Amity Island became the shark’s first victim in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, has died. She was 77. The obituary. |
|
|
|
| | | |
