| | | | | | What's news: Country music superstar Kacey Musgraves adorns our latest digital cover. John Lindley has been elected head of the cinematographers guild. Bleecker Street founder and CEO Andrew Karpen has died. Thunderbolts* is tracking to open above $160m globally. Shogun season two will start production in January 2026. — Abid Rahman
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Kacey Musgraves Faces the Future ►Making peace with the past. Kacey Musgraves was a relative unknown when she signed her first label deal. Now, 15 years later, the singer-songwriter returns to relaunched Lost Highway Records a country superstar who fought to make music on her terms, expanding the genre in the process. With a divorce in the rearview and blue skies ahead, she talks to THR about why she wanted to go home again. The cover story. |
L.A. Passes Measure to Spur Reform of Film Permitting Process ►Pushing for change. As the flight of entertainment production work from California accelerates, Los Angeles’ film permitting process has come under fire from local advocates as overly onerous and expensive, adding to the cocktail of reasons why productions might leave the state for their shoots. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a measure that aims to change that. The motion, introduced by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, calls for various city departments to research new fee structures, potential discounts or fee waivers for public property shoots, different ways to use public safety officers, streamlined film permitting and stage certification procedures and solutions to alleged price-gouging for crew parking and base camp locations. The story.
—Making moves. WME is set to divest its basketball representation business, and may make a similar move for its baseball representation business, as it navigates some conflicts of interest associated with the firm’s take-private by Silver Lake, which closed last month. WME will spin out WME Basketball into a new independent venture that will be owned by WME Group executive chairman Ari Emanuel, WME Group president and managing partner Mark Shapiro, and Bill Duffy, whose BDA Sports Management WME acquired in 2023. Duffy, Carlos Fleming, Bret Just and Karen Brodkin will move over to the new company. The story.
—"Shelter from the storm." Universal Music Group posted 11.8 percent year-over-year revenue growth for Q1 to $3.3b, the world’s largest music company reported on Tuesday, buoyed by releases from Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Gaga and Japanese rock band Mrs. Green Apple. Revenue from UMG’s recordings division overall grew 12.7 percent year over year to about $2.5b, with subscription and streaming revenue growing 9.5 percent to about $1.8b. Subscriptions specifically grew 11.5 percent, but streaming grew 3 percent. Revenue from physical sales meanwhile grew 17.6 percent to $341m. Licensing revenue grew the most at 33 percent to $338m. The results.
—Trending upwards. Snapchat now has more than 900m monthly active users, and more than 460m daily active users, as the social platform continues to grow year over year. In its Q1 earnings report, Snap Inc. reported revenue of $1.36b, up 14 percent from a year earlier, and a net loss of $140m, a significant improvement from a year earlier when the company lost $333m in Q1. The growth is driven in part by a shift in the company’s approach to advertising, where it has been trying to shift the mix of brand advertising and direct response advertising. The results. |
Cinematographers Guild Elects John Lindley President ►Back in the big seat. The Sum of All Fears and Pleasantville cinematographer John Lindley has been elected as the International Cinematographer Guild’s next national president, returning to a role he vacated in 2022. With 1,482 votes, Lindley prevailed over sitting president and first camera assistant Baird B. Steptoe (who earned 591 votes) and cinematographer Dave Perkal (with 685 votes). Turnout for the election was 35.6 percent of eligible voters. Lindley last served as the president of the union, which bargains on behalf of around 10,000 cinematographers, camera technicians and publicists, between 2020 and 2022. The story.
—✊ "We have an agreement on our first demand." ✊ The Writers Guild of America West has voluntarily recognized a union formed by its own staffers after a card count revealed that the majority of the bargaining unit favored organizing. The screenwriters’ labor group gave the green light to all non-supervisory staffers to join the Pacific Northwest Staff Union after the count revealed 81 percent of the bargaining unit supported the move, the Writers Guild Staff Union announced on Tuesday. One hundred fifteen staffers who work in departments from legal to communications to residuals will join the PNWSU, which also represents staffers at the LA County Federation of Labor and several SEIU Locals. The story.
—"Our industry has lost a giant." Andrew Karpen, the respected CEO of Bleecker Street Media who founded the indie distribution company after spending a decade as a top executive with Focus Features, died Monday. He was 59. He was diagnosed last year with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, and died in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Karpen launched New York-based Bleecker Street in 2014 with the backing of Manoj Bhargava, founder of the 5-hour Energy drink. He named his company with a nod to the old Focus headquarters at 65 Bleecker St. Among the films released under his watch were Trumbo (2015), Beasts of No Nation (2015), Danny Collins (2015), Elvis & Nixon (2016), Eye in the Sky (2016), Logan Lucky (2017), Hotel Mumbai (2018) and, more recently, the 2023 releases Golda, One Life, What Happens Later and Mafia Mamma. The obituary. |
'Thunderbolts*' Launches At a Pivotal Moment for Marvel Studios ►Looking good. Lightning has struck many times for Marvel Studios at the box office, before Kevin Feige's superhero studio went through some turbulent times in recent years. Now comes another chance. Later this week, Thunderbolts* kicks off the summer box office in a pivotal moment for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, writes THR's Pamela McClintock. Directed by Jake Schreier, the film brings together a band of dysfunctional outsiders — and lesser-known comic book characters — who discover their potential to be heroes when working together. Tracking suggests the movie will open in the $70m to $73m range domestically, and $160m to $175m globally, against a $180m production budget before marketing. The box office report.
—All in place. How to Have Sex director Molly Manning Walker will head up this year’s jury for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar. The British filmmaker, whose debut feature won the section’s top prize in 2023, will be joined on the jury by French-Swiss director Louise Courvoisier, whose Holy Cow won Un Certain Regard‘s Youth Award last year, Italian filmmaker Roberto Minervini, the 2024 ex-aequno best director winner for The Damned, Argentinian actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (120 BPM), and International Film Festival Rotterdam director Vanja Kaludjercic. The story.
—Dial L for Lucky! Netflix is making it the summer of Alfred Hitchcock in New York. The streaming giant will bring 36 Hitchcock films to its Paris Theater in New York, as well as a dozen more features connected to the director — from those he influenced (Robert Zemeckis’s What Lies Beneath) to those which influenced him (Fritz Lang’s M). The series — HITCH! The Original Cinema Influencer — will run from May 16 to June 29 at the Paris Theater, which Netflix purchased in 2019. The films range from Hitchcock’s early works such as Blackmail to enduring hits such as Psycho and The Birds. The story.
—🎭 Stellar cast 🎭 Matthew Broderick, Sally Hawkins, and Martin Freeman have boarded Pretend I’m Not Here, the new comedy from Days of the Bagnold Summer filmmaker Simon Bird. Cornerstone is set to launch international sales for the film at the Cannes market next month. CAA Media Finance is handling sales for the U.S. Based on Hans Keilson’s novella Comedy in a Minor Key, Pretend I’m Not Here follows an ordinary Dutch couple who hide a Jewish perfume salesman during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. As the arrangement stretches on, the emotional and practical challenges of living in close quarters with a stranger begin to reshape the trio’s dynamic in unexpected ways. The story. |
'Desperate Housewives' Update in the Works ►Wisteria hysteria. Disney’s Onyx Collective is looking to put a new spin on one of the most famous locales of early 2000s TV. Onyx is developing Wisteria Lane, a spinoff/reimagining of ABC’s 2004-12 hit Desperate Housewives. The project comes from writer/executive producer Natalie Chaidez and EP Kerry Washington. Should it go forward, Wisteria Lane would stream on Hulu alongside Onyx Collective’s other shows. Like Desperate Housewives, Wisteria Lane will focus on a group of friends living on a seemingly picture-perfect cul-de-sac whose facade hides a boatload of secrets. Marc Cherry, who created Desperate Housewives, is not currently involved in the new project, but sources say he could come aboard in the future. The story.
—Sugoi! FX is plotting its return to feudal Japan, setting a production start date for season two of its Emmy-winning drama Shōgun. Season two of the series — which set a record at last year’s Emmys with 18 wins — is set to begin production in Vancouver in January 2026. The announcement serves as official confirmation that a second season will indeed happen (though it was never really in doubt) after FX announced it was developing two additional installments in May 2024. Co-creators and showrunners Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks recently wrapped a writers room for the coming season, which will jump off from the James Clavell novel that formed the source material for season one. The story.
—🎭 I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that 🎭 Sam Elliott is returning to the Sheridan-verse. The Oscar nominee has been cast in the second season of Paramount+ oil business drama Landman. Elliott previously starred in Taylor Sheridan‘s acclaimed limited series 1883 — which is considered by some to be the writer-producer’s finest TV effort. Landman is co-created by Christian Wallace and is currently filming its second season in Texas. The second season also stars Billy Bob Thornton (who received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance during the first season), Demi Moore (who has an elevated role in season two), Andy Garcia, Ali Larter, Jacob Lofland, Michelle Randolph, Paulina Chávez, Kayla Wallace, Mark Collie, James Jordan and Colm Feore. The story.
—📅 On the move 📅 CBS has calculated that it won’t have room for its recently ordered procedural Einstein on next season’s schedule. The network announced a series order for the show, in which Criminal Minds alum Matthew Gray Gubler plays the famed physicist’s great-grandson, a week ago. As CBS began assembling its schedule for the 2025-26 season, however, the network decided that it didn’t have enough space to fit Einstein into the slate. From there, it was apparently a relatively easy decision to push the series back to the 2026-27 season. The story.
—Another win for Canada! Netflix is heading back above the Arctic Circle for more North of North. The streamer, in conjunction with Canada’s CBC and APTN, has renewed the comedy series set in an small town in Nunavut. The series, created by Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, stars Anna Lambe as a young Inuk woman looking to restart her life after an abrupt — and very public — exit from her marriage. The renewal for North of North comes less than three weeks after its Netflix debut. It made the streamer’s global top 10 list for English-language series in its first two weeks. The story.
—Deepening ties. Hulu is extending its relationship with budding media tycoon Alex Cooper. The streamer will debut the documentary Call Her Alex on June 10, two days after its premiere screening at Tribeca. The two-part doc follows Cooper as she prepares for her first tour supporting her Call Her Daddy podcast and traces her life from a childhood in Pennsylvania to influential media figure. The doc is the second project Cooper’s Unwell company (which is producing Call Her Alex) has landed at Hulu. Unwell is also behind the Overboard for Love, a dating series on which Cooper is an executive producer that Hulu ordered to series in March. The story.
—Ramping up. Netflix unveiled the start of production on four new series in Mexico on Tuesday, including one starring Gael García Bernal, reflecting the global streaming giant’s commitment “to continue bringing Mexican stories created by local creators to the screen.” Following February’s news of a $1b investment in Mexican production by Netflix, directors and showrunners presented the new shows in the streamer’s Mexico City office. The four shows are Santita, Love 9 to 5 (Amor de oficina), I’m Not Afraid (No tengo miedo), and Corruptors (Los corruptores). Netflix also confirmed the end of production of Lovesick (Mal de amores ), an adaptation of the novel written by Ángeles Mastretta and directed by her daughter, Catalina Aguilar Mastretta. The story. |
CBS Sets Record With 17th Straight Season Victory ►Unstoppable. CBS will make a little bit of TV history when the 2024-25 season wraps. The network is set to finish its 17th straight season as the No. 1 broadcaster among all viewers in primetime, a streak that dates back to the 2008-09 season. The 17 consecutive season wins tops the previous mark, also held by CBS, of 16 straight from 1955-70 (when household ratings were the primary measure). Although there are few weeks left before the official end of the September-to-May TV season, as measured by Nielsen, CBS’ lead over its rivals is large enough that the rankings are very unlikely to change. So as it did a year ago and several other times in the recent past, the network is planting its victory flag now. The ratings.
—Shocker draws them in. A series-altering episode of 911 drew strong ratings numbers for ABC, particularly among the key ad demographic of adults 18-49. With a week of cross-platform viewing, the show’s April 17 episode, “Lab Rats,” delivered 8.45m viewers and a 1.74 rating (equivalent to about 2.33m people) among adults 18-49, based on Nielsen and internal streaming data. The demo rating is a five-month high for 911, marking its best outing since the Nov. 7, 2024, episode. The ratings.
—Papal bump. Pope Francis died on April 21, one day before Edward Berger's Oscar-nominated film Conclave came to Amazon Prime Video (and a few weeks after it left Peacock). But there was another pope-themed film available for streaming subscribers — and it took off on Netflix. Fernando Meirelles' The Two Popes, a 2019 Oscar-winning film about the relationship between Francis (Jonathan Pryce) and his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins), returned to Netflix’s top 10. Its viewership increased by more than 30x the prior week, Netflix said, when Pope Francis was ailing but still alive. The story. |
Gotham TV Awards Noms: 'Adolescence' Leads With 4 ►🏆 The British are coming! 🏆 The 2025 Gotham TV Awards nominations have been revealed, with Netflix’s Adolescence scoring a leading four nominations. The four-episode series about a teenage boy accused of murder, which became a much-talked-about phenomenon shortly after its streaming debut last month, landed nods for breakthrough limited series, lead performance in a limited series (Stephen Graham) and two nods for supporting performance in a limited series (Owen Cooper and Erin Doherty). Meanwhile, Max’s The Pitt and FX’s Dying for Sex each landed three nods, with a number of projects scoring two nods apiece. The nominations.
—Special consideration. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui’s Peabody Award-nominated portrait of the titular beloved Superman actor 20 years after his passing, has been submitted and accepted for consideration for the Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking Emmy, THR's Scott Feinberg has learned. HBO/Max has entered the acclaimed project, which was shockingly left off the best documentary feature Oscar shortlist, for consideration by a special jury. The story.
—Remarkable gem. Additionally, Scott has learned that The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree’s Peabody Award-nominated Netflix documentary, has also been submitted and accepted for consideration for the Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking Emmy. Ree’s film is about a physically-disabled and socially-isolated young man whose vibrant online friend-group is only discovered by his family after his death. The story. |
Film Review: 'Thunderbolts*' ►"Novel enough to feel like a bolt from the blue." THR's chief film critic David Rooney reviews Jake Schreier's Thunderbolts*. Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, Lewis Pullman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus star in this MCU installment about a team of dysfunctional outsiders ganging up to tap into their heroic potential. The review.
In other news...
—Nicole Kidman returns as a wellness guru in Nine Perfect Strangers S2 trailer
—Brett Favre scandal explored in Untold: The Fall of Favre doc trailer
—Jesse Eisenberg recruits new magicians in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t trailer
—Dexter: Resurrection sets release date
—Ole Obermann and Rachel Newman named co-heads of Apple Music
—Kalle Friz named Universal Pictures International boss in Germany
—Lionsgate promotes Taylor du Pont to lead TV post production
—IAC adds new board member
—Tribeca sets Casino, Meet The Parents reunions, Sean Penn, Ellen Pompeo talks
—Priscilla Pointer, Dallas actress and mother of Amy Irving, dies at 100
What else we're reading...
—After that awkward Bill Belichick CBS interview, Nora Princiotti writes that Jordon Hudson is in her reputation-management era [Ringer]
—Aaron Blake has the seven key poll numbers that sum up Trump's first 100 days in power [WaPo]
—Zia Weise, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Victor Jack have a handy explainer on the crazy mega-blackout that hit Spain and Portugal [Politico]
—With the president and most of the GOP revelling in edgelord "humor" these days, Kyle Chayka writes that the notorious internet forum 4chan has lost its mojo [New Yorker]
—Andrea González-Ramírez talks to a data analyst who is tracking the immigrants that are being disappeared by ICE [The Cut]
Today...
...in 2010, Summit Entertainment released Furry Vengeance in theaters. The family comedy, which starred Brendan Fraser, Brooke Shields and Ken Jeong, was savaged by critics and bombed at the box office. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Jane Campion (71), Sandra Hüller (47), Jacques Audiard (73), Ana de Armas (37), Kirsten Dunst (43), Lars von Trier (69), Sam Heughan (45), Travis Scott (34), Kunal Nayyar (44), Johnny Galecki (50), Gal Gadot (40), Dianna Agron (39), Charlie Hiscock (26), Olivia DeJonge (27), Alexandra Holden (48), Adrian Pasdar (60), Emily Carey (22), Henrique Zaga (32), Paul Gross (66), Perry King (77), Drew Seeley (43), Emma Pierson (44), Kristen Ariza (50), Justine Miceli (66), Lisa Dean Ryan (53), Kyra Leroux (23), Beau Wirick (39), Kharmel Cochrane (39), Gina Vitori (32), Pell James (48), Milo Cawthorne (36), Inga Cadranel (47) |
| Mike Peters, the frontman of ’80s Welsh rock band The Alarm, has died after a three-decade battle with cancer, his representative announced Tuesday. He was 66. The obituary. |
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