| | | | | | What's news: Spotify now has 276m premium subs. Ella Beatty will play Lizzie Borden in S4 Netflix's Monster. Eddie Murphy has revealed that a Shrek spinoff focused on Donkey is in the works. Rufus Sewell and Fiona Shaw have joined the cast of Netflix's Pride and Prejudice. The Summer I Turned Pretty has become the No.5 returning show in Amazon Prime Video's history. — Abid Rahman
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D'oh! WBD Will Split Into Warner Bros. and Discovery ►A wild ride. Warner Bros. Discovery has officially announced the names and senior leadership teams for after it splits itself in two, with David Zaslav’s streaming and studios business to be called Warner Bros., and Gunnar Weidenfels’ global networks business to be called Discovery Global. Warner Bros. will include the Warners film and TV studios, DC Studios, HBO and HBO Max, and the TCM cable channel; Discovery will include the former Discovery and Turner linear channels, including TNT, TBS, CNN, Cartoon Network, Discovery, Food Network, and HGTV. It will also include the company’s international TV channels, and the Discovery+ streaming service. The story.
—Exiting. THR's Pamela McClintock reports Sony Motion Picture Group president Josh Greenstein will depart the studio for a top job under David Ellison once the $8b Paramount Global–Skydance merger closes. THR was the first to report this spring that Greenstein would be part of the upper management team installed by Ellison at the newly configured conglomerate. It’s not clear exactly what his job will be, but it’s expected to extend beyond only Paramount Pictures. Greenstein has a longstanding relationship with Ellison and chief creative officer Dana Goldberg, who will likewise play a major role at the newly merged company. The story.
—Sony shake-up! With Josh Greenstein on the move, the executive ranks at Sony Pictures Entertainment are getting a shake-up, with Peter Kang promoted to president of production at Columbia Pictures. Kang will report to Sanford Panitch, who now becomes the sole president of Sony’s Motion Picture Group, having previously shared the job with Greenstein. On the marketing side, Nicholas Weiss and Dave Fruchbom have been promoted to co-heads of global creative and strategy. The story.
—Keeping busy. Janet Yang, the outgoing president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has found her next gig — and she’ll have some powerful partners by her side. South Korean entertainment powerhouse CJ ENM announced Tuesday that Yang, CJ Group chairwoman Miki Lee and Domink Ng, CEO of East West Bank, are joining forces to oversee a new content development label named First Light StoryHouse. The venture will be funded and supported by CJ with the mission of “identifying and supporting authentic Asian and Asian American stories and introducing them to global audiences.” The story. |
Imax and Runway AI Sign a Film Festival Deal ►Hmmmm... Imax is getting into the AI business. The exhibition giant has pacted with Runway AI for a limited run of the latter’s film-festival offerings. Imax will run the shorts from Runway’s 2025 AI Film Festival from Aug. 17-20 at ten locations around the U.S., including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, Boston, Atlanta, Denver and Washington, D.C. The ten films that composed this year’s festival will be screened as a bloc, including More Tears than Harm, a painterly look at a difficult childhood in Madagascar and Jailbird, about a chicken rescued from a factory farm to serve as a companion to a prisoner in a real-life British program aimed at compassionate rehabilitation. The story.
—"I sometimes take stock of, oh, this isn’t the best time to be doing what I’m doing." Seth Meyers got candid about late night television’s uncertain future and the fear that comes along with it as the host of NBC’s Late Night in a podcast appearance. The comedian, who has been hosting Late Night With Seth Meyers since 2014, recently appeared on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, where he opened up about the industry and how he’ll feel if his show comes to an end. “There is this weird thing that I feel like I shifted from fearing that I wouldn’t be good enough. And now my fear is weirdly more outside of my control, which is … just at some point, the ecosystem might not support [late night]," Meyers said. The story.
—Live from New York, it’s MSNBC! MSNBC is bringing back its flagship live fan event for a second year, seeking to expand the cable channel’s business lines as it prepares for a looking spinout from NBCUniversal into Versant. The 2025 installment will be called MSNBCLIVE ‘25: This Is Who We Are, and take place on Oct. 11 in Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom. Tickets for the event go on sale today, starting at $100. As with last year, there will also be special lunches and dinners with MSNBC talent, and the panels will eventually also run on MSNBC. The story.
—Failing sideways. Hope Hicks, who served as White House communications director in Donald Trump’s first term, and later worked as executive vp and chief communications officer of Fox Corp., is linking up with a former Fox News star: Megyn Kelly. Hicks is joining Kelly’s Devil May Care Media as COO, leading business development, growth opportunities, management and daily operations for the burgeoning independent media company. Devil May Care encompasses Kelly’s flagship Megyn Kelly Show, as well as AM Update with Megyn Kelly, the forthcoming MK True Crime, and all the shows in the recently launched MK Media podcast network. The story.
—Audio loss. Spotify posted second-quarter subscriber gains to end June with 276m paying premium subscribers, up from 268m as of the end of the first quarter in March. Monthly active users (MAUs) grew to 696m from 678m. Management had previously forecast 273m premium subs and 689m MAUs. However, in its latest earnings report, the company also posted a quarterly loss rather than a predicted profit, which had been expected given that the company has been boosting its bottom line with price increases, cost reductions, and a recent pullback from exclusive podcast deals in favor of non-exclusive pacts. The story. |
First Look at Guillermo Del Toro's 'Frankenstein' ►Monster revealed. Netflix has shared more images from Guillermo del Toro's hotly anticipated Frankenstein. The film is based on Mary Shelley’s classic tale of a brilliant but egotistical scientist who brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation. New photos released Tuesday show Jacob Elordi in character as the monster, as well as stars Mia Goth (Elizabeth Lavenza) and Oscar Isaac (Victor Frankenstein) on set. The movie also stars Charles Dance and Christoph Waltz and is set to premiere at this year's Venice Film Festival, followed by a global release on Netflix in November. The story.
—🎭 Monster found. 🎭 The fourth season of Netflix’s Monster anthology from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan has found its star. Feud: Capote vs. the Swans actress Ella Beatty will play Lizzie Borden in the series, which will recount the sensational allegations that Borden killed her father and stepmother with an axe. She was later acquitted at trial. Rebecca Hall and Vicky Krieps are also set to star, playing Lizzie’s stepmother, Abby Borden, and the family’s maid Bridget Sullivan. The Borden case became a media sensation in the late 19th century and has been the subject of a host of documentary and fictionalized productions, including a few in the past decade. The story.
—Monster hit. Viewers are apparently showing up for the final summer of The Summer I Turned Pretty. The third and final season of Prime Video’s YA series attracted 25m worldwide viewers in the week after its July 16 premiere, the Amazon-owned streamer says. That marks a 40 percent increase over the same timeframe for season two in July 2023 (which would put the first-week audience at roughly 17.9m viewers). That figure (which also represents a tripling of the show’s first-season audience over seven days) makes The Summer I Turned Pretty the No. 5 returning show in Prime Video’s history, based on the streamer’s internal data. It trails only seasons two and three of Reacher, season two of The Rings of Power and season four of The Boys. A handful of debut seasons have also topped that mark. The ratings. |
'The Gilded Age' Renewed for S4 at HBO ►No-brainer. HBO has renewed Julian Fellowes' period drama The Gilded Age for a fourth season. The pickup comes with two episodes left in the show’s current third season, and after solid ratings growth that has seen The Gilded Age set viewership highs multiple times this season. The July 20 episode drew a series-high 4m cross-platform viewers in its first three days, beating the previous record of 3.8m for the previous week. The show’s viewer figures are running 20 percent ahead of season two. Among other storylines this season, The Gilded Age has shown the changing power dynamic between sisters Ada (Cynthia Nixon) and Agnes (Christine Baranski), brought on by Ada’s unexpected inheritance of a sizable estate from her late husband. The story.
—🎭 Next up. 🎭 Derry Girls and Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan will lead the latest season of Channel 4‘s I Am. The BAFTA-winning, female-led anthology series has been recommissioned for a fourth season, with Coughlan set to star in the two-episode story I Am Helen opposite Peaky Blinders actor Joe Cole. Dominic Savage will direct, produce and write the show. The Emmy-winning Me+You Productions is producing the series. Savage has developed the stories in collaboration with previous stars Kate Winslet, Lesley Manville and Letitia Wright, and has done so again with Coughlan. The story.
—📅 On the move. 📅 NBC has announced its premiere dates for the start of the 2025-26 season, and they do not include second-year drama The Hunting Party. The show was initially set to be part of NBC’s Thursday lineup but will now get a midseason berth. In place of The Hunting Party will go the most recent season of Law & Order: Organized Crime, which streamed on Peacock in the spring. It will join the other two members of the L&O franchise, the original series and SVU, for an all-Law & Order night in the fall beginning Sept. 25. The future of Organized Crime on Peacock isn’t decided yet, and star Christopher Meloni last week took a role on a Hulu series — though sources say he could potentially do both shows. The story.
—📅 On the regular. 📅 Fox will roll out all of its entertainment lineup in the second half of September, with every show debuting in its regular timeslot. No post-NFL premieres (other than those for its regular Sunday animated comedies), no two-hour openers — just a lineup that, as announced at May’s upfronts, is heavy on game shows and other unscripted fare and features just four hours (out of 15 total) of scripted series. Two of those game shows, Celebrity Name That Tune and Celebrity Weakest Link, will kick off Fox’s season on Sept. 15. The rest of the non-sports lineup will follow a week later, with Murder in a Small Town and Doc debuting Sept. 23; game shows The Floor and 99 to Beat on Sept. 24; and competition series Hell’s Kitchen and Special Forces on Sept. 25. The story. |
'Pride and Prejudice': Netflix Releases First Look, Adds 4 to Cast ►🎭 Filling out. 🎭 Rufus Sewell, Louis Partridge, Fiona Shaw, and Daryl McCormack are among the big U.K. names to have joined the cast of Netflix's Pride and Prejudice series. Production is now underway in the U.K., the streamer said, with Everything I Know About Love producer-writer Dolly Alderton attached. Directed by Heartstopper's Euros Lyn, the series will be a “faithful, classic adaptation” of the novel, Netflix added. The platform also offered up a first look of the Bennet sisters on Tuesday. Sewell will star as the beloved Mr Bennet with Partridge playing Mr Darcy’s nemesis, Mr Wickham. Shaw will play Lady Catherine de Bourg and McCormack has been cast as Mr Bingley. The story.
—New home. For eight years, Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis was a staple on CNBC with his reality show, The Profit. Now he is taking his unique approach to turning around small businesses to Fox Business Network. FBN has picked up replay rights to Lemonis’ new series, The Fixer, which follows the executive as he works with small businesses in need of his advice and guidance. A popcorn shop, ice cream store and apparel company are among the businesses he is set to advise in the eight-episode season. New episodes will debut on the Fox broadcast network, and will also stream on Hulu the day after they air. The story.
—📅 Dated! 📅 Breakout comedy Churchy, created and led by Kevin “KevOnStage” Fredericks, will be back in August. BET Media Group announced on Monday that the BET+ original series will drop all 10 episodes of season two on the streamer Aug. 21. Fredericks will reprise his role as Pastor Corey Carr Jr. in Churchy season two, which sees his character inherit “leadership of Bethlehem Temple, along with a surprise book of debts. He and his wildly unqualified church crew must navigate the daily headaches of ministry life, all while fending off a vengeful rival’s plan to replace the church with a trampoline park,” the logline reads. The story. |
'Avatar: Fire & Ash' Trailer Officially Released Online ►This time it's legit! The action-packed first trailer for James Cameron's next Avatar fantasy epic has been officially released online. Disney revealed the trailer for Avatar: Fire & Ash following the footage leaking after the teaser was put exclusively in theaters last week in front of Fantastic Four: First Steps. The trailer returns moviegoers to Pandora and introduces two new tribes, the Wind Traders and the fire-hurling Ash People clan. The trailer.
—Ooops. Eddie Murphy let slip some major Shrek news during a new interview. The 64-year-old comedy icon was promoting his upcoming film The Pickup when he was asked about his upcoming role in Shrek 5. Murphy said he’s currently recording the DreamWorks release, but is then going to start recording dialogue for a Shrek spinoff film centered around his beloved Donkey character. “We’re still in the booth, and literally, we’re still doing Shrek,” he told Screenrant. “We start in September on Donkey — we’re doing a Donkey one, and that’ll [be released] three years from now. But we’re about two years into Shrek 5. Still in the booth and about to start Donkey in September.” The story.
—"A freakin’ miracle." It’s been a 31-year wait, but the latest addition to The Naked Gun franchise is finally here. Full critics’ reviews for the film drop on Wednesday, but fans of the classic spoof comedy franchise can breathe a huge sigh of relief, as the early social media reaction from Monday’s New York premiere and press screenings is extremely effusive. The reaction.
—🎭 Filling out. 🎭 Director Cary Joji Fukunaga's Blood on Snow is heating up with its latest cast addition. Pilou Asbæk, known for his work on Game of Thrones and Foundation, will co-star in the indie film adaptation of author Jo Nesbo’s 2015 crime thriller. Previously announced castmembers include Benedict Cumberbatch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Eva Green, Emma Laird and Ben Mendelsohn. Blood on Snow centers on hit man Olav (Taylor-Johnson), who falls in love with his mob boss’ wife after being hired to kill her. Production on the film began earlier this year in Latvia. The story.
In other news...
—A24's Eternity trailer: Elizabeth Olsen chooses between an afterlife with Miles Teller or Callum Turner
—K-pop stars Seventeen announce U.S. leg of new world tour
—Innovative Artists gets into sports representation
—Max Eisenbud upped to head of client representation at WME Sports
—Chris Willingham, film editor on 24, The X-Files, Grimm, dies at 74
What else we're reading...
—Aaron Boxerman reports two of Israel’s best-known rights groups are accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza [NYT]
—On the 30th anniversary of Waterworld, Miles Surrey writes that the film has a surprising amount of longevity and deserved better [Ringer]
—Lindsay Ellis and Katherine Bindley report that AI is wrecking an already fragile job market for college graduates [WSJ]
—Caroline Petrow-Cohen reports that January's wildfire damage could total $51.7b within L.A.'s city limits [LAT]
—Faced with huge population decline, Osmond Chia reports that China is offering parents $1,500 in a bid to boost the birth rate [BBC]
Today...
...in 1983, Warner Bros. unveiled the Harold Ramis-directed comedy National Lampoon's Vacation in theaters, where it would go on to launch a franchise of Vacation sequels and spinoffs. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Ken Burns (72), Stephen Dorff (52), Alexandra Paul (62), Wil Wheaton (53), Genesis Rodriguez (38), Timothy Omundson (56), Terence Rosemore (61), Josh Radnor (51), Rachel Miner (45), Ato Essandoh (53), Richard Steven Horvitz (59), Mike Starr (75), Leslie Easterbrook (76), Kevin Chapman (63), Sanjay Dutt (66), Kaitlyn Black (42), Dominic Burgess (43), Kimberly Brooks (44), Kim Dong-wook (42), Ophélie Bau (33), Diane Keen (79), Tania Gunadi (42), Jeannetta Arnette (71), Todd Bosley (41), Siobhan Thompson (41), Matt Prokop (35), Maestro Harrell (34), Shin Sae-Kyeong (35), Martina McBride (59), Jessica Lord (27), Munro Chambers (35), Emelia Hartford (32) |
| Wallis Annenberg, the billionaire philanthropist who supported the arts, science, education and animal welfare causes over decades in Los Angeles, died Monday. She was 86. The obituary. |
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