What's news: Amazon has renewed Reacher for a sixth season. Daisy Jelley and Connor Simos will lead Netflix's Icebreaker. Shawn Levy has a new TV home. And the VMAs scored their largest TV audience in more than a decade. — Abid Rahman
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Leaked Audio: Hollywood Fixer's Plan to Smear Fiancée |
►All on tape. New audio recordings obtained by THR's Gary Baum provide a rare, unvarnished view of modern crisis PR, explaining from the inside both how and why covert campaigns have been pursued across the entertainment industry and beyond in recent years amid myriad high-stakes feuds. Digital fixer Jed Wallace, a central figure in the unfolding Hollywood smear site scandal, speaks to billionaire Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio about an apparent campaign against his former fiancee, the Days of Our Lives actress Jessica Serfaty. The story.
—The latest. Toby Morton, a former staff writer and voice actor on South Park, has created a website which names and posts a threat to the seven men named in the Cornell University civil rape case that has become a national scandal. Morton says photos, employer info and billboards are coming for the seven defendants, and for Cornell administrators he says "failed miserably." The story.
—"This is really the moment where we need our men to be as horrified and as sickened as us." Florence Pugh has also spoken out about the Cornell rape case, taking to social media to talk passionately about the issues raised about the case and also noting that her post had been “censored“ by Instagram. "Colleges/schools/universities repeatedly fail women around the world. You build men that get taught through time and time again that they can do extreme harm and that they won’t be harmed in return," wrote Pugh. The story.
—"Our stories are so much more interesting now because we have people from completely different walks of life." Jeff Probst said “nothing has changed” on Survivor when it comes to the reality show’s approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, despite Paramount rolling back DEI policies when Donald Trump returned to the White House. The long-running host and showrunner recently told the NYT that it was “one of the biggest positive changes ever,” referring to when CBS launched a DEI initiative in 2020, post-Black Lives Matter, that required unscripted reality shows to have at least 50 percent of castmembers be people of color. The story.
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Levy Inks Overall Deal With 20th Television
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►🤝 Switching teams. 🤝 Prolific producer and director Shawn Levy has a new TV home. Levy and his 21 Laps Entertainment have signed a big overall deal with 20th Television, under which they’ll develop and produce new projects for the media giant’s various platforms. The deal will kick in starting in October 2027 and marks a big move for Levy and his company; he’s been based at Netflix since 2017. Levy has an existing relationship with Disney on the movie side, having recently wrapped filming on Star Wars: Starfighter and is working on a Ghost Rider movie. The story.
—Podcast push. Fox News Media is building out its portfolio of podcasts with a new panel roundtable conversation series. The pitch? The show will feature an all-female cast, with rotating guest hosts from across the company’s footprint. The new show is called The Girls, and the first episode will feature Fox & Friends Weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy, anchor Harris Faulkner, Gutfeld! panelist Kat Timpf. It will also include former ESPN NFL Sunday Countdown host Samantha Ponder, who left the sports media giant in 2024. The story.
—Original content lead. The PGA Tour is pushing further into entertainment, bringing on Ryan Holcomb to serve as the golf organizer’s senior VP and head of original content. Holcomb was most recently head of development at Box to Box Films, the studio behind shows like Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Faceoff: Inside the NHL, and previously worked in content at World Surf League, Excel Sports Management, STX Entertainment and Lionsgate. The story.
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'Brand New Day' Eyes Rerelease With Unseen Footage
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►Justice for Night Nurse. Spider-Man: Brand New Day fans could soon have a new reason to snag another ticket for the record-setting blockbuster. A theatrical rerelease is in the works from Sony Pictures that would add previously unseen footage, including a scene involving Rosario Dawson that did not make the version that hit screens July 31. A theatrical date has not yet been revealed for the potential rerelease that is expected to include other unspecified footage. The story.
—🎭 Simpler times. 🎭 Lindsay Lohan and Henry Golding are set to star in the Netflix romantic feature Return to You. Lohan also serves as a producer for the film that Mark Waters will direct from a script by Eric Champnella. Set in 2008, Return to You stars Lohan as a high-powered but lonely attorney who mistakenly receives a heartfelt DVD from a dying woman to her husband. Lohan’s character uses clues from the recording to attempt to track down the husband. The story.
—Update! Richard Linklater has provided an update on his musical film, Merrily We Roll Along. Based on Stephen Sondheim’s 1981 show, Linklater’s movie is set to shoot over a 20-year period, similar to his Oscar-nominated Boyhood, with stars Paul Mescal, Ben Platt and Beanie Feldstein aging in real time. Speaking at the Zurich Film Festival, Linklater said that the film "is [shooting] nine sections in 20 years. And in a few months, we’re filming the fourth section. So see you in 2040." The story.
—"I was silenced for a long time." Elizabeth Holmes shared a cryptic message on social media Sunday, just weeks ahead of the release of You Can See Everything, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary about her. The disgraced Theranos founder, who is currently serving an 11-year sentence for fraud, took to X to share a message from prison in her own words. Since her 2022 sentencing, she’s been posting on the platform with help from her social media team. The story.
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VMAs Producer on Surprise Performers, Onstage Cigarette Break
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►"Madonna kind of did her thing, and she called all those people herself that were in her performance." THR's Kimberly Nordyke spoke to Van Toffler, the producer of the spectacular 2026 MTV Video Music Awards telecast. Toffler reflects on the star-packed performers lineup (as well as the surprises), answers some burning questions, and offers his thoughts on Pat Smear smoking a cigarette on stage. The interview.
—Madge bump. The 2026 VMAs scored their largest audience in more than a decade on Sunday night. The awards averaged 8.43m viewers on CBS and MTV (including an encore on the latter), up by 51 percent from last year’s 5.6m — which was also a multi-year high. Sunday’s audience (subject to adjustments when Nielsen adds its big data component) was the biggest for the VMAs since the 2015 show brought in more than 12m people across multiple channels. The ratings.
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'Reacher' Scores S6 Renewal
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►🟢 Bosh nears Bosch. 🟢 Season four of Reacher ended 12 days ago, and season five is in production. A sixth season is also on the way. Prime Video announced Monday that it has renewed Reacher for a sixth season. The pickup continues a string of early renewals for the series, which has consistently been one of the streamer’s biggest shows. The run of early renewals stretches back to season three, which Prime Video ordered two weeks before the second season debuted in December 2023. With the renewal, Reacher will also become Prime Video’s second longest-running scripted series behind Bosch (and tied with Invincible, which has also been picked up through a sixth season). The story.
—🎭 All set. 🎭 Netflix has founds the Icebreaker leads. Daisy Jelley and Connor Simos have been cast as Anastasia “Stassie” Allen and Nate Hawkins. The show, based on Hannah Grace’s best-selling romance novel of the same name, centers around the relationship between a college hockey player and a college figure skater. The novel is the first in Grace’s college-set Maple Hills series and is one of, if not the, most recognizable title in the hockey romance sub-genre. The story.
—Facing off once more. Former Dance Moms stars Abby Lee Miller and Cathy Nesbitt will reunite for Abby vs. Cathy: Hit the 8, a new shortform series debuting in October on ShortVydz, which touts itself as “a talent-forward new mobile-first streaming platform for shortform reality television.” It’s one of two new shows debuting in October. The other, Crashing Out With Kail, goes behind the scenes with former 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom 2 reality star Kailyn Lowry as she embarks on her international Fatherless Behavior tour. The story.
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'Rose' Puts Sandra Hüller Back in the Oscar Conversation
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►"There were transgender people or lesbians... of course, but in those days there wasn’t an idea or words for this." THR's Seth Abramovitch spoke to Sandra Hüller and filmmaker Markus Schleinzer about their new film Rose. The duo discuss the secrets, sex and survival behind their acclaimed period drama that is garnering early awards buzz. The interview.
—"The pedophile element by itself is terrifying to tackle, and then you add the nudity." THR's nicest man Chris Gardner spoke to actor Jonathan Lipnicki about his new film, the much talked about A24 drama Primetime. The former child star — famous for telling Tom Cruise "a human head weighs eight pounds" in Jerry Maguire — opens up about baring all in the new film and why he chose to leave L.A. Warning: Spoilers! The interview.
—"I thought I was going to write this book and reveal where all the skeletons are buried. It turns out most of them are mine." Chris also spoke to TV superproducer and prolific philanthropist Chuck Lorre about his new memoir, Sitcom. Lorre is on top form and discusses the Paramount-WBD merger, and how fear was a great motivator for The Big Bang Theory spin-off Stuart Fails to Save the Universe. The interview.
—"Now it’s very difficult to say almost anything because everybody’s like, ‘They’ll come for you, you can’t say that.’ Chile, say everything." THR's Brande Victorian spoke to Debbie Allen about Netflix's A Different World sequel series. The director and executive producer reflects on the backlash to booking Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold for the original sitcom, and her Emmy-winning work with Dolly Parton. The interview.
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Film Review: 'Heil Jupiter!'
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►"Visually arresting and totally self-indulgent." THR's Jordan Mintzer reviews Carlos Reygadas' Heil Jupiter! The latest feature from the director of Silent Light and Post Tenebras Lux was shot across several continents in different languages, including one invented for the film. Starring Neli de la Rosa, Alexis Sánchez Alonso, Flor de León and Alexis Said Villa de León. Written by Carlos Reygadas. The review.
In other news...
—Netflix’s Matthew Perry docuseries debuts tearjerker trailer
—Tulsa King S4 trailer: "Bad things are going to happen"
—SNL UK S2: All the hosts and musical guests
—Godzilla Minus Zero: Dodgers giveaway draws lines for final home game
—Tokyo: Mohammad Rasoulof and Mipo O set for Kurosawa Akira Award
—BTS superstar V named global brand ambassador for British tech brand Nothing
—James Rosenfield, former top executive at CBS, dies at 97
What else we're reading...
—Rachel Metz and Newley Purnell report that OpenAI is scrapping the debut of its new AI models as it sets new safety guardrails [Bloomberg]
—Charlotte Klein spoke to media mogul Jeff Zucker about his surprise decision to play himself in A24's Primetime [Intelligencer]
—Molly Gorman talked to Jane Austen experts who list the four things the various screen adaptations get wrong [BBC]
—With Phoebe Bridgers making waves by banning phones at her concerts, Lindsay Zoladz considers what we gain (and lose) by being free of our devices at gigs [NYT]
—Ruth Simon goes inside the multitude of problems related to producing a 100 percent Made-in-America Monopoly game [WSJ]
Today...
...in 2000, after bowing at the Toronto Film Festival, Warner Bros. brought Christopher Guest’s mockumentary Best in Show to theaters. The ensemble film, led by Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara and Parker Posey, went on to gross $20m before attaining cult classic status. The original review.
Today's birthdays...
Ian McShane (84), Zibby Allen (46), Halsey (32), Nicolas Winding Refn (56), Chrissy Metz (46), Robert Webb (54), Martin Ferrero (79), Erika Eleniak (57), Zachary Levi (46), Nicholas Galitzine (32), Dale Dickey (65), Sasha Lane (31), Mackenzie Crook (55), James Lance (51), Luke Goss (58), Roger Bart (64), Natasha Gregson Wagner (56), Shay Astar (45), Andrew Dice Clay (69), Patricia Hodge (80), Nathan West (48), Preeti Desai (45), Anna Khaja (52), Marco Ilsø (32), Sebastian Lach (51), Isla Blair (82), Anaïs Demoustier (39)
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Dennis Haskins, who for more than a decade played the lovable but stern Principal Richard Belding on Saved by the Bell, has died. He was 75. The obituary.
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