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Project Hail Mary’s box office is proof that Hollywood is healing

And audiences are going to reap the benefits. So in case you missed it, Amazon MGM released the sci-fi adventure/comedy film Project Hail Mary in theaters last weekend. It’s based on a book by Andy Weir, written by Drew Goddard, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and it stars Ryan Gosling.

They shot it on a $200 million dollar budget, it was expected to gross $65M opening. Instead it brought in a huge $80.5 million dollars domestic and $141 total worldwide opening weekend, making it the biggest opening of the year so far and the biggest ever for Amazon MGM.

So needless to say, this is a huge victory for originality in movie theaters. Now, Project Hail Mary isn’t a wholly original film — it’s based on a book. But it’s not a sequel. Remake, or reboot, nor is it part of a franchise or attached to some big recognizable brand, so it’s far more “original” than most of the big budget blockbusters the studios typically put out.

And so the fact that Amazon MGM spent that much money on it, gave the creative team the freedom to make the best movie possible, and then marketed it well, so that it actually became a hit in theaters, in today’s Hollywood that’s pretty remarkable. Just a massive win for originality. And hopefully it serves as proof that original, new stories are worth making and the more original success stories we get like this, the more Hollywood will make.

The Lion King’s co-songwriter is suing a comedian for $27 million

Because the comedian dared to make a joke about the Circle of Life lyrics on a podcast

Alright so in one corner, you’ve got Lebo M. The South African film producer and composer most well known for collaborating with Elton John, Tim Rice, and Hans Zimmer on The Lion King songs and score. He famously wrote and sang the opening Zulu chant at the beginning of The Circle of Life, “Nants’ingonyama bagithi Baba,”

And in the other corner is Learnmore Jonasi, a 32-year-old a Zimbabwean stand-up comedian, actor and MC, who has performed all over the world, won many awards, and was even a top 5 finalist on America’s Got Talent.

On Feb 25th, Jonasi appeared on the One54 Africa podcast and he made a humorous observation that the Circle of Life’s opening chant really translated to “ “Look, there’s a lion. Oh my god.” That clip went insanely viral, it’s been ripped and reupload everywhere, getting millions upon millions of views.

But Lebo M was not happy about that. And has decided to sue Jonasi for $27 MILLION, claiming that his misleading representation is in violation of the Lantham Act, which is part of US trademark law and that it’s defamation per se, trade libel, and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.

The lawsuit says Jonasi “”presented this as authoritative fact, not comedy,” and that in doing so he “mocked the chant’s cultural significance with exaggerated imitations.” And that his podcast comments was “a fabricated, trivializing distortion, meant as a sick joke for unlawful self-profit and destruction of the imaginative and artistic work of Lebo M.”

The suit goes on to say “The true meaning of Nants’ ingonyama bagithi Baba is ‘All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.’”

Jonasi put out a statement on social media, seemingly before the lawsuit was filed, saying, “This was just a joke … I had no idea it had a different meaning.” Apparently in private conversations, Lebo M insulted Jonas personally, so the comedian refused to apologize, saying, “No I never insulted him.”

The new Spider Man trailer just made Hollywood history

And it’s proof Sony marketers are secret geniuses. If you have a pulse and a cell phone, you probably saw that Sony released the first trailer for Spider Man Brand New Day last week. The reason I say that is because a lot of people watched the trailer.

According to tracking firm WaveMetrix, it’s been viewed 1.1 billion times, which means it just broke the record as the biggest trailer launch of all time and it’s the only trailer to ever cross 1 billion views in its first week.

This was after it hit 718.6 million views in its first 24 hours, which was also a record, basically doubling The previous record holder, the first “Deadpool and Wolverine,” trailer which had 365 million views in its first 24 hours.

So how did Sony pull this off? First Spider-Man is essentially the most popular and beloved super hero, so that always helps but they knew that absence makes the heat grow fonder. It’s been 5 years since the last SpiderMan movie, which was the ultra successful Spider-Man No Way Home. So a lot of anticipation has been building in general for the film and then Sony waited a long time to release this trailer.

They made fans wait longer than normal to see any footage from the movie. For months fans were begging and speculating where’s the trailer where’s the trailer. It was genius of Sony to build up that tension and hype. So of course when they finally delivered, it was a record breaking smash hit.

This major director says Netflix’s testing process “makes you want to kill yourself”

And that’s coming from a guy who loves to screen test his movies. Paul Feig is secretly one of the most successful directors in all of Hollywood. He has a particular knack for turning modestly budgeted films into major hits. Bridesmaids for example shot on a $32M budget and grossed $306M at the box office. The Heat, Spy, and A Simple Favor all had 8 figure budgets and 9 figure grosses, and he just did it again with The Housemaid, which shot on a $35M budget and has so far grossed nearly $400 million dollars worldwide.

So on a recent episode of The Town podcast, Feig chalked this up to screen testing. He thoroughly screens his movies with test audiences before release to figure out what’s working. And while he loves getting that feedback in person in a theater, he did not have nice things to say about Netflix’s VIRTUAL screen testing process.

“One of the worst experiences I ever had was when I did for Netflix, The School For Good and Evil” Feig said he tested it a few times in theaters, but Netflix wanted to do an “online test.” He explained “So it’s basically a big Zoom screen with a million different boxes in it. And you watch people at home watch the movie and it makes you want to kill yourself”

Feig could not believe how distracted people were, “Literally someone’s making a sandwich. The cat’s walking by. They walk away to the bathroom for five minutes And then that person’s like ‘Well I didn’t understand’ It’s like, ‘yeah you missed the whole fucking thing’”

On the one hand, it makes sense that Netflix would test this way, because their users are at home. But should filmmakers be directing movies for distracted people?

Star Trek is dead — again — but there is hope for its future

Tell me, Is there any franchise that’s gone through more ups and downs than Star Trek? It seems just when things get good for Trekkies and Trekkers, the rug gets pulled out from under them.

You see recently, it was a great time to be a Star Trek fan, because Paramount committed to making a ton of new shows for streaming. Over the last 8 years, we got Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, Strange New Worlds, and finally Starfleet Academy. We had not seen peak Star Trek like that since the mid 90s.

But one by one, all of those shows either ended or were canceled and as of March 2026, all that’s left are 2 already shot seasons of Strange New Worlds — that have yet to air and we just learned that the newest show Starfleet Academy is done after its upcoming 2nd season. They just wrapped filming of that 2nd season in February.

Which means for the first time in nearly a decade, there are no Star Trek shows in production. Now that said, Star Trek’s overseer Alex Kurtzman did just renew his deal with Paramount. So it’s possible there will be more to come.

And Paramount is redirecting Star Trek back to the big screen. Dungeons and Dragons filmmakers Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley are developing an entirely new Star Trek movie that will deliver a fresh take on the nearly 60-year-old franchise.

Meanwhile…

• Kevin Hart just called out his new wax figure — and yeah, it’s hilariously bad

• The Book of Mormon, the musical, turns 15 — here’s its full history

• This Mario Galaxy popcorn bucket is genius — and it just set a Guinness World Record

• Netflix has found its next roast victim and it’s the perfect person

And my recent reviews

• SNL UK episode one

• Dog Day Afternoon on Broadway

• Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen (new Netflix series)

Best Supporting Actress - Amy Madigan for Weapons

Best Animated Feature - KPop Demon Hunters

Best Animated Short - The Girl Who Cried Pearls

Best Costume Design - Kate Hawley for Frankenstein

Best Hair and Makeup - Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey for Frankenstein

Best Casting - Cassandra Kulukundis for ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Best Live Action Short Film was a TIE going to The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva

Best Supporting Actor - Sean Penn - ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Best Adapted Screenplay - Paul Thomas Anderson ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Best Original Screenplay - Ryan Coogler SINNERS

Best Production Design - Tamara Deverll and Shane Vieau for FRANKENSTEIN

Best Visual Effects - AVATAR FIRE AND ASH

Best Documentary Short - All The Empty Rooms

Best Documentary Feature - Mr. Nobody Against Putin

Best Score - Ludwig Goransson for SINNERS

Best Sound - F1

Best Film Editing - Andy Jurgensen for One Battle After Another

Best Cinematography - Autumn Durald Arkapaw for SINNERS

Making her the first woman to EVER win in that category

Best International Feature - SENTIMENTAL VALUE

Best Original Song - GOLDEN from K Pop Demon Hunters

Best Director - Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another

Best Actor - Michael B Jordan for SINNERS

Best Actress - Jessie Buckley for Hamnet

Best Picture - ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

And here’s my review of the whole evening, which I thought was great except for one major flaw.

In case you missed it, Netflix announced Thursday that it was backing out of the bidding war for Warner Bros., paving the way for Paramount to acquire the WB instead.

I sat down with Sen. Elizabeth Warren today to discuss the merger. In this exclusive chat, with Pop Culture Brain, Sen. Warren explains why the Paramount Warner Bros. merger would be a “disaster” for movie and TV fans, who is fighting back, and what you can do to stop it as well.

Where church ladies and retired cops are selling semi-legal streaming TV boxes that give you every show, movie and event for free, and Hollywood has no one to blame but itself.

So I was casually scrolling the other day, when this Verge article caught my eye: EVERYONE IS STEALING TV. Now I’m familiar with regular old piracy - via torrents, streaming, and download sites but this article was about something else entirely: The SuperBox and the vSeeBox.

According to the Verge, they are bootleg devices being sold nationwide by individual sellers. The boxes themselves, which are possibly being imported from China, are legal. They come with a one time fee of $200-400 for the consumer, and they give you free, permanent access via “illegal streaming services … to every single channel, show, and movie you can think of,” including live broadcasts like NFL games and UFC fights.

And what’s really wild is The Verge says these boxes are being sold in a nationwide network of mom and pop bootleggers, some of who sell them at local farmers markets. Quote, “There’s a retired former cop in upstate New York selling the vSeeBox at the fall festival of his local church. A Christian conservative from Utah who pitches rogue streaming boxes as a way of “defunding the swamp and refunding the kingdom.” An Idaho-based smart home vendor sells vSeeBoxes alongside security cameras Midwestern church ladies in Illinois and Indian uncles in New Jersey all know someone who can hook you up”

And obviously, the media companies are not happy about this. Dish Network has sued a few major sellers, and won millions of dollars in damages of them, but based on quotes from the people using these boxes, it seems the media companies have no one to blame but themselves. Consumers are turning to these boxes because subscribing to all the streaming services plus cable or a live TV service like YouTubeTV has gotten way too expensive.

But the article explains that using one of these boxes could come with risks. There’s the security and privacy risk of connecting some mysterious box to your home Wifi network and possibly a legal risk, media companies could sue consumers for pirating content or they could pressure the internet service providers to cut off customers who have these boxes. Anyway, this was all really fascinating — I super recommend reading the article.

Hey it turns out using a racial slur can still get you fired in America

Despite the fact that some people in this country seem to be immune from FAFO, one HGTV host is currently learning the consequences of her actions. Nicole Curtis, the host of HGTV’s Rehab Addict, a home renovation show which has aired 83 episodes since 2010, has been fired from the series after she was caught on camera using a racial slur.

In filmed but unused footage, Curtis is seen a top a ladder struggling with a project when she says “Oh fart [n-word]” She immediately knows she messed up and says “What the fuck is that that I just said? Nick you gotta, can you kill that?” Fuck my life”

The footage is reportedly 2 years old but leaked this week. So in response, HGTV has fired her, canceled the show, AND wiped the entire series from its platforms. The network said in a statement, ““Not only is language like this hurtful and disappointing to our viewers, partners, and employees it does not align with the values of HGTV. Accordingly, we have removed the series from all HGTV platforms. We remain dedicated to fostering a culture of respect and inclusion across our content and our workplace.”

Curtis also put out an apology of sorts, telling TMZ, “I want to be clear: the word in question is wrong and not part of my vocabulary and never has been, and I apologize to everyone.”

Proof our health care system is messed up

James Van Der Beek’s friends and family had to set up a GoFundMe because the costs of his cancer treatments basically bankrupted them. Quote, “ The costs of James’s medical care and the extended fight against cancer have left the family out of funds.”

In case you’re not aware, actor James Van Der Beek died yesterday at the age of 48, after a two and a half year battle with with colon cancer, he was diagnosed in 2023. James Van Der Beek was a very successful actor, for more than 30 years, he worked consistently, on major projects like Dawson’s Creek, Varsity Blues, Don’t Trust the B, Pose, Scary Movie and more. Even after his diagnosis he continued to work, he was on The Masked Singer last year.

So if his family can’t afford health care when disaster strikes, what hope is there for the rest of us? Also, this really shows that many actors — even very successful ones — Probably don’t make as much as you think they do, and face the same financial realities as everyone else when hard times hit.

Thankfully, because Van Der Beek was so beloved and reached so many people. His family’s GoFundMe was an instant success. They set the goal at $500,000, it reached more than $1 million in 24 hours. But who’s helping out the average American?

Netflix is finally giving us the extra Stranger Things story we so desperately needed

It’s been about a month since Conformity Gate went crazy viral. If you forgot, it was the Stranger Things conspiracy theory, where fans predicted that there would be an extra 9th episode of the show after the finale.

Obviously, that 9th episode never came. But now Netflix IS preparing to give us some more content inside the main Stranger Things canon and no I’m not talking about the animated spinoff Tales From 85 - coming later this year.

This week, we learned that Netflix is filming the Stranger Things Broadway play First Shadow and that it will be releasing it on the platform at some point in the future. This is great news, because not everyone can get to New York and afford tickets.

So this will bring the show — which is pretty damn good — to wide audiences. I’m pumped for people to see Louis McCartney’s outstanding performance. Also what’s nice here is that all Netflix viewers can finally understand Henry Creel’s full backstory and see exactly what went down in 1959.

Do I wish every Stranger Things viewer could have seen this sooner? Like maybe before or during the final season, to have the full background on Henry? Absolutely. But I guess better late than never. And it’s always nice to get a publicly released Broadway pro-shot.

Chappell Roan just fired her agents over the latest Jeffrey Epstein news

Pink Pony Club singer Chappell Roan took to Instagram this week with a big announcement. Quote, “As of today, [I] am no longer represented by Wasserman, the talent agency led by Casey Wasserman, I hold my teams to the highest standards … No artist, agent or employee should ever be expected to defend or overlook actions that conflict so deeply with our own moral values.”

If you’re wondering what that means and why she fired them. Well, it’s because Casey Wasserman, the agency’s CEO, appears in the Epstein files multiple times. In 2003, he had several email exchanges with Ghislaine Maxwell, asking her, “”Where are you, I miss you,” and “what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”

Wasserman said in a statement he regrets his messages with Maxwell, but claimed he had no “personal or business relationship” with Jeffrey Epstein. That said, he did admit to flying to Africa aboard Epstein’s plane in 2002.

Roan went on to say her decision “reflects my belief that meaningful change in our industry requires accountability and leadership that earns trust.”

Casey Wasserman is currently still the CEO of the agency, and the chairman of the organizing committee for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The agency represents other big names including Kendrick Lamar, Brad Pitt, Florence Pugh, and Adam Sandler.

Meanwhile…

• The Breaking Bad house has reportedly been sold

• Marty Supreme just proved all the haters wrong by breaking even

• Margot Robbie once got the nastiest gift from a male co-star

• Mike Flanagan is remaking another classic Stephen King book

• The director of RRR is currently making the most expensive movie in Indian history

Yes you, the person reading this. In case you’re not aware, Daniel Radcliffe is returning to Broadway on February 21st, performing in the one-man show Every Brilliant Thing, in which “a man looks back at his life and the glimmers of hope that carried him through.”

Written in 2013 by Duncan Macmillan and performed all over the world since. The play examines the things that make life worth living, like sex, roller coasters, and ice cream. On the surface, Radcliffe returning to Broadway doesn’t seem like a big deal But there’s one wild thing that sets this play apart: It has a ton of audience participation.

In fact, the production is selling seats on the stage, where people will be asked to join the play. According to a Times UK summary of the show, which ran in London last year, “At least 50 audience members are given lines to shout out and some make it on to the stage, to play the lead character’s father, school counsellor and first love”

If you take a look at the script for Every Brilliant Thing, which is available online, you can see the passages where an audience member performs with the actor. Anyway, Every Brilliant Thing is running on Broadway for 13 weeks starting Feb 21. Tickets on the stage start around $150 but act fast, because they’re already selling out.

Author signs a TV deal that not even JK Rowling and George RR Martin could get

Fantasy fans get excited — because a major book series is finally coming to the screen. In late January, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Apple TV is going to be making shows and movies based on Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe, which is a collection of 18 top selling novels published over the last 20 years.

The Mistborn series is being developed for film, while Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive books could become a TV series. But what’s so crazy about this is the deal Sanderson got from Apple.

He reportedly shopped his books all around town, but Apple won out because it gave him an unprecedented level of control of the movies and shows. The Hollywood Reporter says “Sanderson will be the architect of the universe; He will write, produce and consult [on the projects]” And get this he “will have cast approval” power as well.

That gives him more control over this screen franchise than JK Rowling has on Potter and that George RR Martin has on Game of Thrones. Sanderson explained on his YouTube page he picked Apple because he likes the streamer’s work and its “vibe.” But also because of the control it was willing to give him.

The lady who owns the Breaking Bad house just took a huge L

Are you familiar with the saga of the Breaking Bad house? Located on Piermont Dr in Albuquerque, this real house served as the exterior for Walter White’s home. When the show was filming, the owners, the Quintana family, had a good relationship with the crew, but in the years after, things turned sour when fans started showing up in droves.

They reportedly threw pizzas on the roof and in one case left a package for Walter White. Things got so bad that home owner Joanne put up a fence and numerous warning signs telling people to stay away. But still they kept coming and Joanne would occasionally argue with them. A video shot last year shows her mocking fans and spraying them with water.

Anyway, in January 2025, she decided she was done with it and so she put the home up for sale — for a whopping $4 million dollars. Other comparable homes in this are in the $400,000 thousand dollar range, so Joanne was asking for about 10 times the home’s value on the hope that a new owner could turn it into a Breaking Bad museum.

Unfortunately, the house is in a residential area and local zoning laws wouldn’t allow for that kind of business. So a year later she’s admitted defeat and reduced the asking price to a reasonable, much more accurate $400,000. And as TMZ points out, that would make for a perfectly affordable AirBnB rental.

Tom Cruise’s mysterious new movie throws back to Tropic Thunder in the best way possible

One of the most exciting new movies of 2026 has to be DIGGER. From Oscar winning director Alejandro Innaritu, who made The Revenant and Birdman, the poster calls it a “Comedy of catastrophic proportions.” And besides Tom Cruise in the lead role, it also features Sandra Hüller, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Sophie Wilde, Riz Ahmed, Emma D’Arcy, Robert John Burke and Burn Gorman.

It reportedly about the most powerful man in the world, who tries to prove he is humanity’s savior before his own disaster destroys everything. So yeah all of that is pretty vague. But Tom Cruise doing an original comedy is pretty exciting.

And recently we learned, thanks to Deadline reporter Justin Kroll that Cruise will be wearing heavy prosthetics in the film. “He’s basically another Les Grossman-like character … He’s not going to look like the movie star Tom Cruise.” Cruise was so good as Les Grossman, so this could be a very good thing.

Inarritu himself has been quoted as saying Cruise will “surprise the world” with his performance and Michael Stuhlbarg said the movie is “the craziest thing I’ve ever been a part of.” And he was in Bones and All. Anyway, Digger hits theaters October 2, 2026 via Warner Brothers.

Meanwhile…

• Sony is cooking with the God of War cast

• And the SNL UK cast is here

• Jason Biggs showed his 11-year-old son his famous Pie scene

Confirming what everyone already suspected about the streaming service. In case you missed it, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck released a new movie on Netflix last week. It’s called The Rip, it’s a cop drama written and directed by Joe Carnahan.

Anyway, this is Damon and Affleck’s first Netflix original film and in a recent interview, Damon spoke about some specific notes they got from Netflix. First he said, Netflix wanted a dynamic action scene in the first 5 minutes, which makes sense because Netflix is keen on viewer retention

But then Damon explained that Netflix also said “it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.”

If you’ve watched any Netflix original content, you’ve probably encountered this over explaining and people have speculated that Netflix does this. But here finally we have confirmation, from an A-lister no less.

Damon to his credit, didn’t seem thrilled about the note, saying “It’s going to really start to infringe on how we’re telling these stories.” But Ben Affleck who was also in the interview had a more optimistic view, saying not everything on Netflix follows this rule, “Look at Adolescence, it didn’t do any of that shit and it was fucking great.”

Reviews for Chris Pratt’s new movie are straight up embarrassing

In case you’re not aware, Chris Pratt is releasing a new film in theaters this weekend. It’s called Mercy, and it’s a futuristic crime thriller directed by Timur Bekmambetov.

To start, The Toronto Star gave it 0 stars, say it’s “lazily written, chaotically directed and played out with all the zest of a convenience-store security video, it lacks not only vision and purpose but the faintest hint of entertainment.”

The Independent called it “A baffling piece of work,” HeyUGuys called it “really dumb.” The Hollywood Reporter said, “It should be avoided by anyone suffering from screen addiction, which these days is pretty much everybody.”

The Daily Beast said it’s “Designed in every way to make one bleary eyed, it’s the new year’s dreariest, and goofiest, film.” Geek Vibes Nation compared it to last year’s War of the Worlds, while Region Free said, “It must be Thanksgiving in January, there’s no other way to explain a turkey of this magnitude.”

As of Friday morning, just 22% of the 90 reviews assessed by RottenTomatoes are positive. They include Deadline, who said, it “will have you on the edge of your seat” and Collider called it, “an engaging investigation that’s twisty, complex, and surprisingly action-packed.”

Sinners, Chalamet, and Moura made Oscars history

The 2026 Oscar nominations were announced this week, and they came with a lot of fun surprises and snubs. For example, F1 made it into Best Picture and Ariana Grande was omitted from Best Supporting Actress.

But let’s talk about some of the awesome records that were broken. One, thanks to The Secret Agent, Wagner Moura just became the first Brazillian actor to ever get nominated for Best Lead Actor. Meanwhile, his competitor Timothee Chalamet the youngest man to ever be nominated 3 times. Sinners costume designer Ruth E. Carter became the most nominated Black woman in Oscars history. And Sinners ‘Sinners’ DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman of color ever nominated for Best Cinematography.

But Sinners overall made history as it broke the record for the most nominations for a single film in movie history. Sinners was nominated for 16 awards total, beating All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land — which previously tied for the record of 14 total nominations.

Sinners 16 nominations are: Supporting Actress (Wunmi Mosaku), Supporting Actor (Delroy Lindo), Make Up and HAir, Score, Original Screenplay, Casting, Costumes, Song, Production Design, Editing, Sound, VFX, Cinematography, Lead Actor Michael B Jordan, Director, and Best Picture. The real question now, is which of those will it win?

This giant YouTuber is about to turn the film industry upside down, Taylor Swift style

Have you heard of the upcoming horror movie Iron Lung? It’s based on a 2022 indie video game, set entirely aboard a micro submarine. This film adaptation has no studio behind it, no major distributor, and no mainstream marketing rollout and yet, on January 30th it’s going to open on at least 2,500 screens and many of those showings are already sold out. How is this possible?! Markiplier.

Iron Lung was co-written and directed by Mark Fischbach aka Markiplier, who is one of the biggest YouTubers on Earth, he’s got more than 38 million followers. Markiplier rose to fame making gaming content, but in recent years he’s expanded into longform narrative work.

He first approached Iron Lung’s creator David Szymanski about making a movie of his game in 2022. He then shot it on a modest budget over 35 days in Spring 2023, without any real release plan. But he knew his fans would come out, if it got the right distribution.

So Markiplier met with some Hollywood distribution companies, but none of them offered the theatrical rollout he knew he was capable of and so, as Indiewire reports, he partnered with film buying veteran Bill Herting, who helped him negotiate directly with theaters. Just like Taylor Swift did with the Eras Tour film, Markiplier took his film directly to exhibitors, banking on his large and loyal audience.

At first, Bill Herting proposed releasing Iron Lung in 3 theaters and again Markiplier had to explain that wasn’t going to be enough, saying, “I have an audience of millions. It would be insultingly low — not to me, to them.” When Herting started contacting theaters, he quickly learned Markiplier wasn’t lying. Many theater owners and their employees were familiar with him. And in one week, the movie went from 60 bookings to 600

And then, Markiplier released a trailer for the film on his YouTube account along with a website listing all the places the movie would be playing. His fans started calling the theaters in droves to get tickets and more information and this allowed Herting to roll the snowball even faster. Indiewire says by January 30th, it’s possible the movie will be on 2,800 screens worldwide.

Not bad for a first-time director with no major companies backing him. But has Indiewire explains, Markiplier worked up to this moment for years, “He built an audience first. He earned their trust over time. He invited them into the process [and then] He gave them tools to act.” The big question is how much will Iron Lung make opening weekend?

Meanwhile…

• The Alicia Keys musical lost a load of money on Broadway

• Tenacious D’s Kyle Gass just gave a major update on the future of the band

• This Oscar winner wishes she had never won the Oscar

• Kate Hudson rejected one of the biggest roles in comic book movie history

• James Cameron admitted one major hurdle stands in the way of Avatar 4&5

• And Cameron went off on the U.S.

Best Supporting Actress

• Elle Fanning Sentimental Value

• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleas Sentimental Value

• Amy Madigan Weapons

• Wunmi Mosaku Sinners

• Teyana Taylor One Battle After Another

Best Supporting Actor

• Benicio del Toro OBAA

• Jacob Elordi Frankenstein

• Delroy Lindo Sinners

• Sean Penn OBAA

• Stellan Skarsgard Sentimental Value

Best Make Up and Hair

• Frankenstein

• Kokuho

• Sinners

• The Smashing Machine

• The Ugly Stepsister

Best Score

• Bugonia

• Frankenstein

• Hamnet

• One Battle

• Sinners

Best Live Action Short

• Butcher’s Stain

• A Friend of Dorothy

• Jane Austen’s Period Drama

• The Singers

• Two People Exchanging Saliva

Best Animated Short

• Butterfly

• Forevergreen

• The Girl Who Cried Pearls

• Retirement Plan

• The Three Sisters

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Bugonia

• Frankenstein

• Hamnet

• One Battle After Another

• Train Dreams

Best Original Screenplay

• Blue Moon

• It Was Just an Accident

• Marty Supreme

• Sentimental Value

• Sinners

Best Casting

• Hamnet

• Marty Supreme

• One Battle

• The Secret Agent

• Sinners

Best Costumes

• Avatar Fire and Ash

• Frankenstein

• Hamnet

• Marty Supreme

• Sinners

Best Song

• Dear Me Dianne Warren Relentless

• Golden Kpop Demon Hunters

• I lied to you Sinners

• Sweet dreams of joy Viva Verdi

• Train Dreams Train Dreams

Best Doc Feature

• The Alabama Solution

• Come See me in the good light

• Cutting through rocks

• Mr nobody against putin

• The perfect neighbor

Best Doc Short

• All the empty rooms

• Armed only with a camera: The life and death of brent renaud

• Children no more: Were and are gone

• The devil is busy

• Perfectly a strangeness

Best International Feature

• The Secret Agent

• It Was Just an Accident

• Sentimental Value

• Sirat

• The Voice Hind of Rajab

Best Animated Feature

• Arco

• Elio

• Kpop Demon Hunters

• Little Amelie or the Character of Rain

• Zooptia 2

Best Product Design

• Frankentsein

• Hament

• Marty Supreme

• OBAA

• Sinners

Best Film Editing

• F1

• Marty Supreme

• OBAA

• Sentimental Value

• Sinners

Best Sound

• F1

• Fraknenstein

• OBAA

• Sinners

• Sirat

Best VFX

• Avatar Fire & Ash

• F1

• Jurassic Wolrd Rebirth

• The Lost Bus

• Sinners

Best Cinematography

• Frankenstein

• Marty Supreme

• OBAA

• Sinners

• Train Dreams

Best Actor

• Timothee Chalamet Marty Supreme

• Leonardo Dicaprio OBAA

• Ethan Hawke Blue Moon

• Michael B Jordan Sinners

• Wagner Moura Secret Agent

Best Actress

• Jessie Buckley Hamnet

• Rose Byrne IF I had Legs I’d Kick You

• Kate Hudson Song Sung Blue

• Renate Reinsve Sentimental Vlaue

• Emma Stone Bugonia

Best Diercor

• Chloe Zhao Hamnet

• Josh Safdie Marty Supreme

• Paul Thomas Anderson OBAA

• Joachim Trier Sentimental Value

• Ryan Coogler Sinners

Best Picture

• Bugonia

• F1

• Frankenstein

• Hamnet

• Marty Supreme

• One Battle After Another

• The Secret Agent

• Sentimental Value

• Sinners

• Train Dreams

The Simpsons has been on the air as its own show, for nearly 37 years. In that time, it’s become a cultural phenomenon as iconic Mickey Mouse — and so it’s possible that centuries from now, The Simpsons will endure as a modern myth.

At least that’s the premise of Mr. Burns: A Post‑Electric Play, an acclaimed, three-act theater piece written by Anne Washburn that ran off Broadway in 2014. The play is a dark comedy about a group survivors in a post apocalyptic world, who reenact an episode of The Simpsons around a camp fire for entertainment. It then shows how that story evolves into a traveling folk legend. The episode featured in the play is season 5 episode 2 “Cape Feare, ”where Sideshow Bob gets out of prison and hunts down Bart.

Anyway, subversive filmmaker Boots Riley, best known for Sorry to Bother you and I’m A Virgo is developing a feature film adaptation of Mr. Burns A Post-Electric Play. This news was announced by Anne Washburn in a Playbill bio recently and has been confirmed by Riley on his X account. It’s unclear if this is an indie film or if he’s making it with a big studio.

So you might be wondering, is it legal for Riley to use The Simpsons intellectual property? Won’t Disney sue them for copyright infringement? Maybe, but this could be considered “fair use” as the work is “transformative” Back in 2014, Fox was aware of the play and made clear it wasn’t associated with the production, but it did not take legal action against it.

Sydney Sweeney has a movie franchise on her hands

I’m not going to sugar coat it, Sydney Sweeney is controversial. Some people really hate her and refuse to watch anything she’s a part of. And yet — she’s the co-lead in a movie that’s doing very well at the box office right now.

I’m of course talking about The Housemaid, which she stars in with Amanda Seyfried. Directed by Paul Feig — it’s based on a very popular best selling book series. Anyway, The Housemaid was shot on a $35 million dollar budget and according to The Numbers, after 4 weeks in theaters, it’s grossed $192M worldwide. That’s more than 5 times its budget, meaning 9 figure profits for Lionsgate.

And so naturally, the studio has already greenlit a sequel. Sydney Sweeney and Paul Feig are returning and the film will be based on The Housemaid’s Secret, the second book in author Freida McFadden’s thriller series, in which Sweeney’s character Millie goes to work for a different family. That said, Michele Morrone who played Enzo is also expecting to return and Amanda Seyfried told Variety she’d like to return for a cameo appearance.

This is definitely a fast turnaround for a studio to greenlight a sequel, but the box office doesn’t lie and Lionsgate must be confident in A) The franchise-ability of the books and B) Sydney Sweeney herself. It will be interesting to see if the 2nd movie does as well without Amanda Seyfried.

The cast of the live action Tangled movie looks pretty perfect

OK look, there’s no use complaining about it, we’re going to keep getting live action remakes from Disney. The reason for that is for the most part, people keep going to them. Lilo & Stitch made a billion dollars last year. But if these movies are going to keep happening at least we can ask that they be good.

And it looks like the live-action Tangled is shaping up into something interesting. First up, Australian actress Teagan Croft is playing Rapunzel. At 21 years old, she certainly is age appropriate and has the right look for the role. She only has 6 credits total on IMDB — but some of you might know her from Titans.

As Flynn Ryder, we’ve got Milo Manheim. He’s 24 years old and also resembles the cartoon character in certain pictures. Manheim has been acting since age 8, and is best known Disney’s Zombie franchise.

But the casting news that has me most excited is Kathryn Hahn as Mother Gothel. It was previously reported that Scarlett Johansson was maybe going to play this role, which would have been fine, but I don’t think ScarJo would have been mischievous enough. Hahn — who’s already shown her witchiness in Agatha All Along, on the other hand — is downright perfect. So much so, that fans had been fancasting her in this role for years. Are you looking forward to the live action Tangled?

Johnny Knoxville just gave Jackass fans the surprise of a lifetime

Here’s a fun a fact: The Jackass film franchise has grossed $487 million dollars total and considering the budgets on these films have never exceeded $20 million dollars, that’s a lot of pure profits for Paramount.

But you know the Jackass crew were young men when they first started hurting themselves on MTV 26 years ago. Johnny Knoxville is now 54, Steve O and Chris Pontius are both 51. There’s no way they’d be able to keep doing this forever. Right? Right?!

Well last week Knoxville revealed on Instagram that Jackass 5 has been shot and Paramount is putting it in theaters on June 26. Which is delightful news for fans — and I’m definitely interested to see what they’ve cooked up this time. But I can’t say I’m not concerned for these aging gen x-ers that keep destroying their bodies for our entertainment.

It actually hasn’t been that long since the last Jackass movie. Jackass 3D was 2010, Jackass Bad Grandpa was 2013 and then the franchise took a 9 year break, but came roaring back with Jackass Forever in 2022. Movie theaters were still trying to back bounce from the pandemic at the time, but Jackass Forever did a respectable $80 million dollars against a budget of just $10 million — which is exactly why Paramount made another one.

But how long can they keep this up? As a wise man once said, TIL YOUR 90.

Matt and Ben just forced Netflix to step up big time

In case you’re not aware, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are starring in a new movie on Netflix this weekend. It’s called The Rip, it’s an action thriller written and directed by Joe Carnahan.

The movie is produced by Affleck and Damon’s Artists Equity production company which they founded in November 2022 to kind of change how things are done in Hollywood. You see, they specifically wanted to give cast and crew members more ownership of the projects they work on. So on Artists Equity movies, everyone gets profit participation bonuses.

But when they brought The Rip to Netflix, they had a problem: Netflix doesn’t do performance-based bonuses. Netflix typically pays all cast and crew upfront ahead of time in full.

But Matt and Ben said no, we want to give our crew bonuses if the movie is a success and they actually got Netflix to agree to those terms. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “All 1,200 people involved in the nearly $100 million production will be eligible for a one-time bonus if the film meets performance expectations.”

Affleck told The NY Times, “We wanted to institute fairness and address some of the real issues that are present and urgent for our business. This deal is fundamental, philosophically, to the ideas we had in starting this company.”

Meanwhile…

• The Golden Globes disrespected some of most talented artists in Hollywood

• Here are the Razzie nominations for 2026

• An original Game of Thrones hero might get a sequel series at HBO

• Jennifer Lawrence lost a major comedy role to Emma Stone

• A random Star Wars game just become crazy valuable

• Big country song just became the genre’s first double diamond hit

And it was a VERY big announcement, that even involved the Duffer Brothers. It just wasn’t another episode of Stranger Things.

In case you’re not extremely online, let me tell you about “Conformity Gate.” It was/is a viral conspiracy theory that the Stranger Things finale was actually a lie, and it wasn’t in fact, the real finale.

The theory presumed that Vecna, the show’s villain had created a fake ending, and all the characters were still under his control. Based on many little clues — that easily had other real justifications — fans came up with the idea that a secret 9th episode was going to drop on January 7th at 8 PM ET. That never happened.

But the theory wasn’t wrong about January 7th. Netflix was teasing that date, because it planned a big announcement on Wednesday. It showcased all of its new and returning TV shows that are coming out this year. Basically Netflix was teasing 1/7, because it had a big press release saying: Here’s what’s coming out in 2026 on Netflix.

Including new seasons of Outer Banks, Beef and The Hunting Wives, plus new shows liked Dan Levy’s Big Mistakes and Nick Kroll’s A Hundred Percent. Netflix also confirmed 3 NEW shows produced by the Duffer Brothers are coming: The Stranger Things animated spinoff Tales From 85, a new horror series “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” And “The Boroughs” a fantasy genre series set in a retirement community.

Anyway, conformity gate as a fan theory that imagines an alternate ending is cool, but it’s time to put the notion of a secret episode to bed.

There could be more Hollywood strikes this year

Will 2026 be a repeat of the big work stoppage of 2023? Remember 3 years ago when Hollywood writers and actors went on strike at the same time? It lasted a total of 148 days and stopped all writing, shooting, and promotion of mainstream movie and TV projects.

The WGA and SAG-AFTRA sought and won wage increases, better treatment, and some protections against AI. However, those contracts were under 3-year terms and are once again up for renegotiations this year. SAG-AFTRA will begin negotiating with the studios in February and the WGA’s current contract expires in May.

If things don’t work out how the unions want, there could be strikes. Now, it’s worth noting that just because the contracts are being renegotiated does not mean another strike will happen — strikes are relatively rare. And the industry is still reeling from the big double picket in 2023.

Indiewire says, ‘The reality is no one can afford to be out of work for longer, and just like before, the unions won’t call for a strike unless absolutely necessary.”

But on the other hand, artificial intelligence has only grown in the last 3 years and its threat to actors and writers is arguably greater than what it was in 2023. So will the unions make AI issues a sticking point once again? Maybe. SAG has said it won’t rule out a strike. Personally, I’m optimistic there won’t be strikes — but only time will tell.

Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy is stepping down A LOT sooner than you think

And we just learned who her official replacements will be. OK so things are finally changing behind the scenes at Star Wars. In case you forgot, almost a year ago - in February 2025, rumors emerged that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy was on her way out. Unhappy Star Wars fans cheered this news. But Kennedy quickly explained that while a succession plan was being worked out she wouldn’t actually be leaving for a while.

Well, flash forward to this week, and industry insider Matt Belloni has reported that time has arrived — Kennedy will reportedly be leaving Lucasfilm this month and her replacement will be the most obvious choice: Dave Filoni, who has been a creative force at Lucasfilm for about 20 years now. But he won’t be going it alone, It appears he will co-run the studio with Lynwen Brennan, Lucafilm’s current president and GM on the business side.

Kennedy leaves behind a mixed legacy. The sequel movies made a ton of money and a couple of TV shows were quite successful: The Mandalorian and Andor. She also developed about a dozen movie projects then never came to be. Star Wars finally returns to theaters this year with The Mandalorian & Grogu and the Ryan Gosling led Star Wars Starfighter movie has wrapped filming.

But it will be interesting to see where Filoni takes the franchise after that.

Bowen Yang just fired back at the haters who claim he has no range

In case you missed it, Bowen Yang has left SNL, he got a big send off on the Dec 20th episode. And on his podcast this week, he reflected on all the good and bad about SNL, specifically mentioning the hate he got occasionally.

“I feel like I was really bogged down [by] the idea that there was no range in anything I did.” His co-host Matt Rogers said it’s a lazy insult, but Yang understood the critique, “I knew I was never gonna play the dad. I was never gonna play the generic thing in sketches. It’s a sketch show … it plays on archetypes.”

But he explained that he came to the show as who he is: A gay Asian man and so “People had their over-determinations on what I was. So anytime I would try to work outside of that, it got completely ignored or it still got collapsed to, ‘Oh, he’s being gay and Asian as always.’”

It sounds like Bowen has come to terms with it, but Matt made a very good point, saying, “You did so many things. I don’t think people necessarily know they’re being homophobic when they say that,” and Yang agreed: “I think range is a myth and it’s all about palatability.”

And then Rogers really summed it up, “Do they knock Pete Davidson for range? Or does he get to get away with it because it’s cool and within a male gaze?” Very good point.

Meanwhile…

• And the SAG Award nominees are…

• Joe Keery just dethroned Taylor Swift

• The cast of Community just stuck it to Chevy Chase one last time

Because it turns out the battle for the WB isn’t over yet. Ok so last week, we learned Netflix won the bidding to war to buy Warner Bros in a deal valued at $82.7 billion dollars.

But on Monday morning, Paramount said not so fast! “We see your $82.7 billion and raise you to $108.4 billion dollars” That’s right, Paramount is offering a higher “hostile bid” for Warner Bros and it’s going directly to WBD’s shareholders.

You see, Netflix was offering $27.75 a share in a mix of cash and stock. Paramount is now offering $30 a share all cash. Paramount’s billionaire CEO David Ellison has put together that offer, with funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners investment firm.

So what happens now? According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Paramount will need to persuade shareholders to sell their stock to it, rather than sign off on the Netflix deal.” Paramount by the way is promising to release 30 WB movies in theaters annually. Netflix meanwhile is defending its deal, saying it’s better for Hollywood.

As I’ve mentioned previously, any merger will result in less choice and higher prices for consumers. Fewer studios mean fewer places creatives can pitch shows and movies, and of course, redundant departments mean thousands of potential layoffs.

Any merger would have to be approved by federal and international regulators. Stay tuned.

Funko might be f—ed — and they’re low key blaming Trump

Love them or hate them, Funko Pops are one of the defining toy collectibles of the 21st century. The company has sold more than a billion figures since its founding in 1998.

But in its SEC financial statements filed last month, the company revealed that it’s on the brink of collapse. “There is substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern for the next twelve months,”

And that’s because Funko has more than $240 million in debt as its sales have been in a downward spiral this year. The company blames a “challenging retail environment” and say new tariffs have made it more difficult to turn a profit.

Quote from the filing, “The effects of recently implemented tariffs … continue to have an adverse effect on future net sales, margins and profitability. The Company anticipates continued supply chain challenges, cost volatility, and consumer and economic uncertainty due to these rapid changes in global trade policies.”

Also, retailers have been ordering fewer Funko Pops to sell in stores because they don’t want to take the risk that those items won’t actually move. Mashable reported that Funko has secured some loan relief, but it might not be able to meet the conditions of its loan agreements. And to stay afloat, the company might need to “raise additional capital, renegotiate its loans, or risk default.”

A shocking doc about UAPs is lowkey one of the biggest movies right now

While Zootopia 2 and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 are dominating the box office, The Age of Disclosure is breaking records on Prime Video. After its release last month, “The documentary debuted at #1 and #2 (purchase & rental) on Prime Video’s chart of the Best Selling Movies in all genres, where it remained for the first 8 days of its release.”

Within 48 hours of release on Prime Video, it broke the streaming service’s record for highest-grossing documentary. It’s selling better than One Battle After Another, Jurassic World Rebirth, and Mission Impossible 8. Why is this doc so damn popular? Aliens and stuff.

The movie’s director Dan Farah interviewed 34 military and intelligence officials for the film, plus Secretary of State Marco Rubio and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. When the movie premiered at South by South West in the Spring, its revelations elicited audible gasps from the audience.

A number of the interviewees in the film say they are directly aware of alien life existing on Earth right now and that intelligent non-humans have been traveling to Earth since the 1940s to spy on our technology. But the government is covering it all up. One whistleblower says in the movie it’s “the most successful disinformation campaign in the history of the US government.”

Have you watched The Age of Disclosure, and if so what do you think?

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 just broke a wild RottenTomatoes record

And it’s exactly why there’s going to be a third movie. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is the movie equivalent of brainrot.” “It makes the worst of Marvel look like Citizen Kane.” “The only thing that scares me is this turd’s inevitable box-office success. Kill me now.”

Those are some actual quotes from real critics while talking about Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. Critics hated it. As of Thursday December 11th, just 15% of the 103 reviews assessed by RottenTomatoes are positive.

But here’s the thing: The audience score is 87% based on more than 2,5000 verified reviews and that means Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 just broke the record for biggest divide between critics and audiences in RottenTomatoes history. FNAF 2’s 72% split tops the previous champ, The Boondock Saints, which has a 65% margin.

This isn’t surprising but it does reinforce the idea that this franchise is purely for the fans and that can tell us a lot about what happens next. You see, the budget for Freddy’s 2 was between $36 and $51 million dollars and so far it’s grossed $117 million dollars worldwide, meaning it’s already profitable.

Pair that with the fan satisfaction and it seems pretty obvious to me that Blumhouse is going to make another one. Will you be seated for Five Night at Freddy’s 3?

Meanwhile…

• Here are the 2026 Golden Globe nominees

• Ryan Coogler explains why he rejected the Academy’s invite

• Timothee Chalamet knows what people say about him — and he doesn’t care

• One of SNL’s rising stars is releasing their first stand up special in January

• Edgar Wright just called out the most annoying thing about going to the movies

In case you weren’t aware, Warner Bros Discovery put itself up for sale earlier this year. Paramount, Comcast, and Netflix all put in bids to buy WBD. Last night the trades reported that Netflix won and will now enter exclusive talks with Warners to buy the 100 year old movie & TV studio and the HBO Max streaming service.

Netflix offered around $28 a share for WBD mostly in cash. The merger will of course be subject to government approval both in the US and internationally. Netflix has said if it won WB, it would continue to put the studio’s movies in theaters.

OK those are the facts, so now let’s talk about all the probable and possible ramifications. First of all, mega mergers are bad for consumers and workers. They lead to monopolies and less competition that can raise prices and generally offer customers fewer choices. Netflix could close HBO Max and just move all that content into Netflix. Fewer studios also offer creatives fewer places to go to pitch shows and movies, meaning a lack of diversity in what gets made. And of course, redundant departments are shut down, leading to thousands of people losing their jobs via layoffs.

But also with Netflix, many people in the industry are worried that CEO Ted Sarandos eventually won’t put as many WB movies in theaters. He’s said in the past that theaters are outdated, and on Friday he discussed shortening theatrical windows. Movie theater owners are of course freaking out about that.

It will also be interesting to see what Netflix does with WB’s TV studio. WB produces a lot of shows for all the different streamers. For example, Ted Lasso is on Apple but made by Warners. Netflix historically has never licensed out it’s shows like that. So will it continue that business?

There’s also the question of DC and HBO. Right now they operate as mini studios inside the studio. James Gunn and Peter Safran have creative control over DC, while Casey Bloys runs HBO as he sees fit. Will Netflix continue to let them do their thing Or will they subject those divisions to their algorithm-based programming decisions?

If the merger goes through, and it’s still an IF because of local and international regulators, a lot of what will happen isn’t good. But also there are a lot of open questions. If you want more reliable info on this situation, you can follow me, but I’d mostly recommend reading Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Bloomberg’s Screen Time newsletter by Lucas Shaw, and listening to The Town podcast.

James Cameron has a backup plan to end Avatar if the new movie flops

The third Avatar movie Fire and Ash hits theaters on December 19th — and it could be the last one. You see, James Cameron has always intended to make a 4th and 5th Avatar film and he even shot some of the 4th movie already. But in a recent interview with Matt Belloni on The Town podcast, the director revealed that finances might get in the way.

“I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money. The question is, does it make enough money to justify doing it again?”

Fire and Ash has a reported budget of $250-300 million dollars, so it would need to gross at least half a billion dollars to turn a profit. So Belloni then asked Big Jim he’d be willing to walk away if the movie flops, and Cameron said, “Yeah, absolutely, sure. If this is where it ends, cool.”

Now that said, the director does have a contingency plan. He explained that he intentionally wrapped up nearly every storyline in Fire & Ash, but quote “There’s one open thread. I’ll write a book!” Makes sense to me.

He then went on to say the one thing he won’t do is give the franchise to someon else. “I don’t think there’d ever be a version where there’s another Avatar movie that I didn’t produce closely.” Personally, I think this movie is going once again make at least a billion dollars and he’ll definitely be making Avatar 4 at least.

What the hell did Paul Dano ever do to Quentin Tarantino?

Because the director just took a steaming hot dump all over Paul Dano’s face for absolutely no reason at all.

In case you missed it, last week Quentin Tarantino went on Bret Easton Ellis’s podcast to list his 20 favorite movies of the 21st century. QT put Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood at #5 And he explained it would have been higher, if not for “one giant flaw:” Paul Dano — and then he really went after the guy.

Quote, “[Dano] is weak sauce, man. He’s a weak sister. Austin Butler would have been wonderful in that role. [Dano is] just such a weak, weak, uninteresting guy.”

Never mind the fact that Butler was 16 at the time, but point taken I guess. Anyway, Brett Easton Ellis tried to defend Paul Dano, arguing that any actor would have been overshadowed by Daniel Day Lewis in that role,

But Tarantino fired back, “So you put [Lewis] with the weakest male actor in SAG? The limpest dick in the world? I’m not saying he’s giving a terrible performance. I’m saying he’s giving a non-entity performance.”

Ellis then asked if Tarantino has ever liked Paul Dano and the director said, “I don’t care for him. I don’t care for Owen Wilson, and I don’t care for Matthew Lillard.” Damn, just throwing out strays left and right.

Shane Gillis could make stand up history next year

Seven years after getting fired from SNL, Shane Gillis is going to headline one of the biggest stand up shows in history.

A little over a decade ago, Shane Gillis was doing open mics and tiny stand up shows in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Then in 2019 he got hired to be an SNL cast member, but was fired before his first episode,. Now he’s scheduled to play one of the biggest stand up shows ever.

Deadline reports that on July 17 2026, Gillis will play a massive home state show at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles and the audience will likely be more than 60,000 people. If that many people do indeed buy tickets, Gillis will break a US record.

The largest attendance for a single ticketed show by an American comedian is Kevin Hart’s performance at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, which drew 53,000 people in August of 2015. It certainly seems like Gillis could break that record.

Meanwhile, the biggest stand up show of all time, according to Guinness was German comedian Mario Barth’s July 2008 show at the Olympiastadion in Berlin which drew 67,733 people total. Can Gillis top that?

Well, Ed Sheeran once played to 77,000 people at Lincoln Financial Field So maybe it’s possible? We’ll see. Bottom line, Shane Gillis is very popular.

Meanwhile…

• The reviews for Timothee Chalamet’s ping pong movie are insane

• Here’s what the cast of Stranger Things is doing next

• The Duffer Brothers are so real for casting this woman in Stranger Things

• Macaulay Culkin has a brilliant idea for a Home Alone sequel

• James Cameron thinks Netflix should be banned from the Oscars

All because of what Bob Iger said on an earnings call last week. Have you heard of The Owl House? It’s an animated fantasy series created by Dana Terrace that ran on the Disney Channel from 2020 to 2023 It’s currently available to watch on Disney+.

But Terrace is now telling her fans quote “Unsubscribe from Disney+. Pirate Owl House. I don’t care.” Why has she gone scorched earth with her former employer?

Because on an earnings call last week, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that the company will soon be rolling out user created, AI-generated short form content on Disney+. Iger explained that new interactive features will allow Disney+ subscribers to “create user-generated content and to consume user generated content.”

Terrace, an animator and writer, sees that as an insult to professional artists and the paying public. She mocked Disney on X - writing as if Bob Iger was speaking “’If you pay us we’ll let you make your own content slop! That we will own!’”

Then she spoke to the audience, explaining that you don’t need to pay Disney to make art, “YOU CAN DRAW AND WRITE AND POST YOUR OWN S**T FOR FREE.” Summing it up, “Bob Iger and his ilk are f***ing ghouls.” She also said “”F*** gen AI.”

Are you looking forward to Disney+ allowing you to AI-generate content? Or would you rather watch shows created by professionals?

The Simpsons just permanently killed a long-running character after 34 years

Despite the fact that The Simpsons resets its story every episode, there have been a few notable permanent deaths of its 36 year run. Maude Flanders in season 11, Larry the bar fly last year, and Mrs. Krabappel in season 25 — who by the way, died because her voice actor Marcia Wallace passed away in real life.

Anyway, the show just killed off another one: Alice Glick the church organist. Glick has been a minor character since 1991 first appearing in season 2. She was originally voiced by Cloris Leachman, and then Tress MacNeille.

On Sunday’s season 36 episode, Sashes to Sashes, Glick dies in the middle of a church service, tongue hanging out over her organ. This then serves as the inciting incident for the rest of the episode.

Simpsons co-executive producer Tim Long confirmed to EW, her death is permanent, “In a sense, Alice the organist will live forever, through the beautiful music she made. But in another, more important sense, yep, she’s dead as a doornail.”

Funnily enough, this is the second time they’ve killed Alice Glick. She also did in the season 23 episode “Replaceable You” — but not permanently. Glick isn’t the most famous Simpsons character, but it’s always interesting when the show does anything permanent.

Three brothers found a Superman comic in their dead mother’s attic, now they’re rich

So three middle aged brothers who live in Northern California, whose names have not been revealed to the press for reasons you’ll understand in a bit, lost their mother in early 2020 just before the pandemic.

When she was alive, she occasionally told them she had a collection of “rare comics somewhere.” But according to the Hollywood Reporter, she could never remember where they were and so the boys just assumed it was family legend.

Anyway, after her passing, the brothers waited 5 years to finally clean out her house. But when they went up to the attic, after all these years tucked away among a box of old newspaper clippings, they found them.

The comic book collection was real and in surprisingly good shape and get this, it included a near pristine copy of SUPERMAN NO. 1 from 1939. Their mother had purchased it when she was just 9 years old. Immediately the brothers knew, oh shit we have something very valuable on our hands.

The youngest brother who’s 57 told THR, “It wasn’t like we said, ‘Let’s go find that comic book. It was more, ‘Let’s get that dumpster and just fill it up.’ “

Anyway, they got the comic graded by the Certified Guaranty Company - and it was designated a 9.0 which makes it the best maintained copy of SUPERMAN NO. 1 in existence. So they decided to put it up for auction at Heritage Auctions. And this week it sold for a record $9.12 MILLION DOLLARS, becoming the most expensive comic book of all time

Now you see why they didn’t reveal their names? And to think it was just in a box in the attic for 86 years.

Stranger Things is a flop on Broadway. But things could turn around.

Are you aware that there’s a Stranger Things stage show currently playing on Broadway in NYC? It’s called Stranger Things: First Shadow and it’s a full on prequel, set about 30 years before the TV show. It’s about Henry Creel moving to Hawkins as a boy, and it features teenage versions of Hopper, Joyce, Bob and more.

I saw it earlier this year and thought it was an amazing spectacle, with great performances, but the tone was a bit uneven. Anyway, audiences have not been flocking to see it.

In the last two weeks it’s played to just 75% and 65% capacity. That means 2 things, one, a lot of empty seats, and two, it’s one of the lowest attended shows on Broadway right now.

First Shadow reportedly cost $20 million to mount and $1 million dollars a week to operate. It has only done more than $1 million dollars in weekly ticket sales one time since it opened in March. Basically it’s operating at a significant loss by Broadway standards.

Now all that said, there might be hope around the corner. Because the final season of Stranger Things is about to come out and be a gigantic hit and there could be a halo effect driving fans to Broadway. Also, Netflix is a massive company that turns billion dollar profits each year, so if First Shadow ends up closing without turning a profit, it might not even be a big deal.

Meanwhile…

• Stop streaming movies and go watch them in theaters, says the Pope

• The stars of Frozen are making a disgusting amount of money for movies 3 and 4

• A Mick Foley movie is in the works starring an Emmy winning actor

• YouTuber attempts to steal the top spot on Billboard

Let this be proof you should always wait for a second source — because I was not going to cover the Brown and Harbour situation.

In case you’re not aware, The Daily Mail posted a story on November 1st that Millie Bobby Brown filed a bullying and harassment complaint against David Harbour on the set of Stranger Things before they started shooting season 5. And, “there were pages and pages of accusations. The investigation went on for months.”

While this was a big story, I didn’t cover it because The Daily Mail was the only outlet reporting it and they’re not exactly the most reputable source. So I chose to ignore it and wait until another more respected outlet confirmed it.

And well last Friday, Variety confirmed that quote “there was an investigation into Brown’s complaint, and that it was resolved.” And then Deadline reported Saturday, “According to sources. .. she did complain about his behavior, however it might not have been as recent as the report suggested but earlier in the series’ run. It was dealt with, and there haven’t been issues since”

So there you have it. I don’t think this lets David Harbour off the hook entirely as clearly something happened at some point. But now the images of them being friendly on the red carpet last week certainly make more sense. Or maybe it’s all theater — and the trades are part of the cover up.

Is Paramount censoring South Park? Matt & Trey speak

South Park surprised everyone this year when started going hard after Trump, but South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker just explained to The New York Times why that is. Saying they didn’t change, the world did.

Parker said “It’s not that we got all political. It’s that politics became pop culture,” They considered keeping South Park mostly apolitical but quote “there’s no getting away from [MAGA]. It’s like the government is just in your face everywhere you look, Whether it’s the actual government or whether it is all the podcasters and the TikToks and the YouTubes and all of that, and it’s just all political and political because it’s more than political. It’s pop culture.”

Stone added that the show is always trying to cross new taboos, “Trey and I are attracted to that like flies to honey.” But they still claim to be centrists. Parker said “We’re just very down-the-middle guys. Any extremists of any kind we make fun of. We did it for years with the woke thing. That was hilarious to us. And this is hilarious to us.”

But is it hilarious to their new boss David Ellison, the conservative-tied billionaire who bought Paramount? Stone says Paramount has been hands off, “they’re letting us do whatever we want, to their credit.”

Despite Trump’s cultural dominance now, Matt and Trey are already thinking about the future, saying “If there’s one thing we know, it is that our show will be a lot longer than [Trump’s administration]. So, we just got to do this for now.”

Emmy-winner Sarah Paulson says Hollywood should abolish award season

Or at the very least change it up dramatically. Award season is an entire micro industry within Hollywood. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on hype campaigns every year in the pursuit of awards.

But Sarah Paulson, who won a Tony and Emmy and has been nominated for dozens of more awards, just told Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers on the Las Culturistas podcast that the entire thing is kind of nonsense — because how do you measure art up against other art?

She said, “Why are we doing this to each other, because it’s so subjective. What is the greatest? And why are you turning it into this thing of ‘this is better than that?’ All of the things that go into what make a great performance. Like there are so many variables. It’s like it’s such a really psychotic thing to do to [performers]“

Paulson then compared it to being a race horse with a carrot dangled in front, but they keep moving it farther it away. She also lamented the unnecessary competitiveness awards season brings to the craft And then later in the pod, after they discussed some silly examples of certain actors winning over others. She said, “This is why we should just abolish it all.”

Her suggestion for award shows: “Just like have a party. Everybody’s nominated. You all get your certificate. Everybody should get a statue.” Which is kind of what the Peabody Awards do. Anyway Paulson summed it up, “Something should change.”

Disney seriously messed up.

It just let the rights to a classic movie slip through its fingers. Disney has always been hardcore about its copyrights and intellectual property. For example, in the 90s, the company successfully convinced Congress to extend copyright term lengths, so Mickey Mouse wouldn’t fall into the public domain.

So it’s extremely surprising that Disney reportedly just let the underlying rights to an Oscar-winning box office hit revert back to its original author. But that’s exactly what Roger Rabbit writer Gary K Wolf is claiming. You see, Wolf wrote the 1981 novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? Which Rober Zemeckis, Spielberg, and Disney adapted into the hit 1988 movie.

But in a new interview with the YouTube channel ImNotBadTV, Wolf says that because of the 35-Year Copyright Reversion Clause. He was able to legally reclaim his Roger Rabbit back from Disney.Wolf called the legal process to do so “very civil, very courteous, very straightforward” And, “I now have the rights to all my characters, all my books. I can, basically, do my own Roger Rabbit projects,”

And he’s got back big plans for the franchise. First up, he’s planning “a live-action Jessica Rabbit movie based on the book Jessica Rabbit: XERIOUS Business. It’s probably the one that’s furthest along right now.” Wolf also said that future projects will more closely adapt the books than the 1988 film, including the “word balloons” and some of the characters that were omitted.

But he’s aware of the movie’s legacy, saying any project “has to be as good, or better than, what we did before.”

Wicked For Good is already setting box office records

And it doesn’t come out for another week. When Universal first announced it was splitting Wicked into two movies, some fans were skeptical. But obviously, that was the right decision, financially speaking. Because the 1st film was a box office smash, and the 2nd one is about to do the same.

According to Deadline, Wicked For Good is Fandango’s best advance ticket seller of 2025, meaning this movie has done more presales than Minecraft, Lilo & Stitch, Superman, and Fantastic Four. But get this: Wicked For Good is also Fandango’s best PG-rated pre-seller of all-time, meaning no other PG movie in history has sold more pre-sale tickets on the site.

Wicked For Good is selling better than the live-action Beauty and the Beast, Frozen 2, and the first Wicked movie, which is partially why box office experts are predicting the movie will open to $180M domestic. If that happens it would surpass Minecraft as the biggest opening this year and it would put it in spitting distance of the biggest PG opening ever: the 2019 Lion King, which did $191 million.

At this point, I think it’s safe to say that Wicked For Good is going to top $1 billion dollars total at the global box office and could very well beat Minecraft and Lilo & Stitch to become the year’s top US release. That is until Zootopia 2 comes out a week later and than Avatar 3 hits in December. But anyway, it looks like the box office is about to get a necessary shot in the arm.

Meanwhile…

• Oscar Isaac would return to Star Wars under one condition

• Guillermo del Toro might change the kind of movies he makes after Frankenstein

• The Now You See Me 3 popcorn bucket is genius

And the studios have no one to blame but themselves. If you’ve been paying attention to entertainment headlines over the last month, you know the situation at the box office has been rough. A lot of big budget movies with big name stars completely failed. But the Hollywood Reporter just revealed how dire the situation really is.

The domestic box office in October hit just $425 million dollars total, which makes it the worst October on record since 1997. (Excluding 2020 of course - when many theaters were literally closed). The total from October 1997 by the way was $385.2 million dollars. If you adjust that for inflation to today’s numbers it would be $779 million dollars. While October moviegoing peaked in 2018 with $832.8 million dollars - thanks to Venom.

Additionally, this past weekend Oct 31st to Nov 2nd was the worst Halloween weekend on record in 31 years. So all that really puts into perspective just how bad October 2025 really was

How did this happen? Well, THR partially blames a lack of movies because of the 2023 strikes. A weak August and September - movies from those months usually carry over into October. But most importantly: Hollywood put out a bunch of stuff people didn’t want to see, like Tron Ares, The Smashing Machine, Good Fortune, the Springsteen biopic, After the Hunt, and Roofman.

Thankfully, niche offerings like Taylor Swift’s release party, Black Phone 2, and Chainsaw Man got some butts in seats. The good news is November and December look a lot more promising. This month we’ve got Predator Badlands, The Running Man, Wicked For Good, and Zootopia 2 and in December there’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and of course Avatar Fire & Ash.

Dictionary.com just named its word of the year

And if you’re above the age of 13 you’re going to hate it. That said if you’re a child, well congratulations, this is on you.

Dictionary dot com has been naming a word of the year since 2010. In 2020 it was pandemic, obviously, 2021 was allyship, 2022 was woman, 2023 was hallucinate and 2024 was demure - referencing the very demure TikTok meme.

And wouldn’t you know but this year’s word of the year is also based on a wildly popular meme. It’s 67. Which is not a word, but actually two numbers. How did Dictionary.com land on 6-7? Well, their “lexicographers analyzed a large amount of data including newsworthy headlines, trends on social media, search engine results, and more.” The site also noted that searches for 6-7 have been astronomical

So where did 67 come from? The meme originated from the song “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla, which at first accompanied basketball videos on social media. But it has since evolved into a nonsensical catch all response or chant, symbolic of gen alpha’s love of dada-esque post modern brain rot content. It’s immensely popular among middle schoolers.

Dictionary dot com also put 6 or 7 other words on a short list of runners up, including Aura farming, broligarchy, clanker, kiss cam, tariff, and tradwife. And honestly, any of those would have been better than 67.

Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone are producing a Miss Piggy movie

It’s been 11 years since The Muppets have been on the big screen. Their last adventure was Muppets Most Wanted in 2014. Instead they’ve been relegated to television, where we got The 2015 Muppets sitcom on ABC, Muppets Now on Disney+ in 2020, a revival of Muppet Babies in 2018, and The Muppets Mayhem in 2023.

But Jennifer Lawrence just revealed on Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang’s Las Culturistas podcast, “I don’t know if I can announce this, but I’m just going to. Emma Stone and I are producing a Miss Piggy movie.”

Lawrence revealed that “Oh, Mary” writer and star Cole Escola is writing the screenplay. Which is just perfect. And when Matt and Bowen asked if she and Stone would also star in the movie, Lawrence vaguely said, ““I think so… We have to.”

It’s unclear how far along this project actually is and whether it would be a theatrical film or go straight to Disney+ but with that talent involved, I’m very intrigued. I’m also happy to see that Disney still developing new Muppet content, as the franchise is now more than 50 years old.

Brendan Fraser is reviving a long dead franchise after 17 years

The Brendan Fraser-assaince just keeps rolling on. After his big Oscar-winning comeback in The Whale, Fraser turned up in Killers of the Flower Moon and this year he’s getting buzz for Tokyo set dramedy Rental Family.

But here’s the really big news: Fraser is returning for a new MUMMY movie, reviving the beloved adventure franchise from the ‘90s and 2000s. It’s set up at Universal and Fraser’s original co-star Rachel Weisz is also in talks. Radio Silence‘s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are directing, off a script by David Gillett, who wrote The Family Plan and Orphan: First Kill.

In 2022, Fraser was asked about returning to The Mummy and he said, “I don’t know how it would work. But I’d be open to it, if someone came up with the right conceit.” I guess they found the right conceit.

My question is: Is Radio Silence the right choice for director? They’re mostly known for directing horror, including Ready or Not and Screams 5 & 6. While the Mummy movies had elements of horror for sure, they were definitely more action adventure films in the style of Indiana Jones.

Anyway, with Fraser back in the spotlight, it makes sense that they’d do another Mummy film. The franchise grossed $1.4 billion dollars across its 4 theatrical films and The Scorpion King spinoff spawned 4 straight to video sequels.

Kim Kardashian’s new Ryan Murphy show just earned an atrocious RottenTomatoes score

In case you’re not aware, Ryan Murphy has a new legal drama premiering on Hulu this week. It’s called All’s Fair and it stars Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, Teyana Taylor, Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close. It’s apparently very, very bad.

The Hollywood Reporter called it “brain dead,” while also using adjectives like “stiff, affectless, flimsy, and underbaked.” The Guardian said “I did not know it was still possible to make television this bad,” calling it fFascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible” and “it’s so awful, it feels almost contemptuous.”

The Daily Telegraph wrote, “ “Ryan Murphy is the high priest of tacky, tasteless television, and this year he has outdone himself with a show of mind-bending horror sure to trigger nightmares in the unsuspecting viewers.”

The Times UK said it “may well be the worst television drama ever made” that appears it was written by a toddler. USA Today called it an “unmitigated disaster” and “the worst TV show of the year.”

As of Wednesday morning, 0% of the 8 reviews assessed by RottenTomatoes are positive and it doesn’t even sound like it’s so bad it’s good, as Australian outlet The Nightly said, “It’s not a hate-watch, this is unwatchable.”

Meanwhile…

• Jesse Eisenberg is about to make a huge sacrifice for a total stranger

• Disney has walked away from Doctor Who after just 3 years

• Judd Apatow just explained why comedies disappeared from movie theaters

• The KPop Demon Hunters are fighting back against haters

• And you won’t be able to see Spider-Man Brand New Day in IMAX

Back in April, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos sat on stage at the Time 100 Summit and told a packed house that movie theaters are “an outdated concept” and that for “most people” the communal experience of going to the movies is “an outmoded idea.”

I get why he’d say that. He runs a streaming company. But let’s look at what the company is actually doing: In August, Netflix released KPop Demon Hunters in theaters for one weekend, where it did $20 million dollars. That was so successful, the movie has returned to AMC Theaters this Halloween weekend, which by the way signaled the end of AMC and Netflix’s bitter feud where they refused to work together.

Elsewhere in October, Netflix gave Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein a limited release on about 400 screens. And did you know that Netflix is putting Greta Gerwig’s first Chronicles of Narnia movie on 1,000 IMAX screens for an exclusive two-week run next Thanksgiving?

But most importantly Netflix announced last week that the Stranger Things season finale will be shown in 350 movie theaters at 8 pm ET on New Years Eve, exactly when it drops on Netflix. With more screenings running through New Years Day. And Variety reports that Netflix is also planning a robust rollout including theaters for The Adventures of Cliff Booth next summer, the sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

This doesn’t sound like a company that hates movie theaters and thinks they’re outdated. In fact, it sounds like a company that recognizes the power of communal experiences and the legitimacy theatrical releases can bring a project. And yes, an unnamed movie theater executive told VAriety that Netflix won’t be “announcing a theatrical slate.” But it will be using theaters as a marketing and community building tool when it has “something special.” It seems Netflix is finally coming around to the power of movie theaters.

Colin Jost and Pete Davidson’s Staten Island ferry situation is a mess

Hey remember back in 2022 when SNL vets and Staten Island natives Colin Jost and Pete Davidson spent $280,000 on a decommissioned Staten Island ferry? Jost later admitted it was “absolutely the dumbest and least thought-through purchase I’ve ever made in my life” and Davidson said it had become “a lifelong problem for me and Colin.”

But they did have a plan for it. In March of last of year Curbed reported that they were going to turn the ferry into a nightlife destination with 6 bars, 2 restaurants, a concert venue and a hotel. Unfortunately, the ferry plan has gone awry.

As the NY Times reported last week that Titanic 2, the hilarious name they gave the boat’s parent company, is currently being sued “for nonpayment by the law firm hired to handle contracts for dockage and towing.”

The boat is apparently just sitting at a dock on Staten Island’s northside. It’s unable to move via its own power - its engine stopped working before they bought it and the NY Times says, the boat is bobbing “in the harbor like an immense bathtub toy, racking up docking fees.”

And those fees are a lot. The Times estimates the total costs at $600,000+ over the last few years. Which is more than twice what they paid for it. And that doesn’t even include the insurance, towing, and legal fees. According to the lawsuit, the law firm charges the Titanic 2 company $27,335 a month.

The boat also has a ton of asbestos on board - which will have to be removed before it becomes a nightlife hub and there will be several regulatory and logistical hurdles when they look for a permanent place to dock it in NYC.

So can Colin and Pete just sell it for scrap? The Times says that isn’t a great option because the scrap market is weak right now and they might end up losing tens of thousands more just to scrap it. I guess the lesson here is don’t impulse buy a $280,000 dollar 60 year old ferry.

The Pentagon called out Netflix’s new nuclear war movie

In case you haven’t heard of it, Netflix released Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite last Friday. This nuclear war thriller tells the story of an impending attack on the US and how the different levels of government and the military would deal with that. And well the Pentagon isn’t too happy about that.

In fact it circulated an internal memo disputing the movie’s accuracy — which Bloomberg managed to get its hands on. You see In the movie, the fictional secretary of defense laments that the US’s missile interception program is only effective 60% of the time, but the Pentagon says America’s interception technology has “displayed a 100% accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade.”

The memo addresses that the movie of course takes creative license for the sake of drama, but current testing of the military’s defense systems tells “a vastly different story.”

The movie’s writer Noah Oppenheim, who previously worked as the president of NBC News, went on MSNBC Sunday and defended the facts of the movie. He said he “respectfully disagrees” with the Pentagon’s statement and, “I did talk to many missile defense experts who were all on the record. We just asked them a ton of questions. How does it work? What are the processes? What are the procedures?”

“So what you see on screen is hopefully a fairly accurate portrait of the reality that exists. Unfortunately, our missile defense system is highly imperfect. If the Pentagon wants to have a conversation about improving it or what the next step might be in keeping all of us safer, that’s the conversation we want to have. But what we show in the movie is accurate.”

Star Wars fans are fighting desperately for Disney to reconsider this canceled movie

And stuff like this has worked in the past. So in case you missed it, last week Adam Driver revealed that he and Steven Soderbergh had written a Star Wars sequel film about the continuing adventures of Kylo Ren, called The Hunt for Ben Solo. Driver said it was one of the coolest scripts he’d ever been a part of and that Lucasfilm were entirely on board. But then Bob Iger and Disney scrapped the project, because they couldn’t see how Ben Solo was still alive.

This news angered a lot of Star Wars fans because one, Kylo Ren is a fan favorite character and two, Disney had never superseded a Lucasfilm decision like this in the past.

So some entrepreneurial Ben Solo heads are taking matters into their own hands. Last Thursday, a group of fans paid for a plane to fly over Walt Disney Studios in Burbank with a banner that read “Save The Hunt for Ben Solo.” And then a billboard popped up at 1500 Broadway in New York City with the message “For Adam. No one’s ever really gone. Hope lives. Ben is alive! #THBS.”

The billboard was purchased by B.D. Neagle, who spoke to Collider about the movement, “I’m just a fan who thought Ben’s story wasn’t finished … The intent was to show Disney this is what fans actually want.”

We’ve seen fan campaigns like this in the past — and sometimes they’ve worked. Snyderverse fans were instrumental in convincing Warner Brothers to fund Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League, for example. Will Disney reverse its decision on Ben Solo? Stay tuned.

Meanwhile…

• Jeff Bezos wants Sydney Sweeney to be the next Bond girl, she has one condition

• Kaitlin Olson just broke a TV record not seen since ER in 1999

• The Pitt is having a hugely positive impact in the real world

• Smallville star and convicted felon Allison Mack is starting a podcast

• The top Halloween costumes of 2025 show what’s dominating pop culture

• Francis Ford Coppola sells prized possessions after Megalopolis flop

• Guillermo del Toro is once again trashing AI

And it’s just waiting to press publish on them. Famed primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall died on October 1st of this year, just 3 weeks ago. Goodall was 91, so her death wasn’t too shocking.

But what’s crazy is that two days later, on October 3, Netflix put out a brand new long form interview with her. How the hell did that happen?

Well, it’s part of the streamer’s new series: Famous Last Words, which has been quietly conducting “final” interviews with influential people of advanced age and they’re only going to be released once the person has died. Think of it like a newspaper preparing someone’s obituary in advance.

The series is produced by Brad Falchuk, based on the Danish series The Last Word and according to the NY Times, they’ve made 4 episodes so far, and are working on 4 mor. Many of the subjects are in their 90s, but Netflix is not revealing who they are. The celebrities are fully aware that the special won’t air until after they’ve died and they’re explicitly asked to share some departing knowledge.

Goodall’s last words were “I want to make sure that you all understand that each and every one of you has a role to play. You may not know it, you may not find it, but your life matters, and you are here for a reason.”

On the show’s concept - Falchuk explained, ““The idea of this show is, we’re giving you just an extra hour,” and that also, ““It’s a service to these people to deliver their last words.”

These are just guesses, but the following public figures are all in their 90s: Julie Andrews, Clint Eastwood, Rita Moreno, David Attenborough, William Shatner, Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett, Dick Van Dyke, John Williams, Gloria Steinem, Willie Nelson, Buzz Aldrin, Dan Rather, and Berry Gordy. I mean those are the people I’d call if I was making this show.

Adam Driver tried to make a Kylo Ren sequel

But Disney shot it down for the most obvious reason, even though he had a script from an Oscar winning director.

There are a lot of problems with the Star Wars sequel trilogy, but I think one thing it got very right was Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo. Both the character and Driver’s performance were consistently great and it turns out we could have gotten more Kylo, but Disney said no.

In a new interview with the AP, Driver said “I always was interested in doing another Star Wars. I had been talking about doing another one since 2021. Kathleen (Kennedy) had reached out. I loved that character and loved playing him.”

So Driver came up with a sequel concept for Kylo and he got Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh to write a screenplay. Driver said it was “one of the coolest fucking scripts I had ever been a part of.” It was tentatively called The Hunt for Ben Solo.

Drive explained that “We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it.” But “We took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that.”

As you’ll recall, Solo died at the end of Episode 9 to save the galaxy. I’m guessing Driver and Soderbergh had some explanation as to how Kylo was alive, but either that wasn’t enough for Disney or they just didn’t think people would buy it. I’m sure they were also concerned financially after Episode 9 underperformed.

Anyway, the AP followed up with Steven Soderbergh, who confirmed Driver’s story, saying, “I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m just sorry the fans won’t get to see it.”

Johnny Depp is making a comeback in a classic Christmas tale

But he’s going to have some stiff competition. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Johnny Depp in a mainstream Hollywood movie. After the Amber Heard situation, Depp was fired from the Fantastic Beasts franchise. Some say the studios didn’t want to work with him, while his fans will tell you that he intentionally stepped back from Hollywood movies.

Anyway, after 7 years, Depp is back. As the trades reported Thursday that he’s going to star in a new version of A Christmas Carol at Paramount. Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol is being directed by horror filmmaker Ti West and will co-star Andrea Riseborough. It’s currently got a Nov 13, 2026 release date.

Now you’ve all heard about Twin Movies, right? That’s where two Hollywood studios start developing similar films at the same time. Things like A Bug’s Life and Antz, Friends With Benefits & No Strings Attached, Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. You get the idea. Well, Johnny Depp’s Ebenezer has its own twin movie.

Because earlier this year we learned that Nosferatu director Robert Eggers is making his own version of A Christmas Carol at Warner Brothers with Willem Dafoe. It does not have a release date, as Eggers is currently making Werewulf - aimed at Christmas 2026.

And what’s so fascinating here is that Paramount is hoping to buy Warner Brothers. So if that happens are they really going to put out 2 Christmas Carols? Anyway, which would you rather see Ti West and Johnny Depp’s version or one from Robert Eggers and Willem Dafoe?

The NFL is standing up to the Bad Bunny haters

And defending his upcoming Super Bowl performance. But honestly, it’s ridiculous that they even had to do this in the first place. In case you’re not aware, megastar singer Bad Bunny is this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. Bad Bunny is one of the biggest artists on Earth, with 81 million monthly Spotify listeners. So it makes sense that he’d get the gig.

But maybe because of the color of his skin or the fact that his songs are in Spanish, some folks, like Donald Trump, don’t think he should perform at the Super Bowl. In fact, 50,000 people have signed a petition to replace Bad Bunny with George Strait.

But on Wednesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stood by the league’s decision, telling reporters, ““[Bad Bunny is] one of the leading and most popular entertainers in the world. That’s what we try to achieve. It’s an important stage for us .. and it’s carefully thought through,”

Goodell went on to say that there’s backlash every year, “I’m not sure we’ve ever selected an artist where we didn’t have some blowback and criticism. It’s pretty hard to do.” But they are fully committed to the Puerto Rican superstar, “We’re confident it’s going to be a good show, he understands the platform that he is on, and I think it’s going to be an exciting and uniting moment.”

Goodell also said that there might be surprise guests joining Bad Bunny. I guess we’ll find out when Super Bowl LX kicks off February 8, 2026.

Elizabeth Olsen is putting her foot down regarding streaming.

And honestly, more big actors should do the same. Will the future of movies be at home or in theaters? You see, moviegoing peaked in 2019 and since the pandemic, it still hasn’t fully bounced back. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos thinks movie theaters are “outdated.”

But Elizabeth Olsen is standing up for the theatrical experience, the only way she can, telling InStyle magazine, she will not sign on to a studio movie if it’s going to go straight to streaming.

“If a movie is made independently and only sells to a streamer, then fine. But I don’t want to make something where [streaming is] the end-all. I think it’s important for people to gather as a community, to see other humans, be together in a space. That’s why I like sports. I think it’s really powerful for people to come together for something that they’re excited about. We don’t even audition in person anymore.”

Good for her. Maybe if more A-list actors did the same. We’d get more movies in theaters. Olsen’s last wide release was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And later in the interview, she did indicate her desire to revive Scarlet Witch, “It’s good to put her down and then I miss her and I want her back. I’d jump at the opportunity to be in her shoes again.”

Meanwhile…

• Judd Apatow is teaming up with an A-list comedian for a new movie

• Netflix is turning Catan into a whole universe of shows and movies

• If you hate Jared Leto, I have very good news

• Christopher Nolan just named the best performance of 2025

• Tron Ares is going to lose a lot of money

• And so is One Battle After Another

And these numbers are frankly embarrassing. Have you heard of the new movie A Big Bold Beautiful Journey? It’s an R-rated fantasy & romantic drama starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farell that tells the emotional story of a time hopping couple.

Sony reportedly paid $50 million dollars to acquire the project and then it dropped another $45 million dollars on its production. Well, the movie opened on 3,330 screens in North America last weekend and it grossed just $3.5 million dollars at the domestic box office, landing at #6. Worldwide, it did $8 million. Meaning it’s a massive bomb, that could lose 9 figures in theaters. The movie failed to even reach its already basement level projections of $7M domestic.

So what happened here? On paper the movie seemed like a good bet. It was directed by Kogonada, who made After Yang. It was written by one of the writers of The Menu and it features two pretty big stars. This was Margot Robbie’s first starring role since Barbie. But SONY fatally under marketed the film, its R rating limited the audience and it got horrible reviews. Not to mention this genre being a hard sell to begin with.

An AI generated movie is coming to theaters everywhere next year

And tell me, would you go see this? Mainstream animated movies tend to cost anywhere from $100 million to $200 million dollars to make and can often take 2-5 years to produce, using a team of hundreds of people. OpenAI says it can do the same thing way faster, with fewer people, and for way less money.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the company will release CRITTERZ in theaters worldwide next year — after a planned debut at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie will be made with the company’s AI tools, including Chat GPT 5. And OpenAI says it will only take nine months to produce, employ a production team of roughly 30 people and cost just $30 million dollars.

Critterz is “about forest creatures who go on an adventure after their village is disrupted by a stranger.” The characters were created by Chad Nelson, a creative specialist at OpenAI, who hand drew them in 2022 for an AI-generated short film.

It should be noted, not everything in Critterz will be AI. The script was written by some of the writers of Paddington in Peru. The movie is going to cast human actors to voice the characters. And it will hire artists to draw sketches that will then be fed into the AI tools. OpenAI is hoping that by making this movie, it will show Hollywood what’s possible But will audiences embrace it? We’ll see.

Marlon Wayans is firing back at critics

Have you heard of HIM? It’s director Justin Tipping’s new horror sports movie, starring Marlon Wayans that opened in theaters last weekend. Despite the fact that it was produced by Jordan Peele, critics were not kind to HIM.

As of Sunday evening, just 28% of the 124 reviews assessed by Rotten Tomatoes were positive. Most reviewers panned it for having a messy finale, underdeveloped ideas, and visuals that looked cool, but didn’t always land. Indiewire called it “A fumble after another” while Vulture called it “ a high-budget student film.”

But Marlon Wayans was not about to let those criticisms slide. He took to Instagram, writing, “I respect critics. Their job is to Critique. I respect their work. It shapes our industry. But an opinion does not always mean it’s everyone’s opinion. Some movies are ahead of the curve. Innovation is not always embraced and art is to be interpreted and it’s subjective.”

Wayans included a slideshow of his past movies that were panned by critics, but went on to be fan favorites like White Chicks and Scary Movie. He explained, “I’ve had a career of making classic movies that weren’t critically received and those movies went on to be CLASSICS." So don’t take anyone’s opinion just go see for yourself.”

Martin Scorsese is re-teaming with Leonardo DiCaprio

And they’re bringing Jennifer Lawrence along for the ride. Big movie news: Scorsese, DiCaprio, and Lawrence are circling a January production start on What Happens at Night, an adaptation of Peter Cameron’s 2020 ghost story novel.

Apple Original Films is in negotiations to co-finance and produce the project alongside Studiocanal, which developed the screenplay. Patrick Marber has adapted the novel, which follows an American couple who travel to a remote, snowbound European town to adopt a baby. Once checked into a vast, nearly deserted hotel, they encounter a bizarre cast of characters. As the couple struggles to bring home their child, the world around them grows increasingly uncanny. forcing them to confront truths about themselves and their marriage.

Scorsese had originally been attached only as a producer when Studiocanal acquired the rights in 2023, but momentum shifted after DiCaprio stepped away from other projects and Lawrence emerged as a co-lead. The pairing marks another heavyweight collaboration for Scorsese and DiCaprio, who last worked together on Killers of the Flower Moon, also backed by Apple. Casting is expected to ramp up quickly for the film’s ensemble of eccentric supporting characters. While distribution details are still being finalized.

The best-selling author behind this upcoming Sydney Sweeney movie leads a secret double life

Because some people are just wild over achievers. On December 19th, Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried are releasing The Housemaid, a psychological thriller about a maid who discovers her employers’ dark secrets. The movie is based on the 2022 best seller by author Freida McFadden.

McFadden has written dozens of books since 2013 and sold more than 17 million units total, becoming the top selling thriller author in the US. But get this, Freida McFadden is not her real name — it’s a pseudonym. And writing books isn’t her full time job — it’s her side hustle.

You see McFadden is actually a practicing doctor with a specialization in brain disorders. She’s also married and has two children. She writes her best selling thrillers and medical humor books in the early mornings and late evenings. She told the NY Times she writes under a pseudonym and protects her real name for the sake of her patients and professionalism as a doctor.

“At work, I want to be a doctor. A lot of my books have medical stuff in them, and I don’t want people saying, ‘Is this based on me?’ It feels unprofessional.” But in the FAQ on her website, she says still working as a doctor has helped her as an author, “First of all, I’m able to write medical scenarios with a high degree of accuracy. Second, knowing that I had a stable job to pay the bills made me feel more comfortable spending money on marketing.”

That said, McFadden says that her success has a writer has required her to scale back her medical practice, “I’ve taken a step back from my physician career and now work only 1-2 days per week.” Some people just have all the talent

Sydney Sweeney has been in the news a lot this year. For soap, for jeans, for her voter registration. But, I have a question, is Sydney Sweeney a good actor? Whenever I post about her, I get tons of comments saying, no she’s not, but don’t be surprised if you hear her name up for an Oscar in January.

Because her upcoming biopic about boxer Christy Martin is making waves. Christy, which was directed by David Michôd, premiered last week at the Toronto Film Festival and Sweeney’s intense and transformative performance is getting award buzz.

Variety says Sweeney has entered the Oscar race and “[The actor] packed on 30 pounds and did her own fighting. Oscar voters often reward that kind of commitment.” Gold Derby, one of the top award watch website, also hyped Sweeney’s Oscar odd, ​​”Sweeney now seems poised to enter the Oscar ring.” The site says Toronto audiences applauded and audibly gasped throughout the movie.

On the other hand, Sweeney’s controversies could hurt her chances and the reviews are a little soft right now. It has a 57 on Metacritic and a 61% on RottenTomatoes. Do you think Sweeney can go the distance?

Steven Spielberg wanted to direct a major video game adaptation

But the game’s owners just told him to get lost. Here’s a random fact: Master director Steven Spielberg loves playing video games. In a recent interview with MinnMax, Spielberg’s son Max explained, “He’s a big PC gamer,” that he likes shooters and story games, and that he prefers using a mouse and keyboard over a controller.

So it makes sense that Spielberg would want to direct a video game movie. I mean Ready Player One is basically one already. But Puck News just reported that Spielberg recently approached Activision, which is owned by Microsoft, about directing a big screen version of Call of Duty. Which also according to his son, happens to be his favorite game franchise. Spielberg and Call of Duty seems like a match made in movie heaven. I mean how many war movies has he made already?!

But Activision declined Spielberg’s pitch, because of his demands. Because of his legendary status, Spielberg asks for top of the line pay, final cut, and full creative and marketing control. Activision either didn’t want to pay or didn’t want to give up that much control. So instead it’s partnering with Paramount, who will find a different director. Would you have wanted to see Spielberg’s Call of Duty movie?

Spielberg is losing his mind over Paul Thomas Anderson and Leo’s new movie

Speaking of Spielberg, there’s also this. If you don’t know, Paul Thomas Anderson is releasing a new movie on Sept 26th. It’s called One Battle After Another, it’s being described as an action thriller. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall and Teyana Taylor.

And a lot is riding on this for Warner Brothers, because the budget was at least $130 million. So the studio must be relieved to hear that early reactions are very positive. New York Times pop culture reporter Kyle Buchanan even called it an Oscar frontrunner. But master director Steven Spielberg is really excited about it.

At a Q&A after a DGA preview screening, he told Anderson, “What an insane movie, oh my God. There is more action in the first hour of this than every other film you’ve ever directed put together. It is really incredible. This is such a concoction of things that are so bizarre and at the same time so relevant.”

He then compared it to a Kubrick masterpiece, “I have not seen a movie that is so tonally a relative to Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Dr. Strangelove. This brings a kind of absurdist comedy, taken very seriously, because it’s so much a reflection of what’s happening today, every day, throughout this country.”

Spielberg also praised DiCaprio and said this is favorite Sean Penn performance ever. And he concluded, “May film live forever. May we never be replaced by A.I. And may this movie make a bundle and make you very happy. I loved it.”

Gen Alpha might save movie theaters

Movie theaters still haven’t fully recovered from the pandemic. Prior to 2020, yearly box office totals consistently sat above $11 billion. But in the years since, they haven’t cracked $9 billion. Can anything save the movies? Maybe Gen Alpha — aka kids born after 2010.

In a new study on media habits by the National Research Group, as reported on by Puck, nearly 60% of Gen Alpha respondents said they enjoyed watching movies in theaters, rather than watching at home. But Alex, Gen Alpha love their phones and tablets? Why would they leave the house?

It turns out, all that digital access plus the pandemic, has made moviegoing feel special. The study said “The amount of time that members of Gen Alpha spend staring at their phones and tablets appears to have made them deeply appreciative of those moments that allow them to log off, disconnect, and enjoy the real-world company of friends and family,”

Yup, 55% of Gen Alpha said they prefer going to theaters with a large group. More than 60% wants to see a new movie on opening weekend. 54% expressed an interest in 3D or V.R. experiences in theaters. And a plurality say they want to see movies in a busy theater.

According to Puck, “Gen Alpha is thinking about movies as cultural moments to be shared.” And they don’t want people to be on their phones! Only 20 percent expressed an interest in a theatrical experience that involved using their phone. The study said Gen Alpha is “actively seeking out the buzz, excitement, and energy of a communal experience.”

And I think we’re seeing exactly this in the success of Minecraft and the short lived but sold out singalong screenings of KPop Demon Hunters. The survey asked what are the franchises your friends are talking about. The top 5 was Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto, and Pokemon. A.K.A. digitally native properties based on community and interactivity. Future movies that tap into Gen Alpha fandom and identity plus unique experience they can’t get at home could soar at the box office.

Meanwhile…

• 92-year-old Michael Caine is coming out of retirement for a sequel to a minor Vin Diesel movie

• This 25-year-old YouTuber just sold a movie for over $10 million

• Zosia Mamet says the showrunner of a hit series allegedly berated her on set

• The Wizard of Oz is a huge hit at The Sphere

SNL is adding FIVE new cast members this season

And Please Don’t Destroy fans really need to read this update. OK so there have been a lot of shakeups at SNL over the last 2 weeks. First the departures: 8-year cast member Heidi Gardner and 3-year cast member Devon Walker have left the show, while newbie Emil Wakim and 3-year player Michael Longfellow were fired. (Though there are rumors Gardner was fired as well.)

Then the additions: The show is adding 5 new featured players. First there’s Veronika Slowikowska - the only woman announced in the bunch. Veronika has millions of followers across TIkTok and Instagram, thanks to her viral comedy sketches and has appeared on Tires and What We Do in the Shadows.

Then you’ve got Tommy Brennan, a stand up who has performed on The Tonight Show and was named a New Face of Comedy at the Just for Laughs festival in 2023. Next is Jeremy Culhane, a sketch and improv regular on Dropout TV, who also performs at UCB in LA. Then you’ve got Kam Patterson - a nationally touring stand up, and frequent Kill Tony guest

And finally, Ben Marshall, one of the members of Please Don’t Destroy, who has been a writer and appeared in videos for 4 years already. His promotion comes with the news that Please Don’t Destroy is done making videos for the show. Martin Herlihy is staying on as a writer, while John Higgins is leaving SNL altogether. The group will continue to work together outside of the show.

If no other cast members are leaving, these 5 additions bring the cast up to 18 people. To me, that seems like a lot, so good luck to everyone find their place and getting material on the air.

Michael Jackson's daughter just went off on his new biopic

And she accused its Oscar-nominated star of lying. In case you’re not aware, a Michael Jackson biopic is coming to theaters next April. It’s been directed by Antoine Fuqua, features Jackson’s nephew Jafar as the singer, and also includes Nia Long, Miles Teller, and Oscar-nominee Colman Domingo.

And recently Domingo told People Magazine that Michael’s children support the project, “They’re very much in support of our film.” Only problem is, Jackson’s daughter Paris says, no I do not.

She posted on Instagram, “[Colman Domingo], don’t be telling people I was ‘helpful’ on the set of a movie I had 0% involvement in, lol that is so weird.” Paris explained “I read one of the first drafts of the script and gave my notes about what was dishonest [and] didn’t sit right with me, and when they didn’t address it, I moved on with my life.”

Paris went on to say that the movie is obfuscating the truth about her dad, “They’re going to make whatever they’re going to make. A big reason why I haven’t said anything up until this point is because I know a lot of you guys are gonna be happy with it. A big section of the film panders to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the fantasy, and they’re gonna be happy with it.”

But quote, “The narrative is being controlled and there’s a lot of inaccuracy and there’s a lot of just full-blown lies. At the end of the day, that doesn’t really fly with me. I don’t really like dishonesty. I spoke up. I wasn’t heard. I fucked off. That’s it. Y’all are gonna like the fucking movie. So just go watch it. Go enjoy it. Do whatever. Leave me out of it.” Fair enough.

Dwayne Johnson is a serious Oscar contender this year

Dwayne Johnson is known for his massive blockbuster movies, but over his 26-year movie career, he hasn't produced the most quality films and many critics have called out his poor acting abilities.

But maybe it was just a matter of context and finding the right project? As Johnson's new film The Smashing Machine, a biopic about MMA fighter Mark Kerr written and directed by Benny Safdie, just premiered at the Venice Film Festival — and it's a smash hit.

It got a 15 minute standing ovation, that made Johnson tear up/ 84% of the 19 reviews assessed by RottenTomatoes are positive and numerous outlets are hyping Johnson's Oscar chances. Variety wrote “Is Dwayne Johnson headed for the Oscars? Judging by the rapturous reaction to his performance … that seems to be the consensus out of Italy.”

Indiewire said “Johnson earns a sizable position among this year’s prize-seekers.” And multiple outlets said this is Johnson’s best acting performance ever. The Smashing Machine opens wide in theaters on October 3rd. Do you think Johnson can go the distance at the Oscars?

Movie fans are suing Amazon over one of its shadiest practices

And please let them win — for the sake of cinema, television, video games, and music. So I reported recently about how media piracy is back on the rise and one of the most popular comments on that video, with more than 30,000 likes, is “If buying isn't owing than piracy isn't stealing.”

This comment is referring to the fact that when you “buy” digital media, like a movie off Amazon, a game from Nintendo, or a song from iTunes, you don’t actually own it, you’ve basically licensed it from the seller. And there’s fine print that states the seller can revoke your ownership at any time. This could happen if that seller loses their license to sell that media , for example.

And so now consumers are banding together for a proposed class action lawsuit against Amazon to stop this “bait and switch” and to make Amazon tell the truth about this. The lawsuit starts with Lisa Reingold bought Bella and the Bulldogs — Volume 4 on Amazon in May. It cost her $20.79 but she later lost access to the title.

If the lawsuit is successful, consumers could be compensated for lost media and Amazon might potentially have to better disclose to buyers that “buying” isn’t owning.

TV review: The Paper (The Office spinoff)

Does The Paper live up to the legacy of The Office? I watched all of the new Office spinoff The Paper, so here’s the good and bad without spoilers.

Created by The US Office showrunner Greg Daniels, The Paper is set at a local newspaper in Toledo Ohio. All 10 episodes dropped on Peacock Thrsday and It features an all new cast — with one exception: Oscar Nunez plays the same character.

Here’s the headline: If you love workplace mockumentaries like The Office, Parks, Abbott, this show is a must watch. It is a wonderful new entrant in that genre, that balances the humor and the heart in similar ways as those shows, while updating for 2025.

The Paper is full of inspiring characters and delivers a heartwarming story about people trying to do good through local journalism. The ensemble is likable, interesting, and funny. As the episodes went on, I was really growing to love them.

And most importantly, there are tons of actually funny jokes and character based humor. For example, the running bit with Oscar and the documentary crew. Tim Key is fantastic and built for a cringe comedy show like this. And Barry’s character game is hilarious every time. Episode 5 was especially funny.

On the other hand, Sabrina Impacciatore’s character is very abrasive at first. And you can feel the show trying to define her — and some of the other characters. Not every aspect and every character has been fully shaded in yet.

So does it live up to the legacy of The Office? Ensemble comedies like these take some time to really settle in as the writers figure out what’s working and the audience gets to know the characters. The Office wasn’t The Office as we came to know it in the very beginning. Neither was Parks and Rec.

The Paper is just starting out so it can’t compete with the totality of those shows. But I actually think The Paper in this first season is ahead of where The Office and Parks were in their first seasons. So I think yes, it’s another great addition to this genre from the guy who popularized it on TV.

The Paper is charming, funny, and eminently watchable — just a real easy hang. And I’m so glad it’s already been renewed for a 2nd season.

And I'm definitely more excited than I was yesterday. Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison are two of Hollywood's hottest upcoming stars. White has won multiple Emmys for The Bear and has a Bruce Springsteen biopic coming later this year. Madison meanwhile won the Oscar for Anora.

So it's not surprising to hear that they're in talks to lead Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to The Social Network. It's unclear who they'll be playing. But it doesn't sound like White is playing Mark Zuckerberg. As THR is reporting that Jeremy Strong is in talks for the part after Jesse Eisenberg decided not to return.

Sorkin is writing and directing the sequel, which is based on a series of Wall Street Journal articles that “exposed Facebook for its harmful effects on teens and its knowing proliferation of misinformation.” The movie is currently in development at Sony and has not been given a full greenlight yet

But if White, Madison, and Strong are in, I bet it gets one soon. I was definitely skeptical of this project when it was first announced, but this casting news is giving me hope.

Justin Timberlake just revealed the real reason he’s been phoning in his concerts

In case you missed it, Justin Timberlake has been getting the wrong kind of attention recently as videos from his concerts in Europe have gone viral over the last few weeks showing the singer not making much of an effort at his shows. In one video, he literally puts the mic on the ground and lets the audience sing most of the song.

Well, Timberlake just revealed that he’s been struggling with Lyme disease, writing on Instagram, “Among other things, I’ve been battling some health issues, and was diagnosed with Lyme disease — which I don’t say so you feel bad for me — but to shed some light on what I’ve been up against behind the scenes. Living with this can be relentlessly debilitating, both mentally and physically. When I first got the diagnosis I was shocked … But, at least I could understand why I would be onstage and in a massive amount of nerve pain or, just feeling crazy fatigue or sickness.”

Timberlake goes on to thank the fans, his band, and collaborators, writing about how much the tour has meant to him, before saying, “I honestly don’t know what my future is onstage but I'll always cherish this run! And all of them before! It’s been the stuff of LEGEND for me.”

If this is in fact his last tour, that would certainly be tragic for his fans, but hopefully, he gets the care that he needs.

Happy Gilmore 2 just smashed records on Netflix

And I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed. Ten years ago, Adam Sandler signed a pretty shocking deal to make movies exclusively for Netflix. Netflix was still coming up and seen as less-than compared to theaters, but Sandler stuck by them and renewed his deal in 2020 for $275 million dollars. He’s made nearly a dozen Netflix movies since 2015.

But Happy Gilmore 2 is easily his most successful, as the sequel generated 46.7 million viewers over its first three days, making it the biggest opening weekend for a Netflix movie in the US. And of course, Sandler’s biggest opening on the service. What’s more, it drove viewership to the original film at well, which landed at 3 on the global top 10 with 11.4 million views.

Oh and by the way, K Pop Demon Hunters took second place and is now the most popular Netflix animated film ever.

So why am I disappointed that Happy Gilmore 2 broke records? Because I think this movie should have been in theaters. Clearly there was an audience appetite for it and while I enjoyed watching it at home by myself, I just know it could have been an amazing experience in a theater full of people laughing. Which is why I’m thankful that The Naked Gun reboot is coming out in theaters. Basically, we need more comedies in theaters. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Jay Leno is calling out the late night shows for their divisive content

Does he have a point? After Colbert’s cancelation, the future of late night seems bleaker than ever. For example, Seth Meyers recently told Dax Shepard that if his show is canceled “I would worry about myself mental health-wise."

A big reason late night is receding is because broadcast TV as a whole is receding, but former Tonight Show host Jay Leno thinks late night is losing viewers because they’re too political and one-sided. As he said in a recent interview with the Reagan Foundation:

“I love political humor, don’t get me wrong But it’s just what happens when people wind up cozying too much to one side or the other. Why shoot for just half an audience all the time? You know, why not try to get the whole. I mean, I like to bring people into the big picture. To me, I like to think that people come to a comedy show, to kind of get away from things, you know, the pressures of life, whatever it might be. Now you have to be content with half the audience because you have to give your opinion.”

Leno says back in the day he tried to joke about all ends of the political spectrum, “It was funny to me when I got hate letters [that said], ‘You and your Republican friends’ and ‘Well, Mr. Leno, I hope you and your Democratic buddies are happy‘ — over the same joke. And I go, ’Well, that’s good. That’s how you get a whole audience.’”

Marvel is doing exactly what James Gunn warned against back in June

Fantastic Four is now in theaters, but Disney and Marvel are already shooting the next big MCU adventure. Avengers: Doomsday is in production at Pinewood Studios in England and as we learned from all those chairs, it will include returning X-Men characters, including Rebecca Romijn who plays Mystique.

And so The Hollywood Reporter recently asked her if she was done filming her Doomsday scenes and she said, “[I’m] not quite sure. The script hasn’t — they haven’t finished writing it. It’s been very, very fun, and we don’t know yet. They keep everything very close to the vest.”

Let me repeat that: “They haven’t finished writing it.” Now this isn’t surprising as this is Marvel’s M.O. Starting with Iron Man, the studio has always seen its scripts as a loose blueprints. They shoot what’s written and then put together a rough cut and then they do reshoots to fix whatever story problems there are.

But let me remind you what James Gunn told Rolling Stone in June, “I do believe that the reason why the movie industry is dying is not because of people not wanting to see movies. It’s not because of home screens getting so good. The number-one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay.”

Essentially Gunn believes the script needs to be good enough before cameras start rolling. Avengers Doomsday has an anticipated release date of December 18, 2026.