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Emma (Dakota Fanning) reports to Frank what is happening in Italy in Columbia Pictures ‘The Equalizer 3.’ Photo: Stefano Montesi.

We’ve all watched Dakota Fanning grow up on the big screen.

The talented actress began her career at just the age of five and quickly was starring opposite Sean Penn in the Oscar-nominated ‘I Am Sam.’ She would go on in her youth to appear in such films as ‘Man on Fire‘ opposite Denzel Washington, ‘War of the Worlds‘ opposite Tom Cruise, ‘Hide and Seek‘ opposite Robert De Niro and the big screen adaption of Dr. Seuss‘ ‘The Cat in the Hat.’

As an adult, Fanning has continued to appear in high profile movies like ‘The Runaways‘ with Kristen Stewart, ‘Ocean’s Eight,’ with Sandra Bullock, and Quentin Tarantino‘s ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood‘ playing Squeaky Fromme, as well as having a role in ‘The Twilight Saga.’

Her new film, ‘The Equalizer 3,’ which reunites Fanning with her ‘Man on Fire’ co-star Denzel Washington, will open in theaters on September 1st. In honor of its release, Moviefone is counting down the 20 best movies of Dakota Fanning’s career, including her latest.

Let’s begin!

Bella (Kristen Stewart) once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward (Robert Pattinson) and her friendship with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens (Fanning) a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson), her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother’s past.

The Secret Life of Bees

“Bring Your Girlfriends, Sisters, Mothers and Daughters.”

75

PG-131 hr 54 minSep 17th, 2008

Wilbur (Dominic Scott Kay) the pig is scared of the end of the season, because he knows that come that time, he will end up on the dinner table. He hatches a plan with Charlotte (Julia Roberts), a spider that lives in his pen, to ensure that this will never happen.

Charlotte's Web

“Something unexpected, unbelievable, unforgettable.”

62

G1 hr 37 minDec 15th, 2006

Showtimes & Tickets

Forks, Washington resident Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is reeling from the departure of her vampire love, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), and finds comfort in her friendship with Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), a werewolf. But before she knows it, she’s thrust into a centuries-old conflict, and her desire to be with Edward at any cost leads her to take greater and greater risks.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

A newly married couple (Fanning and Theo James) are forced to navigate the all-consuming interest of a powerful, mysterious, and possessive philanthropist.

The Benefactor

“His help comes at a price.”

49

Not Yet Rated1 hr 30 minApr 17th, 2015

A scene from 2018's 'Ocean's 8.'

A scene from 2018’s ‘Ocean’s 8.’ Photo: Warner Bros.

Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), a criminal mastermind, gathers a crew of female thieves to pull off the heist of the century at New York’s annual Met Gala.

Ocean's Eight

After the birth of Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy), the Cullens gather other vampire clans in order to protect the child from a false allegation that puts the family in front of the Volturi.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

Errol Flynn (Kevin Kline), the swashbuckling Hollywood star and notorious ladies man, flouted convention all his life, but never more brazenly than in his last years when, swimming in vodka and unwilling to face his mortality, he undertook a liaison with an aspiring actress, Beverly Aadland (Fanning). The two had a high-flying affair that spanned the globe and was enabled by the girl’s fame-obsessed mother, Florence. It all came crashing to an end in October 1959, when events forced the relationship into the open, sparking an avalanche of publicity castigating Beverly and her mother (Susan Sarandon) – which only fed Florence’s need to stay in the spotlight.

The Last of Robin Hood

“Beware Cupid’s arrow.”

57

R1 hr 32 minSep 5th, 2014

Set in postwar America, a man (Ewan McGregor) watches his seemingly perfect life fall apart as his daughter’s (Fanning) new political affiliation threatens to destroy their family.

American Pastoral

“A radically ordinary story.”

61

R1 hr 48 minOct 21st, 2016

Molly Gunn (Brittany Murphy), the freewheeling daughter of a deceased rock legend, is forced to get a job when her manager steals her money. As nanny for precocious Ray (Fanning), the oft ignored daughter of a music executive she learns what it means to be an adult while teaching Ray how to be a child.

Uptown Girls

“They’re about to teach each other how to act their age.”

66

PG-131 hr 32 minAug 15th, 2003

Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning in director Steven Spielberg's 'War of the Worlds.'

(L to R) Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning in director Steven Spielberg’s ‘War of the Worlds.’ Photo: Dreamworks/Paramount.

Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a divorced dockworker and less-than-perfect father. Soon after his ex-wife (Miranda Otto) and her new husband drop off his teenage son (Justin Chatwin) and young daughter (Fanning) for a rare weekend visit, a strange and powerful lightning storm touches down.

War of the Worlds

“They’re already here.”

65

PG-131 hr 57 minJun 23rd, 2005

During a rainy day, and while their mother is out, Conrad (Spencer Breslin) and Sally (Fanning), and their pet fish, are visited by the mischievous Cat in the Hat (Mike Myers). Fun soon turns to mayhem, and the siblings must figure out how to rid themselves of the maniacal Cat.

The Cat in the Hat

“Don’t mess with the hat.”

53

PG1 hr 21 minNov 8th, 2003

8. ‘Push‘ (2009)

After his father, an assassin, is brutally murdered, Nick Gant (Chris Evans) vows revenge on Division, the covert government agency that dabbles in psychic warfare and experimental drugs. Hiding in Hong Kong’s underworld, Nick assembles a band of rogue psychics dedicated to destroying Division. Together with Cassie (Fanning), a teenage clairvoyant, Nick goes in search of a missing girl and a stolen suitcase that could be the key to accomplishing their mutual goal.

Push

“One push can change everything.”

61

PG-131 hr 51 minFeb 6th, 2009

David Callaway (Robert De Niro) tries to piece together his life in the wake of his wife’s suicide and has been left to raise his nine-year-old daughter, Emily (Fanning) on his own. David is at first amused to discover that Emily has created an imaginary friend named ‘Charlie’, but it isn’t long before ‘Charlie’ develops a sinister and violent side, and as David struggles with his daughter’s growing emotional problems, he comes to the frightening realization that ‘Charlie’ isn’t just a figment of Emily’s imagination.

Hide and Seek

“Come out, come out, whatever you are.”

64

R1 hr 41 minJan 27th, 2005

A young girl (Fanning) discovers an idealized parallel universe behind a secret door in her new home, unaware that it contains a sinister secret.

Coraline

“Enter a world beyond your wildest dreams… and nightmares”

78

PG1 hr 40 minFeb 5th, 2009

Showtimes & Tickets

Dakota Fanning and Denzel Washington on the set of 'The Equalizer 3.'

(L to R) Dakota Fanning and Denzel Washington on the set of ‘The Equalizer 3.’ Photo: Stefano Cristiiano Montesi.

Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has struggled to reconcile the horrific things he’s done in the past and finds a strange solace in serving justice on behalf of the oppressed. Finding himself surprisingly at home in Southern Italy, he discovers his new friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends’ protector by taking on the mafia.

The Equalizer 3

“Justice knows no borders.”

Not Yet RatedSep 1st, 2023

Showtimes & Tickets

Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has struggled to reconcile the horrific things he’s done in the past and finds… Read the Plot

Sam (Sean Penn), a neurodivergent man, has a daughter with a homeless woman who abandons them when they leave the hospital, leaving Sam to raise Lucy (Fanning) on his own. But as Lucy grows up, Sam’s limitations as a parent start to become a problem and the authorities take her away. Sam convinces high-priced lawyer Rita (Michelle Pfeiffer) to take his case pro bono and in turn teaches her the value of love and family.

I Am Sam

“Love is all you need.”

76

PG-132 hr 12 minDec 3rd, 2001

Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Fanning), two rebellious teenagers from Southern California, become the frontwomen for the Runaways — the now-legendary group that paved the way for future generations of female rockers. Under the Svengali-like influence of impresario Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), the band becomes a huge success.

The Runaways

“It’s 1975 and they’re about to explode.”

64

R1 hr 46 minJan 24th, 2010

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Los Angeles, 1969. TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a struggling actor specializing in westerns, and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his best friend, try to survive in a constantly changing movie industry. Dalton is the neighbor of the young and promising actress and model Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), who has just married the prestigious Polish director Roman Polanski (Rafał Zawierucha).

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Dakota Fanning and Denzel Washington in director Tony Scott's 'Man on Fire.'

(L to R) Dakota Fanning and Denzel Washington in director Tony Scott’s ‘Man on Fire.’

Jaded ex-CIA operative John Creasy (Washington) reluctantly accepts a job as the bodyguard for a 10-year-old girl (Fanning) in Mexico City. They clash at first, but eventually bond, and when she’s kidnapped he’s consumed by fury and will stop at nothing to save her life.

Man on Fire

“Creasy’s art is death, and he is about to paint his masterpiece.”

74

R2 hr 26 minApr 21st, 2004

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Emma (Dakota Fanning) reports to Frank what

Awards

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, The Hollywood Reporter may receive an affiliate commission.

The coronavirus has made N95, KN95 and N94 masks a part of everyday life. Although mask mandates are generally no longer in effect in most places, many people continue to rely on respirator masks to protect their health where air quality is bad or to prevent exposure to airborne viruses and new COVID-19 variants. For those who need a restock, one Hollywood-loved brand has just restocked its popular KN95 face masks.

Evolvetogether’s KN95 face masks for adults and kids are back in stock in black, navy and burgundy colorways. The breathable and disposable masks cost $15 for a pack of five and have 95 percent particle and bacterial filtration efficiencies (PFE and BFE) and 98 percent viral filtration efficiency (VFE). Per the brand, its KN95 masks are made with medical-grade materials in an FDA-registered factory and meet all government-required standards (so you’ll see their GB number printed on the packaging).

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If you purchase an independently reviewed product

Music

Zach Bryan’s battle against Ticketmaster appears to be over.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the “I Remember Everything” singer announced on Tuesday that for his upcoming Quittin’ Time Tour, he will be using all ticketing sites — including Ticketmaster. The decision walks back his ticketing strategy for his recently completed Burn, Burn, Burn Tour, which largely cut out Ticketmaster in an effort to address fan frustrations regarding the company and the ticketing marketplace as a whole.

“Everyone complained about AXS last year. Using all ticketing sites this year,” Bryan, who topped Billboard’s Album and Hot 100 charts for the first time this week, wrote. “All my homies still do hate Ticketmaster but hard to realize one guy can’t change the whole system. It is intentionally broken and I’ll continue to feel absolutely horrible about the cost of tickets in an unfair market.”

Not long after the infamous controversy over Ticketmaster’s handling of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, Bryan announced at the end of last year that he would avoid working with the company, and instead tickets were listed on AXS, owned by Live Nation’s largest competitor AEG. (He even titled his live album All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster.)

“I have met kids at my shows who have paid upwards of four-hundred bucks to be there and I’m done with it,” Bryan tweeted last December. It should be noted that artists typically set their own ticket prices, and it’s unclear whether Bryan was talking about prices on his official sale or from resellers. “I’ve decided to play a limited number of headline shows next year to which I’ve done all I can to make prices as cheap as possible and to prove to people tickets don’t have to cost $450 to see a good and honest show. I’m so tired of people saying things can’t be done about this massive issue while huge monopolies sit there stealing money from working class people.”

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Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, had received far more than just Bryan’s scorn: It also faced a DOJ investigation over alleged anticompetitive practices. The company was grilled for hours during a Senate judiciary hearing earlier this year regarding competition in the live-music industry. Live Nation has repeatedly denied it operates as a monopoly and instead has pushed for ticketing reform focused on higher regulation of the secondary market and giving artists more power over their tickets.

Outside of issues on the primary market, to try and stop price gouging from scalpers on resale, Bryan opted to make his tickets non-transferable. Fans had to use a special fan-to-fan exchange hosted on AXS that only allowed customers to sell tickets at face value. (Some resale sites listed those tickets anyway.)

Bryan also didn’t appear to use so-called “dynamic pricing,” which often leads to significant price increases as ticket prices are modified to reflect demand.

Those strategies — which to be fair, are also available for artists on Ticketmaster — can give artists with fast-selling shows more control over keeping their ticket prices affordable; Bryan said in February that not one ticket was sold for more than $156, including fees and tax. But the strategy makes getting tickets outside of the official on-sale much harder, since tickets can’t be listed elsewhere. Many fans had voiced frustration after the on-sale earlier this year, though it’s unclear if those are the complaints Bryan referred to in his new tweet. (A rep for Bryan declined to comment further on the matter.)

Bryan isn’t the only artist who tried addressing the ticketing problems for their shows. Robert Smith and The Cure employed a similar strategy with Ticketmaster for their recent North American tour, making tickets non-transferable and opting out of platinum-ticket prices. They had some issues too: Fees on some purchases were greater than the ticket prices themselves. Smith was particularly vocal online about those problems, and Ticketmaster offered small refunds.

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Those problems aside, like Bryan, The Cure had instituted changes in their concerts hoping to make a deeply broken and frustrating system better for fans. As Bryan appears to have acknowledged today, even with all those efforts, that’s not enough to stop fans from being disappointed if they miss out.

Smith felt likewise. Before The Cure’s on-sale, he wrote: “The reality is that if there aren’t enough tickets on sale, a number of fans are going to miss out whatever system we use.”

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Zach Bryan’s battle against Ticketmaster appears

Docs

As the R.E.M song goes, it’s the end of the world as we know…but sadly, no one feels fine. Nina Romain looks at the more realistic post-apocalyptic movies.

Post apocalyptic movies should not really end well, but you might hope at least for a semi-hopeful ending. If not the typical Hollywood happy ending where everyone drives off into the sunset to find the day has been saved, maybe the survivors usually find out that they’re not alone after all and there is, perhaps, some glimmer of hope left?

They may discover there’s a cure for the fatal disease that’s destroyed most of the world, with a last-reel bunch of doctors/scientists/faith healers who are ready to save everyone. But some films prefer to focus on what happens when everything isn’t all right.

Classic post-apocalyptic I am Legend (2007) opens on the sole survivor of a post-apocalyptic nightmare, Robert Neville. He is managing to stay healthy and fairly sane, despite getting random flashbacks of his former life and (deceased) family, including a bizarre ringing in his ears. He barricades his home and stays busy playing golf in a deserted New York, and dreams of finding more survivors. With a sequel possibly on the way, we may find out Neville gets a happier ending.

Another end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it drama, again in the States, is Carriers (2009). This drama is set against the backdrop of a global plague which has wiped out nearly the entire population. It starts with four teens driving hell-for-leather down a (suspiciously empty) freeway, and the vehicle has a photo in the front seat of two young boys at a remote beach-side getaway.

Then the reasons for both become clear; it’s no carefree roadtrip to the beach for a weekend of fun. The road is empty because the teens are driving through a bleak landscape of deserted Americana, a desolate setting of empty, corpse-strewn towns, with body bags crammed into lorries.

The reason for the beach picture is that it is of the two brothers, Brian and Danny Green, who are driving in search of the beach house they used to stay at as children, in paradisal Turtle Beach, Texas. There they hope to find safety among the death toll and believe they can rebuild their lives.

The gang of survivors, headed by the unofficial leader Brian (Chris Pine in a pre-fame role) and his girlfriend Bobby, wander into an abandoned hospital to find it empty except for a few remaining dying kids. The last doctor is doling out fatal doses of drugs to end their pain, and telling the children in their last moments that they are “going to Paris” after they take their “medicine”. Horrified, the teens realise there’s nothing they can do to help, and just leave again.

Towards the end, the group discover that Bobby has been fatally infected after trying to help a sick child, and Brian orders her out of the car with a few supplies and leaves her to her fate before she can also infect them. The remaining three stare at Bobby, dumped terrified on the road like a discarded garment, as the car drives away. Brian later dies as they finally draw near the beach hideout that they’ve been looking for.

Carriers’ last few minutes sees the remaining two protagonists – at this point they probably don’t qualify as heroes, seeing as they’ve just had a hand in the other lead’s death – standing on the beach of the Greens’ childhood home. They thought it was a sanctuary, but it turned out to be another death trap, with nothing but tumbledown shacks and rotting food rather than vital supplies of tinned goods. Danny’s desolate voiceover adds: “I know I will die alone” in the film’s closing moments in the failed refuge. There’s no Final Girl or Boy.

Closer to home and shot in the last century, the UK war-drama horror Threads (1984) was once billed as “Britain’s bleakest film”. It is an unflinching look at the result of a nuclear attack on the UK, shot in semi-documentary style. Even though dated, it is devastating watching, shot in docu-style with close-ups of numbed parents still holding their charred babies.

There’s mocumentary shots of an aftermath which leaves the survivors, including pregnant Everygal Ruth, facing a nuclear winter, starving to death and drinking desperately from muddy puddles like animals due to the lack of clean water. The few survivors continue to face the threats of limited food after widespread looting, and increased risk of cancer due to the damage done to the ozone layer.

Fast forwarding to a decade or so later, Threads then depicts the post-apocalyptic new world now existing in a medieval-level of population, in a permanent state of hunger due to limited crops, and stone-age technology. Society forgets how to speak apart from basic dialogue, without the need for anything but syllables. In one horrific scene, Ruth dies with the heartless line delivered by her now tweenage daughter urging her to get back to work in order to survive: (“Ruth – work”). So if the end of the world draws near, be prepared to die alone as Danny predicts, and not feel fine at any point.

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As the R.E.M song goes, it’s the

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Richard Linklater brought his Hit Man to the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, world premiering the comedy thriller out of competition to a six-minute ovation inside the Sala Grande.

The crowd’s response to the pic was notably enthusiastic, with one scene in particular between star Glen Powell and co-star Adria Arjona causing the audience to erupt in applause.

Hit Man is loosely based on a true crime article Linklater came across about 20 years ago in the Texas Monthly about Gary Johnson, who had helped Houston police catch would-be criminals seeking a hitman’s services. 

In the New Orleans-set film, this true tale is the jumping-off point for an escalating affair between Johnson (Powell) and a desperate woman (Arjona) trying to flee an abusive husband as Johnson finds himself becoming one of his false personas, falling for the woman and flirting with turning into a criminal himself.

The cast including Powell and Arjona were not in Venice owing to the SAG-AFTRA strike about which Linklater earlier in the day told the Venice press corps “I think something’s gotta give.”

Speaking with Deadline’s Joe Utichi today, Linklater said that while he’d mused on the story for years, it wasn’t until Powell — with whom he’d previously worked — called him during the pandemic that it “really started to become a thing.” The two co-wrote the script based on Skip Hollandsworth’s article.

RELATED: Venice Film Festival 2023 Photos: Richard Linklater, ‘Hit Man’ & ‘Day of the Fight’ Premieres, Jack Huston

The story is partly “about the notion of self-identity,” Linklater told Deadline. “Gary becomes trapped by his own choices in a way. He’s trapped in an identity that he prefers. Doesn’t that feel like it’s something that’s in the air right now, that identity—the way we identify—is very unstable? It can be whatever you want it to be. Truth can be whatever. I don’t know if it’s the virtual-ness of our era, but we’re definitely in something new. Politically, sexually… everything’s kind of up for grabs. This isn’t that specifically, but it’s the idea of that.”

Hit Man is for sale here in Venice via AGC Studios and indications are that a deal for this accessible, hilarious and well-crafted larger-than-life tale feels inevitable.

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Richard Linklater brought his Hit Man to

Tech

Anderson Cooper discussed former CNN CEO Chris Licht’s ouster from the network, saying he’s still not entirely sure what his goal was. 

Licht was fired in June, just over a year after he assumed the top role at CNN. His tenure with the network was marred by poorly received programming decisions, plummeting advertising revenue, and a controversial live town hall with Donald Trump. 

Cooper, when asked in an interview with the The New York Times if Licht felt as though CNN needed a realignment to capture more viewers, replied that he doesn’t “have much confidence” that he actually knows what Licht was thinking at the time. 

Which according to Cooper was a “problem,” for the network. “I read things in the paper, but I’m not sure what the point of it all was,” the veteran CNN host said. 


“I met with Chris and had a general sense of what the concern was,” Cooper continued. “I don’t want to be unfair. I understood what the idea and the vision was.” 

As a part of CNN, Cooper wants the network to “do well” and be “respected,” however, he tries to “worry about stuff I actually have my hands on. For me, it’s the show that I work on.”

“My sense from Chris was there was not a lot we needed to hash out because I’m not an opinion host,” Cooper noted. “I’m talking to people from different sides and trying to be straight down the middle and represent things fairly and accurately.”

“I keep my head down,” Cooper said. 


mark thompson cnn ceo comments

According to the CNN host, he had a meeting with Licht when he first started his role as CEO for the network, and “touched base from time to time,” but did not have “a ton of communications.” 

When asked about CNN’s notorious town hall with Trump, Cooper said for the former president’s return to the network, he “wouldn’t have done a town hall.” However, Cooper noted that it was not his decision to make and he “wasn’t involved.” He did try to quell the backlash in the aftermath, however, addressing critics as people who “haven’t been paying attention since he left office” and who are “enjoying not hearing from him.” Critics of the town hall, Cooper said on air, are perhaps “thinking ‘it can’t happen again, some investigation is gonna stop him’? Well, it hasn’t so far.”

Last week, CNN announced their new CEO, former New York Times, and BBC chief, Mark Thompson, who is credited with turning the Times into a successful digital media company.

Ross A. Lincoln contributed to this report.


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September 5, 2023 @ 2:06 PM Anderson Cooper

Video

Everyone talks about peak streaming, but now the studios seem to be doing something about it.

So far in 2023, there’s been a slowdown in the number of new streaming original series. The recent high point for premieres came in the fourth quarter of 2022, which saw the fastest quarterly growth in output in the past three years. An 11% growth in the number of streaming original titles drove by a record number of premieres.  Since that high point, the pace of output has slowed for two consecutive quarters. 

After years of encouraging profligate budgets in the name of subscriber growth, Wall Street has been pressuring studios to curb content spending, leading to big writedowns, layoffs and cuts.

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Everyone talks about peak streaming, but now

Entertaintment

Liberty Strategic Capital, a private equity fund led by former Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, has acquired a hefty 5.5% stake in Lionsgate at a strategically sensitive moment for the company as it prepares to close the acquisition of eOne and plans to split up its studio and streaming businesses.

Lionsgate declined to comment on the news, revealed in an SEC filling this afternoon, that Liberty Capital purchased 4,594,863 shares of Lionsgate in several dozen transactions between Aug. 10 and Aug. 30 at a price ranging from just over $7 a share to $7.46.

The filng hints that the long-gestating separation of Lionsgate and Starz, which the company said last month it expects to complete in the first quarter of 2024, may have prompted the move. It noted that Lionsgate “has publicly proposed a spin-off of its studio business as a separate public company.”

The document said the new stakeholder may contact other shareholders, management and board members of Lionsgate with “suggestions or proposals” on a wide range of issues — “including a potential investment by the Reporting Persons in a spin-off of the Issuer’s studio business or other restructuring, assets and liabilities, business and financing alternatives, the composition of the board of directors and such other matters as the Reporting Persons may deem relevant to their investment in the Issuer.”

“The Issuer has publicly proposed a spin-off of its studio business as a separate public company, LG Orion Holdings Inc. (“SpinCo”). The Reporting Persons may engage in any of the activities described above with respect to SpinCo, prior to or following completion of the spin-off.”

More to come…

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Liberty Strategic Capital, a private equity fund

Movies

Long before it became a soundtrack nugget and an internet meme, it was just a rock band’s attempt to land a radio hit.

But the long path to evergreen status for “All Star,” the 1999 track by the California alternative band Smash Mouth, whose founding lead singer, Steve Harwell, died on Monday at age 56, is an illustration of how social media and fan-made content have transformed the music industry.

The song took shape while the group was working on its second album, “Astro Lounge,” after its first taste of success with the song “Walkin’ on the Sun” (1997). The group submitted a batch of songs to its record company and was told: “You’re not done. We don’t hear a single, so keep working,” Robert Hayes, the band’s manager, told Rolling Stone in 2019.

Greg Camp, Smash Mouth’s guitarist and primary songwriter, said the song’s lovable-loser theme (“I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed”) emerged from fan mail. “About 85 to 90 percent of the mail was from these kids who were being bullied” for being Smash Mouth fans, he told the website Songfacts. “So we were like, ‘We should write a song for fans.’”

“All Star” was quickly placed on film soundtracks, including “Inspector Gadget” and “Mystery Men,” in 1999. (The original music video had clips from “Mystery Men,” a superhero sendup starring Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo, among others.)

But the song’s immortality began with its placement in “Shrek,” the 2001 animated favorite starring Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy, where the song plays in the opening credits. The film grossed a total of $484 million around the world, according to the site Box Office Mojo.

A decade or so later, generational nostalgia kicked off another level of success for “All Star,” when the children who grew up on “Shrek” began meme-ing on it relentlessly.

There was the version made up entirely of samples of Bill O’Reilly saying his name. And the one, from “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” with lyrics stitched together from “Star Wars” clips.

Perhaps the most popular take was “Mario, You’re a Plumber,” a Mario Bros.-theme adaptation — with actual effort taken to write new lyrics — that has garnered 1.6 million views on YouTube.

Those were all iterations of what has become a key avenue for artists to find wide success in a fragmented media environment, with user-generated content ricocheting through social media to propel a new song (see Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road”) or point younger listeners to an old one (Fleetwood Mac, “Dreams”).

In the case of “All Star,” this process kept an old track alive for years and led to gigs like the band performing a snippet of the song on a Progressive insurance ad in 2020. All of that activity tends to drive listeners back to streaming services, and “All Star” has garnered just under a billion streams on Spotify alone.

In an interview with the music site Stereogum in 2017, Harwell expressed the contrasting opinions artists sometimes have about such memes. On the one hand, it’s valuable exposure, and that can lead to money in their pocket. On the other … it’s not always fun to have one’s work flattened into a joke.

“It’s entertaining, I get it,” Harwell said. “It doesn’t bother me, but at the same time, I don’t love it.”

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Long before it became a soundtrack nugget

MCU

Moreso than at any time in recent history, Hollywood seems to be at a crossroads. With the era of streaming now upon us, both studios and creative talent are re-evaluating how business as usual is done.

During this time of turmoil, perhaps no studio is a better representative for the inflection point that Hollywood finds itself at than Disney. Despite its recent uneven performance at the box office, Disney continues to be a driving force in film, television, and streaming.

Walt Disney Studios

As Hollywood remains shut down due to the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, many studio executives have looked to Bob Iger for leadership during this tumultuous time. Additionally, all eyes are on Disney to see how they transition their business from linear television to a streaming-first enterprise.

As Hollywood looks to Disney, however, the company is facing upheaval of its own. Iger has come under fire for his comments on the Hollywood strike. Meanwhile, Disney has yet to crack the problem of profitability in streaming. Then there is Marvel.

Marvel

Marvel Studios has long been Disney’s golden goose. Photo: Marvel.

The Marvel Problem

Formally Disney’s golden goose, in recent years, fans have begun to question if Marvel has been stretched too thin by Disney’s desire to create both feature films and streaming series based on the MCU.

She-Hulk

Photo: Marvel/Empire. She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.

Meanwhile, Marvel VFX employees have been open about the fact that they feel overworked and underappreciated. As such, the special effects employees have taken steps to unionize and gain representation from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).

VFX Artists Can’t Keep Up With Marvel’s Demands

In a recent interview with IGN, Mark Patch, IATSE visual effects organizer, told the publication that the ongoing Hollywood strikes served as motivation for his colleagues. Additionally, Patch pointed to the increase in output at Marvel and how it is impacting VFX workers.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

“When you’re turning a 90-minute movie into a 10-hour feature basically, you’re doing 10 times the amount of work within the same or even sometimes a shorter period of time. Particularly from Marvel. We certainly have seen since COVID and streaming the amount of demands on our time and mental and physical health just explode,” he said.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Photo: Empire. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

According to IGN’s calculations, Marvel’s Phase 4, which saw the introduction of streaming series as part of the MCU, had a total runtime of 60 hours. That number amounts to more hours than the studio’s first three phases combined. For his part, Patch said that he worked 18-hour days as a coordinator on WandaVision, a popular Disney+ series.

The McDonald’s Of Content

Recent Marvel releases such as Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law have come under fire from fans and critics alike for their less-than-stellar VFX work. According to Marvel’s artists, they have simply been stretched too thin.

Secret Invasion Finale

Photo: Marvel. ‘Secret Invasion’.

“What you’re expected to do each day and how the shows are run, it definitely feels more like a conveyor belt nowadays than necessarily each project being given its own thought and time. As opposed to now where it’s like, ‘well, this is coming up and now we have to do this, and this is coming up, we have to do this.’ It really becomes like the McDonald’s of content,” said Gabrielle Levesque. She worked on Marvel titles both before and after the launch of streaming.

Luckily for VFX workers and fans, Bob Iger has publically stated that he believes Marvel has been oversaturated in recent years. Additionally, the studio has begun to slow down its release schedule.

Secret Invasion

Photo: Marvel. A Still from ‘Secret Invasion’.

By giving new releases more time to marinate, hopefully, Marvel can get back on track, for fans and employees alike.

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Moreso than at any

DCU

Summary

  • Blue Beetle’s positive reception and box office success marks a turning point for the DC Universe after a string of disappointing projects.
  • The connections established to weaker projects in the DC live-action franchise harmed the reception and box office performance of other 2023 films like Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
  • James Gunn’s announcement that Blue Beetle will continue in the new DC Universe shows that even DC Studios sees the potential in the film and acknowledges the disappointing reaction to other projects.


2023’s Blue Beetle could be on track to become DC Studios’ most successful film of the year, which reveals an unfortunate narrative for DC’s previous live-action projects. Blue Beetle released on August 18, 2023, introducing DC audiences to a new superhero in the shape of Xolo Maridueña’s Jaime Reyes, a.k.a. the Blue Beetle. Despite releasing after several disappointing installments in Warner Bros.’ faltering DC shared universe, Blue Beetle was met with generally positive reviews and is currently heading towards being marked an actual success for DC Studios. Even so, Blue Beetle’s success casts a shadow over DC Studios’ other 2023 releases.

Throughout the development of the DC Extended Universe, Warner Bros. and DC Studios (earlier DC Films) came under a huge amount of scrutiny. This was mostly attributed to the overly dark tone of the franchise, often lackluster visual effects, and repetitive and dull storylines. These criticisms saw a huge increase in 2022, which marked a period of major change at Warner Bros., which merged with Discovery Inc. and conceived the new DC Studios, placing James Gunn and Peter Safran in charge. With the franchise quickly confirmed to be rebooting, DC Studios’ 2023 projects suffered, so Blue Beetle’s success has proven to be something of a surprise.

Blue Beetle’s Box Office Beating Shazam! Fury Of The Gods Highlights The Sequel’s Problems

After its third weekend in theaters, Blue Beetle has grossed a total of $58.5 million at the domestic box office ($104.4 million globally), which means Blue Beetle has out-grossed Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ domestic box office over the entirety of its theatrical release. The sequel to 2019’s Shazam! released on March 17, 2023, but was quickly deemed inferior to its predecessor. The fact that Blue Beetle has already grossed more than Fury of the Gods did, domestically at least, proves that the connections established to weaker projects in DC’s live-action franchise harmed the 2023 film, as Fury of the Gods formed clear links to 2022’s reviled Black Adam.

While James Gunn’s announcement of the new DC Universe didn’t come with any mention of a sequel to Shazam! Fury of the Gods, the DC Studios co-CEO has since revealed that Blue Beetle will continue in the franchise. This effectively proves that even DC Studios saw the potential in Blue Beetle, and saw the disappointing reaction to Fury of the Gods even before its release. With the futures of both Black Adam and Shazam effectively canceled, and the poor reception to The Flash perhaps constituting a re-evaluation, it seems Blue Beetle might be the only hopeful DC project of 2023 – unless Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom works some magic.

How Blue Beetle Can Break DC’s 2023 Movie Misfortune

Xolo Mariduena as Jaime Reyes in 2023's Blue Beetle

DC Studios had a string of disappointing projects prior to Blue Beetle’s release. Wonder Woman 1984 and The Suicide Squad released during the COVID-19 pandemic, which had an impact on their box office totals. However, Black Adam, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and The Flash could have restored the impressive box office figures of projects including Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Conversely, this failed as more viewers lost faith in DC’s ability to produce good quality stories, so the surprising success of Blue Beetle could mark a turning point for the DC Universe, though it still has a way to go to turn a profit.

Key Release Dates

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Summary Blue Beetle's positive reception

Festivals

                                                                    

 

 

Contact:

Rick Prickett, Competition Director

858-454-9787

TheIndieFEST.com

Info@TheIndieFEST.com

The IndieFEST is proud to announce the latest winners. Congratulations to all the filmmakers who participated in the current season!The awards go to those filmmakers who produce fresh, standout entertainment and compelling documentaries. The IndieFEST is a top-tier international awards competition. It honors professionals, established and emerging, who demonstrate exceptional achievement in craft and creativity. The goal of The IndieFEST is to help the winners of this coveted award achieve the recognition they deserve. Additionally, each year IndieFEST also bestows a special award to productions that make significant contributions to social change or a humanitarian effort. Please visit www.TheIndieFEST.com to learn more about the IndieFEST Humanitarian Award.

 

~ Best of Show ~ 

 Sibel’s Silence – Aly Yeganeh

Aly Yeganeh (France), Sibel’s Silence (Le Silence de Sibel), Film Feature – A film that is both gritty and touching, Sibel’s Silence tells the story of 13-year-old Sibel, one of the many thousands of girls kidnapped by ISIS fighters in Iraq. After her entire family was murdered, Sibel was taken as a prisoner and forced into sexual slavery. Hana, an ophthalmologist cannot bear the atrocities committed against Yazidi women, pays a ransom, adopts Sibel and brings her to France. She tries to provide her with a normal life filled and finds it triggers traumas of her own. Sibel cannot shake the trauma, refuses to speak; her haunting memories are always present. Insightful direction by Yeganeh, he skillfully incorporates a poignant script, muted color palette and even the architecture itself to carefully craft the story and tone. Achingly authentic performances by a talented cast. An exceptional and highly nuanced character portrayal by Laëtitia Eïdo (Netflix’s Fauda, Apple TV’s Liaison) and a convincing depiction of complex trauma by Mélissa Boros. Also stars: Patrick Azam (The Last Panthers), Rusen Houssin, Kondwani Fernandes Mores, Sadettin Cecen (Si tu meurs, je te tue), Claire Gable, Marie-Bénédicte Cazeneuve (By the Grace of God), Melha Bossard (The Night Clerk), Valérie Théodore (Je vous prie de sortir). Screened at Cannes. T.B.Y. Productions. LOULL Production. Axxon Media..

~ Outstanding Achievement ~ 

(Im)Patient – Constanza Fernández

Constanza Fernández (Chile), (Im)Patient, Feature Film / Disability Issues – A doctor and expert in ethics, Sergio Graf has to fight the Chilean health system as a patient when he gets Guillain-Barré syndrome. It is a journey toward physical deterioration, a loss of safety, and returning to something that he has until now taken for granted: his family. An insightful look at both the helpful and damaged side of the healthcare system. With deft direction, an intelligent and poignant script and driven by a talented cast, Fernández delivers a film that is both memorable and relatable. Produced by Roberto Doveris, Nino Ninas Films. Stars: Héctor Noguera (Mr Kaplan), Amparo Noguera (Death Will Come, Shall Have Your Eyes), Naldy Hernandez (Dime con Quién Andas), Daniel Muñoz (Rara), Emilia Noguera (La Poseída), Diego Casanueva (Teresa: Crucificada), Paola Giannini (Gatas & Tuercas).

 

 ~ Award of Excellence Special Mention ~

Rob Margolies, Different Duck Films (USA), Bobcat Moretti, Film Feature – A heart-wrenching drama about an obese man with M.S. who takes up boxing to overcome personal tragedy and find inner peace guided by the strength of a wise coach. Stars Tim Realbuto (Yes), Vivica A Fox (Kill Bill), SAG winners Taryn Manning and Matt Peters with Emmy-nominee Mindy Sterling (Austin Powers), Oscar-nominee Sally Kirkland.

 

William Goins (USA), THE GREY SPACE, PSA – Oscar winner Liam Neeson voices this heart wrenching PSA about dramatic international rescues of families stranded behind the lines of war in Ukraine, an evacuation in Afghanistan and the carnage of a Cat 5 Hurricane IAN – through Project Dynamo a dedicated force of veterans that work in the “grey space” where the government does not have presence, access or cannot operate.

 

Dilip Harnarayan Dixit (India), Meera, Film Feature – An uplifting story of a woman from a poor village transcending her tragedies through love and dedication and lifting thousands of women out of poverty and dependence. Compassionate direction. Based on true events. Stars: Heena Varde (Ghar Ek Mandir), Maulik Chauhan (20 hours), Sanjay Parmar (Ek Villain Returns), Chetan Daiya (3 Ekka), Reeva Rachh (Oxygen).

 

Mike Hill (Australia), Live the Life You Please, Doc Feature – A powerful doc about end of life and shaping our present-day choices. With exceptionally crafted and inspiring stories, award winning Hill makes the case for the power of care choices – from urban hospitals to indigenous in-country settings. An emotional journey through the lives of a diverse range of people in their last chapter. A potent and inspirational doc.

 

Patrick Centurioni (Austria), Gentle Mountain – The Foothills of The Alps, Nature / Wildlife -Highlighting one of the most species-rich regions in Europe – the foothills of the Alps. Animals of all kinds meet along two worlds as their habitat is shockingly near human development. Wild deer, rain-dancing owls, and a battle of wits between jays and squirrels are some of the stories told with stunning cinematography and buoyant soundtrack.

 

Michael Houston King (USA), Townsend, TV Pilot Program – Celebrity TV therapist Patrick Townsend loses his career and must re-build his life. With counsel from a friend encouraging his truth and a type-A patient holding repressed trauma – he begins to find his groove. Smart insightful script and authentic performances. Daytime Emmy-nominee Matt Borlenghi (Cobra Kai), Cameron Arnett (Eleanor’s Bench), Wynn Everett (Palmer).

 

Jon Ryan Sugimoto (USA), Gut Punch, Film Short – Darkness rumbles beneath the floorboards of a Brooklyn bodega as three locals argue about pills, politics, and semantics. Perhaps the wittiest script ever written about Probiotics – it is amusingly delivered through creatively real yet comedic performances. Stars:  Joe List (Can I Help You), Greer Barnes (Joker), Radel Ortiz, Sabrina Piper (The Deuce).

 

Dennis Trombly (USA), Man in the Mountain, Film Short – A shocking youth camp alien encounter impacts the lives of two people reunite a decade to unravel secrets with the help of a mysterious scientist. Intriguing story with compelling VFX by Fernado Lupo. Stars Jay Disney (Hank), Debbie Gerber (The End of the World), Nimo Pinchart (Loud Voices, Silent Streets), Sam Bayaraa (Kingdom).

Julie Money (Australia), With Grace, Web Series – The third season following Grace since the death of her Dad when she was 10. Now 18-years old, she negotiates the last days of high school – guided by the wisdom of her late father and her loving mother. A bittersweet story about growing up, resilience and the importance of keeping stories and memories alive. Stars: Grace Truman, Ben Wood, Justine Clarke (Tangle).

 

~ Award of Excellence ~ 

Ali Keyvan (Iran), THE WINNER, Children / Family Programming
Aly Yeganeh (France), Sibel’s Silence, Direction, Actress: Leading (Laëtitia Eïdo as Hana), Actress: Supporting (Mélissa Boros as Sibel), Ensemble Cast
Bill Walker (USA), Whiskey Mountain Days—Proof of Concept, Film Short, Direction
Cal Scott (USA), MIDNIGHT DRIVE, The Movie (band: Scott, Bailey & Ross), Music Video, Original Song (Composed by Cal Scott, Bob Bailey and Dan Ross)
Christian Gerring and John Farrelly, Pancake Studios (United Kingdom), Never Alone, Film Short


Cindy Drukier (USA), The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine Stories You Were Never Told, Documentary Feature, Special Purpose Productions
Constanza Fernández (Chile), (Im)Patient, Disability Issues
David Naglieri (USA), In Solidarity with Ukraine, Christian, Documentary Short, Editing, Direction
David Schlussel (USA), EULOGY, Jewish, Script / Writer (David Schlussel)
Dennis Trombly (USA), Man in the Mountain, Direction
Dilip Harnarayan Dixit (India), Meera, Asian, Actress: Leading (Heena Varde as Meera), Viewer Impact: Motivational / Inspirational
Francisco Del Ryo (France), OUTSIDE FRANCISQUE, Script / Writer
Irina Vodar (USA), Anything You Lose, Documentary Feature, Viewer Impact: Content / Message Delivery, Reality Programming
Joel Umbaugh (USA), December Fades – “Sunrise”, Music Video, Original Song
John Vamvas and Olga Montes (Canada), Scarpedicemente, Actor: Leading (John Vamvas as Luigi), Actress: Leading (Olga Montes as Holly), Film Feature, (Olga Montes and John Vamvas), Script / Writer (John Vamvas and Olga Montes)
Jon Ryan Sugimoto (USA), Gut Punch, Ensemble Cast, Direction, Script / Writer
Julie Money (Australia), With Grace, Actress: Leading (Grace Truman as Grace), Actor: Supporting (Ben Wood as Dad), Women Filmmakers
Kate Johnston (USA), The Last Word, Actress: Leading (Barbara Niven as Jillian ), Ensemble Cast, Script / Writer, Actor: Supporting (Tom Katsis as Fred)
Kris Millgate (USA), On Grizzly Ground, Nature / Environment / Wildlife
Lawrence Staebler (USA), Days Away, Music Video
Lilton Stewart III (USA), The Burden of Guilt, Film Feature
Lukasz Wdowicz (Poland), Life Savers, Commercial / Infomercial
Mark Cline (USA), Checked Bags, Experimental, Dramatic Impact
Massimo Zompicchiatti (Italy), Dissolution, Sound Editing / Sound Mixing
Michael Houston King (USA), Townsend, Christian
Nicolas Dimopulos (Argentina), TELESCOPE, Young Filmmaker – 17 and younger
Peter Williams (United Kingdom), LIDICE – THE VILLAGE THAT REFUSED TO DIE, Direction, Documentary Feature, History / Biographical
Rob Margolies, Different Duck Films (USA), Bobcat Moretti, Actor: Leading (Tim Realbuto as Bobby “Bobcat” Moretti), Actress: Leading (Vivica A. Fox as Jo Wallis), Actor: Supporting (Matt Peters as Charlie Moretti), Actress: Supporting (Sheria Irving as Lacey Harris)
Robin Greenberg (New Zealand), Grant Sheehan: Light, Ghosts & Dreams, Documentary Feature, Direction
Sierra Productions (USA), TRANSFORMATION, Documentary Feature, Original Score (Music composed by Patrick Rundblad. Orchestration, Arrangement, and Conducting by Salvatore Di Vittorio. Performed by Chamber Orchestra of New York.)
Thomas Michael Heinemann (Germany), PAULAS DAD and the Right Button in his Head, Children / Family Programming

 

 

 ~ Award of Merit Special Mention ~

4 A Films (USA), Five Questions, Actress: Leading (Amber Paul as Jill)
Antonio Zapiain Luna (USA), Bbcitos, Actress: Leading (MJ Garcia as Bbcita), Film Short, Cinematography (Antonio Zapiain Luna)
Ashley Mosher (USA), Goodboy, Documentary Short
Chris Frint, Michael Faner and Elvin Rey Magsino (USA), The Sound of Waves, Actor: Leading (Tom Phelan as Ethan), Actress: Leading (Alex Frnka as Jenna)
Collin Nelson (USA), The Last Liftoff, Young Filmmaker – 17 and younger
Dirk Zekveld (Netherlands), A Brief History Of Jesus Messiah, Christian
Eric Luther Ingram (USA), Birth Of A Song, Film Short, African American
Gary Null and Valerie Van Cleve (USA), Manufacturing Madness, Documentary Feature
Jed Charles Parker (USA), Cine-Symphony Planet Earth, Nature / Environment / Wildlife
John L. Brooks II (USA), The Story Behind the Art, Documentary Short
Jude Ramirez (USA), Butterflies, Film Short, Contemporary Issues / Awareness Raising
KC Schulberg (USA), THE URGENCY OF NOW, Documentary Short
Meghan G. Graham (USA), Roadkill Jamboree, Animation (Student)
Patrick Rea (USA), The Last Butterflies, Film Short
Rick Walker (USA), Guardians, Actress: Leading (Mackenzie McIntyre as Anne)
Roman S. Koenig (USA), Red Blooded, Actress: Supporting (Laura Bohlin as Kate Baumann)
Sara Werner and Liesl Wilke (USA), Lines, Women Filmmakers
Talon Boggess (Canada), The Rose, Film Short, Creativity / Originality
Tane McClure (USA), Séance Games – METAXU, Film Feature
Zane (France), Je, Actress: Leading (Cassandre Anaya as Soul), Actress: Supporting (Sabrina Campilii as Young Woman), Film Short

 

~ Award of Merit ~

4 A Films (USA), Five Questions, Direction (David Arrow), Ensemble Cast (Kiera Allen, David Arrow, Andrew Arrow, Joyia D. Bradley, Donna Lynne Champlin, Elijah Guo, Amber Paul, Tom Alan Robbins and Eliza Simone), Editing (Joseph Huba), Film Short, Cinematography (Mark Raker), Makeup (Ashley DiSarro), Original Score (David Robbins), Sound Editing / Sound Mixing (Colin Barry-Jester), Production Design (Celina Arslanian)
Allen Kool (Canada), CRY OF SILENCE, Direction, Script / Writer (Robin E. Crozier)
Amanda Beardsley (USA), So Help Me, Television – Program / Series
Antoine Priou (France), Luke and Oscar, Children / Family Programming, Animation
Brennan Bunn (USA), Seeds, Film Short
Cecilia Tuttle (USA), The Big Picture, Disability Issues (Student)
Ceyda Aşar (Turkey), This Is Not A Place For You, Film Short
Chris Frint, Michael Faner and Elvin Rey Magsino (USA), The Sound of Waves, Direction (Chris Frint)
Christopher Martini (USA), Dear Mom, Music Video
Cindy Drukier (USA), The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine Stories You Were Never Told, Liberation / Social Justice / Protest, Women Filmmakers
Cornell Calhoun III (USA), Longwood, Script / Writer
Daryl Ferrara (USA), Ashen Realities, Film Short, Creativity / Originality
Dastan Khalili (USA), Day – 9, Direction, Film Short
Francesco Brunotti (USA), Adventures Of Samurai Bron, Animation
Francisco Del Ryo (France), OUTSIDE FRANCISQUE, Creativity / Originality
Grace Wijaya (USA), Singing in the Lifeboat, Film Short (Student), Women Filmmakers (Student)
Grant Clover and Michael Metzler Jr. (USA), I Walk With Ghosts, Film Short, Dramatic Impact
Harriet Dunning (United Kingdom), The Final Test, Women Filmmakers, Editing
Heath Ramsay and Duncan Ragg (Australia), Mine Mine Mine, Film Short
Ian Sciacaluga (United Kingdom), Imbroglio, Film Short, Direction
Jared Esteban (USA), Lift, Film Short (Student)
Jason Turchin, Sue Gilad, Larry Rogowsky, Nick Flatto and Jonathan Hogue (USA), Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical, Film Feature
Jay Coggeshall and Susan Henoch (USA), The Life You’re Given, Disability Issues
Jimmy Francis (Greece), Support Group Olympus, Actor: Supporting (Kostis Rampavilas as Dionysus)
Joe McInnis (Canada), Cry About It, Film Short (Student), Creativity / Originality (Student)
Joey 西侧龙 (China), EXODUS, Film Feature
John L. Brooks II (USA), The Story Behind the Art, Narration / Voice-Over Talent
Jonathan Backman (Malta), The Maestro, Film Short
Joshua Christoph (USA), Love, Angelica, Film Short (Student)
Jyoti Madnani Singh (India), I Am Not Down, Children / Family Programming
Kat Ferentchak (USA), Accessory, Film Short
Khaled Sultan (Ireland), Time’s Exchange, Script / Writer
Laura Gonzalez y Matute (Mexico), Murales en movimiento. José Clemente Orozco y las hermanas Campobello, Documentary Short
Leonard Eckhaus (USA), If I Were a Pony, Children / Family Programming
Liam Wan Lui Martin and Fiona Stirling Lui Martin (USA), Cry of the Yellow Moon, Young Filmmaker – 17 and younger
Luca Campodifiori (United Kingdom), Dock Day, Film Short (Student)
Maria Collette Sundeen (USA), Lifeless, Film Short, Narration / Voiceover Talent
Mark Meisenheimer (USA), Quindaro Ruins-A Documentary Film, Documentary Feature
Martina Webster (USA), Christmas Witch, Script / Writer
Massimo Zompicchiatti (Italy), Dissolution, Music Video
Matthew Toffolo (USA), Dark Realities, Experimental
Michael McQuown (USA), The Night Slayer, Editing
Milad Khaleghimanesh (Iran), Fringe Fallen, Documentary Short
Nathan Porter (USA), Status: Retired, Actor: Leading (Nathan Porter as Retired Agent), Film Short
Nima Rahimpoor (Iran), PLAYTHING, Film Short
Nima Valibeigi (Iran), Zero Coordinates, Asian
Oliveira Tan (China), JUAN, Film Short
Paul Darrigo (USA), Summerville, Original Score (Composed by John Koutselin
Paul David Lisy (USA), The Reach, Documentary Feature, Contemporary Issues / Awareness Raising
Peter Parry (United Kingdom), Fete Accomplis, Film Short
Petri Puroaho (Finland), The Disassociate, Liberation / Social Justice / Protest, Contemporary Issues / Awareness Raising
Randy Michael Stoudt (USA), Woven the Documentary, Documentary Short
Reza Sobhani (Iran), The Rope, Film Short
Rick Walker (USA), Guardians, Actress: Supporting (Cherish Rodriguez as Emily), Christian, Direction, Film Feature
Roman S. Koenig (USA), Red Blooded, Actress: Leading (Denice Riddle as Lois Green), Direction (Roman S. Koenig), Film Short, Script / Writer (Roman S. Koenig), Editing (Roman S. Koenig), Cinematography (Garrett Glassell), Original Score (Rob Gironda)
Sahar Ghafurian (Iran), Daughters of Mamma Sea, Animation (Student)
Sajjad Abdollahi (Iran), The Archive, Liberation / Social Justice / Protest
Sean Breathnach (Ireland), Don’t Open The Box, Direction
Shane Connellan (Ireland), BULLY, Actor: Leading (Shane Connellan as Tommy)
Sierra Productions (USA), TRANSFORMATION, Ensemble Cast (Debra Smith (Aunt) and Children Actors), Makeup (Natasha Loudermilk)
Simantini Chakraborty (USA), Joyful, Documentary Short
Simon Nathan Feldman (USA), Revival, Documentary Feature
Stephen Folker (USA), Spiderweb, Jewish
Tane McClure (USA), Séance Games – METAXU, Direction, Editing, Ensemble Cast, Script / Writer
Vanessa M. H. Powers (USA), Sins of the Father, Film Feature
Yingna Wu, ArtCenter College of Design (USA), The Counseling, Film Short (Student), Creativity / Originality (Student)
Zane (France), Je, Direction, Cinematography

 ~ Award of Recognition ~

Aaron Phelps (USA), Slanted Perspectives: My Life with SMA, Disability Issues (Student)
Adeena Michelle Karasick (USA), Eicha: The Book of Lumenations, Experimental, Jewish, Women Filmmakers
Aidan Christopher Haughey (USA), The Bounty of Love, Film Short
Akinola Isaac Fowowe (Nigeria), Turning Point, Liberation / Social Justice / Protest
Annie Fleisch (USA), Home Coming, Film Short (Student), Contemporary Issues / Awareness Raising (Student)
Ashton K. Bracciodieta (USA), Stringout, Film Short
Bianca Sass (USA), Distance (The Further Mix), Music Video (Student)
Bob Spletzer (USA), SpaceWalk, Educational / Instructional / Training, Television – Program / Series
Caleb Jordan Voyles (USA), The Ballad of Rich and Champ, Film Short (Student), Movie Trailer (Student)
Charlotte Cuthbertson (USA), Gotaways, Reality Programming
Chop Mosley, Chelsea Scruggs and John Xavier Lambert (USA), Sci-Kids, Children / Family Programming
Craig Oty (USA), Psyche Obscura, Experimental
Cynthia Ellen Gall (USA), To the Rescue, Public Service Programming / PSA (Student), Viewer Impact: Content / Message Delivery (Student)
Darian Slattery (USA), INSPIRED, Disability Issues
David Anderson (USA), Blue Lucas, Experimental
Desmond Amir Bailey (USA), Night Clothes, Film Short (Student)
Devinaire Barnes (USA), Careying, Film Short (Student)
Emer OShea (Ireland), DRUID, Nature / Environment / Wildlife
Gil Rivera (USA), A Sudden Impact, Film Short
Greg Maksudyan (USA), Christmas Evil, Movie Trailer
Harry Waldman (USA), Enter the Room, Film Short
Heather Rose Lupex (USA), PAW, Experimental
Heidi Duckler (USA), The Tender Body Sings, Experimental
Hollin Haley (USA), Jackie & Marilyn, Film Short
Janelle Little (USA), all things must end., Experimental (Student)
Jeff Harder (USA), Carmilla Vive!, Film Feature
Jennifer Glee Foley (USA), Fellini Mastorna…a film of no return, Experimental
Jimmy Francis (Greece), Support Group Olympus, Actress: Supporting (Maria Karpathakis as Aphrodite)
Jingting Yang (China), Bad News, Women Filmmakers
Joe Tremain (United Kingdom), Stray Cat., Experimental, Direction
Jonathan Byrne Denechaud (USA), What It Takes, Young Filmmaker – 17 and younger
Jordan Canning, Dani Pagliarello and Aisha Evelyna (Canada), The Drop, Web Series, Ensemble Cast, Actress: Leading (Dani Pagliarello as Zara)
Jorge Joseph Harrington (USA), Birdhouse, Actress: Leading (Carnessa Lynn as Meena), Film Short (Jorge Joseph Harrington and Sam Patzer)
Joshua Christoph (USA), Love, Angelica, Cinematography (Student)
Joshua Lucas Nelson (USA), Deprogrammed, Actress: Leading (Noelle Cappuzzo as Nancy)
Jude Peter Damian (India), SARAS, Film Short
Kayla Holsey (USA), Play Please, Young Filmmaker – 17 and younger
Tanner Smith (USA), Reunion, LGBTQ+
Larry Guernsey (USA), Scary Story, Animation
Laurie Tieman (USA), Found, Women Filmmakers
Lee Steinbeck (USA), A Most Annoying Man, Actor: Leading (Tim Snoha as Emery Dodd), Editing
Li Zirui (China), An inescapable Chain, Actress: Leading (Student) (Li Zirui as Depressed Girl), Young Filmmaker – 17 and younger, Film Short (Student)
Mathias Magnason (USA), Leaving California: The Untold Story, Reality Programming
Michael McQuown (USA), The Night Slayer, Direction, Film Feature
Mike Baro (USA), Word of Mouth, Television – Pilot Program
Mogan Selvakannu (Malaysia), Don’t Rock the Boat, Documentary Feature
Nick Maltby (United Kingdom), Apache Rain, Film Short, Original Score
Nicole Vivien Watson and Tom White (United Kingdom), Shore, Sea, and Land – Lines, Disability Issues
Olive Juge (USA), Poppy Pop, Young Filmmaker – 17 and younger
Parviz Rajaei (Khazan) (Iran), The Imperceptible, Film Short
Paul Darrigo (USA), Summerville, Film Short
Pierre Moncel Tetrault (Canada), Travels In Schizophrenia, Documentary Feature
Porsha Brown (USA), BAB on 3!, Television – Pilot Program
Roman S. Koenig (USA), Red Blooded, Actor: Leading (Sean Dillingham as Don Green), Actor: Supporting (Cayden Dillingham as Benjamin Green)
Ronald L Sturgess and Jeanetta T Sturgess (USA), The Guardian: The Sandwich Generation, African American
Rose Collis (United Kingdom), One For The Books: The Maupin Marathon, Documentary Feature
Sabrina Dubner (USA), Liminality, Film Short (Student)
Sasha Shapiro (USA), The Crib, Film Short, Creativity / Originality, Humor / Humorist, Script / Writer
Sean Breathnach (Ireland), Don’t Open The Box, Actor: Leading (John Ryan Howard as Mike)
Shihyun Wang (USA), Cruising Alaska – Ketchinkan, Native Peoples
Tobias Elvhage and Liza Morberg (USA), Gender Transformation: The Untold Realities, Documentary Feature
Tom Sys and Erik Sopracasa (USA), Beyond The Curtain, Direction
Tristan M. Corrigan, Under_Score Productions (USA), TAP, Film Short, Editing
Vicky Vien, Fox Hughes and Braden Cloutier (USA), Ending It

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Film

Between Glass Onion, A Haunting in Venice, and Netflix’s cleverly titled Murder Mystery, there’s no doubt that the art of the kill (and the killer reveal) is as popular among filmmakers as ever. Bringing regional English energy and artistic flare to a classic premise is A24’s latest stab at the murder-mystery genre, Medusa Deluxe, a beauty-infused one-take film from first-time writer-director Thomas Hardiman. Though it may struggle to stick the narrative landing, Medusa Deluxe’s unrelenting pace, thoughtful production design, and breathtaking performances make it an unorthodox but much-welcome addition to the whodunit cannon.

Starring Clare Perkins, Harriet Webb, and Darrell D’Silva, Medusa Deluxe follows the participants of a regional English hairstyling competition, whose cutthroat rivalries take a decidedly morbid turn when a frontrunner turns up dead moments before judging is set to begin. As tensions rise and simmering resentments boil to the service, both the contestants and the audience are thrown headfirst into a tightly wound murder mystery, where discovering the identity of the killer at times comes second to figuring out who would’ve won, had judging commenced.

The most pervasively fascinating of Medusa Deluxe is its camerawork—shot by Robbie Ryan, Medusa Deluxe is (or at least, emulates the feeling of) a single continuous shot for its nearly two-hour runtime. Certainly, such an ambitious stylistic choice could make for an exhausting viewing experience or even an aimless one without the right variables in place, but for the most part, Medusa Deluxe can bend the one-shot style to its will, not the other way around.

Undoubtedly, one of the most crucial elements in pulling off the one-take is Medusa Deluxe’s keenly developed sense of space: the film follows its frantic gaggle of heroes through the winding corridors and dingy basements of a massive warehouse/performance space. Location manager Heather Gant struck gold with this building— the perfect balance between giving Ryan’s camera enough space to move and feel active, while at the same time maintaining the dark, menacing corners and narrow halls required for a true murder mystery.

Of course, though, a camera and a good location are nothing without characters to fill the frame, and that’s the other great strength of Medusa Deluxe: its cast. Made up of mostly unknown English actors, there is a camaraderie and truthfulness in the ensemble of Medusa Deluxe that makes the entire film feel that much more visceral and honest. It’s often easy to forget you’re watching actors—between the unrelenting proximity of the camera and the naturalistic dialogue and delivery, these characters come to life as very messy, fully realized people, not just potential suspects on a rap sheet.

Leading the charge is Clare Perkins as Cleve, an extraordinarily talented hairstylist with a hairpin trigger to her ferocious temper. The film opens with a mesmerizing monologue from Cleve in the early moments when another character calls her “volatile”, prompting her to spiral into a rant that remains one of the film’s most memorable moments. Perkins, of course, has all the requisite intensity and fury to make for a believably intimidating figure in the competition, but what’s more amazing is how quickly she’s able to flip it on and off—incensed one moment, laid back and joking the next.

There’s also a familiar vulnerability to Perkins’ performance that makes the character so relatable and affecting even in her most inelegant moments—the painful sincerity of an artist who has worked so hard on something for so long, and wants nothing more than to be recognized and acknowledged for her hard work and talent. If anything, Cleve’s greatest flaw in the film is how underused she is. Though her whopper of a rant opens the film, she becomes more of a tertiary player as the story begins to truly develop, and what a shame it is to sideline such an incredible performer.

Cleve is rivals with the no-nonsense Kendra (Webb), another hairstylist whose close ties to competition organizer Rene (D’Silva) land her in hot water once rumor begins to spread that she may be buying her way to a win. Kendra, like Cleve, has a backbone of steel, and watching these characters clash is endlessly fascinating. Still, when she’s not delivering stone-cold explanations of how easy it might be to scalp someone, Webb (like Perkins) also brings humanity and tenderness—through her, it comes in the forms of taking care of an infant who becomes a human hot potato heading into act three.

Rounding out the core trio of stylists is Kayla Meikle as Divine, a contestant whose recent part-time work assisting a mortician has steeled (or so she says) her nerves when it comes to seeing dead bodies. Her solution for strengthening her stomach in the face of death—a new and intense connection to religion— drives a wedge between her and the rest of the stylists, and as the film progresses, her status as the serene “voice of reason” is continually called into question. Though she may not be as quick on the draw as Cleve or Kendra, Divine is yet another deliciously complex character, brought to life by yet another wonderfully raw performance from Meikle.

It isn’t just the hairstylists that make up the cast, either—the other half of Medusa Deluxe’s sizable ensemble is comprised of the models on whom the stylists craft their whimsical hairdos. Anita Joy-Uwajeh holds court as Timba, the model of the deceased contestant and the first person to discover the body post-murder, and though she may not get a ton of screentime, she certainly makes the most of it. Model/wannabe sleuth Inez (Kae Alexander) gets her fair share of pulse-pounding moments as she gets close to unraveling the mystery, but it’s Lilit Lesser as the nervous, wide-eyed Angie who ends the emotional core among the models.

But while it has a bakers’ dozen of talented, complex women to draw from Medusa Deluxe’s greatest flaw is how uninterested it seems in exploring these characters in the back half of the film. Instead of finding ways to integrate the models and stylists more directly into the mystery element of murder mystery, they’re pushed aside in favor of a gaggle of men and their messy relationship drama. Heider Ali’s security guard Gac, D’Silva’s Rene, Luke Pasqualino’s Angel, and Nicholas Karimi’s Patricio all have some kind of romantic history with the deceased, and Medusa Deluxe’s third act clunkily exposits these winding relationships instead of making use of the previously introduced players we already know and care about.

When the credits roll (accompanied by a choreographed, disco-infused dance number featuring the entire cast), though, the narrative third-act flaws don’t stop Medusa Deluxe from being a vibrant, artfully crafted character study. From Perkins, Webb, and Meikle’s gripping performances to the stunning hair and makeup work from Chloe Dixon and Anne Little, Medusa Deluxe is a poignant murder mystery with a stellar cast and a killer sense of style.

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Between Glass Onion, A Haunting in

TV

This is Day 127 of the WGA strike and Day 54 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

After the long Labor Day weekend, the Writers Guild of America East had no pickets scheduled for Tuesday in New York City, and turnout was light on a hot and muggy morning at a pair of SAG-AFTRA pickets outside NBCUniversal and Netflix offices in Manhattan.

“We are small but mighty today,” voice actor, singer and SAG-AFTRA strike captain Sue Berch told about four dozen people in wrap-up remarks at the Netflix rally, where actors Susan Sarandon, F. Murray Abraham, Michael Cyril Creighton and Mike Doyle also walked the picket line.

Berch thanked everyone for coming out, then teed off on comments that talk show host Bill Maher made about the writers strike in the latest episode of his podcast, Club Random. 

The host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher expressed sympathy for writers and agreed with guest Jim Gaffigan that writers are getting “screwed” on residual income from streaming, but he also said that some of their demands are “kooky” and that “they kind of believe that you’re owed a living as a writer.”

“And you’re not,” Maher said. “This is show business. This is a make-or-miss league.”

Berch said watching video of Maher’s show left her “annoyed.”

“He’s sittin’ on an overstuffed chair, smoking a cigar, completely tone deaf, and he’s saying: ‘You know I really care about my writers. I’m one of my writers, and I get that there’s a strike but, you know, nobody promised these guys a career.’

“You know what? You’re right: No one promised us a career,” Berch said through a bullhorn. “But because we have careers, we should be able to make a decent wage. It’s not too much to ask for that.”

Berch also mentioned Tuesday’s SEC filing in which Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav said the actors and writers strikes would cost the company $300 million-$500 million. 

“I have a solution for them,” Berch said in the direction of the Warner Bros. Discovery offices down the block from Netflix. “Come back to the table. Negotiate a contract. The strike will be over. You won’t lose money, and we’ll all go back to work.”

Farther uptown, about two dozen picketers rallied outside NBCUniversal headquarters at Rockefeller Center. One of them was Margaret Owens, a background actor and SAG-AFTRA member who lives in Philadelphia and traveled to New York to join the march.  

“I’m part of the Philly local. I’m generally a background actor,” Owens told Deadline. “We are the majority of who makes up the union.” 

A former model and a SAG-AFTRA member since 2014, Owens now has an office job and enough background acting work on the side — most of it in New York — to remain in the union. She has no screen credits but has appeared briefly in projects ranging from M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass to episodes of Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black. 

She said that performers like her see 18-hour days on set translate into seconds on screen. “Blink and you miss me,” Owens said. 

“I haven’t yet got scanned,” Owens added, but she is worried that background actors are at risk of being digitally replicated and replaced by artificial intelligence without protections in the next contract.

“We’re fighting for the everyday actor, the ones that make this happen,” Owens said. “I seriously took a day off from my job and hoofed it up here on the hottest days of the summer because it’s important and it’s necessary. People need to get reminded we’re not all millionaires.” 

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This is Day 127 of the WGA strike and

What to Watch

The past few months have been filled to the brim with notable 2023 new movie releases, some of which have managed to make serious impressions at the box office. What’s arguably been the biggest BO story of the year is the dual success of Barbie and Oppenhimer, which opened on the same weekend. The double billing, dubbed “Barbenheimer” by fans, became a sensation and a massive boon for the film industry. As all that happened though, another notable flick fell short of expectations – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Director Chris McQuarrie is now speaking out about his and Tom Cruise’s latest M:I sequel being overtaken by the other two blockbusters. 

Some may remember that Christopher McQuarrie threw his support to Oppenheimer and Barbie earlier this summer. He and Tom Cruise hyped up the summer releases, with the actor sharing some sweet sentiments that garnered a response from Margot Robbie. Of course, that was all before the box office receipts came in. Don’t think, however, that McQuarrie is disappointed over his movie being passed financially. He spoke with the Empire Spoiler Specials podcast (via Screen Rant), expressing joy and sending some major kudos Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s way: 

I couldn’t be more delighted. We meant what we said when we went out and bought those tickets. I meant what I said when I went on Twitter – my last ever post on Twitter – and said, ‘Go pink or go home.’ Could not be more thrilled for Margot [Robbie], who I think is an extraordinary talent, a mega-star. And I’m delighted for the validation that the movie gives to that part of Margot that is that mega-star. And I hope the lessons learned from that are applied. Couldn’t be more thrilled for Greta.

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The past few months have been filled

Awards

Skydance Media CEO David Ellison called the creative process a “community” where “both sides of this disagreement actually need one another to move forward. So, my hope is that we can find a path to compromise so that everybody can get back to work and we can position ourselves for success going forward.”

“We are not a member of the AMPTP, and some of my closest friends are the writers and actors that we work with to create content. And, we literally work with every member on the AMPTP side,” he said during a Q&A at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia media conference in Las Vegas when asked about the strike – day 127 for the WGA and day 54 for SAG-AFTRA.

The annual investor event is mostly limited to public companies. At privately-held Skydance, “We want to always make sure we position ourselves to be able to be a publicly-traded company,” Ellison said. Major investors include the Ellison family, KKR, RedBird Capital Partners, CJ Entertainment and Tencent. He said he expects more consolidation in media and entertainment and that Skydance is positioned to take advantage of “appropriate” opportunities — no specifics.

He touted what he called strong organic growth at the company founded in 2010 as it’s expanded from film and television into animation, with former Pixar chief John Lasseter leading the charge, sports content under a venture with the NFL, and gaming. Skydance has 1,200 staffers globally across five divisions, including 800 in animation, he said, and has been “consistently profitable.”

In July, the company closed a new five-year, $1 billion credit facility led by J.P. Morgan, doubling the amount of a prior credit arrangement led by the bank.

Formed with a deal at Paramount, Skydance continues its collaboration there with franchises Mission: Impossible, Transformers, Star Trek and Top Gun: Maverick. It’s worked with Netflix (The Old Guard, The Adam Project); Amazon (Jack Ryan, Jack Reacher) and has a multi-year agreement with Apple for a slate of live-action movies.

Apple TV+ was the home of the first animated film for both, Luck, last year, to be followed by Spellbound. Skydance Animation has acquired the rights to Brad Bird’s (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) next film Ray Gunn, and has an overall deal with Rich Moore (Zootopia, Wreck-It Ralph). There’s a huge potential upside in animation where hits can “become a family heirloom that can be rewatched and re-watched,” Ellison said.

Interactive offerings include The Walking Dead Saints & Sinners and game deals with Marvel and Lucasfilms.

In 2022, Skydance launched a sports content joint venture with the NFL inaugurated by the Ben Affleck and Matt Damon film AIR in theaters and streaming on Amazon. Docuseries NFL Draft: The Pick Is In was just renewed for a second season on Roku. “I think sports is one of the true pieces of appointment television, and it has been underexploited and untapped for a long time,” Ellison said. “We saw a massive audience not being served.”

As the majors continue to pivot to steaming, “Some companies will emerge stronger than ever. Others will have a harder time,” he said. “We purposefully did not build distribution…We sit in the middle.”

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Skydance Media CEO David Ellison called the

Music

Editor’s note: Since this obituary was published, the cause of Mr. Buffett’s death was reported to be Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer that he had lived with for four years, according to a statement on his website. It also said he died at his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., on the East End of Long Island.

Jimmy Buffett, the singer, songwriter, author, sailor and entrepreneur whose roguish brand of island escapism on hits like “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” made him something of a latter-day folk hero, especially among his devoted following of so-called Parrot Heads, died on Friday. He was 76.

His death was announced in a statement on his website. It did not say where he died or specify a cause. Mr. Buffett had rescheduled a series of concerts this spring, saying he had been hospitalized, although he offered no details.

Peopled with pirates, smugglers, beach bums and barflies, Mr. Buffett’s genial, self-deprecating songs conjured a world of sun, salt water and nonstop parties animated by the calypso country-rock of his limber Coral Reefer Band. His live shows abounded with singalong anthems and festive tropical iconography, making him a perennial draw on the summer concert circuit, where he built an ardent fan base akin to the Grateful Dead’s Deadheads.

Mr. Buffett found success primarily with albums. He enjoyed only a few years on the pop singles chart, and “Margaritaville,” his 1977 breakthrough hit, was his only single to reach the pop Top 10.

“I blew out my flip-flop/Stepped on a pop-top/Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home,” he sang woozily to the song’s lilting Caribbean rhythms. “But there’s booze in the blender/And soon it will render/That frozen concoction that helps me hang on.”

Mr. Buffett’s music was often described as “Gulf and western” — a play on the name of the conglomerate Gulf & Western, the former parent of Paramount Pictures, as well as a nod to his fusion of laid-back twang and island-themed lyrics.

His songs tended to be of two main types: wistful ballads like “Come Monday” and “A Pirate Looks at Forty” and clever up-tempo numbers like “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” Some were both, like “Son of a Son of a Sailor,” a 1978 homage to Mr. Buffett’s seafaring grandfather, written with the producer Norbert Putnam.

“I’m just a son of a son, son of a son/
Son of a son of a sailor,” he sang. “The sea’s in my veins, my tradition remains/I’m just glad I don’t live in a trailer.”

The Caribbean and the Gulf Coast were Mr. Buffett’s muses, and no place was more important than Key West, Fla. He first visited the island at the urging of Jerry Jeff Walker, his sometime songwriting and drinking partner, after a gig fell through in Miami in the early 1970s.

“When I found Key West and the Caribbean, I wasn’t really successful yet,” Mr. Buffett said in a 1989 interview with The Washington Post. “But I found a lifestyle, and I knew that whatever I did would have to work around my lifestyle.”

The locales provided Mr. Buffett with more than just a breezy sailing life and grist for his songwriting. They were also the impetus for the creation of a tropical-themed business empire that included a restaurant franchise, a hotel chain and boutique tequila, T-shirt and footwear lines, all of which made him a millionaire hundreds of times over.

“I’ve done a bit of smugglin’, and I’ve run my share of grass,” Mr. Buffett wrote in “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” sung in the voice of his friend Phillip Clark, a modern-day buccaneer — who inspired not just the song but also, to a lesser extent, Mr. Buffett’s own early entrepreneurial pursuits.

“I made enough money to buy Miami,” he went on, “But I pissed it away so fast/Never meant to last/Never meant to last.”

Mr. Clark may have squandered his wealth by the time he turned 40, but Mr. Buffett proved a shrewd manager of his considerable fortune; Forbes this year estimated his net worth at $1 billion.

“If Mr. Buffett is a pirate, to borrow one of his favorite images, it is hardly because of his days palling around with dope smugglers in the Caribbean,” the critic Anthony DeCurtis wrote in a 1999 essay for The New York Times. “He is a pirate in the way that Bill Gates and Donald Trump have styled themselves, as plundering rebels, visionary artists of the deal, not bound by the societal restrictions meant for smaller, more careful men.”

(The comparison to Mr. Trump was strictly financial; Mr. Buffett was a Democrat.)

Mr. Buffett was also an accomplished author; he was one of only a few writers (the likes of Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and William Styron are among the others) to top both The Times’s fiction and nonfiction best-seller lists. By the time he wrote “Tales From Margaritaville” (1989), the first of his three No. 1 best sellers, he had abandoned the hedonistic lifestyle he once embraced.

“I could wind up like a lot of my friends did, burned out or dead, or redirect the energy,” he told The Washington Post in 1989. “I’m not old, but I’m getting older. That period of my life is over. It was fun — all that hard drinking, hard drugging. No apologies.”

“I still have a very happy life,” he went on. “I just don’t do the things I used to do.”

James William Buffett was born on Dec. 25, 1946, in Pascagoula, Miss., one of three children of Mary Loraine (Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. Both parents were longtime employees of the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company. His father was a manager of government contracts, and his mother, known simply as Peets, was an assistant director of industrial relations.

Jimmy was raised Roman Catholic in Mobile, Ala., where he took up the trombone at St. Ignatius Catholic School. He went to high school at another Catholic institution in Mobile, the McGill Institute.

In 1964, he enrolled in classes at Auburn University. He flunked out and later attended the University of Southern Mississippi. He also began performing in local nightclubs. He graduated with a degree in history in 1969 before moving to the French Quarter of New Orleans and playing in a cover band on Bourbon Street.

He moved to Nashville in 1970, hoping to make it as a country singer while working as a journalist for Billboard magazine. (Mr. Buffett was credited with breaking the story about the disbanding of the pioneering bluegrass duo Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.) “Down to Earth,” his debut album, was released on Andy Williams’s Barnaby label that year. It sold a reported 324 copies.

Mr. Buffett’s second album for Barnaby, “High Cumberland Jubilee,” went unreleased until 1976, long after he had signed with ABC-Dunhill and recorded “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean” (1973), which featured the debauched party anthem “Why Don’t We Get Drunk.”

Mr. Buffett had a fondness for puns. The title “A White Sport Coat” was inspired by the song “A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation),” a 1957 pop hit for the country singer Marty Robbins. Another album was called “Last Mango in Paris.”

Mr. Buffett’s album “Living and Dying in ¾ Time,” released in 1974, included a version of the comedian Lord Buckley’s “God’s Own Drunk.” “Come Monday,” a lovelorn track from that record, became his first Top 40 hit.

“A1A,” also from 1974, was named for the oceanfront highway that runs along Florida’s Atlantic coastline. It was Mr. Buffett’s first album to contain references to Key West and maritime life. But it was his platinum-selling “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” (1977), which contained the blockbuster hit “Margaritaville,” that finally catapulted him to stardom. “Fins,” another hit single, was released in 1979.

A series of popular releases followed, culminating in 1985 with “Songs You Know by Heart,” a compilation of Mr. Buffett’s most beloved songs to date. It became the best selling album of his career.

Mr. Buffett also opened the first of his many Margaritaville stores in 1985. That was the year that the bassist Timothy B. Schmit, who is best known as a member of the Eagles but was then with the Coral Reefer Band, coined the term Parrot Heads to describe Mr. Buffett’s staunch legion of fans, the bulk of whom were baby boomers.

A supporter of conservationist causes, Mr. Buffett moved away from the Keys in the late 1970s because of the area’s increasing commercialization. He initially relocated to Aspen, Colo., before making his home on St. Barts in the Caribbean. He also had houses in Palm Beach, Fla., and Sag Harbor, N.Y., on eastern Long Island.

In addition to touring and recording, activities he pursued into the 2020s, Mr. Buffett wrote music for movies like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Urban Cowboy.” He also appeared in movies, including “Rancho Deluxe” and “Jurassic World,” and on television shows, including the “Hawaii Five-O” revival of the 2010s, on which he starred as the helicopter pilot Frank Bama, a character from his best-selling 1992 novel, “Where Is Joe Merchant?”

An avid pilot, Mr. Buffett owned several aircraft and often flew himself to his shows. In 1994, he crashed one of his airplanes in waters near Nantucket, Mass., while taking off. He survived the accident, swimming to safety with only minor injuries.

In 1996, another of his planes, Hemisphere Dancer, was shot at by the Jamaican police, who suspected the craft was being used to smuggle marijuana. Onboard the airplane, which sustained little damage, were Bono of U2; Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records; and Mr. Buffett’s wife and two daughters. The Jamaican authorities later admitted that the incident was a case of mistaken identity, inspiring Mr. Buffett to write the song “Jamaica Mistaica,” a droll sendup of the affair.

He is survived by his wife, Jane (Slagsvol) Buffett; two daughters, Savanah Jane Buffett and Sarah Buffett; a son, Cameron; two grandsons; and two sisters, Lucy and Laurie Buffett.

In a 1979 interview with Rolling Stone, Mr. Buffett was asked about a previous remark in which he somewhat incongruously cited the wholesome choral director Mitch Miller and the marauding Gulf Coast pirate Jean Lafitte as two of his greatest inspirations.

“Mitch Miller, for sure,” Mr. Buffett said, doubtless in acknowledgment of the way his own fans sang along with him at concerts, as Mr. Miller’s television audiences were asked to. “In the old days: ‘Sing Along with Mitch’? Who didn’t?”

“But Jean Lafitte was my hero as a romantic character,” he continued. “I’m not sure he was a musical influence. His lifestyle influenced me, most definitely, ’cause I’m the very opposite of Mitch Miller.”

Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.

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Editor’s note: Since this obituary was published,

Docs

NOW IN THEATERS! In the action/thriller King of Killers, Kevin Grevioux brings his graphic novel to life following a family-man assassin in the fight for his and his daughter’s lives. Marcus Garan (Alain Moussi) is a former member of an international assassins society who quit after his wife died in the line of duty. The distraught Garan is now a single father of Kimberly (Zoe Worn), who is dying from a rare illness.

To pay for her treatment, the reluctant Garan is proposed one last job by a mysterious client (Frank Grillo), who wants him to assassinate the legendary hitman Jorg Drakos. When Garan arrives at the client’s mansion in Japan, he finds out that the benefactor is indeed Drakos and that Drakos has invited other assassins to kill him to see who is the King of Killers…but why?

King of Killers is an exciting thrill ride into the action genre. The film is all about the action and having a hero in Marcus Garan to root for. Yes, the plot is a bit similar to John Wick, but since when could you copyright a plot device?

“…Drakos has invited other assassins to kill him to see who is the King of Killers…”

The film’s take on the action is to spotlight close-contact fighting with fists, guns, and blades as the weapons of choice. Of course, our rag-tab band of assassins offers a diverse palate of combat styles. Taking on Drakos first is the military guns expert LeCroix (Georges St-Pierre). Then there’s the grizzled veteran Dyson Chord (Kevin Grevious), bringing honor to the proceedings. The small scrappy Asha Khanna (Marie Avgeropoulos) and the martial artist Ren Hiro (Shannon Kook) round out the pack.

Each battle is unique, and the contrasting fighting styles make King of Killers a thrilling film to watch, mainly when your budget does not allow for elaborate and dangerous car chases. The fighting looks good and is tailored to the style of each character. It’s definitely a ride worth going down if all you are looking for is action. What I would have liked to really give the film a score boost is some action set piece that elevates the genre. Sadly, that moment is not there (in my opinion). The plot pretty much exists to properly build sympathy for killing machine and family man Marcus Garan.

The ending is a bit of a letdown. It’s not really that hard to figure out who ultimately comes out on top, but the film makes the mistake of going in the obvious franchise direction. I get it. Everyone wants to make a series of films. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the twist in the narrative in hopes of scoring a sequel is a bit too on-the-nose.

King of Killers is perfect for anyone wanting to see trained killers fight and kill each other. The film is about the action, and Alain Moussi and Frank Grillo come through with bloody banners waving high.

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NOW IN THEATERS! In the action/thriller King

Global

Hamilton has bumped up the risk level of contracting West Nile virus (WMV) from moderate to high after the first human case of the season was revealed Tuesday.

Public health didn’t release any specifics on the individual case, but is suggesting residents protect themselves against mosquito bites by removing standing water from private property to prevent mosquito breeding.

“It is important to take precautions to avoid illnesses spread by insects including West Nile virus, Lyme disease, and eastern equine encephalitis (EEE),” Dr. Bart Harvey said in a release.

“Employing simple preventive measures such as using insect repellent containing DEET or Icaridin, covering up, and removing standing water on your property to prevent mosquito breeding will reduce your risk while you enjoy the outdoors.”

Harvey said the risk is likely to remain until the next heavy frost reduces mosquito populations.

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Reported human infections have been down in recent years, with just two in 2022, significantly lower than the six recorded in 2017 and 2018.

The city has not had a death connected to WNV since 2012, when one person died in a year when 20 human cases were reported.

Older adults and those with weakened immune systems may experience West Nile fever and more severe issues, including inflammation of the brain or the lining of the brain.

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Harvey says if symptoms do occur, they usually appear two to 14 days after being bitten by an infected mosquito.

The city says it has recently completed a third round of larviciding treatments on street catch basins and is treating water surfaces on public land in hopes of reducing insect numbers.


Click to play video: 'Positive West Nile Virus cases detected in local animals: HKPR Health Unit'


Positive West Nile Virus cases detected in local animals: HKPR Health Unit




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Joe Jonas filed for divorce from his now-estranged wife, Sophie Turner, after four years of marriage, according to a new report from TMZ. The outlet says that the Jonas Brothers musician filed legal documents to divorce his wife. He has reportedly asked for joint custody of their daughters Willa, 3, and their one-year-old. Sources close to the pair told the outlet that they do have a prenup in place.

The couple’s split comes just two days after multiple reports surfaced on September 3 claiming that the Jonas Brothers band member spoke with two divorce attorneys in Los Angeles. However, the former couple seemingly shut down the breakup rumors at the time. Later that day, Sophie was spotted attending one of Joe’s concerts, while he shared a black and white photo of himself to Instagram wearing his wedding ring. 

Joe has reportedly filed for divorce from Sophie after four years of marriage. (Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock)

Two weeks prior, Sophie shared several sweet Instagram snaps from one of Joe’s concerts at Yankee Stadium in New York City. The first image featured the Game of Thrones alum kissing the top of the “Burnin’ Up” singer’s hand.  “Long, long New York nights,” Sophie captioned her post on August 14. Throughout the summer, however, Joe refrained from sharing photos of Sophie on his social media account. 

The couple share two daughters: Willa, who was born in 2020, and a second child, whom they welcomed in 2022.  After getting married in May 2019, Joe and Sophie kept most of their personal lives — especially their children — out of the public eye. However, the then-dynamic duo occasionally made playful comments about their marriage.

During the Jonas Brothers’ Hollywood Walk of Fame induction ceremony in January, Joe playfully called Sophie his “homie” during his speech.  “You’re my partner in crime,” the “Cake by the Ocean” singer gushed. “You keep me motivated and inspired every day. I strive to be as cool as you.” 

Despite sharing a sweet and fun love life, Sophie previously told Elle U.K. that she missed her home country and jokingly added that she was “slowly dragging [her] husband back [to England].” 

“I really love living in America but, for my mental health, I have to be around my friends and my family,” the Do Revenge star revealed in May 2022. “I miss England so much. The people, the attitude, everything. England would ideally be the final destination, but [Joe] might take quite a bit of convincing!”

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Image Credit: CraSH/imageSPACE/Shutterstock Joe Jonas filed for divorce

Tech

Shareholders in Digital World Acquisition, the investment partner of former president Donald Trump’s media start-up, approved an extension of the company’s merger deadline, giving it more time to complete the deal, Digital World said Tuesday.

The extension will give the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, another year to finalize its long-stalled merger with the parent company of the pro-Trump social network Truth Social.

The approval follows an intense get-out-the-vote campaign and comes just three days before Truth Social’s Sept. 8 liquidation deadline. A failure of the vote would have required the SPAC to dissolve and return $300 million to shareholders, depriving Trump Media & Technology Group of funds from the deal.

Trump’s Truth Social facing a key funding deadline

The company must still meet closing conditions before the merger can be officially recognized. The Securities and Exchange Commission said in July that Digital World had misled investors in official documents filed for the merger process. The SPAC will need to correct those inaccuracies and resubmit the filings before the merger process can resume. The SPAC also has not filed required quarterly financial statements with the SEC covering its operations during the first half of 2023.

Digital World said in filings connected to its initial public offering in September 2021 that the merger proceedings would probably take about a year. But it has faced a series of hurdles requiring it to seek deadline extensions with shareholders’ support. The company also sought a one-year deadline extension in September 2022.

Digital World shares climbed to more than $18 on the news Tuesday morning, but pared some gains to $16.80 a share at 11 a.m. The stock peaked in 2021 at about $175 a share.

Eric Swider, Digital World’s chief executive, said in a Truth Social post Tuesday morning: “Thank you for all of the outstanding support. Please understand my silence. We remain focused on the task at hand and are watching every word we say.”

Trump offered no immediate comment. Swider and representatives of Trump Media did not respond to requests for comment.

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Comment on this storyCommentShareholders in Digital World

Video

Hulu has released the first trailer for No One Will Save You, an alien-invasion thriller starring Kaitlyn Dever. Have a look the clip above and the key art below.

Dopesick Emmy nominee and Last Man Standing alum Dever plays Brynn Adams, a creative and talented young woman who’s been alienated from her community. Lonely but ever hopeful, Brynn finds solace within the walls of the home where she grew up — until she’s awakened one night by strange noises from decidedly unearthly intruders. What follows is a faceoff between Brynn and a host of extraterrestrial beings who threaten her future while forcing her to deal with her past. 

“I think there’s a deeply buried feeling that every alien invasion movie could turn out to be true because they remain such an unknown in our daily lives,” writer-director Duffield said. “As our world careens more and more out of control, maybe there’s even a desire that there’s something out there smarter than us that can help put us on a more sane path. The aliens in No One Will Save You are superior to humans in every way, which makes Brynn and her surprising resistance somewhat puzzling to them.” 

The pic begins streaming September 22 on Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ in all other territories. Tim White, Trevor White, Allan Mandelbaum and Duffield produce; Dever and Joshua Throne executive produce.

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Entertaintment

Comments Aaron Paul made to Entertainment Tonight Canada at a recent SAG-AFTRA rally are gaining traction on social media after the Emmy winner suggested he is not seeing any money from Netflix when it comes to “Breaking Bad” residuals.

Paul starred opposite Bryan Cranston on all five seasons of the acclaimed AMC drama series. Netflix is credited with greatly boosting the show’s popularity after making the first three seasons available to stream before Season 4 started airing on AMC. “Breaking Bad” then became a Netflix fixture, so much so that the show’s sequel film, “El Camino,” which starred Paul, was a Netflix original.

“I don’t get a piece from Netflix on ‘Breaking Bad’ to be totally honest and that’s insane to me,” Paul told the publication while striking alongside former co-stars Cranston and Jesse Plemons.

“Shows live forever on these streamers and it goes through waves,” Paul continued. “And I just saw the other day that ‘Breaking Bad’ was trending on Netflix, and it’s just such common sense, and a lot of these streamers, they know they have been getting away with not paying people just fair wage and now it’s time to pony up.”

Netflix did not return Variety’s request for comment.

Cranston has joined picket lines in both New York City and Los Angeles since the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike. He notably gave a rousing speech in Times Square in late July in which he directly targeted Disney CEO Bob Iger.

“We’ve got a message for Mr. Iger,” Cranston said. “I know, sir, that you look [at] things through a different lens. We don’t expect you to understand who we are. But we ask you to hear us, and beyond that to listen to us when we tell you we will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots. We will not have you take away our right to work and earn a decent living. And lastly, and most importantly, we will not allow you to take away our dignity! We are union through and through, all the way to the end!”

Watch more of Cranston and Paul at a recent SAG-AFTRA strike in the video below.

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Comments Aaron Paul made to Entertainment Tonight

Latest News

“Yellowstone” star Kevin Costner finally explained why he stepped away from the Dutton Ranch.

Taking the stand during a child support hearing on Friday, Costner said that he and the studios behind “Yellowstone” failed to strike a deal to ensure his continued commitment, according to multiple reports. The hearing in Santa Barbara comes amid his divorce from wife Christine Baumgartner.

“I couldn’t help them any more,” he said, People reported. “We tried to negotiate, they offered me less money than previous seasons, there were issues with the creative.”

Speculation around Costner’s exit surfaced in February, when Deadline reported that Paramount Global and Paramount Network were looking to end “Yellowstone,” from co-creator and showrunner Taylor Sheridan. Months later, Paramount announced that “Yellowstone” would end with his fifth season, which aired in two parts.

The second half of the final season was set to premiere in November, though that was before the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes prompted studios and networks to reconsider their fall offerings.

In June, Sheridan opened up about the “Yellowstone” drama, saying that he was “disappointed” by Costner’s exit. “It truncates the closure of his character,” he told the Hollywood Reporter at the time. “It doesn’t alter it, but it truncates it.”

At the center of the alleged “Yellowstone” tension were creative differences and Costner’s commitment to his four-film series titled “Horizon.” Costner will star, direct and co-write the films.

“His movie seems to be a great priority to him and he wants to shift focus. I sure hope [the movie is] worth it — and that it’s a good one,” Sheridan told THR.

Costner reportedly said during Friday’s hearing that he changed his “Horizon” schedule to film the first part of “Yellowstone” Season 5. He also alleged that no scripts for the season’s second half had been written. People reported that Costner was open to returning for a potential sixth season of the show.

“Have them pay me whatever number, we came up with a number, and they [‘Yellowstone’] walked away,’” said the Oscar-winning “Dances With Wolves” filmmaker. People reported that Costner was seeking $12 million.

He reportedly added, “I will probably go to court” over compensation for the second half of Season 5.

“I’ve been told it’s a little disappointing that [it’s] the #1 show on TV, I’m not participating,” he said, according to People.

Representatives for Paramount and Sheridan did not respond to The Times’ separate requests for comment Tuesday.

On Friday, a Santa Barbara judge ruled in favor of Costner, 68, deciding that his child support payments will not be increased. Baumgartner, 49, had requested that he pay a monthly total of $161,592. He will now pay $63,209 in monthly child support fees, according to Fox News Digital.

Former model and handbag designer Baumgartner filed to dissolve her 18-year marriage to Costner in May.

“It is with great sadness that circumstances beyond his control have transpired which have resulted in Mr. Costner having to participate in a dissolution of marriage action,” a rep for Costner told The Times. “We ask that his, Christine’s and their children’s privacy be respected as they navigate this difficult time.”

Times staff writer Emily St. Martin contributed to this report.

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“Yellowstone” star Kevin Costner finally explained

MCU

Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame certainly solidified Thanos as one of the greatest threats to the Marvel universe, but how can Marvel follow that up with the Infinity Saga being over and the Multiverse Saga in full swing?

Introducing an even bigger threat than Thanos, that’s how.

Kang the Conqueror has already proven himself to be not only a worthwhile adversary for the Avengers but perhaps the team’s toughest foe to date.

Kang is more than a “Thanos-like big bad,” as plenty have pointed out. Yes, Kang is being set up as the overarching villain of the Multiverse Saga like Thanos was for the Infinity Saga, but Kang is an entirely different animal with plenty that differentiates him from his predecessor.

It is worth noting that Jonathan Majors, the actor who plays Kang, is the subject of an ongoing assault case, the trial for which is scheduled to begin in early September. It is always possible that Marvel’s plans for what to do with Kang could change, depending on how the trial plays out and whether Majors stays aboard.

1.) Kang’s MCU Multiverse Saga Set-Up

Marvel

From the get-go of the Multiverse Saga, Kang’s role has been at least somewhat planned. Majors’ casting in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania was reported back in 2020, with the rumor being that he would play Kang.

He made his first on-screen appearance in the franchise the following year in Loki, both symbolically and literally ushering in the new Multiverse-focused era of the MCU as He Who Remains.

Before the words “Multiverse Saga” were even uttered to fans, before announcements of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Kang-centric post-credit scenes, even before the trailer for his first big-screen appearance in Quantumania dropped, fans knew Kang.

And what’s more, fans were prepared for the sudden influx of trans-dimensional shenanigans and Kang influence in future projects, thanks to a year full of Multiverse-oriented stories like Spider-Man: No Way Home, What If…?, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Compare this to the Infinity Saga, wherein Thanos was relegated primarily to post-credit scenes (Guardians of the Galaxy notwithstanding). Fans didn’t learn of Thanos’ grand plan to wipe out half the universe until the movie where said plan was actually enacted. This is no one’s fault in particular — it’s highly likely that a vast, extended Multiverse and a major two-movie crossover event didn’t even cross anyone’s mind during production on early films like Iron Man.

But with the concept of a cinematic universe being so normalized that the phrase “extended Multiverse and major two-movie crossover event” could be referring to more than just the MCU, Marvel was able to lay the groundwork for Kang and slowly build his story in a way the studio couldn’t for Thanos.

2.) Kang’s Vast Variants

Kang Thanos Marvel
Marvel

What’s harder to defeat than a crazed dictator with Multiverse-bending powers and the ability to shape time and space to fit his own will? How about a seemingly never-ending fleet of that same crazed dictator?

Yes, the Avengers did fight two different versions of Thanos throughout Infinity War and Endgame, and yes, he did come with a full fleet. But, one villain with an army is nothing compared to that villain being the army.

Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness (who is also slated to write Avengers: The Kang Dynasty) explained it simply as “we’re going to be seeing a lot of him in a lot of different ways going forward:”

“Kang’s also a very lonely character. We’re going to be seeing a lot of him in a lot of different ways going forward, but I really wanted to introduce the humanity and even the vulnerability of this character before he gets to such apocalyptic, Avengers-scale heights.”

Beyond the sheer number of Kangs, as Loveness said, the concept of variants also allows fans to get to know the character of Kang better prior to the more “apocalyptic” stories down the road.

Fans can see a complete story about Kang, learn about his past, his ambitions, and his goals, and not feel as though story elements were missing, in the final episode of Loki‘s first season. Then, they can do it all again with a different Kang variant in Quantumania.

In this process, two variants have offered fans two different insights into Kang as a character, creating more developed lore for the character. This differs greatly from Thanos, whose backstory was not presented in detail until the movie wherein it began to matter most.

On top of all of this, Kang’s many variants give several opportunities for Majors to portray a villain that, in his words, is “creating a totally different energy than what Thanos is:”

“The exciting thing about getting to originate that character on the page in the MCU was sorta creating a totally different energy than what Thanos is, which is measured and principled, almost monk-like in his evil aspirations. And obviously, He Who Remains is a much more squirrelly, chaotic, narcissistic presence. So that was a lot of fun.”

While here Majors is specifically discussing He Who Remains, fans can notice where this attitude of “creating a totally different energy” comes into play as Majors portrays the other Kang variants in Quantumania.

3.) Kang’s Infinite Impact

Kang MCU Thanos
Marvel

Finally, Kang stands out from Thanos because of the scale of his impact.

One may think that Thanos wiping out half of the universe is about as large-scale as it can get. But Kang is capable of Thanos-level destruction across every universe. Loveness once described him as “almost this infinite Thanos,” as he can do what Thanos can across every single universe:

“Kang is a top-tier, A-list Avengers villain. What do you do when you feel you’re not enough against that? How do you step up to face the challenge of this generation, who is Thanos on an exponential level? He’s almost this infinite Thanos. I think we’re setting things up for a pretty dynamic story.”

Further, combine this concept of Kang’s infinite impact with his seemingly infinite variants, and it gets even scarier. Not only is there a villain capable of wiping a person and every alternate version of that person from all of time and space, but also if someone does manage to defeat him, they will still have a literal arena of the same villain ready to finish the job to deal with.

Now, fans can get excited to see how the Avengers ultimately choose to fight against this threat.

It took five years of stagnancy, Scott Lang accidentally discovering time travel, Tony Stark purposefully inventing time travel, a full team of Avengers, a second full team of Avengers literally appearing out of thin air, and one self-sacrificing Iron Man to prevail against Thanos.

How will the Avengers fare against an army of Kangs, all of whom have an established goal and the capability of literally rewriting every version of existence? That’s the “pretty dynamic story” Loveness was talking about, and that’s how Marvel follows something as groundbreaking as the conclusion of the Infinity Saga.

Kang’s next appearance will be in the second season of Loki, which premieres on October 6.

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DCU

Review: Birds of Prey # 1
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]

Writer: Kelly Thompson
Art: Leonardo Romero
Colors: Jordie Bellaire
Letters: Clayton Cowles

Reviewed by: Matthew B. Lloyd

 

 

Summary

Dinah (Black Canary) Lance has to put together a team to rescue her sister, Sin.  Who will she recruit and will they all say, “yes?”

Positives

The art by Leonardo Romero is simply fantastic.  Romero has a clean, uncluttered style that looks great.  There are some great action sequences that he approaches in different ways and they all work.  It’s clear what’s going on and he brings a dynamic flair to the pages.  In the quieter moments he also shines as he is able to communicate emotion effectively through body language and an economy of line.  Plus, there are some interesting angles he chooses in telling the story.  Jordie Bellaire chooses lighter tones of colors that compliment Romero’s style, which elevates the look of the issue as well.

Thompson focuses the story around Dinah and her character and it works well.  The play here uses DC continuity with the inclusion of Sin who hasn’t been seen since before the New 52 line wide reboot.  It’s a nice touch that makes the series feel connected to the DC Universe as a whole as well as the greater history of the DC Universe.  The character that contacts Dinah for this rescue mission is a well-played surprise that will remain such.  However, the inclusion of this character is a fun and interesting reveal that brings about more questions than it answers.

Positives Cont’d

There was a lot of speculation and internet discussion of this new line up when it was first teased teased.  The proof is in the pudding, and with Birds of Prey # 1 in stores, we get to examine that pudding, now.  As stated above, it’s great to have Dinah be the focus.  Thompson puts her and her family at the center and this works well.  Cassandra is a logical and believable choice for a rescue mission.  She’s stealthy, a known quantity to Dinah and maybe THE best fighter in the DC Universe.  As stated in the opening pages, Dinah needs a team that will make the adversary, “$@#% their pants.”  Cassandra fits this bill.

Next up we have Big Barda.  Barda is definitely a heavy hitter.  For a fight she’s a good choice, but on the stealth side of things, maybe not.  She could’ve learned some things from husband, Scott (Mr. Miracle) Free in this area.  Even so, she’s the muscle of the team and that works well enough.  This is a solid start to the team and the path that Dinah takes to recruit these two is done well, especially as it continues to rely on Dinah’s relationship to the target, Sin.

Negatives

Things start to go in a different direction with the next two choices Thompson has included for this story arc.  Zealot is totally unknown to me, and as a longtime fan of Dinah and the Birds of Prey, it’s seems odd that Dinah would go outside her previous teammates for a mission that is this important and for one she herself says she needs people who are “impeccably trustworthy.”  Cass fits that, and Barda ‘s been in the Birds of Prey before.  It’s alluded that Zealot owes Dinah a favor, and while she may think that Zealot has the skills (whatever they are) for the mission, is Zealot the best choice if it’s only a favor?  Is Zealot really invested in Dinah’s sister or anything that matters to Dinah?  The details in Birds of Prey # 1 are not convincing in this matter.

Thompson herself admitted in the release publicity for this book that she knew Harley Quinn would be divisive.  As with Zealot, the argument Thompson makes for her inclusion is not only unconvincing, and illogical, but…laughable.  It would be one thing to have a character argue that some element of Harley’s skills make sense for the plan, but Thompson has put the team before the plan, so it’s not clear how Harley would fit into this.  What makes even less sense is the argument we do get for her inclusion.

Negatives Cont’d

Cassandra shares a story with the others claiming that Harley is such a good fighter that Harley almost beat her in a confrontation recently.  It’s simply bad writing to suddenly imbue Harley Quinn with this sort of skill level.  It’s just as hard to imagine that Dinah would believe it.  So, even if Cass has an ulterior motive in convincing the team, Dinah should see through that fairly quickly.  It also doesn’t make sense that Dinah would go against her instincts on Harley’s trustworthiness that Thompson does include in the issue.  The bottom line is that Harley will always feel forced when included on a Birds of Prey roster.  There’s an argument coming up below that will claim this isn’t the Birds of Prey, just a team Dinah’s putting together for a mission.  However, Birds of Prey or not, like Zealot, Birds of Prey # 1 doesn’t make a convincing argument for Harley being on the team or for Dinah to go against her instincts. 

The idea that Harley is a “wildcard” is nothing more than Thompson not having a real reason to include her that makes sense.  It sounds cool, but is ultimately shallow.  Unless of course, like her newfound fighting ability Cassandra describes, Harley manifests whatever Thompson needs for the plot to work!  Thompson wants to use Harley, but it doesn’t add to the plot in any way or even make sense.

Here’s a real wildcard for you:  The individual that contacted Dinah about Sin’s abduction claims she can’t tell Barbara.  which is then the in-story reason for Barbara not being included.  What if, the Harley they recruit isn’t Harley at all, but Barbara in disguise as Harley?  That’s about the only way that it would make sense for Barbara not being on Dinah’s handpicked team, or Harley being on it!

Negatives Cont’d

Perhaps, the single greatest negative with this issue is that Barbara Gordon is not part of the team Dinah puts together.  I’ve argued before that Barbara is essential to the Birds of Prey, she’s what makes the team THE Birds of Prey, otherwise it’s just a collection of female heroes/anti-heroes or whatever. (The Birds of Prey aren’t always female either, just ask Hawk, Savant or Creote). 

Additionally, and as mentioned above, it doesn’t make sense that Dinah wouldn’t include her closest allies.  She’s got Huntress marked off the list on page 2!  While the final reveal of who’s abducted Sin implies that Dinah needs some heavy hitters, it also suggests that this team will need to be committed to Dinah (trustworthy!) and it stands to reason that those closest to her would be the best choices, friends and former teammates like Babs, Helena, Nightwing, Ollie and Roy, Zinda (Lady Blackhawk) Blake etc…. 

Verdict 

This issue is a bit of a mixed bag.  The art on Birds of Prey # 1 is  great.  The plot and focus on Dinah is interesting and engaging.  It’s the details that detract from the overall big ideas.  The line up of the “team” is obviously the biggest with some of the sub-details that go along with that which logically follow, the inexplicable reasoning for including Harley for example.  The line up ends up being confusing instead of exciting.  This line up might be interesting if Dinah fell into the situation and had to make do with them to get the job done.   This suggests that if this were not called Birds of Prey, it would get a higher rating because it could be viewed as its own thing.  Or, if Barbara Gordon (as Oracle OR Batgirl) and Helena (Huntress) Bertinelli were in the line up it would feel like the Birds of Prey and  it would’ve been a 9/10.

 

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125 Review: Birds of Prey # 1[Editor’s Note:

Comics

TikTok appears ready to move the platform closer to a full-fledged social network. As spotted by Axios, the company has posted new job listings for positions focused on social networking features and expanded direct messaging. A “Product manager – TikTok social” posting reads that the company wants to build “meaningful social connections between users.”

The job listings are reportedly connected to worries within the organization about retaining and growing user engagement. “Inside TikTok, there’s concern that users are sharing TikTok videos externally on other social media and messaging apps when they want to discuss them with friends,” Axios reported, citing sources within the company. Job postings for mobile engineers say the candidates will focus on “building a reliable and adaptive platform that enables users to meet and interact with their real-life friends seamlessly on TikTok, and encourage them to share their life moments with each other and stay connected regardless of where they are.”

Expanding TikTok’s messaging features appears to be of primary importance. One job listing for a backend tech lead admits that the company’s messaging capability is in “its infancy,” according to Axios. That posting said the person hired will “explore and implement diversified social solutions” while referring to creating messaging that’s a “distinctive TikTok social solution.”

TikTok made its bones on viral videos — with social features mostly limited to peripheral interactions such as likes, comments and reposts. As rival platforms like Instagram integrate more TikTok-like features, it seems logical the company would return the favor by expanding its social capabilities. However, it stressed that video remains at the heart of its identity when trying new things. A TikTok spokesperson told Axios: “Being an entertainment channel has always been and remains the core of TikTok’s business model even as we experiment with new features to enhance the user experience.”

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TikTok appears ready to move the platform

Festivals

With new seasons of all CBS scripted series delayed by the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the network has relied on shows from within Paramount Global and beyond for fresh scripted fare to put on the fall schedule. That will now include an extension of CBS’ biggest drama franchise of the past decade, NCIS, with episodes that will make their U.S. debut on the broadcast network just three days after their worldwide premiere in Australia.

NCIS: Sydney, the first international spinoff for a CBS Studios global drama franchise, was commissioned last year by Paramount+ Australia and the country’s Paramount-owned Network 10. It will debut exclusively on Paramount+ Australia Nov. 10, followed by its U.S. premiere on CBS Nov. 13, with weekly rollout of new episodes on both.

On CBS, NCIS: Sydney will air Mondays 10 PM, following a rerun of the mothership series at 9 PM. The 10 PM slot, previously labeled as “Paramount+ original TBA” in the revised CBS fall schedule released in July, had been earmarked for NCIS: Sydney; the delay in the announcement was due to hammering out the necessary deals to make it happen. Warming up the 10 PM time period from late September, when the broadcast season launches, until NCIS: Sydney comes on, will be repeats of NCIS: Hawai’i, currently airing at 9 PM on the night.

With the addition of NCIS: Sydney, CBS has found a way to build programming blocks featuring three of its most popular scripted series, pairing repeats with some sort of fresh (for a U.S. broadcast network) content. On Tuesdays, FBI reruns at 10 PM will be preceded by Paramount+ docuseries FBI: True. And on Thursday, reruns of hit comedy Ghosts will be followed by episodes of the original BBC series, which streams on Max in the U.S.

Other new-to-broadcast series CBS will be airing this fall include Paramount Network’s juggernaut Yellowstone and former CBS drama-turned-Paramount+ original SEAL Team.

“NCIS is one of the most popular series in the world and we’re thrilled to expand this franchise with a uniquely Australian twist,” said Amy Reisenbach, President, CBS Entertainment. “With the addition of NCIS: Sydney, our studio and Network footprint continues to grow in this fascinating world that has been a proven winner with viewers on both linear and streaming platforms. Featuring the stunning backdrop of Australia, the new series will incorporate the high-stakes intrigue, humor and camaraderie that have kept fans captivated by the NCIS teams for over two decades.”

NCIS: Sydney, starring Olivia Swann (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) and Todd Lasance (Spartacus: War of the Damned), will be available in all Paramount+ international markets and on Australia’s Network 10 at a later date. In the U.S., its run will be on CBS, with Paramount+ only streaming a handful of recent episodes.

“Bringing NCIS: Sydney to Paramount+ international markets is a true testament to the power of One Paramount across our content and platforms,” said Marco Nobili, EVP and International General Manager, Paramount+. “With this exciting new chapter of one of the world’s most successful TV dramas, we unveil new characters and incredible locations to the eager NCIS fandom on Paramount+, broadening our reach and fulfilling our mission to entertain audiences around the world.”

Created by Morgan O’Neill (Les Norton), who also serves as executive producer alongside Sara Richardson and Sue Seeary (Ten Pound Poms), NCIS: Sydney sees rising international tensions in the Indo-Pacific. The brilliant and eclectic team of U.S. NCIS Agents and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are grafted into a multi-national taskforce, to keep naval crimes in check, in the most contested patch of ocean on the planet.

The series, filmed in Sydney, stars Swann as NCIS Special Agent Michelle Mackey and Lasance as her 2IC AFP counterpart, Sergeant Jim “JD” Dempsey. They are joined by Sean Sagar as NCIS Special Agent, DeShawn Jackson, Tuuli Narkle as AFP Liaison Officer, Constable Evie Cooper; Mavournee Hazel as AFP Forensic Scientist, Bluebird ‘Blue’ Gleeson and William McInnes as AFP Forensic Pathologist, Dr Roy Penrose.

A local international co-production for CBS Studios, NCIS: Sydney is produced by Endemol Shine Australia for CBS Studios and Paramount Australia, and distributed outside Australia by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

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With new seasons of all CBS scripted

Film

We already knew Selena Gomez is resilient. She has faced serious medical challenges and mental-health struggles with grace and candidness, taking breaks as needed and trudging through when she sees fit. So while it’s understandably easy to sink into self-pity mode after breaking a bone, it’s no surprise that a recent injury isn’t going to stop the multi-hyphenate from enjoying one of her favorite things: makeup.

Being on Selena Gomez Manicure Watch is basically part of my job description, so imagine my concern when, while doing my daily tap-and-squint Instagram Stories ritual of looking for a new manicure on her fingertips I instead saw a brace on one of her hands.

It turns out Gomez tripped over the long dress she was wearing while walking from her car to her house, breaking her hand. She revealed on the Ellen K radio show, having upgraded from a brace to a cast, that she even had to get surgery on it.

But as of last night, it seems Gomez is functioning quite well through the pain of the injury and the bulkiness of the cast. She took several selfie videos at what appears to be dinner with friends, the first of which shows her holding up what appears to be the new Rare Beauty Brow Harmony Flexible Lifting Gel. In the next two slides, she’s brushing the gel upwards through her brows with her injured hand, like a champ.

Instagram/Selena Gomez

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We already knew Selena Gomez is resilient.

TV

CBS just smiled and gave us a Vegemite sandwich. “NCIS: Sydney,” previously announced as a Paramount+ Australia original and the first international edition of CBS’ “NCIS” procedural franchise, is making it to the U.S. shores as well. CBS will air “NCIS: Sydney” this fall on Monday nights at 10 p.m., starting Nov. 13, following its exclusive Paramount+ Australia premiere on Friday, Nov. 10.

CBS had previously announced a Monday night schedule for fall that included “NCIS” repeat at 9 p.m. ET, followed by an unspecified “Paramount+ Original” at 10 p.m., which has now been confirmed to be “NCIS: Sydney.”

“’NCIS’ is one of the most popular series in the world and we’re thrilled to expand this franchise with a uniquely Australian twist,” said CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach in a statement. “With the addition of ‘NCIS: Sydney,’ our studio and network footprint continues to grow in this fascinating world that has been a proven winner with viewers on both linear and streaming platforms. Featuring the stunning backdrop of Australia, the new series will incorporate the high-stakes intrigue, humor and camaraderie that have kept fans captivated by the ‘NCIS’ teams for over two decades.”

The series arrives as part of CBS’ strike contingency fall lineup, which also includes another international import (the original U.K. version of the comedy “Ghosts”), the broadcast TV premiere of Paramount Network’s “Yellowstone,” and other Paramount+ fare including “FBI True” and “Seal Team” (which had originally aired on CBS before moving to the streamer). Original unscripted entries includes super-sized editions of “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race,” as well as new series “Loteria Loca,” “Buddy Games” and “Raid the Cage.”

“NCIS: Sydney” stars Olivia Swann (“DC’s Legends of Tomorrow”) as NCIS Special Agent Michelle Mackey and Todd Lasance (“Without Remorse”) as her 2IC AFP counterpart, Sergeant Jim “JD” Dempsey. The series also stars Sean Sagar (“The Covenant”), Tuuli Narkle (“Mystery Road: Origin”). Mavournee Hazel (“Shantaram”) and William McInnes (“The Newsreader”).

Morgan O’Neill (“Les Norton”) created “NCIS: Sydney” and is executive producer with Sara Richardson (“RFDS”) and Sue Seeary (“Ten Pound Poms”). The series is produced by Endemol Shine Australia for CBS Studios and Paramount Australia, and distributed outside Australia by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

Here’s the logline to the series: “Filmed against the spectacular backdrop of one of the world’s most breathtaking harbour cities, ‘NCIS: Sydney’ is the first-ever international series from the global ‘NCIS’ franchise outside of the U.S., and sees rising international tensions in the Indo-Pacific. The brilliant and eclectic team of U.S. NCIS Agents and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are grafted into a multi-national taskforce, to keep naval crimes in check, in the most contested patch of ocean on the planet.”

Following the Australian and U.S. debuts of “NCIS: Sydney,” the series will be available in all Paramount+ international territories at a later date. “Bringing ‘NCIS: Sydney’ to Paramount+ international markets is a true testament to the power of ‘One Paramount’ across our content and platforms,” Marco Nobili, Paramount+ executive VP and international general manager, said in a statement. “With this exciting new chapter of one of the world’s most successful TV dramas, we unveil new characters and incredible locations to the eager NCIS fandom on Paramount+, broadening our reach and fulfilling our mission to entertain audiences around the world.”

The original “NCIS” debuted on CBS in 2003 and aired its 20th season beginning in September 2022. There have been three other spinoffs to date: “NCIS: Los Angeles” (2009-2023), “NCIS: New Orleans” (2014-2021), and “NCIS: Hawai’i” (2021-present). “NCIS” and “NCIS: Hawai’i” will be back for their 21st and 3rd seasons, respectively, once production resumes post-strikes.

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CBS just smiled and gave us a

What to Watch

Amazon Studios has finally announced the Candy Cane Lane release date for its next collaboration with Oscar nominee Eddie Murphy, following 2021’s comedy sequel Coming 2 America. The upcoming holiday movie will be available for streaming on December 1, exclusively on Prime Video.

“I can’t wait for the world to see Candy Cane Lane,” director Reginald Hudlin said in a statement. “I’ve wanted to make a Christmas movie my whole life, but I wanted to do something fresh and surprising. Eddie Murphy and this hilarious cast really bring the funny, it’s super Christmas-y, and it will hit you right in the feels.”

What to expect in Candy Cane Lane?

“This holiday comedy adventure follows a man on a mission to win his neighborhood’s annual Christmas home decoration contest,” reads the synopsis. “After Chris inadvertently makes a deal with a mischievous elf named Pepper to better his chances of winning, she casts a magic spell that brings the 12 Days of Christmas to life, and wreaks havoc on the whole town. At the risk of ruining the holidays for his family, Chris, his wife Carol and their three children must race against the clock to break Pepper’s spell, battle deviously magical characters, and save Christmas for everyone.”

Candy Cane Lane is directed by Reginald Hudlin from a spec script written by Kelly Younger, which was inspired by Younger’s childhood holiday experiences. The film also stars Tracee Ellis Ross, Jillian Bell, Thaddeus J. Mixson, Ken Marino, Nick Offerman, Robin Thede, Chris Redd, Genneya Walton, Madison Thomas, D.C. Young Fly, Riki Lindhome, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes, Lombardo Boyar, Danielle Pinnock, and Timothy Simons.

It is produced by Murphy as part of his three-picture and first-look film deal with Amazon Studios, along with Brian Grazer, Karen Lunder, and Charisse Hewitt-Webster. It is executive produced by Doug Merrifield.

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Amazon Studios has finally announced the Candy

Awards

Money money money… As ABBA once pointed out, it’s a rich man’s world. But even after the runaway success of the “ABBA Voyage” digital live experience in London, producers say it has yet to recoup the extraordinary investment needed to put on the show.

“No, we haven’t broken even,” says producer Svana Gisla. “I don’t even know if we’re halfway to breaking even! The audacity of how much this show costs – it was all a bit mad. But we will get there…”

The smash hit show, staged in a purpose-built arena in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, welcomed its one-millionth visitor back in April and is still playing to joyful, sold-out houses every night, 15 months after it first launched. It’s now booking through May 2024 in London and Gisla, fellow producer Ludvig Andersson, and director Baillie Walsh all hope to prolong that stay further.

“If we can extend the lease and we’re still selling tickets, then hopefully it will run as long as ‘Mamma Mia!’ or longer,” Walsh tells Variety. “I’d love it to be going into its 20th year with me as an old codger, walking with a stick, but still enjoying the audience singing along.”

Despite ABBA’s massive financial investment and the band’s pan-generational fanbase, the team tell Variety that launching the show still carried a huge element of risk. “I’m so proud of all of us for having pulled it off,” says Gisla. “Because we could have fucked it up and destroyed the legacy of ABBA forever. That was definitely an option!”

“We can still fuck it up!” adds Andersson. “It’s never too late for it to be a catastrophe…”

In their dreams, however, they have a plan – the trio are quietly contemplating expanding the show. The potential to update the show is being explored, while there have been rumors of possible openings in Las Vegas and elsewhere. Earlier this year, Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge told his company’s earnings call that “Plans are now in development to take ‘ABBA Voyage’ around the world,” but Andersson notes it’s not quite that simple.

“In the sense of going on the road, it was never an option, because it’s just too big and heavy of a thing,” he says. “You can’t move it around. What you can do is, do the same thing somewhere else and we’ve been looking at that for a long time. There are still options out there, but nothing is set in stone. And if that is North America, South-East Asia or Australasia, we’ll see – but we’re absolutely working on it.”

Gisla adds that the cost of the show remains a hurdle for many locations. “Everyone’s interested until you put the budget in front of them and say, ‘How about that?’” she laughs. “You can’t just pop up in some theater in Vegas, put some lights up and put digital ABBA on stage.”

The team explains the expense is also likely to deter most other artists from developing a similar experience. “People have been in touch, but you’ve got to be a band of a certain stature to even contemplate it,” says Walsh. “Luckily, ABBA are that creatively curious that they wanted to go ahead despite the enormous expense.”

“We haven’t really invented anything,” adds Andersson. “We just did a thing – and it turned out to be a beautiful thing. But there’s no blueprint here that you can take and go, ‘Ok, let’s just do this with another artist’. If you think of it like that, my advice would be that that’s a terrible idea.”

Gisla says the members of ABBA often attend the show incognito and are rarely recognized. But despite the success of Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s digital versions, Baillie Walsh says he can’t see avatar shows ever rivaling traditional touring.

“People are always going to want to play live,” he says. “We’ve proved you can get emotion from the audience with avatars – that’s amazing and wonderful. But live music’s never going to stop.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++

Reading and Leeds Festival organizers must have wished they could book a few digital avatars to play their legendary stages in recent years. After last year’s late dropouts from Rage Against the Machine, Måneskin and Jack Harlow, 2023 saw Lewis Capaldi withdraw to focus on his mental and physical health, while Trippie Redd dropped out at the last minute due to illness.

For the second year running, Festival Republic managing director Melvin Benn turned to The 1975 – the Red Adairs of Reading & Leeds – as replacement headliners, again paying “a huge amount of money” to get them to step in.

“They wanted to do it to show love to Lewis Capaldi,” Benn tells Variety. “It’s good that [Capaldi] is not playing for his health – as much as it’s a loss to us, it’s the right thing; until he’s well enough he shouldn’t be playing. But there will be a day when he’ll come back and we can’t wait for that day.”

Benn reports that weekend tickets moved more slowly this year than last (which he had called the festival’s “best year ever”), but the event finally sold out on the weekend it was staged. But he does not think the U.K.’s massive summer of stadium shows from the likes of Blur, Arctic Monkeys, the Weeknd, Harry Styles and many more had a significant impact on sales.

“It’s challenging in some respects,” he says. “But it doesn’t seem to have affected festival tickets, which is great and reinforces how important live music is. Despite all the economic difficulties – and it is very tough for people – people still find money to go and see live music. It’s an incredible testament to what our industry is.”

The 2022 festival was hit by some Sunday night trouble on the campsites – which Benn blames on “copycats” who had watched the Woodstock ’99 documentary, “Trainwreck,” a big hit on Netflix at the time. Campfires were banned this year, with no subsequent reports of major incidents.

Reading and Leeds have become a “rite of passage” for British teenagers, with thousands heading straight to the festivals after receiving their GCSE results. The youthful audience means the events have moved away from their traditional rock-heavy line-ups in recent years, although the upper echelons of this year’s bill featured the guitar-toting likes of the Killers, Sam Fender, Foals and Imagine Dragons (Billie Eilish was the sole female headliner this year, something Benn says he hopes to improve upon in 2024).

Further changes are also on the way. “There will be a shift change next year,” Benn adds. “I’m not publicizing what it is yet, but there’s a musical shift change among young people and Reading/Leeds always has to reflect that and maintain its relevance. Musically, it’s never stood still – and it doesn’t intend to.”

+++++++++++++++++++++

Meanwhile, the U.K. music industry is hoping the launch of a new, northern version of the famous BRIT School will help produce the next generation of British festival headliners.

Trade body the BPI had its proposal for a “BRIT School North” in Bradford – which will be the U.K. City of Culture in 2025 – approved by the government and is now working towards a launch in 2026 or 2027. The bid was a collaboration with the three major record companies as well as the East London Arts & Music (ELAM) school and the London Screen Academy, with Universal, Sony and Warner all committing to contribute funding.

Since it opened in 1991, the O.G. BRIT School has had a remarkable track record in producing hit artists: the likes of Adele, Amy Winehouse, Leona Lewis and Spider-Man actor Tom Holland have all passed through its halls, while a quarter of this year’s nominees for the Mercury Music Prize with FREENOW attended the school.

And new BPI CEO Jo Twist hopes that the northern site will be every bit as successful as its southern counterpart.

“I have no doubt that we’re going to see some real stars, both in the performance space and the production space, coming out of this school,” Twist tells Variety. “We need a diverse set of young people coming into our industry, taking up all different kinds of roles.”

Twist says the Bradford school will “put an emphasis on talented young people from under-served backgrounds” and help young people pursue a creative arts career without having to move to London.

“It’s an encouraging sign that the government is taking creative arts education more seriously,” she says. “In a world of AI, we’re moving into a different kind of industrial revolution and we need people who have emotional intelligence, which you gain through our creative arts.”

Twist started her BPI role in July, having joined from Ukie, the trade body for U.K. games and interactive entertainment. She has already been busy meeting people from across the U.K. music business and gaining insight into its many current challenges.

“There are lots of parallels with the video games industry,” she says. “An exchange of perspectives is always really healthy. It is challenging – and that’s exactly what I was looking for.”

Although one in every 10 songs streamed globally is by a British artist (per the British Phonographic Industry), many local executives are concerned that the U.K.’s long history of punching above its weight musically is under threat, with a lack of recent global breakthroughs. But Twist says she is “confident we can maintain our place and do even better.”

“The investment that labels put into artists and the industry is brilliant,” she says. “The government has set a vision to grow the creative industries, support extra jobs, and help build a pipeline of talent for the future – and we are so well-placed as a sector to help fulfill and power that ambition. I’m looking forward to really getting stuck in.”

+++++++++++++++++++++

Elsewhere, another of the U.K.’s big trade bodies is looking for a new leader after the announcement that U.K. Music chief executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin is to become Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s new director of strategy.

Njoku-Goodwin seemed like a leftfield appointment for U.K. Music when he joined in 2020, having previously worked as a special adviser to the government. But he soon established himself in music circles and helped steer the industry through the effects of the pandemic. His contributions have been widely praised by the bosses of other U.K. trade bodies, including the BPI, AIM, the MMF and the Ivors Academy.

His leaving date has yet to be announced, but Variety understands it will be sooner rather than later, with the search for his successor beginning shortly.

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Money money money… As ABBA once pointed

Music

There isn’t technically homework for Beyoncé’s epic Renaissance world tour, but you should try to come prepared, which, obviously, Zendaya and Tom Holland did.

To start with, they attended the Labor Day concert—on Bey’s birthday no less—in the correct clothing. Per Queen Bey’s request that the audience wear silver, Zendaya wore head to toe sparkles: a crop top and skirt set, oversized jacket, and silver hoops. Holland did a black leather thing, but he wore a Renaissance T-shirt.

Second, they aced the “mute challenge,” which is a point during the concert when Beyoncé, singing “ENERGY,” performs the line, “Big wave in the room, the crowd gon’ move, Look around everybody on mute,” and attendees go silent. It’s become a thing in the fandom where each city tries to ace the mute challenge, and I may be biased but…Los Angeles gets a gold medal. Here’s TomDaya taking the mute direction very seriously from the floor:

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Of course, they did have practice. The Spider-Man stars also attended a Renaissance show together in Warsaw, Poland, earlier this summer, and Zendaya danced to Beyoncé at her assistant’s birthday party. Certified BeyHive member. In our 2017 cover interview with the star, she cited the singer as one of her inspirations and role models alongside Shonda Rhimes, Oprah and Michelle Obama. Which reminds us…how has Michelle not been to Renaissance yet? Sasha, Malia, get on this.

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There isn't technically homework for Beyoncé's epic

Docs

September 5, 2023 · 12:01 PM

The following past Sundance Film Festival documentaries are scheduled for release this month:

>September 11:
Streaming: OVID

CHILE, OBSTINATE MEMORY
Sundance 1998

Director:
Patricio Guzmán

About:
After twenty-three years in exile, the filmmaker returns to Chile to document the memories of the survivors from deposed democratic leader Salvador Allende’s intimate circle.

>September 13
Streaming: OVID

USERS
Sundance 2021

Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Natalia Almada

Director:
Natalia Almada

About:
A thought-provoking essay about the unexpected consequences of our dependence on technology.

>September 15
In Theatres

INVISIBLE BEAUTY
Sundance 2023

Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by Bruce Weber

Director:
Bethann Hardison, Frédéric Tcheng

About:
Fashion revolutionary Bethann Hardison looks back on her journey as a pioneering Black model, modeling agent, and activist, shining a light on an untold chapter in the fight for racial diversity.

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September 5, 2023 · 12:01 PM The following

Trending


Arnold Schwarzenegger Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Netflix

Arnold Schwarzenegger got candid about how he persevered while recovering from his third open heart surgery after it didn’t go as planned.

“I remember when I had my open heart surgery, the third one, which was just a few years ago just before we started Terminator 6,” Schwarzenegger, 76, said in a recent YouTube video for his channel The Pump Club. “I was really freaking out. I woke up and all of a sudden the doctors were in front of me saying, ‘I’m so sorry, but it was unlike what we planned.’”

Schwarzenegger explained that the 2018 procedure was supposed to be a “non-invasive” surgery. However, the medical team “made a mistake and poked through the heart wall” which led to internal bleeding. Schwarzenegger said that his doctor told him that surgeons “had to open you up to save your life.”

“The bottom line is, you cannot roll the clock back. It was a disaster. I was in the middle of a disaster. So now how do I get out of it? You have to shift gears,” he said in the clip. “Collect yourself, shift gears and say, ‘OK, what I need to do now is get out of this hospital.’”

For his recovery, Schwarzenegger’s game plan was to take things slow and just start by “getting out of bed and start walking.” His goal was to begin with “10 steps” and then gradually increase the amount each time. As he began to make progress, Schwarzenegger sought out the support of his friends for some extra motivation.

“I called my buddies in and said, ‘You guys have to fire me up. You have to count the number of steps that I’m doing,’” he shared alongside footage of him and his pals walking around the hospital. “And this is what we did, every day. Everybody came into the hospital, They said, ‘OK, Arnold, it’s time to get up!’”

Arnold Schwarzenegger Says Positive Attitude Helped His Recovery After Disaster 3rd Open Heart Surgery 326
thecelebrityfinder/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Schwarzenegger admitted his motivation for a speedy recovery came from wanting to start training again as he was gearing up to film Terminator: Dark Fate — which was released in 2019.

“I wanted to get really going with the exercise, get out of the hospital as quick as possible, and then get going with the training again,” he said, explaining that the film required him to be able to “move around, run around, lift things up, do the fight scene, all these things.”

While Schwarzenegger’s motivation came from wanting to get back to work, he credits his success to his optimistic mindset and his loved ones’ support. The actor shares daughters Katherine Schwarzenegger, 33, and Christina Schwarzenegger, 32, and sons Patrick Schwarzenegger, 29, and Christopher Schwarzenegger, 25, with ex-wife Maria Shriver, as well as son Joseph Baena, 25, whom he shares with Mildred “Patty” Baena, with whom he had an affair while married to Shriver, 67.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Through the Years

Related: He’ll Be Back! Arnold Schwarzenegger Through the Years

From Terminator to Governator! Arnold Schwarzenegger played many roles throughout his impressive career. The Jingle All the Way star was born in Thal, Austria in July 1947 as the son of a police officer. As a teenager, Schwarzenegger developed an interest in weight training when his football coach brought him to a local gym. After […]

 

Arnold closed out his message by emphasizing his “positive attitude.”

“[I] knew exactly how I was going to get there,” he explained. “[And] I had the support system because none of this we can do by ourselves … It was fantastic the way all the guys pumped me up and got me going. And then I started shooting Terminator 6, I was all back together again.”

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Arnold Schwarzenegger Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for

Tech

The 20 individuals profiled below are some of the most influential unsung heroes in entertainment. While they work mostly behind the scenes, the fruits of their labors have an immeasurable impact on the fortunes of their companies and often set precedents and examples for others.

From negotiating deals with talent, to forging partnerships with other enterprises, to strategizing with top management on potential M&A moves, to exercising vigilance over legal threats, in-house attorneys and business affairs executives can be the grown-ups in the room, carefully guiding their companies to success. When not interacting with the outside world and coordinating with outside law firms, they play an important role in setting internal policy in areas ranging from best practices to diversity and inclusion initiatives.

This year, naturally, many wanted to comment on artificial intelligence, considering it both a threat and an opportunity. Jeffrey Harleston, general counsel and exec VP, business and legal affairs, for Universal Music Group, even traveled to Washington, D.C., to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and called for actions to protect creator rights. “AI in the service of artists and creativity is a wonderful thing,” Harleston told the senators. “But AI that… appropriates their work… image, likeness or voice is not.”

In putting this list together, one key fact stood out: Over the past few years, a large number of women and people of color have reached the highest ranks of the industry’s legal and business affairs community. Despite some recent highly visible setbacks, this bolsters the belief that entertainment offers higher-than-average opportunities for corporate mobility. Whatever the cause, there’s reason for hope that a fully level playing field will ultimately emerge.

For editorial questions, please contact Peter Caranicas at peter.caranicas@variety.com and Sharareh Drury at sdrury@variety.com

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The 20 individuals profiled below are some

Video

This story originally ran in Hot Pod Insider, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.

Hope everyone who attended Podcast Movement is replenished and recovered! Last week, I sent a special recap of the conference to Insider subscribers of Hot Pod — which we’re now making available to everyone for free.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back with more in-depth news, analysis, and goodies related to the conference and more. 

Want more from Hot Pod Insider? Sign up here — the first month is free.

Podcast Movement 2023: the good, the bad, the uneventful

What does being a “podcaster” mean in 2023? It’s a descriptor that covers YouTube-native creators like Ethan and Hila Klein of the H3 Podcast. It applies to the creator of a little-known Patreon-backed true crime show or an obscure film rewatch podcast with roughly 1,000 downloads per month. Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes of Smartless are podcasters, though perhaps not in the same way that Ashleigh Kelley and Alaina Urquhart of Morbid are podcasters.

If you ask The Hollywood Reporter, the most powerful voices in podcasting this year include the likes of Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who launched her very first podcast Wiser Than Me back in February), Audie Cornish, Rachel Maddow, and Ben Shapiro. N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN of the hip-hop podcast Drink Champs are included, as are Emma Chamberlain, Alex Cooper, and of course, Joe Rogan. 

The questions of who is a podcaster and what is a podcast are becoming tougher to answer

The questions of who is a podcaster and what is a podcast are becoming tougher to answer, as became evident during this week’s Podcast Movement conference in Denver, Colorado. The four-day affair drew podcasters of all stripes as well as the hosting platforms, ad networks, software vendors, and other companies seeking to court them. All the big players in the podcast and audio space were in attendance at the conference — including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SiriusXM, Libsyn, Acast, and iHeart. The “booth” for Disney’s audio division was styled like a castle. 

The conference had a warm, high-energy vibe to it that seemed hilariously at odds with its choice of venue — the Gaylord Rockies Resort & Convention Center in Aurora (not Denver), Colorado. A few confessed that the hotel resembled the one in The Shining (which is also in Colorado). On the way to the venue from the airport, my Uber driver informed me of an incident last winter when the HVAC system collapsed into the Gaylord’s indoor pool, injuring six people. The pool, coincidentally, was closed during Podcast Movement “due to the weather.” Adding to the weirdness, many Podcast Movement attendees were abruptly woken up around 4AM on Tuesday morning when a fire alarm went off. Attendees who were guests of the hotel told Hot Pod they were stirred awake by the din.

There were many major and minor announcements this week, which Hot Pod will cover in more detail in future issues. These included: 

YouTube will support RSS for podcasters in 2023: YouTube’s Steve McLendon announced the platform would be rolling out RSS for podcasters by the end of the year. YouTube spokesperson Jessica Gibby also confirmed to Hot Pod that podcasts will be rolling out to YouTube Music by the end of 2023. Within YouTube Music, users will have the ability to add RSS feeds to their library — private feeds included.

For podcasters picky about their YouTube thumbnails, they’ll still have the ability to select thumbnails if they upload episodes via RSS feed. “Upon RSS initial upload, creators will not have the ability to customize thumbnails, however, once they are in YouTube Studio, they’ll be able to edit the video just as they would any other,” Gibby wrote in an email to Hot Pod. 

Podcasters are about to learn a lot more about their audiences on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: Spotify and Apple Podcasts both announced creator-focused updates this week aimed at giving podcasters more information to help grow their audiences. 

There’s never been a podcast app equivalent of a “page view”

I spoke to Bumper’s Dan Misener about both changes. He believes Apple’s and Spotify’s updates will be useful to podcasters by giving them more insights beyond mere downloads. In the case of Spotify’s impressions data, Misener believes it will be useful for creators when combined with listening data. Podcasters can understand the conversion rate from someone seeing their podcast’s show page versus someone listening to their podcast.

Podcasters can then test and tweak their show’s packaging — everything from episode titles to show art and descriptions. 

“Up until now, creators haven’t been able to measure the number of people who looked at their show but never ended up listening,” Misener said. “In other words, there’s never been a podcast app equivalent of a ‘page view.’”

Monetization and video were the year’s big topics of discussion: There were numerous panels on how to be more effective at podcasting or monetizing or marketing your podcast. A few attendees remarked that much of the knowledge doled out seemed very old hat and basic, with one person telling Hot Pod they were disappointed given the price of the conference and caliber of talent in attendance. The acoustics of the main conference hall — which held six different stages only several feet across from each — weren’t the best. Many attendees reported that they struggled to hear speakers, as many panels coincided (note the obvious irony of bleeding audio at a podcast conference).

Such missteps didn’t distract other attendees who enjoyed the event. “I always have a great time at Podcast Movement. It feels like summer camp; running into old friends, meeting new creators, and learning about new tech,” Arielle Nissenblatt, SquadCast’s head of community and content, wrote Hot Pod in a message. 

One podcast producer at a major university — who has regularly attended Podcast Movement conferences since 2016 — was less forgiving. In their view, the podcast industry has been struggling with the same monetization and growth challenges since 2016, and the conversation has not evolved since then. “Yeah, I’m not planning on coming back next year.”

Another attendee who had been to past Podcast Movement conferences noted that, unlike in years prior, 2023’s conference didn’t have any surprises. 

“There are no real disrupters in the space this year,” they said. 

The closest thing to a disrupter in the podcasting space may be YouTube, but there seemed to be no consensus on what to do about it. 

At one panel, Libsyn’s Rob Walch warned listeners not to be too quick to drink the YouTube Kool-Aid. Producing a video podcast takes a lot of time and money, he accurately pointed out. Not every audio-only podcast needs a video counterpart. 

Walch also noted that audiences weren’t tuning in to YouTube to watch “people who look like me.”

But Walch’s advice clashed with a handful of panels on how to get better at video podcasting, including a presentation by Amplifi Media and Coleman Insights on “The New Rules of YouTube.” Amplifi’s Steven Goldstein and Coleman Insights’ Jay Nachlis presented the results of a study that indicated that audiences preferred YouTube over every other podcast player. Among audiences who use both Spotify and YouTube to consume podcasts, 70 percent found it more enjoyable to consume podcasts on YouTube and 67 percent found it easier to use. And among those who use both YouTube and Apple Podcasts, roughly 76 percent found YouTube easier to use and 71 percent found it more enjoyable for consuming podcasts. 

While these findings may sound like a convincing case for audio-only podcasts to transition to YouTube, I’m not so sure. YouTube is a completely different animal than audio-only podcasts. Podcasters won’t merely be uploading a “video version” of their audio-only podcast — they’ll be creating an entirely different show that could require a completely different approach.

YouTube’s McLendon noted at a panel that podcasters need to treat their YouTube audience differently than their RSS audience. Nissenblatt interpreted this to mean that audiences behave differently when watching a podcast on YouTube. Therefore, YouTube audiences need to be nurtured and marketed to differently. “There are still going to be people out there who only want to listen to your show — people who have zero desire to watch your podcast,” wrote Nissenblatt.

Conservative media outlet The Daily Wire was back at Podcast Movement this year, much to the chagrin of many attendees. The conference last year apologized for selling The Daily Wire booth space after attendees on social media complained about Ben Shapiro’s presence at the Dallas event. This led to Cumulus Media disassociating with the conference, which later led to Podcast Movement again apologizing. Can’t please everybody, I guess. 

Dan Franks, president of Podcast Movement, had this to say on Friday about the right-wing media outlet’s involvement in this year’s conference. “Leading up to the event they inquired about being an exhibitor, and our sales team worked with them to pick out a booth, as they do with all of our sponsors. Podcast Movement brings the entire podcast ecosystem under one roof, from creators to services to networks, and everything in between. We’re thrilled with the success of this year’s event, we think it was the best one yet!” wrote Franks in an email to Hot Pod. 

Either way, attendees at Podcast Movement seemed to be avoiding The Daily Wire booth like the plague. I made the rounds through the expo hall’s booths several times over the course of the week. Each time, The Daily Wire booth was completely unattended. 

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Entertaintment

French TV sales broke an all-time record of €214.8 million ($230 million) in 2022, a 15.4% year-on rise, bolstered by premium TV series such as Newen’s procedural “HPI,” Federation’s spy series “The Bureau” and Banijay’s period show “Marie Antoinette,” according to a study unveiled by the National Film Board and promotion org Unifrance.

The French org credited the spike in French TV exports to the end of the pandemic and the delivery of fresh content, as well as the return of in-person markets and business travel.

French linear channels still remain the main buyers of local TV content, accounting for 49% of sales, on par with 2021. But deals with streamers have played an increasingly significant role in recent years and represented 43% of all TV sales in 2022, compared with 33.5% in 2021 and 4.6% in 2013. As such, the U.S. was the leading export territory for French TV programs last year, partly thanks to U.S. remake deals for Eric Rochant’s spy thriller “The Bureau” (pictured) to Showtime and “HPI” (“High Potential”) to ABC. Drew Goddard is developing a pilot for ABC based on the French series “HPI.”

The news comes less than a week after it was reported that ABC Signature had acquired the English language adaptation rights to the series, while George Clooney has boarded the remake of “The Bureau,” titled “The Department,” as co-producer and director.

French fiction was the best-selling genre in 2022 with a record-breaking €80.7 million ($86.5 million) in sales, a 40% year-on rise. Animation sales, meanwhile, were down by 5.3% to €57 million ($61.13 million).

Unifrance pointed to a “decline in animation sales for the second year running” but a growing popularity of preschool titles.

With streamers buying more and more content, global rights’ deals accounted for 46.5% of all pacts for fiction, followed by animation and documentary.

On the downside, international pre-sales dropped by half to €50 million ($53 million) in 2021 and was 17% down compared with the last 10-year average. International co-production investments were also down by 38.4% to €54.4 million ($58.3 million). Unifrance is anticipating a slowdown in business to North America, especially with streamers.

“There is a rationalization of investments by streamers, which are turning less and less to the acquisition of worldwide rights, with effects that could be felt in 2023,” said the promotion org, which added that sales to streaming services have also become more complicated because TV channels have been “systematically demanding non-linear rights on content.”

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French TV sales broke an all-time record

Movies

Kareena Kapoor Khan said Jaane Jaan was first offered to Saif Ali Khan. SRK visited the Tirupati temple with Suhana and Nayanthara.

Kareena Kapoor revealed she wasn’t the original choice for Jaane Jaan. Shah Rukh Khan, Suhana Khan and Nayanthara offered prayers at Tirupati.

Kareena Kapoor Khan is all set to make her OTT debut with the Sujoy Ghosh directorial film Jaane Jaan. The crime thriller, also featuring Vijay Varma and Jaideep Ahlawat will stream on Netflix from September 21. However, before Kareena and the current cast, Sujoy had approached Saif Ali Khan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for the film in 2015. The film never got made due to unknown reasons. In a recent interview with News18 Showsha, Kareena revealed Saif’s reaction to the film now landing in her lap.

Read More: Exclusive | Kareena Kapoor Reveals Saif Was Supposed To Do Jaane Jaan With Aishwarya in 2015: ‘I Wasn’t…’

Shah Rukh Khan and his daughter Suhana Khan recently made a trip to Tirupati. The Bollywood superstar, who will be seen in Jawan this weekend, visited the Sri Venkateshwara Swamy Temple with Suhana and Tamil actress Nayanthara. They were also joined by ace Tamil director and Nayanthara’s husband Vignesh Shivan. Shah Rukh and Suhana were walking in the temple when camerapersons started following them. While the father and daughter tried to escape them, their efforts were in vain.

Read More: SRK, Suhana Run Away From Cameras After Offering Prayers at Tirupati Temple, Watch Video

Tamil superstar Dhanush is all set to reunite with director Aanand L Rai for the third time for the film titled Tere Ishk Mein. The film will belong to the same universe as their 2013 collaboration Raanjhanaa. Now, if the latest reports are to be believed, Kiara Advani is also in talks for the movie to play the female lead. However, it should also be noted that there is no official confirmation regarding this so far.

Read More: Kiara Advani To Romance Dhanush In Aanand L Rai’s Tere Ishk Mein? Know Here

Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, which was headlined by Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt, has been selected for a screening at the prestigious Busan International Film Festival in October this year. The film, which saw Johar donning his director’s hat after a long time, is a part of the Open Cinema Section. Johar took to his Instagram story to express his gratitude. Meanwhile, Alia Bhatt wrote, “Another chapter added to our kahaani.”

Read More: Alia Bhatt Is All Hearts, Karan Johar Feels ‘Blessed’ As RRKPK Gets Selected For Busan Film Festival

Reports claiming that beauty mogul Kylie Jenner and actor Timothée Chalamet are dating each other have been making headlines for a long time now. However, they recently confirmed the rumours after they made their first public appearance together at Beyonce’s concert in Los Angeles. In the videos being shared online, Kylie and Timothée can be seen kissing each other lovingly and flirting with each other.

Read More: Kylie Jenner, Timothee Chalamet Lock Lips At Beyonce’s Concert, Confirm Romance; Video Goes Viral

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Kareena Kapoor Khan said Jaane Jaan was

Latest News

Entertainment executive Liz Jenkins has been named to the newly created role of chief business officer for the NBCUniversal Studio Group. The former COO of Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine joins the company with an expansive title to oversee strategy and business operations, reporting to studio chairman and NBCU Chief Content Officer Donna Langley.

“Liz has established herself as an industry leader with a deep understanding of the complexities of our business, and her unique perspective and varied experience fuel her drive for innovation,” Langley said of the hire. “She is a builder; whether it’s brands, individual projects, or culture. As the Studio Group continues to develop and adapt to the new industry climate, Liz will be an incredible partner to me and the broader NBCUniversal team.”

Jenkins will serve as “connective tissue” within the company’s content business, which Langley assumed control of in a July reorganization led by Comcast president Mike Cavanagh. Jenkins takes her post later in September.

In addition to hiring Jenkins, Langley has bolstered several other executives. Peter Levinsohn has bumped up to chairman of global distribution and expands his oversight to the international theatrical team, which continues to be run by Veronkia Kwan Vandenberg. Jimmy Horowitz transitions from vice chairman to chairman of business affairs and operations at NBCUniversal, where he reports to both Langley and Mark Lazarus. Pearlena Igbokwe, chair of the TV production studio Universal Studio Group reports to Langley, while Frances Berwick reports to both Langley and Lazarus as chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment.

Universal Pictures chief marketing officer Michael Moses and franchise manager David O’Connor will continue to report to Langley. Langley’s functional leaders within NBCUniversal Studio Group will be Lissa Freed, global head of human resources; Evan Langweiler, EVP of global communications; General Counsel Chris Miller; and CFO Adam Moysey. West Coast EVP Cindy Gardner is joining Langley’s cabinet, dually reporting to her office and NBCUniversal EVP Adam Miller.

Jenkins joined Hello Sunshine in 2018 as CFO. There she was responsible for establishing and overseeing finance, business affairs, operations, physical production and music, as well as facilitating the growth of the company’s content and direct-to-consumer businesses. She led the acquisitions of SKR Productions and the home organization/lifestyle brand The Home Edit, as well as the 2021 sale of Hello Sunshine to Candle Media.

“The media space has never been more dynamic, disruptive and frankly, disrupted. I’m looking forward to bringing my experience in the independent space to bear in the more interconnected, multi-platform landscape that Donna and her team are building at NBCUniversal Studio Group,” Jenkins said.

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Entertainment executive Liz Jenkins has been named

MCU

Although the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film The Marvels will introduce a new superhero team, an interplanetary threat, and a new Kree antagonist, according to director Nia DaCosta, the heart of the film is really the story of a family dynamic.

The Marvels will unite Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, Kamala Khan/ Ms. Marvel, and Monica Rambeau/Photon after their powers get mysteriously intertwined. In the film, the trio will have to find a way to put aside their reservations about working together to stop Dar-Benn, A Kree accuser.

The Marvels Dar-Benn

Photo: Marvel

“A Sister Story”

While the film will continue the story of three popular MCU characters and promises to be full of action, DaCosta wanted to add something else to the film’s narrative.

“I thought it would be cool to map an estranged family history and sister story onto them,” the filmmaker explains.

The Marvels

Photo: Entertainment Weekly

In The Marvels, the trio of heroes will have their own unique perspectives on teaming up together. Ms. Marvel has long idealized Captain Marvel, even naming herself after the Avenger. Monica Rambeau meanwhile knew Carol Danvers when she was a child, but has perhaps grown disillusioned with the hero after Danvers didn’t return to Earth as she promised.

“Carol’s the oldest, the prodigal, then there’s the middle sister Monica, who Carol knew as a kid and promised she’d come back [to] but then never did,” DeCosta explains.

The Marvels

Photo: Entertainment Weekly

Kamala, one of the youngest MCU heroes will have be introduced to a whole new world when the Kree accuser comes knocking.

“Kamala is the youngest, who hasn’t had the experience of living with this older sister but idolizes her. Now she’s going into space and dealing with crazy space emperors. But the thing I love about Kamala is her belief in people and family.”

The Marvels Nia DaCosta

Photo: Entertainment Weekly

“Even in the midst of being around Captain Marvel and out of her depth,” DaCosta adds, “she’s preserved her strength.”

When Will ‘The Marvels’ Hit Theaters?

The Marvels is set to arrive in theaters on November 10. Despite the ongoing Hollywood strikes, Disney has not indicated that they will delay the film.

Image Credit: Marvel Studios

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Although the upcoming Marvel

DCU

Review: Justice Society of America #6
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]

Writer: Geoff Johns
Art: Marco Santucci
Colors: Ivan Plascencia
Letters: Rob Leigh

 

Reviewed by: Matthew B. Lloyd

 

Summary

The Lost Children are back, and what to do with them?  We catch up with the members of the Justice Society of America as they search for living relatives of the Lost Children.

Positives

Justice Society of America #6 has a strong focus on character.  Whether it’s the Lost Children or the members of the JSA, Geoff Johns put character at the forefront as he moves the big picture forward.  Johns naturally brings the Lost Children over from the Stargirl mini-series as Courtney shows up at JSA headquarters with the android Hourman in tow with her own ideas about what to do with the Lost Children.  While the question on everyone’s mind has to be about the meeting of Judy and Jay Garrick for the first time in decades, its brief with a quick catchup on Judy’s history, but the real emotional reunion with mom, Joan is either left for a future issue or it takes place off panel.

The most intense family reunion is between Bruce Wayne and his daughter, Helena.  Though they’ve met before in this series, we get a one-one on moment with cool heads.  There’s lack of tension, however, as Bruce is still concerned about Helena existing out of time.  Helena gives him a little a little tease as she references “The Gotham War” currently running in Catwoman and the Bat-titles.  For Helena, this is history, and it’s not the only history she references.  It’s a really interesting scene that echoes the meeting of the original Earth-Two Huntress meeting the Earth-One Batman back in the Bronze Age.

Positives Cont’d

While the JSA searches for an approach to the Lost Children, exploring each one’s past individually, it’s the conversation between Huntress and Power Girl that seems to give the story arc its direction.  As we saw in the first issue of this series, in the future that now no longer exists, PG and Huntress put together a JSA of irregular members that was decimated by Per Degaton.  Helena suggests that they put that team together, but now…so they get it right!  It’s great to see these two working together and it’s particular wonderful to see Helena call PG “Karen.”  It gives hope that the foolishness being done with Power Girl  by  Leah Williams will be ignored or quickly forgotten.  Now, just that new costume has to go….

Marco Santucci takes over on art duties with this issue.  Santucci brings his signature approach as his to depiction of faces brings a unique identity to them.  It’s especially effective with Bruce and Helena as their uncostumed identities have the connection.  There’s also a genuine joy when Judy and Jay meet.  Additionally, Santucci’s homages the cover to All-Star Squadron #1 in the issue as Alan Scott, Mr. Terrific and the robot Hourman peruse pictures of the Lost Children.  It’s a great call back to a classic Earth-Two cover.

Negatives

It’s tough to find a negative with this issue.  It may seem like a bit of a slow start, but Johns is focusing on the characters and Santucci’s art is perfect for those types of stories.

Verdict

Justice Society of America #6 is an exciting start to a new story arc.  It’s character focused and sets the stage for what’s to come.  The fate of the Lost Children has been an intriguing plot line since the beginning of Stargirl: The Lost Children.  Their story naturally continues here.   The emotional tension between Bruce and Helena is fantastic and it’s great to see Helena and Karen’s friendship as  the cornerstone of the future of the JSA!

 

 

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148 Review: Justice Society of America #6[Editor’s Note: This

Comics

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s seventh update has arrived for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

On consoles, Respawn said it has “completely reworked” performance mode, which now offers “a solid 60 FPS” when ray tracing is disabled.

Quality mode optimisations are also said to reduce FPS fluctuation and add other visual improvements, while variable refresh rate is now supported on PS5.

The update also introduces support for NVIDIA DLSS. a super-sampling technology which uses AI to upscale the resolution of PC games, effectively allowing players to achieve higher graphical settings and better frame rates from their systems.

The full patch notes can be viewed on EA’s website.

Despite a six-week delay for polishing, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was released in April with significant bugs and performance issues.

Nevertheless, the game reviewed strongly, has seemingly performed well commercially, and Respawn has worked to address its various issues with a series of updates in the four months since.

EA recently announced plans to release Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for PS4 and Xbox One, although a launch window has yet to be confirmed.

The director of the Star Wars Jedi series, Stig Asmussen, has said he hopes to make a trilogy of games, and Respawn is currently recruiting team members for what is presumably a third entry in the franchise.