| | | | What's news: Paula Abdul has sued former American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe for sexual assault. Trump supporters are furious with Green Day. Jeremy Renner is set to return to acting. The XFL and USFL are merging. Snoop Dogg will be part of NBC's coverage of the 2024 Olympic Games. — Abid Rahman
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Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2024 ►No guarantees. With television release schedules in flux following Hollywood’s historic dual strikes, THR's Lesley Goldberg has surveyed the landscape to see what new scripted (and U.S.-produced) comedies and dramas may actually make their debuts in the year ahead. The platform by platform guide.
—"[Lythgoe] clearly knew that his assaults of Abdul were not just wrong, but that he held the power to keep her silent." Paula Abdul has sued Nigel Lythgoe, former American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance producer, claiming he sexually assaulted her twice. The singer filed a lawsuit on Friday against Lythgoe and the show’s production companies, alleging that the producer sexually assaulted her during one of the early seasons of Idol and years later when she was working as a judge on SYTYCD. In a statement to THR, Lythgoe denied the allegations. The story.
—🏆 Guardians leads the way 🏆 The Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild has revealed the nominees for its annual MUAHS Awards, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 leading the feature competition with four nominations and Maestro close behind with three noms. THR's Caroline Giardina writes that the MUAHS Guild’s feature nominees vary quite a bit from this season’s Oscar shortlist for the category. The Crown and The Last of Us are among the series with multiple noms. The nominees.
—Wait, what? Green Day's performance on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve has sparked a backlash from Trump supporters. During a performance of "American Idiot," initially written during George W. Bush’s presidency about the Iraq war, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong changed the lyrics from, “I’m not part of a redneck agenda” to "I’m not part of the MAGA agenda." Among those going after the band was Hercules star Kevin Sorbo, who wrote, “Punk rock is pro big government.” The story.
—"I think I'm ready." Jeremy Renner is set to get back to the set of Paramount+’s Mayor of Kingstown in about a week, just days after the one-year anniversary of the snowplow accident that nearly took his life. The actor spoke about his plans to return to acting and season three of the Taylor Sheridan-created show during an interview Sunday night on CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage. Renner also revealed he has been busy working on an album, Love and Titanium, which drops in January. The story. |
Will the Best Picture Race Have Two Animation Contenders? ►Rarity. Sony's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Studio Ghibli's The Boy and the Heron, the final film from beloved Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, are the movies to beat in the best animated feature film race at the 96th Academy Awards. THR's Tyler Coates considers whether both films may also face off for the best picture Oscar. The story.
—Quoi? Snoop Dogg is joining NBCUniversal’s coverage of the 2024 Summer Games. Snoop will be on site in Paris to provide regular reports for the Olympics primetime show beginning July 26 on NBC and Peacock. Throughout the Games, Snoop will speak with NBC Olympics host Mike Tirico and provide his unique take on what’s happening in Paris. He’ll explore the city’s iconic landmarks, attend Olympic competitions and events and make visits to the athletes, their friends and families. The story.
—"They’re gonna ball out." The XFL, owned by Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia and RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale, will merge with the USFL, owned by Fox, to create a new league called the United Football League, or UFL for short. The new league was announced by Johnson and Garcia during the Fox NFL Sunday pregame show. The new league will kick off on March 30, 2024, with games set to air on Fox, ABC, ESPN and FS1. ESPN was the XFL’s broadcast partner for its inaugural season, while Fox broadcast the USFL. The story.
—"We don’t have gendered pronouns." Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone has opened up about how using she/they pronouns is connected to the performer’s Indigenous background and “partly a way of decolonizing gender.” In a new interview, Gladstone — who was raised on the Blackfeet Nation reservation in Montana by a father of Blackfeet and Nimiipuu heritage and a white mother — says that “in most Native languages, most Indigenous languages, Blackfeet included, there are no gendered pronouns. There is no he/she, there’s only they.” The story.
—"Someone turned up at my house when my kids were there." Jamie Dornan has revealed a “scary” experience he had with a stalker after starring in the wildly popular Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. In a new interview, the actor said he found himself at the center of the fandom, including fan-created conspiracies about him and his co-star, Dakota Johnson. Dornan added that he “tried to put walls up around [the fans], to really try and not let that in." The story. |
'Wonka' Wins New Year's Box Office ►Not so tiny Tim. Wonka won the long New Year’s weekend box office race as a tumultuous 2023 came to a close. The Warner Bros. film is on course to gross an estimated $29.5m for the four-day holiday weekend, putting its domestic tally at a sweet $140.2m through Monday, according to updated estimates issued Monday morning. Overseas, it earned $39.1m from 77 markets for a hefty $244.4m foreign tally and $384.6m globally.
WB's The Color Purple has been doing better-than-expected business since opening Dec. 25, and placed No. 4 on the New Year’s weekend chart with an estimated $14.9m for the four days. The film’s estimated domestic tally through Monday is an impressive $47.2m.
THR's Pamela McClintock writes that it wasn't all good news for WB, with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom's domestic tally through Monday hitting a lackluster $81.8m — compared to $215.4m earned by the first Aquaman through New Year’s Day over the year-end holidays in 2018 on its way to joining the billion-dollar club at the global box office and becoming DC’s top-grossing film. The box office report.
—Thanks, Barbenheimer. Domestic box office revenue was able to clear $9b in 2023, despite a dismal fall season at the multiplex, according to Comscore. That’s the best showing of the post-pandemic era, with revenue in the U.S. and Canada up 20 percent over 2022’s $7.5b. But ticket sales are still down sharply from pre-pandemic times, when domestic revenue crossed $11b every year beginning in 2015 and ending in 2019, the last year before COVID-19 struck. Comscore believes 2023 domestic revenue will come in at $9.03b to $9.05b for 2023, a drop of roughly 21 percent from 2019’s $11.4b. The story. |
Early Mickey Mouse Loses Copyright Protection ►"This is Mickey Mouse. This is exciting because it’s kind of symbolic." Mickey Mouse in his earliest form is the leader of the band of characters, films and books that became public domain on Jan. 1. Disney's copyright on its first screen release, the 1928 short Steamboat Willie, featuring both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, is now available for public use. Current artists and creators will be able to make use of Mickey, but with major limits. It is only the more mischievous, rat-like, non-speaking boat captain in Steamboat Willie that has become public. The story.
—Well, that didn’t take long! And just like that, a trailer has dropped for a horror comedy film featuring none other than Mickey Mouse as the killer. The slasher film Mickey’s Mouse Trap features a villain wearing a Steamboat Willie mask. Directed by Jamie Bailey, the film does not yet have a release date, but producers are aiming for March. The trailer.
—🤝 Deal closed 🤝 Telecom mogul Charlie Ergen's empire is reunited again, with an all-stock merger of satellite TV and streaming service provider Dish Network with broadband and communications provider EchoStar Corp. now having closed. Hamid Akhavan serves as president and CEO of the combined company, known as EchoStar, with executive chairman Ergen promising "a new era of connectivity." The story.
—🤝 Carriage pact 🤝 Paramount Global and Comcast Xfinity have cut a new carriage deal. The pact includes continued carriage of Paramount’s portfolio of channels and apps across the Xfinity platforms. Paramount owns CBS, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV, BET and Paramount Network, among other offerings. The previous deal was set to expire at the end of 2023 and would have impacted NFL and college football games. The story. |
Hollywood Remembers Tom Wilkinson ►Legend. Tom Wilkinson, known for his BAFTA-winning role in The Full Monty and Oscar-nominated turns in Michael Clayton and In the Bedroom, died Saturday. He was 75. Wilkinson also appeared in Shakespeare in Love, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Batman Begins and won an Emmy for his role as Benjamin Franklin in the John Adams miniseries. The obituary.
—"He was an actor who elevated the material, regardless of genre." George Clooney, Michael McKean and Richard Roeper were among the stars who paid tribute to Tom Wilkinson. “Tom made every project better, made every actor better,” Clooney said of his Michael Clayton co-star in a statement. "He was the epitome of elegance, and he will be dearly missed by all of us." The reaction. |
TV Review: 'True Detective: Night Country' ►"A potent, if truncated rebirth." THR's chief TV critic Dan Fienberg reviews HBO's True Detective: Night Country. The franchise leaves behind Nic Pizzolatto's tormented masculinity for a new six-episode mystery starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis. The review. In other news...
—Netflix's new releases coming in January 2024
—French cinema admissions rise 19 percent in 2023
—Merrin Dungey weds L.A. radio DJ Kevin Ryder on New Year’s Eve
—Ana Ofelia Murguía, who voiced Mama Coco in Coco, dies at 90
—Les McCann, soulful jazz great sampled by Notorious B.I.G. and Dr. Dre, dies at 88
—John Pilger, Australia-born journalist and documentary filmmaker, dies at 84
—Shecky Greene, legendary Las Vegas headliner, dies at 97
—Sandra Reaves-Phillips, actress and singer on stage and screen, dies at 79
—Maurice Hines, tap dancer extraordinaire, dies at 80
What else we're reading...
—Sarah Krouse reports that Americans are canceling more of their streaming services, increasing the pressure on companies to look at bundle offers [WSJ]
—Filmmaker Andrew Haigh pens a column on how he had to "dig further into my own life than I had before" to make his latest feature, All of Us Strangers [LAT]
—Carlos Aguilar talks to Barbie star America Ferrera about how her now iconic monologue from the film came together [NYT]
—Vox's staff list 24 things they think will happen in 2024, and there's bad news for Biden, Elon Musk and good news for Shohei Ohtani and Oppenheimer's Oscar chances [Vox]
—Andrew Rice has a fascinating piece on the coming apocalypse for New York's commercial real estate sector and what it could mean for the city's skyline and the wider economy [Curbed]
Today...
...in 2008, IFC Films released Andrew Piddington's The Killing of John Lennon in theaters. The docudrama follows Mark David Chapman three months prior to the assassination of John Lennon. The original review.
Today's birthdays: Todd Haynes (63), Tia Carrere (57), Kate Bosworth (41), Dax Shepard (49), Anthony Carrigan (41), Taye Diggs (53), Gabrielle Carteris (63), Christy Turlington (55), Kate Chastain (41), Shelley Hennig (37), Cyrus Arnold (21), Ben Hardy (33), Peter Gadiot (39), David Gyasi (44), Paz Vega (48), James Marshall (57), Renée Elise Goldsberry (53), Kristen Hager (40), Dustin Clare (42), Joanna Pacula (67), Melis Sezen (27), Julie Piekarski (61), John Considine (89), Erica Hubbard (45), Chris Spencer (56) |
| Richard Romanus, the tough-guy character actor best known for his turn as Michael Longo, the Little Italy loan shark who gets into it with Robert De Niro’s Johnny Civello in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, has died. He was 80. The obituary. |
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