More from Edited by Julian Sancton
How Rhode Island’s Biggest Movie Showcase Became the “Fyre of Film Festivals”
Was RIIFF “The Fyre Festival of Film Festivals”? Every film festival has an occasional hiccup — remember the infamous screening of Reservoir Dogs at Sundance in 1992 when the lights came up before the movie ended? That said, according to one group of filmmakers, there was something going on at the Rhode Island International Film […]
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Why Hollywood Keeps Quitting on Harry and Meghan
Why Hollywood Keeps Quitting on Harry and Meghan Looks like Harry and Meghan have done it again — they’ve chewed up yet another American adviser. Josh Kettler, the Santa Barbara-based consultant who’d been serving as chief of staff to the Duke and Duchess, reportedly resigned in August — after just three months on the job […]
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‘Megalopolis’ Finds a Fall Guy for AI Trailer Snafu and Hollywood Cries Foul
Megalopolis Finds a Fall Guy for AI Trailer Snafu We’ll find out whether Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is a masterpiece or a stinker when it arrives in theaters on Sept. 27, but the behind-the-scenes dramas have already been riveting. The latest twist was the snafu over the sci-fi drama’s trailer, which was pulled by distributor Lionsgate […]
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Can Joaquin Phoenix Be Replaced, or Is Todd Haynes’ Gay Love Story Doomed?
Can Todd Haynes’ Gay Love Story Be Saved? Joaquin Phoenix has pulled this sort of stunt before. In 2019, he tried to back out of The Joker at the last minute. He did it again in 2021, with Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon, and again in 2023, with Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. But in those cases, Phoenix […]
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The 50 Most Powerful Players in Kids Entertainment
When The Hollywood Reporter assembled its first Kids Entertainment Power List in 2023, it noted that the challenges facing the industry as a whole — competition for attention and financial pressures chief among them — were the same for those making content for children and teens. A year later, that still holds true. Several of […]
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Why Was Barry Diller’s Memoir Pulled From Amazon?
Where in the World Is Diller’s Memoir? In late July, when Barry Diller’s forthcoming memoir, Who Knew, suddenly disappeared from Amazon — after it had popped up for presales ahead of a planned fall release — it raised all sorts of eyebrows. Had the book’s publisher, Knopf, pulled the project for some reason? Had there […]
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Bowen Yang, Charlamagne Tha God, Rachel Maddow and More Reveal Their Podcasting Secrets
As part of its annual list of podcasting’s most powerful players, THR asked every honoree to fill out a questionnaire about the state of the industry, the challenges holding it back, their recording booth habits, and what they consider to be the most underrated podcast. A selection of our favorite responses below, from the likes […]
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“It’s for Sociopaths”: Top Podcasters Deeply Divided Over 1.5x Listening Speed
Listening to podcasts 50 percent faster is either a convenient way to maximize your pod consumption or an unforgivable insult to the craft, depending on who you ask. As part of its annual list of Podcast power players, THR polled the industry’s top practitioners about accelerated listening. The answers were more mixed than we expected, […]
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The Most Powerful People in Podcasting in 2024
Podcasting has entered its maturity, in which the eye-watering spending sprees of the early 2020s have given way to more rational dealmaking. But even amid last year’s relative slowdown, the sector saw several marquee acquisitions. Among those, SmartLess, hosted by Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes, moved from Wondery over to SiriusXM in a […]
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Don’t F*** With Cat Ladies!: How a Pottery-Making Pussycat Won the Box Office
The Surprise Box Office Hit Last Weekend? A Pottery-Making Cat It’s doubtful J.D. Vance bought a ticket, but the ninth annual CatVideoFest sold a record $281,000 worth of tickets during the Aug. 3 weekend, when it opened on 106 screens across the country, with such venues as L.A.’s Vidiots playing to sold-out crowds. “It’s our […]
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‘Simpsons’ Writer Recalls How the Show Predicted Kamala Harris (Among Other Things)
The Simpsons Makes (Up) History. Again Remember that time in 1999 when The Simpsons predicted — as a hilarious joke, mind you — that Donald Trump would be elected president? Turns out that same episode (number 17, season 11, “Bart to the Future”) contains another prophecy that suddenly seems entirely plausible. Not only does it […]
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Swordplay at WME: An Agent’s Assistant Goes to the Olympics
Touché! A WME Assistant Jabs His Way to Paris What’s the difference between a Hollywood agent and an Olympic fencer? The fencer salutes his opponents after stabbing them in the back. Other than that, the skills required — steely nerves, killer instincts, ruthless ambition — are remarkably similar. No one knows that better than Pascual […]
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