Hollywood

ACTOR Tom Holland was rushed to hospital after a stunt on the set of the latest Spider-Man blockbuster went wrong.

It is believed he cracked his head in a fall and was treated for concussion.

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A woman, thought to be a stunt double, was also taken to hospital in an ambulance.

Filming of £150million Spider-Man: Brand New Day was suspended at Leavesden Studios in Watford, Herts, on Friday and could be on hold for weeks.

British star Tom’s comedian dad Dominic, attending a charity dinner in Mayfair, confirmed his son would be away from filming “for a while”.

Tom, 29, was there too and even posed for pictures with co-star and fiancée Zendaya, 28.

However, he left early after feeling ill.

The fall could lead to an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive.

The film — Tom’s fourth standalone Spider-Man movie — is due out next July.

Leavesden Studios and Sony Pictures were contacted for comment.

An East of England Ambulance Service spokesman said: “We were called at 10.30am on Friday to attend to a patient who had sustained an injury at Leavesden Studios in Watford.

“An ambulance was sent to the scene, and the patient was transported to hospital for further care.”

A grainy circle flashes on the top-right corner of the screen at the Eagle Theater. The single-screen repertory cinema, run by the nonprofit organization Vidiots, was showing a 35-millimeter print of Paul Thomas Anderson’s psychological drama “The Master.”

The faint warning is easily missed by most viewers, but it appears every 10 minutes, alerting the projectionist to change the reel.

The auditorium was sold out. Audience members clapped as the film title appeared onscreen. There was a buzz in the air even before the lights faded to black with the standby line filled with hopefuls trying to grab a last-minute ticket. The stakes were high for the person manning the reel exchange.

Guests wait to enter the Vidiots movie theater for a movie night in Los Angeles.

Michael Rousselet, a projectionist at the Eagle Rock theater, often drinks a lot of coffee to stay alert during late-night screenings.

“If we do a good job, no one knows we exist,” Rousselet quipped as he showed off the projection booth. “If we mess up, everyone knows we exist.”

The carefully curated communal experience offered by repertory theaters is enduring the hardships of the box office, even after the pandemic, which led to the demise of some well-known cinemas. The famed Cinerama Dome and adjoining former Arclight theater on Sunset Boulevard have still not reopened, despite popular demand.

A Monday screening of a 35-millimeter copy of the 2007 film “Michael Clayton” by American Cinematheque sold out. Independent cinema has captured a niche population that has helped it prevail in a time when box office revenue is tumbling down.

Guests enter the movie theater at Vidiots in Los Angeles.

The summer box office season, which stretches from early May through Labor Day, grossed $3.67 billion in the U.S. and Canada, down slightly from last year and significantly less than the pre-pandemic norm of $4 billion. Some new films with major stars struggle to get anyone to show up. “Americana,” starring Sydney Sweeney, one of Hollywood’s top young stars, earned $500,000 during its opening weekend last month.

The unique cinematic experiences crafted by the different repertory theaters play a pivotal role in revitalizing the film industry in Los Angeles, according to Maggie Mackay, executive director of Vidiots.

“I don’t think you can [raise the next generation of film lovers] through one platform,” Mackay said, sitting down in her auditorium. “I don’t think you can fall in love with an art form by clicking a few times and observing it by yourself.”

Patrons at the bar of the Vidiots’ cinema in Los Angeles.

A 2024 study by Art House Convergence showed that between 2019 and 2024, audiences became younger and more diverse. The number of wide releases have also made the independent industry healthier, according to Rich Daughtridge, president of Independent Cinema Alliance.

Independent theaters “are still down compared to 2019, but the momentum attraction is going up,” he said.

Netflix bought the Egyptian Theatre from American Cinematheque for an undisclosed amount in 2020. The influx of money helped the organization grow the brand and host more screenings — the total jump from 500 screenings to 1,600 with 350,000 patrons visiting their theaters, according to Grant Moninger, artistic director at American Cinematheque.

Part of the reason audiences are choosing smaller theaters over multiplexes is the care and attention staff members put into each showing. The viewing experience at these revival theaters always starts with a crew member reminding the audience to stay away from their phones — they want everyone to enjoy the tiny scratches, dust specks and vibrant colors of the print they are showing.

Patrons watch a movie at Vidiots movie theater in Los Angeles.

“I think people are desperately in search of community right now and of feeling closer to other people and sharing things and not feeling disconnected by technology,” Sean Fennessey, the host of the podcast “The Big Picture,” said after the “Michael Clayton” screening.

“We’re very lucky in Los Angeles that we have so many great spaces … that are encouraging people to come together and hang out and laugh and cry and feel chills,” he added.

Each location offers Hollywood cinephiles and casual viewers alike options to catch a variety of movies based on their niche. Independent cinema has had the least trouble recruiting an audience post-pandemic, according to Art House Convergence.

The Vista Theater and the New Beverly show personal copies from the private collection of Quentin Tarantino, who saved the theaters from extinction. Its recent run of “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair” sold out and warranted the Vista announcing a new run of it.

American Cinematheque hosted a festival of films handpicked by different podcasters, which sold out screenings in the middle of the week.

Guests wait to enter the Vidiots movie theater in Los Angeles.

Vidiots hosted a discussion with American Cinema Editors member Leslie Jones after a screening of 2012’s “The Master,” a filmed she worked on. The showing sold out and most of its audience stayed late for a Q&A discussion with her.

Regardless of the inspiration these repertory theaters provide with, say, retrospectives of Akira Kurosawa, the model is not bulletproof to the punches theaters have taken. Organizations like Vidiots and American Cinematheque still rely on their nonprofit status.

These organizations count on donations and memberships. Access to directors, actors, prints and people in the industry also plays an important role in keeping afloat, according to Moninger.

“Our job is to get everybody in [the theater]. You can’t just say, ‘Hey, we’re a nonprofit,’” he said.

The uncertainty of the model does leave room for growth, according to Roger Durling, the executive director of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Vidiots technical director Boris Ibanez sets up a section of the film in a projector in the projection booth of Vidiots movie theater.

The nonprofit organization recently purchased the Film Center, a five-screen multiplex, in the downtown Santa Barbara area. It is the second five-screen theater they have purchased, and it will also screen films during the festival every winter.

Throughout the year, when the theaters aren’t showing movies for the festival, the organization will maintain its existence through a repertory model.

“The nonprofit aspect allows you to concentrate more on the artistic side as opposed to thinking, ‘I just need to make money,’” Durling said.

But the thought is still on his mind.

“The more you concentrate on the artistic side of it, the money will take care of itself.”

Spider-Man and a Hollywood tour guide were having it out.

They stood right outside Jimmy Kimmel’s studio on Hollywood Boulevard, arguing about whether ABC was right to yank the host’s TV show off the air last week after he commented on the political response to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.

“I like Kimmel!” said the Spider-Man impersonator, who wore pink Nike sneakers and leaned in close so he could hear through his thin, face-covering costume. “What he said is free speech.”

A tour bus drives past what was Jimmy Kimmel’s studio on Hollywood Boulevard on Sept. 18, 2025.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Todd Doten, a tour agent for Beverly Hills Tours of Hollywood, pushed back. He said he believed broadcasters are held to a different standard than private citizens, and that the Federal Communications Commission — which pushed to get Kimmel’s show canceled — “has somewhat of a point.”

The men verbally sparred beside singer Little Richard’s cracked star on the Walk of Fame. Then Doten patted the selfie-hawking superhero on the back and they parted ways amicably.

The scene on Friday afternoon captured the Hollywood that Kimmel embraced and aggressively promoted: Weird, gritty and surprisingly poignant.

Ever since he began filming at the El Capitan Entertainment Centre in 2003, Kimmel has been one of the famed neighborhood’s biggest ambassadors. He drew tourists to the storied Hollywood Boulevard, which — despite being home to the Academy Awards, TCL Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame — has long struggled with crime, homelessness and blight. He used his celebrity to help homeless youth and opened a donation center on his show’s backlot for victims of the January wildfires.

And he filmed many a sketch with Hollywood itself as the bizarro backdrop — including one returning bit called “Who’s High?” in which he tried to guess which of three pedestrians was stoned.

Protesters in front of Jimmy Kimmel’s theater a day after ABC pulled the late-night host off air indefinitely over comments he made about the response to right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk’s death.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Now, locals and entertainment industry officials alike worry what will happen if Kimmel’s show permanently disappears from a Hollywood still struggling to recover from the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023 and the COVID-19 pandemic that literally shut the neighborhood down. While his suspension has sparked a roiling debate over free speech rights nationwide, in this neighborhood, the impact is more close to home.

“A hostile act toward Jimmy Kimmel is a hostile act toward Hollywood itself and one of its great champions,” former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told The Times on Friday.

“Hollywood is both a place and an idea. It’s an industry and a geography. Jimmy is always big on both. He actually lives in Hollywood, at a time when not a lot of stars do.”

Miguel Aguilar, a fruit vendor who often sets up near Kimmel’s theater, said Friday that business was always better on the days “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” filmed because so many audience members bought his strawberries and pineapples doused in chamoy. He was stunned when a Times reporter told him the show had been suspended.

“Was it canceled by the government?” Aguilar asked. “We used to get a lot more customers [from the show]. That’s pretty scary.”

A man holding a sign advertising at a nearby diner said he worried about Kimmel’s crew, including the gaffers and makeup artists.

“How many people went down with Kimmel?” he asked.

And Daniel Gomez, who lives down the street, said he feared that nearby businesses will suffer from the loss of foot traffic from the show, for which audience members lined up all the way down the block.

“Tourists still will come to Hollywood no matter what, but a portion of that won’t be coming anymore,” Gomez said as he signed a large canvas outside the theater on which scores of fans and free speech advocates wrote messages about the show being axed.

Protesters in front of Jimmy Kimmel’s theater in Hollywood.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“It’s pretty bad that he got shut down because of his comments,” Gomez added. “Comedians should be free to say whatever they want.”

In a joint statement, a coalition of Hollywood labor groups including the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, said the kind of political pressure that Kimmel faced as a broadcaster “chills free speech and threatens the livelihoods of thousands of working Americans.”

“At a time when America’s film and television industry is still struggling due to globalization and industry contraction, further unnecessary job losses only make a bad situation worse,” the statement read.

During his monologue Monday, Kimmel made remarks about Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused of fatally shooting Kirk. He said the “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Ingrid Salazar protests outside of the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” studio on Thursday.

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

While Kimmel’s remarks could be interpreted in different ways, Kirk’s supporters immediately accused the talk show host of claiming Robinson was a Trump ally, which many of Kimmel’s supporters reject. Kimmel himself has not publicly responded.

Kimmel also mocked President Trump for talking about the construction of a new White House ballroom after being asked how he was coping with the killing of his close ally.

Nexstar Media Group responded on Wednesday, saying it would pull the show from its ABC affiliate stations because of Kimmel’s comments. Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC, then announced it would suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely.

Nexstar’s decision to yank the show came after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, threatened to take action against ABC and urged local ABC affiliate stations to stand up the network.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr told right-wing podcast host Benny Johnson. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Trump wrote on his Truth Social account: “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”

He also targeted late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, calling them “total losers.” He pressured NBC to cancel their shows, writing: “Do it NBC!!!”

The president this summer praised CBS’s decision to cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” after this season, writing on Truth Social on July 18: “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.”

Pedestrians walk across the street from the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” theater a day after ABC has pulled the late-night host off air indefinitely.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

While the show is in limbo, it is unclear what will happen to Kimmel’s iconic theater in the historic former Hollywood Masonic Temple, a neoclassical 1921 building fronted by six imposing columns.

Disney owns the building, as well as the adjacent 1920s office building that contains the El Capitan Theatre and the Ghirardelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop. Kimmel’s production company, 12:05 AM Productions, occupies four floors — 26,000 square feet — in the six-story office building, according to real estate data provider CoStar.

Disney did not respond to a request for comment.

Garcetti, who long represented Hollywood on the L.A. City Council, said Kimmel was a major advocate for renovation of the old Masonic lodge and other revitalization Hollywood projects.

And after the Oscars returned for good to the Kodak Theatre (now Dolby Theatre) across the street in 2002 after several years outside of Hollywood, Kimmel “helped usher in what I call Hollywood’s second golden age, when the Academy Awards came back and people saw actual stars in nightclubs and restaurants,” Garcetti said.

When Garcetti was showing off the city to officials with the International Olympic Committee years ago in an effort to host the Games, Kimmel met their helicopter on the roof of a Hollywood hotel to brag about the neighborhood.

Jimmy Kimmel, host and executive producer of the late-night talk show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” celebrates as he receives his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Jan. 25, 2013.

(Reed Saxon/Associated Press)

At the 2013 Hollywood Chamber of Commerce ceremony awarding Kimmel a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Garcetti quipped: “When you came here to Hollywood Boulevard, this place was full of drug dealers and prostitutes, and you welcomed them with open arms.”

Kimmel joked that his parents brought him to the Walk of Fame as a 10-year-old and left him there to fend for himself.

“I’m getting emotional,” he said during the ceremony. “This is embarrassing. I feel like I’m speaking at my own funeral. This is ridiculous. People are going to pee on this star.”

Kimmel’s star is by his theater, near the stars for rapper Snoop Dogg — and Donald Duck.

On his show in May, pop star Miley Cyrus told Kimmel she developed a serious infection after filming on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last year, where she rolled around on the sidewalk. Part of her leg, she said, started to “disintegrate.”

“Have you been to the Walk of Fame in the middle of the night?” she asked.

“I live here,” Kimmel said.

“I thought it was my last day,” Cyrus responded.

Hundreds of protesters have gathered outside Kimmel’s theater in recent days, decrying the suspension of his show.

The cancellation occurred right after Dianne Hall and Michael Talbur of Kansas City got tickets to a live taping of the show and traveled to Los Angeles. So, they attended a protest Thursday instead.

Hall said she was expecting Kimmel’s monologue “to be something rude toward the [Kirk] family” but was surprised when she actually listened to it.

“I kept thinking, ‘Surely something bad was said for him to get fired,’ ” Hall said. “But it was nothing like that.”

Hollywood resident Ken Tullo said he’s “not a protesting type of guy, but enough’s enough” and he did not want his daughters to grow up with a fear of speaking freely.

“The current administration cannot laugh at themselves,” Tullo said, “and they don’t want anybody else to laugh.”

Times staff writer Roger Vincent contributed to this report.

THE saying goes, ‘less is more’, but celebrities are taking that a little too literally as flashing thongs return.

The trend was big in the noughties with the ‘it’ girls of the day, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, showing the tops of their G-Strings.

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And TV royalty, Gillian Anderson flashed hers on the red-carpet at the Oscars in 2001 but later was killed off by fashion notoriety – along with tramp stamps.

Flashing your thongs had a resurgence in 2020 with the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian flashing their underwear, but now the trend is more than just peeking above your jeans.

It’s about basically doing a moony, but getting away with it because you’re in couture.

Last week Margot Robbie paid tribute to the late, and great, Mr Giorigio Armani who sadly passed away earlier this month by wearing one of his spring designs, a completely sheer and bejewelled dress.

At the premier of her new film, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, the 35-year-old undoubtedly looked incredible in the see-through gown with plunging back that showed she was only wearing a thong.

Just a couple of days later fellow actress Dakota Johnson, 35, wore a similar look.

A high neck, long sleeved, floor length dress made from lace that also flashed her bum in a black thong.

Her Gucci gown for a charity dinner in New York, again, looked incredible on her.

But we need to think about their consequences.

Thongs, a piece of fabric that connects from the front to the back and no more than a few centimetres thick. And that connection of fabric goes via your, erm, bum.

When it’s in black and white it sounds vulgar, and not to mention uncomfortable.

And I don’t want to see that when I’m in a bar sipping my glass of Sauvignon, because let’s face it where celebs lead – we all follow.

When you’re a Hollywood A-lister with the pristine figure good enough to better the world’s best supermodels, sure flash away – you look sensational.

But let’s not make this trend grip the nation or we’ll be faced with fleshy, droopy, white bottoms on the loose up and down the country.

Pants for a charity fundraiser? No thank you.

Clemmie Fieldsend

And if you shudder at the sight of a ‘builders bum’ then don’t, please don’t, let this trend catch on – because your Friday night in your local ‘Spoons will be overrun with bums.

And it’s not just Margot and Dakota that could lead us into the cringe fashion flop.

Actress Helen Flannagan celebrated her 35th birthday by wearing a gold dress with a thong-bodysuit underneath.

Whilst on holiday the Corrie star went for a more toned down version of the trend wearing something similar to a thong cossie under a beach dress.

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Singer Dua Lipa, 30, hit the streets of New York for the Charlie Chaplin Gala this April in a beautiful black knitted dress with a fine weave that revealed her underwear.

Another modest style of the trend but nevertheless, pants for a charity fundraiser? No thank you.

Model Cara Delevingne has been at it too.

In May at the premier for the Ocean With David Attenborough documentary in London she flashed her thong, and the rest of her body all within spitting distance of our national treasure, Sir David.

There’s no escaping the fact that if we copy you we’ll become the butt of every joke

Clemmie Fieldsend

Complete with plunging neckline, the 33-year-olds chainmail grown might have been a bit too risque for such an occasion and a bit too chilly.

In the same month, Britney Spears did her one of her usual dancing around on Instagram videos, but this time just in thread-bare underwear.

The 43-year-old chose to wear just her bra and knickers for the video and black leather knee high boots.

Now, I’m all for doing what you like in your own home, but maybe the rest of us don’t need to see it.

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Love Island host Maya Jama was reviving the noughties trend way back in January.

For the All Stars series she headed back to the villa wearing a Norma Kamali see-though, ruched gown with off-the-shoulder straps with nothing but black underwear underneath.

With the warm temperatures of South Africa, she may have felt hot and wanted something cool to wear, and if anyone is going to look amazing in this trend it’s Maya, but let’s save it for private holidays.

For high days and holidays maybe, but come on ladies.

There’s no escaping the fact that if we copy you we’ll become the butt of every joke.

So let’s leave this trend, and cracks, in the past.

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Filming was about to start on David E. Kelley’s Apple TV+ series “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” in early January when the wildfires hit the Los Angeles area, devastating Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

Crew members lost their homes or were dealing with severe smoke damage. Others on the show took people who were displaced into their houses.

To add to the uncertainty, the series was still waiting to hear whether it would receive a state film and television tax credit.

It was time for a decision, Kelley and his fellow producers thought. Should they play it safe and relocate to a cheaper filming locale, such as New Mexico or Vancouver, to ensure they had the budget to film the pivotal mid-season finale in Las Vegas?

They took a gamble and decided to stay in California. The bet paid off. “Margo” got a tax credit of about $1.2 million per episode, and the show was able to shoot both in the Los Angeles area and travel to Las Vegas for four days of filming.

“The rest of the story is a California story,” said Matthew Tinker, president of David E. Kelley Productions. “It’s really magical to leave L.A., go to Vegas and then come back, and it gives the show a huge production value that otherwise, we wouldn’t have had.”

Matthew Tinker, president of David E. Kelley Productions, stands on the rooftop of producer David E. Kelley’s new production office in Santa Monica.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

As film and TV projects have increasingly moved out of state in search of better tax incentives and cheaper costs — moves that have culled the number of Hollywood jobs — Kelley’s production company is doubling down on California. The former attorney turned writer-producer is one of the biggest names in TV behind such legal dramas as “Ally McBeal” and “The Practice.”

All of his current projects will shoot in L.A., including the third season of HBO series “Big Little Lies,” the legal drama “The Lincoln Lawyer,” a new HBO Max series based on a Michael Connelly book called “Nightshade” that takes place on Santa Catalina Island, and the thriller “Presumed Innocent.”

Post-production work for his shows also is done in L.A. Kelley’s company, known as David E. Kelley Productions, also recently moved into a new headquarters in Santa Monica, where it plans to make a home for the foreseeable future.

“It just feels wrong to me that L.A. is not continuing to be the epicenter for film and television series,” Kelley said via Zoom in August. “This town has been very good to me for many, many years, so I have an inclination not to abandon it, to cling to the community that has been so rewarding for me.”

The sentiment is shared by his second-in-command.

From the concrete rooftop garden atop the Santa Monica building that houses Kelley’s production office, Tinker looked out at the hills, remembering the wall of smoke that lingered for days.

The January wildfires also encouraged the decision to keep Kelley’s production company in L.A., despite some pitches to move out of state. At the time, there had been industry chatter that the state’s incentive program would be bolstered, giving some optimism for the future of production in the state. But after the fires, there was no question. The company saw the need to rebuild and reinvest in L.A. and Hollywood. The eventual boost to the state’s film and TV tax credit program approved this summer solidified their decision.

“The fires challenged our resilience and sense of community, but the people of L.A. rallied,” Tinker said. “There simply wasn’t a thought beyond this moment to plant roots anywhere else.”

The 2,900-square-foot office, which is a new build that replaced an older building in Santa Monica, is sleek and modern, with concrete walls and flooring, dark wood details, two arcade game machines and a shelving unit holding dozens of awards right at the heart of the space. Inside Tinker’s office is an homage to Hollywood history.

A wall showcases trophies at producer David E. Kelley’s new production office in Santa Monica.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

An old sign from Kelley’s previous offices at the Fox lot hangs on the wall, next to the title page for the first episode of “Margo,” addressed to David and signed by actor Elle Fanning. A photo of Ronald Reagan with Matthew Tinker’s late grandfather Grant Tinker, former chief executive of NBC, sits near a bobblehead from Kelley’s “Boston Legal” days and a black-and-white group shot of Matthew’s father, John Tinker, winning a writing Emmy for the drama “St. Elsewhere” in 1986.

When looking back at his own career, Matthew Tinker has done “pretty much every job under the sun,” which was only possible in a city that consistently had multiple productions running.

That concern for the future of industry employment was a major part of Hollywood and state legislators’ push to increase the annual funding for California’s film and TV tax credit program to $750 million and expand eligibility criteria to allow more projects to apply.

Memorabilia in the office of Matthew Tinker, president of David E. Kelley Productions.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Those changes, which were approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom this summer, have now largely gone into effect and are starting to produce results.

In the first round of TV show tax credits since the program was revamped, the California Film Commission saw a nearly 400% increase in applications and awarded tax credits to a total of 22 shows.

“There was a lot of pent-up demand,” said Colleen Bell, executive director of the California Film Commission. “There’s a lot of momentum here, and these improvements to the program have helped to drive that momentum.”

The new activity is much needed. Production activity in L.A. so far this year is down 9% compared with last year, according to the nonprofit FilmLA, which tracks shoot days in Greater L.A. 2024 was the second-worst year on record for production in the area after 2020, when the industry shut down due to the pandemic.

But there is hope on the horizon — of the 22 new TV projects that received a California tax credit this past round, 18 are slated to film largely in Greater L.A., including Kelley’s “Presumed Innocent.”

“The more that people have hope in the future of California as a production destination, I think you will continue to see entrepreneurs and others make their careers here,” said Philip Sokoloski, spokesman for FilmLA.

Because Los Angeles is more costly than other locations, filmmakers must make certain adjustments, such as shooting a TV series in 85 days instead of 100, or reducing daily filming hours.

But that’s very doable with experienced crews in L.A., said Caroline James, co-executive producer of “Presumed Innocent” and “Margo,” which employed about 500 people.

“There’s such an infrastructure in L.A.,” she said. “There’s no learning curve.”

Kelley’s production company, which has six employees including the veteran writer and producer, may not always be able to shoot everything in L.A., but executives intend to keep L.A. first and foremost in their decision-making and hopes that mentality will catch on around town.

“The goal is to always look at California first,” Tinker said.

Since it first premiered in 1926, F.W. Murnau’s “Faust” has been lauded as one of the greatest silent films ever made. And in the century that’s followed, striking a deal with the devil has been one of cinema’s most enduring tropes.

“Him,” the Jordan Peele-produced horror film reaching theaters Friday, is the latest testament to the fact that, in Hollywood at least, the devil’s offer never goes out of style.

It tells the story of an aspiring professional football player, Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers), who gets invited to train at a secluded compound under famed quarterback Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans). But Cade eventually realizes what is meant by the question he keeps getting asked: “What are you willing to sacrifice?”

“People are so fixated with the whole selling your soul to the devil and they really think that it’s a man in a suit who’s like, ‘Sign the dotted line,’” said Julia Fox, who plays White’s wife. “I think that selling your soul to the devil is a metaphor for selling out and doing things that you don’t want to do, compromising your morals and values for a paycheck.”

Like “Him,” Faustian stories in cinema are often billed as horror. Much like the literary and artistic retellings of the German fable, from Marlowe and Goethe to the song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” film adaptations span place, decade and genre — from the cult Keanu Reeves’ DC Comics adaptation, “Constantine,” to Brendan Fraser’s 2000 rom-com “Bedazzled,” a remake of the 1967 film of the same name that starred Raquel Welch.

The devil can promise money — as in “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” the 1941 post-Great Depression takedown of greed — or fame, a la Jack Black’s 2006 musical comedy, “Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny.”

“It’s pretty much everywhere once you start looking,” said Kirsten Thompson, a professor of film studies at Seattle University. “We all want to have eternal life or youth or power or status. And the various iterations of the myth sometimes emphasize different things.”

“Him” isn’t even the first Faustian film set against the backdrop of sports. “Damn Yankees,” the 1958 adaptation of the Bob Fosse-choreographed Broadway show, tells the story of a diehard baseball fan who makes a devilish pact to help his team.

Murnau’s ‘Faust’ legacy

Although the 1926 “Faust” isn’t the oldest cinematic retelling of the legend — French filmmaker Georges Méliès made a handful of adaptations beginning in the 1890s — Murnau’s movie has the greatest legacy.

“The film has these very striking set pieces that are, visually, enormously iconographic and influential on subsequent silent cinema, including American cinema,” Thompson said.

Speaking with the Associated Press last year to promote his adaptation of “Nosferatu” (the original vampire tale was also made by Murnau, in 1922), Robert Eggers testified to the ways in which “Faust” has influenced him as a director.

“Filmmaking — it didn’t really get better than that,” he said.

Murnau’s “Faust” follows its titular protagonist, a faithful alchemist who despairs over a deadly, seemingly unstoppable plague. He eventually meets the demon Mephisto — legend often refers to him as Mephistopheles — who convinces Faust to do a trial-run pact to renounce God in exchange for the power to help the infirm village.

But Faust’s demonic deal is found out when a crowd realizes he cannot look upon a cross. Despondent, Faust plans to kill himself, but is stopped by Mephisto, who comes back with another offer: The demon will give the elderly alchemist back his youth.

Origins of the devil’s offer

It’s unclear when exactly the idea that humans could strike a deal with the demonic materialized, according to Joseph Laycock, a professor of religion who studies Satanism and demonic belief at Texas State University.

The idea that a powerful supernatural being could grant wishes or help humans exists in pre-Islamic Arabic traditions, but most Western depictions of this kind of myth borrow from Christian theology.

“Humans and demons each have something the other wants. We want this power. We want control over the natural world. The demons have it and we don’t. But the demons want our souls,” Laycock said. “The Faust legend is kind of ready to be told as soon as this Christian demonology emerges.”

One clue into the origins of a Satanic bargain lies within the “Malleus Maleficarum,” often translated as the “Hammer of Witches,” a 15th century German Catholic theological text on demonology.

In it, God has limited Satan’s power, Laycock explained. But, “there’s this loophole. And the loophole is, if a demon makes a pact with a human, the demon gets to do all the stuff it couldn’t normally do.”

This period around the Reformation was a “golden age” for possession, exorcism and witch-hunting in Europe, Laycock said, which sets the stage for the Faust legend to materialize.

In the 1800s, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe adapted the Faust story into a two-part tragic play, converting the German legend into a literary giant that would have tremendous influence on the Western world, Thompson argues.

She compares Goethe’s cinematic influence to works from Shakespeare and stories like “Sherlock Holmes,” which have also been repeatedly retold. “Canonical works of literature in different languages are adapted over and over again,” she said.

Fauria writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.

HE was the golden boy of Hollywood.

Men envied his obvious friendship with Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, and almost all his female co-stars adored him.

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In fact, Jane Fonda admitted she couldn’t keep her hands off him on set, while Meryl Streep said he was the “best kisser ever”.

Robert Redford, who yesterday died in his sleep aged 89 at his ranch in Utah, was rejected for 1967 movie The Graduate because no one would ever believe he was a loser with women.

But the handsome star was haunted by nerves and self-doubt that caused him to be endlessly late on set.

As the greatest names in showbiz paid tribute to the blond-haired icon, his representative revealed Redford was “surrounded by those he loved” when he passed away. She added: “He will be missed greatly.”

‘Love of pranks’

In blockbusters such as Barefoot In The Park, The Sting, All The President’s Men, The Great Gatsby, The Horse Whisperer, Indecent Proposal and Up Close And Personal, Redford was box office dynamite.

But the Oscar-winning actor was terrified stardom might turn him into a product for Hollywood studios to sell. He moaned: “Films to them are just like vacuum cleaners or refrigerators. The approach sickens me.”

The megastar even refused to make sequels to his biggest hits, Butch ­Cassidy and The Way We Were with Barbra Streisand.

He hated franchises, but appeared in Captain America: The Winter ­Soldier to please his grandkids.

And he became a champion of independent film-makers, founding the annual Sundance Film Festival to showcase their work.

Born Charles Robert Redford Jr in Santa Monica, California, on August 18, 1936, the actor’s mum was Martha and his dad Charles, a milkman.

His first taste of Hollywood was breaking into a studio as a teenager and trashing the place. He once said: “There was a strong dividing line with a railroad which ran near our house.

“Those who lived on the south side of the tracks, like us, helped to service the big houses on the north side as gardeners, cleaners, whatever.

“My dad would get up to go to work at 2.30 in the morning, come home late afternoon and go to sleep.

“It wasn’t his fault, but it was an inspiration [for me] to do something else with my life.”

Redford’s first plan was to be a baseball star, and he won a sports scholarship to Colorado University.

But he told showbiz writer Garth Pearce: “I was asked to leave because I was drinking too much.”

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His mother Martha had recently died and he turned to alcohol.

After being thrown out of college, he ­travelled to Europe. Redford recalled: “I became a pavement artist in ­Montmartre, Paris, and felt my life had begun at last. I had found my calling.

“Then I moved to Italy, where they openly laughed at my art. Eventually, I was told flatly that I would never make it or sell any paintings.”

So he moved back to New York and tried his hand at acting classes, enrolling at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

He said: “Suddenly, I was getting A-grade reports for the first time. I had failed at school, failed at university, failed as an artist. I thought, ‘There could be something in acting for me’. It was as simple as that, with no great calling.”

He couldn’t play a loser because of the way he looked

Director Mike Nichols

He began to get work, first on stage in New York and then in a succession of small-screen shows, such as ­Maverick, Perry Mason and Dr Kildare as TV boomed across America.

His movie breakthrough came opposite Jane Fonda in 1967’s Barefoot In The Park. She remembers: “I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I was ­constantly forcing myself on him.”

Redford auditioned for The ­Graduate, alongside Anne Bancroft as middle-aged Mrs Robinson.

But director Mike Nichols turned him down, recalling: “He couldn’t play a loser because of the way he looked.

“I told him so and he was dispirited. I said, ‘Look at it this way, ‘Have you ever been turned down by a woman?’. He replied, ‘What do you mean?’. I said, ‘My point precisely’.”

But his next part, The Sundance Kid, alongside Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy, would change Redford’s life forever. As they filmed the 1969 hit movie, he and Newman became best mates — bonding over Mexican beers and a love of pranks.

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Redford was a terrible time-keeper and, at the end of filming — during which he did his own stunts — ­Newman presented him with a tapestry cushion that read, “Punctuality is the courtesy of kings”.

For Newman’s 50th birthday, Redford sent him a wrecked Porsche wrapped in a bow. Newman had it crushed and sent back to his pal. Redford then had it turned into a garden sculpture and returned it.

Despite their 40-year friendship, Newman admitted he never really came to know Redford.

Even though Butch Cassidy was a huge success, Redford, a keen environmental campaigner, was still gripped with doubts about his ability.

He admitted: “I actually quit in the late Sixties, after appearing in some big films. It was not reported at the time but I took my family to a remote part of Spain. I attempted once again to make my living as an artist. But I was not good enough.”

By 1973, The Sting, in which he was reunited with Newman, gave him his only Best Actor Oscar nomination.

‘Not good enough’

His blond hair became his ­signature and he refused to have it cut in a 1940s style for 1977 war film A Bridge Too Far.

Director Sir Richard Attenborough asked him personally to get a short back and sides, but was forced to admit: “It’s no use. He just won’t have it touched.”

Redford once asked angrily: “What is it about my hair? I played Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby in 1974 and the director Jack Clayton wanted to dye my hair black.

“Even the studio wanted my hair black. I said, ‘Find me the part of the original book where it says that Gatsby’s hair is black. It’s not there’.”

Irritated by filmmakers, he decided to direct a movie of his own.

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Ordinary People, which came out in 1980, became one of the most acclaimed films of the decade and won him the only Oscar in his glittering career, for Best Director.

His hits dominated the Eighties and Nineties, with Out Of Africa alongside Meryl Streep winning seven Oscars, including Best Picture.

He directed A River Runs Through It starring a young Brad Pitt, Quiz Show and The Horse Whisperer, in which he also played the lead.

It was really hard . . . as a parent, you blame yourself. It creates a scar that never completely heals

Robert Redford

In between, he starred in Indecent Proposal as a millionaire who offered a married couple $1million if wife Demi Moore slept with him.

There was also romance in Up Close & Personal with Michelle Pfeiffer. But alongside great career success he suffered family tragedy.

His son Scott, who he had with first wife Lola, was a victim of cot death in 1959 at just two months.

The actor said: “It was really hard . . . as a parent, you blame yourself. It creates a scar that never completely heals.”

His second son, Jamie, who ­suffered constant ill health and underwent two liver transplants, died from cancer aged 58 in 2020.

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And eldest daughter Shauna ­witnessed the murder of her long-term boyfriend at university.

Redford told Garth Pearce: “All that personal stuff with my children meant some tough times. When you’re going through it, you lose part of yourself. I confess that I used work to prop me up.”

The Hollywood legend produced and directed films right into his 80s.

His final performance was an uncredited cameo earlier this year as a chess player in Dark Winds, a TV show he executive-produced. Redford officially retired from ­acting in 2018.

Redford is survived by second wife Sibylle, some 21 years his ­junior, who he married in 2009, and daughters Shauna, 64, and Amy, 54, from first wife Lola, who he divorced in 1985.

He said of his success: “The key to sanity in Hollywood is to have a life separate from movies and to never repeat yourself on film by doing a sequel.

“I lost my way and my focus ­several times. Having to deal with life, death, illness and catastrophe puts anyone to the test. Movies and acting was never my first love, but it was an enduring one.”

Walt Disney Co., Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday sued a Chinese artificial intelligence firm called MiniMax for copyright infringement, alleging its AI service generates iconic characters including Darth Vader, the Minions and Wonder Woman without the studios’ permission.

“MiniMax’s bootlegging business model and defiance of U.S. copyright law are not only an attack on Plaintiffs and the hard-working creative community that brings the magic of movies to life, but are also a broader threat to the American motion picture industry,” the companies said in their complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

The entertainment companies requested that MiniMax be restrained from further infringement. They are seeking damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work, as well as attorney fees and costs.

This is the latest round of copyright lawsuits that major studios have brought against AI companies over intellectual property concerns. In June, Disney and Universal Pictures sued AI firm Midjourney for copyright infringement. Earlier this month, Warner Bros. Discovery also sued Midjourney.

Shanghai-based MiniMax has a service called Hailuo AI, which is marketed as a “Hollywood studio in your pocket” and used characters including the Joker and Groot in its ads without the studios’ permission, the studios’ lawsuit said. Users can type in a text prompt requesting “Star Wars’” iconic character Yoda or DC Comics’ Superman, and Hailuo AI can pull up high quality and downloadable images or video of the character, according to the document.

“MiniMax completely disregards U.S. copyright law and treats Plaintiffs’ valuable copyrighted characters like its own,” the lawsuit said. “MiniMax’s copyright infringement is willful and brazen.”

“Given the rapid advancement in technology in the AI video generation field … it is only a matter of time until Hailuo AI can generate unauthorized, infringing videos featuring Plaintiffs’ copyrighted characters that are substantially longer, and even eventually the same duration as a movie or television program,” the lawsuit said.

MiniMax did not immediately return a request for comment.

Hollywood is grappling with significant challenges, including the threat of AI, as companies consolidate and reduce their expenses as production costs rise. Many actors and writers, still recovering from strikes that took place in 2023, are scrambling to find jobs. Some believe the growth of AI has threatened their livelihoods as tech tools can replicate iconic characters with text prompts.

While some studios have sued AI companies, others are looking for ways to partner with them. For example, Lionsgate has partnered with AI startup Runway to help with behind the scenes processes such as storyboarding.

The Ellison era of Paramount was barely a month old when another major potential Hollywood merger appeared on the horizon.

Last week the share prices of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery surged following reports that the former was preparing a bid to take over the latter with a mostly cash offer backed by the Larry Ellison family. This would come a remarkably short time after Skydance Media, the production company founded by Larry’s movie producer son David, combined with Paramount in an $8-billion deal.

A merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery would have profound ramifications for the media and entertainment industry.

It would consolidate two of Hollywood’s oldest studios, Paramount and Warner Bros., in the most significant movie business merger since Walt Disney Co. devoured the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox in 2019. The film industry has still not recovered from having the 20th Century Fox studio effectively taken off the board.

Additionally, a merger would put two mass-market streaming services, Paramount+ and HBO Max, under the same roof, probably leading to the eventual melding of the two. The Ellison clan’s move would also bring Warner Bros. Discovery’s linear TV networks, including CNN, HGTV, Food Network and TNT, together with Paramount’s Comedy Central, MTV and BET.

All of this would lead to substantial “synergies,” meaning cuts and layoffs, at a time when the job market in entertainment and corporate media is already fraught as the industry reconfigures itself. Paramount is currently bracing for thousands of layoffs as the new owners seek $2 billion in cost savings.

That’s not to mention the changes that would likely come if CNN came under the control of Ellison.

Larry Ellison, the Oracle Corp. billionaire who, depending on the day, is one of the world’s two wealthiest people alongside Elon Musk, is known to be Trump-friendly. The effects of the Ellison reign are already being felt at Paramount’s CBS News, where a former conservative think tank leader was recently appointed as ombudsman and where center-right and staunchly pro-Israel journalist Bari Weiss is expected to have an influential role after Ellison buys her digital media startup the Free Press.

So why is all this happening now, and why so quickly?

After all, the Wall Street Journal first reported Ellison’s interest in Warner Bros. Discovery on Sept. 11, just weeks after the Paramount-Skydance combo closed on Aug. 7.

In a sense, this scenario is unsurprising. Wall Street has been practically begging for another wave of consolidation in the media business, as the audience for theatrical movies shrinks, cord-cutting guts TV profits and more of viewers’ attention turns to YouTube, Netflix and TikTok. Most of the legacy entertainment companies don’t have the streaming firepower to compete. They need to combine to measure up.

But the timing is unexpected, and the unavoidable political considerations are particularly interesting.

With Trump in the White House, the political winds are clearly blowing in the Ellisons’ direction, after the Skydance and RedBird Capital team that bid for Paramount placated federal regulators with promises to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and to make CBS News more balanced, at least in eyes of Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.

Paramount paid $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” Kamala Harris interview. Ellison and his team want to make a Warner Bros. deal happen when a friendly administration is in power.

Paramount has lately upped its spending, acquiring the rights to UFC (run by Trump friend Dana White), locking down “South Park” for Paramount+ and announcing a deal with Activision to make a “Call of Duty” movie.

Also of note is that Ellison’s group is coming in with an offer for the whole company even as Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav prepares to split the media giant into two firms: one with the studios, HBO and streaming businesses, and the other with the TV networks. Putting in a bid now could dissuade other potential buyers that might be interested in just one part.

Apple and Amazon have long been seen as potential bidders for Warner Bros. (Amazon already owns MGM), but it’s unlikely they would want a bunch of TV channels that are on the brink of being orphaned. Analysts have speculated that one reason for the proposed split was to make the studio and streaming assets more attractive to buyers by uncoupling them from the challenged pay-TV business. That split is expected to take place sometime in mid-2026.

Paramount’s bid could also preempt those that may want to do a deal, but are firmly on the Trump administration’s bad side. NBCUniversal owner Comcast Corp.’s CEO Brian Roberts has been the subject of disparaging Trump missives. Comcast is liberal network MSNBC’s parent company (for now). A regulatory review involving a perceived Trump enemy would likely not go well.

Of course, competitive bids could emerge anyway, for example, if a private equity player such as Apollo Global decided to get into the mix after previously expressing interest in Paramount through an unsuccessful team-up with Sony.

Big mergers in media and entertainment often fail, and they’re always disruptive.

Warner Bros. itself was involved in some of the most disastrous deals ever: AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner, and before that, the media company’s ill-fated marriage with AOL. Warner Bros. is now on a box-office hot streak, but that has come after years of Zaslav taking heat for killing projects such as “Batgirl.”

Such deals result in mass layoffs. Movie theater owners will most likely see darker days ahead as they’ll be minus yet another big supplier of blockbusters. Journalist Richard Rushfield, of the Ankler newsletter, demanded that somebody do something to stop it. We’ll see.

An Oracle scion buying two studios one after the other probably wasn’t the tech takeover of Hollywood that many people envisioned. Analysts long assumed that Apple would be the one to buy an entertainment powerhouse — maybe even Disney — despite having not shown any particular inclination for doing so. But though it’s not the Silicon Valley roll-up people anticipated, it may be the one they’re going to get.

Stuff we wrote

Numbers of the week

An anime film slayed its Hollywood competition at the box office over the weekend.

“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle,” already a big hit in Japan, was the highest-grossing movie domestically, beating new films “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” “The Long Walk” and “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.”

The film, distributed by Sony Pictures and Crunchyroll, opened with a better-than-expected $70 million in ticket sales from the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates, making it the biggest anime opening ever. It’s also the highest-grossing domestic debut of the year so far for an animated film.

Its global weekend for Sony, which owns the Crunchyroll anime brand and streaming service, totaled $132.1 million, which includes 49 international markets.

Including grosses from Japan, the movie’s worldwide tally has surpassed $450 million, according to Comscore.

The success of “Demon Slayer,” part of a long-running popular franchise and not to be confused with Netflix’s hit “KPop Demon Hunters,” is a relief to theater owners at a time when other genres are struggling, including superheroes, comedies and original animation. It’s the latest evidence of anime’s growing global clout.

Comedian Nate Bargatze didn’t shortchange the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, nor did he kill the Emmys telecast’s ratings on Sunday night.

The 77th Emmy Awards ceremony from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles delivered an average of 7.42 million viewers on CBS, up 8% from last year’s audience for ABC.

Once among the most-watched live awards shows on television, the Emmy Awards audience declined dramatically over the last decade as most of the series celebrated no longer have the broad reach they did when traditional TV still dominated the culture, reports Stephen Battaglio.

But the audience level appears to have stabilized. Nielsen data shows that ratings for the Emmy Awards grew for the second consecutive year. The figure is the highest since 2021, when the telecast also aired on CBS.

HBO Max’s “The Pitt,” Apple TV+’s “The Studio” and Netflix’s “Adolescence” were big winners.

Film shoots

Finally …

Listen: The music of Le Tigre, just because it rocks. I just started the audiobook of Le Tigre and Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna’s memoir, “Rebel Girl.” Essential for punk rock fans.

Television’s biggest night is here and with it comes some of the best red carpet fashion of awards season.

This year’s Emmy-nominated stars include the always stylish Kristen Bell (“Nobody Wants This”), Quinta Brunson (“Abbott Elementary”), Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”), Keri Russell (“The Diplomat”), Carrie Coon (“The White Lotus”), Cate Blanchett (“Disclaimer”) and Michelle Williams (“Dying for Sex”). Meanwhile, Adam Brody (“Nobody Wants This”), Jeremy Allen White (“The Bear”), Colman Domingo (“The Four Seasons”), Bowen Yang (“Saturday Night Live”), Sterling K. Brown (“Paradise”), Pedro Pascal (“The Last of Us”) and Javier Bardem (“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”) are among the men who are sure to impress. Here’s hoping that host Nate Bargatze dresses as George Washington at one point in the night to revive his hit “Saturday Night Live” sketch “Washington’s Dream.” Hollywood (and red carpet) veterans Kathy Bates, Jean Smart, Catherine O’Hara, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Harrison Ford, Martin Short and Gary Oldman may school them all on sartorial taste.

The 77th Emmy Awards will be broadcast from the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live at 5 p.m. Pacific on CBS. Apple TV+’s “Severance” leads all nominees this year with 27, followed by HBO’s “The Penguin” with 24.

Here are the best looks from the 2025 Emmys, updating live:

Taylor Dearden

Taylor Dearden steps out of “The Pitt” and on the red carpet.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Jackie Tohn

Jackie Tohn wows at the Emmys.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor

Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor are back in black at the Emmys.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Jeannie Mai

Jeannie Mai hits the Emmys red carpet.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Krys Marshall

“Paradise” actor Krys Marshall stuns in a strapless Sebastian Gunawan gown.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Walton Goggins and Nadia Conners

Walton Goggins and his wife Nadia Conners share a sweet moment on the red carpet.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Phaedra Parks

“The Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Phaedra Parks waves hello.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Zuri Hall

Zuri Hall stuns in a metallic burgundy dress.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Kit Hoover

“Access Hollywood” host Kit Hoover is effortlessly chic on the red carpet.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Haley Kalil

Social media influencer Haley Kalil is serving looks.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Derek Hough

Leave it to “Dancing With the Stars” judge Derek Hough to bust a move on the red carpet.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Justine Lupe

“Nobody Wants This” star Justine Lupe sparkles in Carolina Herrera on the Emmys carpet.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Shanina Shaik

Shanina Shaik looks chic in a black long sleeve Carolina Herrera gown.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Bresha Webb

Bresha Webb, one of the hosts of E!’s Emmys red carpet live show, arrives in style.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

An anime film slayed its Hollywood competition at the box office this weekend.

“Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle,” already a big hit in Japan, was the highest-grossing movie domestically, beating new films “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” “The Long Walk” and “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.”

The film distributed by Sony Pictures and Crunchyroll opened with a better-than-expected $70 million in ticket sales from the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates, making it the biggest anime opening ever. It’s also the highest-grossing domestic debut of the year so far for an animated film.

Its global weekend for Sony, which owns the Crunchyroll anime brand and streaming service, totaled $132.1 million, which includes 49 international markets.

Globally, “Demon Slayer” had already made more than $272 million in box office revenue, with $213 million in Japan alone, according to data from Box Office Mojo.

The success of “Demon Slayer” is a relief to theater owners at a time when other genres are struggling, including superheroes, comedies and original animation. It’s the latest evidence of anime’s growing global clout.

The new “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” is part of a larger popular anime franchise.

It’s the first installment of a planned trilogy that will span the final showdown between the Demon Slayer Corps and the monstrous creatures the secret organization was created to defeat. A previous theatrical film, “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba — The Movie: Mugen Train,” was a box office hit in 2020.

The new “Downton Abbey” film from Focus Features launched with $18.1 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada, which was good enough for third place behind the second weekend of New Line’s “The Conjuring: Last Rites.” Lionsgate’s “The Long Walk,” based on a Stephen King novel, opened in fourth with $11.5 million domestically.

“Spinal Tap II,” a sequel to the 1984 mockumentary comedy classic, opened with a weak $1.7 million.

HARRY Styles takes the next step in his romance with Zoe Kravitz. 

The Sun revealed last month the pop star, 31, and actress, 36, were dating and now insiders say they are inseparable. 

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As they left Newark airport in New Jersey this week, Harry wore jeans and Zoe was in all black.

Friends said they were invited to singer Charli XCX’s second wedding in Sicily today. 

The popstar first sparked romance rumours with Zoe last month when they were seen together in Rome.

The One Direction hitmaker, who was then spotted looking loved up with his partner in NYC last week, has now suggested they’re getting very serious very quickly.

Harry was seen enjoying a lunch date with Zoe where he met her music star father Lenny in New York‘s West Village.

They put on a united front, holding hands as they entered the Sant Ambroeus venue before Lenny, 61, arrived solo.

The Ain’t Over Til It’s Over hitmaker donned a red sleeveless top and skintight jeans, with a black back thrown across his body.

He pulled on a pair of sunglasses as he strode through the streets to the venue, ready to meet his daughter’s new love.

Meanwhile Caught Stealing star Zoe cut a chic figure in a black vest and matching silk skirt.

She left her hair in a natural style flowing over her shoulders while also opting for a pair of shades.

The Batman movie alum walked hand in hand with Night Changes vocalist Harry, who kept a serious expression ahead of the family get-together.

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Paramount on Friday sharply denounced a proposed boycott of Israeli film institutions by a group that calls itself Film Workers for Palestine and is supported by dozens of Hollywood luminaries.

Earlier this week, the group launched an open letter pledging to withhold support for Israeli film festivals, production companies and other organizations that the group said were involved in “genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people.”

The letter has been signed by hundreds of individuals, including filmmakers Jonathan Glazer, Ava DuVernay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara, Olivia Colman and Mark Ruffalo.

“As filmmakers, actors, film industry workers, and institutions, we recognize the power of cinema to shape perceptions,” the group wrote. “In this urgent moment of crisis, where many of our governments are enabling the carnage in Gaza, we must do everything we can to address complicity in that unrelenting horror.”

The group pledged “not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions — including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies,” which have been “implicated” in attacks on Palestinians. The group described its effort as being inspired by filmmakers joining the South African boycott over apartheid, a global campaign decades ago that proved influential in helping overturn the nation’s government.

Paramount, which was acquired last month by the Larry Ellison family and private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, made clear its opposition to the filmmakers’ campaign.

“We believe in the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people, promote mutual understanding, and preserve the moments, ideas, and events that shape the world we share,” said an emailed statement attributed to the company. “We do not agree with recent efforts to boycott Israeli filmmakers. Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace.”

Paramount is the first studio to state a position on the divisive issue. An insider who was not authorized to speak about the internal debate said Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison and the company’s leadership team felt strongly about the need to speak out in opposition, believing that individuals should not be boycotted based on their nationality.

“The global entertainment industry should be encouraging artists to tell their stories and share their ideas with audiences throughout the world,” Paramount said. “We need more engagement and communication — not less.”

The Hollywood sign has been blown up in movies, altered by pranksters to read “Hollyweed,” “Jollygood” and “Hollyboob” and saw Tom Cruise staple some Olympic rings on it to promote the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. Politicians have used it as a prop for commercials and mailers the way they do kissing a baby or eating a taco. Out-of-town goobers and locals alike hike up to various vantage points around it for a selfie or group shot.

But the crown for the worst stunt involving the monument to everything dreamy and wonderful about L.A. now lies with the Border Patrol.

Earlier this week, Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol sector chief in charge of Trump’s long, hot deportation summer in L.A., posted on social media a photo of him and dozens of his officers posing on a patch of dirt in what looks like Lake Hollywood Park. Behind them is the Hollywood sign.

Arms are crossed. Hands are on belts. A few National Guard troops, one with a K9 unit, join in. None of the faces are masked for once. That’s because they didn’t have to be: Almost every one of them is blurred out.

“This is the team. They’re the ones on the ground, making it happen,” wrote Bovino, one of only two in the photo without a blurry face. “The mean green team is not going anywhere. We are here to stay.” And just in case readers didn’t get that la migra is hard, Bovino concluded his post with a fire emoji.

The faces of these supposedly brave men are more fuzzed out than Bigfoot in that famous footage from 1967.

Jeff Zarrinnam, chairman of the nonprofit in charge of maintaining the Hollywood sign, said “we have to stay neutral on these types of things,” so he didn’t offer his opinion on why a man who spent his summer terrorizing large swaths of the Southland would want to pose there. He did say the Border Patrol didn’t request special access to get closer to it as other politicians have in the past.

“It was probably a team-building effort for them, or a lot of them probably hadn’t seen it before,” he said. “It’s a symbol of America. Maybe that’s why they were standing up there. Who knows?”

L.A. Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose district is where the Hollywood sign stands, was not as charitable.

“To see an icon of this city used for an image designed to instill fear in Angelenos is chilling — particularly on the heels of Monday’s Supreme Court ruling which dealt a devastating blow to a city that has already faced so much hardship this year,” she said in a statement.

Bovino is expected to show up soon in Chicago to oversee the Border Patrol’s invasion of the Windy Cindy. His press team didn’t return my request for an interview or my questions about whether the photo was digitally altered — other than the face blurring and the ultra-sharp focusing on Bovino — and what he hoped to accomplish with it. The sign itself looks shrouded in fog, but who knows? The whole photo has a weirdness about it.

Nevertheless, Bovino’s smirk in the group portrait says it all.

This is a guy who came into town like so many newcomers before him wanting to make it big and willing to do whatever it took. Short, with a high fade haircut and nasal drawl, Bovino quickly became a constant on local news, selling himself as a mix of Andy Griffith (a fellow North Carolina native) and Lt. Col. Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now.”

He starred in slickly produced government-created videos portraying the Border Patrol as warriors on a divine mission to make the City of Angeles safe from immigrant infidels. He claimed local politicians were endangering residents with their sanctuary policies and gleefully thumbed his nose at a temporary restraining order barring indiscriminate raids like those, which the Supreme Court just ruled can start happening again. He was there, a cameraman filming his every strut, when National Guard troops in armed Humvees parked along Whittier Boulevard in July all so Border Patrol agents on horseback could trot through an empty MacArthur Park.

Bovino cheered on via social media when his “mean green team” rented a Penske truck to lure in day laborers at a Westlake Home Depot in August only to detain them. Even worse was Bovino showing up in front of the Japanese American National Museum with a phalanx of migra while California’s political class was inside decrying the gerrymandering push by President Trump. He pleaded ignorance on that last action when Gov. Gavin Newsom and others accused the sector chief of trying to intimidate them even as friendly media just happened to be there, just like they so happened to be embedded with immigration agents all summer as they chased after tamale ladies and day laborers.

Supporters played up his moves as if they were a master class in psyops, with grandiose codenames such as Operation Trojan Horse for the Penske truck raid and Operation Excalibur for the invasion of MacArthur Park. So Bovino and his janissaries posing in front of the Hollywood sign comes off like a hunter posing in front of his killed prey or a taunting postcard to L.A.: Thinking about you. See you soon.

But all of Bovino’s actions grabbed far more non-criminals than actual bad hombres and did nothing to make Southern California safer. Locals have countered his attempt at a shock-and-awe campaign with lawsuits, protests, mutual aid and neighborhood watches that won’t end. That resistance forced la migra to cry to their daddy Trump for National Guard and Marine backup, with an occasional call to the LAPD and L.A. Sheriff’s Department to keep away the boo birds who now track their every move.

Greg: hope you enjoyed your stay in L.A. Congrats — you made it! You’re the star of your own D-level Tinseltown production that no one except pendejos wants to see. You left L.A. as one of the most loathed outsiders since former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt. Stay gone. Wish you weren’t here.

Published on
12/09/2025 – 9:49 GMT+2

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Shares in Warner Bros Discovery surged nearly 30% in New York on Thursday after the Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount Skydance was preparing to buy its rival.

Paramount Skydance’s stock also rose around 16% in daily trading.

The majority cash bid is reportedly for the entire company, including its movie studio and cable networks like HBO and CNN. Warner said late last year that it planned to split into two operating divisions: one focused on cable TV and the other on streaming and studios.

Paramount’s offer is allegedly backed by Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who briefly became the world’s richest person this week, overtaking tech tycoon Elon Musk. The billionaire’s son, David Ellison, runs Paramount Skydance.

The WSJ noted that a bid hasn’t yet been submitted and that plans could still fall apart.

Paramount Skydance’s market value was $19 billion (€16bn) as of Thursday’s close, while that of Warner Bros Discovery was roughly $40bn (€34bn).

Paramount and Warner Bros did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding reports of the acquisition.

If approved, a merger between the two firms would mark the biggest consolidation in Hollywood since Walt Disney bought the entertainment division of Fox Corp. in 2019.

Scale would allow the new company to compete with the likes of streaming giants Netflix and Disney as the industry is redefined by changes in traditional viewing habits.

Paramount Skydance merger

The report comes just weeks after the finalisation of a $8bn (€7bn) merger between movie giant Paramount and independent film studio Skydance Media.

This acquisition became particularly controversial after it was linked to a legal dispute over a CBS News interview.

In July, Paramount paid $16 million (€14mn) to settle a defamation case against US President Donald Trump. The Republican leader claimed that Paramount’s CBS News in November edited a “60 Minutes” news programme with then-vice president Kamala Harris in a way that was deliberately deceptive.

Paramount said in a statement that the settlement with Trump was “completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process”. 

Even so, critics of the settlement lambasted it as a veiled bribe to appease Trump and allow the merger to go ahead.

Despite the payout, Paramount’s settlement did not include a statement of apology or regret.

Skydance did, however, declare it would end Paramount’s diversity programmes and appoint an ombudsman to review complaints of bias. Paramount also cancelled the left-leaning Late Show with Stephen Colbert ahead of the merger approval.

Critics viewed the moves as further attempts to win over President Trump, although Paramount denied that the Colbert show was cancelled for political motives.

“Sound of Freedom” distributor Angel Studios made its stock market debut Thursday as the company looks to expand its streaming service and eventually penetrate international markets.

The Provo, Utah-based firm is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ANGX. Shares of the company rose 8% to $13.

Angel Studios’ launch on the public market is the latest step in the company’s unconventional journey into the entertainment business.

Founded by brothers Neal, Daniel, Jeffrey and Jordan Harmon, the company began as VidAngel, a service that allowed viewers to sanitize Hollywood movies by erasing sex, violence and swear words. But in 2016, VidAngel was sued for copyright infringement by Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros., who said the company’s business model — which involved purchasing thousands of DVDs and Blu-ray discs and allowing users to stream them online — was essentially piracy.

VidAngel eventually settled the case, and the Harmon brothers sold off the filtering business. The company rebranded as Angel Studios and kept its content production and crowdfunding operation.

Today, the firm operates a streaming service and releases movies theatrically, including 2023’s massively popular “Sound of Freedom,” which grossed $250 million worldwide, and the animated film “The King of Kings,” which came out in May and tells the story of Jesus. The studio focuses on what it calls “values-based storytelling,” and its slate is determined through the vote of its 1.5 million Angel Guild members, who also get free movie tickets and other perks.

“It’s really a combination of the values of a broader audience,” said Jordan Harmon, president. “If you look at movies like ‘The Sound of Music,’ or ‘Casablanca’ or ‘12 Angry Men,’ all those were broad, incredible stories that touched the lives of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people. Those are the type of stories that we think fall right into this values-driven, light-amplifying mission.”

Though considered small for Hollywood, Angel Studios moved to become a publicly traded company because its nearly 70,000 investors required it to, said company Chief Executive Neal Harmon. The company merged with a special purpose acquisition company (or SPAC) called Southport Acquisition Corp. to go public. A SPAC is essentially a shell company that exists solely to buy a private company and take it public without the scrutiny of a traditional IPO.

“We’re turning the way that this industry works on its head,” he said. “And because we are not doing the traditional Hollywood gatekeeper thing, we also needed to access capital in an untraditional way.”

The path is far from the potato farm in Idaho where the brothers grew up, and where the nearest neighbor was a quarter-mile away. Working together on the farm — and sharing a bedroom for years — helped foster the communication and bond between the brothers, said Jeff Harmon, chief content officer.

“If you look in Hollywood, the best partnerships have all been brothers,” he said, ticking off several successful movie business sibling partnerships including the Disneys, Warners and Nolans. “When they actually work together really well, it becomes unstoppable.”

JAMES McAvoy was allegedly punched by a stranger at a Toronto bar while in town for the premiere of his directorial debut, California Schemin’.

The 46-year-old Scottish Hollywood star was enjoying a quiet night out with his wife, Lisa Liberati, when things reportedly turned sour at around 11.55pm on Monday.

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“James was having a casual get-together with the producers of his movie and, as he later learned when speaking with the staff, there was a man who drank too much who was getting escorted out,” a source told People.

“James’ back was to him and the man just punched him.” 

McAvoy apparently tried to defuse the tense situation.

Despite taking a blow, he stayed at the bar and even laughed off it with others, the source added.

The alleged assault happened at Toronto bar Charlotte’s Room.

It’s unclear whether the stranger knew he was punching the X-Men star – or if McAvoy was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Scotsman is believed to have escaped injury.

He had been in the Canadian capital for the premiere of California Schemin’ – his directorial debut – at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday.

The movie tells the wild true story of two Scots – Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd – who tricked music label bosses into singing them a record deal by posing as Eminem protégés from the US.

Performing as Silibil N’ Brains, the duo partied with Madonna, appeared on MTV and toured with rap legends.

The cast includes Séamus McLean Ross as Gavin, Samuel Bottomley as Billy, Lucy Halliday as Mary Boyd and Rebekah Murrell as their manager, Tessa.

The film is based on Bain’s memoir California Schemin’, which was later reprinted as Straight Outta Scotland.

McAvoy, who grew up in the Drumchapel area, said that coming from a council estate in Glasgow himself, he wanted to tell stories about people from similar backgrounds.

Speaking last year at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom, he said: “I was interested in telling a story not just solely set in Scotland, but about people from backgrounds where they have fewer opportunities, whether that’s council estates or whatever.”

The star added that he was passionate about “telling a story that was entertaining and aspirational, and not just dwelling on the grime and dirt, which is part of that sort of lower economic background, definitely”.

McAvoy rose to global fame as Mr. Tumnus in the 2005 fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and as an assassin in the 2008 action blockbuster Wanted.

He won the BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2006 and went on to earn BAFTA Award nominations for the period dramas The Last King of Scotland and Atonement during that time.

In 2011, he took on the role of Charles Xavier in the superhero film X-Men: First Class, reprising it in the later X-Men films.

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The Italian journalist who — for some reason — excluded Ayo Edebiri in a question about Hollywood and the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements has spoken out about the now-viral interview.

Federica Polidoro posted a statement Monday on Instagram defending her work, saying that she has been subject to “violent language, personal attacks, and cyberbullying” following the “question that, for some reason, was not well received by some members of the public.”

“Rather than focusing on the thoughtful responses of Ayo Edebiri, Julia Roberts, and Andrew Garfield, the discussion continues solely on how I should have phrased the question,” Polidoro wrote.

The exchange in question occurred at a press event with Edebiri, Roberts and Garfield at the Venice Film Festival, where their film “After the Hunt,” directed by Luca Guadagnino, made its world premiere. In a video that has been shared widely, Polidoro is heard asking Roberts and Garfield what they thought was “lost during the politically correct era” and what people can expect from Hollywood now that “the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matters are done.”

After Roberts asks the journalist to clarify who the question is directed to, Polidoro reiterates that her question is for Roberts and Garfield. As the actors share a look, Edebiri raises her hand to respond instead.

“I know that that’s not for me and I don’t know if it’s purposeful that it’s not for me — but I am curious — but I don’t think it’s done,” the star of “The Bear” says. “I don’t think it’s done at all.”

“I think maybe hashtags might not be used as much,” she continues, “but I do think that there’s work being done by activists, by people, every day, that’s beautiful, important work that’s not finished. That’s really, really, really active for a reason. Because this world is really charged. And that work isn’t finished at all. Maybe there’s not mainstream coverage in the way that there might have been, daily headlines in the way that it might have been, eight or so years ago, but I don’t think it means that the work is done. That’s what I would say.”

“The movements are still absolutely alive,” Garfield says in agreement. “Just maybe not as labeled or covered or magnified as much in this present moment.”

In her statement, Polidoro pushed back against accusations of racism, saying she has “interviewed people of every background and ethnicity” over the course of her 20-year career.

“My own family is multi-ethnic, matriarchal, and feminist, with a significant history of immigration,” wrote Polidoro, who in her Instagram bio mentions being a Golden Globes voter and awards season analyst. “In my view, the real racists are those who see racism everywhere and seek to muzzle journalism, limiting freedom of analysis, critical thinking, and the plurality of perspectives.”

Polidoro’s statement also said, “Censoring or delegitimizing questions considered ‘uncomfortable’ does not fall within the practice of democracy. … Journalism’s role is to ask questions, even on delicate topics, with respect and responsibility.”

It was another tense night in Bake Off tent as the bakers took part in biscuit week, but away from the bakes one contestant couldn’t help but admit she has the hots for Paul Hollywood

The 11 remaining bakers were back in the tent for the second episode of The Great British Bake Off tonight, as they took part in biscuit week.

As ever, things were heating up in the tent, and things are about to get even hotter next week as a preview saw one contestant admitting to their ‘secret crush’ on Paul Hollywood.

Bridal designer Pui Man, 51, found herself in danger on the Channel 4 show tonight after having a nightmare in the technical challenge with her hobnobs. However, she hasn’t seemed to let it get her down, as she’s set to go one step further to impress Paul next week.

READ MORE: Great British Bake Off star admits show was ‘disaster’ as they’re sent homeREAD MORE: Alison Hammond’s net worth ‘revealed’ after previous admission of money struggles

Next week, the bakers are set to face their biggest challenge yet, bread week. With a savoury signature, a deep fried technical and a towering Showstopper, who will be the next to leave the tent?

Channel 4 are keeping it top secret until next Tuesday night, but one thing they aren’t keeping secret is baker Pui Man’s ‘crush’ on Hollywood.

In a preview for next week, which aired at the end of tonight’s episode, Noel Fielding can be seen asking the contestant: “What is it about Paul kneading bread that you like?”

“Very sexy,” Pui Man laughed, as Noel added: “With his blue eyes and a husky voice!”

The contestants weren’t the only one dropping secrets however, as Noel revealed one just seconds in to tonight’s episode.

Asked by co-host Alison Hammond what his favourite biscuit was, the IT Crowd star cheekily replied: “Not many people know this about me, but at midnight, I like to get naked, glue feathers onto myself and put party rings on my eyes and pretend to be an owl.

At the end of a dramatic episode, it was revealed that Leighton would be the second baker to leave the 2025 series, with his biscuits being called ‘a bit wet’ by the judges.

“Someone had to go right?” he said, as the rest of the bakers were left in tears. “I’ve had the most fun on Bake Off, I’ve loved it. I’ve had the opportunity and then I’ve come up against these amazing bakers.”

Fans were left gutted with Leighton’s departure, as one wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “feel sad Leighton is gone I liked him but glad pui man is still in the game.”

A second penned: “Leighton i will miss you so bad :((,” while a third wrote: “Happy for Pui Man but NOT LEIGHTON!!”

Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.

DARTH Vader’s lightsaber has been sold for £2.7million — making it the most expensive Star Wars prop in history.

The fake weapon, made from an old flash camera attachment, beat pre-sale expectations by £100,000.

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It was famously used in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back in the battle where baddie Vader chops off Luke Skywalker’s hand — then reveals that he is, in fact, his opponent’s father.

Brandon Alinger, of auction house Propstore in Los Angeles, said: “The result marks a landmark moment for the entire world of film collecting.”

“To see a Star Wars lightsaber – the symbol of one of cinema’s greatest sagas – become the highest-valued piece of the franchise ever sold at auction is incredibly special.”

He added: “It speaks to the enduring cultural power of Star Wars and the passion of fans and collectors who see these artifacts as touchstones of modern mythology.”

The 1ft (32cm) green lightsaber was used in scenes by Darth Vader actor David Prowse and stunt performer Bob Anderson.

In the pre-auction process it was described as “one of the most significant cinema artefacts ever.”

Other items sold on Thursday night included the Spider-Man suit worn by Tobey Maguire in the 2002 superhero film, which went for $289,800 (£214,000).

Harrison Ford‘s eight-foot bullwhip, belt and whip holster from Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989) beat its pre-sale estimate to sell for $485,100 (£360,000).

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