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  • Paramount Skydance Sees Q4 Loss Widen After TV Downturn Amid New Effort to Acquire Warner

    Paramount Skydance Sees Q4 Loss Widen After TV Downturn Amid New Effort to Acquire Warner

    Paramount Skydance, in the midst of pursuing a acquisition of Warner Bros, Discovery, saw downturns in revenue from TV advertising and distribution in the fourth quarter, which helped to spur a wider loss for the period, even as revenue increased in its streaming and film operations.

    The owner of the CBS broadcast network and Paramount+ posted a loss that widened from the year-earlier period, to $573 million from $224 million, despite a 2% increase in revenue.

    Paramount posts its fourth quarter results as it is intensifying its chase for Warner Bros. Discovery, which is considering a revamped Paramount bid to buy all of the company even though it has already struck an agreement to sell its HBO Max streaming service and Warner studios to Netflix.

    “Over the past six months, we have made meaningful progress,” said David Ellison, Paramount’s CEO, in a letter to shareholders, noting that executives “remain confident in the path we’ve set to transform this company for the future.”

    Paramount said revenue grew 10% at its streaming operations, to $2.21 billion, while revenue from filmed entertainment rose 16% to nearly $1.26 billion. But revenue fell 5% at the company’s largest business, its TV networks, to $4.7 billion, compared with nearly $4.98 billion in the year-earlier period. Paramount said TV advertising during the quarter fell 10%, while distribution revenue fell 7%.

    The company projected better times ahead, calling for a 4% uptick in revenue for all of 2026, while guiding Wall Street to a projection of revenue of $7.15 billion to $7.35 billion for the first quarter of the year. Those figures would represent a decline of 1% to an uptick of 2% in revenue for the period.

    An acquisition of Warner would help boost the company’s economics, Ellison said in the letter. The company views Warner “as an accelerant” to achieving its goals “more quickly, in a way that is economically compelling for Paramount shareholders.”

    More to come…

  • Martin Short and Steve Martin Comedy Show Postponed After Death of Short’s Daughter

    Martin Short and Steve Martin Comedy Show Postponed After Death of Short’s Daughter

    Martin Short has postponed his comedy tour with Steve Martin following the death of his daughter.

    Katherine Short, whom Short adopted with his late wife, Nancy Dolman, died Monday. She was 42. She died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the Los Angeles coroner. 

    All February dates for “The Best of Steve Martin & Martin Short” have been postponed, and it’s unclear when the tour will resume. Short and Martin’s show was scheduled to commence on Friday at Milwaukee’s Miller High Life Theatre, with another stop on Saturday at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. A message on the Milwaukee venue’s website reads, “Due to unforeseen circumstances, Steve Martin & Martin Short’s show, originally scheduled for Friday, February 27th in Milwaukee, has been postponed. Tickets will be honored for a future rescheduled date.” The Orpheum website shares a similar message.

    The duo has tour dates set through December; their next stop at Washington, D.C.’s Dar Constitution Hall on March 13 does not currently have a delay notice.

    Short and Dolman, who died of ovarian cancer in 2010, also shared two sons, Henry and Oliver. Katherine graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and gender sexuality studies in 2006, then earned her master’s in social work at USC. She worked at UCLA’s Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital before going into private practice, according to People magazine.

    “It is with profound grief that we confirm the passing of Katherine Hartley Short,” Martin Short’s rep said on Monday in a statement. “The Short family is devastated by this loss, and asks for privacy at this time. Katherine was beloved by all and will be remembered for the light and joy she brought into the world.”

  • ‘Avatar: Fire & Ash’ Success Lifts Imax Quarterly Earnings

    ‘Avatar: Fire & Ash’ Success Lifts Imax Quarterly Earnings

    James Cameron’s return to Pandora with “Avatar: Fire & Ash” meant big business for Imax. Revenue at the exhibition technology company climbed 35% to $125.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2025, compared to $92.7 million in the year-ago period. The company said that the third “Avatar” film, which Cameron urged moviegoers to see in Imax, drove record box office for the quarter, contributing $112 million in ticket sales to become Imax’s highest grossing Hollywood film.

    However, net income for the quarter shrank 64% to $2.5 million, down from $6.9 million in the same period in 2024. Imax also reported adjusted earnings per-share of 58 cents, compared to the 27 cents per-share it logged a year earlier. Included in the results is $22 million of one-time charges, including $15 million for the repurchase of over 99% of convertible notes due 2026.

    Movie theaters have struggled to regain their popularity since COVID shut down the sector more than five years ago. Yet Imax has continued to draw crowds with filmmakers like Cameron, Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve all using the company’s cameras to shoot their blockbusters. Looking ahead, Imax said it is targeting a record $1.4 billion in global box office in 2026, citing Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Three,” both of which were filmed using the company’s technology, as big draws. The company also predicted that upcoming releases such as “The Mandalorian and Grogu” and “Project Hail Mary” will play well on its screens.

    “We believe we are far from our peak, but rather, in a period of evolution and growth,” Imax chief Richard Gelfond told analysts on an earnings call. “With superior immersive technology and unmatched scale, Imax is the premiere global platform for blockbuster content. And blockbuster content continues to grow in importance across the ecosystem. The world’s greatest filmmakers, studios, even streamers — are leaning into blockbuster theatrical releases, as drivers of IP and value throughout the chain. As this trend accelerates, Imax becomes an increasingly valuable player. We’re the only game in town with a global platform, content portfolio and well-recognized brand.”

  • Hilary Knight trying to move on from President Donald Trump’s ‘distasteful joke’ after Olympic hockey wins

    Hilary Knight isn’t happy with what President Donald Trump said to the men’s hockey team on a phone call shortly after they beat Canada to win gold at the Olympics on Sunday.

    But she’s just trying to move on from that “distasteful joke” he made and focus on actually celebrating the women’s team’s gold medal win at the Milan Cortina Olympics instead.

    “I thought it was sort of a distasteful joke, and unfortunately, that is overshadowing a lot of the success, the success of just women at the Olympics carrying for Team USA and having amazing gold medal feats,” Knight said on ESPN on Wednesday.

    “We’re just focusing on celebrating the women in our room, the extraordinary efforts, and continue to celebrate three gold medals in program history as well as the double gold for both men’s and women’s at the same time. And really not detract from that with a distasteful joke.”

    Trump drew significant criticism on Sunday after a video emerged of him congratulating the men’s hockey team for also winning gold at the Olympics. Near the end of the call, after inviting the men’s team to his State of the Union address, he laughed and told players that, “We’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that. I do probably believe I would be impeached [if I didn’t].”

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    That comment drew laughs from men’s players in the locker room. FBI director Kash Patel was the one who called Trump after Team USA’s win. Patel flew to Italy and celebrated with the team in the locker room, something that also received blowback.

    Though they were eventually invited, the women’s team declined to attend the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, citing “previously scheduled academic and professional commitments.” Trump has since claimed that they “will soon be coming,” but the women’s hockey team has not committed to a visit.

    A large portion of the men’s team did attend and met Trump at the White House on Tuesday. Trump also said that he was going to give goalie Connor Hellebuyck the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    “We’re really happy for them,” Quinn Hughes, a member of the men’s hockey team, said on Tuesday. “[There’s] a lot going on around social media right now surrounding our team and their team, but in the last couple summers, we did a lot of training with them and got to know a lot of those girls really well.”

    Kight said that feeling was mutual, even if everything that has happened since the win has dominated the story.

    “I think there’s a genuine level of support there and respect,” she said. “I think that’s being overshadowed by a quick lapse. I think the guys were in a tough spot, so I think it’s a shame this storyline and narrative has kind of blown up and overshadowing that connection and genuine interest in one another and cheering each other on.”

    Knight wasn’t alone on the women’s team in speaking out, either.

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    Hayley Sacamurra was asked about it on “The Hockey Lifers” show on Tuesday, and said simply that “the call was what it was.”

    “Honestly like, the outpouring of love and support we’ve kind of received since that has outweighed any other feelings that I have,” she said. “I’m really just focused on the positives … Honestly, I just want to focus on how great our team is and how dominant we were the whole tournament. We got double gold, men’s and women’s side, like that is so incredible. I want to celebrate that, and I don’t want that to be overshadowed.”

    Knight, 36, announced in May that she would retire after the Olympics. She won her second gold medal and is now the most decorated U.S. women’s hockey player in history. She leads all American hockey players, men or women, with 15 Olympic goals and 33 points in her career. She scored the tying goal to force overtime with Canada in the gold medal game, too.

    The win was Team USA’s third gold at the Olympics since women’s hockey was added to the Games in 1998.

    “[This is a] really good learning point, to really focus on how we talk about women, not only in sport but in industry,” Knight said. “Women aren’t less than and their achievements shouldn’t be overshadowed by anything else other than how great they are.”

  • Canadian government demands safety changes from OpenAI

    Canadian government demands safety changes from OpenAI

    Canadian officials summoned leaders from OpenAI to Ottawa this week to address safety concerns about ChatGPT. The crux of the government concerns was that OpenAI did not notify authorities when it banned the account of a user who allegedly committed a mass shooting in British Columbia earlier this month.

    “The message that we delivered, in no uncertain terms, was that we have ‌an expectation that there are going to ⁠be changes implemented, and if they’re not forthcoming very quickly, the government is going to be making changes,” Justice Minister Sean Fraser said of the company and its AI chatbot. It’s unclear what those government-led changes or rules might be. There have been two previous, unsuccessful attempts to pass an online harms act in Canada.

    A recent report by The Wall Street Journal claimed that in 2025, some OpenAI employees flagged the account of the alleged shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, as containing potential warnings of committing real-world violence and called for leadership to notify law enforcement. Although Van Rootselaar’s account was banned for policy violations, a company rep said that the account activity did not meet OpenAI’s criteria for engaging the local police.

    “Those reports were deeply disturbing, reports saying that OpenAI did not contact law enforcement in a timely manner,” said Canadian Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon ahead of the discussion with company leaders. “We will have a sit-down meeting to have an explanation of their safety protocols and when they escalate and their thresholds of escalation to police, so we have a better understanding of what’s happening and what they do.”

    OpenAI has been implicated in mulitple wrongful death suits. The company’s ChatGPT was accused of encouraging “paranoid beliefs” before a man killed his mother and himself in a December 2025 lawsuit. It is also at the center of one of several wrongful death lawsuits against the makers of AI chatbots for helping teenagers plan and commit suicides.

  • The next Assassin’s Creed game loses its creative director

    The next Assassin’s Creed game loses its creative director

    Ubisoft’s shakeups continue unabated. The creative director of the next Assassin’s Creed game, codenamed Hexe, has left the company. The departure of Clint Hocking, a 20-year veteran of the company over two stints, was reportedly announced in a staff meeting this week.

    Hocking’s resume at Ubisoft included serving as creative director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Far Cry 2 and Watch Dogs: Legion. The details of why he’s leaving the company haven’t been reported.

    Ubisoft told VGC, which first reported on Hocking’s exit, that development on Hexe will continue. Jean Guedson, one of three new leaders of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, will take over as the upcoming title’s new creative director. Guedson had the same role for Assassin’s Creed Origins and Black Flag, two of the franchise’s most well-received entries.

    To say sailing hasn’t been smooth of late at Ubisoft would be an understatement. Last year, the company reorganized its corporate structure under a system of “creative houses.” The first, Vantage Studios, is partly owned by Tencent and now oversees Assassin’s Creed. Then in October, franchise head Marc-Alexis Côté left the company. He later claimed he was “asked to step aside” and is suing his former employer.

    All of these changes came in the wake of layoffs, big-name flops, more layoffs, studio closures, even more layoffs, strikes and (yep) layoffs again. Earlier this month, Ubisoft even fired an employee who criticized the company’s return-to-office mandate.

    But have no fear; some aspects of the company are doing quite well. Take, for example, nepotism. The future is looking bright indeed for a rising company star who is now co-CEO of Vantage Studios. That title belongs to Charlie Guillemot, the son of Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot.

  • David Harbour Has a New Dark Comedy About Swingers and “Weird People Looking for Meaning”

    David Harbour Has a New Dark Comedy About Swingers and “Weird People Looking for Meaning”

    As his Stranger Things chapter has come to a close, David Harbour is onto new — and more adult — terrain.

    He has spent the last several years developing HBO dark comedy DTF St. Louis, which follows three people battling middle-age malaise by exploring an app of that same name, made for singles and swingers looking to spice up their marriages. Harbour and Cardellini play a married couple with Jason Bateman as their also married friend, who end up in a love triangle with one of them soon found dead.

    The series marks Harbour’s first executive producing credit and has been in development for years, originally starring himself and Pedro Pascal in a different premise; Pedro later departed and Bateman came on board as a fellow EP and co-star, and the new story was set.

    “My ability to watch things has gotten so limited — like I don’t like so much stuff — but I love like The White Lotus and I love shows where you get eight hours with a couple of characters who you love, in your bed, and you’re watching them,” Harbour told The Hollywood Reporter at the show’s L.A. premiere on Tuesday. “You have a really good hook like a murder but then you have the freedom to play with these characters. I like humor and pathos and [showrunner] Steve Conrad has such a unique point of view so we started working on this thing.”

    Linda Cardellini and David Harbour on the carpet swings.

    JC Olivera/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images

    DTF stands for “Down to Fuck,” and HBO has leaned into the swinging aspect in the show’s marketing, embracing the slogan “You never know which way a friendship will swing” and even installing a swing set on the red carpet.

    But Harbour downplayed how much the series is about swinging, dating apps and kinks, noting, “I don’t know that it is an exploration of it. We tease you with that but the DTF app only functions to get the characters to explore the meaning that they lack in their lives. The only guy who is really on it is [his character] Floyd at one point and he only goes on a couple of things. But it’s really more about this existential need for connection and about weird people being weird.”

    The star — whose own relationship and breakup with Lily Allen has gotten plenty of attention in recent months — continued, “There’s a line that Steve’s always clung to which is the first line he wrote: ‘Nobody’s normal, they just look that way from across the street.’ That’s really what the whole series is trying to be, this empathetic response for weird people looking for meaning.”

    Cardellini echoed that she was drawn to how “peculiar and individual all of the characters are” and commended the way that intimate scenes “were handled so delicately and so technically and just no lack of information or care or preparation.” And co-star Joy Sunday teased she has been “kind of hiding” the show’s subject matter from her parents. “My dad texted me the other day and he was like, ‘Oh I saw your trailer’ and I was like, ‘Oh great!’” she laughed. “I don’t know if he fully understood, maybe he didn’t. So we’ll see, but I’m so proud of the work I did on this show.”

    DTF St. Louis premieres Sunday on HBO.

  • Amy Hill, Yolonda Ross Board ‘Flowers Para Los Muertos’ Black Comedy (Exclusive)

    Amy Hill, Yolonda Ross Board ‘Flowers Para Los Muertos’ Black Comedy (Exclusive)

    Amy Hill and Yolonda Ross have nabbed lead roles in Flowers Para Los Muertos, a Spanish- and English-language black comedy-thriller.

    The indie feature has just completed production in Mérida, Mexico, where it had local support from the Mexican city and used its iconic landmarks as locations. The international co-production between The Ebersole Hughes Company, Candivision and Maquina is written and directed by the creative team of P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes.

    Flowers Para Los Muertos has Hill playing New York photographer Aviva Lake, who unexpectedly inherits a house in Mexico, overseen by real estate agent Raven Johnson (Ross), who earlier did shady business with Lake’s estranged gay husband.

    Johnson tries to gaslight Lake into believing the house is haunted for a quick sale, only to discover the house in reality is haunted. Lilo & Stitch star Hill also appeared in the 2001 indie feature The New Women directed by Hughes.

    Flowers Para Los Muertos features local first-time actors, including Miguel Angel Loret and Andrea Arenas and the bilingual movie is inspired by 1940s psychological thrillers produced by Val Lewton and Mexican Spanish-language melodramas.

    Earlier, Ebersole directed and Hughes wrote Fox Television adaptations of the Spanish language telenovelas Desire and Wicked Wicked Games. Ebersole and Hughes share producer credits on Flowers Para Los Muertos with Candi Guterres, who also did the production design.

    Hill is represented by SMS Talent. Ross is represented by Principal Entertainment. The Ebersole Hughes Company is represented by Evoke Entertainment and Wallman PR.

  • Elizabeth Snead, Former Hollywood Reporter Contributor, Dies at 74 

    Elizabeth Snead, a former contributor and style and fashion writer for The Hollywood Reporter, died Monday in Delray Beach, Florida, of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. She was 74.

    Snead joined THR in 2011 as a contributing style editor, and she interviewed costume designers, established stars like Kristen Stewart and emerging talents while covering industry trends through 2015.

    During THR’s Costume Designers Roundtable in 2012, Lincoln’s Joanna Johnston told Snead and executive features editor Stephen Galloway that designing wardrobes for film was “somewhere between a war and a circus.”

    And for a 2012 story on the retirement of Uggie, the Jack Russell who starred in the best picture Oscar winner The Artist, his trainer Sarah Clifford told Snead, “He’s at the stage where he just says, ‘I think I want to go and lay in the sun by the pool.’” Wrote Snead: “Uggie’s protégé, his brother Dash, is training hard and will be able to jump in and fill Uggie’s pawprints soon.”

    Snead was born in Orange, New Jersey, to James, a relative of Hall of Fame golfer Sam Snead, and his British wife, Hazel. She graduated from Florida Atlantic University and began her journalism career at the South Florida Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.

    In the early 1980s, Snead was hired by the new USA Today as a style, fashion and pop culture writer. For nearly 20 years, first out of Washington and later as a correspondent in Los Angeles, she profiled the likes of Jane Fonda, George Clooney, Robert Redford, David Lynch and Barbra Streisand and covered awards shows, premieres and the Sundance and Cannes film festivals.

    Snead went freelance in the early 2000s, writing a biweekly Hollywood column for the Los Angeles Daily News and a Fashion Police column for E!, and she contributed to The Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar and InStyle as well.

    In 2005, she wrote for the Los Angeles Times awards website, The Envelope, and created The Dish Rag, a celebrity news blog that became the newspaper’s most-read blog, with 3 million unique users a month. She also helped with the Calendar section and created the newspaper’s party page.

    And she handled interviews for Entertainment Tonight.

    Snead often brought her poodle Mina on assignment. She found the abandoned dog, dingy gray and with chipped nail polish, on a street near Dupont Circle in Washington. Once she bathed the pooch, she discovered Mina had snow-white fur.

    She retired from journalism in the mid-2010s and returned to Florida, where she turned her attention to animal activities, such as showing her pack of Maltese dogs competitively and breeding Napoleon cats.

  • How ‘Toy Story 5’ Found Its Potato Head Voices After Deaths of Don Rickles, Estelle Harris

    How ‘Toy Story 5’ Found Its Potato Head Voices After Deaths of Don Rickles, Estelle Harris

    Toy Story 5 will keep Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head in the action, despite the deaths of the original voice stars behind the fan-favorite characters.

    Pixar‘s latest sequel in the Oscar-winning animated franchise hits theaters June 19. Writer-director Andrew Stanton‘s movie centers on Tom Hanks as the voice of Woody and Tim Allen voicing Buzz Lightyear as the heroes butt heads with new tablet Lilypad (Greta Lee).

    During a Reddit AMA on Tuesday, Stanton responded to a fan’s question about how the franchise dealt with replacing the late Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head and Estelle Harris as the character’s wife. In Disney‘s new movie, Jeff Bergman voices Mr. Potato Head, while Anna Vocino is the voice of Mrs. Potato Head.

    “There were auditions for that, yes,” Stanton replied. “We found two people that sounded very close to the original actors!”

    Rickles, who died in 2017 at 90, had voiced Mr. Potato Head since the original Toy Story that hit theaters in 1995, while Harris, whose Mrs. Potato Head was introduced during 1999’s Toy Story 2, passed away in 2022 at 93. Mr. Potato Head had a small role in 2019’s Toy Story 4 through the use of Rickles’ archival recordings as the character.

    The Toy Story 5 trailer, released last week, includes Bergman’s Mr. Potato Head reflecting on Woody and Buzz’s friendship: “It’s good to see them fighting again.”

    Additionally, Toy Story 5 will see Ernie Hudson take over the part of Combat Carl after Carl Weathers, who died in 2024 at 76, voiced the role in Toy Story 4.

    During the Reddit AMA to promote the release of his Hulu feature In the Blink of an Eye, Stanton was also asked if he would do anything differently on his 2012 movie John Carter, given that the live-action Disney film became an infamous box office flop. Stanton, who has been involved in the writing process of every Toy Story movie, has also helmed such features as Finding Nemo, WALL-E and Finding Dory.

    “If I got to do it again, I would do everything exactly that same as before,” Stanton responded about John Carter. “I loved every second of making that movie.”