Category: Entertainment

Another week, another turn of the screw in the Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger — aka David Ellison vs. the creative community. Microdramas may be all the rage in Hollywood, but they’ve got nothing on what’s currently playing out in state attorneys general offices, C-suites and op-ed pages.
 
With a host of players lining up on both sides of the deal and the AG’s picking up a major victory this week in their case against the merger, The Hollywood Reporter thought it a good moment for two staffers covering the story, Steven Zeitchik and Alex Weprin, to sit down and talk about it.
  
Steven Zeitchik: Well, it’s been an eventful week. The judge basically handed the AGs major leverage by setting the trial all the way in March instead of in the fall, which will cost Par (and gift WB shareholders) hundreds of millions of dollars in penalty fees, I think it’s about $7 million per day. This puts tons of pressure on Ellison to make a deal, doesn’t it?

Alex Weprin: I think they will need to try and figure out what they can do to get a settlement done. The AGs want structural remedies, and I wonder if there are enough things they could divest to appease them. Basic cable channels? There are ways to do that. Film studios? I’m not so sure.
 
SZ: Ya, I think the question is what the floor is for the AGs and what the ceiling is for Ellison, and do they overlap. I feel like he’d probably be willing to part with a Nick or MTV to get it done since he’s really more of a film guy, but would that be enough for Rob Bonta et al? There are also theatrical commitments beyond just words but not sure how that would work. A CNN divestiture would be a big political win but as you’ve noted the AG’s have staked their case on consolidation, not political speech. They can still spin it though as “diversity of voices” or some such. Settlements have a way of healing all wounds.
 
AW: I think Paramount needs CNN more than just about any of the other cable assets — it is simply more profitable and more stable than the other WBD cable channels. The cost savings from merging CBS and CNN could also be significant. If the antitrust case is based on pay-TV channel penetration, they could probably carve out a nice chunk of channels, and maybe just keep CNN and a couple more to keep everything below the limits.
 
SZ: Yeah I can’t see Ellison being at all willing to part with it. But how far does he go to fight — does he want a messy trial and billions in shareholder penalty fees or are is he incentivized to make it go away quicker? Would he settle for an ombudsman/oversight board? Selling a minority stake? It’s hard to see where there’s common ground here, and the AGs are feeling their oats.
 
AW: I think he’d be thrilled with an oversight board, I just can’t imagine that would appease the AGs. They may smell blood in the water. And again, cable TV is in many ways easier because the past year has seen spinoffs and sales, so you can imagine how it would work. He wants the Warners film studio, there’s no obvious structural remedy there, right?
 
SZ: I don’t see how the studio gets taken out of this. Some commitment to a certain number of movies would be the only possible solution but how do you enforce that governmentally and is it even legal? Part of the problem here is that the critics are opposed to consolidation but consolidation is why he’s doing this! So I don’t see how you make everyone happy. The other chip of course is HBO. That’s obviously a huge one for the creative community — the crown jewel and big buyer — and one they would be THRILLED to see not go with Ellison. But is there any way he lets that go? Maybe if he was really, really, in a gun to his head situation. Maybe.
 
AW: I think HBO and HBO Max are the key gaining streaming scale for them, so I think it is a must have for him. The good news for Ellison is that the AG’s case is so focused on basic cable that they don’t even touch HBO, which would make it an odd chess piece to play. I think that AMC and Regal Cinemas CEOs, meanwhile, are angling for a binding commitment to make a minimum of 30 movies per year for an extended period of time. There is precedent: When Comcast acquired NBCUniversal, they agreed to certain conditions for seven years.
 
SZ: Interesting re: Comcast, I’d forgotten about that. And yeah, the Max+Plus juggernaut is a real selling point for him. Honestly that’s the rare case where I think the whole need-to-compete-with-the-tech-guys argument holds water. With the number of subs each has (though there’s probably a fair bit of overlap) the combined Max-Paramount Plus really would be a pretty staunch competitor to Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ (and I guess a surging Peacock and Apple to a rather, um, lesser extent). So basically if we had to predict it feels like a few cable channels get spun off and the studio commits to a theatrical floor of some kind and both sides call it a win. Who wins in that scenario? Is the creative community appeased? Should they be?

AW: I don’t think there’s any scenario that appeases the creative community, but selling off a bunch of cable channels (maybe or maybe not including CNN) would be a start, and a binding commitment to 30 films for an extended period would please the theater owners. The issue for writers, actors, etc is that it will still mean one less buyer for their wares, and that is a harder nut to crack. Here’s a wildcard: What if they … cut a deal with Netflix? Maybe sell Netflix the film distribution division, one of the WBD sub-studios, some IP? Maybe sell some cable channels to Versant or private equity?

SZ: Wow, Netflix coming back in for anything meaningful would be a true — dare I say — Game of Thrones-like twist. It’s hard to imagine the creative community being appeased by THAT, since they were even more worried about Netflix than they were Par given the former’s anti-theatrical stance. But it would certainly address monopoly/consolidation fears. As for the cable channels to private equity, that would technically be a win but I think of the be-careful-what-you-wish-for variety.

AW: Movie theaters have been battered since COVID, and this is the first good year since then. I think they fear the merger falling through and one or both companies not having the capacity to produce as many movies as they did, I think they fear the merger being completed without any binding commitments around a minimum number of films. A binding deal for a minimum of 30 films for an extended period (maybe seven years, the length of the Comcast commitments) could give them a runway to try and salvage their businesses.

SZ: It’s certainly a lot more attractive for a studio to make that commitment now than it was seven months ago when the deal was announced and before the big box office rebound. Let’s pivot quickly to the other part of the story this week — the allies. You mention Regal and AMC. The CEOs of those companies just came out in favor of the deal. Not a huge surprise to me — they are reading tea leaves and angling for favorable terms. What do you make of that? And what do you make of the gambit — pretty transparent it seems to me — to get people like Ari Emanuel to sing Par’s praises and show “hey, not all Democrats oppose this!” (Just the major ones in Congress, many of the AGs and many of their biggest donors in Hollywood).

AW: Ari is obviously in business with Paramount (and everyone else, to be fair), and he has clearly been a consigliere to Ellison in recent years. No doubt many of his clients oppose the merger, and as an agent he must be cognizant of the competition factor. But, yes, he is out there as a well-known Democrat (albeit one who is also friendly with Trump) supporting the deal.

SZ: I’m just not sure having people with obvious skin in the game — Chris Wallace is another one, a RedBird advisor and guy who may well want to get back on CNN who wrote a pro-merger column for THR this week — coming out in favor of the deal achieves anything strategically. Ellison also wrote that NYT op-ed making his case. If anything I feel like seeing all these foot soldiers out there stumping for it could backfire for Ellison, make opponents — and there are so many in the creative community — feel like the deal is rigged. Anyway should be an interesting few coming weeks. Or is it years? I’m losing track.

AW: My suspicion is that if both sides are open to structural remedies, we will know more sooner rather than later. But either way it would make a great starting point for a Succession spinoff series.

SZ: That could be the new HBO’s first greenlight! Great chatting as always.

AW: Same here.

Vicky McClure wants to set the record straight.

We’ve found a precious 40 minutes away from the hustle and bustle of press day for season four of ITV‘s Trigger Point at London’s Soho Hotel. Tucked into the corner of one of its underground bars, McClure speaks to The Hollywood Reporter while her co-stars — Eric Shango, Natalie Simpson, Maanuv Thiara among them — dutifully pose for photos and laud the latest work of show creator Daniel Brierley.

McClure, returning as the no-nonsense bomb disposal expert Lana Washington in another high-octane, watch-behind-your-hands instalment, is taking us through her early years at Nottingham’s Television Workshop, a Midlands-based film, TV, and theatre training school for kids from working-class backgrounds. She had initially eyed a career in professional dance and landed a place at the prestigious Italia Conti academy. But her family couldn’t afford the tuition. She stayed with the Television Workshop until the age of 21.

I halt the conversation early on to ask if what I’ve read online — that McClure was mentored at the Workshop by The Odyssey breakout Samantha Morton, a fellow Nottingham native — is true. The actress is quick to clarify: “That isn’t correct. Sam is a huge part of the Workshop, and my word, I mean, even now, the gigs that she’s in,” she says, alluding to the latest Christopher Nolan hit, wide-eyed with awe. “[But] we never crossed over. I actually didn’t know her while I was in the Workshop.” The pair would, later in their respective careers, meet at odd events. “You gravitate to each other if you’re both from Nottingham or the Workshop,” explains McClure, who was proudly born and raised in the English city (she has resisted the industry-induced pressure to relocate to the capital — a decision we’ll come to later).

It was only when both of them were leading Dominic Savage’s I Am… series that McClure and Morton ended up “having a long chat on the phone.” They’ve stayed in touch, and McClure certainly calls her peer “an icon of the Workshop, and of the acting world.” But, contrary to what the internet purports, this friendship didn’t blossom until well beyond the Nottingham Television Workshop, which McClure remains a devoted patron of.

And while Morton’s face currently graces thousands of cinema screens across the world, it is Vicky McClure who is known far and wide here in Britain. She has steadily risen through the ranks for two decades now to become one of the most prolific actors in the country, famed for her forthright characters and becoming, frankly, a legend of the U.K. police procedural (Line of Duty, Broadchurch, to name a few).

With Trigger Point continuing to pull in millions of viewers — season three’s seven-day consolidated average came in at 5.1m last year — and a hotly anticipated Line of Duty return imminent, McClure, now 43, enters a chapter of her career marked by prolificacy, freedom, and industry-wide reverence.

Her starring role aged 23 as Lol Jenkins in Shane Meadows’s 2006 film This Is England, and in the Channel 4 sequel mini-series This Is England ’86, This Is England ’88 and This Is England ’90 from 2010 to 2015, is what she considers her long-awaited big break. “But I went straight back to the office,” McClure tells THR about her job at a house valuation company. “There’s just an illusion that once you’re in a film or you’re in something, that’s it. Onward you go,” she continues. “I’d train new people, then I sort of went into the HR department, looked after things like the vending machines, the post, a wide variety. I was even fire warden at one point, which I think has done me well for drifting into Lana,” she laughs. “That was my thing. I’d go off and do This Is England, and then I’d come back.”

She worked at the business for eight years, and in that time, starred in a film directed by Madonna, Filth and Wisdom (2008). “We always think people care more than they do,” McClure says when asked what her office mates thought of the Madonna gig. “You know what I mean? They go, ‘Oh, amazing. That’s cool. Well, we’re having lunch.’”

The reality is, while McClure was shooting with mega-stars, she was also getting told “no” a lot. “I learnt very quickly to stop telling people when I had an audition because nine times out of 10, I never got the job,” she admits. She recalls going up for roles in Peaky Blinders and Sarah Gavron’s 2015 Suffragette film. “That was one of those moments,” she says about feeling particularly heartbroken by the Suffragette casting, which eventually went to Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff and Meryl Streep. “I wasn’t really that bothered about learning too much at school. I’d missed out on lots of history, so Jonny [Owen, McClure’s husband, also an actor and producer] sat down with me and we talked about the suffragette movement in great detail. I started getting really attached to this world and these characters.”

Over time, she nailed the accent — “at the Workshop, it wasn’t like you trained to do accents, you just did them” — but eventually, nothing came of it. “They’re a bit naughty,” she says. “Sometimes casting directors can do that thing where they go, ‘So you’re available for those dates?’ Come on, guys. That’s basically a: ‘Let’s shake hands and roll the cameras!’”

Still, on TV especially, McClure gradually made a name for herself with small roles in Five Daughters, The Body Farm and True Love. Then, in 2012, Jed Mercurio’s Line of Duty hit BBC Two. The series, about an anti-corruption unit inside a fictional police force, accrued a cult following around the world. Perhaps for the first time, McClure, as the driven, undaunted Detective Constable (later Sergeant and Inspector) Kate Fleming, was getting her flowers.

“I don’t think I felt fame throughout This Is England,” she ponders. “People were really respectful of that show, and it was such an ensemble piece that it didn’t belong to just one person. It was a really special show… [And] I think Line of Duty [is too]. It’s not a fluke because Jed’s writing is obviously impeccable, but it’s all down to the audience, and if they start tuning in and if they show [interest], then you’re in a good spot. But there’s every chance it can go [the other way], and shows do, don’t they?” says the veteran of British broadcast television, likely well acquainted with the graveyard of BBC and ITV shows haunting various streaming platforms. “No one watches them, and then a few years later, there’s this weird surge where everyone starts watching them again.”

When the news of Line of Duty‘s season seven broke last year, it certainly wasn’t a surprise to McClure. “We’d never closed the door,” says Mercurio’s star. “Me, Jed, [co-stars] Martin [Compston] and Aidy [Adrian Dunbar] meet up for a curry at least a couple of times a year. We’ve always had a sociable time when we make the show,” she continues, “and I think that comes across. We always said, ‘Oh, it’d be a shame if [season six] was the last one,’ because we felt like we had a really different experience [during] COVID… So then it was a case of: How are the stars going to align? We’ve all been lucky to get other gigs. Of course, Jed’s busy. He’s got to write it. We knew when he started to pick up his pen again…” she pauses, flashing a grin.

It is interesting, McClure adds, that Line of Duty is predominantly a cast of working-class people, “written by Jed, who grew up in a working-class family in Birmingham,” she says. “And it plays out on screen — you have accents and you have characters that are able to tap into certain flaws. Relationships were formed that are so long-lasting. Martin and Aidy are family now. I adore them both. So [hiring working-class talent] works. People need a bit more belief in those lives and characteristics.”

McClure has been a champion of opening doors for working-class creatives her whole career. Her work with the Television Workshop is testament to that, though she isn’t content yet — by any means. “London should not be the center of the universe. For anything,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing city. But there is Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow… The world’s a beautiful place, but with the industry in tow, it can’t all be London central. It has been and it still is, for so many years. And it’s just not serving anyone now.”

When I put to her that there has been something of a production boom outside of the capital — in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland — she maintains that while shoots are there, all of the really important get-togethers still happen in London. “It’s really naive of us to think that people can just afford that horrendous train fare or the petrol, or whatever it may be, [and] to just up and leave to get to that meeting. And I remember it was tricky for me. To get here and go, ‘I need to grab a sandwich and a cup of tea’ or something. It’s expensive.” McClure knows from first-hand experience that thousands of young actors will miss out on network-building because they can’t pay London rent: “It’s a very privileged space, a very privileged industry.”

And even when the long-hoped-for acclaim arrives, the quote-unquote “fame” comes with unwanted side effects. “I don’t want to sit here and go, ‘It’s been a problem for me,’” concedes McClure, who says that staying in Nottingham has made showbiz a more liveable place — literally — for an actor of her calibre. “I like to do things here and there. When I get nice invitations, if I can make them, and it’s something I want to do, I’ll go, and the paps [paparazzi] will do what they’ll do. You can kind of control it, to a degree. You can choose to put yourself out there a bit more — and sometimes you need it. You need the promotion to help whatever business it is you’re trying to sell.”

This is the more pragmatic side to McClure. With a BAFTA and a handful of wildly popular shows under her belt, you can’t deny it: She knows the ropes. “It’s a business and I’m in my mid-40s now,” she continues. “I’m a bit wiser, a bit longer in the tooth. I can see what things are, and you’re less naive. I’m not Hollywood. I feel Hollywood talking to The Hollywood Reporter,” she says, smiling again, though admitting she’s never even been to L.A. (Tinseltown may yet come knocking — McClure’s next film, Kenneth Branagh’s The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde, sees her next to Jodie Comer, Patricia Arquette and Michael Sheen.) “I think when I’m on my deathbed,” she continues, “I won’t be worrying about my career.”

What might McClure be more concerned with? Her charity work, for one — in 2019, she formed Our Dementia Choir following her late grandmother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis. The organization was the subject of a BBC documentary, led by McClure, and over the years the group has performed in front of tens of thousands, including at Nottingham’s Splendour Festival. She also has a production company co-founded with her husband, Build Your Own Films, backed by All3Media and committed to nurturing projects “rich in subject matter, diversity and representation.”

Right now, however, it’s more Trigger Point on the telly for McClure. Releasing soon, the new season promises a deeper look into Lana’s trauma and, as you might have guessed, some pretty explosive drama. “There’s no joke to her job. It is life and death,” McClure says about returning to everyone’s favorite Expo. “We feel like we’ve seen it all in Trigger Point. Different types of scenarios.” She stops. Eye contact. “You haven’t seen it all.” She says this season’s writing team had a lot of fun concocting more dire situations for the Met Police bomb squad. “And we really own that. If there’s anyone that can go out with a bang, it’s Trigger Point. This is the bomb show.”

She remembers reading a Times paper describing the series as “Scooby-Doo on acid.” It was meant to be, according to McClure, a bit of a diss. She loved it. “It is Scooby-Doo on acid!” she beams. Most importantly, this Nottingham native is given the opportunity to take on the fearless Lana Washington once more, and it’s exactly where Vicky McClure wants to be. “I love it when she has one of them ‘fuck you’ moments. I always slip in a few more fucks than I probably should!”

Catch McClure in the brand new series of Trigger Point, coming soon to ITV1 and STV.

Warner Bros. Discovery would like you to focus on its second quarter 2026 streaming revenue — up 9 percent to $3.1 billion — because the box office was ugly.

Theatrical revenue dropped 46 percent from the comparable quarter last year as Supergirl and The Bride bombed. Making matters worse, their comps were to Q2 2025 hits A Minecraft Movie and Sinners.

WBD’s advertising revenue sunk 22 percent as Turner continues to feel the sting of no NBA. TV/streaming programming highlights in the June quarter included Euphoria, House of the Dragon, The Pitt, and the final season of Hacks.

Wall Street forecast Warner Bros. Discovery would record $9.21 billion in quarterly revenue. Another miss: WBD reported total revenues of $8.717 billion; net income was $100 million.

And yet, Paramount Skydance still wants it.

The process — and the drama — continues for David Ellison’s $111 billion takeover of WBD. There have been regular calls emanating from the U.S. and abroad to block the deal. It was originally supposed to be Netflix that bought the “WB” piece of “WBD,” but Ellison swooped in with an even bigger check and a promise to absorb the company in its entirety.

A coalition of a dozen states are attempting to block Paramount/WBD; the case will go to trial in March 2027. Meanwhile, beginning Oct. 1, 2026, Paramount Skydance must begin paying a ticking fee of $7 million per day to WBD shareholders. The ticking fee is only paid out if the deal closes.

Ellison believes the opposition is politically motivated and centers on his potential oversight of CNN’s editorial content. He already controls CBS News, which has undergone many changes since Ellison’s Skydance merged with Paramount Global.

“The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN. There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions,” he wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed. “Unfortunately, I can’t give anyone a view into my heart and mind, but I can share this: I have regularly voted for candidates of both parties; I hold some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal, just like most Americans; and when it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views. I believe that news should be based on facts and truth.”

There were no updates provided on the pending deal within Warner Bros. Discovery’s earnings report.

Versant, the cable TV-focused spinoff from NBCUniversal that runs CNBC, MS NOW, USA, Golf Channel and other assets, reported lower second earnings on lower revenue and public company costs from its Comcast separation.

Now solo Versant reported revenue for the quarter to June 30 at $1.64 billion, down 3.8 percent from $1.7 billion in the same period of 2025. In that revenue mix, linear distribution was down 6.3 percent to $954 million, as Versant continues to rely on a declining pay TV business.

Advertising revenue at $423 million was down just under 1 percent from the year-earlier period when ad revenue dropped 13 percent. Platforms revenue grew 0.8 percent to $212 million, and content licensing revenue was unchanged at $43 million.

Net income attributable to Versant was down 30 percent at $211 million due to lower overall revenues and one-time costs following the separation from Comcast, including higher tax expenses after the divestiture of SportsEngine. The adjusted EBITDA fell 9 percent to $624 million.

Versant, as it looks to diversify away from traditional pay TV channels to focus more on streaming TV platforms and digital business lines, said it was raising both revenues and EBITDA guidance for the second half of the year. The full-year outlook for 2026 will see total revenue of between $6.2 billion and $6.45 billion, while the adjusted EBITDA will come in between $1.9 billion and $2.05 billion.

“Versant’s brands once again demonstrated strength, durability and scale, reaching more than 120 million viewers each month during the quarter while reinforcing our leadership across news, sports and entertainment,” said Mark Lazarus, Versant CEO, said in a statement ahead of a morning analyst call to also include CFO and COO Anand Kini.  

Iceland-born, U.S.-based producer Sigurjón “Joni” Sighvatsson has the kind of résumé that speaks for itself: David Lynch‘s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Wild at Heart, Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Weight of Water, plus music videos and series including Twin Peaks and Beverly Hills, 90210.

This week, the Palomar Pictures principal — who co-founded Propaganda Films in 1986 — returns to the 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival to receive the Raimondo Rezzonico Award in the Piazza Grande on Thursday evening. The honor is named for the man who served as Locarno’s president from 1981 to 1999.

Ahead of his trip to Switzerland, Sighvatsson spoke with THR about his excitement over returning to Locarno, his read on the festival circuit at large, and why he believes his work doesn’t belong in the “closed system” he says Netflix has built.

Sighvatsson has visited Locarno before and remains a fan, largely thanks to its more adventurous, less predictable curation. “The festival is not just focused on what is in the competition,” he says. “Everything has changed. When Wild at Heart won in Cannes [in 1990], that was a big platform for that kind of unusual film to get. Now, we don’t know really what Cannes is anymore. What are they catering to? What is their vision? It is a very different festival from Locarno.”

Unlike the bigger festivals, he adds, Locarno “never had this incredible focus on just getting stars, or just a competition, or just this.” That flexibility, he argues, will serve it well: “I love Locarno. I think some of the other festivals have become prisoners of their own success, and with the business changing, they have changed. I think festivals like Locarno, which are smaller and have a slightly lower profile and different approaches to film, will do better.”

AI’s Impact On the Industry

With AI a hot topic of debate in Hollywood and beyond, what is the producer’s reading on the technology’s likely impact on the film industry? “I think AI actually will help in many ways, but I don’t really see AI movies changing things because in the end, movies are about people and they’re about stories,” Sighvatsson tells THR. “I see it working for some projects. For the new The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan was not using AI for a reason — because he doesn’t want to make people feel it’s AI. I heard the new [live-action] Moana, the Disney film, feels just like an AI film, even though it’s using real characters [and CGI].”

His bottom line: “I think it’s a double-edged sword, but AI will help. It’s like any very powerful tool, for example, the atom bomb. It’s all about how you use it, or if you use it at all. And I think a lot of filmmakers will opt not to use AI because they don’t need to. But others will use it. Will it change the course of cinema? No. I think it will change television more.”

On Netflix and the “Closed System”

Sighvatsson isn’t optimistic about television’s current state, largely because of streaming — and he draws a sharp line between films and what Netflix produces. “There are things that Netflix calls films. I don’t call them films,” he says. “I call them Netflix films. That’s very different than a film.”

He elaborates: “Most of the things that Netflix does don’t have a very deep meaning, and they are not supposed to. You still need a lot of skill to make those big Netflix films, but they don’t really expect them to have a long life, and they are shown only within a closed system. It’s the Netflix system, so Netflix is just making something for a closed system, whereas everything that I’ve made, even music videos, is for an open system that anybody can access.”

The distinction, he says, comes down to distribution: “The difference is that Netflix doesn’t even sell any of its product to anybody else but Netflix. So they’ve created the language that fits this box that is called the Netflix box, and they’re very successful, including with some of the animation and some of the children’s content. And even though Netflix is changing, it doesn’t change the fact that a Netflix film fits only in a Netflix box. It wouldn’t fit in an Imax theater, for example. … And when you’re producing for such masses, you automatically demand less complexity.”

Given all that, don’t expect a Sighvatsson-produced Netflix title anytime soon. “I don’t think so,” he says. “I don’t think it’s my thing. I don’t think I’m in the Netflix universe.”

Still, he gives the streamer credit where it’s due. “I think it’s great that other people [create content for] it. That’s fantastic, and Netflix has changed the business,” he says. “What I think Netflix has done well is give people in other countries an opportunity to make material in different languages, in different cultures. That, I think, is the greatest contribution Netflix has made.”