“Wheel of Fortune” announcer Jim Thornton has been suspended from the game show, producer Sony Pictures Television has confirmed.
The decision to remove Thornton, who has been with “Wheel of Fortune” since 2010 (and “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune” since 2021), was first reported by TMZ. The website reported that the suspension came in light of an incident on a commercial flight in May, when a passenger told a flight attendant expressed concerns about Thornton. TMZ wrote that “sources with direct knowledge tell us the pilot called ahead to have law enforcement meet Thornton when they arrived at the gate.”
“We have recently been made aware of allegations concerning Jim Thornton,” Sony Pictures TV said in a statement. “He has been suspended from ‘Wheel of Fortune’ and we are recasting while we conduct a thorough investigation.”
Thornton has been a local media presence in Los Angeles for decades, having previously worked as an afternoon anchor on KNX 1070 Newsradio, which he first joined in 1985 as a traffic reporter with Metro Traffic. He also provided traffic reports on KCBS-TV.
His other broadcast credits include Westwood One Radio Networks, and he was the voice of L.A.’s KCOP-TV for four years. He has received an Edward R. Murrow award, Golden Mike awards and an Emmy.
The announcer joined “Wheel” after the death of the show’s previous announcer, Charlie O’Donnell, and has also worked as a substitute announcer on “The Price Is Right.”
Thornton’s other credits include “Celebrity Deathmatch,” where he voiced Johnny Gomez, and as an announcer on “The Cleveland Show” and “Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” He’s also been heard on several video games and appeared as a commercial narrator in the 2001 animated film “Monsters, Inc.” He also voiced the 2011 Oscar-nominated short animated film “Let’s Pollute.”
India’s leading streamer JioHotstar has launched internationally in the U.K., Canada and Singapore, bringing its catalog of more than 160,000 hours of entertainment across more than 12 Asian languages alongside interactive features, personalized recommendations and new subscription options.
The expansion moves beyond a straightforward catalog rollout, introducing audiences in the three markets to a redesigned discovery and viewing experience built around personalization and real-time engagement, according to the company.
The service was previously available in the U.K., Canada and Singapore as Hotstar. JioHotstar arrives as an all-new app, carrying the content library and product experience of JioHotstar’s India platform.
Parent company JioStar is launching the platform with a new slate of originals, including “Ali Baba Aur Chaalis Bhoot,” “Prince of Mollywood,” “Part Timers” and “The Court,” alongside blockbuster movie premieres through the year.
The immensely popular Indian Premier League cricket tournament and other cricket competitions JioStar owns the Indian rights for, will not be part of the launch package, Variety understands.
Reality franchise “Bigg Boss” returns across six languages, and for the first time, viewers in Singapore, Canada and the U.K. can cast live votes throughout each edition. Viewers in Canada and the U.K. will also get access to a 24/7 live feed, while Canada will be able to watch “Bigg Boss Hindi” seven days ahead of its television broadcast.
Actor Anil Kapoor hosts a new game show format, “India Ka Top 1 Percent,” which will be available to audiences in Canada and Singapore.
JioHotstar is also bringing content from JioStar’s television channels, including “Star Plus,” “Colors,” “Star Vijay,” “Asianet,” “Star Jalsha” and “Star Pravah.” Viewers in Singapore and Canada will get Before-TV access to popular shows including “Anupama,” “Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai,” “Seher Hone Ko Hai” and “Azhagae Azhagu,” while U.K. audiences can watch popular shows simultaneously with their television broadcast.
The new titles join JioHotstar’s existing library, which includes originals such as “Criminal Justice,” “Special Ops,” “Chiraiya,” “Pritam & Pedro,” “Asur,” “Aarya,” “Heartbeat,” “Vikram on Duty,” “Kerala Crime Files,” “Resort” and “Kaattaan”; reality franchises including “Koffee With Karan,” “Bhojpuri Bawaal,” “Khatron Ke Khiladi,” “MTV Hustle,” “Splitsvilla,” “Laughter Chefs – Unlimited Entertainment,” “Roadies” and “Cooku With Comali”; and films including “Vaazha,” “Dhurandhar,” “Chhichhore,” “Kesari Chapter 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh,” “Kill,” “12th Fail” and “Jab We Met.”
JioHotstar is available on mobile and connected TV, with the app downloadable through the App Store and Google Play Store across all three markets. Android users in the U.K., Canada and Singapore can now complete sign-up entirely inside the app.
For the first time, the company is offering a quarterly option in all three markets, giving subscribers a shorter commitment alongside its existing annual plans. Hotstar app users can download the new JioHotstar app and sign in with their existing Hotstar credentials, with their plan converting automatically to the matching JioHotstar tier. In the U.K., existing subscribers can keep their current monthly plans for as long as auto-renewal remains active.
Updated pricing effective Sept. 2 is £19.99 ($27.20) per quarter and £69.99 ($95.20) annually in the U.K.; CAD19.99 ($14.50) per quarter and CAD49.99 ($36.30) annually in Canada; and SGD29.98 ($23.60) per quarter and SGD69.98 ($55.10) annually in Singapore.
The platform also carries premium-quality subtitles and dubbing in more than 12 Asian languages, among them English, Hindi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada and Marathi.
“Streaming has spent the last decade competing on the size of its catalogue,” said Amit Malhotra, head – international business, JioStar. “We believe the bigger opportunity now is to reimagine how audiences experience entertainment; not just what they watch, but how they discover, engage with and shape the experience in real time. South Asian audiences have a deep connection with Indian entertainment across languages, generations and households. At the same time, audiences globally are increasingly seeking stories and cultures beyond their own. We see an opportunity to build for this broader, underserved global audience – not simply export an Indian streaming service to new markets.”
“As we expand internationally, our ambition is to show what becomes possible when scale, language, cultural diversity, personalisation and deeper audience participation are built into the streaming experience from day one,” Malhotra added.
JioStar says JioHotstar’s base of more than 500 million active users makes it one of the largest streaming platforms worldwide, pointing to features such as conversational voice discovery, AI-driven personalization and in-app commerce as part of its broader product strategy.
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, The Hollywood Reporter may receive an affiliate commission.
Derek Jeter and Michael Strahan serve as executive producers on 9/11: United We Stand – 25 Years Later, a new documentary blending archival footage and personal interviews with entertainers, athletes, journalists and first responders. Pete Davidson, whose firefighter father Scott Davidson perished in the attacks, is among the participants, as is Jon Stewart, Matthew Broderick and Billy Crystal.
Alternatively, the two-hour documentary will be available to stream the following day (Sept. 2) on Disney+ and Hulu, which don’t have free trials of their own but are included in any of DirecTV’s Signature packages which offer the aforementioned five-day free trial.
At a Glance: How to Watch9/11: United We Stand – 25 Years Later
Where to Watch 9/11: United We Stand – 25 Years Later: Channel, Air Date, Time
The two-hour doc air on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026 at 9 p.m. PT/ET on ABC.
Where to Stream 9/11: United We Stand – 25 Years LaterOnline
The day after airing on ABC, the special will drop on Disney+/Hulu, and while these streaming services don’t offer free trials directly, fans can get free access through any of DirecTV’s Signature packages, which include the Disney+ and Hulu bundle and offer a five-day free trial.
Adria Arjona’s career is all gas and no brakes — except for when she was driving her truck near the set of Onslaught.
The in-demand actor is currently juggling a bevy of projects, including the aforementioned gonzo horror-thriller from Adam Wingard, a top-secret role in James Gunn’s Superman (2025) follow-up, Man of Tomorrow, and Michael B. Jordan’s The Thomas Crown Affair. Arjona also has several indie films in various stages of production, and her female lead role in Ed Brubaker’s Criminal series, based on his own Marvel/Image comic book, is finally nearing release.
When Arjona first met with Wingard to discuss Onslaught and her character, Celeste, a traumatized former Army sniper, she arrived in a 1979 Ford F-150. She suspects the truck may have helped her clinch the role, as Wingard had already envisioned Celeste driving something similar. After landing the part, Arjona even tried to get her real-life truck into the movie, but its bright orange paint job created some lighting challenges.
Arjona still drove her pickup to the New Mexico set, and there were days when the transportation department had to come to her rescue.
“I would get stuck in the middle of the highway. It’s a shitty truck. I bought it on cars.com. I shouldn’t have. It was so cheap, and now half of my bank account has gone toward trying to fix this truck,” Arjona tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Onslaught’s Sept. 4 theatrical release.. “It finally runs, but when I was filming this movie, it didn’t. So the transport department had to come pick me up in the middle of a highway a couple times so I wouldn’t be late to set.”
Celeste’s PTSD has driven her into isolation at a remote trailer park, far from her seven-year-old daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy). But when a work emergency forces Daisy’s father and Celeste’s ex-husband (Jacob Scipio) to drop her off unexpectedly, their reunion coincides with a nearby military experiment going catastrophically awry. Suddenly, Celeste must protect her daughter from three super soldiers who are programmed to kill anyone in their path.
When trouble first arrives at the Windy Oasis mobile home community, Celeste goes to retrieve one of her assorted weapons. This leads to the moment in the trailer when she spins a handgun’s cylinder in front of her cabinet or rack of guns.
“That shot [of her spinning the gun cylinder in front of her arsenal] was one of the hardest shots I’ve had to do. I had to nail it in maybe three takes because we were running out of time,” Arjona recalls. “On the first take, the entire armory fell on top of me. It was a trailer packed with so many people. If somebody moves, everything moves. Adam probably still has the footage. We were like, ‘Fuck! Shit! Put it back.’ We then had time for one last shot, and [prop master/armorer] Brett [Andrews] was like, ‘Breathe, focus, you got it.’ And that’s the take that’s in the trailer.”
Next summer, Arjona will appear as a mystery character in Gunn’s Man of Tomorrow. Consequently, many fans are wondering who she’s playing, forcing her to choose her words very carefully throughout Onslaught’s promotional campaign. In any event, Arjona felt right at home on set, particularly given her history with DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran, who produced her first film, The Belko Experiment (2016), a decade ago.
“Man, it was so cool. It’s just so easy to step back onto a set with people that you feel familiar with because there’s already trust. That’s how I felt coming [onto the Man of Tomorrow set] and stepping into this role,” Arjona shares. “James Gunn and Peter Safran were right there, and I had all the trust. I have all the support. I was like, I’m good because they’ve got me.”
As for Andor, the Emmy-winning series left Arjona’s Bix Caleen in a position where further adventures could be explored involving her and her child (Cassian Jr.? Cassie?) with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna). Arjona isn’t ruling out the possibility, but she’s also hesitant to do anything without series creator Tony Gilroy.
“Listen, I am the most loyal Gilroy there is. If Tony Gilroy is in, I’m right there with him,” Arjona says. “I respect so much what he’s created, and I love him so dearly that I don’t want to put my fingerprints on it. It might be too soon. I don’t want to say never, but I love the way he ended that show. I respect it, so I want to keep it like that for now.”
Prior to Andor season two, Arjona collaborated with Richard Linklater and Glen Powell on the romantic crime comedy, Hit Man, and she was heavily, yet unofficially, involved in the scripting process. For example, she not only wrote the film’s most memorable line of, “Who the fuck is Gary!?” but she also typed it into Linklater’s computer per his insistence. Riding high on that experience, Arjona received a much different response when she tried to pitch Gilroy some Bix material for Andor’s second go-round.
“I did call Tony with a bunch of ideas, and he was like, ‘No, no, no. Not this movie, baby.’ And I was like, ‘Damnit. Okay,’” Arjona says. “I was feeling very confident in my writing, but not with Tony Gilroy.”
Below, during a conversation with THR, Arjona also reveals the Onslaught character detail she brainstormed with her partner Jason Momoa.
***
Onslaught came your way as you were shooting Criminal and about to go shoot Splitsville a couple years ago. Considering Celeste is no walk in the park, what was your mindset at the time?
Right before I went to go meet [director] Adam Wingard, I was like, “I don’t know if I can do this one. This is going to be tough.” Celeste is such a multi-layered character, and I was tired. I was a tired girl. Going from a heist show like Criminal and a comedy like Splitsville to this world, I was like, “Oh man.”
But within 30 minutes of meeting Adam, I was like, I’m in. I want to do it. It has to be mine. I’m obsessed with this dude. I’m obsessed with this script. He pitched me the opening 25 minutes of the film, and I was like, “That sounds bonkers. It sounds like the coolest movie ever.” He already had a lot of the ‘80s-inspired soundtrack as well, and it just feels like a John Carpenter movie.
I love passionate directors who take swings, and I was like, “I want to support you. I want to go into the trenches with you. Let’s go.” So there was no turning back after that, and I’m so happy I did it. I’m so honored.
Adria Arjona as Celeste in Onslaught.
Richard Foreman/A24
Onslaught is an indirect sequel to You’re Next and The Guest. It completes a spiritual trilogy. Did Adam ask you to watch those films for a tonal reference? Or did he want you to dig more into the ‘80s?
Adam has no ego whatsoever, so he would never tell me to watch his own movies. He’d be like, “Just stick to the script. Let’s focus on this one.” But he did make me watch some ‘80s movies: Aliens and Terminator.
Funnily enough, our main thing was music. We shared a lot of it. He had some songs that are all in German, and some choices for the opening sequence are just wild because it makes you question tonally where he’s going with the movie. It can be really funny at times, and then suddenly, there’s heavy action. It’ll be really gory, and you’ll be scared shitless, before it swings right back into comedy. So the songs he shared helped me understand where we were living, tonally.
Celeste’s relationship with her adorable seven-year-old daughter (Blake Kennedy’s Daisy) is rather interesting. Daisy behaves more like a grown-up than Celeste does. She’s highly organized with her rolling suitcase. She also does the dishes, waters the plants and has proper manners. It’s Celeste who behaves more like the messy kid, and she tries to teach her daughter to follow suit. How did you and Adam land on that reversal?
It was a conversation Adam and I had at the beginning. We were both so tired of seeing the perfect mom, and we both wanted to deconstruct that a little bit. It meant finding a way for Celeste to have a little bit more tough love. She’s like, “Dude, don’t waste your time on manners. There’s so much shit going on in the world. What are we doing?” She’s a vet; she doesn’t have time for that. Every time she feels something, she just pushes it down. But her ex is teaching their daughter to express her feelings and meditate. That’s not Celeste, and it doesn’t mean she’s a bad mother. But because we made those choices at the beginning, Onslaught really becomes a mother’s redemption story.
Did you come up with a backstory for what happened between Daisy’s father and Celeste? Did her PTSD just make it impossible for her to lead a domestic life with them?
Yeah, she lost a couple friends [during battle], and it traumatized her. To everybody else, Celeste is this weird conspiracy theorist who lives in this trailer park. She isolates herself because everybody thinks that she’s crazy, and at the end of the day, she was right.
Adria Arjona as Celeste in Onslaught
Richard Foreman/A24
As you mentioned, Celeste is shell-shocked from her time as an Army sniper. Her PTSD affects her ability to pull the trigger sometimes, and so she grounds herself by digging her ring into her forearm. What did you make of that trauma response or release valve?
That was my idea.
I figured it was.
Really?
I was the first journalist you told about the stick-and-poke tattoo you received on the set of Andor season two …
That’s true.
So I likely connected one form of skin trauma to another.
(Laughs.) Her tremor was in the script, and I was like, There has to be a release. There has to be something that counteracts it. What is it? I was actually discussing it with my partner [Jason Momoa], and we both came up with this idea. I then told Adam: “Yo, what do you think if we have this scab on her forearm? You can tell she’s been doing this for a long time.” And then, to be funny, I was like, “Can the ring be her old engagement ring and can it be empty?” That would mean she pawned the diamond and bought a rifle or a bunch of beer or something. So that’s how she inflicts pain on herself, and it’s the only feeling she’s comfortable experiencing.
I watched a lot of interviews of vets and soldiers who’ve gone on deployment, and [pain] is sort of their comfort. It’s where they feel at ease. That stayed with me, and it really traumatized me. I was like, Man, that’s horrible. We need to showcase that pain is a big character. So I told Adam all of that, and he looked at me and said, “You’re insane. Let’s try it.” And within two hours, he had a prosthetic made for us to try out.
I read something that suggested Celeste’s truck is actually your truck. Is that true?
Funnily enough, I drive a [1979] Ford F-150, and to be fair, I think that’s why Adam gave me the role. I drove it to our first meeting, and he was like, “Is that your truck? That’s what Celeste drives.” And I was like, “Oh, I’m like Celeste.” So that might be one of the reasons why he cast me.
I then brought my bright orange truck to New Mexico where we filmed, and no one wants to see a bright orange truck in a movie. Our cinematographer [Oren Soffer] was like, “That’s going to be hard to pull off.” So it ended up not being my truck in the movie, but I did have my truck on set.
It became a whole thing with transport because I would get stuck in the middle of the highway. It’s a shitty truck. I bought it on cars.com. I shouldn’t have. It was so cheap, and now half of my bank account has gone toward trying to fix this truck. It finally runs, but when I was filming this movie, it didn’t. So the transport department had to come pick me up in the middle of a highway a couple times so I wouldn’t be late to set.
Adria Arjona as Celeste in Onslaught
Richard Foreman/A24
We’re introduced to Celeste’s arsenal of weapons at the start of the movie, and Chekhov’s gun makes us think she’s going to wield them all at some point, especially the one her ex referenced. But then the movie puts her on her back foot the whole time and challenges her to defend her and her daughter in other ways.
Yeah, once you see her arsenal, you’re like, Oh, she’s going to save the day. But I love the fact that Reggie [VelJohnson] and Eric’s [Wareheim] characters have a chance to redeem themselves as neighbors in the process. Celeste kicks some ass, for sure, but she has help as well. That was the whole point of her not getting to use her arsenal, which I think was really smart.
That shot [of her spinning the gun cylinder in front of her arsenal] was one of the hardest shots I’ve had to do. I had to nail it in maybe three takes because we were running out of time. And Brett Andrews, our armorer and prop master, is the reason I look cool in this movie. He came into my trailer [to teach me that move], and I practiced it nonstop the whole day. We knew we didn’t have that much time for that shot, and it’s so close-up that any tiny little mistake was going to show.
On the first take, the entire armory fell on top of me. It was a trailer packed with so many people. If somebody moves, everything moves. Adam probably still has the footage, but the whole thing just fell on top of me. We were like, “Fuck! Shit! Put it back.” We then had time for one last shot, and Brett was like, “Breathe, focus, you got it.” And that’s the take that’s in the trailer.
So this is the part of the interview where the publicists in the gallery start biting their nails …
(Laughs.)
To play it safe, how was your reunion with James Gunn on the set of Man of Tomorrow? [Gunn wrote and produced her first movie, The Belko Experiment.]
Man, it was so cool. I haven’t had the opportunity to do sequels to a lot of things. Andor was the first time that I did a second season of something, and it felt so safe. So I understand why people [in franchises] are like, “Oh my God, we’ve been together for ten years.” It’s just so easy to step back onto a set with people that you feel familiar with because there’s already trust. You’re not trying to gain anything on that first day.
So that’s how I felt coming [onto the Man of Tomorrow set] and stepping into this role. James Gunn and [co-DC Studios head] Peter Safran were right there, and I had all the trust. I have all the support. I was like, I’m good because they’ve got me. I’ve only felt that once before on the second season of Andor, and it’s a great feeling because the first days on set are always scary.
Now that you’re one of the most employed actors in town, have you pitched a Bix and Cassian Jr./Cassie show to Lucasfilm yet?
Listen, I am the most loyal Gilroy there is. If Tony Gilroy is in, I’m right there with him. I respect so much what he’s created, and I love him so dearly that I don’t want to put my fingerprints on it. It might be too soon. I don’t want to say never, but I love the way he ended that show. I respect it, so I want to keep it like that for now.
Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona) in Tony Gilroy’s Andor Season Two.
Courtesy of Lucasfilm
Earlier this year, Tony and I had a long conversation in which he welcomed my one quibble with season two. I wanted to see Bix go on a proper mission with Cassian (Diego Luna). When he went undercover on Ghorman as a fashion designer named Varian Skye, she could’ve served as his muse or model. To see them both wearing high fashion for a change, I just can’t get that image out of my head. Anyway, were you frustrated at all that Bix’s missions were mostly off screen?
No, because Tony challenged me in a different way. He instead gave me periods of time in Bix’s life to jump into that were very complex and complicated. I knew that I was able to play an action piece, but those emotional beats were really strong for Bix and really challenging for me. So I wasn’t necessarily frustrated because I respect Tony’s writing. I was like, Hmm. Okay, cool. There’s a reason and a rhythm to the way that he writes.
I never want to get in Gilroy’s way, even though I [pitched him some ideas] after writing the Hit Man script with Richard Linklater and Glen Powell. All three of us collaborated together. So I did call Tony with a bunch of ideas, and he was like, “No, no, no. Not this movie, baby.” And I was like, “Damnit. Okay.”
Yeah, you literally wrote Hit Man’s show-stopping “Who the fuck is Gary!?” line, so it sounds like you were feeling yourself after that.
(Laughs.) Yes, I was feeling very confident in my writing, but not with Tony Gilroy.
*** Onslaught opens September 4 in movie theaters nationwide.
Grammy-winning Americana crooner Jason Isbell is one of several new litigants in a new federal lawsuit against the AI music generator Suno, arguing the company has allowed users to produce tracks based on musicians’ identities with its models without their consent.
The lawsuit — filed Monday in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts by a group that includes Isbell, Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery, Texas blues musician Guy Forsyth and Florida-based saxophonist Eduardo Calle — compared Suno to the Borg, the “Star Trek” villains known for their “resistance is futile” method of absorbing their victims into their hive mind by restructuring their minds to become a similar, if changed versions of themselves. That is what Suno does when users type an artist’s name into its models to try and produce sonic variants of their work, attorney Alan D. Rose wrote in the complaint for the plaintiffs.
“It encoded musicians’ identities into its AI model to create its commercial product without consent, and now exploits those identities by publicly using musicians’ names to Suno’s considerable commercial benefit,” Rose wrote, claiming the company encouraged its marketing partners to tout that ability while minimizing the company’s alleged choice.
The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status for the lawsuit, statutory and punitive damages and for Suno to be prevented from capturing and monetizing artists’ identities. “A musician’s identity is their property, but Suno took it without consent,” Rose wrote. “This lawsuit is how these musicians resist the premise that resistance is futile.”
Suno declined to comment. The company’s CEO Mikey Shulman wrote in a blog post last month that Suno did not retain artist names in its metadata and that its models did not allow users to prompt for specific artists or songs.
But the plaintiffs claimed that Suno retained “voiceprints” of artists, and users could bypass Suno’s guardrails and access those “prints” by specific prompts that skirt using the artist’s name by asking for tracks invoking their “tone and phrasing,” by using real names instead of stage names (as in the case of the rapper Common) or by adding spaces between the letters of their names, among other methods.
The case differs from other litigation efforts against Suno for focusing not on the issues of copyright, which have spurred several lawsuits against the company and thus settlements providing certain catalogues for Suno’s use, and instead on the element of identity, which the plaintiffs claimed is usually retained by a musician regardless of a settlement deal or whether an artist opts into allowing Suno to train off their work.
“Many musicians sell their rights to specific recordings,” the complaint read. “However, the identity right belongs to the performer regardless of who owns any copyright in an underlying recording unless the identity right is separately licensed, typically for merchandise under an artist’s control. This lawsuit seeks to recover the value of those misappropriated identities and to stop their ongoing commercial exploitation.”
Other lawsuits against Suno include ongoing cases by the independent music publisher Round Hill Music and the major labels Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Warner Music Group settled its case against Suno last year, and Suno is developing a model in partnership with the label.
As Donald Trump now rallies for a federal film and TV tax incentive, Canada’s actor union is urging the feds in Ottawa to bolster its own country’s domestic production sector.
“It’s now more important than ever, that Canada keeps its focus on producing more Canadian stories here at home,” ACTRA national president Eleanor Noble said a statement on Tuesday. “Canada must support its own industry, and we must carve out our own place in the world.”
And ACTRA Toronto, the performer union’s biggest branch, urged Ontario, led by Premier Doug Ford, to raise the value of its provincial tax credit for foreign and local producers to stay competitive. “Canadian and international productions are a life blood for our members. If Ontario wants to remain a world-class production centre, we need a balanced plan to attract international investment, grow Canadian production and protect performers,” stated Kate Ziegler, president of ACTRA Toronto.
Calls for Ontario’s film tax credit for foreign and local producers to be raised in value started in early 2025 when British Columbia raised its own tax incentive for major studios and streamers shooting locally and New Jersey introduced among the most generous tax credit programs among U.S. states.
The ACTRA leadership comments followed Trump on Monday expressing support for the idea of a federal tax credit in a lengthy Truth Social post. Advocates have called a federal tax credit a crucial step for the U.S. to compete with film incentives offered by Canada and other rival locales like the U.K. and Australia, among others.
ACTRA, while recognizing existing legislation has yet to be passed, pointed to Trump’s intervention continuing an ongoing debate on ways to bring U.S. production back across the Canadian-U.S. border, and how Canada should respond. The Canadian actors union recognizes its membership secures wide employment on American film and TV production north of the border, as do local crews, creatives and support businesses.
But ACTRA cautioned American production in Canada cannot be the foundation of the country’s media and entertainment sectors to ensure longterm sustainability.
“If Canada does not strengthen its domestic industry with Canadian stories, made by Canadian storytellers, we risk one of two outcomes: American productions electing to stay in the U.S. as a result of their own tax-incentives, hollowing out our production ecosystem; or they stay, leaving Canada increasingly dependent on a single foreign client for the health of our industry. A refrain which is playing out across Canada amid our ongoing trade dispute,” the performers union said in a statement.
Trump’s call for a federal film tax credit also follows his fight with Canada over tariffs escalating into a full-blown trade war, with implications for how homegrown film and TV production is financed and produced.
That cross-border trade war shows little signs of being resolved anytime soon after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in late August said trade talks were abandoned in part after the U.S. negotiators objected to digital-content rules around the French language that can lead to higher operating costs for U.S. companies looking to get content into French-speaking Quebec. Carney said the disagreement over French language rules for American companies amounted to an attack on Canada’s culture and identity.
At Monday’s meeting at the White House with Trump, actor Jon Voight — who is Trump’s “special ambassador” to Hollywood — was joined by SP Media Group chairman and CEO Steven Paul and president Scott Karol. The meeting marked the latest step in an initiative that began when President Trump asked Voight, Paul and Karol to assess the challenges facing the U.S. entertainment industry and recommend measures to restore domestic production.
During the Aug. 31 meeting, Voight, Paul and Karol told the president that the industry had reached a critical point, with thousands of workers already losing jobs as producers are increasingly turning to Canada, the U.K., Australia and other markets offering competitive incentives.
Indeed, Paul cited his upcoming film about Nixon’s early years — which he said would need to be produced overseas without a viable U.S. tax incentive.
“President Trump’s public support is a major step forward for American film and television production,” Paul said in a statement. “This is about rebuilding an industry that creates high-paying jobs across the country and ensuring that American stories are made by American workers here at home. We look forward to working with leaders in both parties to turn this momentum into legislation.”
Karol told Trump that a federal incentive could revitalize the industry, return vital economic activity to the U.S. and support local communities nationwide, citing a forthcoming economic impact report prepared by the Motion Picture Association and the coalition.
“The president’s call for immediate, bipartisan action reflects the urgency facing American production,” Karol said. “A competitive federal incentive can help put crews back to work, keep investment in U.S. communities and create lasting economic benefits across the country.”
Voight, for his part, read an “impassioned letter” urging the president to respond to the industry’s growing workforce and production crisis, according to the group.
The group helped form a broad coalition supporting the initiative, following extensive discussions with entertainment unions, guilds, studio and streaming executives, producers, writers, directors, actors, talent agencies, state film commissioners and other industry leaders. The coalition includes the Motion Picture Association (MPA), SAG-AFTRA, Teamsters, the Writers Guild of America East and West, the Directors Guild of America, the Independent Film & Television Alliance, Producers United, IATSE, the Coalition of American Producers, Film USA and the Producers Guild of America.
As part of the effort, Voight, Paul and Karol also met with MPA Chairman and CEO Charlie Rivkin and SVPs of federal government affairs Josh Rogin and Hap Rigby.
The MPA has been working with Voight to push for a 20% tax credit for U.S.-based productions.
The group first presented its recommendations to President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, identifying a federal film and television production incentive as its leading priority. After Trump initially raised the prospect of tariffs on films made outside of the U.S. as a possible solution, Voight, Paul and Karol continued working with the coalition, White House advisers and members of Congress to focus the proposal on a federal incentive. A subsequent White House meeting in May further advanced the approach as the group detailed production slowdowns across the country, including in Georgia.
Following Monday’s meeting, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Congress should approve, immediately, a Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America,” calling on Republicans and Democrats to work together and immediately craft legislation.
In a follow-up post Tuesday, Trump wrote: “Great bipartisan response and support in Congress for the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act. We will bring this once great industry BACK TO AMERICA. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Paul is an independent film producer and chairman and CEO of SP Media Group, based on the Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood. SPMG maintains a co-financing agreement with Paramount Pictures to co-produce feature films and has financed and produced over 30 motion pictures in the past five years.
Pictured above (l. to r.): Jon Voight, Steven Paul, Donald Trump and Scott Karol in the Oval Office in May 2026
Tony Romo has analyzed plays for CBS Sports since 2017. Now he’s considering a new one, in which he hopes the network allows him to return following a run-in with the law.
Romo on Tuesday said he pleaded no contest to a charge of operating while intoxicated stemming from an incident that took place in Milwaukee in July, and expressed hope in a statement that he’d be able to resume his NFL duties for the Paramount Skydance broadcast network. CBS Sports placed the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback on leave after he was arrested following a traffic stop made on Interstate 43 in Wisconsin.
CBS has not commented on the situation since sports chief David Berson said last month that the company had no timeline for Romo’s return, and wanted to put its focus on promoting its NFL slate. CBS Sports has tapped JJ Watt to pick up duties alongside regulars Jim Nantz and Tracy Wolfson when the network’s first Sunday football telecast takes place September 13.
“The past month has been difficult, but it has also been personally significant,” Romo said via a statement released on social media “It has required me to confront and own my mistakes fully — to the Lord, to myself, to my family and now to the public.”
He cited multiple back surgeries that spurred his retirement from the NFL as a factor in the incident, noting they “left me with constant, debilitating pain” which “led to a dependence on pain medication, and my efforts to get off those medications led to an over-reliance on alcohol.”
“None of this is an excuse,” Romo said. “These are my failures and I take responsibility for them.”
Romo, whose deal with CBS was valued in 2020 at about $17 million per year, has been an instrumental part of the company’s roster of sports talent, and the company’s decision to put him on leave could have consequences beyond who will call the opening game in CBS’ next season of telecasting professional football in the afternoon. The NFL has already held preliminary talks with CBS parent Paramount Skydance, according to two people familiar with the matter, about certain terms of a new rights deal. The change of control of the company, which is backed by the Ellison family, who bought Paramount from longtime owner Shari Redstone, triggered the league’s ability to discuss terms.
CBS, like Fox, NBCUniversal, Disney and Amazon, is in the middle of an 11-year pact with the NFL that will keep games tied to those companies through 2033. The challenge? The league has an option that allows it to renegotiate terms with most of the companies after 2029, and with Disney after 2030.
Romo only had experience on the field when he joined CBS Sports in 2017 as the lead game analyst on the network’s popular “NFL on CBS.” Behind the scenes, however, Romo worked with CBS football producer Jim Rikhoff to find his footing in the studio. “We rehearsed different games, old games, took the audio off, did a lot of trial and error, until we found his voice,” Rikhoff told Variety in 2019. “He’s experienced and talks about the games in ways that most people understand,” he said. “It really feels authentic. I try to stay out of his way and give him as much leeway as I can.”
Romo’s acumen for predicting game play drew notice almost immediately, and lent new polish to a broadcast that has been around since the days of Brent Musburger and Pat Summerall.
Romo said he has enlisted doctors to help him “make the necessary changes” for his well-being. “As I turn my attention to my health, my family, and, in time, my return to CBS, I kindly ask for privacy during this period,” Romo added. Given the importance of NFL games to the business of CBS and the popularity of the game among American audiences, it’s not clear he’ll get it.
Moulin Rouge! shot up to $2.3 million in its final week on Broadway, marking the highest gross the musical has seen in several years on Broadway.
The show played its final performance Aug. 30, played to more than 100 percent capacity, with average paid admission of $223.46, the highest of the industry last week. In its final week, the musical welcomed back Aaron Tveit as a cast member for most of its performances, with other original cast members joining on stage for a number during the final performance. This is an impressive tally for the musical, which recently saw Megan Thee Stallion star in the show, even though it pales in comparison to the $2.7 million the musical brought in over 9 performances over Christmas week in 2019.
This was the highest grossing musical of the week, followed by Hamilton with $2 million, MJ with $1.7 million, The Lion King with $1.59 million and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which recently announced the upcoming addition to Rupert Grint to the cast, with $1.57 million
Paranormal Activity opened on Broadway Aug. 25, receiving positive reviews for translating horror to the stage. In its opening week, which included a fully comped opening night, the play brought in $735,747 and played to 99 percent capacity.
Ahead of the slow Labor Day period, several shows hovered around 60 percent capacity, including Six: The Musical, which recently announced a Jan. 3 closing, Stranger Things, which is also closing in January and Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York), which has been seeing low capacity for the past several weeks.
Overall, grosses were up close to 4 percent from the prior week and attendance was up 2 percent.
The 39th edition Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will open on Oct. 26 with a gala screening of Zeze Takahisa’s music drama Sukiyaki. Festival organizers also revealed that Yeon Sang-ho‘s zombie action horror film Colony will close this year’s event on Nov. 4.
Based on true events, Sukiyaki tells the story behind the famed Japanese pop song “Sukiyaki,” sung by crooner Kyu Sakamoto. The song topped the charts in a forward-looking post-war Japan but remarkably became a global phenomenon, holding the No.1 spot on U.S. Billboard charts for three consecutive weeks in 1963. The film, which is a sure-fire bet to be a hit when it opens in Japanese theaters on Dec. 25, depicts the history-making collaboration between the song’s composer Nakamura Hachidai (Okada Junichi), lyricist Ei Rokusuke (Matsuzaka Tori), and Sakamoto (Nakano Taiga).
“Sukiyaki tells the dramatic stories of three artists who inspired people in postwar Japan, interwoven with a collection of musical masterpieces. We are delighted to open the festival with this moving film, which stars three of today’s most prominent Japanese actors,” said Ichiyama Shozo, TIFF’s programming director.
TIFF’s closing film this year will be the wonderfully inventive Korean zombie film Colony, that that wowed genre fans when it premiered in the Midnight Screenings section of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. The film tells the story of a biological weapon being unleashed inside a Seoul skyscraper that turns the people trapped inside the building into a deadly zombie hive mind. Colony was a huge hit when it was released in South Korean cinemas and won plaudits from critics. The movie comes from Yeon, the director behind Korean classics such as Train to Busan, Seoul Station and Peninsula. The prolific filmmaker also created the hit Netflix shows Hellbound and Parasyte: The Grey.
“Colony delivered the greatest excitement and emotional impact among the films at this year’s Cannes,” said Ichiyama. “While an overwhelming number of zombie films have been produced, this film makes us realize that the genre still possesses untapped potential.”
Additionally, TIFF has also announced that it will screen Takashi Yamazaki‘s Godzilla Minus Zero as a special Centerpiece screening at the festival. The hotly anticipated film, a followup to the Oscar-winning global box office smash Godzilla Minus One, has the distinction of being the first Japanese production to be filmed for Imax. The logline for the film reads, “War reduced Japan to zero, and Godzilla plunged it even further, into minus territory. Two yearshave passed since then, and the country has faced agonizing struggles to achieve recovery andfinally return to normalcy. But just as humanity is clinging to a hard-won peace, a new threatstrikes, crushing hope in an instant.”
Said Ichiyama, “Godzilla Minus Zero is a true sequel to Godzilla Minus One, one of the standouts in the Godzilla series, and it brings a powerful new interpretation of Godzilla, delivering a level of surprise that far exceeds expectations. It is a masterpiece that was truly meant to be made in these challenging times.”
