Tag: Entertainment-HollywoodReporter

Condé Nast’s Them has a new home.

Equalpride, publisher of standout queer brands like Out, The Advocate, Out Traveler, Health PLUS Wellness, Pride.com and Advocate Originals, has aquired the LGBTQ media brand launched by Condé in 2017. Equalpride confirmed the news on Friday, and said the acquisition is designed to expand its portfolio and strengthen its position “as the most comprehensive and influential platform for LGBTQ+ news, entertainment, culture and community connection.”

But the news comes a week after a significant number of staff cuts at Equalpride, including The Advocate editor-in-chief Alex Cooper, Pride.com editor-in-chief Rachel Shatto, brand partnerships manager Erin Manley, community editor Marie-Adélina de la Ferriére, and Out magazine staff writers Moises Mendez and Bernardo Sim.

Them, led by editor-in-chief and former Netflix staffer Fran Tirado, is a digital platform focused on LGBTQ+ culture, politics and identity. Based in New York City, it maintains a strong readership among Gen Z and millennial audiences with a healthy 1.1 million Instagram followers.

In addition to Tirado, the Them team includes executive editor Ludwig Hurtado, managing editor Samantha Allen, lifestyle editor Quispe López, associate director of audience development and analytics Mandy Velez Tatti, social media manager Ana Osorno, executive director of video programming and creative development Mi-Anne Chan, manager of video programming and creative development Catherine Mhloyi, staff writer James Factora and a number of contributing writers and editors-at-large.

“Equalpride exists to elevate, celebrate and protect LGBTQ+ storytelling at scale,” said Equalpride CEO Mark Berryhill. “By combining the strengths of our brands with this respected digital platform, we’re creating a unified ecosystem that delivers even more impact for our audiences, advertisers, and community partners. Adding the Them brand accelerates our mission and expands the ways we can champion LGBTQ+ voices year‑round.”

He added: “This is about scale with purpose. Together, we’re building the most trusted, far‑reaching LGBTQ+ media network in the world that honors our history while innovating for the future.”

Them was always a bit of an outlier among Condé Nast brands as the lone LGBTQ title among publications like Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, The New Yorker, Self, Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveler, Glamour, House & Garden, Wired, Pitchfork and more. In recent weeks, Them has made news of its own by launching a new weekly column and companion newsletter led by Tirado titled Feral, and a recently-launched video series, Privacy Please!

The media business has faced headwinds in recent years, times made even more tough on brands serving niche audiences. Cultural attacks on LGBTQ content and the administration’s focus on dismantling DEI programs have created further challenges, issues that Berryhill acknowledged in a memo sent to staff last week ahead of the layoffs.

“Companies aren’t spending as much on marketing due to current economic concerns and challenges. In the last few months, we have had cancellations of major advertising campaigns, which have dramatically impacted our company,” he wrote. “We can’t let the economic and political climate overshadow our calling to amplify the voices that need to be heard as our queer community fights for inclusion and faces daily setbacks in human rights.”

The cold, hard truth that many inside CNN have been grappling with these past few months was that the venerable cable news channel, Ted Turner’s greatest invention, was about to undergo radical change, whoever won the battle for parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.

If Netflix won, CNN would be spun out into a debt-laden public company, which was widely expected to slash costs and consider a fire sale of its assets (Nexstar’s Perry Sook is said to have coveted the cable channel, though it isn’t clear whether he would have pursued it, given his company’s ongoing pursuit of TEGNA).

But Paramount has already been undergoing a news overhaul, with CEO David Ellison installing Bari Weiss at CBS News with a mandate for change. Weiss and Ellison are both said to be obsessed with the (undeniable!) fact that consumers, regardless of political affiliation, are losing trust in the mainstream media.

“We are not producing a product that enough people want,” Weiss told CBS News staff last month. “We can blame demographics or technology or fractured attention spans or ‘news avoidance,’ but these are all copes.”

While the execution of that plan remains in flux, Weiss has sought journalists that put themselves at the center of the story, taking a cue from creators and influencers on TikTok and YouTube, while also bringing more right-leaning voices into segments.

Or as David Ellison told Paramount shareholders earlier this week: “As part of this revitalization, we are focused on expanding the range of stories covered and the voices amplified.”

Assuming the Paramount deal goes through, that change is coming for CNN. Weiss is widely expected to expand her remit, though she may not be alone: It has not been lost on some at CNN that their former colleague Chris Wallace has quietly joined RedBird Capital Partners, which is Ellison’s financial and operating partner at Paramount, as a senior advisor.

Wallace (the son of legendary CBS newsman Mike Wallace), who most recently hosted a CNN interview show, previously served as a longtime anchor and analyst for Fox News, and also moderated NBC’s Meet the Press. RedBird leans on its team of advisors (which also includes former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter) to help advise its investments. And of course Jeff Zucker, CNN’s former president, is also working with RedBird as an operating partner and the CEO of its RedBird IMI joint venture.

For CNN staff, the angst is driven by a seemingly never-ending barrage of owners, from AT&T to Discovery to Paramount, with each change followed by new cost cutting. And it is also driven by comments from the President of the United States, who has made it crystal clear that his primary interest in the sale of WBD is who will control CNN.

“I think the people that have run CNN for the last long period of time are a disgrace. I think it’s imperative that CNN be sold,” President Donald Trump told reporters in December. The Wall Street Journal had also reported at the time that Ellison promised to make significant changes at the channel, though the specifics of those promises are not known.

That being said, CNN is a substantially stronger business than CBS News, despite neither outlet dominating the ratings charts. WBD disclosed as part of the sale process that CNN is projected to have $1.8 billion in revenue in 2026, rising to $1.9 billion in 2027, $2 billion in 2028 and $2.2 billion by 2030. CNN’s adjusted EBITDA in 2026 is estimated to be about $600 million, before falling to $500 million in 2027 and remaining flat at $600 million through 2030.

CBS News has substantially lower revenue than that, though it isn’t exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, with CNN scoring dedicated pay-TV carriage fees, with CBS News sharing those fees with the rest of CBS. Sources have pegged CBS News at around break even or with a slight low to mid eight figure loss (depending on how you account for those fees).

CBS News and CNN had actually discussed a potential merger years ago, multiple sources say, when CNN was owned by Time Warner. Those talks were driven by a desire to save costs. A source says that the negotiations fell apart when the complexities of merging the unionized CBS and the non-union CNN became clear. It will be Paramount’s problem now.

But Weiss has had a hard time assuaging CBS staff that her desire is driven by a sincere desire to pull the network news division into the 21st century, rather than being a political project for the company’s owner. Anderson Cooper chose to leave CBS’ 60 Minutes while staying with CNN, and what he does if and when this deal closes is sure to be closely watched.

And while WBD CEO David Zaslav genuinely enjoys news coverage (he frequently texts CNN anchors to discuss segments and interviews he watched on-air, and his daughter is a producer for the cable news channel), Ellison appears to be more squarely focused on the entertainment business.

Or as one TV news veteran said, most media executives “don’t see [news] as an opportunity, they see it as a problem.”

It’s a setup that has CNN staff understandably on edge, as CNN CEO Mark Thompson seemed to recognize in a note to staff Thursday evening.

“I want to end this note with two thoughts: “Despite all the speculation you’ve read during this process, I’d suggest that you don’t jump to conclusions about the future until we know more,” he wrote. “And secondly let’s not forget our duty to our audience. We’re still near the start of what is already an incredibly newsy year at home and abroad, one that will culminate with critical U.S. midterm elections and who knows what else. Let’s continue to focus on delivering the best possible journalism to the millions of people who rely on us all around the world.”

As Thompson notes, CNN needs to focus on the midterm elections as its employee base grapples with what the next steps will be. Pending deals are always a drag on morale, and in the media business that can sometimes be seen onscreen.

Or as Jake Tapper told CNN viewers in a “Breaking News” alert Thursday evening: “We have some breaking news in our national lead that affects everybody I’m looking at right now in the studio.”

CNN is about to be changed, but exactly how remain obscured for the time being. In the meantime, tension appears poised to rule the day.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Sesame Street, Adolescence: The Making of Adolescence and The Wizard of Oz at Sphere have won the first four honors of 2026 Producers Guild of America Awards.

Formula 1: Drive to Survive was recognized best sports program; Sesame Street for best children’s program; The Making of Adolescence for best shortform program; and The Wizard of Oz at Sphere (Sphere Entertainment Co.) received the PGA Innovation Award. The awards were handed out Thursday night at The Aster in Hollywood.

Due to inclement weather in New York City, the categories were all announced Thursday night instead the two planned separate ceremonies (the first was initially scheduled for Monday, to announce the children’s and sports categories; and Thursday’s event to announce the shortform and PGA Innovation Award).

Also on Thursday night, Lydia Dean Pilcher was recognized with the Vance Van Petten Entrepreneurial Spirit Producing Award. Jessica Li was additionally announced as the recipient of the Debra Hill Fellowship supporting emerging producers.

The full slate of 2026 PGA Awards winners will be announced on Saturday at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The nominees for the, Darryl F. Zanuck award for outstanding producer of theatrical motion pictures, which has historically mostly corresponded with the Oscars’ best picture winner, include Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Train Dreams and Weapons. (Last year, Anora won the award before dominating the 2025 Academy Awards.)

See below for the winners in the four PGA Awards categories announced on Thursday night.

The Award for Outstanding Sports Program

100 Foot Wave
Big Dreams: The Little League World Series 2024
Formula 1: Drive to Survive (WINNER)
Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Buffalo Bills
Surf Girls: International 

The Award for Outstanding Children’s Program

LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy – Pieces of the Past
Phineas and Ferb
Sesame Street (WINNER)
Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical
SpongeBob SquarePants

The Award for Outstanding Shortform Program

Adolescence: The Making of Adolescence (WINNER)
The Daily Show: Desi Lydic Foxsplains
Hacks: Bit By Bit
Overtime with Bill Maher
The White Lotus: Unpacking the Episode

The PGA Innovation Award Finalists

ASTEROID (Doug Liman’s 30 Ninjas / Google’s 100 Zeros) 
Big Wave: No Room for Error (Cosm) 
D-Day: The Camera Soldier (TARGO / TIME Studios) 
territory (Double Eye Studios / Kinetic Light) 
The Wizard of Oz at Sphere (Sphere Entertainment Co.) (WINNER)

After getting an Oscar nomination for his role as famed Broadway composer Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon, Ethan Hawke couldn’t help but reminisce on his long-lasting friendship with the film’s director, Richard Linklater. “I have to express my gratitude to Linklater because my first acting award I ever won was a bong from High Times magazine for my performance in Tape as the best stoned performance of the year. And, Rick just keeps giving me these things, so I’m incredibly grateful,” Hawke says.

In the indie film, Hawke transforms himself into the diminutive composer, who regales attendees at Sardi’s bar with anecdotes about his career highs in the theater and bemoans the loss of his former partnership with Richard Rodgers. Set during the opening-night party for Oklahoma!, the film almost always trains the camera on Hawke as he vacillates between charm and pleas for continued relevance in the theater world.

Hawke, who calls the role one of the hardest he’s taken on in his long career, speaks about becoming Hart and why the physical transformation was akin to skiing down a hill that makes you think, “Holy shit, I’m going to die.”

What keeps drawing you back to working with Richard Linklater?

Oh, that’s totally uncomplicated. It’s just friendship. We met in ’93, I think, and we just started talking and talking. We’ve been talking for 30 years, and every now and then these movies grow out of that friendship.

He pitched this movie to you more than a decade ago and waited for you to age into the role. But was there more that happened over that decades-plus process?

I think his intuition was that we weren’t ready to make it. And I don’t know if he could have articulated exactly why. Part of it had to do with me getting older. Part of what happened in the last decade is that I’ve gotten more and more interested in what people call character acting, and I’ve gotten better at it, and so the time wasn’t wasted. We also knew what a razor’s edge the film walks. A movie set in real time, in one party. It’s a very difficult filmmaking accomplishment, and it needed a lot of meditation about how to pull something like that off.

What made you become more interested in character acting?

It’s just life’s relationship to this profession. I’d probably say my friendship with [Philip Seymour] Hoffman had a lot to do with it, but a lot of it was continuing to try to grow. You’ve got to figure out, “Well, all right, what if I did something totally different?” and you start pushing the boundaries of the box.

You worked on this character during a series of workshops over several years. What did you learn through that process?

It really all comes back to my friendship with Linklater. We would just read it and work on it. We would talk about Larry, about the people we know that were like this, or what the film is about, and what do we think he’s thinking about that? Then we’d send each other records and be like, “That’s an interesting line, where does that line come from?” And we started kind of seeing the movie as a Rodgers and Hart song, like, “What if we made a movie that was a 90-minute Rodgers and Hart song?” In a lot of ways, Rick’s job was to create the architecture and skeleton and musculature the way that Richard Rodgers would for the song, and my job was the lyrics to sit on top of it and dance and play. Because what’s so powerful about their music is that it has all the strength and gravitas and, at the same time, it’s completely silly. And when you can be silly and strike a note that’s profound, it’s a magic trick.

You’ve called this the hardest role you’ve ever done. Why is that?

There have been a handful that have been extremely challenging. It’s just one of the few jobs that’s used everything I’ve learned over the years, from the physical stuff, to the vocal work, to the movement work, to the verbiage, to the text, to the ideas that we’re trying to communicate. It was not a light lift.

How did you find his voice?

When you become a professional actor, there’s a great push to just always stay in the same box. You stop letting yourself play as much, and the play is where really good things happen. So in that way, I love that Rick was giving me a chance to really jump out of the normal sandbox … so I could really find a voice that matched his wit and his energy and his soul, for lack of a better word, and making all that language feel like it was my own.

You also had a big physical transformation to become Lorenz Hart, including shaving your head, wearing a comb-over and adjusting your posture to help appear about a foot shorter. How did it feel taking that on?

If you’ve ever skied, and you ski down a slope that’s way too difficult, while you’re doing it, you’re absolutely miserable. And when it’s over, you’re like, “Wow, that was fun.” Once you survive, you’re like, “That was pretty interesting. I love that.” But while you’re doing it, it’s like, “Holy shit, I’m going to die.”

You’re a big theater person. Is that what drew you to this story?

Absolutely. The legend of Broadway looms large in my psyche. So any time you get to touch those myths — and even some of the final shots of all the portraits of the artists on the Sardi’s wall — it’s like the way the baseball player feels about the Hall of Fame. You want to know what they were thinking, and what they were doing, and how did they do that? How did they feel about it? Trying to make all that come alive for the audience is a game I find thrilling.

You have been doing a lot of campaigning for this movie. Do you now see this as the end of the campaign trail or is there more to come?

Ask me in a couple of months. It was amazing to get the nomination, and it was even sweeter that [writer] Robert Kaplow was nominated because that makes me feel like people really saw the movie. Because if you see the movie, it’s one of the most staggering pieces of writing Rick and I’ve ever come across in 30 years of working, and it’s just an absolutely brilliant screenplay. I really feel my job is like an ambassador of independent film. I want movies like this to get made. I want there to be a future in my life and other people’s lives for movies like this to exist, so people have choices in what they’re seeing.

This story appeared in the Feb. 23 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

In a surprise deal, Apple and Netflix are teaming up for select Formula 1 programming.

The deal will include Netflix simulcasting the F1 Canadian Grand Prix May 22-24 (it will also be on Apple TV, of course), and with Apple TV getting streaming rights to season eight of Drive to Survive alongside Netflix.

Drive to Survive will land on Apple TV at midnight tonight, the same day it debuts on Netflix.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior VP of services, announced the deal in a conference call with reporters Thursday.

More to come.

The White House Correspondents Association is swapping a comedy act for mindreading at this year’s dinner.

The WHCA said Thursday that mentalist Oz Pearlman, whose exploits have gone viral on TikTok and YouTube and have made him a frequent guest on channels like CNBC and Fox News, will be this year’s featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

“As the world’s most celebrated mentalist, Oz Pearlman will offer a fascinating glimpse into what’s truly on the minds of Washington’s newsmakers,” said CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang, president of the association. “We look forward to an exciting, fresh, and interactive evening as we celebrate the First Amendment and Washington news coverage together.”

The WHCD, of course, is typically attended by the White House press corp and members of the administration, including the President of the United States. That being said, President Trump has not attended most of the dinners in his time in office, which shouldn’t be too surprising given the frequent sparring between the journalists that cover the White House and his administration.

Last year’s event was no exception, and in fact the WHCA had to cancel the planned appearance from comic Amber Ruffin, who had been targeted for criticism by the White House. Pearlman’s act is not about politics, but he does cater it to the audience, as his appearances on CNBC and in front of NFL teams show.

“I am thrilled to be the featured entertainer at this year’s WHCA dinner and join the ranks of Frank Sinatra, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, among many other legends,” said Pearlman. “This is a rare opportunity to gather so many accomplished, perceptive people in one place and invite them to share moments of wonder, surprise and awe.”

There’s plenty of suspense in the seventh installment of the venerable Scream horror movie franchise. Unfortunately, most of it involves the backstory and corporate intrigue. Did Melissa Barrera deserve to be fired? What was the real reason Jenna Ortega departed? What kind of hardball did Neve Campbell play to be enticed back to the series? Will series creator Kevin Williamson do a good job directing one of the films for the first time? Which veteran franchise performers, representing characters both living and dead, return for cameos? And most importantly, why did the title switch back to an Arabic numeral after they used a Roman one the last time?

Sorry, but you need to have something to think about during this latest edition of a franchise that is dead creatively if certainly not commercially. You can rest assured that Ghostface, sporting that perennially creepy mask and dependably voiced by Roger L. Jackson, will slash his way through most of the cast, whose survival will depend on contract negotiations. There will be fake-out scares, followed by real ones, and plenty of self-referential discussions in which the characters comment ironically on their situation. “It’s always someone you know,” one observes about the real identity of the killer behind the mask. “This was too easy,” another comments after Ghostface is seemingly dispatched at one point. “There’s always more than one.”  

By now the mechanics of the series have become so numbingly familiar that the films have the stale feel of Pink Floyd cover bands. The big news about Scream 7, of course, is the return of Campbell as Sidney Prescott, who was sorely missed in the last one. Not surprisingly, screenwriters Williamson and Guy Busick make sure to let us know we’re in on the joke when Courteney Cox’s intrepid television reporter Gale Weathers, who was seriously injured in Scream VI (but of course survived), tells Sidney, “You were missed in New York, it’s not the same without you,” adding, “You’re lucky you sat that one out. It was brutal.” And Sidney is naturally described as a “scream queen,” on par with Jamie Lee Curtis of the Halloween films. 

Sidney has made a new life for herself in another town: She’s now happily married to local cop Mark (Joel McHale) and has a teenage daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), named after Sidney’s friend, who met an untimely end in Scream. Tatum’s boyfriend (Sam Rechner) has just the sort of devilish looks to make him a suspect when Ghostface returns to wreak havoc. Not that Ghostface seems to be shy about revealing his identity, since Sidney receives a series of taunting, threatening videos from Stu (Matthew Lillard), Ghostface’s accomplice in the first film, who supposedly died.

Or did he? Hard to tell, since the series is so fond of resurrecting former characters despite their deceased status that you practically need a spreadsheet to keep track of them all. You can rest assured that there are many more of them on display in this installment, with only Paramount’s threats of sending Ghostface to my home preventing me from revealing them. But it’s hopefully not too much of a spoiler to say that the series has kept up with modern technology, AI proving a key element in this go-around.

Other new characters who may or may not survive include Sidney’s solicitous neighbor Jessica (Anna Camp); her son Lucas (Asa Germann), who’s obsessed with the previous Ghostface murders; Tatum’s perky friend Hannah (Mckenna Grace); and mental institution employee Marco (Ethan Embry), who provides useful information about some of the former inhabitants. Feel free to place your bets as to which of them, or whomever else, is the person, or persons, behind the mask, but you can rest assured it’s a letdown.

The overfamiliarity would be more palatable if the dialogue were as fresh and funny as it was in the early installments, or if the kills were more creatively staged. But there’s a rote quality to the proceedings that makes Scream 7 feel like a slog despite its high body count and copious gore. The supporting players, particularly the younger ones, lack the flair of their predecessors, with Campbell and Cox picking up the slack to fine but unsurprising effect. Although it must be said that the latter gets to make one hell of an entrance.