Tag: Entertainment-HollywoodReporter

Oliver Jones is set to exit Apple TV after six years and join Amazon MGM Studios as senior commissioner for U.K. scripted.

The studio’s vice president & head of international originals, Nicole Clemens, told her team about Jones’ appointment in an email on Monday. He’ll be working closely with Clemens on the commissioning of new U.K. scripted shows starting in May, and will relocate from L.A. back to London for the role. Commissioners Gemma Brandler and Punit Mattoo will report to Jones.

“It has been a privilege to work alongside my brilliant colleagues at Apple TV for the past six years, and to collaborate with the remarkable artists I was lucky enough to work with,” said Jones, whose credits as senior creative executive for international scripted television at the streamer include the Kurt Russell-starring Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ Masters of the Air with Austin Butler, Israeli spy series Tehran with Hugh Laurie, and Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer with Cate Blanchett.

“It’s always a tough decision to leave a job I love, but the time is right to come back home and start a new adventure. Amazon MGM Studios’ commitment and momentum in telling ambitious, provocative, premium stories, together with the scale of their increased investment in the U.K., means it couldn’t be a more exciting moment to be joining Nicole and her phenomenal team.”

In Clemens’ email, she lauds the “incredible success” of the U.K.’s scripted slate at Amazon, including Robin Wright’s The Girlfriend, the Sophie Turner-led Steal as well as Harlan Coben’s Lazarus and Bait with Riz Ahmed.

“We’ve launched fan favorite and genre-defying series that have delighted customers not just in the U.K., but globally,” she wrote. “We also recently announced the greenlights for original police thriller Dirty from Matt Charman and an adaptation of Chloe Walsh’s BookTok Sensation Boys Of Tommen, and there’s much, much more to come.”

“With our huge commitment to the U.K., I’m delighted to inform you today that Oliver Jones will be joining us as Senior Commissioner for U.K. Scripted,” she continued. “Oliver is a seasoned scripted executive with a proven track record in developing premium international content.”

The appointment, she adds, “underscores our continued investment in world-class U.K. scripted programming as we expand our slate for U.K. and global audiences.”

Bang Si-hyuk, the founder and chairman of K-pop powerhouse Hybe — the agency home of supergroup BTS — is facing possible arrest after South Korean police moved Tuesday to secure a warrant for his detention in connection with an ongoing investigation into the company’s 2020 initial public offering.

According to reports across the Korean media, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s financial crimes investigation unit said it has booked Bang on charges of fraudulent and unfair trading and is moving to take him into custody. The agency alleges that he violated South Korea’s Capital Markets Act and secured roughly 190 billion won ($129 million) in illicit gains during Hybe’s IPO process.

At the heart of the case is a private equity arrangement that police allege was structured to mislead early Hybe investors. Seoul authorities have said Bang deceived early shareholders ahead of the agency’s listing by steering them to sell their stakes to a private equity fund linked to his associates — then received about 30 percent of the fund’s profits under a prior agreement after Hybe went public. Bang has previously denied any wrongdoing.

The move comes just a day after Seoul police commissioner Park Jung-bo said during a press briefing that the investigation into Bang was “essentially complete” and would be wrapped up soon. Bang has been barred from leaving South Korea since August of last year as the probe has progressed.

Hybe has not yet released a public response to Tuesday’s developments. The company’s shares fell as much as 2.9 percent in trading following news of the warrant request.

The probe dates to December 2024, when South Korea’s financial authorities began examining whether Bang had entered into undisclosed profit-sharing agreements ahead of Hybe’s IPO. Police raided Hybe’s Seoul headquarters in July 2025, and Bang voluntarily returned to South Korea the following month to cooperate. In December, the Seoul Southern District Court approved a provisional seizure of his Hybe shares worth 156.8 billion won (approximately $118 million).

The potential arrest represents an extraordinary moment for one of the most influential figures in the global music industry. Bang, 53, founded Big Hit Entertainment — Hybe’s predecessor — in 2005 after splitting from JYP Entertainment, where he had worked alongside founder Park Jin-young as one of the company’s first employees, earning the nickname “Hitman Bang” for his chart-topping prowess as a composer and producer. Big Hit had its ups and downs and even came close to bankruptcy in 2007 —before Bang reoriented the company around a promising new boy band he signed the following decade: BTS.

Following its debut in 2013, BTS went on to become the biggest pop act in the world, smashing barriers for East Asian entertainers and becoming the first Korean group to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The band is now in the early stages of a sold-out global comeback tour in support of Arirang, its first album in nearly four years.

BTS’s commercial success has transformed Big Hit into a global pop empire. The company went public on the Korea Exchange in October 2020 in what was then South Korea’s largest IPO in three years, and rebranded as Hybe in 2021. Under Bang, the company has acquired a sprawling roster of local labels. In 2021, it paid $1.05 billion to acquire Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings, picking up Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande’s management rights. It has since added Atlanta hip-hop label Quality Control and moved into Latin music.

Today, Hybe is easily the most dominant force in K-pop. According to some local estimates, Bang’s Hybe stake alone is worth as much as 4.8 trillion won ($3.6 billion), making him the only self-made billionaire in the Korean entertainment industry.

Judy Greer is recalling when her Wedding Planner co-star Matthew McConaughey once came to her rescue.

During a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, the actress said she had gotten herself into a situation when she accidentally parked at an upscale hotel in New York City for the table read of the 2001 rom-com, starring McConaughey and Jennifer Lopez. Greer played Penny, the latter’s best friend in the film.

“I valeted my car; I didn’t know any better,” Greer said of when she arrived at the Roosevelt Hotel. “I didn’t have enough money to get my car out of the valet because I was so broke.”

She continued, “I was on the pay phone in the lobby, calling my friend Sean Gunn [Gilmore Girls and Guardians of the Galaxy actor], and Matthew McConaughey overheard me and gave me $20. I was so mortified, but also: my hero.”

The film, directed by Adam Shankman, follows Mary Fiore (Lopez), San Francisco’s most successful wedding planner, who books the biggest wedding of her career. But when she realizes she’s unknowingly fallen in love with the groom, Steve Edison (McConaughey), she has to decide if she’s going to help get him down the aisle to his fiancée or if she’ll finally get to be the bride.

When reflecting on her time filming The Wedding Planner, Greer said she remembers “how lovely Matthew McConaughey was. I loved seeing him in hair and makeup every morning, because he had pajamas on and a Yerba mate [tea]. I haven’t worked with him since, but I have a feeling not much has changed.”

After the film was a box office success, Greer went on to book roles in other rom-coms, including 13 Going on 30 and 27 Dresses.

Disney+ is making moves to boost its output of live-action originals from Japan, a longstanding ambition for the company’s Asia-Pacific content team that has been given greater urgency as the House of Mouse works to grow its streaming business worldwide.

The company unveiled a multi-year development deal on Tuesday with Tokyo-based production company The Seven, one of Netflix’s most frequent partners on Japanese-language films and series. Disney described the deal as a “long-term, ongoing content development collaboration.” The duration of the pact was not disclosed, nor were financial details.

“Since the launch of Disney+ in Japan, general entertainment and local originals have become an increasingly important part of our content offering, making this collaboration a natural evolution in accelerating our content investment,” said Carol Choi, Disney’s executive vp of original content strategy in APAC. “It builds on the strong relationships we’ve developed over time and represents a meaningful step forward in deepening our storytelling roots in Japan,” she added.

Under the framework, Disney’s content team will be embedded at the earliest stages of project development, working alongside The Seven’s producers to shape Japanese-language series exclusively for Disney+. The deal represents a notable shift for the platform in Japan, where it has typically acquired or co-produced titles on a project-by-project basis rather than locking in dedicated development partners.

The Seven was established in late 2021 as a subsidiary of TBS Holdings (Tokyo Broadcasting System Holdings), one of Japan’s major commercial broadcasters, with an initial investment of ¥30 billion (then approximately $205 million). Led by president and CEO Katsuaki Setoguchi and vice president and chief content officer Akira Morii, the company has become one of the country’s most prolific producers of live-action originals for the global streaming market. Its highest-profile credits have come through a five-year strategic partnership with Netflix, signed in 2022. Morii and his team produced the hit dystopian survival series Alice in Borderland and manga adaptation Yu Yu Hakusho, among other titles. The Seven also produced the upcoming jidaigeki series, Song of the Samurai, which was recently scooped up by HBO for release in May, and it has a co-development deal with Hollywood producer David Permut (Hacksaw Ridge, Face/Off) for film projects straddling the U.S.-Japan market.

The Disney deal positions The Seven as the rare Japanese production house with partnerships at two of the world’s dominant streamers — a reflection of how scarce experienced live-action producers with global ambition remain in Japan’s once stagnant but now fast-changing production landscape.

The agreement also comes at a moment of accelerating competition for Japanese content. Japan’s premium streaming sector grew 15 percent in 2025 to hit revenues of $7.2 billion, according to a recent report from Media Partners Asia (MPA). The country is estimated to be the world’s third-biggest premium streaming market by revenue, behind the U.S. and China (the latter of which does not permit foreign platform operators). According to MPA’s estimates in February, Netflix leads the Japanese market with a 22 percent share of premium VOD revenue, while Amazon Prime Video holds the largest subscriber base at 19.3 million (although the company’s flagship e-commerce offering is a major draw in Japan). Disney+ currently trails both significantly, commanding just 3 percent of total viewing hours, though it recently expanded its footprint through a joint bundle with Hulu Japan.

Simultaneously, global appetite for Japanese-themed content has surged in recent years. Anime has long been a youth-culture juggernaut, but live-action Japanese storytelling has also begun to break through in a major way — as witnessed with Disney’s own Shōgun, the samurai epic that swept the 2024 Emmys with a record-setting 18 wins, including best drama series. Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said last year that Japanese titles on the platform have been viewed for a cumulative 25 billion hours, making them the second-most-watched form of non-English content globally, behind only Korean.

“I am confident that by unleashing the refined creativity of The Seven through Disney’s extensive network and expertise, we can evolve Japanese stories into the ‘next craze’ that people truly fall in love with,” said Katsuaki Setoguchi, CEO of The Seven.

Added Gaku Narita, Disney’s executive director of content production in Japan: “For our local production team, the focus is on developing stories that audiences will want to come back to again and again. This deal allows us to work closely with creators in Japan from the earliest stages of development, shaping projects that reflect local creativity while meeting the high bar of storytelling that Disney+ is committed to telling.”

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have won awards separately and together — most notably an Oscar for writing Good Will Hunting — and they will reunite to pick up another honor next week in honor of Robin Williams.

The pair starred opposite the late legend in Gus Van Sant’s 1997 film, which also earned Williams an Academy Award for best supporting actor. And they will be making the trek up to San Francisco to receive the 9th Robin Williams Legacy of Laughter Award presented to them by Glenn Close‘s nonprofit, Bring Change to Mind, at the organization’s Revels & Revelations Celebration. The fundraiser is set to take place at the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture on April 27.

Setting the stage for a special night, Affleck and Damon will be presented with their Robin Williams Legacy of Laughter Award by Robin’s children, Zak, Zelda and Cody Williams. It’s an honor designed to recognize “their impact and the power of storytelling and connection to spark real change.”

Affleck and Damon also released a joint statement to The Hollywood Reporter about the news and their friend. “Robin wasn’t just someone we admired. He made our dreams come true. We owe everything to him. He said yes to our movie and we got it made. Receiving the Legacy of Laughter Award, created in honor of Robin Williams, is incredibly meaningful to us. His legacy isn’t just about his talent and how much he made the world laugh — it’s about how deeply he cared. This honor carries his spirit, and that means everything to us,” the duo said.

The event, a milestone moment for Bring Change to Mind as it celebrates 15 years of impact and a decade steering student programming, will also fete philanthropist Pam Baer with a Champion of Change Award to acknowledge her leadership in advancing mental health awareness. The event, supported by lead sponsor American Eagle Foundation, is also supported by individual, foundation and corporate donations. Per official details, it’s already sold out.

Founded by Close in 2010, BC2M is a national organization dedicated to ending the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness by working with leading scientists to make a difference in the lives of teens and adults. The cause is personal for Close as her sister, Jessie, lives with bipolar disorder and her nephew, Calen, lives with schizoaffective disorder. The Revels & Revelations Celebration was mounted as a “powerful night of storytelling, celebration and impact” by bringing together advocates, partners and community members under a shared mission of making sure that every young person feels “seen, supported and empowered” to talk openly about mental health.

Williams died by suicide at age 63 on Aug. 11, 2014. His work with the pair on Good Will Hunting left a lasting impact.

“It was the very first day of shooting and Ben and I went to the set. We weren’t working that day and we just saw them rehearse and we were kind of sitting off to the side of the camera,” Damon previously told E! “By the time they said, ‘Action,’ tears were just falling down my face. I couldn’t believe it. I was just looking at Robin start to speak and say these words that Ben and I had just worked on for five years.”

He continued: “After the scene ended, [Robin] came over to us and he saw us. He put his hand on our head and just said, you know, ‘It’s not a fluke. You guys really did this. You really did it.’”

After his passing, they both offered tributes. “Thanks chief — for your friendship and for what you gave the world,” Affleck shared on social media at the time. “Robin brought so much joy into my life and I will carry that joy with me forever,” Damon said in a statement. “He was such a beautiful man. I was lucky to know him and I will never, ever forget him.”

Prior recipients of the Robin Williams Legacy of Laughter Award include Amy Poehler and Ryan Reynolds. Affleck and Damon most recently teamed on The Rip for Netflix. Damon next toplines Christopher Nolan’s star-packed The Odyssey.

U.S. film and TV production in Canada rebounded in 2025 as the local industry finally put the devastating impact of Hollywood’s year of strikes in 2023 in the rearview mirror.

The latest annual economic report from the Canadian Media Producers Association, representing local indie producers, points to foreign location and service production in Canada, mostly by American producers, rising 9.5 percent to CAN$5.32 billion (US$3.9 billion, compared to a year-earlier CAN$4.86 billion.

That production activity includes visual effects work done by Canadian VFX studios for foreign films and TV series. Hollywood production growth was due mainly to TV series production rising 12.1 percent to CAN$3.42 billion (US$2.51 million) and the total volume of other foreign production – including TV movies, specials, pilots and single-episode shoots — increasing by 54.4 percent to CAN$366 million (US$268.2 million).

The overall increase in Hollywood TV production last year offset a 2.2 percent fall in foreign movie production across Canada. The major American players active north of the U.S. border continues to be led by Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV+ as they center around production hubs in Toronto and Vancouver.

The big U.S. series to shoot in Canada last year included IT: Welcome to Derry, The Last of Us, Doc and Happy Face, while big budget movies to shoot in Canada included Frankenstein, Tron: Ares and Final Destination: Bloodlines.

Last year’s foreign production rebound was down, however, from the record CAN$6.62 billion in budgetary spending reached in 2023, just before the impact of the Hollywood actors and writers strike was felt by the Canadian industry as local soundstages went dark and production crews were left idle.

The Hollywood industry consolidation and the end of the Peak TV era is also working to reduce American production levels. U.S. film and TV production accounted for 398 projects in Canada last year, or 87 percent of overall foreign location shooting north of the U.S. border, with much of that concentrated in Ontario and British Columbia.

That compares to in all 425 U.S. film and TV series projects shot in Canada in 2024, which represented 86 percent of overall foreign production activity. The rebound in American production last year offset a 2.2 percent fall in local homegrown film and TV series production to $3.62 billion (US$2.65 billion), according to the CMPA report.

The overall volume of production in Canada rose last year by 4.6 percent to CAN$10.17 billion (US$7.54 billion, but that was 15.8 percent down on the peak of CAN$12.07 billion reached in 2023.

Mick Betancourt, a veteran writer, producer and showrunner with a long list of credits on crime dramas and action series like the newest seasons of the Alan Ritchson-starrer Reacher, witnessed a violent crime happening in real time on New York City’s Lower East Side as if it were ripped straight from one of his scripts.

Rather than sit idly by to see how it played out from afar, he sprang into action to chase down the suspect who — spoiler alert! — ended up in handcuffs by the time the harrowing incident was over. But not before Betancourt bolted approximately half a mile (or more) as he pursued the suspect over 15 minutes, a scene that had its own ebbs and flows and ended in time for Betancourt to make early dinner reservations with his wife.

“I grew up in a chaotic and violent area and with some violence in my own house and this felt a time when I could do something about it, though I don’t know if any of the Brown or Harvard guys I’ve worked with are chasing guys down like this,” said the native of Chicago, whose resume includes work as a showrunner, writer, executive producer, director and actor. “I also don’t know what the gods have in store for me now so this might’ve been my last hurrah.”

It started late afternoon on Friday, April 10, when Betancourt and his wife were standing near their hotel, Nine Orchard, near Canal Street, and he witnessed a man sprinting past them. “I spotted a bottle of alcohol in the sprinter’s left hand, a short, stocky bottle, like Don Julio. I turned to my wife and said, ‘The shit’s about to hit the fan,’” per details Betancourt laid out in a new Substack post published on Sunday titled “To chase or not to chase, that is the question.”

Moments later, Betancourt, who turned 52 in recent days, spotted a man in his mid-50s, someone he presumed to be the owner of a nearby store where the alleged robbery took place, running after the suspect. He caught up to him and a scuffle ensued, all of which Betancourt witnessed.

“As they wrestled, I looked around and nobody was helping. Nobody jumped in — including me,” Betancourt writes, adding that he pondered the worst possible outcomes were he to get involved. “In a flash, during the standing wrestling match, the robber got a hold of one of the store owner’s legs, lifted it up, effectively whiplashing the owner from a standing position, to slamming his head into the concrete. That THUMP is an unforgettable sound. The whole block, which had been watching, gasped, said ‘Oh fuck’ or screamed. The shop owner’s body went limp, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his arms flopped out to his sides like he was crucified.”

Betancourt assumed the store owner was dead based on body language. He made a split-second decision to take action. “I didn’t want to go back to the scene and see them pulling a sheet over the guy or running caution tape around him and think I could’ve done something in that moment,” he said. So when the suspect took off running, Betancourt “gave chase” by kicking it into high gear.

He laid out the extensive and tense scene in detail, and he sprinted after the man across several New York City blocks. “God cursed me with little alligator legs, but in a cruel twist of fate and irony, he made those hairy little fuckers fast as lightning,” wrote Betancourt.

At one point, he caught up to him and screamed, “Get on the ground now!” The serious direction gave the man pause and he did slow down long enough for the men to exchange words. The suspect also seemed sure that the man was fatally injured, as he told Betancourt that his actions were in self-defense. Betancourt, who is sober and in recovery for more than two decades, tried to reason with the man as he believed he might be in the throes of addiction.

Their exchange was brief as the man wouldn’t give up and he got away again. But Betancourt wouldn’t give up. He sprinted after him again, and when he lost his whereabouts momentarily, he sought the help of two elderly women who weren’t overly helpful in pointing out the right direction. In a twist of fate, Betancourt then ran past Housing Authority police officers who assisted in the effort and eventually called for backup from the New York Police Department.

Betancourt recalled that four NYPD cars arrived on scene, one carrying the store owner, who was alive, alert and came to identify the alleged thief while pressing a bag of ice on his head. “I couldn’t believe it. I really thought he was dead,” wrote Betancourt, who was able to then give an official statement and eventually reunite with his wife, who was still outside the hotel. “When I got back to the hotel, a woman who worked there, who saw the whole thing begin, called me a hero. No, I thought, I was a coward who decided to do something about it.”

The Hollywood Reporter verified the incident with the NYPD. A spokesperson in the office of the deputy commissioner for public Information confirmed that 35-year-old Iysa Muhammad was arrested and charged with third-degree robbery and second-degree assault after allegedly stealing two bottles of liquor from a store on Grand Street. The 37-year-old man, who was injured in the alleged assault, was transported to NYC Health and Hospitals/Bellevue in stable condition. The investigation is ongoing.

As for Betancourt, his legs were gassed and it took a few hours to decompress, but he’s now back home and back at work on the upcoming season five of Reacher as a writer and executive producer. He worked on season four, which is expected to debut sometime in 2026. He also worked on the Amazon Prime Video spin-off series, Neagley, focused on Frances Neagley, played by Maria Sten. Betancourt’s other credits include The Purge, Shots Fired, Wicked City, Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire, Ironside, Necessary Roughness, The Mob Doctor, Detroit 1-8-7 and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

When he’s back on set, he’ll have something to talk to Ritchson about after the in-demand star recently had his own wild real-life encounter near his Tennessee home that also looked like it could’ve been ripped from one of his episodes.

Zayn Malik has canceled his upcoming appearances, including The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, as he recovers from an undisclosed medical condition.

On Friday, the singer posted a photo on Instagram of himself lying in a hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown with tubes attached to his body.

“To my fans – Thank you to all of you for your love & support now & always- been a long week and am still unexpectedly recovering,” he captioned the photo. “Heartbroken that I can’t see you all this week, I wouldn’t be in the place I am today without you guys and am so thankful for your understanding. Thank you to the incredible hospital staff of Drs, nurses, cardiologist, management, admin and everyone who has helped along the way and continue to. You are all legends! Big big love xx z.”

On Monday, People reported that Malik had pulled out of upcoming promotional appearances surrounding his new album, Konnakol, as he continues to recover.

Earlier this month, he was booked as a guest on Tuesday’s edition of The Tonight Show. But updated listings for Tuesday’s episode show that he’s no longer scheduled to appear.

Tuesday’s guests were originally planned to include Malik as the night’s musical guest, along with Nikki Glaser and Ella Stiller. The updated listing now features Glaser, Stiller, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and comedian Isabel Hagen as the night’s scheduled guests.

Sources also suggested to People that Malik will be pulling out of other planned promotional appearances, including fan meet-and-greets. 

It’s still unclear what Malik is being treated for but People cited a source saying the former One Direction singer is seeking medical treatment from the “No. 1 cardiologist in the world.” 

The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to a rep for Malik for comment.