Tag: Entertainment-HollywoodReporter

When Jonathan Schooler and Madeleine Gross were designing an experiment on creativity, they needed a type of media to contrast with the empty-calorie content of cat videos and the like on YouTube. 

The scientists settled on challenging animated shorts. “We wanted to push the poles as far apart as possible,” Gross — who like Schooler conducts her research at the University of California, Santa Barbara — said in an interview.

The results after doing so were eye-opening even to them:  among a totally random population, levels of creativity for the people watching the experimental films were immediately higher compared to those watching YouTube videos, which didn’t move much at all. So was openness to seeing the world in new ways.

For years many people have had the sense that the kind of low-nutrition, algorithmically driven videos that flash across our feeds and brainscapes dozens of times per day are bad for us. Schooler and Gross have a new column of scientific evidence.  Even more important (and encouraging): they have a prescription for what to do about it. 

Just watching a few minutes of an ambiguous or challenging video — the kind of shorts shown at film festivals or on the indie-minded Short of the Week — can make the difference. It’s a kind of “even mild exercise can add years to your life” discovery, only for the brain.

“What we found is that even small doses of it can have real value,” Schooler, a distinguished professor at UCSB and well-known researcher, said in his own interview. The results will be published in the academic journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

Traditional experiments on the cognitive value of the arts tend to focus on more intensive, ongoing programs, like arts education for kids. But the new findings suggest that even something quick can make a difference. And they can happen in minds already long developed. These traits of openness and creativity, Gross says, are not fixed based on previous experiences, let alone birth.

While the results sound like they were sponsored by A24, the experiment was designed with plenty of scientific rigor. Researchers split nearly 500 random participants into two groups: those who watched the animated shorts (which came from the Sugar 23-backed platform Short of the Week) and those who watched the viral-video content (“home-video-style domestic antics”).

They then asked subjects to devise a five-sentence short story and also sought to measure subjects “openness” and “conceptual expansion” —  the researchers’ terms for a flexible, multimodal sort of thinking — by asking them to note connections between seemingly different concepts. The subjects who watched the challenging films scored much higher on both metrics. This despite (or because) of the fact that the participants actually reported liking the viral videos more.

“What it said to us is that we enjoy these kinds of [social-media] videos but they aren’t doing much for our brains. And the challenging shorts were having an immediate positive impact,” Gross said.

The researchers say this may have happened because the ambiguities force our brains to consider alternate and original possibilities instead of simply falling into well-worn mental ruts. Think of it as a salad vs. a cheeseburger: it may not taste as good, but it’s going to do a lot more for your quality of life.

In one way, literally — the particular trait of openness can even be correlated, Gross says, to a longer life.

A trend has been developing in recent years toward considering the effects of social-media platforms and their algorithms optimized for engagement, and limiting intake in-kind. As people start considering their media diets as much as as their food-based ones, then, studies like the UCSB report could be key to that effort.

The movement could gain even more steam in the age of AI content, with its likely wave of slop instantly generated to fit personal wants in a way that more blindly produced social-media content never could.

Schooler and Gross say that their results should be taken with some caveats. But, they add, this doesn’t mean the benefits aren’t tangible.

“I wouldn’t want to suggest everyone can turn into John Updike with exposure to seven-minute films,” Schooler said. “But there’s a range of capacity that we each have, and almost all of us are not at the top of that range. We can all get closer by doing something like this.”

The Legend of Zelda touched down in Sin City on Monday, with Sony teasing the upcoming video game adaptation during the studio’s CinemaCon presentation.

First-look images from director Wes Ball’s live-action film had been released in November, and at CinemaCon, president of Sony’s motion picture group Sanford Panitch announced that the movie had recently finished principal photography. Sony did not reveal new images or details about the feature that counts Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto and Avi Arad as producers.

“We just wrapped production on Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda — based, perhaps, on the most beloved gaming franchise of all time that sold over 180 million copies in four decades,” Panitch said. “It has been produced by the creator himself, Miyamoto, along with Avi Arad, and it’s directed by Wes Ball, whose most recent Planet of the Apes movie was a box office hit.”

The exec continued, “The film releases worldwide May 7th, 2027. We and the legion of fans everywhere cannot wait. And video game adaptations continue to be a significant focus for us.”

This adaptation comes from a team-up between Sony and Nintendo and is set for release on May 7, 2027. Ball, the filmmaker behind Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and the Maze Runner trilogy, is directing; young actors Bo Bragason (known for her roles in BBC One’s Three Girls and The Jetty) and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (Pinocchio, The Haunting of Bly Manor) are starring as the magical Princess Zelda and the swordsman Link, respectively.

Nintendo has been increasingly getting into the theatrical space in recent years, to quite successful results; 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie reached $1.36 billion worldwide, while sequel The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, released earlier this month, is already at over $600,000 worldwide. Zelda is another one of Nintendo’s major franchises, and previous adaptations have been attempted over the years, but nothing solidified until Sony announced development of the film in 2023.

CinemaCon, the annual gathering of cinema owners and Hollywood studios, is hosted in Las Vegas by Cinema United, formerly known as the National Association of Theatre Owners. This year’s edition runs from April 13-16.

It’s not just about the money when it comes to building a film and TV production hub, and Portugal knows it. That was one of the key messages of a panel of local representatives who discussed “Portugal on Screen: A High-Growth Market for Streamers & Global Content Players” during a session at the inaugural StreamTV Europe in Lisbon, which drew a crowd.

Ana Marques, executive director of the Portugal Film Commission, highlighted the appealing mix of locations, financial incentives and a focus on sustainability as key to making the country attractive for foreign productions. Among the popular fare made in Portugal, she mentioned local Netflix hit drama Turn of the Tide, which has seen three seasons, House of the Dragon, which has featured the historic village of Monsanto as a location, Star Wars series The Acolyte, which was shot on the Portuguese island of Madeira, movie Heart of Stone, and Netflix’s Damsel.

“We want to be aspirational because of our wonderful locations,” Marques said. “We also have our incentives, so we want to be attractive, and we want to be sustainable. Sustainability is really important for us.”

She highlighted how in 2024, the country launched a new and “competitive” incentives scheme for bigger productions “in response to the demand.”

Creating in concert with foreign partners is another key part of the puzzle. “We love to co-produce,” Susana Gato, executive president of APIT, the Association of Independent Television Producers, explained.

A case in point that she pointed to is Cold Haven, a co-production with Iceland. The psychological thriller series, whose Portuguese title is Refúgio do Medo, was produced by SPi in Portugal and Glassriver in Iceland.

The panel also highlighted that Portugal has more than 60 co-production agreements.

Technology is also part of Portugal’s focus in ensuring it is an appealing and successful production hub in the age of digital media and AI. Gil Azevedo, executive director of the Unicorn Factory Lisboa, an initiative launched by Lisbon’s mayor to turn the city into a leading innovation hub. “It’s been about gaining scale, and Technology is also part of Portugal’s focus in ensuring it is an appealing and successful production hub in the age of digital media and AI. Gil Azevedo, executive director of the Unicorn Factory Lisboa, an initiative launched by Lisbon’s mayor to turn the city into a leading innovation hub. “It’s been about gaining scale, and [we see] AI as a lever to move faster,” he said. “It’s about democratizing access, and we have great technology companies in Portugal.”

Marques said at times, as in many countries, Portugal could be even more agile, but her team continues to work with the government and other key partners and stakeholders to continue fine-tuning the country’s appeal for productions. “Despite the film commission only working since 2019, being really recent, we have noticed big interest in Portugal and about the Portuguese conditions to film here,” she shared. “We are now launching a new program for the next four years, so until 2029, with 350 million euros ($412 million) with two different incentives.” And she and her team are ready for more film and TV productions to make the journey to Portugal.

‘Looksmaxxing’ influencer and streamer Clavicular has been hospitalized after suffering a suspected overdose Tuesday evening, a source confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

The “looksmaxxing” influencer and online streamer, whose real name is Braden Peters, was taken to the hospital, where he’s currently in “stable condition,” THR has learned. He was still in the hospital as of Tuesday night.

Earlier in the day, Clavicular was livestreaming on Kick when it abruptly cut off, sparking concern among fans. Video was later shared on X of the streamer being carried by several people to a black car as an ambulance arrived at the scene.

THR has also reached out to the Miami Police Department and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department for more information.

Clavicular gained recognition for his self-obsession with being aesthetically pleasing and for promoting extreme “looksmaxxing” — an online trend, popular among young men, focused on maximizing physical attractiveness. The trend ranges from healthy grooming to dangerous practices, such as bone-smashing using a hammer to enhance facial features, which Clavicular has advocated.

Earlier this week, the controversial streamer made headlines when he walked out of a 60 Minutes Australia interview after correspondent Adam Hegarty asked him if he identifies as an incel and about his connection to Andrew Tate. Clavicular clearly got defensive with the line of questioning, and in response, tried to suggest the interviewer was a cuckold.

Clavicular has also found himself in some legal trouble, as he’s reportedly being investigated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for a video appearing to show him shooting an alligator. He was also arrested last month in Florida on misdemeanor battery charges after authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. They said the influencer provoked the fight between two women and exploited them by posting it online, The New York Times reported.

Kanye West has gone ahead and postponed his show in France as leadership continued to weigh banning the rapper from entering the country.

“After much thought and consideration, it is my sole decision to postpone my show in Marseille, France until further notice,” West, who now goes by Ye, wrote on X Tuesday night. He was initially scheduled to perform on June 11 in Marseille at Stade Vélodrome as part of his 2026 comeback tour.

The Hollywood Reporter reported earlier Tuesday that France was looking to potentially ban the “Flashing Lights” artist from performing in the country. Marseille Mayor Benoît Payan and French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez argued that West has no place in the French country following his past antisemitic remarks and for releasing a song last year called “Heil Hitler.”

This came after the artist was barred from entering the United Kingdom shortly after being announced as the headliner for all three nights of Wireless Festival in July. Following his booking, several major sponsors pulled out of the music festival, and the event was later canceled.

The “Heartless” artist has been widely condemned for his antisemitic rhetoric in recent years. In addition to his “Heil Hitler” song, he also used a Super Bowl ad in 2025 to direct viewers to his Yeezy website that had swastika-emblazoned t-shirts.

West has since apologized for his antisemitic statements in an ad in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year, but hasn’t addressed the controversy any further.

The rapper also hasn’t shared any details regarding whether the France show will be postponed to a later date.

Zach Cregger is reuniting with Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group’s New Line division for his next original feature.

Cregger, who directed last year’s acclaimed Oscar-winning horror hit Weapons for the company, has written, and will direct, The Flood, an original sci-fi thriller on which the studio is moving at full speed, scheduling an Aug. 11, 2028 release date.

The project reunites him with his Weapons producers Roy Lee and Miri Yoon of Vertigo Entertainment and interestingly has him working with avowed Cregger fan Steven Spielberg. The latter’s Amblin Entertainment is also producing Flood.

The announcement, by Warners’ Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, came in the last few minutes of the studio’s presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

And while reveal and subsequent PR release was light on detail, including keeping the plot on a distant space station, it is known that the project was originally set up at Netflix. And the filmmaker’s previous projects have been modern-set horror thriller freakouts, this one is described as being very much in the science fiction mold.

“Zach is the rarest of filmmakers, fluent in every genre he touches, and we’re excited to continue our partnership” said New Line president Richard Brener in a statement.

Cregger stated, “I’m incredibly excited to continue my partnership with Mike, Pam, Richard, and the teams at Warner Bros. and New Line. They are true champions of bold creativity, united by a shared ambition to deliver unforgettable theatrical experiences for audiences. That’s the dream for any filmmaker.”

Weapons, which New Line/Warners won in a fierce bidding war, blew up last August’s box office, becoming an unexpected hit and sensation. It earned almost $270 million worldwide on a $38 million budget and introduced the character Aunt Gladys into the pop culture ecosphere.

Amy Madigan was recognized with an Academy Award for her role. A prequel is now in the works. Cregger won’t direct, but is co-writing with Zach Shields. A Sept. 8, 2028 release date has been set, making it a very Cregger-heavy 2028 for New Line.

Amongst Weapons‘ fans was Spielberg, who has been quietly working with Cregger for a while. In an interview with film magazine Empire, the filmmaking legend said Weapons was so good as a horror movie that it quelled his desire to make a movie in the genre.

“When I see a great horror film like Weapons, I don’t have an itch I need to scratch,” he said. “I see Weapons, and it doesn’t make me want to make a horror film that’s as scary or scarier than Weapons. It satisfies me so completely, it actually arrests my desire to someday make a really, really scary movie.”

Flood keeps Cregger in the New Line fold. Beyond Weapons, he was a producer on the division’s sci-fi thriller Companion, released in early 2025. His next feature, Resident Evil, based on the hit video game franchise, is coming from Sony in September and is already building buzz thanks to intense trailer previewed Monday at CinemaCon.

Dune: Part Three opens with no shortage of firepower, as the CinemaCon crowd learned Tuesday.

Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa and director Denis Villeneuve took the stage at the Las Vegas event to discuss the sequel. They then unveiled the first seven minutes from the highly anticipated film during Warner Bros.‘ presentation.

The footage featured Javier Bardem as Stilgar as he led his troops against a seemingly insurmountable enemy. The intense battle scenes featured an endless array of shots fired and plenty of actual fire.

After those seven minutes, additional footage included Chalamet’s Paul Atreides confronting Zendaya’s Chani in a tense moment.

“You’ve conquered the galaxy,” Momoa tells Chalamet in the new footage. “You’ve destroyed thousands of worlds.” This leads Chalamet to ask, “What are your thoughts on that?” to which Momoa replies, “I think you’re way beyond redemption.”

Later, Zendaya asks Chalamet, “How does it feel to be human like everyone else, Paul Atreides?”

In introducing the scenes, Villeneuve called the film a thriller and teased, “It’s more intense and definitely more emotional.”

Chalamet said of Paul, “He’s become his worst vision,” and the star teased his character “becoming an all-powerful emperor of the dark universe.”

Zendaya explained, “The years don’t seem to have been kind to anyone on Dune. It’s been an ungentle and unkind few years. There’s so much left to fight for.” She continued about Chani, “That youthful outlook is completely gone.”

Momoa acknowledged that his role in the film is much different from the last time viewers saw him, given that Duncan Idaho died in the first one, and Momoa is back as a clone: “I’m sent as a gift to Paul to see how he handles someone that he hasn’t seen and see how he takes that.”

Chalamet added, “It was deeply moving to be on a sci-fi trilogy on the scale of Lord of the Rings.”

For Zendaya, the footage represents the actress appearing in two days in a row of major releases teased at CinemaCon, with the Euphoria star also having shown up in Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day footage.

The news comes a month after the first trailer dropped for the film, and limited seats for Imax 70mm screenings for the film quickly sold out.

Dune: Part Three stars Chalamet, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Javier Bardem, Florence Pugh, Taylor-Joy, Rebecca Ferguson and Momoa. The film takes place 17 years after Part Two and follows Emperor Paul Atreides as he struggles with the consequences of his holy war, trapped in a cycle of violence while facing conspiracies from the Bene Gesserit, Tleilaxu, and his wife, Irulan.

Warner Bros. and Legendary release Dune: Part Three on Dec. 18, which has been the source of plenty of eyebrow raising as Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday is coming on the same date (an event that’s been dubbed “Dunesday”). Exhibitors are hoping to get an exclusive look at Dune‘s box office rival when Disney has its presentation on Thursday.

Thanks to the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics, NBCUniversal — with an assist from the recently spun off Versant — dethroned YouTube for the largest share of TV viewing in February.

Nielsen released both its monthly Gauge summary of viewing by platform and its Media Distributor Gauge for the reach of TV use by company on Tuesday. The stats were held back for several weeks due to some Nielsen clients pushing back on a change in how the ratings provider assembled its Gauge data.

Briefly: Nielsen was planning to supplement its data with that from a group called the Advertising Research Foundation that would likely have shown a dip in streaming’s share of total TV use. A number of clients balked at that idea, and in late March, Nielsen decided both to hold back on releasing the monthly numbers and not make any changes to its current Gauge methodology until the 2026-27 TV season, when it will more closely align with the company’s currency ratings products that are used to set ad rates across the industry.

“The Gauge and Media Distributor Gauge (MDG) do not reflect Nielsen’s currency TV ratings,” a note with the February release reads. “Nielsen is working on updates to The Gauge and MDG reports to better reflect and include currency enhancements for the Fall TV season, at which time Nielsen will provide additional back data to clients to assist in the transition.”

To those numbers for February: NBCUniversal and Versant combined for 13.1 percent of all TV use in the February reporting period (which covered Jan. 26-Feb. 22), with the Super Bowl and Olympics accounting for a huge portion of the spike from 8.5 percent in January (Nielsen reports the two companies together because NBCU sells ads for both.) NBCU had 10 percent on its own, while Versant accounted for 3.1 percent.

The combined total ended a year-long streak for YouTube at the top of the media distributor charts, despite YouTube’s share of all viewing rising a little in February (12.7 percent, up from 12.5 percent in January).

Streaming platforms had 48 percent of all viewing in February, with a big gain for NBCU’s Peacock accounting for much of the growth. Peacock had its highest monthly share in the five-year history of the Gauge, scoring 3 percent of all TV viewing thanks to the Super Bowl and Olympics. Aside from small upticks for YouTube, Disney (5 percent) and Tubi (2.2 percent), most streamers lost a bit of share compared to January.

Broadcast viewing edged up to 21.7 percent (from 21.5 percent) in February, again likely attributable to the Super Bowl and Olympics. Outside of those, CBS’ Grammy Awards telecast was the most watched program of the month. With the NFL and college football seasons over, cable took a step back to just 20 percent of all viewing, despite an overall increase in cable news viewing and big, winter games-fueled growth for USA Network.

The Gauge and Media Distributor Gauge numbers for February are below.

Merciful Mother Mary, deliver us from evil. Or from whatever this risibly self-serious metaphysical nonsense about performance and possession, creation and exorcism, aims to be. David Lowery is an adventurous director, alternating studio material like Pete’s Dragon, The Old Man & the Gun and Peter Pan & Wendy with pleasingly idiosyncratic projects like the poetic mood piece about time and loss, A Ghost Story, or the imaginative chivalric fantasy, The Green Knight. His new film belongs decidedly in the latter grouping, but it’s all style, no substance, despite lots of heat from Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel in what’s essentially a two-hander.

As a global pop sensation whose stage costuming includes ornate halos that make her look like sexy religious iconography and clearly contribute to the cult-like devotion of her fans, Hathaway is a commanding avatar for music superstars from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé to Lady Gaga and Madonna. (Lowery has acknowledged the film of Swift’s Reputation stadium tour as a key inspiration for the concert scenes.) But it’s Coel, as Sam Anselm, a maverick British designer with the arch intensity of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, who dominates the film, for better or worse. 

The heady visuals at times recall the films of Tarsem Singh, which means the strengths of Mother Mary are mostly aesthetic, from the elaborately staged performance interludes to ghostly, quasi-horror developments as the central pas de deux yields more secrets. 

Despite reams of dialogue that tends to be enigmatic if not downright opaque, the gothic melodrama is stretched too thin to have much grip. In its bias of effect over emotional complexity, the storytelling leans more toward music-video atmospherics than robust narrative. To that end, suitably trance-like original EDM songs by Jack Antonoff, Charli xcx and FKA twigs, alongside Daniel Hart’s score, are a vital component. But none of that does much to camouflage a core drama that’s pretentious and dull.

In ominous voiceover, Sam feels her bile rising as Hathaway’s Mary approaches after a decade-long estrangement. Sure enough, Mary shows up unannounced, bedraggled and strung-out — unlike the leggy goddess we see on stage — at the English countryside estate that serves as the designer’s atelier and home. The pop star needs a dress for a comeback show the following weekend, just days away, which Sam and her aloof assistant Hilda (Hunter Schafer, wasted) say can’t be done. 

But we all know how that goes. Sam tosses around lofty claims about her creative process — she describes her work as “the transubstantiation of feeling” — but soon she’s draping bits of fabric on Mary like a Project Runway contestant confounded by the challenge. 

It emerges that although visionary image-maker Sam built the look that made Mother Mary an object of worship to millions of fans, the singer unceremoniously dropped her 10 years ago with no explanation. Sam has not listened to her music since; she found that hating Mary was the only way to soothe her abandonment.

Coel bites into the acerbic bitterness of that history in their early exchanges, with a vein of malice in questions supposedly intended to reveal who Mary has become and hence what kind of dress will feel true to her. Sam refuses to hear the new song Mary plans to debut, but she does consent to watch the dance — without music — that the performer has worked out to accompany it. Hathaway hurls herself into that punishing sequence with violent physical force and emotional rawness.

Then come the ghosts. Without giving too much away, the long night they spend together takes on a hallucinatory quality as first Sam reveals a vision that appeared to her, beckoning her to follow, and then Mary confesses that the same vision entered her body and can only be released via a flesh-wound portal. Or something.

Lowery manifests that vision as a swirling tangle of red fabric that acquires an almost corporeal form, a mesmerizing jolt of color in the sumptuous darkness of DP Andrew Droz Palermo’s visuals (Rina Yang shot the concert scenes). But what it means beyond the obvious connotations of a tortured connection in the blood — encompassing creative collaboration as well as a personal, possibly even romantic, bond — is anyone’s guess. It’s no clearer even after some occult business in a chalk circle transports them back to a night in which Mary and a group of young women participated as Imogen (FKA twigs) physically summoned the spirit in a seance.

Given that Hathaway plays Mary not as an entitled diva but a tremulous mess, at risk of being consumed by her public image, the drama invests heavily in the possession and exorcism aspects. It must be said that Hathaway looks sensational in Bina Daigeler’s stage costumes, and while her vocals are electronically enhanced to death, the songs are convincing and catchy enough for her to pass for a legit music phenomenon.

Lowery is digging into the mystique of pop superstardom and the creative alchemy that makes it happen, the intimacy of inspiration and the enormity of communion with a massive audience. Some might be willing to find depth in his stylish, stylized but gossamer-thin depiction of a woman at the height of her performative powers struggling to bear the weight of her stage persona. I found it a bore — self-consciously cool but distancing and empty.

At least the dress (by Iris van Herpen, no less) is a knockout. No prizes for guessing the color.