Tag: Entertainment-Variety

Tan Ce Ding’s debut feature “Somewhere in the South” follows protagonist Boon, a restless young man in a forgotten Malaysian town who gets roped into wearing a political party’s tiger mascot suit during a sudden by-election, only to discover he’s losing himself inside.

The film, produced by Cannes Camera d’Or winner Anthony Chen alongside Edward Lim and Yap Khai Soon through Giraffe Pictures, is one of 17 in-development projects selected for the 24th Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF).

The drama-suspense hybrid, filmed in Mandarin, Malaysian Cantonese, English and Malay, marks Chen’s latest producing venture following Berlinale title “We Are All Strangers,” which he also directed. Tan directed short “Please Hold the Line,” which premiered at Venice in 2022.

“I’ve long admired Tan Ce Ding’s bold short films,” Chen said. “CD, as we fondly call him, is exactly the kind of exciting new voice we are seeing rise in Malaysian cinema. Our project at HAF, with its remarkable honesty and ambition, captures the growing confidence and urgency of this movement.”

Chen noted that the collaboration has been a long time in the making. “Over the years, CD, Edward and I have bounced around ideas for his first feature. Singapore and Malaysia are close neighbors, and I’ve wanted to work on a Malaysian film for the longest time — so this feels like the perfect place to start. This one is special and I look forward to working with him to elevate ‘Somewhere in the South’ for the international stage.”

Tan explained his affinity with the subject matter. “I’ve always been interested in people who exist on the margins of a system. In many declining small towns, young people grow up surrounded by a very clear reality: If you want a better life, you have to leave. But not everyone can leave, and many end up staying behind.”

The director said the concept of a by-election provided a compelling framework. “When a by-election takes place in a small town, media, politicians and resources suddenly flood in, briefly turning a place that was once forgotten into the national spotlight. In many ways, it can even become a kind of absurd political spectacle.”

He added: “I became curious about what that moment does to the people who have always lived there. For someone who has spent most of his life feeling insignificant, that sudden attention can easily create the illusion that his fate might finally be changing. That question eventually became the starting point of this film.”

Tan described the narrative as exploring identity and belonging. “The protagonist, Boon, is an ordinary young man in a small town. But when he is asked to wear the campaign’s tiger mascot suit, he experiences something he has never felt before. For the first time, he feels needed. He feels noticed. The role gives him a new identity, and with it, a sense of purpose and power.

“As the story unfolds, he slowly realizes that the system doesn’t really care about who he is. What it needs is simply the role itself. As long as someone is inside the suit, the system can continue to function,” the director said. “The feeling of finally being seen can be powerful, but it can also be fragile. The more he tries to hold on to that role, the further he drifts from his real self. In the end, he believes he has become the tiger, only to discover that he is merely the skin.”

Producer Lim outlined the project’s international ambitions. “In today’s landscape, films can no longer depend on funding or distribution from a single market. By participating in HAF, we hope to bring the project to an international stage, meet new friends and collaborators, and explore meaningful partnerships. We believe the film has strong potential to incorporate international elements and connect with audiences beyond our region.”

The project is seeking funds at the forum, where filmmakers will have opportunities for one-on-one meetings with investors, festival organizers and industry professionals.

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 4 premiere of “Invincible,” now streaming on Prime Video.

The “Invincible” Season 4 premiere did something that the show, and Robert Kirkman‘s original superhero comic book series, has never done before: show fans the early days of Nolan (J.K. Simmons), and how his alien planet Viltrum was nearly wiped out by a virus.

Episode 1 of the three-part premiere included a brief flashback of Nolan starting out as Omni-Man at his first costume fitting with Debbie (Sandra Oh), but Episode 2 ratcheted things up. It began with an extended look back at teenage Nolan teaching child Viltrumites the violent ways of their culture. Then, Nolan’s parents put his fighting skills to the test with a brutal beatdown, but things quickly take a turn as Viltrumites around the planet start coughing up blood. The race of powerful aliens becomes decimated by the Scourge Virus, which kills 99.9% of their world — except for Nolan, Grand Regent Thragg (Lee Pace) and a handful of others. In a chilling sequence, the survivors jettison the corpses to create rings around their planet. The rest of the episode goes back to present day, where Nolan, Allen (Seth Rogen), Telia (Tatiana Maslany) and their “Star Trek”-inspired crew search the galaxy for ways to kill the remaining Viltrumites.

Back on Earth, Mark (Steven Yeun) faces off against new and old threats, including the talking T-Rex Dinosaurus (Matthew Rhys), Universa (Danai Gurira) and the alien Sequids. But Mark isn’t taking any more chances with the Sequids, and kills their leader, shocking his fellow heroes. That puts him in some hot water with Cecil (Walton Goggins), who’s also dealing with Conquest’s (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) escape from his underground bunker. There’s also another attack from the rapidly aging Flaxan aliens, but their assault is stopped Mark and the Guardians of the Globe. However, Monster Girl (Grey Griffin) and Rex/Robot (Zachary Quinto) go through a portal and get trapped in the Flaxans’ dimension.

The biggest twist was saved for the end of Episode 3. With her powers not working, Eve (Gillian Jacobs) is searching for answers and takes a pregnancy test. It turns out she’s pregnant, but decides to not tell Mark yet. As the Viltrumite War looms ahead, it’s another major life moment for Mark and his growing family.

In an interview with Variety, co-showrunners Robert Kirkman and Simon Racioppa break down the Season 4 premiere, those brand-new flashbacks and what Eve’s pregnancy means for the show going forward.

I want to start with the flashbacks in the premiere. The previous seasons didn’t have very many flashbacks, and neither did the comic. How did you decide to show this moment from Debbie and Nolan’s past together in Episode 1?

Simon Racioppa: It was a desire to show that Nolan is not out of Debbie’s head. She was with him for over 20 years. Even now, it’s been a couple years since she’s seen him last, but that doesn’t just go away. She’s dating somebody else, but he’s still a huge part of her thoughts. He still has a presence in her life, even though he’s literally not there. She’s also reinterpreting things. Suddenly all these memories that you have, you’re like, “Oh, that’s what that was about.” It takes on a different light. So that’s what she’s going through, and it’s also setting up what’s coming up for her, too. It’s reminding the audience that Nolan is still part of her life and maybe setting up some expectations for what might be coming up later in the season.

Robert Kirkman: It’s also nice when you get to a fourth season of a show to reveal to the audience, “You think you know these characters, there are more bits and pieces to their personality that we haven’t quite revealed to you yet.” There’s more of a sense of discovery this deep into the show.

Racioppa: Everybody has different memories of a relationship. There are good memories and bad memories. Yeah, Nolan did some terrible things back in Season 1, but Debbie still has some good memories of life with him. There were lots of good moments. Otherwise she never would have been with him for 20 years.

Episode 2 starts with another flashback to young Nolan’s life on Viltrum when the Scourge Virus breaks out. Where did the idea come from to show this extended sequence?

Kirkman: There was some talk about making that the first episode and making our first episode the second. But, ultimately, we decided to make it land where it landed. It’s a very important episode. As we’re getting closer to the Viltrumite War, we wanted to make sure that the Viltrumites weren’t this unknown space tyrant force that you didn’t know anything about. We kept things very close to the vest over Seasons 1, 2 and 3 over exactly what was going on with them, and who they were as a people. To have this chunk of the episode that reveals so much of their backstory was really important. I have to hand it to Simon, who wrote that episode, there are really cool elements that are completely unique to the show that give you really great insight into the Viltrumites. As Alan says, you start to feel a little bit of sympathy for them for the first time ever. It puts us in a great place, moving into this war.

Racioppa: We wanted to make sure that they came across as layered, complex and complicated, because they are half of Mark’s heritage. It plays a role in his thinking and who he is, from the start of the series all the way to the end. That wouldn’t resonate, or have the importance it needs to, if the Viltrumites were just bad space guys. They’re a full society. There are reasons for why they act the way they act, why they do the things they do. We wanted to — maybe not answer every question you have — but certainly illuminate them to a degree that you can start thinking, “So that’s why they’re here. That’s why they’re doing this. That’s why Nolan is who he is, and, by extension, maybe that’s why Mark is who he is as well.”

How did you come up with the looks for Nolan and his parents? Young Nolan looks a lot like Mark, and his father resembles present-day Nolan.

Kirkman: Those parallels were very deliberate, and that was something that was kind of baked in. You’re seeing Nolan at a time similar to where we saw Mark when the show started. This was Mark’s family dynamic and life; then this is Nolan’s family dynamic, how a Viltrumite grows up, how they’re taught. To a certain extent, you see the full life cycle of Viltrumite life in these little glimpses of how at varying ages they’re doing things. Hopefully it gives you a really clear picture as to why Nolan turned out the way he did. Showing what his society deems normal is very important, and it goes a long way to — not necessarily justify his actions — but making you more easily understand his actions.

Racioppa: It’s all from the comics. We expand upon and open up the space between the panels. We thought it was important to take you there when the Scourge Virus happened to make you part of that as an audience member, versus having a character speak about it. This is nice thing about animation; in live-action maybe that would have had to be a conversation, unless your budget was extremely high. We’re able to go there and show it and actually have it happen on screen in real time, even as a flashback.

Robert, when you were writing the comics, did you already have these ideas and storylines in mind? Or was this fully made for the show?

Kirkman: Those actual aspects were fully made for the show. There are always notions of how Viltrumite life worked and various different things. I’m present in the writers’ room, and right there in the mix when we’re working these things out. I’m able to give my opinion of, like, “I kind of pictured it being like this.” There are some things that I had that didn’t necessarily work their way into the pages of the comic book, but I had them worked out behind the scenes. I’m able to flesh those things out with the writers. That was one of those moments where I never got around to showing this, but this is how I see things working. There are also a lot of things that I never considered when I was writing the comic book series. When we’re in the room, a question will be asked and it’s like, “Never thought about that! Hold on a second.” And in the moment I get to be like, “Well, you know, if this means this, and that means that, then I was thinking maybe this could be that.” It’s great to be able to put a fresh coat of paint on something that’s 20 years old, find a new nook and cranny that I’d never explored, flesh it out and feel like it’s as authentic as if it had shown up in the comic book 20 years ago.

Racioppa: One of the best things about having Robert is that there are extra pages of the comic that only exist in his head that we get to pull out as we work on the show. Maybe didn’t make their way into the comic, but they’re there. Then we’re like, “Oh, that’s great. So that’s the backstory of that character. That’s awesome. Let’s put it in the show. Take that page out of your head and let’s put it in the script.”

We learn a bit about this in the comics, but why did Nolan survive the Scourge Virus when it wiped out nearly all of the Viltrumites?

Kirkman: It’s possible it may come up in the future. It’s certainly unknown for now. Viruses work in different ways; some people survive and some people don’t. It’s possible that there are more elements to that character that will be revealed as time goes on.

Eve is revealed to be pregnant at the end of Episode 3. How is that going to raise the stakes for Marc once he finds out?

Kirkman: You want to keep things as heightened as possible. We’re sending Mark out into space to fight a war. We want to give people the sense that there are still very important things happening on Earth, even if you may not see it. Leaving him with that tidbit, and to be the undercurrent of some unknowns as to what may be occurring, was really important to us. Having these characters deal with real-life things and relationships keep it as grounded as possible. It’s a big storyline that’s going to be heightening quite a bit of things for these characters moving forward.

Racioppa: The world exists beyond Mark. There are other things that will happen around him. If he leaves for a while, Earth doesn’t stop and wait for him to return. Things are happening for other characters. Eve’s her own person. They’re in a relationship, but she has her own wants, desires, issues, triumphs that are going to happen whether Mark is there or not. So that’s important to us to make that feel real, and not just that everybody is serving Mark. Everybody has their own story and drama to go through.

Also in Episode 3, Robot and Monster Girl disappear into the alien Flaxan world, which comic readers know is part of a major storyline up ahead. Will we see them again this season?

Kirkman: You just have to watch the rest of the episodes. I will say that is a huge storyline that we’ll be setting up. Anyone who’s read the comics is very familiar with that. It would be insane if we were able to also fit that into Season 4. So we’ll have to see.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Spain’s Audiovisual From Spain, the brand run by Spanish trade and investment body ICEX to drive the interational impact of Spanish talent, is heading to Cannes with newly unveiled short films “La Tarara” and “La Llama,” plus Carla Simón’s previously introduced “Flamenco” as it expands its 2026 “Where Talent Ignites” campaign across film, fashion, music, design and contemporary culture.  

With “Flamenco” already unveiled in February at the Rotterdam Film Festival, the main Cannes reveal is the launch of “La Tarara,” starring Ingrid García-Jonsson and “La Llama,” built around the creative universe of Spanish designer Jaime Hayon.

Together, the two new pieces sharpen Audiovisual From Spain’s push to frame Spanish screen talent as part of a wider creative ecosystem with clear international reach.

“Spain is enjoying a standout moment in audiovisual,” said ICEX CEO Elisa Carbonell in a statement, describing the new phase of “Where Talent Ignites” as a bid to back high-impact creative pieces that showcase the country’s talent, creative excellence and current momentum.

Directed by Nicolás Méndez and produced by Audiovisual From Spain in collaboration with Canada, “La Tarara” moves into the territory of fashion film and contemporary visual storytelling.

Starring García-Jonsson, whose credits include Los Javis-produced Netflix series “Superestar” and musical comedy “My Heart Goes Boom!,” alongside Lucas Català, the piece is positioned as a symbolically charged work in which performance, design and cinematic language converge in a tightly stylized frame. Additional internationally recognized Spanish talent attached to the short is set to be announced.

For its part, “La Llama” opens onto animation, architecture and design. Produced by Audiovisual From Spain in collaboration with White Horse and Apartamento, the piece takes Hayon’s conceptual and visual universe as the spine of a poetic audiovisual journey through more than a century of Spanish creativity.

The creative team includes White Horse’s Pol González Novell, Apartamento’s Nacho Alegre, Turbo, The Post Office, writers Leti Sala and Vincenzo Angileri and character designer Hayon.
 
Conceived around a “mutating house” in constant transformation, “La Llama” frames Spanish design as a living, evolving language capable of dialog with global contemporary culture without losing its own identity.  

Previously unveiled, short film “Flamenco,” directed by Simón and produced by Audiovisual From Spain in collaboration with Mamma Team, stars Rocío Molina and features El Niño de Elche, revisiting flamenco through a contemporary lens that explores the tension between heritage and creative freedom.

Following their premiere at May’s Cannes Film Festival, the three pieces will continue their international rollout at further events as flagships of the 2026 “Where Talent Ignites” campaign.

Hong Kong’s upcoming English-language revenge drama “The Season,” a series co-produced with SK Global, the powerhouse behind global hits such as “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Thai Cave Rescue” and “Delhi Crime,” is set for release this summer.

At this year’s Hong Kong FilMart, PCCW Media confirmed that the six-part series is slated for a global premiere in June 2026, with viewers across Asia, the Middle East and South Africa able to stream it on Viu. In the U.S., Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ will carry the series, while Hong Kong audiences can watch it on Now TV. International distribution is led by Fremantle, with support from De Maio Entertainment.

Cast members and Yalun Tu, the show’s creator, were at FilMart March 18 to unveil the release date.

“The Season” plunges viewers into the opulent world of Hong Kong’s elites. At the heart of this glittering social landscape is the Hext family, an old-money dynasty whose reach extends from the city’s horse- racing tracks to exclusive yacht soirées and star-studded charity galas. But beneath the polished façades and sparkling champagne, tensions simmer — and the arrival of Cola, a newcomer with a hidden agenda, threatens to unravel the carefully curated world of high society.

Leading an international ensemble, Jessie Mei Li commands the screen as Cola. Toby Stephens and three-time Golden Horse Award winner Karena Lam anchor the Hext family as Christopher and Fiona Hext. The cast also includes Chris Pang, Celina Jade, Justin Chien, Yvonne Chapman, Kōki and Lee Jae-yoon with special appearances from Hong Kong stars Anson Lo of Mirror and Marf Yau of Collar.

Yalun Tu, known for “NCIS: Hawaii” and collaborations with Amazon Japan and HBO Asia, created and executive-produced the series, while Chilean director Marialy Rivas serves as lead director and executive producer.

The whole series is shot in Hong Kong. “There are so many juxtapositions here,” said Tu during an on-stage group appearance. “There’s old, there’s new, there’s tradition, there’s modernity, there’s the city, there’s the water, and there are just so many different facets, so I thought we could do something that showed the high gloss world and a lot of the local Hong Kong.”

Also on stage was Li, who described her character of Cola as an “outsider looking in” with a “deep dark secret” who ends up living a double life. Pang, of “Crazy Rich Asians” fame, said he plays a wealthy “new money” member of a hotelier family and that the role was “so much fun to play.”

PCCW Media’s Janice Lee, CEO, and Agatha Lo are executive producers, while SK Global’s Chloe Dan, exec VP and head of television, alongside Matt Aragachi and Dylan Tarason, executive produce for the company.

Zendaya says “it was a whirlwind” filming “Euphoria” Season 3.

“I did what I do in eight months in like four months,” she told me Tuesday night at the premiere of her new movie “The Drama” at the DGA. “It was like trying to get eight episodes in at once. It just flew by me.”

Zendaya, who picked up two Emmys for her work as Rue on the show, says she’s “seen a little bit” of the new season. “I’m excited,” she said. “I hope it turns out beautifully.”

In addition to “The Drama” and “Euphoria” coming out this year, she’ll also be seen starring in “Dune: Part Three,” the new “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic fantasy action film “The Odyssey.”

The first trailer for “Euphoria” Season 3 dropped in January ahead of its April 12 premiere on HBO and HBO Max.

In addition to Zendaya, main cast members returning include Sydney Sweeney, Hunter Schafer, Jacob Elordi, the late Eric Dane, Alexa Demie, Maude Apatow, Martha Kelly, Chloe Cherry, Colman Domingo and Dominic Fike. Past cast members Barbie Ferreira, Storm Reid, Javon “Wanna” Walton and Austin Abrams will not be back for the new season. Angus Cloud, who broke out in his role as Fezco, died at age 25 in July 2023.

The new season jumps ahead five years, which sees Cassie (Sweeney) and Nate (Elordie) married and living in the suburbs and Rue living in Mexico and working off her debt to drug dealer Laurie (Kelly). Levinson previously revealed that Jules (Schafer) is in art school and Maddy (Demie) is working at a talent agency in Hollywood.

Elordi teased the new season in October. “It was incredible, man,” he told me at the Academy Museum Gala. “It was incredibly liberating. I got to play something so sort of far out from what I’ve done before.”

He said that series creator Sam Levinson “constructed something that’s incredibly clever and cinematic. I think people are really going to like it.”

Elordi insisted he didn’t know everything that happens in Season 3. “Everybody shoots at different storylines,” he said. “I don’t know what anyone else is doing. I had a really singular storyline. You don’t know what the other story lines are. It’s like FBI files. So it’s great because I’ll get to consume the show the same way that everybody else does as a fan, which I haven’t been able to do before. I’m really excited.”

Newcomers to the season include Sharon Stone, Rosalía, Trisha Paytas, Natasha Lyonne, Danielle Deadwyler, Eli Roth and Marshawn Lynch.

Los Angeles soundstages are still struggling to lease space to productions, even as new facilities are opening around the region.

Soundstage occupancy fell to 62% in the first half of 2025, according to data compiled by FilmLA, as production remained below the levels seen during the 2023 strike.

Despite that, the region continues to add soundstage capacity. In January, East End Studios opened its five-stage Mission Campus in Boyle Heights. And Cinespace Studios opened six stages at its new Woodland Hills facility in March.

Several other soundstage projects are seeking approvals, under construction or about to break ground.

Only a few years ago, state officials were warning of a shortage in soundstage space, as occupancy rates exceeded 90% during the streaming boom. In 2021, the California Legislature authorized a $150 million subsidy to encourage more soundstage production, fearing that the high occupancy rates would send filming to less busy jurisdictions.

But the industry contraction, which began before the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes in 2023, has taken a toll. California boasted 136,000 production jobs in 2022, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That figure fell to 82,000 in September 2025, the most recent month for which data is available, marking a 40% decline.

Construction projects take a long time; the facilities opening now were planned, approved and financed years ago. For now at least, soundstage capacity continues to increase.

L.A. County had about 8.3 million square feet of soundstage space in 2025, up from 8 million the year before. That remains the largest concentration of soundstages anywhere in the world.

The U.K. is gaining ground, however, increasing its total from 7 million square feet in 2024 to 7.7 million in 2025, according to the FilmLA report. New York also jumped from 3.4 million square feet in 2024 to 4.4 million in 2025.

FilmLA has also charted an equally sharp decline in location shoots. The industry-run nonprofit is responsible for processing film permits for jurisdictions around the county, and has access to a large database of permit volume.

Whether for relatability, or digestibility, the American coming-of-age genre tends to focus on broadly awkward characters with mild social anxiety. Will Ropp’s feature debut “Brian” makes that idea more specific and turns it up to 11, with a teenage protagonist whose mental health issues cause not infrequent outbursts, and who maintains a keenly self-aware sense of self-loathing. That sounds like a recipe for gloomy melodrama, and the film does get serious on occasion, but “Brian” is also one of the most relentlessly, darkly funny films of its kind.

This is thanks in no small part to screenwriter Mike Scollins, whose monologues for Seth Meyers seem to have carried over in the form of rapid-fire punchlines — the comedy is brisk and to-the-point — and to lead actor Ben Wang, who creates a memorable, multi-dimensional loner you can’t help but love, hate, and cringe at all at once. The result is a movie that ought to be mentioned in the same breath as recent high school landmarks like “Eighth Grade” and “The Edge of Seventeen.” It follows a maladjusted 17-year-old, Brian (Wang), who messes up a drama club audition and counterintuitively runs for class president to be closer to his attractive teacher, Miss Brooke (Natalie Morales), a scheme that catalyzes the unraveling of his already unstable social life.

Brian’s troubles begin at home, with a popular older brother, Kyle (Sam Long Li), who bullies him playfully but relentlessly, taking advantage of his perturbed reactions. Anytime Brian is alone, he’s usually muttering under his breath, or flipping off invisible people; in his own words, there’s “a lot” wrong with him. Wang’s performance makes an immediate impact, with a high-pitched voice, twitchy gesticulations, and the avoidance of eye contact, all of which, in the hands of a lesser actor, could’ve come off as mockery of neurodivergence. Wang, however, projects each of these choice from deep within, crafting a character who’s both uncomfortable with his reactions to people, emotions and external stimuli, but is, at this point in his life, also unfortunately used to his discomforts, and begrudgingly accepts them.

Everyone around him seems to have their own protocol for his emotional episodes too. This allows Brian, his acerbic parents (Randall Park, Edi Patterson) and his kindly therapist (William H. Macy) to joke around and laugh with him about his litany of issues — as opposed to laughing at him — which grants an immediate sense of normalcy to even his prickliest moments. Most of his classmates, however, aren’t so kind, and they poke and prod at him about his obvious crush on Brooke, if only to watch him erupt in anger. However, a new student, the friendly, effortlessly charming, outwardly queer Justin (Joshua Colley) immediately befriends Brian, confusing him as to why anyone would want to actually spend time with him in the first place, given how the other kids tend to treat him.

A layman might assume Brian is on the autism spectrum (in addition to issues that cause frequent panic attacks), but film never gives a name to his diagnosis. However, its writing process involved putting the script in front of actual child therapists to ensure its verisimilitude, so rare are the moments (if any) when Wang’s performance doesn’t feel rooted in the familiar. What ends up being funny about Brian isn’t just that he keeps putting his foot in his mouth, but that each faux pas comes from a place of discernible anxiety. It’s a clear (if wobbly) mirror.

Films laden with this many jokes per minute can come across as try-hard if they aren’t well-modulated. However part of that modulation in a case like this is, paradoxically, recognizing Brian’s own try-hard nature, as someone who knows he struggles to fit in, but tries to join conversations before crashing and burning on a daily basis. It’s a difficult tight-rope to walk, but Ropp and Scollins never tip over into the mean-spirited.

There’s a tremendous sweetness to the film and its central relationships, but the banter ping-pongs swiftly between the intimate and the darkly absurd. You’ll seldom find a high school movie loaded with these many jokes about school shootings, but they’re situationally appropriate (as much as such a thing can be). If nothing else, they’re the natural endpoint of a culture that refuses to deal with the gun epidemic in any more useful a manner; it’s a surprise that gun massacres aren’t a more frequent topic of conversation in films like these.

Ropp’s tonal balance is greatly assisted by his steady, unobtrusive hand, and by some particularly seamless comedy editing by Anisha Acharya, who also edited one of this year’s most devastating dramas, the Sundance breakout “Josephine.” The underlying principles, however, appear to be the same: cutting for maximum impact without ever letting the cuts themselves intrude upon the actors’ natural rhythms (which, in this case, involves button after button of hilariously improvised punchlines, especially by Park).

Wang is the focus of practically every scene, but he meets this challenge with aplomb, creating a young character at the mercy of his own neuroses who also remains immediately empathetic, even if he isn’t always likable. Years of rejection have hardened Brian to other people, but letting them back in, and learning to be a good friend, are what ultimately define his delicate journey, far more than anything relating to his run for student government. That’s just a conduit for the more important and longer-lasting facets of the movie’s story, in which an isolated character is constantly around other people, for better or worse, and can seldom stand to be around himself. That such a hefty topic can be used to create such breathless, eye-watering comedy without tipping into self-indulgence — and without robbing the film of its most meaningful drama — is practically a miracle.

Suddenly, “CBS Evening News” is back where executives at the news division behind the show hoped never to return.

Viewership for the program has once again dropped below 4 million, a critical demarcation point that previously spurred alarm at the Paramount Skydance news division. CBS News recently scrapped a version of “CBS Evening News” anchored by Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson after the program shed audience and fell below 4 million viewers on many weeknights.

The overall audience for the program for the five days ended March 13 stood at nearly 3.83 million, according to data from Nielsen, and at 468,000 among viewers between 25 and 54, the demographic most coveted by advertisers.

In contrast, ABC’s “World News Tonight,” long the leading program among the three broadcast-network evening news shows, won an average of nearly 8.48 million, according to Nielsen, along with 1.03 million in the demo. NBC’s “NBC Nightly News” captured an average of 6.51 million overall in the same period, and 946,000 in the demo.

CBS News “retitled” the Friday broadcast of “Evening News,” so its results are not included in the tabulations.

One reason Dokoupil was moved from a perch on “CBS Mornings” to become anchor of the show is because CBS News executives worried they were falling further behind ABC’s “World News Tonight” and NBC’s “NBC Nightly News” with Dickerson and DuBois, who led a show that focused more heavily on enterprise stories and news features than it did on breaking headlines. Now those concerns are poised to rise anew.

Quarter to date as of March 12, “CBS Evening News” has shed 15% of its viewership in the critical 25-to-54 demo, the audience coveted by advertisers in news programming, over the year-earlier period. In comparison, NBC’s “NBC Nightly News” is up 8% in the demo, while ABC’s “World News Tonight” is off 4%.

When Norah O’Donnell ended her tenure at “CBS Evening News” in 2024, she left with an audience of nearly 5.4 million. Dokoupil’s first five days, from January 5 to January 9, won an average of nearly 4.17 million, according to data from Nielsen — and in a subsequent week, he even nabbed an audience of 4.6 million.

The slide in audience comes after CBS News took Dokoupil around the nation and into the Middle East just after the conflict erupted between Iran and the U.S. and Israel. Dokoupil was the only one of the so-called “Big Three” evening-news anchors to get so close to the battle.

Dokoupil has gained traction over the years during his time as a co-anchor on “CBS Mornings,” won the notice of both former CBS News President Susan Zirinsky and current CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss. He has demonstrated a proclivity for developing interesting features, and, more recently, for taking on author Ta-Nehisi Coates on whether his writing expressed antipathy for Israel.

CBS News executives ascribe some portion of the viewership results to changes tied to the recent shift to Daylight Savings Time, according to a person familiar with the matter. And they have been encouraged by results that show Dokoupil’s “Evening News” gaining viewers when compared to broadcasts of the show from earlier in the season. The show’s viewership is up 7% in viewers and up 10% among viewers between 25 and 54 when compared to the average viewership of the current season to date.