Tag: Entertainment – Variety

Alex Cooper seems intent on unraveling some of the current relationships that have helped underpin her production company, Unwell.

The star podcaster and media entrepreneur is poised to drop her current talent agency, UTA, according to two people familiar with the matter, as she focuses on a larger suite of business operations beyond the podcast for which she is best known, and frustrated in part by its continuing relationships with Alix Earle and Dave Portnoy, two prominent influencers and podcasters who have feuded with her. Cooper last week shut down a beverage venture, Unwell Beverage Co., which was launched last year with Nestle SA as a partner, according to a report from Bloomberg.

UTA has helped Cooper build and scale her company, Unwell, and over the years has helped broker deals that had her host interviews for Peacock during NBCUniversal’s coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics, and launch her Unwell Network, a platform for other creators and influencers.

UTA declined to make executives available for comment.

A shift in representation would come after Unwell, which Cooper founded with her husband, Matt Kaplan, landed its first outside investor: Patrick Whitesell, co-founder of WME and former executive chairman of successor company Endeavor. Whitesell’s WTSL, an investment firm focused on media, entertainment and sports he launched after exiting Endeavor and WME last year, has invested an undisclosed sum in Unwell that values the business at $500 million, according to information released August 12 by Unwell. Cooper and Kaplan, who self-funded the company targeting Gen Z women audiences, retain a majority ownership stake. Formed in 2023, Unwell says it has been profitable from day one and sees the WTSL investment as growth capital. The entrepreneur believes the work Unwell does with brands could be worth as much as the podcasting business by next year.

Unwell said that in addition to the funding, WTSL would bring “deep strategic expertise, industry relationships and a proven track record of supporting some of the most innovative companies and storytellers in media,” including Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions.

Whitesell’s funding followed a pair of recent exposés alleging behind-the-scenes chaos at Unwell. According to a Vanity Fair story in June, one Unwell freelancer alleged that Kaplan “creates the most toxic work environment that I’ve ever seen”; anonymous sources also said Kaplan had questioned employees about their sex lives and commented on their physical appearance. In April, Bloomberg reported that Kaplan “has earned a reputation for frequently yelling at staff members” and said Unwell’s employees were “looking for the exit.”

Cooper, in an interview at Cannes Lions this June with the Wall Street Journal, was asked about the allegations. “I will just kind of leave it at ‘Don’t believe everything that you read on the internet’ — but I think everyone knows that at this point,” she said. Cooper also said, “I think that we have done a really incredible job at Unwell, and I think if you walk the halls, there are so many people that are so happy to work at this company. … I think, unfortunately, being a woman in this industry is extremely difficult because you’re held to a completely different standard. Whether it’s a smear campaign being created for someone’s narrative, whatever it be.”

Earle, a podcaster and influencer, gained some her greatest fame while hosting the podcast “Hot Mess,” which was produced by Unwell. Still, Cooper stayed with UTA for a year after the pair ended their relationship. Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, alleged in a memoir that Cooper and her former co-host, Sofia Franklyn, planned to say they were harassed in order to get out of a previous contract with Barstool, which helped launch “Call Her Daddy.”

Todd Spangler contributed to this story.

“The Sopranos” star Drea de Matteo recently told Jamie Kennedy on the “Hate to Break It To Ya” podcast (via EW) that starting her OnlyFans page was a “political statement.”

“In some ways, the OnlyFans page was almost like a political statement on my part in a way…It was like, ‘Fuck you. I don’t have to work,’” de Matteo said.

She went on to add that some critics think, because of her Emmy-winning turn as Adriana la Cerva on the HBO mob drama, that she is “made of fucking money.” However, de Matteo explained that the whole reason she started her OnlyFans was because of financial problems.

“Everyone sees me coming, they’re like, ‘Here comes that rich bitch from The Sopranos,’” she said. “And it’s like, no, I’m not at all. In fact, you know, I live a pretty fucking normal life. I had to do that [OnlyFans] page to get a lien off my house after foreclosure.”

Earlier in the interview, de Matteo said that when she first launched her OnlyFans, it was to “start a podcast because I was afraid that I’d be censored.” But after getting encouragement from her kids, she shared a photo of herself in a bikini on her page, and “within 75 minutes” she made enough to pay the lien on her house.

In a 2024 interview with Variety, de Matteo shared how OnlyFans helped her financially during the pandemic while facing judgment from her family for not getting vaccinated. She recalled, “[During the pandemic], my brother was like, ‘You know, you’re risking everyone in your home’s life right now [by not being vaccinated].’ And then years later, when I ended up having to open up an OnlyFans page just to save my home, because nobody would help me at that time because I didn’t ‘do the right thing,’ he was like, ‘Your body, your choice. I’m with you all the way.’”

Dog days of summer? This year’s August at the box office didn’t get the memo.

This popcorn season is ending with a bang rather than the usual whimper as “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey” continue to pack in crowds. Meanwhile two new movies, Warner Bros. prehistoric sci-fi mystery “The End of Oak Street” with Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor and Paramount’s animated sequel “PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie,” each debuted above $20 million.

Despite those newcomers, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” remained the No. 1 in North America with $70 million in its third weekend of release. Sony and Marvel’s comic book epic, starring Tom Holland as Peter Parker, has been a behemoth with $785 million domestically and $2.02 billion globally to date. It’s the second-fastest film to join the $2 billion club after 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” which accomplished the rare feat in 11 days.

“The Odyssey” stayed in second place with $23.2 million in its fifth weekend of release. Universal’s big-budget Greek epic has generated a staggering $504.6 million in North America and $1.29 billion worldwide to date. That’s after debuting this weekend in China to a solid $36.6 million. It’s the second-highest-grossing movie of the year after “Spider-Man” as well as director Christopher Nolan’s biggest of all time — an especially impressive feat for a drama that’s nearly three hours long and adapted from a poem that’s thousands of years old.

Hollywood is celebrating because this summer box office is already the biggest since “the before times,” with revenues surpassing $4 billion for only the second time since COVID. Domestic ticket sales stand at $4.24 billion from May 1 through Aug. 16, running 23% ahead of the same point in 2025 and nearly 6% ahead of 2019. There’s a chance that popcorn season even eclipses the all-time summer record set by 2013 with $4.755 billion (not adjusted for inflation), according to Rentrak.

“This August feels particularly notable with ‘The Odyssey’ and ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ providing blockbuster momentum,” says Rentrak’s head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian. “The final weeks of summer could provide a historic home stretch to what has already been a remarkable summer movie season.”

“The End of Oak Street” launched in third place to a middling $21 million from 3,446 venues. The PG-13 movie also collected $26 million overseas for a global tally of $46 million. It’s a tepid start for the $80 million-budgeted movie, so the studio will rely on positive word-of-mouth to help with staying power. However critics seemed to like “Oak Street” more than audiences; the film holds a “B” grade on CinemaScore and 84% on Rotten Tomatoes. David Robert Mitchell wrote and directed the PG-13 survival thriller, which follows a mysterious cosmic event that transports a suburban family to prehistoric times.

“This is late summer escapist entertainment, but right now audiences are still escaping to ‘Spider-Man,’” says David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe.

Unless “Oak Street” rebounds, it’ll be the latest underperforming tentpole for Warner Bros. following June’s “Supergirl” and this spring’s “The Bride.” It puts pressure on the studio’s Tom Cruise-led comedy “Digger,” which opens in October and carries a substantial $130 million price tag.

Fourth place went to “PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie” with $20.5 million from 3,500 North American theaters. Those ticket sales are even with the studio’s prior “PAW Patrol” sequel, 2023’s “The Mighty Movie,” which ignited to $22 million and eventually climbed to $205 million globally against a $30 million budget. “The Dino Movie” carries a slightly larger $40 million price tag, which was split between Paramount and Spin Master. Overseas, the newest “PAW Patrol” has earned $48.5 million for a global tally of $69 million.

Rounding out the top five was “Katseye: Wild Hearts,” a documentary about the girl group, with $3.8 million from just 724 screens.

Fittingly, “Six: The Musical Live” debuted in sixth place with $3 million from 1,462 locations. It’s a filmed version of the popular Broadway show, and initial returns are similar to other recent live-captures like “Waitress: The Musical ($2.6 million) and “Merrily We Roll Along” ($1.3 million). Focus Features is releasing “Six,” which lands a few weekends after Bleecker Street’s “Hadestown” established an opening weekend record among Broadway live-captures with $10.2 million. “Hadestown” has been a surprise hit with $20 million domestically since late July.

Elsewhere on box office charts, the Angel Studios historical drama “The Brink of War” opened in seventh place with $2.6 million from 2,083 theaters. Set during the Reykjavík Summit of 1986, the movie stars Jeff Daniels as Ronald Reagan as he races against time to salvage a deal with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (Jared Harris) to dismantle nuclear arsenals. Audiences liked the film, which secured an “A” grade on CinemaScore.

“This is a weak opening for a war drama,” Gross says. “Angel Studios knows how to get this audience to the theater, but this title is not getting Angel’s usual traction.”

Another newcomer, Black Bear’s crime thriller “The Rivals of Amziah King,” starring Matthew McConaughey, earned a decent $1 million from just 632 theaters. The well-reviewed movie follows McConaughey as a honeymaker and born-again Christian whose former foster daughter reappears in his life.

Meanwhile Universal’s R-rated comedy “One Night Only” failed to rebound, bringing in $2 million in its second weekend, a 61% decrease in ticket sales. The movie, which takes place during the one night a year when premarital sex is legal, has grossed $10 million against a $25 million budget.

More to come…

“Forgotten Spaceman,” the documentary short by BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Elham Ehsas that won the Leopard of Tomorrow (International Competition) award at Locarno’s Junior Jury Awards, has added Khan & Kumar Media and Prism Entertainment as executive producers ahead of its Toronto Film Festival premiere next month.

The new executive producers are Sharib Khan and Vikas Kumar of Khan & Kumar Media and Shruti Ganguly, Priya Giri Desai and Megha Kadakia of Prism Entertainment. The film premiered at Locarno and is set for its North American premiere at Toronto.

“Forgotten Spaceman” is executive produced by Jack Thomas O’Brien of Ken Loach and Rebecca O’Brien’s Sixteen Films and Catherine Tschaepe, alongside the newly announced producers. It is produced by Lorraine Bhattachary of MonoFilm Productions, with Dheeraj Agnihotri, who worked on “Holy Curse,” serving as associate producer. María Vera of Kino Rebelde is handling international sales and festival strategy.

Written, directed and edited by Ehsas, the documentary tells the story of Abdul Ahad Momand, Afghanistan’s first and only astronaut. Momand flew to the Mir space station in 1988, at a moment when Afghanistan was nearing collapse, offering the country a rare spark of hope. During an orbital call home to his mother, he became the first person to speak Pashto in space, making it the fourth language ever used there. The documentary, made decades later, follows Ehsas as he discovers his own unexpected ties to Momand’s story, threading themes of home, identity, exile and belonging.

Director Elham Ehsas said he was delighted to welcome the new partners at such an exciting stage of the film’s journey. “As we continue sharing Abdul Ahad Momand’s remarkable story with audiences around the world, it’s incredibly encouraging to have such passionate partners alongside us,” Ehsas said. “I hope the film continues to spark conversations about home, identity, exile and belonging wherever it travels.”

Producer Lorraine Bhattachary said building the right team around a film is an important part of its journey. “We’re thrilled to reach this next chapter together,” Bhattachary said. “It’s been wonderful bringing these partnerships together, and we’re excited to continue sharing the film with audiences as its festival journey continues.”

Sharib Khan and Vikas Kumar of Khan & Kumar Media said “Forgotten Spaceman” is a film that reminds them why stories matter. “It uncovers a remarkable chapter of history that many of us never knew existed, while remaining deeply personal and profoundly human. Beyond the story of Afghanistan’s first astronaut, it explores universal themes of memory, identity, belonging and the stories that risk being forgotten. At Khan & Kumar Media, we’re drawn to stories that resonate across cultures and borders, and ‘Forgotten Spaceman’ does exactly that. We’re delighted to support its journey to audiences around the world.”

“Elham’s movie contains volumes of Afghan, South Asian and world history while being so deeply personal and profound, forcing us to reconcile ourselves with disruptions that are beyond one’s control. We are thrilled to join ‘Forgotten Spaceman’ as executive producers as we bring this story to audiences who will reconnect with it and those who will discover it for the first time,” added Ganguly, Desai and Kadakia of Prism Entertainment.

Ehsas is a BAFTA-nominated and Academy Award-shortlisted filmmaker whose short “Yellow” received a BAFTA nomination in 2024. His follow-up short, “There Will Come Soft Rains,” won best film at both Raindance and Encounters Film Festival, while his debut feature, “Our Kind of Love,” is in development with the BFI. As an actor, he recently appeared in David Mackenzie’s action thriller “Fuze” and worked as second unit director on “The Crown.”

Khan & Kumar Media is an independent Mumbai production house that actor Vikas Kumar launched together with Sharib Khan’s New York-based Ammi Media. Its slate includes the Venice Horizons competition premiere “Songs of Forgotten Trees,” for which Anuparna Roy won the best director prize in 2025, and this year’s Karlovy Vary selection “The Ink-Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb.” The company returns to Venice’s Horizons competition this year with “Lovers in the Blue Night.”

Prism Entertainment, founded by Ganguly, Desai and Kadakia, focuses on character-driven storytelling spanning film, television and digital platforms. Its credits include the Oscar-nominated documentary “To Kill a Tiger” and Ravi Kapoor’s upcoming feature “Patel,” made in partnership with Camelback Productions. Khan & Kumar Media and Prism Entertainment previously teamed as executive producers on the Oscar-qualifying short “Holy Curse.”

Back in 2013, actor George MacKay and director Paul Wright paired up for “For Those in Peril,” an atmospheric study of youthful alienation, trauma and psychological collapse in small-town Scotland that sealed both men’s place on the U.K. industry “ones to watch” list. Since then, MacKay’s career has gone from strength to strength, while Wright has made just one film in the interim — 2017’s archival doc “Arcadia.” It speaks to MacKay’s continued commitment to challenging British independent fare that he returns for Wright’s long-awaited second narrative feature. Both his stardom and his fearless approach are assets to “Mission,” an atmospheric study of slightly less youthful alienation, trauma and psychological collapse that confirms the director’s stylistic vigor and seriousness of purpose as a storyteller.

It doesn’t necessarily advance them, however. Uncompromisingly downbeat in its portrayal of an aimless Scottish service worker searching not just for a purpose in life, but a reason to live at all, “Mission” impresses with its abrasive intensity of mood, enforced through jagged editing rhythms and dreamily disorienting archival inserts — signalling a troubled mind plagued by intrusive thoughts. In subject, ambience and form, the new film does feel heavily bound to its maker’s past work — including his BAFTA-winning 2010 short “Until the River Runs Red” — minus the mythic overtones of his first feature. Wright’s filmmaking remains arresting, if not altogether surprising; “Mission” will count on MacKay’s profile to attract distributor interest following its competition premiere in Edinburgh, but it’s still no easy sell to audiences.

With jittery body language and an unnervingly directionless gaze, MacKay immediately conveys the anxious unrest of his character Dylan, even before his interior monologue clarifies the degree of his inner torment: “When I was seven, I died for four minutes,” he says in voiceover, alluding to a formative childhood accident. “I’ve spent my life wishing I could feel that way again.” Certainly, Dylan appears to live more in the past than the present, an impression assisted by editors Michael Aaglund and Jen Mackie, who constantly slice through proceedings with oblique, stream-of-consciousness flashes of home-movie memory, shot on hazy, grainy video stock.

The bulk of these memories are connected to Dylan’s older sister Claire, from whom he was once inseparable; played as an adult by Rosy McEwen (“Blue Jean”), she’s now present largely as a weary, defeated voice on the other end of the phone, at a loss as to how to help her brother through another episode. It’s left to the audience to infer exactly what has transpired between them, but largely through omission, Wright’s script effectively articulates the burden of mental illness on family members. Dylan’s friends, meanwhile, are few to none; Becky (Emma Naomi), a kindly colleague at the upmarket hotel where he works as a waiter, humors him, but it’s painfully clear that their interactions mean more to him than they do to her.

Becky, in fact, is the only thing getting him through a job he can’t bear. At a performance review meeting with the hotel’s smarmy CEO James (Emun Elliott), he finally admits that he doesn’t feel like himself in the workplace, and abruptly walks — though he can’t quite quit hanging around the place, missing what scant human connection he once had. After he decisively gives himself one week to find a reason to continue living, his behavior spirals into more extreme actions: stealing and freeing a monkey from the zoo, aggressively confronting strangers, participating in BDSM sex. These are depicted in varyingly surreal vignettes, to the point that it becomes hard to separate Dylan’s everyday and fantasy lives; Dario Swade’s fuzzily layered, industrially inflected sound design amplifies the claustrophobic confusion, as does DP Nick Cooke’s nervily handheld lensing, heavy on clammy closeups.

If this all amounts to a tough sit, MacKay’s natural vulnerability as a performer offers a kind of lifeline to viewers, even as Dylan’s behavior grows ever more erratic and offputting: The actor, often seemingly hunched over with the sheer agony of his character’s interior wounds, is easy to care about when much else here is hard to parse. Sympathetic but gutsy in his embrace of a character’s unflattering damage, he’s a vital, humanizing ally to Wright’s abrasive style of portraiture; one hopes they collaborate again, and sooner.