American Summer is heading to theaters at just the right time.
Blue Harbor Entertainment has acquired U.S. distribution rights to writer-director Michael W. Gray’s family comedy American Summer and will release it theatrically on Sept. 4, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Steve Guttenberg (Police Academy) and Christie Brinkley (National Lampoon’s Vacation) star in the coming-of-age indie film.
American Summer centers on Mikey (Guttenberg) as he reflects on a standout summer from growing up, when he met a special girl, made the travel baseball team and navigated the uncertainty of his dad going missing overseas while with the U.S. Army.
The cast includes Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years), Logan Gray (Surfside Girls), Mia Talerico (Good Luck Charlie), Cullen Moss (Outer Banks), Erinn Ruth (Billions), Maximus Virgili and Major League Baseball legends Lee Mazzilli and Luis Sojo.
Gray helmed the movie from a script he wrote, with additional writing by Jennifer B. White and Marc Prey. Gray, Michael Cuomo and Ann M. Gray serve as producers. The trailer can be seen below.
“We made this movie in tribute to small-town-USA life,” says Gray. “It is important to me to bring people together which is what movies, baseball, community and family have always done. I am grateful for the opportunity to share American Summer with the country and soon the world.”
Adds the Blue Harbor Entertainment team, “American Summer is a heartfelt nostalgic throwback to the kind of films that brought the whole family together. With its winning mix of baseball, first love, humor, adventure and genuine emotion, the film beautifully captures the unforgettable magic — and uncertainty — of one life-changing summer.”
Guttenberg is represented by Vault Entertainment and CAA. Brinkley is repped by Artist Brand Alliance and Untitled Entertainment.
Penélope Cruz, Sian Heder, Isabelle Huppert, Rosalind Eleazar and Lee Chang-dong are set to receive TIFF Tribute Awards at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival.
Oscar–winning actor Cruz will receive a Special Tribute Award as she touts two movies in Toronto, the Spanish drama epic La Bola Negra and Florian Zeller’s Bunker, both of which premiered in Cannes.
Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong will pick up the Ebert Director Award as he brings Possible Love to TIFF. Netflix has set a theatrical release in Korea, U.S. and other select territories for Lee’s first film in eight years after premieres in Venice and Toronto. Eleazar will receive a Performer Award as she helps launch in Toronto Chris Rock’s Misty Green, the comedian’s latest work as a film writer/director in which Eleazar stars as Misty Green.
Elsewhere, fellow actor Huppert will also receive a Performer Award as her latest film, Marc Fitoussi’s All About Corinne, gets gala treatment in Toronto. Also at the Sept. 13 fundraiser, Oscar–winning CODAfilmmaker Heder will receive the Impact Media award as she brings her latest movie, Being Heumann, to Toronto for a world premiere.
Proceeds from the Tribute Awards go towards the festival’s year-round talent development programs that encourage diversity, equity and inclusion in filmmaking. The gala dinner fundraiser for the fest’s philanthropic efforts is also an occasional harbinger of Oscar recognition and is held each year at Fairmont Royal York Hotel.
TIFF Tribute Award honorees tend to have films in Toronto’s official lineup. The 51st Toronto Film Festival is set to run Sept. 10 to 20.
SiriusXM is launching a niche subscription offering targeting sports fans, creating what will be its least expensive option in the process.
The satellite radio giant is launching SiriusXM Sports Pass, a $5 per month audio subscription that will bundle all of its sports channels alongside a slew of terrestrial sports radio stations.
The service will be the most comprehensive live sports subscription offering anywhere (albeit audio-only), with every home and away NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL game broadcast; every NASCAR, IndyCar and Formula 1 race; PGA TOUR events and golf’s major championships; WWE Premium Live Events including WrestleMania, and many other events.
The new offering will launch Sep. 1, right as the NFL and college football season get underway. Channels include Mad Dog Radio, Fantasy Sports Radio, and the channels dedicated to individual sports like the NFL, MLB, NBA, F1, etc. It also includes national sports radio brand from ESPN, Fox Sports and Westwood One, as well as sports stations from Audacy, including WFAN New York and 97.1 The Fan Los Angeles.
“Every new channel, artist performance, live event, and creator collaboration advances our vision for the future of audio: making SiriusXM a home for fandom, where listeners can go deeper into the things they love and feel part of a lasting community,” said Jennifer Witz, SiriusXM’s CEO, in a statement. “SiriusXM Sports Pass brings that vision to life for sports fans by putting every game and event we carry, hometown voices, national personalities and the daily sports conversation into one simple, affordable subscription. No matter who you cheer for or where you listen, it brings you closer to the teams and voices that matter most to you.”
The sports offering opens up new possibilities for the company, which currently has an all-music tier for $11.99 per month and an all-access tier for $25.99 per month ($11.99 for streaming only) that serve as its most popular offerings. There also premium and family plans, as well as a $14.99 per month news, talk and sports plan.
The sports offering suggests a future where SiriusXM could cater to more specific tastes, be it through news or opinion, specific music genres, or other areas of “fandom,” as Witz puts it.
A coalition of nearly a dozen of the biggest record companies in the music business — including the “big three” of Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group — are calling for global music charts to adopt policies that would disqualify many AI slop tracks from consideration.
The companies are calling on the chart companies to introduce new rules that would only allow AI-generated songs to be included if the use of AI is properly authorized and lawful, if the track was substantially human made and if it doesn’t raise concerns of streaming fraud or chart manipulation.
Those stipulations don’t outright disqualify all AI songs — a primarily human created song that lawfully uses AI as a supplemental tool is still allowed — but they’d certainly limit eligibility considerably. The biggest AI music generation platforms still face lawsuits over allegations of mass copyright infringement to train their models, and much of the AI music uploaded to streaming services is linked to streaming fraud.
“Tracks created using generative AI systems have been appearing on streaming services, however many of these have been developed with tools that have been trained on artists’ music without authorisation,” the companies said in a release on Wednesday. “These tracks are also commonly associated with streaming fraud. To tackle this, record companies are driving the development and licensing of AI music services that respect the rights of music creators. Through the implementation of these principles, human creators will have further assurance that tracks manufactured via unauthorised algorithms unjustly built upon their work – or fraudulently promoted – will not be celebrated by industry charts.”
While AI-generated songs haven’t overwhelmed the charts yet, there have been several notable cases. The AI country act Breaking Rust, for example, garnered major headlines last year after managing to make it on the country digital sales chart. Still, it should be said that placements on digital sales charts certainly don’t reflect mass consumption, as it only takes a thousand-or-so sales to chart there given that digital downloads have become far less common in the streaming era.
AI remains among the most pressing issues in the music industry, as the record companies have announced partnerships with the likes of Nvidia, Spotify and Stability AI to develop AI music tools, while also suing when the AI companies cross the line. All three of the major labels sued AI music generators Suno and Udio back in 2024, though UMG settled with Udio last year, while WMG settled with both Suno and Udio. Sony is yet to carve out a deal with either company.
The labels’ call comes just weeks after the RIAA and IFPI announced a push for streaming services to more explicitly label AI-generated content on their platforms, suggesting a strategy similar to the current labeling of explicit music on streamers, with AI icons next to a song.
Jared Leto faces new sexual misconduct accusations from multiple women, with some of the allegations occurring when the women were teenagers.
On Wednesday, the BBC revealed that in total 10 women have come forward with allegations against the Oscar-winning actor and frontman of rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars as part of a new BBC documentary titled Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret.
Four of the women have accused Leto of criminal sexual conduct, all occurring when they were teenagers, according to the BBC. The allegations against the 54-year-old stem from incidents between 2002 and 2016.
In the BBC report, one of the women claims she was sexually assaulted by Leto in a motel bathroom when she was 17.
A second woman says Leto threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19, after being “unexpectedly” left alone with him in a hotel.
The third woman reveals she had sex with Leto when she was 17 in California, in a state where she would have been underage and the act classified as statutory rape. This same woman also claims she had a conversation with the actor about her age and he “shrugged off” concerns about California’s age of consent.
The fourth woman claims she groomed by Leto, saying he “abused his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16.” She adds that on at least one occasion, Leto suggested they should have sex. This fourth woman also alleges that she was subsequently sent a non-disclosure agreement to prevent her from talking about her relationship with Leto, but that she refused to sign it. The BBC says it has seen the NDA.
A fifth woman claims that when she was 14, Leto had made a lewd comment about her chest during an autograph-signing event and then instructed a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival. The woman claims her mother confronted Leto at the time, but the actor repeated the lewd comment.
An additional four women claim they received calls from Leto when they were younger that were “strange and often very sexual.”
The BBC says it has “corroborated” a number of the women’s accounts with friends and family who were told about the encounters with Leto at the time. In some cases, the British broadcaster states, reporters have also seen pictures and messages that support the claims.
Two men who worked with Leto’s band told the documentary staff were “uncomfortable” about the way Leto would interact with teenage girls. They say he would sometimes invite them backstage to his dressing room or invite them to the house where he was recording. “I think everyone thought the age gap was way too big,” one of the men, unnamed in the BBC report, says.
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Jared Leto’s reps for comment on the investigation, but had yet to hear back when this story was published.
Sexual misconduct allegations have long dogged the Dallas Buyers Club and Tron star. In June 2025, Leto‘s reps denied that the actor engaged in sexual misconduct or inappropriate relationships with women after an Air Mail exposé. That investigative report contained interviews with nine women, the majority of whom are anonymous. They alleged that Leto behaved inappropriately with them, and some say they were underage at the time they came in contact with the actor.
The Air Mail piece also published a viral Twitter post shared by actor Dylan Sprouse in 2018. It reads: “Yo Jared Leto, now that you’ve slid into the DMs of every female model aged 18-25, what would you say your success rate is?” Filmmaker and DC chief James Gunn replied: “He starts at 18 on the internet?”
The Locarno Film Festival, whose 79th edition takes place Aug. 5-15, always features world premieres from around the world by established and up-and-coming auteurs, new hidden gems and cinematic discoveries, along with highlights from the festival circuit.
But audiences can also expect the unexpected. After all, Locarno also features quirky, edgy and offbeat movies just waiting to unspool.
So, buckle up for a ride on the wilder and more unorthodox side of the cinematic spectrum as THR presents its look at some of the more unusual-sounding films at Locarno79.
Wandering Trees(Alberi erranti) Director: Salvatore Section: International competition
Once upon a time in Sardinia. Piero and his son Giuliano lived alone in a farmhouse filled with injured animals that they cared for. But the local notables wanted to drive them out because they lived like vagrants. One day, snow fell, and Piero disappeared, while the animals were killed. So, Giuliano had no choice but to search for his father. On his journey, he met Maddalena, and it was love at first sight.
Giuliano’s dreamlike search across a wounded landscape explores the wonder and special experience of childhood, a time in life that provides a possibility of resistance against the violence of the adult world.
The filmmaker puts it into magical images – and words. “To tell a love story, you mustn’t be afraid to open up emotionally,” says Mereu, who also wrote the script with Alberto Capitta, in a director’s note. “But to embark on a fairy tale, you need to risk something. When you accept its rules, you have to accept everything – even the unthinkable.”
Objet A Director: Ann Oren Section: International competition
‘Object A’
Courtesy of Juan Sarmiento G./Schuldenberg Films
Ready for a bold, playful and stylized excursion into fragile relationships between humans as well as humans and nature, intimacy, desire, identity – and kleptomania – that uses the body as the core of its cinematic language? Well, Objet A is ready to bend your mind and leave you unsettled!
“Ingeborg and Adam are visionary hand surgeons bound by love, control and irresistible fixations,” teases a synopsis. But there is more: “She is compelled to steal objects; he longs to become one. When an accident brings the enigmatic Gaia into their lives, unexpected desires begin to take shape, unsettling the careful balance that has long defined their relationship.”
Berlin-based visual artist and filmmaker Ann Oren (Piaffe) returns to Locarno to serve up a film, which she wrote with Geoffroy Grison, that features cinematography by Juan Sarmiento G. (The Voice of Hind Rajab, A Poet) and editing by Hansjörg Weißbrich (Rose, Late Shift). It stars Aenne Schwarz (All Is Well, Every You Every Me) as Ingeborg, Louis Hofmann (All the Light We Cannot See, The Forger, Dark), and Simone Bucio (Piaffe, The Ivy) as Gaia. “I’m interested in human desire and how it connects us to other species,” Oren says in a director’s note. “The human body is the starting point for my cinematic language: the more control we have over it, the more we separate ourselves from the natural world.”
Bloody Tennis Director: Nikias Chryssos Section: Out of competition
‘Bloody Tennis,’ courtesy of augenschein Filmproduktion
The world of elite sports is taken to disturbing new heights full of brutality and painful ambition in the new film from Nikias Chryssos (The Bunker, Rave On, A Pure Place). “Sophie joins a prestigious tennis academy where the brutality of competitive sports is taken to its extreme, and only the hungriest survive,” warns a synopsis.
Sandra Guldberg Kampp (Assassin’s Creed, Electric Child), Helena Zengel (News of the World, The Legend of Ochi, System Crasher) and others star in the movie, along with Elina Löwensohn (Schindler’s List), and Zlatko Burić (Triangle of Sadness), with an original score by Jim Williams (Titane, Raw).
If that’s not enough for you yet, the press notes also promise, or should that be: threaten, “blood-sucking leeches, hard-hitting serves and delicious nightmares.” Game on!
Bakma Abdelhamid Bouchnak Section: Out of competition
‘Bakma,’ courtesy of Chams Ghorab
You have surely never seen Tunisia like this. And you likely haven’t seen a film from Tunisia like this before. What Bouchnak unleashes onto Locarno screens is an urban horror thriller, which he also wrote and edited, with cinematography by Chams Ghorab.
Animalistic violence takes on a different meaning in this movie. Commissioner Ali and Khaled investigate the ritualistic murder of a young woman. So far, so horrible. But there is more, as a synopsis highlights: “Her limbs have been severed, her head is missing, and in its place, the killer has grotesquely sewn the head of a dog.”
Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, in unveiling this year’s festival lineup, highlighted said about Bakma: “It’s a film that, in a very specific way, addresses the political corruption in Tunis at the moment. It’s also a very bitter commentary on what’s left of the so-called Arab Spring that ignited the overthrow of some regimes – and, as you’ll remember, it originated in Tunis.”
Tomorrow a Long Time Ago(Morgen vor langer Zeit) Director: Luise Donschen Section: Filmmakers of the Present Competition
Not much dialogue is used, or needed, in the new film from Donschen (Casanovagen), which stars Gerti Drassl and Manuela Biedermann and others. After all, life and actions say more than words.
Amid German reunification in 1990, the 50-year-old Patty first loses her job and then her friend Jelena. “In a small East German town, she collects discarded objects and meets the younger Franz,” teases a synopsis. “When her flat becomes so full of belongings that she can no longer enter it, she sets out into a colorful forest. A journey through landscapes and history begins, carrying away more than just her.”
The movie has a personal dimension for the filmmaker who grew up in the GDR. “Inspired by my childhood experience of German reunification, the film captures the moment when the present splits into ‘before’ and ‘after’,” the moment when everything seems completely unseen and very familiar at the same time.”
Donkey Princess(Princesa Burro) Directors: Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña Section: International competition
‘Donkey Princess’
Courtesy of Benjamin Echazarreta
Once upon a time… wait a second, isn’t that how we started this journey into the mind- and genre-bending films at Locarno79!? But wait, this one is different, although love plays a key role again.
Diana is the princess of an ancient kingdom. Her father, King Arthur, has forbidden love. So, when Diana falls in love with Lalo, the King banishes him. A synopsis teases where things go from here: “Using a magical bracelet, Diana travels to other worlds in search of her love. Discovering that her father manipulates her decisions, she must face her fears and change her destiny.”
The travels of the protagonist allow the director duo to play with the look and feel of the places she visits. “Diana travels through parallel worlds where each universe transforms the film’s genre,” León and Cociña explain. “The film brings this constant mutation of realities into live action, where fantasy reshapes everything.”
World soccer governing body FIFA and its controversial CEO Gianni Infantino are under fire over plans to sell off a stake in FIFA’s commercial operations to private equity investors.
The plan would see FIFA set up a new entity, called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), that would bundle all the money-making operations associated with the soccer World Cup — including broadcast rights, sponsorship, ticket sales and licensing fees — and sell a significant stake in the new operation to private investors. FIFA is valuing the new commercial venture at around $20 billion.
After news of the plan broke on Tuesday, FIFA confirmed it is working with U.S. investment bank JP Morgan to set up the new entity. Thrive Capital, an investment company founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, is leading the search for investors.
The backlash was immediate.
European soccer governing body UEFA condemned the plan, saying the sport “isn’t FIFA’s to sell.”
“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross,” UEFA said in a statement. “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially.”
U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham joined the fray, taking to social media to post that “football does not belong to investors. It belongs to the people who fill the stands and who stand on the touchline week in, week out, rain or shine. The World Cup is not a product. It is the greatest competition in world sport, and it was never anyone’s to sell. Dress the deal up however you like. Once you have sold a piece of it, you have sold out.”
Let me say this very directly.
Football does not belong to investors. It belongs to the people who fill the stands and who stand on the touchline week in, week out, rain or shine.
The World Cup is not a product. It is the greatest competition in world sport, and it was never…
FIFA says the FFE could raise an additional $10 billion for its member organizations, the 211 national soccer leagues that make up the association. If members approve the plan, FIFA said it could more than double funding to its member associations from $8 million to $20 million a year, a huge sum for the majority of FIFA members. Infantino defended the plan as a way to spread the wealth generated by the World Cup globally. “This is about the democratization of football worldwide,” he said in a statement.
Others see a money grab.
FIFA and Infantino have been sharply criticized for the commercialization of the recent World Cup, held in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. FIFA expanded the event from 32 to 48 teams, greatly increasing the number of games, allowed a pricey resale market for tickets, and introduced controversial “hydration breaks” which stopped play and allowed for additional advertising during matches. The 2026 tournament was the most lucrative in history, with FIFA expected to announce revenues of more than $15 billion for the event.
Given Joshua Kushner’s connection, via his brother, to President Trump, many also see a potential political conflict of interest.
Infantino already has close ties to the U.S. President. After Trump complained about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Infantino invented the “FIFA Peace Prize” and then awarded it to POTUS in December.
UEFA claims FIFA undermined the integrity of this year’s World Cup when it intervened to overturn a red card given to USA striker Falorin Balogun after Trump called and asked Infantino to do so.
This week, Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, launched an investigation into Infantino and FIFA’s ties to Trump’s administration and businesses.
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Spooky season has officially commenced — well, sort of.
As is tradition, Disney Store’s annual online Halloween Shop had its 2026 grand opening during peak summer months — on Monday, July 27, to be exact. But just because it launches early, doesn’t mean it lasts long; this year’s product lineup is full of 2026-exclusive toys and collectibles along with an in-demand assortment of adult and kids’ costumes and clothes.
And while fresh inventory is expected to roll out in the months leading up to October, Disney Store’s flagship drop, the Mickey Family Halloween Collection, has already made its debut, and product seems to be moving quickly.
act fast
Disney x Starbucks The Haunted Mansion Wallpaper Travel Tumbler
While baby, toddler, children’s and adult costumes are coming in by the dozens, the real seasonal standouts — and typically, the most sought-after pieces during any of Disney’s limited-edition holiday drops — are in the toys and collectibles categories. For Halloween 2026, these come in the form of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse plushes, each embroidered with “Disney Store 2026” on foot, and, of course, the cult-favorite Disney x Starbucks travel tumbler, which, in this case, is inspired by The Haunted Mansion. And if this collaborative Starbucks cup is anything like past launches, inventory surely won’t last long.
A group of on-set VFX professionals working on various Star Wars franchise titles have unionized with IATSE, the crew union announced on Tuesday. A group of workers on titles including the recently released film TheMandalorian and Grogu, the upcoming season of the series Ahsoka and the forthcoming film Starfighter will join IATSE after they demonstrated what the union called “overwhelming” support for joining the labor organization.
“These workers help bring some of the most ambitious stories in entertainment to life, and they deserve a meaningful voice in shaping their working conditions,” IATSE international president Matt Loeb said in a statement. “We are proud to welcome these visual effects professionals into our proud union.”
IATSE did not disclose how many workers were included in the bargaining unit or what roles they play on the Star Wars productions. It also wasn’t clear as of press time where the workers were based or whether the union was voluntarily recognized by the employer, as it appears it was.
The next step for the unionized group will be negotiating a first contract with Lucasfilm. The Disney-owned company did not respond to a request for comment.
The addition of the on-set Star Wars workers is a major development for IATSE, which began its latest attempt to unionize the visual effects field a few years ago. The campaign began with some splashy wins at Marvel and Disney in 2023, and visual effects workers on Avatarunionized the following year. The union has since notched bargaining units in smaller settings — with workers on Saturday Night Live and on Apple TV+ shows, for example — but the Star Wars union adds more blockbuster work to the mix.
With its recent attempt to organize the visual effects field, IATSE has largely homed in on workers employed directly by film and television productions, rather than those working for high-profile vendors like Weta FX and Industrial Light & Magic. It’s generally taken aim at crewmembers including data wranglers, coordinators, production supervisors and witness camera operators.
“Previous attempts were looking essentially to organize the artists of the vendors who are strategically more precarious,” IATSE organizer Mark Patch previously explained to THR.
Sony Pictures is set to release director Jake Kasdan‘s film in theaters on Dec. 25. Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Morgan Turner, Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Rhys Darby and Danny DeVito round out the cast for the final installment in the trilogy.
Jumanji: Open World centers on the game’s heroes breaking free of its console and wreaking havoc on our world. The trailer shows Johnson, Black, Hart and Gillan in the real world as stilted versions of the video game avatars they play.
Wolff’s character explains, “We have a problem. They’re video game characters, but they’re stuck in demo mode.”
This movie follows 2017’s Jumanji: The Next Level, which rebooted the franchise after Robin Williams starred in a 1995 feature version adapting Chris Van Allsburg’s 1981 children’s book. Kasdan, who directed the 2017 film and its 2019 sequel, returns to helm Open World from a script he co-wrote with Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg. Kasdan, Johnson, Matt Tolmach, Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia serve as producers.
Welcome to the Jungle focused on a group of teenage friends getting trapped inside a video game as a collection of adult avatars. It hit theaters in December 2017 and surpassed $950 million at the global box office. The 2019 sequel, subtitled The Next Level, topped $801 million globally.
Johnson, Hart and Black took the stage at CinemaCon earlier this year, where they unveiled the new movie’s first footage and revealed the title. Black told the crowd, “I’ve never had more fun working on a movie. This is my favorite so far.”
