“I was very, very hurt and deeply disappointed in the lack of professionalism, the lack of compassion in slamming someone who’s lost two children, without even a modicum of consideration,” Vogel said during a recent interview with the Daily Mail regarding King’s comments.
“No one reached out to me before,” she added. “It’s shameful. It’s unconscionable to me.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to CBS Mornings for comment, but did not hear back at the time of publication.
Panettiere, an actress known for her roles in Heroes, Nashville and the Scream franchise, died last Sunday at age 36. Following her death, Vogel spoke to NBC News on Tuesday, where she criticized her daughter’s on-again-off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson and felt her daughter “lost her way.”
“This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death and that was Brian Hickerson,” she said at the time. “I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments and I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry — it is a struggle and it’s a very challenging industry and it’s not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path.”
Vogel added, “I think Hayden sadly lost her way and I wish it were different. I wish she had stayed true to herself because she had many incredible attributes.”
The following day, during Wednesday’s CBS Mornings broadcast, King criticized Vogel for focusing too much on her daughter’s struggles amid her death. “You know, guys, you read this and all I can think is, ‘Thanks, mom, for nothing,’” the host said.
“It makes me so sad of the opportunity that you have after your daughter’s death that that’s what you choose to leave us with,” King added.
Panettiere had been open about her estranged relationship with her mother, who also served as her manager when she was growing up in the industry. In her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, the actress detailed the pressure she felt from Vogel.
During an interview with THR in May, Panettiere also opened up about the challenges of delving into her childhood and relationship with her mom when writing This Is Me. “Having to touch on everything about my relationship with my mother, that was one of the harder things to talk about,” Panettiere said. “While writing it, I realized even more so how much of a toll it took on me.”
Page Six reported in May that Vogel had chosen the “no-contact route” with Panettiere after “20 years of trauma” and on the advice of professionals.
Her son and Panettiere’s younger brother also died in February 2023 at the age of 28.
Tucci in Italy is swarming with handsome images: a mouthwatering dollop of spaghetti and clams inspired by a Neapolitan chef’s 94-year-old mother, majestic Renaissance-era palaces and quaint villages where the show’s host, Stanley Tucci, enlists locals to expound on Italian culture. But director of photography Matt Ball isn’t always looking for polish — he wants candor.
“It’s not necessarily a show about how beautiful everything looks,” Ball says. “The primary goal is to get authenticity. And then we shoot around it and try to make it look as nice as we can.”
Ball’s cinematography led to one of the three Emmy nominations that Tucci in Italy received this year, alongside a sound mixing citation and outstanding hosted nonfiction series or special. He met Tucci as a camera operator on Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, which ran for two seasons on CNN. When National Geographic picked up the retitled version, Ball was brought on as DP. They’re currently in production on another spinoff, this time set in Great Britain.
Before shooting, Tucci, producer Lottie Birmingham and their research team map out a roughly seven- to 10-day stint in each city being featured that season. They find cooks, farmers, food producers and culinary experts to show off the region’s cuisine and landscapes. Ball, who collaborated with two camera operators and two assistants on Tucci in Italy, then designed shots as unobtrusive as possible so the contributors could feel comfortable.
“The work of making it look beautiful has been done for me already,” Ball says, downplaying his aptitude for capturing the vistas of Sicily, Tuscany or Sardinia so elegantly.
If Searching for Italy prioritized major destinations such as Rome and Milan, Tucci in Italy sought out less touristy locales, like Ball’s personal favorite stop, Le Marche. There, at the seaside restaurant Da Emilia, Tucci tried a spaghetti and mussels dish the chef’s eponymous grandmother had taught her to make years earlier. The Devil Wears Prada actor dined with the chef at a long outdoor table overlooking the Adriatic Sea — an example of the charisma that Ball encountered everywhere he went.
“It looked fantastic,” he says. “The light was coming off the water, and it was a beautiful day. It was really lovely.”
Ball, for his part, gets to sample many of the dishes, too. Some of that intake depends on how much offal, for example, he’s willing to eat.
Ball’s food-oriented résumé is accidental, though. It started with a gig as a camera operator on the long-running Barefoot Contessa, where he met his wife. He’s since shot Be My Guest With Ina Garten as well as shows with celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Lorraine Pascale. He says he’ll stay on with Tucci as long as Tucci wants to continue his savory travels.
“Everywhere we go,” he says, “you’ll always hear somebody whisper, ‘That’s Stanley Tucci!’ ”
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
One of the great creative innovations America has given the world in the past 30 years is TV animation.
That sounds like hyperbole, but it’s true. The Simpsons changed how we look at the American family (and current events). Rick and Morty changed how we looked at comedy and the tragedy behind it. (“Wubba lubba dub dub.” Also, current events.) South Park changed how we looked at each other (and current events).
The problem is that those shows all started doing that a very long time ago. Rick and Morty is nine seasons in. South Park is 28. The Simpsons is 37 damn seasons deep. There are children who weren’t born when the series debuted who now have children who themselves are old enough to think Bart has got this whole life thing figured out.
All three of those shows are nominated for outstanding animated program this year. So is Bob’s Burgers, which just completed its 20th season. Now, a charitable view would hold that such shortlisting reflects the durability of these shows — how they manage to maintain their creative spark through so many changing winds.
There is something to that — it’s not easy to do anything well for three decades, let alone maintain character freshness.
But I fear the fact that animated characters don’t age — and that they’re basically money-minting machines for a few networks (especially Fox) — has led us to a pretty calcified place. No show should so regularly take a place on the Emmys stage. The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers have been nominated every year since the Obama days. Nothing is that good for that long.
What isn’t on the animated shortlist this year? Dark sci-fi like Owen Dennis’ Among Us on Paramount+. The acquired taste but still bold stylings of Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s time-jumping family series Long Story Short on Netflix. Joe Cappa’s Adult Swim single-dad delight Haha, You Clowns. These are all newish shows from the past year or two with great energy and original takes. But to look at the Emmys noms is to not even know they exist (and indeed, many viewers won’t without the exposure).
A little breath of fresh air in the category comes viaSmiling Friends, Adult Swim’s truly wacky take on a nonprofit and what it means to do good/be happy. And while I would hardly call anything in the George Lucas-verse fresh in 2026, Star Wars: Visions at least uses varied artists and styles in a way that feels original. But these shows seem token-y amid the Simpsons and South Park oak trees and probably won’t win anyway.
What can the Emmys do to fix this? Fortunately, there are a few things.
For starters, stop with just nominating a single episode. Unlike TV Academy convention elsewhere, the Emmys don’t award a show — they award an episode. That means that the kind of newer, zanier material that takes months to really settle into is completely disadvantaged — you’re not going to appreciate something weird and new if you just try to watch one episode. You’re just going to go back to something you know and like, such as The Simpsons or South Park.
Of course, the irony is that The Simpsons and South Park were themselves once oddball and required a multi-episode commitment to appreciate. But now that they are appreciated, voters just keep rubber-stamping them. I mean, Rick and Morty hasn’t really been good in several years. But voters just keep checking the box without thinking there might be a new Rick and Morty waiting out there.
The other irony is that many of the characters on these very shows would hate this kind of lazy legacy thinking and would balk at it. A category that is literally designed to celebrate subversiveness champions the sclerotic.
Another fix: Stop with the international ghettoizing. My colleague David Canfield just covered this on the live-action side, but it applies on the animated side, too. Bluey is one of the best shows on television these past 10 years. And many people in America watch it. Find a way to make it eligible for the primetime Emmy.
While we’re on the topic of Bluey, get rid of the “Eligibility in animation is for programming that targets an audience age 13 and above” rule. This is just not how people watch television anymore.
And finally, open up the Phase II voting beyond just the animation branch to the whole TV Academy. Animation is one of two realms that has this limitation. And it’s having a bad effect. People in the animation branch work in the field, which means they tend to vote for the shows of folks they know or have worked with. So we get the 30-year veterans.
I get why this exclusionary voting rule was first drafted: Animation is a specialized craft, and specialists should vote on their specialty. Also, there is a fear that the, ahem, unwashed masses who don’t work in animation won’t really know the shows because they’re too busy watching the live-action stuff. But if that was ever true, it’s not anymore. Everyone watches everything.
All of these might seem like big changes, hard to implement, but they’re really not. They’re possible and would make a world of difference. And if you doubt it, there’s a group you can ask that will help. A group that looked at the world as it is and said, “Maybe there’s another, more daring way to view it.” They are, of course, called animators.
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
“It’s not a coincidence that so many former, specifically pre-sexualized female, child ‘stars’ have profoundly sad lives and untimely ends. We were not as protected by the ‘systems’ that look great on paper, as we are supposed to be,” Paquin wrote on Instagram Friday. She rose to fame at 11 years old with her film debut in 1993’s The Piano, which earned her an Oscar for best supporting actress.
“RIP HP, MT, DC and too many others. It’s a strange small club we belong to and you are worthy of support no matter how our industry makes us feel,” Paquin continued. “Literally DM me. I believe you and I will stand by your side. You aren’t alone. Let’s have each other’s backs. It might make public disclosure less terrifying.”
The True Blood alum added in a separate post, “One more thing– As an adult I’ve had the pleasure of working on productions where the welfare and mental health of young performers was handled incredibly carefully. Especially around material that was intense. It is possible to holistically look after the kids on set and tell complex and sometimes upsetting stories. It just has to be the top priority of the production.”
Earlier in the week, Elle published an essay by Romano — who appeared in 1996’s Everyone Says I Love You as a child before becoming a teen Disney star with her role in Even Stevens and voicing Kim Possible — where she compared child stardom to the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
“The former child actor exists in a category the world does not know how to hold. We are children when the public wants to feel protective of us, professionals when the industry wants to profit from us, and spoiled celebrities when we eventually show symptoms of having been both,” Romano wrote in part. “Early fame is like CTE. Not as a diagnosis. As a way of thinking about repeated impact. We now have language for youth sports: protocols, helmets, parents worried about concussions. But we have almost no language for what happens when stress, scrutiny, rejection, adult pressure, and the collapse of privacy become the architecture of a childhood.
She added, “Young performers are still treated as exceptions. Lucky exceptions. Cute exceptions. Talented exceptions. Exceptions whose labor powers one of the most profitable storytelling machines in the world, while their mental needs are treated as inconvenient or irrelevant. Social work be damned.”
Gilbert also shared a lengthy post on Substack Saturday, where she asked, “Why are these three sweet, wildly talented, vibrant, vital young women gone?” Gilbert landed her breakout role at just nine years old, playing Laura Ingalls Wilder on Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1983.
“I did not know Hayden personally and only worked briefly with Mishy and Daveigh. It feels personal because I was them,” Gilbert wrote. “We are all members of the same tribe; Female Former Child Performers, and when one of us dies, it runs through all of us like an electrical current. When three of us die so close together, something is very, very wrong. We all know the stories of how the entertainment industry uses, abuses, exploits and then throws away it’s youngest, but for some reason, this trend is getting worse.”
She later added, “Where is our Union in all of this? Where is the collective outrage? Where are the regulations? Where is the protection of privacy?”
“It really seems like no one cares enough to enact real change. At least, not until the next death and everyone talks about how sad they are and how we must do something and then they forget and get on with their lives until it happens again and again and again,” Gilbert continued. “Yes, addiction is a real disease. Family dysfunction is real. PTSD is real. In actors, all those things are assets. They enable us to access emotion and share it with an audience. But when it comes through children, it should be treated tenderly, protectively, respectfully and in a way that is as limited as possible.”
Gilbert’s post comes as her husband, Timothy Busfield, awaits trial in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after being accused of child sex abuse on the set of the former Fox/Warner Bros. Television series The Cleaning Lady. Gilbert has defended Busfield, who has denied the allegations.
Panettiere started working in Hollywood at a young age, appearing in the soap opera One Life to Live at just four years old before starring in 2000’s Remember the Titans at 10, among other projects. As for Trachtenberg, she appeared in the Nickelodeon series The Adventures of Pete & Pete as a child, as well as 1996’s Harriet the Spy and 1999’s Inspector Gadget. Chase was known for voicing Lilo in 2002’s Lilo & Stitch when she was younger as well as starring in the 2002 horror film The Ring.
Nick Glennie-Smith, the British composer, conductor and keyboardist known for his collaborations with Hans Zimmer and for his work on films including The Rock, The Man in the Iron Mask and Secretariat, has died. He was 74.
Glennie-Smith died peacefully Aug. 16 surrounded by family at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia, his wife of 52 years, Jan Glennie-Smith, told The Hollywood Reporter. No cause of death was revealed.
As an orchestral conductor, Glennie-Smith teamed with two-time Oscar-winning composer Zimmer on such notable films as The Lion King (1994), Crimson Tide (1995), The Simpsons Movie (2007), Transformers (2007), X-Men: First Class (2011) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) as a member of his Remote Control Productions team.
For Michael Bay’s action-packed The Rock (1996), he shared principal composing duties with Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams.
He also composed the soaring score for Randall Wallace’s The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) before reuniting with the writer-director on We Were Soldiers (2002), Secretariat (2010) and Heaven Is for Real (2014).
Nicholas Hugh Glennie-Smith was born in London on Oct. 3, 1951. He began his professional career as a keyboard player and would perform or/and or record with the likes of Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey, Leo Sayer, Cliff Richard, Roger Waters, Phil Collins, Tina Turner and Elvis Costello.
He came to Hollywood in the late 1980s and played keyboards and/or provided music for films including K2 (1991) and Cool Runnings (1993).
Glennie-Smith also worked in various capacities on Bay’s Bad Boys (1995), Beyond Rangoon (1995), Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1997), Con Air (1997), The Peacemaker (1997), King Arthur (2004), The Da Vinci Code (2006), A Little Bit of Heaven (2011), Wreck-It-Ralph (2012), Man of Steel (2013), Pacific Rim (2013), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), The Little Prince (2015), Deadpool (2016), Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) and Mufasa: The Lion King (2024).
His older son, Seth Glennie-Smith, is a composer and music editor with credits including Project Hail Mary, It Ends With Us and the rebooted Magnum P.I.
Survivors include his other son, Joss; daughters Haley and Katharine; daughter-in-law Caroline; son-in-law Nick; grandchildren Dylan, Milo and Charlotte; and siblings Steven and Ali.
Glennie-Smith also served as musical director for Zimmer’s live concerts and conducted the 60-piece orchestra at the 2012 Academy Awards that featured compositions from Zimmer and Pharrell Williams.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Nick Glennie-Smith,” the Facebook site Hans Zimmer Live posted. “Nick was far more than an extraordinary musician and composer. Through his many years alongside Hans Zimmer, he was a trusted creative partner, band member and, above all, a longtime friend.
“When people share so many years of music, creativity, stages, journeys and memories, that bond reaches far beyond the work. The music remains, but so does the friendship behind every note. Our deepest condolences to Nick’s family, friends and everyone whose life was touched by his music and his presence. May his music, his spirit and all the memories created together live on. He will always be the leader of our band. Rest in peace, Nick.”
Sony Pictures‘ releases claim the top two spots at the domestic box office, as Spider-Man: Brand New Day grosses $39 million for the weekend amid its historic run. This brings its domestic cume to $854.9 million through Sunday, surpassing 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home to become the No. 3 highest-grossing film ever at the domestic box office. This also puts Brand New Day as Sony’s highest-grossing domestic film after it set the record last weekend for the top global release in the studio’s history.
Additionally, Brand New Day becomes the No. 6 release of all time at the worldwide box office with $2.22 billion. This surpasses 2015’s Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens, which moves to seventh on the chart with $2.07 billion. The latest Spidey film is now just behind Titanic at No. 5 with $2.26 billion and Ne Zha 2 at No. 4 with $2.27 billion.
Insidious: Out of the Further occupies second place with an opening weekend of $25.3 million for the sixth installment in the horror franchise. The series hails from Screen Gems, Stage 6 Films and Blumhouse Atomic Monster and kicked off with 2011’s original Insidious. Without major studio horror releases for the next four weeks, Out of the Further aims to extend its run with limited competition. It earned a C+ CinemaScore, tying 2023’s Insidious: The Red Door for the series’ lowest grade.
Debuting in 3,330 North American theaters, Out of the Further stars Amelia Eve, Brandon Perea and Lin Shaye and centers on a young mother who can bring spirits back with her to the real world. It follows The Red Door, which saw the return of original series stars Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne. That one opened to an impressive $33 million domestically before grossing $189 million worldwide throughout its run.
Amelia Eve in Insidious: Out of the Further.
Sony Pictures
“This summer has been so big,” Regal Global Entertainment head of marketing Vikki Neil tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Spider-Man, obviously, is huge, and we’re seeing horror films, as a general rule, do extremely well for us. We definitely see a lot of those perform really well with young people.”
With an $18 million production budget, Out of the Further holds a 57 percent approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 70 percent audience score. Critic Frank Scheck wrote in his review for THR that the film “proves routine in its elaborate plot machinations.”
Also opening this weekend is Mutiny, as Statham’s latest action title picks up $7.5 million for the frame to land in sixth place from 2,600 North American screens. Lionsgate’s film earned a B+ CinemaScore from audiences. MadRiver Pictures and Punch Palace Productions produced the project that carries a $40 million production budget.
Director Jean-François Richet’s feature stars Statham as a former Marine who sets out to prove his innocence after getting framed for murder. It holds a 50 percent approval score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes but an 87 percent score from audiences. Mutiny follows Statham’s Shelter, which opened with $5.5 million domestically earlier this year for Black Bear.
Jason Statham as Cole Reed in Mutiny.
Dan Smith/Lionsgate
Universal’s The Odyssey is finding a home in third place with an estimated $19.5 million for its sixth weekend to bring its domestic total to $539 million. Over the weekend, Christopher Nolan’s mythological epic will become the acclaimed director’s highest-grossing film domestically of his career, surpassing 2008’s The Dark Knight. Starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, the movie moved past Deadpool & Wolverine during the week to stand as the highest-grossing R-rated title globally.
In its sophomore frame, PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie is targeting $9.1 million for fourth place. The third film in Paramount Pictures’ animated franchise brings its domestic tally to an estimated $35.4 million. It crosses the $100 million threshold globally, with its worldwide total reaching $103.4 million.
Close behind its fellow dinosaur movie and also in its second weekend, director David Robert Mitchell’s The End of Oak Street looks to scarf down around $9 million to bring the Warner Bros. release’s two-week domestic total to $38 million. Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor star in the survival feature that places fifth.
Expanding to a wide release in its third weekend is A24’s Tony, starring Dominic Sessa as a teenage Anthony Bourdain. The feature serves up an estimated $5 million from 1,600 North American screens to claim seventh place and bring its domestic cume to around $6.6 million.
Black Bear’s comedy Spa Weekend is currently in ninth place with an estimated $3.05 million domestically from 2,000 locations. Earning a B+ CinemaScore, directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore’s movie stars Leslie Mann, Isla Fisher, Michelle Buteau and Anna Faris.
This weekend’s milestones include Focus Features’ Obsession crossing the $500 million mark globally. The worldwide total for filmmaker Curry Barker’s low-budget horror sensation now stands at $501.6 million.
Director Destin Daniel Cretton‘s blockbuster Spider-Man: Brand New Day keeps spinning to historic heights. Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink and Jon Bernthal star in the film that recently set the record as the fastest movie to hit $800 million domestically. After the weekend is over, only 2015’s Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame will hold bigger domestic cumes.
The 2026 domestic box office has now crossed the $7 billion mark, according to Rentrak, as this summer’s titles combine for an estimated $4.444 billion domestically. This puts the season 20.4 percent above last year’s tally to that point, with the all-time summer mark remaining 2013’s $4.75 billion.
More to come.
This story was first published on Aug. 22 at 8:55 a.m.
“Words matter, and so does the willingness to draw a line when legitimate debate gives way to antisemitic tropes,” Berk wrote. “We commend Paramount for speaking clearly and refusing to allow prejudice to masquerade as political or corporate criticism. At a time when antisemitism is too often minimized, rationalized or repackaged in more socially acceptable language, this kind of moral clarity matters.”
“Invoking Israel in an issue where it is completely irrelevant is a textbook case of obsession and demonization. Paramount was right to call it out. More leaders and institutions should have the courage to call antisemitism what it is, regardless of who is spreading it,” his statement concluded.
Earlier this week, the Oscar-nominated actor, who has been an outspoken opponent of Paramount’s $111 billion deal for Warner Bros., highlighted Larry Ellison’s (Paramount CEO David Ellison’s father) Oracle’s ties to the Israeli military amid the Israel-Gaza war. Ruffalo resurfaced a clip from 2024 of former Oracle chief Safra Catz talking about “profoundly scary technologies” the tech company had built in relation to Israel’s war effort in Gaza. The actor also described the war as a “genocide” that “was built on an apartheid system of oppression powered by Oracle.”
In response, Paramount clapped back, calling the Marvel star’s remarks “antisemitic.” The studio’s spokesperson’s statement read in part, “We are, as always, troubled when antisemitic tropes are invoked in purported service of a business dispute. Words like ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid,’ applied to a corporate transaction, aren’t just wrong — they’re a bridge too far, and they cheapen the very real suffering those words are meant to describe. This doesn’t deserve a response in kind — and to be clear, we don’t tolerate prejudice of any kind, against anyone.”
Creative Community for Peace, a Hollywood-based pro-Israel advocacy organization, has also called for Hollywood to boycott Ruffalo until the actor “retract[s] these remarks and apologize[s],” the group’s executive director, Ari Ingel, wrote in a statement.
“Mark Ruffalo’s rhetoric has increasingly crossed the line from criticism of Israel into extremist and antisemitic messaging,” Ingel also wrote, adding, “Point blank, he has been warned before about the consequences of this rhetoric, yet continues contributing to the toxic antisemitic atmosphere we are witnessing today. That makes him culpable. His argument increasingly fuses hostility toward Israel and Zionism with Jewish-associated wealth, media ownership, oligarchic power and ominous warnings about concentrated control into a single narrative. Those echoes are impossible to ignore.”
On Saturday, Ruffalo took to X to dismiss Paramount’s claims that his comments were “antisemitic” as well as offer a distinction between his criticism of the Israeli military and his views about Jewish people. He wrote in part, “The accusation that I am antisemitic is appalling and fundamentally dishonest. Criticizing the actions of the Israeli prime minister, a military technology contract or the executives who supply it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people. This critical and necessary dialogue is then dishonestly framed as being anti-Israel.”
Have you ever had the experience of booking a trip that promised to be a blissful getaway, only to find once there that you’re having…not the worst time, but definitely a disappointing one? That the food that looked so pretty online tastes bland in person, that the overstuffed pillows give you neck pains, that — come to think of it — there’s not really that much to do at this resort beyond linger beside a lukewarm pool?
If so, the aura of letdown surrounding Spa Weekend, the latest outing from writer-directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, ought to feel familiar. On paper, it’s a variation on the “R-rated hijinks plus heartfelt emotion plus beloved cast” equation that’s worked so well for Bridesmaids and Girls Trip and Lucas and Moore’s own commercially successful though creatively uninspired Bad Moms. In execution, the hijinks feel awfully tame, the emotion shallow, the stars underserved.
Spa Weekend
The Bottom Line
A likable cast let down by uninteresting hijinks.
Release date: Friday, Aug. 21 Cast: Leslie Mann, Isla Fisher, Michelle Buteau, Anna Faris, Adam Demos, Dominic Ona-Ariki, Erika Heynatz Director-screenwriters: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore
Rated R,
1 hour 37 minutes
The premise is the title, not much more and not much less. On the occasion of her she’s-not-saying-which birthday, overworked Los Angeles lawyer Jane (Leslie Mann) books a two-night stay at a wellness retreat seemingly around Malibu, though the Australia-shot production avoids getting too geographically specific. (Wherever it is, the sunsets are very pretty.)
Along with her for the ride are her two childhood besties — sweet-natured Sophie (Anna Faris), who’s withering under a boss so spoiled he can’t even buy his own Skittles, and hot-tempered Coco (Michelle Buteau), who’s working through a painful divorce while stubbornly not working through the anger management issues that led to it.
The trip promises to be precisely the break all three of them desperately need but cannot ever seem to take, because as working moms pulled every which way by ailing parents, needy kids and demanding jobs, these women cannot imagine planning so much as a date night less than three months in advance. They could certainly never do something so self-indulgent as book a whole trip on a whim — except that that’s exactly what we’ve just seen them do, within five minutes of Coco floating the idea over brunch.
I presume the whiplash-inducing speed with which the trio go from “Oh, I couldn’t possibly” to “We’ve booked the room” is meant to be aspirational: Here are women finally saying “screw it” to a society that demands they put everyone else first, and taking care of themselves for once! But it has the condescending effect of suggesting that their struggles were never real to begin with. The only thing ever actually holding them back, apparently, was their own lack of willpower.
Well, that and, in some roundabout way, their lack of appreciation for the unwanted fourth member of their circle. Mel (Isla Fisher), who’s only scored a last-minute pity invite thanks to Sophie’s guilty conscience, is “the one woman all the others secretly cannot stand” — you know, that thing Spa Weekend assures us every female friend group always has. If you can’t identify who that might be in your own girl gang, maybe that’s because it’s you. Or maybe it’s because Spa Weekend has a habit of treating all its characters’ problems as universal and therefore inherently relatable and interesting. You can practically hear the “Am I right, ladies?” after every such observation.
In fairness to Jane, Coco and Sophie, their distaste initially proves warranted. From the moment Mel bursts onto the property — boobs spilling out of her pushup bra, dildos spilling out of her suitcase, inappropriate language spilling out of her mouth — she brings nothing but chaos. When she’s around, a guided meditation session devolves into a shouting match, a chill evening into a cocaine-fueled rager, a short walk between spa treatments into, somehow, a wild golf cart chase. None of it is anything you haven’t seen before, and in Lucas and Scott’s ineffectual hands, none of it gets as nasty or raunchy or destructive as those descriptions suggest.
What’s more, Mel can’t seem to stop meddling in her friends’ live. She swipes Sophie’s phone to scream at her shitty boss. She tricks Coco’s ex (Dominic Ora-Ariki’s Roger) into rushing to her side. She baldly propositions Adam Demos’ hot yoga instructor on Jane’s behalf (“Obviously she’s on the older side, but she’s got a porno body!”). Her behavior is upsetting and mortifying and potentially life-destroying to all her friends until it’s not, as Spa Weekend slowly but predictably gets around to the argument that the world needs Mels — the hot messes who force everyone else out of their miserable but societally approved ruts.
It would be a very nice message, if not for the fact that the script undercuts it by keeping all its characters too vague and one-dimensional to care much about in any direction; I couldn’t even tell you what Coco does for a living or why Jane’s raising her kids alone. To the extent that there are any genuine chuckles or warm fuzzies to be found in Spa Weekend, it’s thanks to skills this talented core cast have deployed more effectively elsewhere.
A pretty funny scene in which Jane tries very hard to pretend she’s not extremely turned on by Demos’ Kai giving her a hand massage called to my mind the even funnier ones of Mann smiling through her tears in Blockers. Coco’s smooth, sexy chemistry with Roger made me want to revisit Buteau’s winsome turn as a heartbroken stylist in Netflix’s Survival of the Thickest. Fisher earns most of the film’s few real laughs by channeling the upbeat yet unhinged energy that’s served her so well since her breakout in Wedding Crashers. Even Faris’ miscast turn as awkward, mousy Sophie served to remind me how much more delightful she is when she gets to go weird and messy, as in The House Bunny or Smiley Face.
But the ability to occasionally evoke other, better projects does not a good film make. Spa Weekend has nothing fresh or insightful or even all that amusing to add to the familiar formula it’s borrowing — and for all its apparent good intentions, nothing much more meaningful to offer the overworked, overstressed moms of the world than the suggestion that maybe they could, like, try taking a vacation sometime. If this is what a big relaxing escape looks like, you’re better off saving the money and chilling at home.
Get ready for another treasure hunt: A third National Treasure movie is happening, according to director Jon Turteltaub.
Speaking at a live taping of the National Treasure Hunt podcast Friday night in Philadelphia, Turteltaub said, “It’s happening. You’re the first people I’ve said this out loud to. I have not said anything before this, but you deserve to have the scoop. It’s finally real. Now, it’s ‘Hollywood real,’ meaning things could happen. Nic [Cage] gets hit by a bus, there’s no National Treasure 3. If I get hit by a bus, there’s probably a National Treasure 3. Welcome to Hollywood.”
“We finally have a script that I like,” he said before adding before revealing that Disney said, “OK, this sounds like a movie we can make.”
The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Disney for comment and they declined.
The first National Treasure film was released in 2004 and followed Cage as historian Ben Gates, who steals the Declaration of Independence to find a map to an ancient, rumored treasure before anyone else can get to it. Harvey Keitel, Jon Voight, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Justin Bartha and Christopher Plummer also starred in the film, which grossed $347 million at the global box office.
The 2007 follow-up, National Treasure: The Book of Secrets, earned $459 million worldwide and added Helen Mirren, Ed Harris, Bruce Greenwood and Ty Burrell to the cast.
The franchise later expanded to television with National Treasure: Edge of History, which premiered on Disney+ in 2022 but was canceled after one season. Catherine Zeta-Jones joined the cast, while Bartha and Keitel reprised their roles.
As for the third feature, no casting has been announced. THR reached out to Cage’s representative for comment.
Taylor Sheridan, Paramount and NBC Universal are all being sued by a writer who says Sheridan stole her idea for a TV show and used it to create Yellowstone.
In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Friday, TV writer and entertainment journalist Lauren J. Salkin claims she submitted a pilot script, show bible and pitch deck for a show called Sovereign Nation to Sheridan’s reps at his management company, Elevate Entertainment, which is also named as a defendant in the suit, in late 2016 and early 2017.
Sovereign Nation, which Salkin spent more than 10 years developing, is described in the complaint, which was viewed by The Hollywood Reporter, as a “dramatic television series centered on tribal governance, casino-driven economic power and a modern war over land and development.”
Salkin alleges that she received a response from Elevate on Feb. 1, 2017 saying that Sheridan was “unavailable for TV projects.”
“Within months, Paramount greenlit Sheridan’s Yellowstone,” the complaint states.
The show premiered on the Paramount Network on June 20, 2018 and later began streaming on Peacock.
The suit says Yellowstone featured “specific expressive choices already embodied in Salkin’s materials” including “a tribal casino functioning as the institutional center of political and development power; a signature confrontation staged in the tribal chairman’s casino office over expansion beyond reservation boundaries; the use of trust land, the absence of zoning restrictions and a 99-year lease structure as the concrete mechanism for that expansion; and recurring master-plan imagery deployed to dramatize the struggle for territorial control.” Salkin also argues that Yellowstone followed several of her proposed casting recommendations for key roles in Sovereign Nation.
“Copyright law does not protect the abstract idea of a Western, a land dispute, an Indian casino or a powerful family — and that is not Plaintiff’s claim,” the complaint states. “The infringement alleged here lies in the copying of Salkin’s particular expressive choices and their coordinated selection and arrangement.”
The suit also notes that a senior HBO scripted TV executive who had reviewed materials for Sovereign Nation later told her he recognized similarities in Yellowstone.
Salkin argues that the hit Kevin Costner-led series, which has spawned numerous spinoffs, “has generated billions of dollars” for the defendants, of which she “has received nothing.”
Salkin is seeking damages and profits tied to alleged copyright infringement and injunctive relief preventing future infringement.
“This is a classic David-versus-Goliath situation,” Salkin’s attorney Paul B. Lackey told THR. “She spent years putting together the specific and multi-layered framework for a story that has become the biggest streaming success of all time. She has watched the vast commercial success of this story that was stolen from her and decided that enough was enough. We will do everything in our power to get her justice.”
Reps for Sheridan, Paramount, Elevate and NBCUniversal have not yet responded to THR‘s request for comment.
