HBO Max is headed out on the road to Stars Hollow.
The streamer is in production on a documentary about Gilmore Girls, the beloved series that ran from 2000-07. Bonni Cohen (Athlete A, An Inconvenient Sequel) is directing the film from Warner Horizon Unscripted Television and R.J. Cutler’s Sony-based This Machine banner.
Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, executive producer Daniel Palladino and star Lauren Graham are all set to take part in the documentary, along with other cast and crew members. HBO Max notes that the film is the first “authorized” documentary about the show, though at least one other independent doc is also in the pipeline. Sherman-Palladino and Graham are also collaborating on a book about the making of Gilmore Girls, which is due for publication in fall 2027.
Warner Bros. TV, a corporate sibling to HBO Max and Warner Horizon, produced Gilmore Girls, which ran for seven seasons on The WB and The CW.
The currently untitled HBO Max documentary will “reveal how the show eclipsed expectations to become a cross-generational phenomenon by unpacking the unique alchemy of the creators, cast, crew, and collaborators,” according to the film’s description. It will also feature previously unseen behind-the-scenes clips, outtakes and script pages.
Following the end of its series run, Gilmore Girls found a long afterlife on cable and streaming, where it receives an annual viewing bump each fall. Netflix also produced a four-episode sequel miniseries, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, in 2016. The series left Netflix at the end of June (A Year in the Life remains available there) and currently steams on Hulu and Prime Video.
The executive producers for the documentary are Mark Blatty, Jane Cha Cutler, R.J. Cutler, Daniel Palladino, Elise Pearlstein, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and Trevor Smith. Cohen and Melissa Robledo are producers.
Perez Hilton was hospitalized and is receiving medical care after the celebrity gossip blogger appeared to be harming himself on a TikTok livestream on Tuesday night.
In graphic clips reposted on social media, Hilton, appearing manic, could be seen in the livestream covered in blood, using an object to cut himself repeatedly.
While not naming Hilton specifically, the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office said it had received “multiple calls regarding an individual who was livestreaming acts of self-harm on social media.” Deputies then located this person’s residence, arrived on the scene and spoke with family members before they “tactically disengaged while continuing to monitor the situation and providing the needed support to his family.”
“In many incidents involving a person experiencing a mental health crisis or actively harming themselves, deputies prioritize de-escalation by creating time, distance and opportunities for communication,” the statement continued. “Unless there is an immediate threat to others, slowing the situation and utilizing crisis intervention techniques can reduce the likelihood of a suicide-by-cop encounter and minimize the risk of injury to the individual, deputies and the public.”
The Sheriff’s Office said the individual was “safely recovered” and taken to a Miami-area hospital, where he’s receiving medical attention. Mental health professionals are also on the scene providing support and resources to the person’s family.
Local news station NBC6, which had reporters at the scene, later reported that a man, believed to be Hilton, was seen being taken away in an ambulance.
Dante Rusciolelli, the CEO of the management company that represents Hilton, Golden Artists Entertainment, said in a statement obtained by NBC News on Wednesday that the company does “not have any additional confirmed information to share regarding Perez Hilton’s condition.”
“Our focus remains on Perez’s health, recovery and the privacy of both him and his family during this incredibly difficult time,” he said. “We are grateful for the outpouring of concern and support from fans, friends and members of the media. We respectfully ask that everyone continue to honor his privacy while he receives the care he needs.”
Also on Wednesday, Hilton’s team and family posted a statement to his website saying they “can confirm that Perez is receiving medical care, and our family’s focus right now is on his well-being.”
“Many of you have reached out with concern for Perez, and we are incredibly grateful for the overwhelming outpouring of love, support, and prayers,” the statement reads. “We kindly ask that you respect Perez’s privacy, as well as the privacy of his family, during this difficult time. If and when we are able to share any updates, we will do so with everyone as soon as we can. Thank you for your compassion, understanding, and continued support.”
Earlier this year, Hilton shared in a lengthy Instagram video that he was hospitalized for three weeks after initially battling the flu before developing “an ulcer, and then a perforation and then sepsis,” he said at the time.
“The sepsis just kept working and my body kept falling apart,” Hilton explained in the video in March. “Then one night with rapid response came ’cause my heart got out of control. They had to put me on heart medications. And then I developed another infection in the hospital.”
He added, “It was just such a slow process. I mean, two weeks of just sickness and then another week of getting better before I was released. And that last week was hell because I had already been in the hospital two weeks by then. I was like, ‘I just wanna go home. I just want to be with my babies.’” Perez is a single father of three children.
Once he was released from the hospital and sent back home, Hilton said he had time to reflect and came to the realization “that God presented Himself to me” during the challenging experience.
“It was real and this has been life-changing. I’m so grateful,” he added at the time. “I’m excited to start taking the kids to church every week. And to just know that God is real. … I don’t have to hope to believe. I know now.”
Aug. 5, 10:56 a.m. This story has been updated with a statement from the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office and Hilton’s personal rep.
Aug. 5, 12:12 p.m. This story has been updated with a statement from Hilton’s team and family.
Hilary Lewis contributed to this report.
This story was originally published on Aug. 4 at 7:47 p.m.
A few years ago German writer-director Felix Randau (Iceman) got what sounded like an interesting proposal from France: to direct episodes of a miniseries about Felix Kersten, the former massage therapist of Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler.
“When I got back to Berlin and read their concept, I really liked it,” he recalls. “But there was this one special sentence in it that said, ‘If Steven Spielberg had known about Felix Kersten, he would have shot a film about Felix Kersten and not about Oskar Schindler.’ I knew that Steven Spielberg struggled for, I don’t know, about 10 years before he started shooting Schindler’s List, and he’s a smart guy who has a lot of assistance. So I became suspicious and started my own research, going to the archives and reading a lot of books and stuff.”
In the process, he realized that Kersten’s legacy is much less clear-cut. “I figured out that the story the French guys wanted to shoot was a hero story, a superhero story,” Randau tells THR. “But I felt you simply cannot do it.” He soon started focusing his work energy elsewhere.
The result is his new film, I Is Another (Ich Ist ein Anderer), which world premieres on Friday, Aug. 7 in the Piazza Grande program of the 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. Set in 1952, the film sees a journalist ambush Kersten and his wife on a train because she has doubts about the heroic narrative that he has been presenting about himself — one that might even get him the Nobel Peace Prize. What starts as a normal interview quickly turns into a psychological cat-and-mouse game. Is Kersten a hero or an impostor? Or could he maybe be both?
“Every story has three sides,” Randau says in a director’s note. “Yours. Mine. And the truth…”
To explore all these complex themes, I Is Another features a cast of big European names, led by Danish star Claes Bang (The Square, Bad Sisters, Home) as Felix Kersten, Austria’s Valerie Pachner (The Stories, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, Four Minus Three) as journalist Hedda, fellow Austrian Susanne Wuest (Sound of Falling) as Kersten’s wife Irmgard, German actor Timocin Ziegler as Hedda’s husband Winfried, and Germany’s Martin Müller as Himmler.
Felix Randau, courtesy of Felix Randau
The film, whose cinematographer was Sebastian Thaler, was edited by Joana Scrinzi. Beta Cinema is handling international sales.
For writer-director Randau, I Is Another is much more than a post-war film — and much more timely. “Of course, it’s a period movie, but it has a lot to do with our present time,” he tells THR. “It’s about truth and the question: what is truth? Nowadays, there are no more fundamental agreements about anything, so truth has become quite a flexible thing. And that’s very dangerous, as we all can see. So, I Is Another is a movie about that.”
Indeed, the themes of truth and image that the movie explores seem tailor-made for the social media age. “If Felix Kersten was alive today, he would be deep into all this social media shit, I’m pretty sure,” Randau acknowledges.
But he highlights the ambiguities and shades of gray that he sees in Kersten that the writer-director wanted to also showcase in I Is Another. “He was a narcissist. He was an opportunist,” says Randau. “But I think he also was a hero somehow because he saved some lives. Not thousands, as he said, but he saved some lives. And I think he saved lives not for good reasons. He wanted to save his own ass, I think.”
Where in the film’s facts turn to fiction doesn’t really matter much, according to the filmmaker, because much of how people feel about Kersten depends on whether they focus on his autobiography or facts and stories told by others. “All the scenes with Himmler and Kersten are from Kersten’s autobiography,” Randau explains. “So they are, I think, all fake, but it is his truth. All the other stuff, the journalist and the train ride and stuff like that, is invented. It’s fiction. But somehow it’s also true.”
Director Felix Randau and stars Claes Bang and Valerie Pachner during the shoot for ‘I Is Another,’ courtesy of Anke Neugebauer/ostlicht/Wega
Of course, to bring the story of Kersten and the themes that I Is Another explores to life, Randau needed a strong cast. “I’m really proud of our casting,” he tells THR. “They all were great and added so much.”
Randau reached out to Bang first to cast him as Kersten. The Danish star had never heard about the massage therapist. “I did not know about any of this until Felix brought it to me, and it’s quite interesting because it seems to be a story that everybody’s quite fascinated by when you retell it,” the star tells THR in a Zoom chat during a break from filming the Netflix series Assassin’s Creed. “It’s a story that’s really gone under the radar, even if it’s a quite crazy one.”
The team may have spent quite a few years getting the financing for the movie together, but the actor remained up for it throughout. “Ever since he brought it to me, I’ve been really into it and really wanted to do it,” Bang recalls. “I really felt strongly about this. So I stayed with it, and we managed to make it last summer. We had to do it quite fast because there wasn’t a massive budget. I think we had 24 shooting days altogether, which is a stretch for something like this. Everybody really put in a massive effort. Everybody was so devoted to it, and that is something that I will carry with me.”
How did he think about Kersten and what was key for portraying the character? “It’s really hard to find out what is actually the truth here,” Bang observes. “But what’s interesting is that if this guy hadn’t been so preoccupied with his legacy, then we would have had no story to tell. It’s only because it seems that after the war, he was not quite content with the credit he was given for what he had done, and therefore he started perhaps exaggerating.”
For the Danish star, Kersten’s story is about the human need for validation: “Ultimately, Kersten wants the Nobel Peace Prize because that would validate him. That whole thing of not being able to just trust yourself and knowing that you have done your bit seems weird and wild.”
Claes Bang as Felix Kersten and Martin Müller as Heinrich Himmler in ‘I Is Another,’ courtesy of Anke Neugebauer/ostlicht/Wega
Courtesy of Anke Neugebauer/Ostlicht Filmproduktion/Wega Filmproduktion
The fact that a prominent world leader has been desperately hoping (some might say whining) for a Nobel Peace Prize is not lost on Bang. “Obviously, we have Trump at the moment who is seeking the exact same validation. I mean, he also so desperately wants the Nobel Peace Prize. I know that the parallel is too much. But actually it’s more about … when can we just trust ourselves and know in our hearts ‘I have done my bit.’ Why can’t we just find our inner peace?”
Adds Bang: “What intrigued me, and that’s probably also something that I can really relate to and recognize in myself because I really very often wonder, ‘Why do I need that bloody validation from everywhere else? Why do I need the reviews to say that I’m great? Why do I need people to come up to me and say, Wow, that was a great movie.’ Why isn’t it just enough for me just to be whatever I am?”
In case you wonder: Bang and his director on I Is Another weren’t at all concerned with him trying to look like the real-life Kersten, which he doesn’t — at all. “That is not the story we’re trying to tell here. We’re trying to tell a story of the journey of a soul,” the star emphasizes. “This is not the wax museum of Madame Tussauds. So that was never important.”
Pachner was game for the role of the journalist immediately. “I loved the title, and the film’s themes were something I felt I could really connect with,” she tells THR. “It’s this idea of what you tell yourself and others about yourself, and how that can be very far from the truth. And what is the truth? Felix Randau also plays with our own idea of what’s true and right. And there is this autobiography that Felix Kersten wrote and how people took it as fact just because he wrote it. So, yes, the film is set after the Second World War, but with talk about fake news, it also feels very modern.”
Valerie Pachner as journalist Hedda and Claes Bang as Felix Kersten in ‘I Is Another’
Courtesy of Anke Neugebauer/Ostlicht Filmproduktion/Wega Filmproduktion
She adds that the character of Hedda is more complex than she may appear. “I was really happy to explore that because it felt so rich,” says Pachner. “It’s not this young journalist who is just this good girl who wants to get to the bad guy. She has her own very twisted and dark story. I’m so happy when I get to play a woman where not everyone says, ‘Oh, she’s so nice.’”
In fact, Pachner enjoyed teasing that her character isn’t sure who she is or wants to project to be either, very much like Kersten. “As Hedda, I didn’t know who I was,” she shares. “Is me another? Who is I? Or maybe I just want to be different. And I think she really wants to be. That struggle tells us that maybe she and Kersten are not that different.”
Pachner had never met any of the other cast members, but she felt a natural chemistry with them once shooting got underway. “We all enjoyed doing the scenes with the four of us, the two couples,” she says. “It just flowed. These weird relationships were kind of there, and there was such a rich history behind Hedda’s relationship with her husband. The Kerstens play these weird mind games with the younger people. I enjoyed working with all of them so much. They’re all really, really great actors.”
Wuest was also fascinated by the themes explored by the film, and couldn’t help but notice parallels to our current moment. “I feel that the timing of the film is so spot on for so many reasons,” she says. “First of all, it’s all about the image you create of yourself, and how manipulative that is. It’s like on social media where it’s not only about the ego; it’s about selling something all the time. And the film is about the questions of who do we want to be and how do we want to be perceived from the outside. That has become more important than creating a community, which I think is very toxic. I think it is a dead end.”
Director Felix Randau and stars Claes Bang and Valerie Pachner during the shoot for ‘I Is Another,’ courtesy of Anke Neugebauer/ostlicht/Wega
She adds that the movie also ties in with a troubling political trend that’s been on the rise throughout the world: “The second thing is the rise of all the right-wing radical politicians and ideologies again, which I think go hand-in-hand with this me, me, me culture. The film tells a story about that and perspective. You have at least three, if not four or five, different perspectives. You have the perspective of Felix Kersten. You have the perspective of the journalist who’s trying to get to him. You have the perspective of his wife. You have the perspective of the poor journalist’s husband. And then you have the perspective of the audience who also has a take on it. Plus, then you have the perspective of the person who tells the story, which is the director. So there are a lot of layers.”
Wuest concludes that I Is Another is much more timely than audiences may at first expect: “We live in very strange times, and I think the film covers and mirrors that.”
As mentioned before, the Kerstens of I Is Another look nothing like the real-life couple, and Wuest lauds director Randau for “allowing different ideas to happen.” Such as when they were trying out different looks for Irmgard.
Says Wuest: “I was putting on makeup, and we were discussing what she could look like. I thought her prime was in the 1930s, maybe in the 1940s even. And people tend not to change hairstyles every decade. We keep the hairstyles we grow up with. And because this story is being told by Felix Karsten, we get to see his memory and his idea of everything. So, Felix Karsten and his wife don’t see each other the way they really look, but more like this Hollywood couple. I really love that the film twists these things and ideas.”
The tech giant and the entertainment giant have inked what they are calling a “first-of-its-kind” content sharing deal, which will allow TikTok videos from Disney fans to live on both of their streaming platforms.
The deal bears a striking similarity to last year’s short-lived announcement with OpenAI to fold videos from Sora into Disney+… but without the whole AI-generated angle. Creators who opt-in to the program will gain access to Disney assets (think photos and videos featuring Disney characters and IP). A “thoughtfully curated” selection of videos will live on both TikTok and in Verts on Disney+.
The companies also say that they “will enable best-in-class creators to unlock special rewards and provide them with increased visibility, access to exclusive events and career development pathways,” making it a two-way street of engagement. The partnership will launch in the U.S. in the next couple months, with plans to eventually bring it to other markets.
“The best storytellers are fans first,” said Asad Ayaz, chief marketing and brand officer for Disney. “That has always been true at Disney, and today, fans are celebrating our stories in entirely new ways. This collaboration creates a new bridge between the stories we tell and the creativity they inspire, giving creators a bigger stage to share what they’ve made, and audiences more to discover on Disney+ every day.”
“Creators are at the heart of everything we do at TikTok. Their creativity extends the life of films and shows into conversations that fans discover and share,” added Dawn Yang, global head of entertainment for TikTok. “Together with Disney, we’re bringing the authentic creator expression of the TikTok community to Disney+, inviting audiences to experience the shared creativity that makes fandom so powerful.”
The deal will inevitably turbocharge Disney’s Verts offering, with the company teasing the possibility of creator content there when it launched in March. Vertical video has become a top priority for streamers, recognizing that consumers who watch videos on their phones are just not likely to turn it sideways in most use cases. Peacock, HBO Max, and Netflix have all also rolled out enhanced vertical video offerings in recent months.
But the Disney-TikTok tie-up also recognizes the role that creators are playing in fandom, with fand of characters and IP, be it Marvel Star Wars or Moana, often turning to social video platforms to dissect, discuss and celebrate those characters and worlds.
The Walt Disney Co. reported its fiscal Q3 earnings early Wednesday, with films like Toy Story 5, streaming, and its lucrative experiences division powering its results.
The company missed Wall Street expectations for revenue, but beat them in operating income and earnings per share, with stronger-than-expected theme park performance helping to bolster its bottom line.
The company also teed up some big changes coming to its divisions, teasing a plan to turn Disney+ into “a comprehensive membership ecosystem,” with the first elements of that vision rolling out early next year.
Meanwhile, the company’s lucrative consumer products segment will move from being part of Disney’s experiences division and into its entertainment division: “We believe this shift will have strategic and operational benefits by bringing the monetization of our IP through consumer products closer to the studios that create that IP,” the company writes.
Disney reported revenue of $25.2 billion, up 7 percent from a year ago, with segment operating income of $5.5 billion, up 21 percent from a year ago.
In entertainment, revenues were $11.3 billion with operating income of $1.68 billion. In streaming, SVOD entertainment revenue (Disney+ and Hulu minus ESPN) was $712 million, a sharp increase from a year ago, and a signal that streaming is becoming more reliably profitable.
The company did note that The Mandalorian and Grogu and the live action Moana “underperformed” at the box office, but argued that “these franchise investments contributed to value creation beyond their theatrical releases.” Toy Story, for example, has generated more than $16 billion for Disney as a franchise, it said.
In experiences, revenues were $10 billion, up 10% from a year ago, with operating income of $3 billion, up 20%. That was despite market concerns around theme parks, especially with Universal recently reporting lower than expected results. The company said that international visitors are still down at its park, but they made up for it with domestic attendance and annual passholders.
In sports, the NBA Finals helped power ESPN, with revenues of $4.5 billion, up 4 percent, though operating income fell 17 percent to $858 million due to higher NBA rights costs.
Disney also said that it would use the cash from the $1.2 billion sale of its A+E stake to do stock buybacks, and elaborated a bit on how it expects to use artificial intelligence:
“With AI, it isn’t simply about efficiency. We use it first and foremost to enhance a creative process that will always be human-centered, artist-driven, and creator-led,” the company writes. “We’ve cultivated the world’s richest portfolio of IP and production experience across a century of filmmaking, giving us an advantage that our peers and no new entrant can quickly replicate.”
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In May 2023, Ted Lasso aired its season three finale, titled “So Long, Farewell,” marking what was supposed to be the series’ culmination. Cut to August 2026: The Jason Sudeikis-led comedy-drama is back for its fourth season. The 10-episode season premieres Aug. 5 on Apple TV, with remaining episodes dropping weekly on Wednesdays. Following a seven-day free trial for new subscribers, Apple TV is $12.99 per month. Apple TV is also home to seasons one, two and three.
When and Where to Watch Ted Lasso Season Four Online: Premiere Date, Air Time
While the new season of Ted Lasso technically premieres on Wednesday, Aug. 5, Apple TV has been known to drop shows as early as 6 p.m. PT/ 9 p.m. ET the night prior (Tuesday, Aug. 4, in this case). The remaining nine episodes in season four will drop weekly on Wednesdays, leading up to the Oct. 7 finale.
Apple TV Free Trial, Streaming Deals
Apple TV comes out to $12.99 per month following a seven-day free trial period. This means new subscribers can binge seasons one through three (available on-demand) and catch the latest episode of season four at no cost.
In addition to other hit shows like Severance and The Morning Show, Apple TV is home to live sports coverage including Friday Night Baseball, Major League Soccer and, thanks to a five-year streaming deal that kicked off for its 2026 season, Formula 1.
Police reportedly responded to Perez Hilton‘s home in Miami after the celebrity gossip blogger appeared to be harming himself on a livestream.
In graphic clips reposted on social media, Hilton, appearing manic, could be seen in the livestream covered in blood, using an object to cut himself repeatedly.
The Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office told Newsweek in a statement that deputies responded to Hilton’s home after the office received “multiple calls” about a person livestreaming acts of self-harm. After authorities confirmed Hilton was alone inside the home and spoke with family members at the scene, deputies decided to “tactically disengage while continuing to monitor the situation.”
“In many incidents involving a person experiencing a mental health crisis or actively harming themselves, deputies prioritize de-escalation by creating time, distance, and opportunities for communication,” the statement continued. “Unless there is an immediate threat to others, slowing the situation and utilizing crisis intervention techniques can reduce the likelihood of a suicide-by-cop encounter and minimize the risk of injury to the individual, deputies, and the public.”
Local news station NBC6, which had reporters at the scene, later reported that a man, believed to be Hilton, was seen being taken away in an ambulance.
The Hollywood Reporter has also reached out to the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office for comment on the incident involving Hilton, in addition to his personal rep.
Earlier this year, Hilton shared in a lengthy Instagram video that he was hospitalized for three weeks after initially battling the flu before developing “an ulcer, and then a perforation, and then Sepsis,” he said at the time.
“The Sepsis just kept working and my body kept falling apart,” Hilton explained in the video in March. “Then one night with rapid response came ’cause my heart got out of control. They had to put me on heart medications. And then I developed another infection in the hospital.”
He added, “It was just such a slow process. I mean, two weeks of just sickness and then another week of getting better before I was released. And that last week was hell because I had already been in the hospital two weeks by then. I was like, ‘I just wanna go home. I just want to be with my babies.’” Perez is a single father of three children.
Once he was released from the hospital and sent back home, Hilton said he had time to reflect and came to the realization “that God presented Himself to me” during the challenging experience.
“It was real and this has been life-changing. I’m so grateful,” he added at the time. “I’m excited to start taking the kids to church every week. And to just know that God is real. … I don’t have to hope to believe. I know now.”
At first it just seemed like a happy coincidence — a Hollywood agency mogul supporting a Hollywood corporate merger. Ari Emanuel published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal last Tuesday saying David Ellison buying Warner Bros. was a good idea and that those 12 Democratic AG’s who have sued to stop the deal were on the wrong warpath.
“The attorneys general should drop this case and get back to enforcing the laws as they are written,” the WME chief wrote, as he extolled a Paramount-WB tie-up and said it would be good for the business.
Sure, Ellison had committedlast year to pay Emanuel’s TKO $7.7 billion to broadcast UFC fights, a fact he conveniently neglected to mention. And the timing certainly benefited Ellison — earnings were coming, a time when Wall Street would be paying close attention and could express its worry financially about a deal falling through. But still, just a nice little stocking-stuffer under the mogul’s tree.
Over the past week, however, the support has started to look a lot less like passive presents and a lot more like an active strategy. That strategy? Make it seem like a lot of Democrat-approved personalities have no problem with the merger, isolating Rob Bonta, Tish James and the rest of the dozen AGs suing to block the deal as a bunch of regulatory crazies. Never mind that these are some of the country’s most decorated legal enforcers, with many decades of experience, from places as different as Arizona and Massachusetts.
The maneuvers unfolded like a stunt pilot’s careful course-plotting. A few days after the Emanuel op-ed came an anonymously sourced story Friday in the Journal about how one of the preeminent national Democratic leaders, California governor Gavin Newsom, was behind the deal foursquare, according to “people close to the suit.” “Newsom’s office has encouraged Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, which has independent authority to file such suits, to find a resolution out of court,” the paper said.
Never mind that Newsom has a long history of deferring to giant corporations (remember his 11th-hour pro-Big Tech capitulation on Scott Wiener’s AI bill in 2024?) — this merger was going to create jobs! (“State employment would suffer” without a deal, the paper said Newsom has told colleagues, never mind that no credible economist has supplied such evidence.) Another happy coincidence. Or, given that the paper was pointedly not citing sources close to Newsom, perhaps part of an Ellison-led strategy.
Then today, an op-ed of Ellison’s own in a redoubt of mainstream liberalism, The New York Times. He trotted out all the usual arguments for mergers these days, and against his own naysayers — if we don’t do this the tech companies win, movie theaters should survive, Hollywood should be employed. “What I can promise is the work, and more of it,” he wrote, using the noun four times, which is four times more than he used the noun Donald Trump. (Los Angeles County has determined that determined that the merger will likely lead to less work.)
Meanwhile, Ari has been hitting the hustings, appearing on CNBC Tuesday morning to rattle off a series of Ellison talking points and praising the mogul. “This is a guy who said ‘hey I’m going to make 30 movies a year, 45-day release,” Emanuel said. “He’s gonna spend he says 30 billion in content a year. We need that for the economy of Hollywood.” The comments wouldn’t have been out of place on the Paramount investor earnings-call Tuesday, where executives touted all these numbers and used words like “pro-competitive” to describe the deal. If there’s one thing we know about capitalism, it’s that combining two major companies leads to more competition.
These media hits that aimed to buck the headwinds even involved a literal plane — the day Bonta and the AGs were suing, Ellison jetted to Washington to lobby for a federal tax credit, a news stunt meant as much to lobby support among Hollywood as to win over legislators. One story the move overshadowed that week: ProPublica’s bombshell report that Paramount allegedly provided gifts to FCC commissioners reviewing the deal.
More of these pieces and columns are no doubt coming. More foot soldiers arguing for the value to the business, or the First Amendment. Never mind that the WGA — those fierce opponents of free expression! — have just sued to stop the deal. Doesn’t the world’s richest family have the right to own CNN? Isn’t that enshrined in the Constitution?
It’s a shrewd flyer, and you need to give Ellison’s team credit for landing it so effectively.
You also hardly need an advanced radar beacon to see what’s happening. Having courted MAGA and Donald Trump to get the deal federal approval — how many Kennedy Center boxes and UFC ringside seats can one centibillionaire’s son fill? — Ellison is now pivoting to work on Dems to take care of the state challenge.
Not regulatory-minded Dems, as that group, from Elizabeth Warren to Cory Booker to Adam Schiff, have all been fiercely critical of the deal and asked hard questions about combining the country’s third and fourth biggest pure-play entertainment companies. Not these decorated and often landslide-winning AGs.
But if you get enough people like Newsom and the Kamala-donating Ari on your side, maybe people won’t notice all the Democrats who aren’t. Or enough of their consistuents will lose interest, causing AGs to do the same.
Maybe people will magically forget that no fewer than 1,000 creatives, from Bryan Cranston to J.J. Abrams to Glenn Close to Lin-Manuel Miranda, all signed a letter this spring opposing the deal, noting how a merger “would further consolidate an already concentrated media landscape, reducing competition at a moment when our industries—and the audiences we serve—can least afford it” and lead to “fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences in the United States and around the world.” But an agent told me it was good for creativity?
There’s a reason Paramount needs the deal to happen. Warner Bros. Discovery turned in a profit of $1.2 billion this past quarter once you strip out all the money they have to pay as part of the acquisition. That’s a lot of profit for a company like Paramount, which revealed Tuesday that in the same quarter it netted $41 million.
And there’s a reason Paramount needs the deal to happen soon. Starting Oct. 1, Paramount must pay Warners shareholders $7 million every day until the deal closes. By the second week, they’ll have wiped out all the measly profits they earned this quarter. By the spring, they’ll have wiped out the profits of the company they’re buying. One can’t imagine a lot of joy on Melrose, then, when the word came down Tuesday that the trial won’t start until March.
Also, the deal is partly bankrolled by Larry Ellison and his significant AI investments. And can that boom go on forever?
The reality is the AGs may not just have the law on their side — they have the leverage. And with every week that passes they have more of it. Could they extract a major settlement — possibly even carving out CNN? Don’t rule it out, no matter how many UFC fights Ellison attends with the president.
“Winning comes down to having the best stories,” Paramount CFO Dennis Cinelli told investors on the earnings call Tuesday. Ellison and his allies will keep telling them. That doesn’t mean it will result in victory.
The Walt Disney Co. has sold its 50 percent equity stake in A+E Global Media to Hearst for $1.2 billion in cash, ending the joint venture that was first created in 1984.
The deal will see Hearst take full control of the media company formerly known as A+E Networks, which owns brands like A&E, History and Lifetime, including cable TV channels, content studios, and streaming offerings. A+E has also invested in companies like Vice, Propagate Content, Atlas Obscura and Philo TV.
A+E will become a part of Hearst’s entertainment group upon closing later this year.
“We thank our Disney colleagues for decades of successful partnership,” said Steven R. Swartz, president and CEO of Hearst. “We look forward to supporting Paul Buccieri and A+E Global Media’s leadership team as they continue to make must-see programs and innovate around the great HISTORY, Lifetime and A&E brands.”
Paul Buccieri has led A+E since 2018.
“In a media environment defined by fragmentation, A+E Global Media’s advantage is the strength and versatility of our brands, our strong partnerships and our vast library of owned assets,” added Buccieri, president and chairman of A+E Global Media. “As we continue extending our storytelling globally across all platforms with IP that travels to every screen and form-factor, we believe we are well suited for whatever opportunities may come next. I also want to express my deepest thanks to Hearst, The Walt Disney Company and to our board members — both recent and past — for their guidance and support over the years.”
The company was founded in 1984 (the Arts & Entertainment Network was its original cable brand), with Hearst and ABC each owning a slice alongside other investors. NBC obtained a minority stake in 1993. The company expanded with an acquisition of Lifetime Networks in 2009. Lifetime was also a JV of Disney and Hearst.
Disney and Hearst had been equal partners in A+E since 2012, when they bought out NBCUniversal’s minority stake. The company had begun to explore its options a year ago, hiring Wells Fargo to market it. Since then, of course, Comcast spun out its cable channels into Versant while Warner Bros. Discovery has inked a deal to sell itself to Paramount Skydance.
Paramount reported mixed second-quarter earnings Tuesday as its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery remains in limbo.
Still, CEO David Ellison sought to reassure shareholders in the letter saying, “We continue to prepare for our proposed combination with Warner Bros. Discovery, while staying focused on executing our standalone strategy and delivering strong results.”
The company reported revenues of $6.9 billion, up 1 percent from its predecessor company a year ago, while net earnings fell to $41 million, or four cents per share after $57 million, or eight cents a share, a year ago.
Paramount’s TV media segment, which includes CBS and its cable networks, continued to fall, dropping 9 percent year-over-year to $3.1 billion, while direct-to-consumer revenue rose 9 percent to $2.5 billion. Studio revenue rose 16 percent to $1.3 billion, thanks to content licensing deals and TV production arm as well as the success of Scary Movie.
Revenue at Paramount+ rose 16 percent to $2.1 billion, as the company said Q2 was its best quarter for retention ever on Paramount+ thanks to Dutton Ranch, UFC and the FIFA World Cup. The streaming services added 2 million new subscribers to hit 81.6 million worldwide, up 6 percent year over year.
Paramount is raising its full-year outlook range to $3.8 billion to $3.9 billion in adjusted EBITDA and now expects free cash flow conversion of at least 10 percent. The company added that it had seen “double-digit growth in commitments” across the company after its Upfronts presentation, but did release further specifics.
“We continue to make progress on our transformation at Paramount, and we now expect to deliver over $2.7 billion of run-rate efficiencies by the end of 2026 versus $2.5 billion previously, and continue to expect $3 billion-plus in efficiencies from the Skydance-Paramount combination,” the letter continues.
Paramount won the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery in February with its $111 billion offer, after Netflix declined to raise its offer. But the merger is currently on pause, as Paramount has since been hit with several lawsuits, including from 12 state attorneys general who claim the acquisition will kill competition in the film and television industries. The company has agreed to delay the billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery until June 1, 2027, or until the antitrust lawsuits brought by state attorneys general are resolved. Ellison has told staff he remains “highly confident” in the completion of the merger.
But just after earnings were released Tuesday, the judge overseeing the states’ lawsuit scheduled the trial to start in March, rather than November as the studio had requested. Starting Oct. 1, Paramount will have to pay a ticking fee of roughly $7 million per day to Warners shareholders until the deal closes.
The earnings also come the same day that an op-ed from Ellison appeared in The New York Times, in which the executive argued that his political leanings and proposed takeover of CNN are the root cause of the lawsuits filed by a dozen state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America.
“I believe this fight is not really about market share … I believe a plainer worry sits beneath the briefs and the news releases: the news. The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN. There has been speculation about my politics, my loyalties, my intentions,” Ellison wrote. “Unfortunately, I can’t give anyone a view into my heart and mind, but I can share this: I have regularly voted for candidates of both parties; I hold some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal, just like most Americans; and when it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views. I believe that news should be based on facts and truth.”
