Showbiz News

Taylor Swift will perform at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) just three days after the release of her new album “Lover.” The show will broadcast live from Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Aug. 26 and will be her first televised performance following the album’s release. Swift, who earned 10 VMA nominations for her […]

Veteran casting director David Rubin has been elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Rubin, whose 100-plus film credits include “The English Patient,” “Get Shorty,” and “Men in Black,” is the first casting director to assume the role. He replaces outgoing Academy president John Bailey. Also elected by the board of […]

E!’s flagship news program is getting a new home, in more ways than one. E! News, which has aired at 7 p.m. ET/PT from Los Angeles for most of its life, will transition to a morning show in 2020. It also will switch coasts and originate from NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Center studios in New York. […]

James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems is buying a majority stake in Tribeca Enterprises from The Madison Square Garden Company, Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Craig Hatkoff and other investors, Lupa Sytems, Attention Capital and Tribeca Enterprises, announced on Monday. This partnership will bring together Murdoch, Attention’s CEO and co-founder Joe Marchese and Tribeca Enterprises’ Jane Rosenthal and […]

During ABC’s TCA executive session Monday, the network’s entertainment president Karey Burke was asked to comment on the bombshell claims by former The Rookie co-star Afton Williamson, who said she walked away from the show after being sexually harassed and racially discriminated against. The leading studio behind the series, Entertainment One, which co-produces with ABC Studios, said Sunday afternoon that it has “initiated an […]

D.A. Pennebaker, the documentary filmmaker who helped pioneer cinema verité in films like the 1967 Bob Dylan film “Don’t Look Back” and 1993’s “The War Room,” died Thursday at his home at age 94, Pennebaker’s son and executive producer and distributor for nearly all Pennebaker Hegedus films, Frazer Pennebaker, told TheWrap. The celebrated cinematographer and […]

Howard Lapides, a producer and talent manager who repped and worked with such clients as Dr. Drew Pinsky, Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla and Carson Daly, died Thursday at his home in Encino, Calif., after a battle with colon cancer, a publicist announced. He was 68. As CEO of Lapides Entertainment, he also represented Tom Green, […]

The CW’s executive vice president of communications, Paul Hewitt, took a moment to pause and reflect on the mass shooting that took place early Sunday morning in Dayton, Ohio, before beginning the network’s day of panels at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour Sunday. “Welcome everyone, thank you for joining us. You know, I’m […]

“The 100” is the latest long-running CW series to reach the end of its run. Series creator Jason Rothenberg announced Sunday that the show’s previously announced seventh season will be its last. “With #The100 Season 6 finale just days away, I have some bittersweet news to share: Season 7 will be our last,” Rothernberg tweeted. “We […]

Universal’s Hobbs & Shaw sped to the top of the North American box office chart with $60.8 million from 4,253 theaters, while opening to a far more muscular $120 million overseas for a worldwide launch of $180.8 million. The Fast & Furious spinoff, teaming Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, came in on the modest end of expectations domestically. While […]

Under a barrage of criticism at the Television Critics Assn. press tour on Thursday, CBSEntertainment executives defended the network’s decision to keep “Bull” on the airdespite the harassment allegations against star Michael Weatherly, and addressed concerns about racial insensitivity on the set of “Big Brother.” CBS network head Kelly Kahl told the reporters and critics in the audience that Weatherly […]

Woodstock 50 is officially off, multiple sources tell Variety. Vendors and stakeholders were notified this morning, July 31, that the beleaguered festival was not going on. The festival was originally scheduled for Aug. 16 through 18. Yesterday it was reported that headliner Miley Cyrus had pulled out of the festival, joining the Raconteurs, the Lumineers and original Woodstock […]

Entertainment industry public relations and brand marketing powerhouse agencies Rogers & Cowan and PMK*BNC have announced they will operate as one entity. They are pooling a collective client roster that exceeds 30 corporate brands and 500 individual clients that include Denzel Washington, Brie Larson, Robert Redford, Felicity Jones, Elton John, Sly Stallone, Steph Curry, Robert […]

Al Franken worked with former “Saturday Night Live” colleague Chris Rock to help punch up a new script that Rock wrote, the former senator told TheWrap on Monday. Franken, the subject of a recent New Yorker profile that cast doubt on the sexual harassment accusations that led to his resignation from the U.S. Senate in December 2017, […]

Netflix continues to invest in food programming. Next up for the streamer is a second series from Ugly Delicious star David Chang and more episodes of Jon Favreau and Roy Choi’s The Chef Show — both of which are expected to drop globally for subscribers in the fall. Chang’s new entry is called Breakfast, Lunch & Dinnerand will feature Chang […]

John Ferriter, the former powerhouse William Morris Agency EVP/Worldwide Head of Non-Scripted TV and the only WMA board member to vote against the merger with Endeavor, died Thursday, according to sources. He was 59. A former close associate of his shared the news with some of Ferriter’s former colleagues today. We are still trying to confirm cause […]

Rutger Hauer, the versatile Dutch leading man of the ’70s who went on star in the 1982 “Blade Runner” as Roy Batty, died July 19 at his home in the Netherlands after a short illness. He was 75. Hauer’s agent, Steve Kenis, confirmed the news and said that Hauer’s funeral was held Wednesday. His most […]

Lifetime is following up its hit docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly” with a similar show called “Surviving Jeffrey Epstein.” The project will center on convicted pedophile Epstein, 66, who is currently locked up without bail pending trial on child sex-trafficking charges, network execs announced Tuesday at the summer Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. The […]

Jon Stewart is speaking out against Sen. Rand Paul’s opposition to fast-tracking the bill funding a 9/11 victims’ compensation fund, calling the Republican lawmaker’s decision “outrageous.” “It’s absolutely outrageous, and you’ll pardon me if I’m not impressed in any way by Rand Paul’s fiscal responsibility virtue-signaling,” the former Daily Show host told Bret Baier during an appearance […]

A criminal case of alleged sexual assault against actor Kevin Spacey was dropped Wednesday, according to the Nantucket District Court Clerk’s Office in Massachusetts. The reason given was “the unavailability of the complaining witness.” Mitchell Garabedian, the attorney for the man accusing Spacey, said in a statement, “My client and his family have shown an […]

Authorities believe they have found the remains of missing Hollywood actor Charles Levin in a remote area of southern Oregon, according to local officials. Levin was reported missing from Grants Pass by his son on July 8, said local news station KTVL. The son, who lives in L.A., hadn’t heard from Levin in several days. […]

You don’t need an actual television to watch the best-of-TV 2019 unveiled. On Tuesday, the nominees for the 71st Emmy Awards will be named from the Wolf Theatre at the Television Academy’s Saban Media Center, and you can follow along via a livestream. The official Emmys website will stream the announcements, which will be emceed by actors […]

On July 15 at 6:30 p.m., Norah O’Donnell becomes the next anchor of the brand-defining CBS Evening News. It’s still a heady perch — one once occupied by Walter Cronkite during seminal moments in history (the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Vietnam). But it’s also one with many challenges in the always-on Trump-tweet fueled news cycle. […]

Longtime HBO communications head Quentin Schaffer is stepping down from his post next month after 39 years as a key architect of HBO’s premium TV brand. Schaffer will exit as HBO’s executive VP of corporate communications next month, after steering HBO through one last Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills. He is the latest in a string of […]