Steve Pond's Blog

October 2, 2025

Taylor Swift Compares New Album to a ‘Self Portrait’: ‘Just Feels So Right’

Taylor Swift took a moment to celebrate the release of her 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” by penning a lengthy tribute on social media.

The Grammy winner took to Instagram and X as her new album dropped on streamers just after midnight (Eastern Time) on Friday. Not only did she upload a series of Las Vegas-themed photos tied to the album, but she also reflected on what it took to get to release day.

Swift kicked things off by writing a few verses: “Tonight all these lives converge here | The mosaics of laughter and cocktails of tears | Where fraternal souls sing identical things | And it’s beautiful | It’s rapturous | It is frightening.”

As she continued, the pop star made it clear she was very excited to share the album with her devoted fans.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am to share this with you, an album that just feels so right,” she further wrote. “A forever thank you goes out to my mentors and friends Max [Martin] and Shellback for helping me paint this self portrait.”

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A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)


Before signing off her statement, Swift told her fans that if they “thought the big show was wild, perhaps you should come and take a look behind the curtain.”

Swift announced her new album back in August, when she appeared on fiancé Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast and confirmed the LP’s title.

At the time, Swift promised “bangers” would be on the album. She also said she intended to create “melodies that were so infectious that you’re almost angry at it, and lyrics that are just as vivid, but crisp and focused and completely intentional.”

The post Taylor Swift Compares New Album to a ‘Self Portrait’: ‘Just Feels So Right’ appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on October 02, 2025 22:23

Jon Stewart Surprises Jimmy Kimmel, Playfully Dubs Him ‘Mr. Free Speech’ | Video

Jimmy Kimmel had a familiar face join him during Thursday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” as Jon Stewart popped up about halfway through the monologue.

Kimmel, who is currently filming his late night show in New York as part of his “Brooklyn Week,” was wrapping up his latest criticism of the Trump administration when he was interrupted by a GrubHub delivery for sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez.

Before long, it was revealed that the delivery person — who was covering their face with a face mask — was actually Stewart.

“In case you haven’t heard the news, late night talk show hosts, the job security is not really there right now,” Stewart joked. “So, I have to balance some things along. And, to be quite frank, I lost a s–t ton of money on the Mets.”

After lamenting over the Mets’ failure to make it to the playoffs this year, Stewart requested to stay for Bruce Springsteen’s slated appearance — with Kimmel agreeing before shooing him offstage.

This prompted Stewart to playfully roast Kimmel, as he noted, “I’m sorry, Mr. Free Speech. I forgot free speech is only for Mr. Free Speech.”

Stewart was clearly ribbing Kimmel, however, as he quietly whispered, “I love you,” before giving his late night peer a hug.

Hollywood has rallied around Kimmel in recent weeks after the latter was briefly suspended after sparking controversy with comments about Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer. The suspension came about after condemnation from the Trump administration, including FCC Chair Brendan Carr, with many accusing the President and his men of attacking the First Amendment.

Kimmel returned to the air on Sept. 23 after a multi-day suspension, but wasn’t restored on Nexstar and Sinclair stations until the end of last week.

“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.

The post Jon Stewart Surprises Jimmy Kimmel, Playfully Dubs Him ‘Mr. Free Speech’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on October 02, 2025 21:34

Sarah Jessica Parker Teases Possible Return of Carrie Bradshaw: ‘I Could Just Be On Hiatus’ | Video

“And Just Like That …” may’ve ended back in August, but that doesn’t mean Sarah Jessica Parker is done with playing Carrie Bradshaw.

The actress appeared on “CBS Mornings” to promote her latest SJP Lit pick — it’s “I Am You” by author Victoria Redel, for those wondering — and teased what’s to come for the beloved “Sex and the City” character after wrapping up the HBO Max spin-off series.

Per Parker, ending “And Just Like That …” after three seasons wasn’t a decision that was made lightly — and that she spoke with showrunner Michael Patrick King amid the series’ unexpected conclusion.

“I think it’s out of respect for this really singular professional experience that you have to consider what you want to do,” she explained on the morning show, “have you done it, and sometimes it’s best to gracefully walk away when things feel really right and energetic, versus squeezing and exploiting people’s generosity and hospitality.”

Yet, as Parker hinted to those tuning in, she wasn’t entirely ready to say goodbye for good to the shoe-loving, Cosmopolitan drinking Carrie Bradshaw.

She added, “I’m not certain I understand what that decision means, because I could just be on hiatus.”

Word of the show’s planned end broke at the start of August, when it was revealed that the third season would be the last for “And Just Like That …” — and that the season would be expanded from 10 episodes to 12 to give the show a proper send off.

In response to the news, Parker penned a lengthy tribute to her character, who she said “dominated my professional heartbeat for 27 years.”

“I think I have loved her most of all.  I know others have loved her just as I have. Been frustrated, condemned and rooted for her,” she continued. “The symphony of all those emotions has been the greatest soundtrack and most consequential companion. Therefore the most sentimental and profound gratitude and lifetime of debt.”

All of “And Just Like That …” is available to stream on HBO Max.

The post Sarah Jessica Parker Teases Possible Return of Carrie Bradshaw: ‘I Could Just Be On Hiatus’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on October 02, 2025 20:41

Golden Globe Awards Reveal the 25 Podcasts Eligible for Inaugural Award

The Golden Globe Awards have shed light on the podcasts eligible for their inaugural Best Podcast award, set to be given out at the 83rd annual ceremony this January.

The awards show, which is presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, dropped the list of eligible podcasts on Thursday evening. Among the titles listed were “Call Her Daddy,” “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard,” “Pod Save America” and “The Megyn Kelly Show,” as well as 21 other popular podcasts.

Per the announcement, eligibility was determined by Luminate, which the Golden Globes described as “the entertainment industry’s leading authority on audio analytics and insights.”

The addition of the Best Podcast category was announced back in May, as a way to recognize the growing medium’s popularity. Out of the 25 eligible podcasts selected, only six will be named as nominees for the 2026 show.

You’ll find the full list of selected titles below:

20/20 (from ABC News)
48 Hours (from CBS News)
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Call Her Daddy
Candace
Crime Junkie
Dateline NBC
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Morbid
MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
Pardon My Take
Pod Save America
Rotten Mango
Shawn Ryan Show
SmartLess
Stuff You Should Know
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Daily (from The New York Times)
The Joe Rogan Experience
The Megyn Kelly Show
The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Tucker Carlson Show
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
Up First from NPR

The 83rd Annual Golden Globes — which will once again be hosted by comedian Nikki Glaser — will air on January 11, 2026 on CBS.

The post Golden Globe Awards Reveal the 25 Podcasts Eligible for Inaugural Award appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on October 02, 2025 19:43

Amanda Knox Talks Finally Writing Her Own Story With ‘The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox’ and That Finale Confrontation

For Amanda Knox’s entire adult life, her story has been authored by other people, whether that be tabloid magazines — who labeled her “Foxy Knoxy” at the time of her wrongful arrest for the murder of Meredith Kercher — or by true crime podcasts or other media retellings leading up to and following her 2015 acquittal.

To some extent, Knox has found the desire to latch on to her story valid, admitting that “it says something bigger about justice and media and human frailties,” and doesn’t begrudge other people for finding a “philosophical or emotional truth” from her lived experience. That said, it was time for Knox to do the same with her story in “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.”

“Like many artists, we take what we have lived or what we’ve experienced and we turn it into art for the same reason that any of these other storytellers are doing it with my own story — something about what happened to me, what happened to Meredith … resonates with people, and then they try to make meaning out of it,” Knox told TheWrap. “And I’m doing the exact same thing, it just happens to be much more intimately personal to me.”

Knox added that her lived experience enabled her to find new insight into the story that doesn’t just come from a “supposedly objective outside view” that most retellings claim to embody.

“You can actually be in the story,” she continued, “really embedded in the story, and have a global view of it. It is very possible.”

It’s Knox’s involvement in the Hulu limited series that paved the way for the finale, which Knox wrote alongside showrunner K.J. Steinberg. The episode tackled Knox’s covert meeting with her prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, years after her acquittal — and Knox noted this very scene is the reason the show exists.

“It didn’t really feel like my story to tell until I made that choice to go back to Italy, until I started making decisions that only I could make, and that were informed by my personal experience of this journey that I had been on,” Knox said, adding that she needed to go to Italy to confront the life she could’ve had, the life Kercher could’ve had.

Even with Knox attached as an executive producer, she wasn’t initially slated to write the finale, but as Steinberg conceived the final episode — which she imagined as a one-act play between Grace Van Patten’s Amanda and Francesco Acquaroli’s Mignini — it only seemed right for Knox to be involved in the interaction’s televised telling.

“In the past, in other relationships and with journalists, she had been told, ‘trust me, this will be good for you,’ and been let down,” Steinberg told TheWrap. “I wanted to make a gesture to her, to say, ‘your voice is celebrated here and it is needed here.'”

The conversation between Knox and Mignini, which took place 15 years after she was first arrested for Kercher’s murder and in the wake of correspondence between them, saw the prosecutor not back down from placing her at the scene of the crime, but, instead, offer a subtle acknowledgement of her innocence.

In the scene, Knox chose to accept the breadcrumb, as she acknowledged the internal conflict that Mignini had been reckoning with.

“Maybe … she was looking for some absolution that he could deliver,” Steinberg said. “If he were to say, ‘you are innocent, I was wrong. I’m sorry,’ and shout it to the world from a mountaintop, of course, it would have changed her life. But ultimately, what ended up happening, I think, is that she got the absolution he was looking for — maybe not consciously looking for — from her, and she was able to provide a certain portion of redemption.”

Amanda-KnoxAlfredo Pea, Francesco Acquaroli and Grace Van Patten in “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” (Disney/Adrienn Szabó)

Knox noted that the final episode gave him credit for showing up and standing his ground, while also sharing deeply personal things that were illuminating for both parties involved. In essence, the episode gave Mignini the benefit of the doubt Knox was never granted.

“Because I did not receive that benefit of the doubt, and I was dehumanized, I did not want to reciprocate in that same way. I wanted to break the chain and do justice to the human frailty of it all,” Knox said. “Nobody is this static thing that we just judge — everyone is an evolution. Everyone is a process. We are always learning from each other and and by coming into conflict and being challenged by each other, we turn the mirror around on ourselves.”

Following the conversation with Mignini, Knox hoped to honor her other relationships in the finale, including with her mother, Raffaele Sollecito, and last but not least, Kercher, whose name Steinberg noted has often been yolked with Knox’s.

“The media seems to want to amplify Amanda’s name over anybody else’s, and I thought it was only right to return to honoring the life and the potential of the life,” Steinberg said. “The montage really is a reflection of her joy and her youth and her promise, and in considering the life of Amanda, and Amanda’s case, it can’t be without honoring Meredith.”

All episodes of “The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox” are now streaming on Hulu.

The post Amanda Knox Talks Finally Writing Her Own Story With ‘The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox’ and That Finale Confrontation appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on October 02, 2025 19:02

Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui Tearfully Expands on Biting One Word Response to ‘DWTS’ Elimination

Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui was sent home from “Dancing With the Stars” in a shocking elimination Tuesday night and has since expanded on her quippy one word response.

“Well, I’m feeling really disappointed,” Jauregui said choking back tears on Thursday’s episode of the “Dancing With the Stars Podcast,” recorded moments after her elimination. “I’m a crybaby, I’m sorry.”

Jauregui and her partner, Brandon Armstrong, were in the bottom three with Andy Richter and Elaine Hendrix when Julianne Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro revealed that the pop singer would be leaving the competition. The whole ballroom gasped in response, at the time.

When asked how she was feeling post-elimination, Jauregui responded with one word: “Pissed.”

The singer was eliminated after dancing to her own song, “Work From Home,” with her bandmates in the audience, including former “Dancing With the Stars” finalist Normani.

“I’m feeling a little sad. Upset,” the 29-year-old, still dressed in her yellow fringed dance outfit, told Graziadei. “I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed. Having to do this right after getting eliminated is funny. Like mid-mental breakdown. But here I am, hey guys! Thanks for not f–king voting.”

The “Sledgehammer” singer was near the top of the leaderboard the first two weeks of the competition but tied with Richter and his partner in last place on TikTok night. To make matters worse, Jauregui revealed that her phone broke on the day of the live show, so she couldn’t even tell her fanbase to vote for her to stay in the competition.

The couple competed with a cha cha, her first latin style in the competition. She said that she felt confident ahead of her performance, but she acknowledged that the final routine was not her “absolute best.”

Her partner Armstrong admitted that Jauregui being sent home was “by far the most painful elimination” he’s experienced in his time on the show. “It’s brutal,” he added.

Lauren Jauregui and Brandon Armstrong embrace after they were sent home on “Dancing With the Stars” (Disney/Eric McCandless)

“This was such a beautiful opportunity for me to really show what I can do as a dancer, because most people know me, obviously, as a singer,” she explained. “When you sing and dance at the same time, you have to be really mindful of breath control. That mic is on, baby. I don’t want to miss a note, so I won’t go as hard on a move, to reserve my energy.”

“But this show gave me the opportunity to give my 110 percent as a dancer, which I’ve never really gotten to do in front of the world before,” the “That’s My Girl” performer added. “It was a really beautiful, special opportunity. I’m sad I’m not going to be able to do it anymore.”

Graziadei hosts the weekly “Dancing With the Stars Official Podcast” that features interviews with eliminated contestants and people from the dancing reality show family.

The post Fifth Harmony’s Lauren Jauregui Tearfully Expands on Biting One Word Response to ‘DWTS’ Elimination appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on October 02, 2025 18:20

Jafar Panahi Misses ‘It Was Just an Accident’ NYFF Screening Due to Visa Delays Amid US Government Shutdown

Jafar Panahi, director of the highly acclaimed Iranian film “It Was Just an Accident,” was prevented from entering the U.S. when his visa could not be processed in time for the New York Film Festival. Amid a government shutdown, Panahi was forced to miss both an Oct. 2 screening of his film at the NYC festival and an Oct. 3 conversation with Martin Scorsese.

Panahi’s visa troubles came a day after the U.S. government shut down when Congress failed to pass a federal budget for the 2026 fiscal year. New York Film Festival told ticket holders Thursday that Panahi would not be in attendance for the New York premiere or conversation.

Panahi made headlines with “It Was Just an Accident” soon after its premiere at Cannes Film Festival, winning both the Palme d’Or and the Prix de la Citoyenneté Citizenship Prize. The film quickly became one of the most acclaimed releases of 2025, becoming the French selection for Best International Feature at the 2026 Academy Awards.

The making of “It Was Just an Accident” came at great personal risk for Panahi, who filmed the feature in secret in his home country of Iran. Filming without a permit, the movie features a number of a number of actresses not wearing a hijab — thus going against Iran’s hijab law. Panahi has faced several years in prison for his filmmaking in the past.

It’s a story not dissimilar to Mohammad Rasoulof, another Iranian writer/director who filmed 2024’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in secret. One part political commentary, one part family drama and one part horror movie, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” caused Rasoulof to flee to Germany in secret with members of his cast and crew to avoid imprisonment. Germany selected the film as their representative for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards, with the movie eventually becoming one of 2025’s five nominees.

Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani, who directed the animated short film “In the Shadow of the Cypress,” had their own visa issues at the 2025 Academy Awards. The directors/spouses were nearly unable to attend the Oscars due to difficulties in obtaining their visas. The couple cited financial difficulties and sanctions that they faced in the six-year process of completing their self-financed film, saying that travel only became more difficult under Donald Trump’s second term in office. The pair arrived in Los Angeles only hours before the Academy Awards — where they won Best Animated Short Film.

“It Was Just an Accident” will be released in the United States by Neon on Oct. 15.

The post Jafar Panahi Misses ‘It Was Just an Accident’ NYFF Screening Due to Visa Delays Amid US Government Shutdown appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on October 02, 2025 17:59

Joy Reid Slams JD Vance for ‘Wasting Our Time and Tax Money’ Trolling Her Amid Government Shutdown

Former MSNBC anchor Joy Reid is confused why Vice President JD Vance would waste his time trolling her on Twitter instead of handling the slew of other issues plaguing the Trump administration — not the least of which being the current government shutdown.

Vance tweeted Thursday about a video of Reid in which she speaks about her family’s experience with racism in the U.S., arguing that the former MSNBC anchor should be grateful for her life here.

“My honest, non-trolling advice to Joy Reid is that you’d be a much happier person if you showed a little gratitude,” he wrote on X of the video.

Reid responded to his tweet just hours later, writing in a lengthy Substack post that she was shocked the vice president cared enough to respond directly to her comments.

“I have to admit, I am surprised that the vice president of the United States has so much time on his hands that he’s scrolling old interviews of mine,” Reid wrote, also adding: “Tweet less and govern more, James David; you are wasting our time and tax money.”

“We are, after all, just one day into a Republican government shutdown, Trump’s disastrous tariffs are wreaking hell on our economy, likely prompting yet another Trump bailout of the farmers who largely voted for him and those tariffs too,” she continued. “Unemployment is on the rise, prompted by Trump’s frenetic dogeing of any government agency, state or city he doesn’t like or that doesn’t sufficiently like him. Our health agencies are in the shaky hands of a former heroin addict/vaccine truther and a TV doctor from Oprah’s former show. And the former weekend TV host in charge of our military just forced our entire military leadership to watch him do a creepy, manosphere TED Talk.

“With all of that going on, the vice president of the United States is spending his time trolling me on Twitter??? And not even for the first time???” she said. “For this, we’re paying this guy $235,000 a year???”

Last week, the vice president responded to a clip of Reid on a panel, saying Vance likely benefitted from affirmative action when he got into Yale.

“Maybe the way JD Vance got into Yale is because they were tired of just letting in white men from New York from Choate, from all the elite schools. They wanted an Appalachian white. That’s how that man got into Yale, I promise you,” Reid said on Don Lemon’s show Sept. 24. “That’s also affirmative action and DEI.”

Vance replied with a meme of himself bald with a bloated face.


https://t.co/agmI0CLpQs pic.twitter.com/NuCp7NfiqS

— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 24, 2025

Reid responded directly to Vance’s claims that she should show some gratitude on Thursday, stating that “men like JD who believe themselves to be our betters will either assume that you stole your success from a more deserving white person or they’ll demand that you show them some ‘gratitude.'”

In her Substack kiss-off, the best-selling author thanked civil rights activists, interned Japanese Americans and her mother, to whom she credits her success.

“I’m grateful to the abolitionists and civil rights heroes who showed us the meaning of resistance,” she wrote. “And most of all, JD, I’m grateful to my mom, Philomena Augustina Carryl Lomena, who came to this country all by herself and built a life. Who sacrificed her own health to keep a roof over her children’s heads, and who fought with the headwinds of anti-Blackness in her face to be somebody of account in this country.

“I’m grateful that she died knowing her baby was gonna earn a Harvard degree. And I’m especially grateful that she made her way in this country so foreign to her, despite people like you,” she concluded.

Read Reid’s full response to the vice president on her Substack here.

The post Joy Reid Slams JD Vance for ‘Wasting Our Time and Tax Money’ Trolling Her Amid Government Shutdown appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on October 02, 2025 16:55

Disney, Warner Bros. Execs Talk Facing Box Office Competition in Asia: ‘Trust Your Local Teams’

Jeff Goldstein’s first year as global distribution chief at Warner Bros. has been a whirlwind with $4 billion in worldwide grosses and counting. But amidst the successes, the domestic distribution veteran said he has learned plenty of new lessons about releasing Hollywood films overseas, particularly as surprise blockbusters like “Ne Zha 2” makes $2 billion just in China and “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” hits No. 1 at the box office.

“Trust your local teams,” Goldstein said at TheWrap’s annual business conference TheGrill on Tuesday. “They tell you what’s happening locally, they inform you, and sometimes you ask questions because you have fresh eyes and they’ll come back and say, ‘You know, I really haven’t thought about that, or maybe this will happen.’ World audiences aren’t monolithic. They’re really very different.”

It’s been good advice, as all of Hollywood’s studios face a changed theatrical landscape where many countries, especially in Asia, have leaned increasingly more on local films as American film output has dropped amidst the pandemic and the 2023 strikes.

Jeff Goldstein, President of Global Distribution, Warner Bros. PicturesJeff Goldstein, President of Global Distribution at Warner Bros. Pictures, speaks onstage at TheGrill 2025 during the Big Screen, Big Questions: What’s Next for Theaters? panel. (Randy Shropshire for TheWrap)

That changing landscape was a major topic of discussion at TheGrill’s box office panel — titled Big Screen, Big Questions: What’s Next for Theaters? — which Goldstein was a part of alongside his former Warner Bros. colleague and current Disney global distribution chief Andrew Cripps, as well as Regal/Cineworld CEO Eduardo Acuna.

“Eighty percent of Japan’s box office is local now; 90% of China’s box office is local,” Cripps said. “As Hollywood, we’re struggling to break through. We’ve got to make sure that we weave and dive and make sure you don’t come up against a local hit.”

Born and raised in Yokohama, Cripps is quite familiar with the Japanese box office, and he knows that it can be full of surprises. While anime films fill the all-time charts in that country, he points to the $104 million gross of “Kokuho,” a drama about the son of a slain Yakuza leader who is adopted by a kabuki master and taught the ways of Japanese theater.

“If you read the synopsis, you’d think that’s a small arthouse drama. But people are flocking to see it,” said Cripps. “The local teams pick up on that.”

With their work at Disney and Warner, Cripps and Goldstein are quite familiar with how Asia’s tastes in Hollywood’s offerings are changing. They each oversaw the release of summer superhero films, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and “Superman,” which sagged on that continent compared to past Marvel and DC films.

In South Korea, for example, the total for “Superman” was 59% down from the 2013 film “Man of Steel,” while the $4.6 million total for “First Steps” was down a staggering 78% from the $21 million grossed by the 2015 Marvel film “Ant-Man.”

But on the flip side, Warner Bros./Apple’s “F1” grossed an impressive $38.7 million in Korea, topping the $30 million the film grossed in one of Formula One’s biggest bastions of fandom, the United Kingdom. Disney is also expecting massive turnout in Asia for its two holiday offerings, “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

“The great thing about local teams is that when they see that something’s working, they quickly pivot and lean into it,” Goldstein said. “We’re so proud of ‘F1.’ We knew it would do very well outside of the U.S., but it was a surprise how much the audience in Korea embraced it. Once the word of mouth got out, the whole audience wanted to see it.”

Andrew Cripps, Head of Theatrical Distribution at The Walt Disney Company, and Eduardo Acuna, CEO at Regal Cineworld, speak at TheGrill 2025. (Randy Shropshire for TheWrap)

“Korea’s market, it’s a little bit unique. I think audiences there wait to see what the reviews are going to be like,” added Cripps. “I think they wait to see what their fellow audience members are going to think, and then if it’s big, there’s a lot of FOMO and it becomes a collective experience, and you need to be part of that conversation. But it takes them a while to get there.”

On the exhibition side, Acuna agreed that while audience tastes are changing, his faith in the public’s enjoyment of moviegoing has never faded. While the summer 2025 box office remained flat in the U.S. compared to last year, he pointed to the surprise success of “Sinners,” as well as the anime record success of “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle,” as examples of films that become hits off of untapped parts of the audience.

“Five years ago, anime wasn’t on anybody’s radar. Now, look at how big it has become. Maybe we need to do more anime,” Acuna said. “There are some theaters we have where Hollywood films don’t do as well, but they succeed with other films, like one in New Jersey that makes or breaks on whether or not there’s an Indian film to screen.”

Catch up with all of TheWrap’s TheGrill 2025 coverage here. And watch the full Big Screen, Big Questions: What’s Next for Theaters? panel below:

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Published on October 02, 2025 16:27

Taylor Swift’s Use of ‘Father Figure’ on New Album ‘Delighted’ George Michael’s Estate: ‘No Hesitation’

Taylor Swift received a big thank you from the George Michael Estate hours before the release of her highly anticipated 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”

The fourth track on the new LP is titled, “Father Figure,” which just so happens to be the same as Michael’s chart-topping song off his 1987 album, “Faith.” And it’s no coincidence, either, as Swift has credited Michael as a songwriter on the new song — something the estate couldn’t be happier about.

Ahead of the release of “The Life of a Showgirl,” the George Michael Estate issued their praise for Swift on Facebook and thanked her for “including George in such a special moment.”

“We were delighted when Taylor Swift and her team approached us earlier this year about incorporating an interpolation of George Michael’s classic song ‘Father Figure’ into a brand new song of the same title to be featured on her forthcoming album,” the estate further shared online. “When we heard the track we had no hesitation in agreeing to this association between two great artists and we know George would have felt the same.”

If it wasn’t already clear, the estate emphasized that George Michael Entertainment wished Swift “every success” with this new venture.

Michael passed away on Christmas Day in 2016 at the age of 53. It was later revealed the English singer-songwriter died from natural causes brought on by heart and liver issues.

Swift announced her new album back in August, when she released a first look at the cover and confirmed the name of TS 12 while appearing on her now-fiancé Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast.

She confirmed this new project had her collaborating with music producers Max Martin and Shellback again, who notably produced her critically-acclaimed fifth studio album, “1989.”

“It meant the world to me to have this creative experience where we knew we had to bring the best ideas we’ve ever had,” she said at the time. “I also know the pressure I’m putting on this record by saying that, but I don’t care because I love it that much.”

“The Life of a Showgirl” will be available to stream at Oct. 3 at midnight ET

The post Taylor Swift’s Use of ‘Father Figure’ on New Album ‘Delighted’ George Michael’s Estate: ‘No Hesitation’ appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on October 02, 2025 16:17

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