Steve Pond's Blog, page 201

March 31, 2025

‘A Big Bold Beautiful Journey’: Margot Robbie’s Post-‘Barbie’ Film Soars at CinemaCon

Two years after turning “Barbie” into a cultural phenomenon, Margot Robbie is coming back to the big screen in “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” an upcoming fantasy romance from “After Yang” director Kogonada which got its first trailer during Sony’s CinemaCon presentation.

In the trailer, we see Robbie’s co-star, Colin Farrell, play a man who gets a surprise question from his GPS system: “Would you like to go on a big bold, beautiful journey?”

He says yes and is directed by the GPS to meet a woman whom he met at a wedding earlier, played by Robbie. Together, the two drive to a forest where they see a mysterious door.

When they step through the door, they are transported into the man’s high school memories, setting them on a journey through both of their most cherished and most painful life moments and which brings them together in a way they could have never imagined.

Lily Rabe, Jodie Turner-Smith and Phoebe Waller-Bridge also star in the film, and Joe Hisashi, the longtime composer of Hayao Miyazaki’s films, will provide the score.

“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” hits theaters on September 19.

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Published on March 31, 2025 20:26

‘The Beatles’: All Four Biopics Will Be Released April 2028

In an ambitious move, Sony Pictures will release all four of its upcoming biopics on “The Beatles” one after another in April 2028.

Each film will be shown from the perspective of one of the members of the Fab Four, and director Sam Mendes revealed which of the previously announced four actors will play which Beatle.

The first film that will be released will be told from the perspective of Paul McCartney, who will be played by “Gladiator II” and “Aftersun” star Paul Mescal.

Next will be the George Harrison biopic, starring Joseph Quinn. Ringo’s biopic will be third and will star Barry Keoghan as the famous drummer, and John Lennon will complete the quartet with Harris Dickinson playing the group’s co-frontman.

It’s common practice for studios to stake out prime release dates for their biggest films weeks in advance, but this is the first time a studio has staked out an entire month on the release calendar. Sony film chairman Tom Rothman told theater owners that he hopes that by releasing the “Beatles” biopics in rapid succession, it will create a can’t-miss cinematic event that will roll over for weeks on end.

“We are going to dominate the culture that month”: Rothman promised.

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Published on March 31, 2025 20:19

‘Spider-Man 4’ Gets Its Title at Sony’s CinemaCon Showcase

Sony Pictures closed out their CinemaCon showcase by revealing the title of Tom Holland’s next “Spider-Man” movie: “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”

Director Destin Daniel Cretton revealed the title by telling a story about how his one-year-old son’s first word was “Spider-Man,” something that happened when the infant pointed at a cover of the comic “Spider-Man: Most Wanted.” He then presented a video reel from Tom Holland, who announced the title but promised he was “well past the hump of spoilers.”

The film will be released in between the two upcoming “Avengers” films: “Doomsday” and “Secret Wars,” and will show Holland’s Peter Parker dealing with a brand new start after the events of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” in which all memory of him and his secret identity was erased from the universe.

Holland’s film will also come after the actor signed a new producing deal with Sony. As part of the deal, his production company, Billy17, will develop several new films for Sony, including an under-wraps original title called “Burnt” starring Holland and written by “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” writer-director Rodney Rothman.

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” will be released July 31, 2026.

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Published on March 31, 2025 20:07

’28 Years Later’: Danny Boyle and Nia DaCosta Show Off a Deranged Ralph Fiennes at CinemaCon

Filmmaker Danny Boyle took to the CinemaCon stage in Las Vegas to show off the new trailer to “28 Years Later,” the surprise sequel to his landmark 2002 zombie film “28 Days Later” that helped catapult his career as well as those of writer Alex Garland and star Cillian Murphy.

In the new trailer, which opens with a Rage virus-fueled jump scare, we see an isolated island community doing their best to survive while surrounded by countless necrotized humans infected by the rage virus.

We also get a glimpse of Ralph Fiennes in the middle of the wilderness, warning that “there are many kinds of death, and some are better than others.”

While details on “The Bone Temple” were kept under wraps, Nia DaCosta did show off a picture from the film of Fiennes looking even more deranged, surrounding by fire and brandishing weapons while wearing black paint over his eyes.

Imagine the War Boys from “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and you’ll get an idea of how twisted the “Conclave” star will look in this upcoming film.

“28 Years Later” landed at Sony after Boyle and Garland developed the projects independently and shopped for a distributor. A bidding war ignited, and the next film has already been shot by director Nia DaCosta.

Boyle implored theater owners to help make both films a hit so his planned trilogy capper could be greenlit by Sony.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer also star in the sequel.

Per the official synopsis, “28 Years Later” concerns one group of survivors that lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily-defended causeway. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, “he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.”

For “28 Years Later,” Boyle is bringing back some of the cutting-edge cinematography that made “28 Days Later” so striking. The 2002 original was one of the first films shot on video (i.e. early digital), and now “28 Years Later” was shot using iPhones.

“28 Years Later” opens exclusively in theaters on June 20, 2025.

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Published on March 31, 2025 19:43

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse’ Gets June 2027 Release Date

Miles Morales fans rejoice: the final chapter of his epic story, “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse,” is back on Sony Pictures’ release slate and is set to arrive in theaters on June 4, 2027.

Miles Morales made his big screen debut in 2018 with “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Four years later and after gaining even more interest on Netflix, the film yielded a breakout hit sequel with “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” which set a Sony animation record with $690.5 million grossed worldwide.

“Beyond the Spider-Verse” was initially scheduled for a release in spring 2024, but was indefinitely delayed due to the 2023 writers and actors strike as well as significant setbacks that led to the film not even starting production by the time “Across the Spider-Verse” came out the previous summer.

Now, “Spider-Man” fans will finally get to see how the cliffhanger ending of “Across” is resolved, as Miles finds himself trapped in a parallel universe where there is no Spider-Man, Miles’ father is dead, and that universe’s version of himself has taken up the villainous mantle of The Prowler once held by his uncle, Aaron.

Meanwhile, Gwen Stacy and Peter B. Parker lead a team of rogue Spider-Men from various universes to rescue Miles, but are in a race against the clock as they are hunted by the overzealous Miguel O’Hara, a.k.a. Spider-Man 2099. And back in Miles’ universe, the vengeful multiverse jumper known as The Spot has Miles’ parents in his sights as he embarks on a plan that could put the entire universe in danger.

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Published on March 31, 2025 19:25

Amber Ruffin Mocks WHCA for Dropping Her From Dinner: ‘We Have a Free Press so That We Can Be Nice to Republicans’ | Video

Amber Ruffin on Monday finally weighed in on the White House Correspondents Association canceling her planned headlining gig — and ditching comedy entirely – at its annual dinner later this month.

Effectively calling the organization’s board members cowards and ridiculing their commitment to journalism and the truth, Ruffin roasted the WHCA during a brief appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (where she also serves as a writer).

“I thought when people take away your rights, erase your history and deport your friends, you’re supposed to call it out. But I was wrong.”

“We have a free press so that we can be nice to Republicans at fancy dinners. That’s what it says in the First Amendment,” she said elsewhere.

Watch that clip below:

Ruffin was announced back in February as the headliner of the 2025 White House Correspondents Association Dinner, which traditionally features a comedian who roasts attendees and the current president. But on Saturday, WHCA president Eugene Daniels informed members that the board had voted unanimously to cancel Ruffin’s set, a decision he asserted was to meant “ensure the focus is not on the politics of division.”

Meyers’ mentioned all of that in his monologue, adding, “I just want to take a moment to say that I’m a big fan of Amber Ruffin, and I would have liked to hear what she had to say.” He then started to tell an unrelated monologue joke about a robbery at a New York bodega when Ruffin ran out on stage to interrupt.

“I’m concerned with how you’re going to end that joke,” she said, to which Meyers replied, “you’re concerned how? Well, I mean, obviously I’m going to make a punchline making fun of the guy who robbed the bodega.”

“See. Seth, the problem is that’s divisive. Take it from me. If there’s one thing I learned from this weekend, it’s you have to be fair to both sides,” she said.

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Meyers protested. “It makes sense in this case, you know, there’s an innocent Bodega owner. There’s a burglar…”

“Or, hear me out, there are very fine people on both sides,” Ruffin insisted.

“Yeah but he shattered the front door of a bodega,” Meyers countered.

“Did he? Or did he provide an innovative ventilation system,” Ruffin responded.

“Yeah but he stole the cash out of the register,” Meyers said. “He received a micro loan,” Ruffin insisted.

“He set fire to the ATM,” Meyers said. “He bravely fought inflation. Thank you for your service,” Ruffin replied.

Meyers set up Ruffin’s larger point when he told her, “When people are objectively terrible, we should be able to point it out on television.”

“I thought that too on Friday,” Ruffin said, “but today is Monday, and Monday’s Amber Ruffin knows that when bad people do bad things, you have to treat them fairly and respectfully. When you watch ‘The Sound of Music,’ you have to root for the singing children and the other people.”

“You mean the Nazis?” Meyers asked. “Calling them. That is so one sided,” Ruffin joked.

“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating? Meyers asked, to which Ruffin bleakly replied, “for now.”

“That’s just the whole reason we have a free press is so we can report stories, you know, as they actually happen,” Meyers continued.

“No, we have a free press so that we can be nice to Republicans at fancy dinners. That’s what it says in the First Amendment… But the point is that you’re sowing the seeds of discord. And I used to be the same way. I thought when people take away your rights, erase your history and deport your friends, you’re supposed to call it out. But I was wrong,” Ruffin went on.

“Glad to find that out now, because if they had let me give that speech, baby, I would have been so terrifically mean,” she continued before joking, “I have to return the dress I was gonna wear to the Correspondence Dinner. I already took the tags off, but I’m gonna just say they blew off in the wind.”

“‘Yeah, but that’s that’s lying Amber. That’s wrong,” Meyers interjected.

“Ah ah ah, you can’t say that,” Ruffin replied. “That’s journalism.

Just in case anyone watching might have missed what she was implying, as she said the world “journalism,” Ruffin looked directly into the camera and gave a huge comical wink.

The post Amber Ruffin Mocks WHCA for Dropping Her From Dinner: ‘We Have a Free Press so That We Can Be Nice to Republicans’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on March 31, 2025 19:21

‘Screamboat’ Review: Mickey Mouse of 1,000 Corpses

Mickey Mouse is a beloved, wholesome children’s icon, and he has been for nearly 100 years. So it’s sick and perverse to watch a Mickey Mouse film featuring brutal decapitations, homicidal skeletons, kidnapping and torture. Any filmmaker who would bring that level of despicable violence into the world of Mickey Mouse should be deeply ashamed of themselves.

By the way, that filmmaker’s name is Walt Disney.

“The Mad Doctor” was a creepily animated Mickey Mouse short released in 1933, whose imagery was, at the time, considered so gruesome that it quickly fell out of circulation and into the public domain. Even Uncle Walt thought severed heads were perfectly acceptable in a Mickey Mouse movie. So before anyone gets up in arms that Steven LaMorte’s “Screamboat” shows Mickey slaughtering the passengers of the Staten Island Ferry, try to remember: Disney did it first.

Then again I’m not sure anyone is actually upset about “Screamboat.” It’s just the latest installment in a weird little subgenre. As soon as any family-friendly artistic work enters the public domain — after a decades-long delay in that process, dubbed “The Mickey Mouse Protection Act” — they all seem to get turned into slasher movies. “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” was the opening salvo in this odd little fad, a film that was largely incompetent but also a little punk rock. If nothing else Winnie stuck it to the man, undermining Disney’s bland, questionable, decades-long exploitation of A.A. Milne’s classic story.

But now every public domain character has its own horror movie reimaginactment, like Peter Pan and Bambi. That’s not a problem in-and-of-itself but is this really what we’ve been waiting for all these decades? For our beloved characters and tales to finally enter the public domain, just so we can squirt out cheap horror flicks where they sever our genitalia? Will Chic Young’s “Blondie” feed Dagwood a super-tall sandwich made out of Mr. Dithers’ entrails as soon as those comic characters are fair game in 2026? Does anybody have any other bright ideas? Or dark ones that aren’t the same thing over and over again?

Then again if we absolutely must have low-budget spree killer movies starring classic cartoon icons, I hope they’re at least as good as “Screamboat.” This campy, scary movie riff on “Steamboat Willie” has distinctive characters, wild gore gags, and it’s even shot on an actual, hones-to-goodness boat. That’s a low bar to clear but I’m not sure all of these public domain slashers could climb over it. “Screamboat” is not a great movie by any stretch but if Ricky Jay was editing this footage in a scene from “Boogie Nights,” he’d have to turn to Burt Reynolds and admit: “It’s a real film.”

The story begins with Steamboat Willie, an anthropomorphic mouse the size of a very large rat, escaping from his prison inside the Staten Island Ferry. It’s a foggy night, and a cavalcade of fodder — I mean “archetypes,” I mean “characters” — pile onto the ship. There’s a birthday party with stuck-up party girl princesses with names like “Cindi” and “Bella” and “Jazzy,” who look suspiciously familiar to anybody who cares enough about Disney to see a film called “Screamboat.” There’s an aspiring clothing designer named Selena (Allison Pittell, “Stream”) who will probably make it all the way to the end of the movie, and a little kid who will have to be saved a lot, and a love interest, and a helpful EMT, and a guitar player wearing nothing but tighty-whities. Et cetera, et cetera.

Almost all of them will be murdered by Willie, played by “Terrifier’s” David Howard Thornton as a demonic little troll, trapped halfway between Mike Meyers’ from “The Cat in the Hat” and the goofiest Freddy Krueger from “Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.” He’ll cut a guy’s wiener off and spray his previously-occupied girlfriend’s face in an “Evil Dead II” geyser of blood, but he’s a playful scamp about it.

Not that this makes any sense. The backstory for the evil version of Steamboat Willie has a lot in common with the evil Pooh Bear in “Blood and Honey,” painting the character as an innocent soul corrupted by emotional and physical neglect. The implication is that even Mother Teresa would go on a homicidal rampage if you locked her in a cargo hold long enough, and I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Yhen again I’m not Mother Teresa’s biographer. For all I know this theory is spot-on.

The point is that for all of director and co-writer Steven LaMorte’s manic energy and grotesque chicanery, “Screamboat” never feels like more than an excuse to make “Screamboat.” That LaMorte made “Screamboat” better than it probably had any right to be, a truly watchable exercise in lo-fi, drive-in movie theater kitsch, is a welcome surprise. But one can’t help long for the day when characters like Mickey Mouse enter the public domain and someone — out of all the billions of people who now have the legal right to tell any Mickey Mouse story they want — has something to say about them.

Until then I guess we’ll settle for the “Itchy and Scratchy Movie,” minus Scratchy.

“Screamboat” scurries into theaters April 2, 2025.

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Published on March 31, 2025 00:01

March 30, 2025

‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 7 Recap: Greg’s Lies, a Costly Bribe and a Frail, Old Man

“The White Lotus” Season 3, Episode 7 is one of the HBO drama’s most uncomfortable, unnerving to date. That’s saying something for a show that has mined plenty of material out of the kind of everyday social tensions that make you want to crawl out of your skin.

There is something heavy hanging over “Killer Instincts,” a thick, unshakable dread that makes every scene feel just one small step away from toppling over the edge of a cliff. Creator Mike White has adopted such a slow-burn approach to all of this season’s threads that resolution is starting to feel just around the corner, which is what makes “Killer Instincts” such a painful hour of television. Once again, White pushed “The White Lotus” forward without delivering the cathartic explosion of drama viewers long for. The result is an agonizing yet mesmerizing experience (and one that features more than a few mentions of Jennifer Coolidge’s late, never-forgotten Tanya McQuoid).

Case in point: Rick Hatchett’s (Walton Goggins) long-awaited confrontation with his father’s purported killer, Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn). White builds to the duo’s one-on-one meeting patiently, letting viewers sit in the awkwardness of Frank’s (Sam Rockwell) attempts to maintain his directorial charade with an inquisitive Sritala (Lek Patravadi) — all with little help from Rick. When Sritala asks him what he’s directed, Frank hesitantly responds, “What haven’t I directed? You know what I mean? Mostly action films: ‘The Enforcer,’ ‘The Executor,’ ‘The Notary’… That was a trilogy.” (It really cannot be overstated how invaluable Rockwell’s presence has been in the second half of this season. He’s electrified every scene he’s in.) Eventually, Rick convinces Jim to speak with him alone.

Once he finally has his chance to kill Jim, though, their confrontation turns into a sweaty, darkly funny anti-climax. Rick reveals who he is and accuses Jim to his face of killing his father. You don’t f—king remember that?” Rick asks incredulously, pulling his gun. Instead of shooting the older man, Rick settles for just pushing him over in his chair. He and a drunk, completely off-the-wagon Frank then make their escape from Jim and Sritala’s compound. Later, when Frank asks what happened, Rick says, “I built this guy up in my mind to be this thing, and I’m sitting there and I’m looking at him and he’s just this pathetic, frail old man. I mean, I couldn’t even hit him.”

Carrie Coon in Carrie Coon in “The White Lotus” Season 3, Episode 7. (Fabio Lovino/HBO)Mountains out of molehills

Throughout the episode, White repeatedly cuts back to the Muay Thai fight attended by Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong), Mook (Lalisa Manobal), Laurie (Carrie Coon), Valentin (Arnas Fedaravicius), Vlad (Yuri Kolokolnikov) and Aleksei (Julian Kostov). It is an effective, if obvious, central metaphor for an episode about the battle between one’s morals and their darkest, most destructive impulses. That theme is present in Rick’s confrontation with Jim Hollinger, as it is in Gaitok’s date with Mook, which starts on a down note when Gaitok confesses that he is never going to be the gun-wielding bodyguard Mook wants. “When they came to rob the hotel, I didn’t want to fight,” Gaitok says. “I think it’s wrong.” Disappointed, Mook admits, “I thought you were more ambitious.”

The two later go to the fight, as does Laurie, whose lingering anger over Jaclyn’s (Michelle Monaghan) one-night stand with Valentin bubbles over into a bitter argument at dinner between the two women and Kate (Leslie Bibb), who takes Jaclyn’s side. “If you’re not happy with your life, just own it. Don’t project and make mountains out of molehills,” Jaclyn says, blaming Laurie’s unfulfilling career and divorce on her. Kate echoes Jaclyn’s comments, and all Laurie can think to do in response is lash out, telling Kate that she “always fake” and calling Jaclyn “vain and selfish” before leaving to go to the night’s fight on her own. White’s observational skills as a writer are on full display in this scene, which uncomfortably illustrates how our friends know better than anyone else how to both lift us up and cut us down. 

Jaclyn is all too quick to bring up Laurie’s divorce and career, two subjects she knows will put her on the defensive. Monaghan has not gotten to shine as much this season as Bibb and Coon, but she devours Jaclyn and Laurie’s argument, projecting an enraging air of superiority. Her performance offers unspoken insight into how Jaclyn views her friends — namely, as people to support and admire her, not to call her out on her mistakes or transgressions. While she accuses Laurie of constantly acting the victim, too, that is immediately what she does when Kate later tells her that she should feel at least a little bad about what she said to Laurie. “I’ll be the bad guy,” Jaclyn retorts. “I’m used to it.”

Amid all the drama between Kate, Jaclyn and Laurie, White packs in one of the biggest reveals of “The White Lotus” Season 3 so far. As Gaitok watches the fight and tries not to be bothered by Mook’s insistence that violence and self-defense are “natural” parts of life, he sees Laurie sitting with Valentin, Aleksei and Vlad. Seeing the three men together, Gaitok recognizes Vlad as one of the two men who robbed the White Lotus resort earlier in the season. It is a reveal that is later confirmed when Laurie sleeps with Aleksei and sees the jewelry store’s stolen items in his home as she’s sneaking out. (Everyone (including this writer) who predicted weeks ago that Valentin had helped his two friends rob the resort by distracting Gaitok can pat themselves on the back now.)

Parker Posey in Parker Posey in “The White Lotus” Season 3, Episode 7. (Fabio Lovino/HBO)“Oh no, not the boat people”

In addition to the Muay Thai fight, “Killer Instincts” also makes time for Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) and Gary/Greg’s (Jon Gries) dinner party. Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) is talked into going by her son Zion (Nicholas Duvernay). “He [Greg] knows I know,” Belinda nervously laments. “Mom, he’s not gonna do anything to you, all right? Cause I’ll be there,” Zion responds, as if a sociopathic, murderous schemer like Greg would care about a little collateral damage. Victoria (Parker Posey), meanwhile, reacts with horror when Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) tells her who is hosting the party they’ve been invited to. “Oh no, not the boat people!” she exclaims, adding yet another winner to her pile of laugh-worthy lines.

Elsewhere, Lochlan makes yet another misstep when Piper comes to visit him at night in his room at the monastery. He tells her he supports her idea and Luang Por Teera’s (Suthichai Yoon) teachings. “I don’t want to make things worse,” he says, but all it takes is Piper calling him “the best” to make him do exactly that. He reveals that he wants to join Piper on her gap-year trip to the monastery and his sister, who wants to move to Thailand partly to escape her family, is not overjoyed by the proposition. She quietly slinks away — disappointed at the thought of her personal journey being trampled over by her younger brother.

Saxon, meanwhile, pulls his drugged-up father aside at Greg’s dinner party and begs for an explanation for what is going on with him. “At this point, my career is totally tied to yours. So, if something bad is happening, it’s happening to both of us,” he says. His words are not powerful enough to make Tim actually tell him the truth, but they do add him to his father’s list of potential mercy-kill victims. Things, unfortunately for him, do not get any better from there for Saxon.

Charlotte Le Bon and Patrick Schwarzenegger in Charlotte Le Bon and Patrick Schwarzenegger in “The White Lotus” Season 3, Episode 7. (Fabio Lovino/HBO)Momma’s boy

During the party, Saxon is approached by Chloe, who tells him that she and Greg had a frank conversation following her threesome with the Ratliff brothers. “He finally opened up about his ex-wife. Apparently, they never had sex and, because she was so insecure, he couldn’t really tell her what he was really into, like sexually,” Chloe says, repeating a lie told to her by Greg about his marriage to Tanya. She then gives a long monologue* about how Greg wants Saxon to have sex with Chloe so that he can “catch” them doing it and Chloe can “return” to him. It is a kink that apparently stems from Greg’s childhood when he used to watch and listen to his mother and father having loud sex in their house.

“It’ll be like winning his mother back from his father,” Chloe explains, but Saxon refuses to play along. Instead, he opts for making another failed pass at Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) , who kicks him out of her suite at the end of the night and cheerfully informs him, “You can’t become soulful in 10 minutes. It takes time.”

Before Greg sits back and watches Chloe horrify Saxon from afar, he gets Belinda to speak with him in private. He begins their meeting by immediately lying about Tanya, insisting that he had nothing to do with the “tragic” fate that befell her. He also tries to explain away his escape to Thailand, telling a silent, nervous Belinda, “It was getting very complicated back home, and I just didn’t want to spend the rest of my life dealing with legal s—t and lawyers and people making assumptions.” He then makes his move, telling Belinda that Tanya “always felt guilty that she didn’t start that business with you.” He offers her $100,000 (a small sum, if you consider just how much money he actually has) to fund her spa, in exchange for her keeping quiet about his presence in Thailand. She asks to have the night to think about it, and while Greg agrees, he definitely does not seem happy about her hesitation to accept his offer.

*In its pacing, length and purpose, Chloe’s monologue feels intentionally designed to mirror and call to mind Frank’s bar confession in “Full-Moon Party.” It is not nearly as effective, though, partly because it relies entirely on second-hand information, because Greg’s secrets and many lies make it hard to believe anything Chloe says and because Le Bon, with all due respect, is simply not as effortlessly commanding as Rockwell. Its inclusion feels like one of the few missteps White has made this season.

Natasha Rothwell in Natasha Rothwell in “The White Lotus” Season 3, Episode 7. (Fabio Lovino/HBO)An empty drawer

Belinda tells Zion that she does not want to take Greg’s offer because it’s “not right” and would make her feel like an accomplice to Tanya’s murder. After emphasizing how life-changing $100,000 could be for her, Zion warns, “If you don’t come to terms with him, he’s going to come after you. You know that, right? And they’re going to find your body in the Gulf of Thailand. S—t, maybe mine, too.” “Killer Instincts” does not resolve Greg’s proposition, though, nor does it end on a concrete note for Rick, who is last shown sitting happily in his hotel room while Frank falls farther off the wagon in front of him — snorting cocaine with a group of strippers. Rick, for the moment, does not seem concerned about leaving Jim and Sritala alive, despite the fact that the latter knows where he and Chelsea are staying and brings gun-wielding bodyguards with her everywhere she goes.

It doesn’t, consequently, seem like a slim possibility anymore that Jim’s bodyguards could come looking for Rick and could turn out to be the source of the shooting in “The White Lotus” Season 3’s prologue. There is also Tim, who ends “Killer Instincts” fantasizing about shooting Victoria in her sleep, then Saxon in the head and then himself. As he does, he thinks back to his meeting with Luang Por Teera (Suthichai Yoon) in “Denials,” envisioning himself, Victoria and Saxon as drops of water rising and falling back into the ocean. But when he goes to find Gaitok’s stolen gun, he realizes that the weapon is no longer where he left it. One can only imagine what he might do to try and get it back, or at least acquire some other kind of murder/suicide weapon.

And that’s where “Killer Instincts” ends, essentially with multiple lit fuses still tied to multiple explosive barrels. To White’s credit, all of those barrels (i.e., the many violent potential confrontations he has set up) seem equally likely to blow now. Next week’s episode is, in other words, shaping up to be the most unpredictable season finale of “The White Lotus” to date.

“The White Lotus” airs Sundays on HBO and Max.

The post ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 7 Recap: Greg’s Lies, a Costly Bribe and a Frail, Old Man appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on March 30, 2025 19:00

Trump Agrees to Meet With Bill Maher as a Favor to Kid Rock

President Donald Trump said he has agreed to meet with perennial critic Bill Maher as a favor to their shared friend, Kid Rock.

“I got a call from a very good guy, and friend of mine, Kid Rock, asking me whether or not it would be possible for me to meet, in the White House, with Bill Maher, a man who has been unjustifiably critical of anything, or anyone, Trump,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.

“I really didn’t like the idea much, and don’t like it much now, but thought it would be interesting,” Trump continued. “The problem is, no matter how much he likes your Favorite President, Me, he will publicly proclaim what a terrible guy I am, etc., very much like the Democrats at my recent Address to the Joint Session of Congress, where I stated, correctly, that no matter what I said or did, they wouldn’t stand, they wouldn’t applaud, they wouldn’t smile or laugh and, certainly, they wouldn’t be in any way ‘nice.'”

“Who knows, though, maybe I’ll be proven wrong? In any event, I’m doing a favor for a friend. I look forward to meeting with Bill Maher, Kid Rock and, I believe, even the legendary Dana White will be present,” the president concluded his message. “It might be fun or, it might not, but you will be the first to know!”

The update comes after Maher laid into Republicans during his “New Rules” segment on Friday’s “Real Time.” On his HBO show, the host said he refuses to join the Right because he doesn’t want “to live in North Korea.”

“Republicans dance like Trump now. They may name weapons systems after him. They’ve even dressed like him with the trademark suit and tie, available exclusively at Banana Republic,” he noted. “All these super macho guys eating the ass of another man.”

Maher also acknowledged Trump’s speech from earlier this month in the episode, pointing out that the president incorrectly stated that the country spent $8 million on making mice transgender.

“Here’s the important thing about this: the fact that President Trump got this wrong isn’t what bothers me… What’s worrisome about it is that nobody around the president would dare tell him that transgenic is not transgender,” he explained. “It makes you think that if Trump came down one day and his fly was open, Republicans wouldn’t tell him. They’d just start showing up with their flies open.”

The comedian also touched upon another of Trump’s latest talking points on Friday: his unconstitutional belief he could achieve a third term as president since, as he put it on Sunday, “there are methods.”

“At the end of Trump’s first term, there were still some people who would occasionally correct him on little details, like, ‘You lost that last election.’ But now we have Lauren Boebert saying we must rally behind President Trump to secure his third term, something Steve Bannon is advocating for as well,” Maher said. “You just know that soon the entire Republican Party will be on this page. OK? There’s no fuzz on this. It’s as clear as 123 — presidents get two terms, not more, no matter how wonderful you think they are. It’s written in black and white in the Constitution. Guys, you know this is wrong. You know in your heart this is the moment when Rome stops being a republic. So come on, be like those mice and grow a pair of balls.”

Indeed, Trump told “Meet the Press” earlier on Sunday that while it’s too soon to think about (hypothetical) re-election since he’s focused on his current second administration, “A lot of people want me to do it.”

“I’m not joking,” he insisted. “But I’m not — it is far too early to think about it.”



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Published on March 30, 2025 17:18

David Zaslav Begins Informal Talks to Replace Warner Bros. Studio Heads Michael De Luca, Pamela Abdy | Report

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has begun taking early-stage talks with potential successors about possibly replacing WB studio heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, according to a Sunday report from Bloomberg.

The outlet noted these discussions have been informal, but they come after WBD has suffered a string of box office failures like “Alto Knights,” “Joker: Folie à Deux” and “Mickey 17” as of late. Still, they’ve also seen recent success with other movies such as “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

The pair is also notably set to present Warner Bros.’ upcoming film slate at CinemaCon on Tuesday. They are about to roll out an ambitious 2025 that includes pricey gambles on filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson and Ryan Coogler, as well as a DC reboot with James Gunn’s “Superman.” The movie theater industry trade show begins in Las Vegas on Monday.

Abdy and De Luca are currently the co-chairs and co-CEOs of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group after leaving MGM in 2022. “A Minecraft Movie,” their first WB film from start to finish, hits theaters this Friday.

WBD did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.


The post David Zaslav Begins Informal Talks to Replace Warner Bros. Studio Heads Michael De Luca, Pamela Abdy | Report appeared first on TheWrap.

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Published on March 30, 2025 16:24

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