“Is Top Gun 3 harder to crack in some ways than Top Gun: Maverick?,” Horowitz asked, to which McQuarrie responded, saying, “No, it's already in the bag.” Horowitz followed up by asking, “You've cracked it?” And the Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning director said, “Yeah, I already know what it is.” 'Lilo & Stitch' Blows Up Memorial Day Box Office With $183M Bow, 'Mission: Impossible' Nabs Series-Best $77M I thought it would be, and that's a good place to go from is you walk into the room going, ‘Come on, what are we going to do?' He continued, “It's as you start to execute it, and as you start to interrogate it, as you start [to think] why these movies are made the way they are. McQuarrie said that the film is all about “getting to that place” and “finding the right emotional balance,” which is what he and Cruise were focused on, making sure audiences “feel affinity” for Rooster. News of another Top Gun film came in Jan. 2024, when it was announced that Top Gun 3 was in the works at Paramount. The Hollywood Reporter reported that Top Gun: Maverick co-writer Ehren Kruger would be penning the script and sources said Joe Kosinski would direct again. It's also intended that Teller and Glen Powell will return. Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

When Jonathan Spector first staged his now-Tony-nominated play Eureka Day in 2017, he couldn't have known just how timely it would be eight years later. The Manhattan Theatre Club's Broadway production, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, was a twice-extended hit with critics and audiences last fall, earning raves for its very funny look at the chaos and infighting that erupts at the very progressive (and fictional) Eureka Day School in Berkeley, California, when a mumps outbreak forces the board of directors to issue a vaccine mandate. Deadline spoke with Spector about the cancellation – his response might surprise you – as well as how he came to write this season's funniest scene on Broadway that didn't feature Mary Todd Lincoln. Eureka Day has been nominated for two Tony Awards: Best Revival of a Play and Best Featured Actress in a Play for Jessica Hecht. In addition to Hecht, the original Broadway cast featured Amber Gray, Bill Irwin, Thomas Middleditch, Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz and Ebony Flowers. Deadline: Did you ever think in 2017 that Eureka Day would fare as well as it has, or that it would be so on point in 2025? SPECTOR: I certainly never imagined that it would have so much life beyond Berkeley. You know, it was commissioned for a theater in Berkeley – and I was living in Berkeley – and really I was just trying to write something that would be the most Berkeley thing I could for that audience and that theater. And people responded really positively to it in that first production in Berkeley, but you know, I didn't really know if that was just because people like seeing themselves reflected on stage. Would it actually resonate with anybody outside of Berkeley? So it was really exciting to see how much people connected to it I guess in that classic universality through specificity kind of thing. And then with the pandemic, I was very strange. Any time you write a play, at least when I write a play but I think most people, you become very obsessed with something to the degree that you're much more obsessed with it than everybody else and they get annoyed hearing you talk about it. So it was very strange that what felt like a private obsession of mine became sort of a global obsession. DEADLINE: So was there something specific that piqued your interest in the subject of vaccines three years before Covid? There had been a little sort of controversy uptick in California because in 2014 there was an outbreak of measles at Disneyland and at that point California had one of the loosest vaccine requirements in the country and had what's called a personal belief exemption. So, you could just say I don't believe in vaccines and then that was it. And then following that outbreak, a couple of years later they changed to have one of the strictest school vaccination requirements in the country. There was a lot of agita about that, and so it was sort of in the air a little bit but more specifically it was having the experience a couple of times of talking to somebody who was a friend or an acquaintance, somebody who was like really smart, at least as well educated as me, and more importantly with whom I shared pretty much all the same politics and values and then discovering they don't vaccinate their kids. Like, how is that we can basically agree on everything except for this one thing where we seem to live in different realities? Knowing somebody didn't vaccinate their kids didn't automatically tell you if they were liberal or conservative because there were vaccine skeptics on the fringes of both sides but they got there by different ways. And then that got totally scrambled by COVID and by Trump and now if you know somebody doesn't vaccinate their kids you can guess pretty well what their politics are. It was quite shocking because I had done all these interviews with experts when I was researching the play and one thing everybody would say is that we know it's extremely difficult to change people's minds about vaccines once they have a firmly held view, and then that turned out not to be true when Donald Trump gets involved. A woman I interviewed who had not vaccinated her kids and she herself was not vaccinated but when Covid hit she got the Covid vaccine as quickly as possible in part I think because not getting the vaccine was what the Trump people did and she didn't want to be associated with that. DEADLINE: For so many of us who grew up with vaccines as just a part of life, who are old enough to have the little round smallpox vaccine scar on our arms, the vaccine skepticism just seemed to come out of nowhere. Did it start with the quickly debunked autism correlation? SPECTOR: I think that was a shift, and now it is so strongly enforced by the fractured way we receive information with social media and TikTok. The thing that I think is very strange about this current moment is that historically if you had a community that had a low rate of vaccination and there was an outbreak and people got sick, suddenly everybody was like oh shit I've got to get vaccinated. But that isn't happening now even while we're having the biggest measles outbreak in decades and kids have died. You know, in that live stream scene in the play there's this comment that I had kind of gone back and forth about whether I should cut it because I was like maybe it's just too extreme, but it's where somebody says something about how all these vaccines are made from the cells of dead fetuses, and then Robert Kennedy said that in a press conference two weeks ago. DEADLINE: I was going to ask you about that scene later but since you brought it up let's talk about it. Besides, we're sounding way too serious because one thing everyone needs to understand about Eureka Day is that it is a funny, funny play. So, the school had started to have these big town hall meetings where they'd get everybody together and endlessly talk for hours and hours whenever they had a kind of issue to work through. Instead they decide to have a sort of live streamed conversation, with the board of directors all in a room together and then the parents at home watching and commenting [in a chat box]. But there's also the disconnect of having the board in a room reading the comments as people get more and more worked up and vicious with each other as always happens in conversations like this. Back in the pre-Covid days of 2017 people didn't know that this was such a bad idea. DEADLINE: You must have done tons of research just to see how people talk on the internet because you absolutely nailed it. SPECTOR: You know, I hadn't myself been in a lot of conversations like that yet when I was writing that scene in 2017. I mean the technology in the play was Facebook Live, which I think now is forgotten technology but it was what people were beginning to use at the time for this kind of thing.When I was researching the play I was looking at internet message boards where people would argue with each other about vaccines and they would just get so nasty with each other. But one of the characters, Suzanne, played by Jessica Hecht who is up for a Tony, is very anti-vaccine and she's so sympathetic and she's so smart and engaging that we start thinking well maybe she does have a point. SPECTOR: The character has a bit of a tragic arc through the play in that she has committed her life to building this community and then because of this irreconcilable conflict that she's ultimately forced to leave it. There is something tragic in that even if I personally disagree with her beliefs. But of course, anytime you're writing anything..it's much more interesting if the people you disagree have the most honest and complex reasons for thinking what they think rather than just being strong man idiots. When I was researching the play I watched this sort of fake documentary by Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who first claimed the link between autism and vaccines and he lost his medical license on that. Of course he's a charlatan but they also interview these parents who have kids with severe developmental disabilities that they believe was caused by a vaccine. DEADLINE: The play begins as a sort of parody of these wealthy, privileged, California liberals who live in their little bubble, but then grows in other ways… I honestly never thought of it as a parody or even to some degree satire, but as a realistic portrayal, which I actually think is how it was received by people in Berkeley in 2017. DEADLINE: Can I ask you about the Kennedy Center situation and what happened with Eureka Day getting canceled there? SPECTOR: Had the show gone forward there, in a sense it would have been great to be having that conversation at the Kennedy Center at this moment when, you know, the director of Health and Human Services is a Kennedy who is creating a lot of real harm in the country by spreading vaccine and other kinds of medical misinformation. But at the same time I think it would have been really difficult to be there because once Trump has appointed himself king of the Kennedy Center and they've fired a lot of people and pushed out a lot of artists for political reasons, I don't know if it's possible to be there and not on some level sort of be complicit in all that. So if a show is a big hit and they sell out, then it can be claimed as proof of how well they're doing. SPECTOR: I don't exactly know how it went down but I was, in the end, relieved that we weren't going there. I feel like there were really good compelling arguments on both sides. I just had a play in Florida at a theater called Miami New Drama and it's run by a man named Michel Hausmann who fled Venezuela because of anti-Semitism and political oppression, and he was saying, “No, you should fight to stay because the mistake we made in Venezuela was giving up our cultural spaces too easily rather than forcing them to take them away from us.” I was really compelled by that but I was also compelled by the idea that you can't be there and make your work with clean hands. DEADLINE: Where does Eureka Day go from here and who gets to see it? There had been earlier conversations about doing it as a series but I don't really feel like it makes as much sense. It looks like Eureka Day will have a lot of life next season, which is really exciting. Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. 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We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Though still in the thick of promoting “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise are already working on their next pair-up — it just might not be what you expect. “The conversations we've had about Les Grossman are so fucking funny,” McQuarrie said in a recent interview with Josh Horowitz on his “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. Heavily modeled on Scott Rudin, Grossman is a Diet Coke-swilling, obscenity-prone producer with no filter and tendencies toward anger, as well as dance. It may sound silly to center an entire film around him, but McQuarrie and Cruise are actively looking for a way in. Related Stories All 8 ‘Mission: Impossible' Movies, Ranked Worst to Best Tom Cruise Will ‘Never Stop' Making Movies: I'm Going to Be Acting ‘Into My 100s' Even with “Magnolia,” which earned Cruise an Academy Award nomination, the actor was part of a very large ensemble, making it easier for him not to have to carry the whole film. “Ethan Hunt, a character of whom people can be critical, is on rails,” said McQuarrie. “There's so little he is able to do outside of his responsibilities as a leading man and when you try and push those boundaries, ‘Mission' instantaneously cease to become ‘Mission. Moreover, discussing ideas around this character has offered a welcome reprieve from their other responsibilities, particularly on “The Final Reckoning.” “Just to be sitting at the breakfast table, not talking about the movie we're making for a minute,” McQuarrie told Horowitz, “is such decompression. “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning” is currently in theaters from Paramount Pictures. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services.

“Amazing, the way things work out,” Trump marveled. Addressing a crowd after visiting the Arlington National Cemetery with Vice President J.D. “That was a hard four years we went through,” Trump said to applause. People doing things that are indescribable and not for today to discuss.” “Every Gold Star family fights a battle long after the victory is won,” Trump said. 'The Last of Us' Season 2 Ends With Confusion and a Phony Cliffhanger Jasmine Crockett: 'It's Time for Republicans to Question Trump's Mental Acuity' Mike Johnson Insists It's 'Moral' to Throw People Off Medicaid It was a markedly more somber tone than earlier in the morning, when Trump posted an all-caps, run-on-sentence tirade on Truth Social complaining about immigration policies, “USA-hating judges,” and “monsters who want our country to go to hell.” “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS,” Trump wrote. “WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THEM BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTALLY INSANE, THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDER, AND RAPE AGAIN — ALL PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. BUT FEAR NOT, WE HAVE MADE GREAT PROGRESS OVER THE LAST 4 MONTHS, AND AMERICA WILL SOON BE SAFE AND GREAT AGAIN! AGAIN, HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY, AND GOD BLESS AMERICA!” Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation.

President Donald Trump and Republican leaders keep pretending they aren't cutting Medicaid with their new tax bill, which will further enrich the wealthy and pay for it in part by significantly slashing Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans. Trump, who has repeatedly promised to protect Medicaid, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have both claimed that Republicans are simply targeting “waste, fraud, and abuse” in their tax bill, which passed the House last week. David Sacks, who is serving as Trump's “AI and crypto czar,” put the Medicaid situation more plainly Saturday on his All In podcast: “This bill cuts $880 billion from Medicaid over a decade.” Taken together, this means that Medicaid recipients will be expected to work low-paying jobs and deal with burdensome paperwork demands if they want to maintain their insurance coverage. Many eligible recipients will likely lose coverage due to the added bureaucracy. The president and Republican leaders have nonetheless tried to argue they are not actually cutting Medicaid, and that their changes won't actually harm their constituents who deserve access to the program. Trump said last week that his tax bill simply targets “waste, fraud and abuse for Medicaid,” and he promised that his working-class supporters “won't lose health insurance” as a result of the legislation. “We have not cut Medicaid,” Johnson falsely insisted in a Face the Nation interview on Sunday. He added that Republicans are simply “working on fraud, waste and abuse.” A memo last week from the National Republican Congressional Committee, which elects GOP lawmakers, declared that “Republicans Are Strengthening Medicaid.” It urged Republicans to go on offense, and depict their changes as efforts to protect the program and “ensure Medicaid serves those who need it.” Trump's Crypto Grift Is the Latest Corruption Mike Johnson Says He's Too 'Busy' to Care About Of course, many people on Medicaid are technically considered able-bodied, even if they are functionally disabled and cannot work, because they have not been approved for disability, which is an onerous process. Johnson, the Republican speaker, has claimed that Republicans are simply trying to remove “29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games.” On Sunday, he said that “when you make young men work, it's good for them.” He framed this as “moral.” 'The Last of Us' Season 2 Ends With Confusion and a Phony Cliffhanger It feels wrong hearing Republicans describe the poor people whose insurance they're terminating as lazy couch-surfers — and hearing Sacks, who's worth at least hundreds of millions of dollars, describe them as “layabouts” feels even worse. And they're doing so to help fund more big tax cuts for the super rich.

Billy Joel's daughter is speaking out in support of her father following his recent health diagnosis. Alexa Ray Joel — the daughter of the “Piano Man” and his ex-wife, model Christie Brinkley — took to Instagram on Sunday (May 25) to thank fans for their support and share an uplifting message after her father revealed he had been diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), a type of brain disorder. “SOUND UP 🕊️ We love you and we got you, Pop!” Alexa wrote alongside a black-and-white illustration of a father holding his young daughter's hand. She continued, “My Dad is the strongest and most resilient man I've ever known… and he's entirely committed to making a full recovery with ongoing physical-therapy treatments as he continues to regain his strength.” “This condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance,” he said in a statement. “Under his doctor's instructions, Billy is undergoing specific physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period. A singer, songwriter and pianist in her own right, Alexa Ray has shared the stage with her father on several occasions, including shows in recent years during his historic residency at New York's Madison Square Garden. Christie Brinkley, Alexa's mother, also shared a message of support for her ex-husband on Saturday (May 24). “Dear Billy, the whole Brinkley gang is sending you lots of love and good wishes for a full and speedy recovery,” she wrote on Instagram. See Alexa Ray's full tribute to her father on Instagram here. A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry

“We are so grateful for the wonderful care and swift diagnosis we received,” Alexis Roderick Joel wrote in an Instagram post on Monday, sharing a photo of Joel, herself, and their two young daughters. We look forward to seeing you all in the future.” Joel, 76, announced Friday that he'd be canceling 17 upcoming shows across North America and Europe after being diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH). “This condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision, and balance,” a statement from Joel's team read. “Under his doctor's instructions, Billy is undergoing specific physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period. Billy is thankful for the excellent care he is receiving and is fully committed to prioritizing his health.”Over the weekend, Joel's daughter with ex-wife Christie Brinkley, Alexa Ray Joel, also shared her thanks for the kind messages that their family has received. “I just wanted to thank you all for the beautiful outpouring of love and support amid the recent news of My Father's health diagnosis,” Alexa Ray wrote, including lyrics from the song Joel wrote for her, “Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel).” 'The Last of Us' Season 2 Ends With Confusion and a Phony Cliffhanger Jasmine Crockett: 'It's Time for Republicans to Question Trump's Mental Acuity' Mike Johnson Insists It's 'Moral' to Throw People Off Medicaid “My Dad is the strongest and most resilient man I've ever known,” she added. “The whole Brinkley gang is sending you lots of love and good wishes for a full and speedy recovery,” the model wrote. Several of Joel's celebrity friends also passed along their best wishes, including Kristin Chenoweth and Jack Quaid. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation.

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter Showrunner Molly Smith Metzler, director Nicole Kassell, stars Fahy and Alcock stand by the Netflix series' unexpected finale: “I hope this is a debate people are having.” [This story contains major spoilers from the season finale of Netflix's Sirens.] Throughout Netflix's five-episode series Sirens, viewers hace watched Devon (Meghann Fahy) try to lure her sister Simone (Milly Alcock) away from the lavish community she now resides in while working for and being uncomfortably close with socialite Michaela “Kiki” Kell (Julianne Moore), who reigns supreme on the island along with her husband Peter Kell (Kevin Bacon). How Netflix's Latest 'Fear Street' Slasher Film Created a Terrifying Prom Experience for Fans The ending of Simone betraying Michaela by becoming Peter's new partner could be rather surprising for viewers given Simone and Michaela had a tight-knit relationship. But there's also the fact that a much older Peter, who is believed to be easy-going and approachable despite his notable wealth, had his sights set on Simone as his new love to begin with. She also saw Michaela departing, and is now left to pick up the pieces, no longer being Mrs. Kell. The ending was one Fahy found “surprising” and left Alcock feeling “really sad.” “Ultimately, we want Simone to be the person that the audience ends up seeing her as, which is this broken little girl who's so much more capable than she believes herself to be,” Alcock tells The Hollywood Reporter. It made me incredibly sad finding out that was the ending.” Fahy adds to THR, “I was definitely surprised. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt like it was true that Simone would double down, do whatever it took to not have to go back to that place and that Devon would go back and not go with the guy, or anything. think it hurts on some level to see both of them make the choices they make, because you want so much better for them. It felt true they would make those choices.” Showrunner Molly Smith Metzler says the ending, however surprising, was inevitable. “What I love about the ending is that it asks the audience to decide how to feel about it,” she recently said in an interview with THR. Devon's blamed for breaking up Ray's marriage, Michael is blamed for Peter's previous [marriage], but where is the accountability of the men? Historically we are all conditioned to shit on the women who break up relationships. But in Peter and Simone's case, he's targeting a woman 40 years younger and he can have more children, he can have this facade or fantasy of longevity in a way that a female can't just because of your ovaries,” Kassell explains. Women are going to be cast in this role. It's right there in front of us,” Metzler says. Throughout the series, Fahy's Devon attempted to free Simone from what she deemed a cultish community, insisting she's a “traumatized little girl running from her past.” That past included losing their mom and growing up with a disregarding father. Simone may have found a new home and identity, but Alcock and Fahy agree that both things they're fighting for can be true. Simone is running from her past like Devon suggests, but Fahy says everyone is also refusing to respect her choices. “Objectively, as Millie, I think Simone is running from her past. She continues, “Simone, at face value, is really easy to dislike. She's someone who you're kind of instantly like, ‘oh my god, this girl is completely insufferable.' Her rebellion is to put herself in a position where she is safe and in an environment where she has a certain type of value and is seen as valuable, because the parental figures in her life never did that. Devon's determination to bring Simone back home to help her take care of their dad is palpable given she “genuinely needs help,” Fahy says, but admits Devon is being selfish. Her sort of refusal to accept what is true in pursuit of her own want and need is part of the negative end of what she's set out to do by going there to drag her sister back to what is inarguably, a really shitty situation.” But for viewers wanting a clear answer as to why Simone stays and essentially replaces Michaela as Peter's wife, Kassell reminds everyone that Simone's background is the key to understanding. With no family, home or career anymore, Simone had to make a choice. Kassell reflects, “If we didn't have that context, she would seem like just pure shit selfish. But that's where I feel like she's almost the most honest. She really would have done a great job as Michaela's second in command, but when that opportunity went away, and it was either this or that, I understand. But when I think about a past that is so unimaginable and this as a path out, it puts me in that uncomfortable place of both wanting to hate her for it, but feeling like I have to understand. And the showrunner knows there will be debates about it. “Ppeople are going to think Simone's a villain, and people are going to think Peter's a villain, and people are gonna to think they're all villains,” she adds. “I can't ask you to feel a certain way about what Simone does. All I can ask is that you try to understand it. I hope this is a debate people are having. “These two women go through something over the course of this weekend where they come out more similar than they would have guessed. But as the series gets deeper, you start to realize that's a bit of a front, and she's really using several devices to keep people from getting too close,” Fahy says of her character being forced to confront and find some peace with her trauma. We chose that one because I think there's a version where she won — she's a siren and hear her roar.” Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

Kevin Jonas revealed that coming home after a long time on the road can be mentally draining. “All the depression, blues, it's real, especially after a tour,” he told People in an interview published on May 26. Kevin recalled the harrowing experience of trying to get home, which ended up taking over 18 hours with delays and unexpected stops. It's so jarring,” the “Love Me To Heaven” singer shared. “We've been burnt out before and then you're like, ‘I still got 20 more shows on this tour. The Jonas Brothers are celebrating their 20th anniversary in music with their “JONAS20: Living The Dream” tour set to kick off on August 10 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The trio is also releasing their new album, “Greetings From Your Hometown,” on August 8. “[The album] really encapsulates where we were and where we came from and the sounds that embodied how we grew up and really inspired us to become musicians,” Kevin told Eli Manning in an interview shared by Billboard in April. “Taking a lot of that and bringing it now, into our musical journey. I'm excited for people to hear it,” he added. Joe stated on “Good Morning America” in March, “We feel incredibly grateful for 20 years. We started in an abandoned trailer … with our dad driving our full band in the van and the three of us just chasing this dream.”

We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Adult Swim‘s “Rick and Morty” is back for Season 8, and the nearly year-and-a-half break has resulted in a burst of creative energy for a show that, at its best, can only be loosely described as a sci-fi sitcom. Creators Scott Marder and Dan Harmon have returned to the core Smith family dynamics (partly inspired by “Succession”), now severely impacted by Rick (Ian Cardoni) and Morty's (Harry Belden) rippled universe mayhem. Season 8 offers up some provocative existential problems, along with eye-popping world-building, and even more imaginative body horror. Here are some early highlights: In Episode 1 (“Summer of All Fears”), Morty and older sister Summer (Spencer Grammer) return from being prisoners inside a simulated “Matrix” as punishment for not returning Rick's phone charger. Summer became a ruthless tech firm leader while Morty suffered PTSD from going to war. And, in Episode 4 (“The Last Temptation of Jerry”), the Easter Bunny has been turned upside down into a sex horror nightmare of alien proportions, especially for Jerry (Chris Parnell) and Beth (Sarah Chalke). Obviously, our favorite stories are [about] Rick and Morty, but everyone's so strong that it's just so natural in the cooking up of ideas that a Jerry one, or a Summer one, or a Beth one will pop up. We get together in a room, and the most exciting idea comes in on any given day, and that'll win the day.” “And this season it's certainly got a fun return to form with just kind of crazy [episodes] and heady ones. But it's also got a nice light arc that touches on Rick dealing with being home, figuring out what's next, and what it means in terms of his relationships with [the family].” The seed of “The Summer of All Fears” came from the notion of putting Summer in an Easy Bake oven and then seeing what happens after she pops out as a 17-year-old again. “  This allowed her to live to adulthood, then gain some autonomy, and become not just a grown woman but a woman with supreme agency,” Harmon told IndieWire. What's different is that the viewer is dropped unceremoniously into the episode and forced to play catch up throughout the adult Summer and Morty set up, which pays off with a little conspiracy theory for cynical measure. “We don't normally like to play games with the audience by misleading them,” added Marder. “But there's a little bit of intrigue with what's going on here? I think that series really made us excited about getting to do something grounded with adult versions of Summer and Morty. We could be doing so much with these kids as adults. “ There's infinite Ricks and Morty's, and, every once in a while, we can touch on a different set,” said Marder. “ We knew we didn't wanna just reset it and have it magically come back and there not be any repercussions from [Season 5 Episode 10]. So it was cool to check in with it later and see a good amount of survivors and Ricks being Ricks, kinda rebuild this thing, and we found some cool back guys in there.” As for turning Jerry into a monstrous Easter bunny as part of an intergalactic war in “The Last Temptation of Jerry,” the original concept began as Santa Claus meets “The Fly,” where he gets punished for turning into a magical holiday character. When Jerry irks the family by insisting they celebrate Easter, he bizarrely transforms into an Easter Bunny sex machine as part of an alien plot to destroy the planet. “Easter, which in spite of it being a pagan solstice, a fertility ritual draped even more ironically in Christian resurrection myths, had us questioning what this means to Beth? “ We had fun with piling on mythology on top of mythology to a point where no one intentionally could make sense of it,” Harmon continued. For Marder, the world-building became another imaginative component to explore. All of them have different color palettes, too. When you take a step back to look at this season, it's all really intentional, which is neat.” We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services.

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter The creator, who is partially deaf, discusses her crime thriller series, starring Rose Ayling-Ellis, Charlotte Ritchie, Andrew Buchan and Kieron Moore, for ITV and BritBox. When you watch the crime drama Code of Silence, which premiered on ITV and streamer ITVX in the U.K. on May 18 and will hit streaming service BritBox in the U.S. and Canada in July, you quickly realize that lip reading is even harder, and much less of a science, than you may have believed. One big reason for this reality check embedded throughout the detective thriller series is the experience of partially deaf creator and writer Catherine Moulton (Baptiste, Hijack) and the show's deaf star Rose Ayling-Ellis who portrays the protagonist Alison, a deaf police canteen worker who gets tasked with a role in a sting operation due to her lip-reading skills. Marcel Ophuls, 'Sorrow and the Pity' Documentarian, Dies at 97 Crunchyroll Anime Awards: 'Solo Leveling,' 'Look Back' Big Winners at Star-Studded Tokyo Ceremony “People are always looking for new ways into crime shows,” Moulton tells THR. “And it just sort of made sense to me that lip readers are detectives. So to have a crime show with a lip reader at the heart was just something that felt very personal to me.” The show, executive produced by Bryony Arnold and Damien Timmer for ITV Studios' Mammoth Screen, alongside Robert Schildhouse and Stephen Nye for BritBox, as well as Ayling-Ellis and Moulton, also features Kieron Moore (Vampire Academy, Masters of the Air, The Corps), Charlotte Ritchie (You, Ghosts) and Andrew Buchan (Black Doves, The Honourable Woman, Broadchurch). I just taught myself naturally, and it came quite instinctively. The statistic is that between 30 and 40 percent of speech is visible on the lips, and that's the best case scenario, when we're sitting looking at each other, and I can see you clearly. The rest of it is just very informed guesswork. And you're putting all those clues together to work out what the sentence is. People are always looking for new ways into crime shows, and it just sort of made sense to me that lip readers are detectives. So to have a crime show with a lip reader at the heart just felt right, and it was something that was very personal to me. How did you come up with the title Code of Silence. I love that it has a couple of layers and meanings… How did you approach integrating these issues into the script? [Lead director] Diarmuid [Goggins] has done such a brilliant job, because there was a version that could have looked really bad where either you definitely can't see the lip shapes, or they are weirdly always looking at the camera really conveniently. You draw viewers into that idea of lip-reading as detective work that you have mentioned in scenes where Alison pieces together lip movements and we see letters appearing and moving around on screen until they end up forming a sentence or phrase. I felt so frustrated following these puzzles and gained additional respect for lip-reading because I often couldn't figure out what was being said until the words were shown on screen. I assume you wanted us to feel this stress… Yeah, I wanted to put the audience in the position of a lip-reader, and for them to understand how difficult it is, and how tiring. I think there's this misconception that lip-reading is just like reading a book — you just magically see all the words. And I don't think people really understand quite how much work lip-readers are doing. How did you think about balancing this educational aspect and the entertainment focus of your show? It was really important to me that the show was entertaining and that you could just watch it and be entertained. With Code of Silence, what I wanted to do was just think about how to put someone with some of my experience and some of Rose's experience in a crime show. But if you put a very different character, like Alison, at the heart of it, what does that do to the story? so that people could understand what was going on and wanted to know more. And the lip-reading subtitles kind of evolved even in postproduction. So there was a lot of trying to balance what they would really be saying and what we wanted to reveal. So it was different from any other crime show that I've worked on. What feedback did Rose give on her experience that led you to adjust the script? Rose, I think, was brilliant when we got to finalizing the lip-reading subtitles in that she was very, very focused on the authenticity of the moment and what we can actually see on screen. Whereas I was kind of juggling that with what the audience needs to know. So, she really kept me honest in that respect. Sometimes it was just really great to have someone else who is a brilliant lip-reader on the show. A lot of the time it was us just going: Oh, can I actually see that on screen? Did you always know Alison would be someone who gets a chance to work with the police? It started from that thing about lip-readers being detectives, and then the idea that lip-readers have to watch all the time. You have to watch very closely, so that suggested a surveillance show. So she was obviously going to be a civilian [who ends up working with the police]. I caught myself rooting for Alison early on because everyone seems to doubt her but she is ambitious, and you want to see her succeed. What can you share about why you chose to make her so driven and not, as you could have done, a more passive character who gets dragged into a big role? I didn't want that character to feel like a victim. We're kind of happy with who we are and being deaf, so I never wanted to make Alison any kind of victim. But I wanted you to worry a little bit about how far she would push that, because you see that she's got something to prove. Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day Send us a tip using our anonymous form.

In an unfortunate example of life imitating art, Argentine moviegoers were treated to an unwitting immersive experience as they screened Final Destination Bloodlines, with their theater's ceiling collapsing mid-movie. The incident took place last week at Cinema Ocho in La Plata, the capital city of Argentina's Buenos Aires, according to Argentine digital publication Infobae. During a May 19 9 p.m. showing of the sixth and latest installment in the horror franchise — which sees its protagonists stalked and eventually captured by death via bizarre accidents — around 40 attendees had their viewing experience cut short as the roof of theater No. 'Final Destination Bloodlines' Arrives With $102M Global Bow; 'Thunderbolts*' & 'Sinners' Top $300M WW - International Box Office “At first, we thought it was a part of the movie because we were so engrossed; but immediately after a piece of rubble fell on me.” She said the pieces struck her shoulder, back, knee and ankle, adding, “It didn't hit my head because I was slightly leaning over the armrests.” Commotion can be heard as attendees chattered amongst themselves in audible shock. The New Line/Warner Bros. feature accomplished a rare feat at the box office, heading into a $102 million global start with an even split from domestic and international revenue. Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks Send us a tip using our annonymous form. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services.

We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. For additional coverage, including previous episode reviews, check out IndieWire's “Last of Us” landing page.] To open “The Last of Us” Season 2 finale, Dina (Isabela Merced) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) share the above exchange about Nora (Tati Gabrielle), the member of Abby's (Kaitlyn Dever) posse who Ellie chased down, tortured, and left to die at the end of Episode 5. But by the end of Episode 7, viewers may very well be repeating the debate about Ellie, whose ultimate fate makes for an agonizing cliffhanger that won't be resolved until Season 3 premieres (at least). Did Abby shoot Ellie like she shot Jesse (Young Mazino), R.I.P.? Of course, I'm desperate for Ellie to survive, but “The Last of Us” already killed off one of its leads this season and, more importantly, it's clear co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (who cowrote the Season 2 finale with Halley Gross) want viewers to consider not just what they want to happen, but what these characters have chosen for themselves. Sans sentiment, Ellie's moral report card is grim. She shot and killed Owen (Spencer Lord), as well as Mel (Ariela Barer), the latter of whom was pregnant when she died. Sure, Mel's death was an accident, but that's hardly an excuse when Ellie's entire plan is built around murdering people. On the other hand, Ellie's ethical judgement showed signs of improvement in Episode 7; that her experience in Seattle (and lingering memories of Joel) may be steering her away from vengeance and toward mercy. Saying “maybe she didn't” about Nora deserving to die (and be tortured), as well as telling Dina why Abby was so fixated on finding Joel to begin with, is a good sign for Ellie's level of bloodlust. If she's open to considering other opinions, instead of just finding Abby at all costs, that's progress. (Her revelation also drives a wedge between her and Dina, which speaks to how hard — and how important — it must've been for Ellie to divulge.) Granted, Ellie suffers a setback when she realizes where Abby is hiding. (The only words Nora said to Ellie were “whale” and “wheel,” so when she spots them both by Seattle's Aquarium, the dead-end suddenly becomes an open door, and she can't stop herself from walking through.) Long before her interrogation of Abby's crew goes so quickly sideways, it's clear Ellie should've gone with Jesse to help Tommy (Gabriel Luna). And if Ellie's decisions really were dictated by what Joel would want, there's no way he would rather Ellie kill his killer than save his brother. “You let a kid die today, Jesse. Let me tell you about my community. My community was beaten to death in front of me while I had to fucking watch.” To be fair, Jesse didn't “let” anyone die. Sorry, but they're taking an “L” on that one. But the selective responsibility Ellie points out does bring up one of the show's thornier subjects: Where do you draw the line when it comes to helping others when doing so comes at great personal risk to yourself? With the Scar boy from earlier that day, it's a relatively easy choice. “I go with that girl to New Mexico,” he says, “who saves your ass in Seattle?” Despite Ellie and Jesse accusing (and then, later on, supporting) each other, the difference between them is clear. In Jesse's scenario, neither road available to him is actively harmful: If he goes with the woman to New Mexico, maybe he makes her happy, himself happy, and the people of New Mexico happy. Sure, everyone in Jackson would miss him, but they could've found another leader-in-waiting. Maybe he's less of a romantic, or maybe — as it's implied here — he's less selfish than Ellie. That doesn't mean “better”; sometimes you need to be selfish. With Ellie, if she had stayed in Jackson, Dina would have been safe. The people of Jackson would still have two of their best patrol members, Tommy would still have a de facto niece, and Jesse would have been able to see his baby be born. Going had a single best case scenario: Abby would be dead. One more person on this planet would be gone. Now that destruction is all around her. Ellie may be gone, too, although — without knowing what happens in the games — I have to imagine her story will continue. She hasn't hardened into a monster or softened enough to find mercy. But fate doesn't wait around for you to be ready. “The Last of Us” Season 2 is available on HBO and Max (which is soon to be HBO Max… again). The series has been renewed for Season 3. • Speaking of monsters, a brief word on the book Ellie picks out for Dina's unborn baby: “The Monster at the End of This Book,” written by Jon Stone with illustrations by Michael Smollin. Take that reading a step further (not unlike comedian Gary Gulman's does in his 2024 stand-up special, “Grandiliquent”), and the monster at the end of the book is the reader themselves, or more accurately, whatever anxiety, trauma, or scarring event from the reader's past they can't seem to escape — and shapes how they see the world. Gee, I wonder how that would apply to Ellie? • And speaking of presumed leaders who abandon their posts, what the heck is going on with Abby, Isaac (Jeffrey Wright), and the W.L.F.? Park (Hettienne Park) and complains that Abby and her whole team are missing on “tonight of all nights.” Later, we get an idea of that night's significance when the W.L.F. sets off a massive explosion at the Seraphites' village. It's unclear who lived and died, what was destroyed, or if anything was accomplished, but it's implied — both by Isaac and by Owen, who doesn't seem to know where Abby is before Ellie walks in on him — that Abby was supposed to be on those attack boats, and she just… wasn't. Park he was planning for Abby to take over someday as the W.L.F. leader, so what happened to make her abandon that trajectory? We'll surely find out in Season 3, considering the final scene flashes back to “Seattle Day 1” to share what's going on from Abby's perspective. But given the emphasis placed in Season 2 on Jesse's planned ascension in Jackson, as well as Ellie stepping into Joel's shoes, there's a growing emphasis on generational transitions in “The Last of Us.” Jesse's succession would've been relatively smooth, given how much he aligned with the current leadership, Tommy and Maria (Rutina Wesley). But Ellie's attempts to follow in Joel's footsteps are bumpy at best. The longer she tries to play the badass avenger, the more she doubts whether that's who she is (and if that's who Joel wanted to be) . Could the same thing be happening to Abby? Could completing her quest for revenge have rattled her enough to drift from the person she was before? Might “The Last of Us” actually see hope for a better future in a generation of kids so ill at ease with the actions of their elders that they run in the opposite direction? • For a show that took more than two years between Seasons 1 and 2, it's hard to sit with Mazin & Co.'s chosen endpoint. But on top of that, this arc feels incomplete. Ellie's left halfway through a transformative moment. and the Seraphites feels half-formed, and Abby has barely been fleshed out enough to build anticipation around seeing more of her in Season 3. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

What started as a quest to seek vengeance for Joel has, at this point, spiraled out of control. Even as Jesse and, eventually, Tommy try to convince her it's time to go home, she's fueled by (and blinded by) this hatred for Abby. She kills Mel, who is pregnant, and Owen while trying to interrogate them about Abby's whereabouts. Eventually, she gets what she's asked for when Abby arrives at the theater to confront her — and kills Jesse in the process. 'The Last Of Us' Creators Break Down Season 2 Finale, Tease What's To Come For Ellie & Abby After That Cliffhanger: "They Are Not Done" Sydney Sweeney Says 'Euphoria' Season 3 Is More "Unhinged" & Promises A "Crazier" Cassie I think she's starting to just realize how her actions are affecting her entire life,” Bella Ramsey told Deadline of Ellie's headspace as this final episode progresses to a pretty jarring cliffhanger. In the interview below, Ramsey tracks Ellie's descent over the last few episodes that leads her to such a dark place that it'll be difficult to come back from. How do you think that moment gets her to where she is in the finale — and what she does? BELLA RAMSEY: I mean, it happened a bit in Season 1 when she attacked David with the axe after he attacked her, and that sort of unlocks new levels of violence, I think, that they didn't know that she had. And similarly…torturing Nora, I think there's an element of it in the moment where she is getting some sort of gratification from it, but then afterwards just hates herself, like, truly hates herself. The damage is definitely severe, and I think that that moment is like a tipping point into the depths, for sure. Dina seems to accept it pretty easily, but how do you think this impacts their relationship? Everything that she's built with Dina will go away. I think that Dina ultimately — to me anyway, how it felt playing it with Isabela — is that there is a level of understanding, and there's a level of like, ‘I love you so much that I'm gonna try and understand why you haven't told me this before, and thank you for telling me now.' DEADLINE: There are so many big moments in the finale, including when Ellie kills Mel and Owen. How is that moment different for Ellie than when she tortures Nora? Her reaction to their deaths is much more visceral and less accepting. She's clearly very shaken up by it. RAMSEY: I mean, this definitely feels very different to the end of Episode 5, nearly killing Nora. I think Ellie really, truly doesn't want any of that to happen. So she reverts to being like the tiniest of children in that moment. I think she just feels so lost and afraid and the way of her whole journey up until then, I think, crumbles onto her in that moment. DEADLINE: How is that feeling compounded by Abby killing Jesse? RAMSEY: That grief is so immediate and there's almost no time for her to process it, but obviously they've just had that conversation before where they've reached sort of a mutual understanding, because Ellie has always been aware of Jesse not agreeing with her for a lot of the things that she's done. I think there's that instant shock, but I think once she starts to process that issue — she's not very much from a processor, to be fair — but I think she really feels like she's the reason for all of this. Can she be snapped out of it, or is her overwhelming need to seek revenge against Abby still driving her at this point? RAMSEY: I think that both things are still true. I mean, when she comes running and sees Abby, and Abby's holding the gun to her, that scene was so complicated to film, emotionally, for me, because I go from like immediate grief to being terrified for Tommy to being terrified for my own life, but at the same time, this is the person that I've been waiting for, and here she is. It's such a weird, crazy moment, and I think that Ellie's need for revenge and vengeance doesn't just go away. I don't think it ever does. DEADLINE: What scene stands out to you this season as the most emotionally impactful? RAMSEY: Oh, I honestly think it is that Mel and Owen scene. I think that was definitely the most impactful for me. DEADLINE: What are you most looking forward to about continuing the story in Season 3? The second game is so brilliant, so what a joy to have the space and the time of more seasons to explore all of that and get into it. Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks Send us a tip using our annonymous form. Sign up for our breaking news alerts We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services.

Lovato and Lutes said “I do” at around 4 p.m. PT on Sunday, according the outlet, which got an exclusive first reveal of the pop star's Vivienne Westwood wedding dress. Calling herself a longtime fan of Vivienne Westwood, Lovato opted for a custom-designed, corset bodice dress made from heavy silk satin fabric — paired with a cathedral-style veil made from ivory tulle — for her wedding ceremony. The bride's hair was styled in soft waves. As Lovato told Vogue, “When I was thinking about [what dress style I wanted], I often found myself coming back to Vivienne's designs — specifically how the silhouettes really compliment the curves in your body, and her use of corsets.” Lovato changed into another Vivienne Westwood dress for their reception: “The Audrey,” an ivory silk satin column dress with a draped corset top and pearls cascading from the neckline, each strand “draped and attached by hand, one by one,” she said. The wedding festivities, which were overseen by event planner Mindy Weiss, were long-awaited for the couple, who made their relationship public in August 2022 and got engaged on Dec. 16, 2023. !” Lovato gushed in a message to Jutes on Valentine's Day, sharing a romantic set of photos from an Old Hollywood-style shoot with her then-fiancé on Instagram. “The past 3 years have been the best 3 years of my life and I have you to thank for that. I can't wait to grow old with you and start a family together. Happy Valentine's Day to the love of my life. Jutes matched the bride-to-be's sentiments in a caption on his Instagram page, writing, “happy valentine's day to the love of my life. there's no better feeling than being loved by you. 7 on the Billboard 200 albums chart upon its release in 2022. A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation.

Together, these acts have a combined global following of almost 10 million. Fantastic Reality happens at The Vermont Hollywood on July 3 beginning at 7 p.m. For several of the performances, VTuber composer Daryl Vanessa Barnes will direct a live band, with performer and event co-producer Mariya serving as MC for the night, which will also feature music from both virtual and non-virtual DJs. From A-Z: All the Best Memorial Day Deals to Shop Right Now Fantastic Reality is part of the VTuber (or “virtual YouTuber”) phenomenon happening in online spaces and featuring virtual artists of all shapes and sounds. These performers, who are not AI, create often anonymous content using real-time motion capture technology. To wit, South Korean virtual boy band PLAVE, whose members' real-life identities are hidden behind digital avatars but whose commercial performance and ambitions rival K-pop's biggest human acts, recently became the first entirely virtual Korean act to surpass 1 million units sold, according to Circle Chart. Fantastic Reality is pushing the boundaries even further by bringing such virtual acts into an IRL space. The event is being presented by VTuber streaming app IRIAM, with co-producers Kou Mariya, Daryl Vanessa Barnes, ETC, Bulldog DM and Rust. “Fantastic Reality is doing something that has always been impossible,” Mariya says in a statement. “We're uniting our community in an intimate IRL space with a cutting-edge live show featuring international luminaries Ironmouse, KAF, JKT48v and more with a live band.” A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry