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There have been countless books written about the immortal star, Elizabeth Taylor, even some credited to her as both memoir or autobiography including 1989’s “Elizabeth On Elizabeth”. But a book released on January 1, 1965 probably comes closest to a pure autobiography, and looking at the cover it simply says “Elizabeth Taylor by Elizabeth Taylor”. It is a by the numbers account of her life through her own words up until that point, but the fact is it was actually written by Richard Meryman, a journalist credited with among other things the last interview with Marilyn Monroe (published two days before her August 4, 1962 death). Meryman got Taylor to sit for some taped recorded sessions in 1964 out which he would be able to write the book as if Taylor did it herself. Now exactly 60 years later those presumed “lost” tape recordings have been found and cleared for release by Taylor’s and Meryman’s estates. They have been in fact in Meryman’s wife’s possession all these years, but now filmmaker Nanette Burstein (Hillary, The Kid Stays In The Picture) has rediscovered a treasure trove of about 40 hours of interview in order to produce the new HBO Documentary, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes“.

The season finale of Saturday Night Live arrives this weekend, and the occasion brought together Jake Gyllenhaal, cast member Bowen Yang, and musical guest Sabrina Carpenter for the traditional Thursday promo.

Even after Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 arrives, there will be more of Middle Earth to explore, particularly through the lens of Gollum’s perspective. Deadline unpacked where the franchise is heading with longtime collaborators Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to make more films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy work and the world founded on Peter Jackson’s original New Line trilogy of films, with one corresponding to each books.

EXCLUSIVE: Negotiations between IATSE and the AMPTP are expected to go late into the night Thursday as the two sides near a new three-year deal for LA Locals, but they still have some distance left to run. 

The 10-episode new season of Criminal Minds: Evolution has released its key art and trailer in advance of its debut next month.

More change in the writers room at General Hospital.

Spoiler alert! This story contains details from the series finale episode of Young Sheldon on CBS.

EXCLUSIVE: Focus Features has acquired U.S. rights and select international territories on upcoming thriller Last Breath, starring Woody Harrelson, Finn Cole and Simu Liu. Focus will distribute the Alex Parkinson-directed title in the U.S. with Universal Pictures International handling select territories including France, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Vietnam. 

Fallout had another record setting week for Prime Video.

Kevin Spacey is facing another sexual assault trial in the UK next year, but today the two-time Oscar winner saw some major star power in his corner.

Family Guy was one of the biggest stars of the 2024 upfronts, prominently featured at two different presentations – Fox and Disney. Seth MacFarlane’s animated hit helped open Fox’s event and then was part of a Disney skit featuring an animated version of the company’s ad chief Rita Ferro making a sales pitch while hanging out with Peter Griffin and his dog, Brian.

Sikandar Kher, who can currently be seen starring in Dev Patel’s feature directorial debut Monkey Man, has signed with Zero Gravity Management.

David Schwimmer is loving his time in Goosebumps Season 2, his acting debut in the horror-comedy genre.

EXCLUSIVE: The novel Next to Heaven hit the market this week. Written by Anonymous, it’s a social satire that is being shopped by WME simultaneously for both a publishing deal and a film/TV deal. The TV deal has just closed, and the publishing deal will be next.

At its first upfront presentation this week, Amazon announced a green light for Noir, based on the Marvel comic, with Nicolas Cage set to star. Noir was to be the second in a suite of live-action Spider-Man Universe series for MGM+ and Prime Video. However, there was no mention at the upfront of the first, Silk: Spider Society.

Chris Pratt has taken to Instagram to pay tribute to his former stunt double, Tony McFarr, who died at age 47 on Monday in Orlando, Florida.

Movies and movie channels are driving viewing on FAST services, a packed room at the Cannes Marché du Film heard today. Owners of movie libraries and IP stand to generate significant revenue from free streaming as the sector booms, the boss of Pluto TV, one of the leaders in the field told the Cannes audience.

EXCLUSIVE: The independent film Mama Duck, a dark comedy written and directed by the award-winning team of Jack Gorman and Shannon Walsh, is set to begin production on July 6, 2024, in the Greater Los Angeles area. Catharine Daddario (IF, The Tomorrow Job) and Austin Woods (American Horror Story, The Rookie) are attached to star alongside Walsh.

EXCLUSIVE: Quiver Distribution announced today the acquisition of North American rights to the upcoming psychological thriller Detained directed and co-written by Felipe Mucci (Two Deaths of Henry Baker) and Jeremy Palmer and starring Abbie Cornish (Amazon’s Jack Ryan, Bright Star, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and Laz Alonso (Amazon’s The Boys, Avatar, Fast & Furious).

Grand Theft Auto VI, the latest installment in the mega-selling video game franchise, will be released in fall 2025, parent company Take-Two Interactive has confirmed.

Sony announced on Thursday that its new I Know What You Did Last Summer film from director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Do Revenge) will be released via Columbia Pictures on July 18, 2025.

My guest this week is Juliette Binoche.

After months of speculation, the critical book has finally been opened on Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. The early word? Predominantly positive, with some very high highs and inevitably a few low lows.

EXCLUSIVE: Producer Michael Bayer has launched True Case Films, a new production company based in Los Angeles, focused solely on producing and financing stories based on true crime. The newly formed company has secured IP and is actively seeking additional packaged true crime projects to finance, produce and executive produce. Bayer will serve as the new company’s president.

CW President Dennis Miller acknowledges the revamped network must still “prove ourselves” to local affiliates, which are still “absorbing” the amount of change.

Rithy Panh has dedicated the lion’s share of his career to interrogating the genocidal Khmer Rouge era in his native Cambodia, and it is no trivial obsession. Panh fled Phnom Penh when he was just 11, and after his family was devastated in the Killing Fields, he escaped to a Thai refugee camp at 15. Now 60, Panh has been committed to keeping the memory of the impact of Pol Pot’s tyrannical regime alive in documentary, narrative and animated film.

EXCLUSIVE: Amelia Isaac Jones has signed with Inspire Entertainment. The in demand actress, who had been taking a ton of meetings with other reps, can currently be seen as the lead in season three of Neil Forsyth’s BBC series Guilt alongside Emun Elliott, Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives. The series is currently airing on PBS here in the US.

“When we leap into the unknown, we prove that we are free,” says Cesar Catalina, the futuristic architect at the beating heart of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (to give it its full title), a mad eco-sci-fi blockbuster some 40 years in the making. Catalina says it several times, and it’s one of the more succinct aphorisms that he spouts in a script that is stuffed with seemingly random literary allusions from the likes of Petrarch, Crassus and Marcus Aurelius to Goethe, Shakespeare, H.G. Wells and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Watching Anthony Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire and eating cheese afterwards would be the only way to replicate its fever-dream grandeur, a series of stunning images, carried along by the loosest of plots, that pontificate on the self-destructive nature of humankind, the only species capable of civilizing itself to death.

The most awaited film this year at the Cannes Film Festival, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, had its world premiere Thursday night, with the dystopian epic decades in the making landing a seven-minute standing ovation.

Now that FX has decided to make more episodes of its breakout hit Shōgun, it is changing its Emmy strategy for the James Clavell adaptation.

Shōgun is a limited series no more: FX is gearing up for more installments of the historic drama.

Based on Julia Quinn’s Romancing Mister Bridgerton Season 3 of Netflix and Shondaland’s Bridgerton watches the friends-to-lovers romance between Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) and Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) bloom. While their book comes fourth in the series after Benedict’s love story, the show has moved their installment up in the order of Bridgerton sibling romances. Francesca’s (Hannah Dodd) love story also intertwines more significantly in the expanded two-part season, with Part 1 releasing May 16 on Netflix and Part 2 June 13.

EXCLUSIVE: Shout! Studios has snapped up North American rights to the holiday family comedy A Sudden Case of Christmas, starring Danny DeVito (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Andie MacDowell (Four Weddings and a Funeral), from Notorious Pictures and Riverstone Pictures in association with WME Independent. The film will roll out across multiple entertainment platforms later this year.

EXCLUSIVE: New York-based creator, comedian, actor, writer Kyle Gordon has signed wtih CAA for representation.

Universal Pictures on Thursday announced release dates for three major genre titles, revealing at the same time that two of its most anticipated sequels will shift on the calendar.