WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTok beginning Sunday unless it’s sold by its China-based parent company, holding that the risk to national security posed by its ties to China overcomes concerns about limiting speech by the app or its 170 million users in the United States. A sale does Read More 

LOS ANGELES Next month Jenny Beavan is slated to receive the Costume Designers Guild’s (CDG) Career Achievement Award. The three-time Oscar winner (and 12-time nominee) is grateful for the Guild honor, but wary of its perceptual downside–that somehow it signals the winding down of a career or even worse, an imminent retirement. The fact is that Beavan Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) When the Palisades Fire broke out in Los Angeles last Tuesday, Hollywood’s awards season was in full swing. The Golden Globes had transpired less than 48 hours earlier and a series of splashy awards banquets followed in the days after. But the enormity of the destruction in Southern California has quickly snuffed out all festiveness Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) When Lucy Walker debuted her harrowing documentary about California wildfires, “Bring Your Own Brigade,” at Sundance in 2021, it was during peak COVID. Not the best time for a film on a wholly different scourge. “It was really hard,” the Oscar-nominated filmmaker says now. “I didn’t blame people for not wanting to watch a film Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) The Pacific Palisades wildfires torched the home of “This Is Us” star Milo Ventimiglia, perhaps most poignantly destroying the father-to-be’s newly installed crib. CBS cameras caught the actor walking through his charred house for the first time, standing in what was once his kitchen and looking at a neighborhood in ruin. “Your heart just breaks.” Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) Hollywood’s awards season has all but come to a rare halt as the wildfires continue to disrupt life and work in the Los Angeles area. There are near daily updates from the Hollywood guilds and organizations that put on awards shows as the industry navigates the ongoing crisis. Here’s an overview of the major upcoming Read More 

LOS ANGELES The Producers Guild of America (PGA) has unveiled the nominees in the Motion Pictures and Television categories for the 36th Annual Producers Guild Awards. The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures has historically been considered a strong prognosticator for the Best Picture Oscar, with 16 of the previous 21 winners Read More 

LOS ANGELES The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) has unveiled the nominees for its 2025 Outstanding Achievement Awards, spanning feature films, documentaries, television and music videos. Winners will be honored at the 39th Annual ASC Awards, taking place on February 23 at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. Nominated in the marquee Theatrical Feature Film category Read More 

LONDON (AP) Papal thriller “Conclave,” which stars Ralph Fiennes as a cardinal overseeing the election of a new pope, leads the race — just — for the British Academy Film Awards, with nominations in 12 categories, one more than the genre-busting trans musical “Emilia Pérez.” But with the wildfires in Los Angeles over the past week fresh Read More 

LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has unveiled the nominations for outstanding achievement in screenwriting, television, streaming, news, radio/audio, and promotional writing during 2024. Winners will be honored at the 2025 Writers Guild Awards ceremony on Saturday, February 15. Nominated for Original Screenplay are Jesse Eisenberg for A Real Pain, Sean Baker for Anora, Justin Read More 

LOS ANGELES The Visual Effects Society (VES) has unveiled the nominees for the 23rd Annual VES Awards, the yearly celebration that recognizes outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation in features, animation, television, commercials, games and new media, and the VFX supervisors, VFX producers and hands-on artists who bring this work to life. Awards will be presented at Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) David Lynch, the filmmaker celebrated for his uniquely dark and dreamlike vision in such movies as “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and the TV series “Twin Peaks,” has died just days before his 79th birthday. His family announced the death in a Facebook post on Thursday. The cause of death and location was not immediately Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) Reactions to the death of David Lynch, the visionary filmmaker behind “Twin Peaks” and “Mulholland Drive,” whose death at 78 was announced Thursday. — “He’s one of those filmmakers who was influential but impossible to imitate. People would try but he had one kind of algorithm that worked for him and you attempted to recreate Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) “It Ends With Us” actor and director Justin Baldoni has sued his co-star Blake Lively and her husband, “Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds, for defamation and extortion on Thursday in the latest move in a bitter legal battle surrounding the dark romantic drama. The suit filed in federal court in New York by Baldoni and production Read More 

LONDON The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has opened for awards submissions for its 72nd edition, alongside announcing the names of the global experts confirmed to lead the 2025 juries. Convening in Cannes in June, the jury presidents will help benchmark excellence across the world’s very best creative and effective work. This year’s jury presidents Read More 

LOS ANGELES Director Jeremi Durand has joined Eleanor–the production company under the aegis of president Sophie Gold–for U.S. representation spanning commercials, branded content and music videos. A former professional actor and musician, Durand as a filmmaker has turned out work that’s garnered accolades including Golds for Best Direction and Cinematography at the LIA Awards, wins and nominations Read More 

LOS ANGELES FilmLA, partner film office for the City and County of Los Angeles and other local jurisdictions, has issued an update regarding regional filming activity. Overall production in Greater Los Angeles increased 6.2 percent from October through December 2024 to 5,860 Shoot Days (SD) according to FilmLA’s latest report. Most production types tracked by FilmLA achieved Read More 

LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK Editor’s note: AICP president and CEO Matt Miller issued the following statement addressing the wildfires in Los Angeles and how the industry can help this key production market–a hub of major resources essential to the health of the overall commercialmaking industry: Who Needs Los Angeles? We Do. By Matt Miller, AICP president and CEO One Read More 

LOS ANGELES Lord Danger, the creative production company that’s part of the Monstera Group, has added director Ben Steiger Levine to its talent roster for U.S. commercial representation. He joins a Lord Danger directorial lineup which includes Mike Diva, Cache Bunny, MP Curtet, and Parker Seaman. Steiger Levine shared that he was drawn in part to Lord Read More 

DETROIT Doner, part of Stagwell, has hired Brad Emmett and Rob Legato as EVPs, executive creative directors. Their remit includes leading and strengthening Doner’s creative work, as well as fostering new client relationships. In their newly created roles, the duo will work across Doner’s full client roster, which includes a diverse portfolio of brands from Zyrtec Read More 

MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms Inc. joins a growing list of companies that are pulling back on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Like others before it, the social media giant cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision in July 2023 that outlawed affirmative action in college admissions. Conservative activists have gone after companies — Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) In movies, political resistance often takes the form of protest, hunger strike or armed uprising. But in Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here,” it comes in the shape of a defiant smile. The film stars Fernanda Torres as Eunice Paiva, the wife of Rubens Paiva, a former leftist Brazilian congressman who, at the height of the Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) Capturing Sir Elton John’s 50-year career is a herculean task. Good thing his husband, David Furnish, and filmmaker R.J. Cutler were up for the challenge. “Elton John: Never Too Late,” one of The Associated Press’ picks for the best music documentaries of 2024, was inspired by John’s final U.S. tour in 2022 — but quickly Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) Horror, not comedy, has been the go-to movie genre in recent years, but a movie like “One of Them Days,” starring Keke Palmer and, in her big-screen debut, SZA, is a good reminder of what we’ve been missing. Creepy stuff and jump scares, we’ve been told, have proved better suited for channeling our abiding contemporary Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) But, we do Wordle!! Er, OK. That’s how former secret agent Matt (Jamie Foxx) explains that he and wife Emily are now living a boring, mundane, glamour-free life and nobody would ever be looking for them. To which the rest of us Wordle players say: Whoa, speak for yourself, Matt! Lots of us play Wordle Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) It’s easy to fall in love with the Paiva family. Filmmaker Walter Salles makes sure of that in “I’m Still Here.” He drops the audience into the warm everyday of the beautiful home of Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), in 1970s Rio de Janeiro, where their five kids run freely between the Read More 

WASHINGTON (AP) Comedian and host Conan O’Brien was named the newest recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for lifetime achievement in comedy on Thursday. O’Brien, 61, has carved out an improbable decadeslong career arc, moving from goofy television interloper to comedic elder statesman. Along the way, he survived one of the most public failures in the history Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) On a quiet weekend in movie theaters, while much of Hollywood’s attention was on the wildfires that continue to rage in Los Angeles, Lionsgate’s “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” debuted atop the box office with $15.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. Mid-January is often a slow moviegoing period, and that was slightly exacerbated by Read More 

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