Mike White Promises a Much Darker Season of “The White Lotus”
The White Lotus creator, Mike White, has been refreshingly candid about what the thematic framing has been around the first two seasons. Season one, set at the titular resort’s Hawaii location, was about money, White has said. Season two, set in Sicily, was about sex. Each season, however, dealt a deliciously dark twist at its end, with season one’s hotel manager, Armond (a perfectly cast Murray Bartlett), meeting a grim fate, while season two kicked off by letting viewers know it would end in death,
Netflix Unveils 2025 Slate: “Stranger Things,” “Squid Game,” “Happy Gilmore 2” and More
Netflix unveiled its 2025 slate with some big name appearances (Tina Fey, John Mulaney, Ben Affleck, and the Duffer Brothers) for their “New on Netflix” presentation and unleashed a brilliant sizzle reel to hype their offerings.
The streamer had a banner 2024, with its feature Emilia Pérez locking up a whopping 13 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Lead Actress (Karla Sofía Gascón, the first transgendered nominee in the Academy’s history),
From Ranch to Rodeo to Rig: How the Hair on “Yellowstone” & “Landman” Tells the Story
The season finale of Yellowstone, the modern-day Western saga that became a cultural touchstone, aired in December. Audiences didn’t have to wait long for creator Taylor Sheridan’s next project, Landman, the first season of which was released even before Yellowstone bowed on Paramount+. Billy Bob Thornton stars as Tommy Norris, a West Texas oil company operations manager (or landman), who, over the course of a single week,
Death Stalks the Vacationers in “The White Lotus” Season 3 Trailer
“By the end of the week, you will be an entirely different person,” promises a staff member at the Thailand location of the White Lotus resort in the official trailer for season 3. Mike White’s killer comedy returns, and this meaty, nearly three-minute look spells out big trouble in Thailand for our vacationers and the assorted resort staff tasked with taking care of their impossible needs.
“What happens in Thailand stays in Thailand”
The Vacation Continues: “The White Lotus” Renewed For Season 4
The trip continues.
The White Lotus Season 4 has been officially greenlit by HBO before the first episode of Season 3 has aired. Variety reports that Mike White’s razor-sharp satire will return, with production likely to begin in 2026. There’s no indication yet where the fourth season will take place and whether any cast members will return (Natasha Rothwell, an alumnus from Season 1, is returning for the third season).
Studios Pledge Millions in Wildfire Relief & Support
The fires in southern California are ongoing. A bit of bright news, however, is that as of this past Wednesday evening, January 15, the red-flag warnings had expired in much of Southern California. The desert winds are expected to shift and offer the region some reprieve after a nightmare stretch. Yet forecasters have warned that daunting conditions could resume early next week and are predicting the Santa Ana winds might change direction on Thursday. The situation remains fluid.
The Tribute to David Lynch That Captures his Joyful Approach to the Dark
The great David Lynch passed away at 78 yesterday, leaving behind masterworks that dared to leave questions unanswered. Those films, from his breakout Eraserhead (1977), which baffled and even offended critics (Variety wrote at the time that it was a “sickening bad-taste exercise”) that thrilled audiences, to the era-defining Blue Velvet (1986), that forever seared the image of a severed ear covered in ants into the psyche of mid-80s America,
“Daredevil: Born Again” Trailer Brings Charlie Cox Back to a Chaotic Hell’s Kitchen
The official trailer for Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again has dropped, reinstating Charlie Cox’s sight-impaired superhero, Matt Murdock, into his own series after a few tantalizing cameos in other Marvel films and series.
Daredevil: Born Again reunites Cox’s superhero and Vincent D’Onofrio’s brutal criminal super-boss Kingpin for the first time since they clashed back when Daredevil was a Netflix series from 2015 to 2018. Matt Murdock had a brief,
L.A. Wildfire Relief Efforts Launched: How to Help
The devastating wildfires burning across Los Angeles reached the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday night, nearing iconic landmarks like the Hollywood Bowl. At the same time, fires have already impacted communities and thousands of people, including in the Palisades, Altadena, the San Fernando Valley, and Malibu. As of Wednesday night, the L.A. Fire Department reported that the Palisades Fire was zero percent contained and is the most destructive fire in L.A. history, destroying more than 1,000 structures and leading to at least five deaths.
Oscar Nominations Pushed 2 Days Due to Historic L.A. Fires
The devastating fires raging across Los Angeles have caught the world’s attention with their ferocity and unpredictability.
The toll of the damage will take months to assess, but even last night, fresh fires were breaking out; the latest, named the Sunset Fire, broke out in Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills at around 5:30 p.m. The fires have already hit the Palisades, Altadena, the San Fernando Valley, and Malibu. The Sunset Fires now raging in Runyon Canon in the Hollywood Hills are close to iconic locations,
Making Macondo: How the “One Hundred Years of Solitude” Cinematographers Brought Gabriel García Márquez’s Epic to Netflix
Directors Alex García López and Laura Mora have undertaken the historic feat of adapting Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez’s 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, into a sixteen-part Netflix series, the first half of which was released on December 11. Unlike the book, which moves back and forth in time across seven generations of the Buendía family, the show is chronological (and it was shot chronologically, too), but beyond the change in timing,
A Riveting New Teaser Confirms “The Last of Us” Season 2 Arriving on HBO in April
The second season of HBO and Sony Pictures TV’s gripping drama The Last of Us will sink its teeth into our eyeballs this April, Sony confirmed Monday night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
A riveting new one-minute teaser for the series was released on Monday, revealing glimpses of what’s to come and confirming that April showers will also bring April zombies (one assumes that in the world of The Last of Us,
Golden Globes 2025: “Emilia Pérez” and “Shōgun” Win Four Apiece, “The Brutalist” Wins Top Film Drama
The 2025 Golden Globes were held on Sunday night in Los Angeles, with awards bestowed upon one of 2024’s most marquee television series, and a pair of challenging, masterfully constructed films took top honors.
The Brutalist was named the best motion picture — drama, with helmer Brady Corbet winning best director, and his leading man, Adrien Brody, won best actor in a drama. During his acceptance speech, Brody, who plays László Tóth,
First Trailer for “Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” Slings Spidey Into Marvel’s New Animated Series
Disney+ unveiled its first animated Spider-Man series over the holidays with this glimpse at Marvel Animation’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
The trailer opens on the iconic theme song—you know the one—where “Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can” and was written by Bob Harris and Paul Francis Webster for the classic 1967 cartoon series. Peter Parker is voiced by Hudson Thomas, and we see just how far from a superhero Peter starts off to be;
Best of 2024: “Shōgun” Editors Aika Miyake and Maria Gonzales on Cutting Mariko’s Heroic Path
*This interview was selected by measures having nothing to do with science as one of our standouts from 2024. Miyake and Gonzales unpack how they helped the story of Anna Sawai’s incredible Lady Mariko.
The first season of Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo’s masterful Shōgun was an expertly paced slow-burn drama that plunged viewers into 17th-century Japan with a passionate obsession with the rigors and wonders of the period and location.
Best of 2024: “Agatha All Along” Creator Jac Schaeffer on Setting off Marvel’s Witching Hour
Agatha All Along creator Jac Schaeffer explores the witchy side of the Marvel Universe just in time for Halloween. The timing of the show’s release is a happy accident for Schaeffer, who also directed the first two episodes. In bringing the titular witch, Agatha (Kathryn Hahn), back from WandaVision, Schaeffer and her team have made a series with a playful spookiness centered on an irresistible Hahn,
Best of 2024: How “The Penguin” Production Designer Kalina Ivanov Helped Bring Gotham Back to New York City
*This interview was selected by measures having nothing to do with science as one of our standouts from 2024. The creation of Gotham for HBO’s shockingly good series The Penguin fell, in large part, to ace production designer Kalina Ivanov. Here’s how she pulled it off.
Production designer Kalina Ivanov was destined to be part of the HBO spin-off series The Penguin from creator Lauren LeFranc,
From “Kill Bill” to Martin Scorsese to “Shōgun”: Producer Eriko Miyagawa on Her Hero’s Journey
A lucky break followed by a realization that the road ahead still won’t be a smooth march toward success is a pattern recognizable by many in the entertainment industry and beyond. The fortuitous happenstance for Eriko Miyagawa came in the form of an email saying that Quentin Tarantino was shooting in Beijing and looking for someone fluent in English and Japanese. This felt like an emphatically good turn of fortune for the smart, ambitious Miyawaga.
“The White Lotus” Season 3 Trailer Unveils a Starry Cast on a Dark Path in Thailand
The first trailer for The White Lotus season 3 has arrived, with the season set in Thailand, where the titular global resort chain offers its guests the kind of peace they so sorely lack in their daily lives. Mike White’s beloved satire returns to HBO this February, with one returning cast member from the first season (Natasha Rothwell) and another killer ensemble.
The new season’s guests include a girl’s trip trio (Leslie Bibb as Kate,
“Dune: Prophecy” Editors Amelia Allwarden and Anna Hauger on Weaving the Tapestry of Sisterhood’s Growing Power
No strangers to collaborating on world-building, editors Amelia Allwarden and Anna Hauger relished the chance to come together to help shape Dune: Prophecy.
The Westworld alums shaped the season finale together, as well as overseeing their own episodes of the HBO magisterial new series that extends the world of Dune set into motion by director Denis Villeneuve’s critically acclaimed films. Set long before Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) was rising to power in the desert sands of Arrakis,
