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May 15 - May 21

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Lady Gaga has announced that her long-awaited "Apple Music Live: Lady Gaga Mayhem Requiem" will be released on Apple Music on Thursday at 8 p.m. PT/11 p.m. ET, and will also debut at the same time during one-night-only screenings at 15 AMC Theaters in select cities. Directed and produced by Morningview, "Apple Music Live: Lady Gaga Mayhem Requiem" is a filmed live performance of a one-off show that Gaga staged at Los Angeles' Wiltern on January 14. During the set, Gaga performed an entirely reimagined version of her 2025 album "Mayhem," which won best pop vocal album at the Grammy Awards this past February...

Peter Jackson is discussing for the first time what it's like working with Stephen Colbert on his recently-announced "Lord of the Rings," saying he's "never met anyone who knows more about Tolkien" than the late night talk show host. "He phoned me up a year ago — before he knew his show was going to finish — and said, 'I don't know if you're interesting, but I've got an idea for a Tolkien movie based on the books that I think would be really good,'" Jackson said he liked Colbert's pitch enough to set him up with his long-standing collaborator Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies, and they worked together for a year on a treatment. Colbert even travelled to New Zealand to be closer to the team. In the middle of this writing process, "The Late Show" was canceled by CBS (the final episode is set for May 21), a decision Jackson said wasn't what the show or Colbert "deserved." But having such a major project to focus on "after he got fired" is a major benefit in Jackson's eyes. "I think Steven's actually really happy — I think it helped him process [something that] what was rather shocking," he said. "So it was like, okay, one day he's going to be a late night talk show host, and the next day he's going to be a Tolkien scriptwriter."...

London-based The Mise En Scène Company has unveiled Human Provenance in Film, a no-cost AI disclosure standard for the film and TV industry, opening consultation at the Cannes Film Market and inviting participation from producers and distributors through to insurers, platforms, and exhibitors, with a deadline of Oct. 31. The taxonomy groups AI use into three designations – No AI Used, Assistive AI, and Generative AI – intended to travel through existing sales and distribution paperwork in a form accessible to independent productions and scalable across the entire supply chain. The standard is offered under a CC BY 4.0 open license – meaning any producer, distributor, or platform can adopt and adapt it freely without fee or permission, provided they credit the source – with governance eventually transferring to an independent industry body. The initiative grew out of MSC's decision to affix a "No AI Used" label to its marketing materials at the European Film Market in Berlin earlier this year, where the company was presenting "Forelock," starring David Krumholtz, and "Billy Knight," with Al Pacino and Charlie Heaton. The standard draws on findings from Deloitte and Baringa showing that 77% of consumers want to know whether content was made with AI, and that 70% would prefer a film or show produced by humans to one generated by AI...

Hollywood's ArcLight Hollywood and Cinerama Dome has moved one step closer to once again screening films after a conditional use permit for serving alcohol was approved. However the Dome's owners, Dome Center LLC, did not offer any timeline for the reopening at a public hearing Tuesday. Los Angeles' Office of Zoning Administration held a public hearing to consider a conditional use permit for serving alcoholic beverages for on site consumption and hours of operation, 7 a.m. to 4 a.m. daily. The permit, which is valid for three years, would be associated with the entire operation of a theater complex comprising of the Cinerama Dome Theater, 14 auditorium theaters, and a restaurant cafe with two outdoor dining terraces. Elizabeth Petersen-Gower, who is working with the theater complex owners, known as Dome Center for LLC Robinson Property Group said, "This is a long standing property, and they're really working very hard to redevelop the site." The theaters shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ArcLight and Cinerama Dome remain boarded up, despite some renovation work ongoing inside. Work has been ongoing on the complex since the Blue Note jazz club opened in the same Sunset Boulevard development....

Conan O'Brien has signed up for a third year as Oscars host, Disney announced at its upfront presentation on Tuesday. O'Brien will emcee the 2027 Academy Awards, airing live on ABC and Hulu on March 14, 2027 at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT. "Conan has created remarkable energy around the Oscars," said Craig Erwich, president of Disney Television Group. "His singular comedic voice makes Hollywood's biggest night one of the most entertaining celebrations of the year." In addition to O'Brien, the Oscars have brought back producers Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan for the fourth year in a row, and Jeff Ross and Mike Sweeney for the third year in a row. Sweeney will also serve as a writer for the awards. The 99th Oscars will be the second-to-last edition of the awards to air on ABC and Hulu, as YouTube is set to air the awards ceremony starting with its 101st edition in 2029. The 2027 Oscars will also be the second-to-last to take place from the ceremony's longtime home of the Dolby Theatre, with the venue shifting to the Peacock Theater for the 101st Oscars in 2029...

Courtesy of James Hibberd, Hollywood Reporter: On Friday, we covered the Pentagon's UFO file drop because a filmmaker first showed the world a spaceship in 1902 (Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon) and, ever since, Hollywood has created thousands of movies and TV shows depicting an endless array of UFOs and aliens. The entertainment industry helped invent this genre; we made it huge, we f–king own it.  Now, suddenly, the U.S. government wants in. The Pentagon has gone from denying UFOs are a thing to dumping documents, photos and video concerning "anomalous" phenomena. The Department of Defense has promised more files to come on a "rolling" basis. This follows Donald Trump teasing "very interesting" UFO revelations, and members of Congress suggesting proof of alien life is right around the corner if only they can convince nefarious deep state bureaucrats to let them release it. But if the Pentagon expects to play on Hollywood's turf, it needs to raise its game. Last week's UFO series premiere was a major disappointment; a vague, grainy, redacted mess. There wasn't a coherent plot, there weren't any characters to root for and the effects were dreadful. This release would get an even lower Rotten Tomatoes score than Prime Video's notorious, pandemic-shot War of the Worlds remake, where Ice Cube spent 90 minutes reacting to an alien invasion while on Zoom calls. At best, those 162 files provide enough material for a season of Ancient Aliens. For the less gullible among us, we're not impressed by watching a single pixel, looking like an escapee from an Atari 2600, float across the screen (and this was described as one of the best clips)...

The 2026 Student Academy Awards ceremony will take place in Canada as part of the Toronto International Film Festival, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Wednesday. The annual event, which recognizes films made by full-time and part-time undergraduate and graduate students who have completed an intermediate-level or final graduation film as part of their coursework, was long held in Los Angeles, but since the pandemic it has emanated from London, in 2024, and New York, in 2025. This year, on Sept. 14, it will take place in the hub of TIFF, the TIFF Lightbox complex. And thanks to a partnership with the festival, Student Academy Award winners will have access to attend the fest's screenings, market, education panels and networking opportunities. The Student Academy Awards was established in 1972 to provide a platform for emerging global talent by creating opportunities within the industry to showcase their work. Past Student Academy Award winners have gone on to receive 70 Oscar nominations and have won or shared 15 Oscar statuettes...

British and French entertainment workers' unions are joining forces in a campaign to protest conditions for creative workers in the film industry. In a joint statement issued at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, Britain's Bectu (Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union) and its French sister trade unions called out a working culture that, they say has "normalised long working days" with "serious consequences for workers' health, safety, and overall wellbeing." The statement is part of Bectu's Broken Turnaround campaign, which aims to eliminate the practice of film and TV workers being routinely asked to ignore the minimum rest period they are entitled to between shifts. Workers are legally entitled to refuse to break turnaround but, the unions say, the practice is widespread and many workers feel pressured to work longer hours without appropriate mandated breaks. The "unrealistic timelines for productions," say the unions "put intense pressure on workers...