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The four-year wait for new episodes of Aziz Ansari’s beloved Netflix comedy series “Master of None” is almost over. Netflix has announced five new episodes of the show are set for release this May under the title “Master of None Presents: Moments in Love.” The new title is appropriate as the show’s third season is not going to look like the two seasons that preceded it. Ansari’s character Dev was the focus of the show’s run so far, but Season 3 will shift the spotlight to Lena Waithe’s supporting character Denise. The first trailer for ““Master of None Presents: Moments in Love” hints the new episodes will mostly be a two hander between Lena Waithe and Naomi Acki, the rising star who played Jannah in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”...

“Rutherford Falls” is a story about who tells our stories, who is allowed to make history, and who ends up relegated to the sidelines. That narrative also extends to the creation of the new Peacock series. “Rutherford Falls” is the brainchild of Mike Schur, Ed Helms, and Sierra Teller Ornelas, and for Ornelas especially, it was a chance to create a space for Native storytellers. Ornelas needed a break after producing the long-running sitcom, “Superstore,” but, more importantly, she wanted to branch out on her own. “I’d worked for almost 10 years, at that time, on other people’s shows,” Ornelas told IndieWire. “I really wanted to do a Native anthology that was my idea that I was developing.” Her manager directed her to Schur, who was...

However low the ratings turn out to be for the two-month-delayed 2021 Oscars, the three rookie Oscar show producers, Steven Soderbergh, Stacey Sher, and Glenn Collins, took advantage of their pandemic limitations to apply a fresh twist to the tried-and-true awards-show formula. They wanted viewers to escape into a cinematic experience miles away from the trapped-at-home feel of watching television and Zoom. Soderbergh’s watch-a-movie Oscars deployed roving wide-angle lenses, 24 fps images, and a live Questlove soundtrack to take audiences closer to attendees, sitting two by two at plush banquettes and small tables in the blue-curtained intimate amphitheatre erected inside iconic Union Station. As Soderbergh promised beforehand, “I want...

Frances McDormand has won the Best Actress Academy Award at the 2021 Oscars Sunday night for her celebrated performance in “Nomadland.” It’s a historic win: In taking home her third Best Actress statuette, McDormand has now won the prize more times than anyone else besides Katharine Hepburn. McDormand beat out Viola Davis in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” Carey Mulligan in “Promising Young Woman,” Vanessa Kirby in “Pieces of a Woman,” and Andra Day in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.” “Nomadland” won Best Picture right before the presentation of Best Actress, the first time the top award hadn’t been issued at the very end of the ceremony since the 1972 show. Despite the BAFTA win and Golden Globe, Independent Spirit, SAG, and...

Will Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” win the Oscar for Best Picture? Yes, and it became only the second film directed by a woman to take the Academy’s top prize. Most Oscar pundits agreed the Frances McDormand-starring drama was the one to beat this year considering it’s mostly swept the awards circuit so far, winning Best Picture honors at the Golden Globes, the BAFTA Film Awards, the Film Independent Spirit Awards, and the Critics Choice Awards. Whichever film wins the 2021 Best Picture prize will follow in the footsteps of “Parasite,” which became the first foreign-language winner of Best Picture at the 2020 ceremony. “Nomadland” star Frances McDormand won the Best Actress prize, the third Oscar of her career. Only Katherine Hepburn has...

In a surprise upset over the nominee many expected to be the slam-dunk winner, Anthony Hopkins won the Best Actor Academy Award on Sunday night for his performance in “The Father.” Hopkins, winning his second Best Actor Academy Award, after 1991’s “The Silence of the Lambs,” wasn’t totally expected to prevail over late actor Chadwick Boseman for his turn in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Along with Chadwick Boseman, Anthony Hopkins (who is 83 years old) also won the Oscar over Riz Ahmed for “Sound of Metal,” Gary Oldman for “Mank,” and Steven Yeun for “Minari.” A small minority predicted Hopkins could be the winner after he took the Best Actor award at the BAFTAs earlier this month for “The Father,” in which he plays an aging man...

“Mortal Kombat” bested “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train” this weekend, but exhibition was the real winner. Both R-rated films targeted the action audience, and they both doubled their pre-opening estimates with a combined gross of $42 million. The total for all revenues will come to around $55 million, which is 25 percent better than any weekend since theater closures began and ahead of March 13-15 last year, the weekend before exhibition shut down. It’s a significant step on the steep climb toward recovery. “Mortal Kombat” took in an estimated $22.5 million — more than “Tenet” grossed in its first eight days. That’s $6 million more than “Wonder Woman 1984” — over Christmas weekend, no less. Per the first-day...

The writing was on the walls in 2017 when “The Mummy,” the patient zero of Universal’s planned Dark Universe mega-franchise, bombed at the box office. With projected losses of nearly $100 million for Universal Pictures, the film failed to launch what was supposed to be a sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe analog for the studio. While the Dark Universe is being refashioned on a smaller scale (starting with films like last year’s sleeper hit “The Invisible Man”), the original plan is no more. In a recent interview with The Playlist, Eric Heisserer, the creator of “Shadow and Bone” and the screenwriter of “Arrival,” talked about his experience dipping into the waters of the Dark Universe, and why it fell apart. “It was a very strange...

Debate is underway in Turkey’s film community over similarities between the award-winning 2019 Turkish feature “Passed by Censor” and Elvira Lind’s “The Letter Room,” which is nominated for the Best Live Action Short Oscar. Both films revolve around similar lead characters: prison guards tasked with scanning inmates’ mail for objectionable content. Now the Turkish filmmaking team has lawyered up and wants to negotiate with their American counterparts. Financed by Topic, the streaming service owned by First Look Media, “The Letter Room” stars Lind’s husband Oscar Isaac and Alia Shawkat. After debuting at Hollyshorts in November 2020, it appeared on the Oscars shortlist in February; several more distribution deals followed. On April 11...

It’s been the longest awards season ever after the Academy decided to delay the 93rd Academy Awards from February to April because of the pandemic, but the big show is finally upon us. The 2021 Oscars ceremony begins at 8pm ET Sunday on ABC, broadcasting live from both Union Station and the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. ABC is extending its coverage of the 2021 Oscars with a pre-show beginning at 6:30pm ET (“Oscars: Into the Spotlight,” hosted by Ariana Debose and Lil Rel Howery) and a post-show airing after the Oscars ceremony (“Oscars: After Dark,” with Colman Domingo and Andrew Rannells). All three programs — “Oscars: Into the Spotlight,” “The Oscars,” and “Oscars: After Dark” — will be available to watch live via ABC.COM and the...

It’s official: Elon Musk will make his “Saturday Night Live” debut as host of the NBC series on Saturday, May 8. Alongside him, Miley Cyrus will make her sixth appearance on “Saturday Night Live” as the musical guest. She’s currently promoting her most recent studio album “Plastic Hearts.” As the CEO and Technoking of Tesla as well as the Chief Engineer of SpaceX, Musk was most recently in the news for the launch of the second operational flight of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station on April 23. Musk adds to a line of unusual hosts that “Saturday Night Live” has taken chances on in the past (and often to impressive ratings), including Donald Trump, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, and Al Sharpton. While he may seem...

As fourth and fifth film installments in the beloved action franchise “John Wick” head our way, details are finally starting to emerge about the prequel spinoff series first announced back in 2017. Known as “The Continental,” the show will be a prequel series likely centered on a young Winston, the character played by Ian McShane in the movies. Lionsgate TV boss Kevin Beggs recently spoke with Deadline about plans for the series, and what it might look like even without Keanu Reeves in a starring role. Starz is currently set to host the show. “We took a lot of pitches, and then the creative team from this obscure little show called Wayne that was on YouTube came to us with their take,” Beggs said. “We were really blown away because it...

Hollywood is starting to speak up about film and Broadway producer Scott Rudin’s long, alleged history of abusive behavior toward staff and collaborators. Rudin’s behavior has been heavily documented in both a Hollywood Reporter exposé and a Vulture.com deep dive. On Saturday, the New York Times published an extensive story interviewing such erstwhile Rudin collaborators as Rita Wilson, David Geffen, Robert Fox, and playwright Adam Rapp. In one particularly harrowing section, Wilson talked about her experience working with Rudin on Broadway for Larry David’s 2015 play “Fish in the Dark,” the same year she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “When she told Mr. Rudin the news, she said, he complained that she would need time off during...