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Sources say the ‘Real Time’ host was furious after he wasn’t invited to Bryan Lourd’s Academy Awards bash.Sources say the host of HBO’s Real Time fired CAA, his reps for more than two decades, on Monday after he was not invited to CEO Bryan Lourd’s private Oscar party at his home on Saturday night. Maher, according to sources, was furious that he was snubbed for the event — which was scheduled opposite the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Night Before bash. The party at Lourd’s home drew the likes of J.J. Abrams, Barry Diller, Kamala Harris, Margot Robbie, Bob Iger,...

The Star Trek franchise is heading in a new direction on the big screen, with Star Trek: Discovery writer Kalinda Vasquez set to write a new, original Star Trek movie. Paramount Pictures has set up a blind script deal for Vasquez for her to write an original movie based on an idea she hatched, according to Deadline. J.J. Abrams will produce the movie through his Bad Robot Productions company, though it's unclear if he'll come aboard to direct as well.

Actress Jurnee Smollett, brother of hate crime hoaxer Jussie Smollett, says HBO’s latest racially charged drama, Lovecraft Country, is a fictional reflection of a segregation and Jim Crow-era America that black people “are still on that quest today in 2020” to overcome. “[Racism] is sometimes even more of a threat because it’s unexpected,” Jurnee Smollett said on a Television Critics Association panel discussing the HBO series, which is set in 1950s. The J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele-produced drama sees black characters face racism while battling the fictional creatures and monsters of Marc Ruff’s famous fiction novel. “It affects your livelihood...

George Lucas “felt betrayed” by Disney‘s initial plans for the Star Wars sequel trilogy, according to Disney CEO Bob Iger. Iger has recalled the early meetings that Disney held with the creator of the acclaimed sci-fi franchise ahead of the making of The Force Awakens, which hit cinemas in 2015 as the first part of the sequel trilogy. •Read more: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – what we know so far about the final film in the trilogy In Iger’s new memoir The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company,...

[snip] This brings me to the absolute worst thing about The Rise of Skywalker, which can easily ruin the original movies as well. Disney chose to go with Palpatine as the villain, without even making the tiniest effort to explain the logic of it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing to entertain the idea that a powerful dark master of the Force can’t be killed as quickly as you’d think. Well, unless you’re Rey, in which case it’s apparently quite easy. But Palpatine was able to survive in the shadows for years? He wields such immense power that he can...

The marketing for Star Wars 9 is due to begin at this week's Star Wars Celebration in a dedicated panel on Friday, April 12 at 9.00am-10.00am PT (12.00pm-1.00pm ET, 5.00pm-6.00pm GMT). It's here we're expected to get the title and first trailer for Episode IX, likely at the end of the hour if the approach taken with Star Wars: The Last Jedi is anything to go by. The Star Wars 9 Celebration panel, as with all major Star Wars events over the weekend, will be live-streamed on the official Star Wars YouTube channel and also on StarWars.com..

Lena Dunham will write the harrowing survival tale of a Syrian refugee stranded at sea for the big screen. Dunham has been tapped by co-producers Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams to adapt “A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival.” The nonfiction release comes from author Melissa Fleming, the chief spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner and Flatiron Books. It documents the true story of Doaa Al Zamel, a mother of two fleeing Egypt for Sweden by boat. Shipwrecked along the way, Al Zamel survived for days in open water holding...

Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren is going back to California on May 21 for a big ticket fundraiser hosted by three of the Bay State's favorite sons. Actors Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and The Office's John Krasinski are hosting a $1,000 minimum donation event in the Harvard Law School professor's honor, as she takes on Republican U.S. Scott Brown is what is being billed as the most expensive Senate race in history. The event, called "A Massachusetts Evening," is being held on the rooftop of the Santa Monica building which houses Bad Robot Productions, a TV production company owned...

In anticipation of the upcoming Women’s March on Washington, celebrities from Lena Dunham and Meryl Streep to Jennifer Lawrence are celebrating the nation’s largest abortion provider: Planned Parenthood. On Tuesday, actress Lena Dunham debuted 100 Years, an animated short about Planned Parenthood that she created, along with other big names, in collaboration with her Lenny Letter and Now This Her. Dunham boasts strong ties with the abortion giant (and recently made headlines for saying she wished she had had an abortion). The video, narrated by multiple celebrities, aimed to tell the “story of the incredible woman who sacrificed everything” for...

Two months and two billion box office dollars later, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has reaped huge returns for Disney with its most progressive episode yet. Now that Daisy Ridley’s Rey and John Boyega’s Finn have given the Star Wars franchise its first female Jedi and black lead, respectively, does its fearless director J.J. Abrams see a future for a gay character in the galaxy? “Of course!” Abrams said Thursday night at his Bad Robot HQ, where he hosted the US-Ireland Alliance’s annual Oscar Wilde Awards ahead of Sunday’s Oscars, where The Force Awakens is nominated in five categories. “When...

An international cut of the Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens trailer was released with no warning on Friday. The teaser, which can be seen on the Japanese version of the official Star Wars website, includes new images of Rey, played by British actress Daisy Ridley, as well as Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia. There are also plenty of new actions shots and dialogue.

n September of 2016, Star Trek will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its first episode. Launched back in 1966, the series and the property as a whole has since become a cultural institution and five spinoffs, dozens of movies and a successful reboot in 2009. However, since JJ Abrams turned Star Trek around and made into a broader appealing property, fans of the series have felt somewhat neglected. There hasn't been a Star Trek-related TV series since Enterprise - which was cancelled unceremoniously in 2005 after just four seasons. All previous spinoffs hit seven seasons. There's been constant rumblings and...

Hollywood’s enemies of American freedom are busy undermining the life we have built and hope to keep. These social parasites, who have the wherewithal to live anywhere after they complete the destruction of America, are opening their checkbooks to the Democrats who will carry out the end game for America if we let them. People like Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Barbra Streisand, whose personal lives have nothing whatsoever in common with our own, are pouring out their “One percenter” fortunes to force us to live as they deign we should live. In an effort to save Democrat...

Luke. Leia. Han. Chewie. Artoo. Threepio. All present and accounted for as StarWars.com unveiled the official cast of "Star War: Episode VII" Tuesday. Here's the full release: The Star Wars team is thrilled to announce the cast of Star Wars: Episode VII. Actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker in the new film. Director J.J. Abrams says, "We are so excited to finally share the cast of Star Wars:...

Sound farfetched that an entire missing airliner could be part of a huge viral marketing campaign for a "Lost" movie? Really? Or perhaps you underestimate Bad Robot.

The announcements about Star Wars: Episode VII were made by Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn during a panel at Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television in Los Angeles on April 2. He also acknowledged that there had been problems with the script, but he’s confident in the version director J.J. Abrams and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan have worked on, which is based on a previous draft written by Toy Story 3 scribe Michael Arndt. “It’s all about the screenplay,” Horn said. “It has to be screenplay, screenplay, screenplay.”

Star Trek Into Darkness Dedicated To Post-9/11 Vets – Four Vets From Mission Continues Featured In Film If you watch the credits for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness you will notice that the film is dedicated to post-9/11 veterans. And the connection doesn't end there as Abrams cast four vets from the Mission Continues charity in the film.

Why, in the age of instant global communication, filmmakers insist on telling stories that depend for their impact on surprising twists I simply cannot fathom. But insist they do.But I won’t break the movie reviewer’s Prime Directive.All I can hope to do is try to preserve the element of surprise for you by missing out gigantic chunks of this review. But it’s going to be a bit like describing an elephant without mentioning the trunk.I don’t think it constitutes a spoiler for me to tell you that Star Trek Into Darkness is a brilliant, relentless thrill ride.There’s a growing sub genre of...

J.J. Abrams, I hope you’re reading this. I know you love to collaborate with Michael Giacchino. He’s done some great works including the Medal of Honor theme, Up, Star Trek and Ratatouille. With Star Trek, it was okay that you went with Giacchino, since the Star Trek franchise has had many different composers over the years. Star Wars music, however, is synonymous with John Williams. He already struck out when it came to who was going to compose the Man of Steel movie. The winner went to Hans Zimmer, the same guy who took over Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy from...

William Shatner is a man who has never been shy about expressing his opinion of Star Trek Into Darkness (and future Star Wars: Episode VII) director J.J. Abrams. During a recent press junket to promote Escape From Planet Earth, the original Captain Kirk had a few words for Abrams. During the interview, Shatner discussed Abrams along with his thoughts regarding the possible homogenization of the science-fiction film genre.