HBO Max Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Love & Death will premiere on HBO Max this week – you can find episode details below.The upcoming crime drama is based on the true story of Candy Montgomery, a housewife in 1980s Wylie, Texas, who pursues an affair with Allan Gore, her best friend Betty’s husband.Montgomery was accused and tried for murdering Betty, who was found dead in her home with multiple axe wounds.Alongside Olsen, the upcoming mini-series also stars Jesse Plemons, Lily Rabe and Krysten Ritter.There will be seven episodes of the mini-series in total, with the first three dropping on HBO Max on April 27.

Succession” had a wife and kid in the pilot episode of the series — who were never seen again.Culkin, 40, revealed what happened to Roman Roy’s family in a new interview with Variety, sharing, “Not his kid. Not his wife, either.”“It was in the pilot, and after it was picked up, it was his girlfriend, and she had a child,” he told the outlet.As for the wedding band the actor was wearing in the pilot, it’s his real one from his marriage with wife Jazz Charton.But Culkin, who has two kids — daughter Kinsey Sioux, 3, and son Wilder Wolf, 2 — was delighted to play a father and was initially let down that it wasn’t going to play out that way.“I was excited about the idea of having a kid, and the kid was like 7 or 8.

tweeted the sarcastic comment after saying that several people were already threatening to boycott the new series over her involvement. “Dreadful news, which I feel duty bound to share.

Selome Hailu For the second week in a row, “Succession” reached its biggest audience yet. The HBO drama reached 2.6 million viewers on Sunday night, when the fourth episode of its fourth and final season debuted. That’s an improvement of 4% from Episode 3, which featured a shocking death and brought in a then-series high of 2.5 million viewers. Immediately afterwards, HBO and HBO Max premiered the fourth and final season of “Barry” with two episodes. The first episode was watched by 710,000 viewers — the most the series has seen since the finale of Season 2, which benefited from airing directly after an episode of “Game of Thrones,” HBO’s most watched show ever. Episode 2 dropped by 23% to bring in 550,000 viewers.

“torture porn” — is here.The “Blinding Lights” history-maker, 33, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, portrays shady nightclub owner Tedros, who becomes obsessed with Jocelyn, an up-and-coming pop star played by “nepo baby” Lily-Rose Depp, 23. “When was the last truly f – – king nasty, nasty bad-pop girl?” asks Jocelyn’s friend Caleb, portrayed by singer Troye Sivan, 27, as she poses for a sexy photo shoot in the teaser.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer As HBO Max morphs into Max next month, the onus is now on the marketing teams inside Warner Bros. Discovery to get the word out. While talk of a combined HBO Max and Discovery+ streamer has swirled around Hollywood for months (including the now-correct assumption that it would be named Max), awareness of the change is just now hitting consumers. That’s where Pato Spagnoletto, global chief marketing officer of direct-to-consumer at Warner Bros. Discovery, and his team will come in. They have a month — the new service launches May 23 — to educate audiences on why the streamer is dropping “HBO” from its name, and what it will now be offering — including the promise of more personalized recommendations, better positioning of kids’ content and several splashy titles, including a Max original devoting each season to adapting one book in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The second installment of the final season of “Titans,” which was split into two six-episode parts, has finally arrived on HBO Max. Two new episodes are now available on the streamer, which will release episodes on a weekly basis until the series finale on May 13. The superhero team-up series follows young heroes from across the DC Universe as they come of age and find where they belong. In the third season, circumstances draw the heroes to Gotham City, where they reunite with old friends and face new threats. The first half of Season 4 left off with a cliffhanging mid-season finale, in which Sebastian Sanger (Joseph Morgan) agrees to take part in a cultish ritual that leads him to unwittingly vaporize most of the surrounding Titans, a scene that is said to evoke the ending of Marvel’s “Infinity War” and Thanos’s iconic snap.

HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery’s newly rebranded Max streaming service has ordered a previously rumored “Game of Thrones” prequel series, “A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight” The series is based on George R.R.

ignited controversy for her statements about the transgender community – including blowback from Daniel Radcliffe himself – will be involved in the show as an executive producer.

HBO‘s Succession has done the unthinkable, finally pulling the trigger on a major plot point that will change the course of the show’s remaining episodes. Now, a producer and writer on the show has opened up about how they managed to keep the plot twist from leaking. Warning: major spoilers ahead.Following the shocking death of Logan Roy in season four, episode three, Succession writer and longtime producer Georgia Pritchett has taken to Twitter to reveal how the show’s creative team used code words when planning Logan’s death to prevent it from leaking.Pritchett wrote: “This was a tough secret to keep! We decided it in the #Succession writers’ room in Jan 22.

Miguel Sapochnik’s exit in August.HBO has given the upcoming second season a shortened run of eight episodes, TheWrap previously confirmed. Individuals with knowledge of the matter said the move is due only to the needs of the story being told and not to any other concerns.HBO and HBO Max chief Casey Bloys previously said he expects the second season to premiere “sometime in 2024.”“We’re just starting to put the plan together, and just like last time, there are so many unknowns,” Bloys told Vulture in an interview in October.

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for “Succession” Season 4, Episode 3, “Connor’s Wedding.“Fans are still reeling over Sunday night’s emotionally shocking episode of “Succession.” It was a moment many fans expected to come at some point in the season — but not as soon as it did.Logan Roy is dead.The episode, written by creator Jesse Armstrong and directed by Mark Mylod, started off centered around Connor Roy’s (Alan Ruck) wedding with girlfriend Willa (Justine Lupe), but quickly took a turn when Logan Roy (Brian Cox) suddenly collapsed on board his private jet — leaving the Roy siblings grieving over their father’s unexpected death at a wedding.In a highly emotional scene, Tom Wambsgans (Matthew MacFadyen) called Shiv (Sarah Snook), Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) from the plane to let them speak to their dad in case he could still hear them, with all of the children grieving and processing in their own ways.Mylod revealed in the behind-the-scenes look after the episode that the stunning sequence was filmed in one almost 30-minute continuous take.But as the kids deal with the death of their patriarch, the Waystar RoyCo team jumps into crisis mode, figuring out what kind of statement to release that will keep the markets happy and not negatively impact their impending deals.The show notably did not have a dramatic death scene. Viewers don’t get to see the media mogul die on-screen — just doctors doing chest compressions on a body that was most likely already dead and the aftermath of grief.It turns out, Cox, 76, wasn’t even there for the death.

This week’s episode of “The Mandalorian” included a significant cameo from Lizzo and the singer is giving her fans an inside peek at how it all came together.

As superhero fans prep for the long-awaited world premiere of “The Flash” later this month at CinemaCon, director Andy Muschietti preps his next project, “Welcome To Derry,” at HBO Max. And Variety has the first casting news from the “IT” prequels.

actress was a guest on and revealed that she has officially signed on to play Dionne Warwick in an upcoming film.«We're already working on it,» Taylor told Hall when asked about possibly playing the legendary songstress.«We're at the building process right now,» the 31-year-old triple-threat star said. «I always wanted to make sure I could lock in with any person I would be playing.»Taylor went on to reference Angela Bassett's Oscar-nominated performance as Tina Turner in  and Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning performance as Ray Charles in. «I miss when movies was like that,» she shared.

reported by Bloomberg, the show would be based directly on J.K. Rowling’s best-selling novels, with each season focusing on one book in the seven-book series.The potential series would not be based on an in-universe spin-off, such as the “Fantastic Beasts” films.The concept of one season per book suggests that the franchise would be an ongoing, years-long project from Warner Bros.Rowling is in preliminary talks to join the project as a producer and would have a degree of creative involvement, though she would not be the primary creator or showrunner of the series.Once Rowling is officially on board, the project is expected to look for a writer.There have long been talks about a “Harry Potter” television series, with rumors first sparking in January 2021 — although Warner Bros.

DC superhero film Blue Beetle – check it out above.Directed by Angel Manuel Soto, the film follows teenager Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) who gains superpowers when an alien blue beetle scarab grafts onto his face and forms a powerful exoskeleton around his body.To reflect the character’s DC comic origins, the film boasts a predominantly Latino cast, including Cobra Kai star Maridueña in the lead role, alongside George Lopez, Adriana Barraza, Elpidia Carrillo, Damián Alcázar and Belissa Escobedo as Jaime’s family.Susan Sarandon will play villain Victoria Kord, alongside Raoul Trujillo as Blue Beetle’s nemesis Carapax the Indestructible Man. Harvey Guillén, best known for playing Guillermo in TV series What We Do In The Shadows, will also star in an unknown role.A synopsis reads: “Recent college grad Jaime Reyes returns home full of aspirations for his future, only to find that home is not quite as he left it.

Last year, the Starz limited series “Gaslit” took on Watergate and its complexities. In 2023, it’s HBO‘s turn to deliver its own series about the infamous political scandal, albeit from a slightly different angle.

, HBO renewed the prequel, confirming that the series would return for a second season. Based on George R.R.

Succession star Kieran Culkin has revealed in a new interview that he wanted “to cry” after his co-star Sarah Snook made a comment about the show coming to an end.Speaking to Esquire for a cover story, Culkin revealed that at the Emmys last year, Snook approached him with a remark on how they might never work together again once Succession comes to an end. The comment was made long before anyone knew season four would be the show’s last.“Hey, Kieran, you’ll love this,” Snook said to Culkin.

The White Lotus season three will reportedly be set in Thailand.The first two seasons of Mike White’s HBO series were filmed at Four Season resorts in Hawaii and Italy, respectively. Continuing that trend, the show’s third run is expected to be shot in one of the hotel chain’s four major properties in Thailand, which are located in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui and the Golden Triangle.Thailand’s Four Seasons resorts are spread across the city, country, jungle and beach, giving the new season plenty of settings to play with.White previously hinted that season three would take place in Asia and focus on “death and Eastern religion and spirituality.“The first season kind of highlighted money, and then the second season is sex,” White said in a clip attached to the season two finale.

Succession co-star Jeremy Strong’s approach to method acting.Earlier this month, their co-star Brian Cox – who plays Logan Roy in the hit HBO series – slammed Strong’s method acting, calling it “American shit”. While calling him “a wonderful actor”, Cox added, “I’m glad he is not in pain personally. It’s really a cultural clash.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic While most contemporary music documentaries fall into the realm of self-produced hagiography, no one will be making that charge about “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed,” a clear-eyes/hearts-full documentary coming from HBO Max documentary that had its world premiere at the Grammy Museum. At a Q&A with Isbell and director Sam Jones following the screening of the film, which begins streaming April 7, moderator Colin Hanks, a big Isbell fan, asked the doc’s star: “What was it about this that made you go, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna do a doc,’ and really make yourself a little bit more raw than maybe you had even in your songs?”

Succession creator and show runner Jesse Armstrong has revealed his thoughts on his initial pitch to end the show with season four.Speaking to Variety at the Succession premiere earlier this month, Armstrong shared that he had secretly hoped he would be talked out of ending the show so soon while maintaining that the hit HBO series has come to a “natural” end.“The word that comes to mind for me is ‘natural.’ I hope people, when they see this season, will feel that it has a natural shape to it. That’s how I pitched it to my writers’ room, kind of hoping I’d get argued out of it so we’d see a way to do more seasons, because I love working with these people.

tracking the status of all the primetime programming on those broadcast channels as well as all the 2023 premieres, ET has also put together a continuously updated guide to all the notable original series on the biggest digital services including Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount+, Prime Video and a few select others.

Casey Bloys left the decision about when to end its award juggernaut “Succession” to creator Jesse Armstrong, but the HBO and HBO Max chairman and CEO would have loved to see more seasons of the drama about the Logan family media empire.Speaking at the Series Mania festival in Lille, France on Thursday, the HBO and HBO Max chairman and CEO said of the series ending after four years: “He is choosing to end his story when and how he wants. But if he said ‘I have two more seasons in me,’ I would have said yes.”He added, “I would have taken more, but generally speaking, that is the kind of thing you want to leave to a creator.

Succession show-runner Jesse Armstrong decided to end the show despite HBO being hungry for more seasons.HBO executive Casey Bloys revealed that the television network behind the hit show “would have taken more” seasons. Talking to Variety, Bloys hinted the network was at least hoping to get two more seasons out of Armstrong.“I would have taken more, but generally speaking, that is the kind of thing you want to leave to a creator,” said Bloys.

What’s the worst-case scenario for an extramarital affair? Divorce? Ruined families and reputations? Murder? Such is the backdrop to “Love & Death,” an upcoming HBO Max original limited series. READ MORE: Elizabeth Olsen Says Scarlet Witch Could Appear In ‘Agatha’ Series: “I Think I’ll Be Back” Based on the real-life case of Candy Montgomery, “Love & Death” follows two church-going couples, Candy and Pat Montgomery and Betty and Allen Gore, whose once-quiet lives get upturned when Candy decides to pursue an affair with Allen and, soon enough, someone is picking up an axe… Elisabeth Olsen and Jesse Plemons star in the new series from “Ally McBeal” and “Big Little Lies” scribe David E.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter HBO Max is developing a drama series based on the life of Heidi Fleiss, Variety has learned exclusively. The untitled series hails from writer and executive producer Maggie Cohn, who most recently served as the co-showrunner on HBO Max’s critically acclaimed limited series “The Staircase.” Fleiss will serve as a consultant on the project. Emma Tillinger Koskoff (“Joker,” The Irishman”) of First Love Films will also executive produce, along with Alex Goldstone (“Dickinson”) for Anonymous Content, Bill Gerber (“Muhammed Ali,” “A Star Is Born”) of Gerber Pictures, and David Bernon, Paul Bernon, and Sam Slater of Burn Later Productions (“Support the Girls,” “Mile 22,” “Drinking Buddies”).