Even by Hollywood requirements, this was a 12 months bookended by tragedy, from the devastating L.A. wildfires to the brutal homicide of Rob and Michelle Reiner. In between, moguls battled over their studio kingdoms whereas late night time hosts fought D.C. to maintain their jobs (and freedom of speech), whilst highly effective tech platforms continued to gobble up leisure and AI started to to indicate off its true disruptive potential. And but, as ever, the trade discovered methods to form tradition and produce nice artwork — provocative, political, puerile (typically all three). It was, actually, a 12 months that demanded distinctive journalism, and the writers and reporters at The Hollywood Reporter heeded that decision. From an investigation into the billion-dollar celeb impersonation rip-off to a take a look at Kevin Costner’s exhausting run, from a revealing piece concerning the struggles Hollywood deadest dead-end job to a enjoyable, wildly candid oral historical past of the very entitled vacationers at The White Lotus, listed here are 25 of THR’s most compelling reads of the 12 months.
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Rise of the Machines: Inside Hollywood’s AI Civil Battle
Picture Credit score: Illustrated by Tael Gomes The expertise is already remodeling the trade — and will ceaselessly change the leisure we devour. However the battle to include it has simply begun.
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YouTube Simply Ate TV. It’s Solely Getting Began
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Jake Chessum In twenty years, the app has grown from a user-generated circus into essentially the most highly effective platform on earth. CEO Neal Mohan on his $100 billion imaginative and prescient for YouTube’s future and the disruption it’s left in its wake.
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How Ben Shapiro Conquered the MAGA-verse
Picture Credit score: Mark Peterson/Redux A go to to AmericaFest with the Harvard-educated, present tunes-loving Orthodox Jew from deep blue L.A. who harnessed anti-woke fervor to grow to be a right-wing rock star and construct conservative media’s fastest-growing empire.
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The Righteous Fury of Spencer Pratt
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Mark Griffin Champion The classic actuality villain has remade himself right into a crusading advocate with a nationwide following. His goal? The Democratic politicians he blames for the Palisades Hearth.
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Inside ‘Elio’s’ “Catastrophic” Path: America Ferrera’s Exit, Director Change and Erasure of Queer Themes
Picture Credit score: Disney/Pixar Creatives at Pixar who noticed the unique director’s earlier reduce of ‘Elio’ inform THR concerning the film’s difficult manufacturing course of: “‘Elio’ simply [became] about completely nothing.”
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How Sam Altman Performed Hollywood
Picture Credit score: Miguel Davilla OpenAI’s CEO openly regurgitated main studios’ characters to permit video app Sora 2 to spit out clips tailored for customers. Insiders on the main businesses are alarmed — and a few wonder if the studios are doing sufficient.
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‘Severance’ Secret Weapon Britt Decrease Reveals Her Wild Facet
Picture Credit score: Photographed by AB+DM She’s the beating coronary heart of this 12 months’s most thrilling — and Emmy-nominated — TV present. However there’s no telling when she may decamp for the circus (like, actually).
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‘The White Lotus’ Uncensored Oral Historical past: Mike White and Forged Spill Season 3’s Secrets and techniques
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Man Aroch; Inventive + Style Editor: Alison Edmond The creator and dozens of solid and crew reveal all the within gossip, incestuous drama and behind-the-scenes mischief of TV’s most sensational hit.
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Nate Bargatze: “Huge Dumb” Mogul
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Beau Grealy; Style Assistant: Elliott Pearson. Hair: Eric Miller. Make-up: Katie Barr. Tailor: Mariana Vasiltsova. Overlook the Porsche, the sold-out arenas, the theme park. The world’s most profitable stand-up — and this 12 months’s Emmy host — swears he’s nonetheless only a common man.
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How Kevin Costner Misplaced Hollywood
Picture Credit score: Photograph-illustration by Neil Jamieson On-set brawls. Courtroom battles. Epic bombs. Why the world’s most bankable cowboy is abruptly capturing blanks.
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This Is Not Keanu: Contained in the Billion-Greenback Superstar Impersonation Bitcoin Rip-off
Picture Credit score: illustration by Taylor Callery Victims assume they’re speaking to Keanu Reeves. Or Kevin Costner. Then come the pleas for money. The brazen AI-fueled con that fleeces lovestruck followers and has Hollywood lastly combating again.
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The Deadest Lifeless-Finish Job in Hollywood?
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Jen Rosenstein; Grooming: Chechel Joson Manufacturing assistants have lengthy endured brutal hours, low salaries and abuse within the hope of shifting up the meals chain. However contracting budgets and blatant nepotism have turned a job that was alleged to be a doorway right into a holding cell. Now they’re lastly pushing again.
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Diller Speaks: Hollywood’s Most Fearsome Legend Bares His Soul
Picture Credit score: Photograph by Annie Leibovitz Enigmatic energy participant Barry Diller comes out (swinging) on moguldum, marriage, the film enterprise and the backlash to his brutally trustworthy new memoir: “All I ever needed was to matter.”
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Trump’s Media Pit Bull Is “Off the Leash”
Picture Credit score: Illustration by Javier Muñoz FCC chair Brendan Carr has already impressed widespread concern (and loathing) amongst media elites and free press advocates. And he’s solely been within the job for 2 months.
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Paramount By no means Made Taylor Sheridan an Provide to Keep: How TV’s Greatest Partnership Fell Aside
Picture Credit score: Emerson Miller How TV’s Greatest Partnership Fell Aside
David Ellison has the deepest pockets in Hollywood. Sheridan has the very best monitor report in streaming. Why the obvious deal in TV didn’t occur.
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Justin Baldoni’s Leap of Religion
Picture Credit score: Illustration by The Sporting Press What function did the controversial director’s Baha’i faith play on the set of ‘It Ends With Us’? Did Wayfarer’s missionary miscues assist set the stage for Hollywood’s uncivil conflict?
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That’s It, The F-Phrase Is Formally Boring
Picture Credit score: Courtesy Simply go forward and say it, no person minds anymore. Trump cursing throughout an interview is merely the final gasp of our media tradition depleting the f-word of it’s former energy.
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Inside Hollywood Succession Wars
Picture Credit score: Illustration by Neil Davies It’s too quickly to know the way the area — and the trade — may get well. However nothing shall be because it was, and solidarity is the one protection in opposition to the subsequent catastrophe.
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Transfer Over Angelyne: Meet the Sisters Battling to Grow to be L.A.’s New Billboard Queen
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Jen Rosenstein Together with her rags-to-riches rise from undocumented immigrant to insurance coverage mogul — and her ubiquitous billboards — Adriana Gallardo has caught Hollywood’s consideration. It’s a one-of-a-kind story, except you depend her sister and rival, Veronica.
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Postcard From the Edge: L.A. within the Line of Hearth
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Jay L. Clendenin It’s too quickly to know the way the area — and the trade — may get well. However nothing shall be because it was, and solidarity is the one protection in opposition to the subsequent catastrophe.
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Jonathan Majors’ Second of Reality
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Frank Ockenfels 3
Talking completely for the primary time since his home violence sentencing, the embattled ‘Journal Desires’ star opens up about his childhood abuse, Marvel firing and battle for Hollywood redemption: “It’s more durable to discover a manner when you find yourself trapped in notoriety.” -
The ‘Handmaid’s Story’ Uncensored Oral Historical past of a Revolution
Picture Credit score: Illustrated by Valerie Chiang; Courtesy of Hulu (9) Margaret Atwood, creator Bruce Miller, Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd and 20-plus producers, castmembers and execs reveal how a traditional novel grew to become the Emmy-winning emblem of anti-Trump resistance.
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Cancellation, Conspiracies, Cocaine: Jamie Foxx, Sarah Silverman, Seth Meyers Let Unfastened on THR’s Stand-Up Comedy Roundtable
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Beau Grealy Six prime comics — together with Hasan Minhaj, Chelsea Handler and Roy Wooden Jr. — on discovering the humorous in tragedy, dying and shedding ‘The Every day Present.’
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The Rage of ‘Adolescence’: Contained in the Single-Shot Sensation Blowing Up the Manosphere
Picture Credit score: Photographed by Simon Emmett Of their first group interview, THR cowl stars Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper, Ashley Walters and Erin Doherty open up about Netflix’s hottest U.Ok. title of all time: “That is an examination of male rage.”
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Shia LaBeouf and David Mamet Simply Would possibly Save Every Different
Picture Credit score: Pam Susemiehl Two legendary Hollywood outcasts open up about becoming a member of forces for ‘Henry Johnson’ — a movie so indie, they’re distributing it themselves — and in some way winding up with among the greatest work of their careers.