Actors' Unions Tell Members Not To Work On ‘The Hobbit’; Peter Jackson Threatens To Shoot In Eastern Europe It’s getting ugly in Middle-Earth. Despite the fact that the future status ofThe Hobbithas not yet been determined as MGM struggles back to solvency, work on the film has moved forward. But an actors' organization in New Zealand is pressuringPeter Jacksonand the production to draw up a new contract “providing minimum guarantees on wages and working conditions, residual payments, and cancellation payments to actors engaged on the production....

Amy Schumer Celebrates Mothers On ‘Saturday Night Live’ But Melissa McCarthy Steals The Show Thought not quite as celebrated as the Christmas episode,Saturday Night Livealways does something special for Mother’s Day. This time they pulled out pull the stops for the cold open, opting to avoid all of the typical political satire (kind of) and deliver a heartwarming tribute to the cast members' mothers. In fact, the episode as a whole pretty much steered clear of politics entirely....

Angie’s Top 10 Films Of 2014 In box office terms, 2014 wasn’t a huge year for film. But in creative terms, it’s hard to fault this year’s crop. It contained at least one once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece, not to mention one of the greatest horror movies in years, several big-budget franchise-builders that soared way past expectations, and some completely out-of-nowhere gems. As the year winds to a close, I’ve taken a moment to look back at some highlights....

Box Office: Gangster Up 12% Saturday, Headed For $46M; Bee Movie Eyes $40M It appears that American Gangster (Universal) is the weekend movie with the most “sting.” The searing epic, from director Ridley Scott and starring Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, got a nice 12% bump from its opening day for a second day haul of $17.69M. I’m plugging in a Sunday drop of 23%, which would translate to a spectacular weekend of $46....

Brad Bird Gives An ‘Incredibles 2’ Status Update We didn’t see anything real fromThe Incredibles 2at Disney’s D23 confab aside from a new teaser poster. (The most relevant part of that poster is above.) We don’t know when the film will be released, or what the story will be. But writer/directorBrad Birdis makingThe Incredibles 2his next film, and on the occasion of the re-release of his first movie,The Iron Giant, Bird is talking in very guarded terms about his upcoming sequel....

Christopher McQuarrie To Rewrite, Possibly Direct Adaptation Of Lee Child Novel ‘One Shot’ I got a little excited when I clicked open the source article that tells meChristopher McQuarriehas been hired to rework and possibly directOne Shot, based on theLee Childnovel of the same name. I love Child’s novels, which follow ex-military policeman Jack Reacher as he drifts across America. They’re perfect escapist entertainment: smart, taut and blessed with some fantastic action setpieces....

Cobra Kai Season 5 Has Just Been Ordered By Netflix Season 4 of “Cobra Kai” isn’t even out yet, but Netflix has already greenlit a fifth season of the karate-fighting, nostalgia-loving, high-drama series. “The dojo is about to be 5x as rad. Cobra Kai has been renewed for a 5th season,” the show’s official Twitter account announced today. See their tweet, complete with a short graphic logo, below. The dojo is about to be 5x as rad....

Confirmed: ‘Loki’ Series Casts Owen Wilson [Updated] Update: Variety confirms ComicBook.com’s original report that Owen Wilson has been cast inLoki. Unfortunately, they don’t have any details about his character, either. Our original article follows. Here’s a fun rumor to send you into the weekend. According toComicBook.com, the producers of Marvel Studios' upcoming Disney+ streaming seriesLokihave apparently hiredOwen Wilson(The Royal Tenenbaums,Wedding Crashers) to star in the show opposite veteran Marvel Cinematic Universe actorTom Hiddleston....

Confirmed: Joaquin Phoenix Giving Up Acting To Pursue Music We heard rumors last week that 34-year old Joaquin Phoenixmight be retiring from filmbut the fact that E!’s reporter didn’t take him seriously caused him to walk off and prevented him from elaborating further (check outthis vidfor the entire interaction). Phoenix was understandably peeved, but now theAP reportsthat this past Saturday night, at the premiere of his latest film,Two Lovers(directed by James Gray), Joaquin Phoenix officially announced the end of his movie career in order to pursue music....

Disney+ Picks Up Fairy Tale Movie Starring Olivia Cooke And LaKeith Stanfield Your new Disney Princess and Prince may beOlivia CookeandLaKeith Stanfield. The two actors are in talks to star in an untitled Disney+ fairy tale movie, which will be helmed byTo All The Boys I’ve Loved BeforedirectorSusan Johnsonand written byCat Vasko. TheRalph Breaks the InternetDisney princess scene may just get a whole lot weirder. LaKeith Stanfield, Disney Prince? We could see it, considering how theSorry to Bother Youstar has become the de facto prince of Netflix romantic-comedies — or at least, the dreamy ex-boyfriend (seriously, it’s starting to become a typecast for him in films likeSomeone GreatandThe Incredible Jessica James)....

Exploring The Legacy Of Former Disney CEO Bob Iger And How The Company Changed Under His Watch Robert Igerserved as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company for just under 15 years. It’s hard to emphasize exactly how massive an impact Iger made in his tenure at Disney, one which concluded quite abruptly on Tuesday, when heannouncedthat he would immediately transition into a new role as executive chairman before stepping down permanently in 2021....

Fox Wants To Drastically Reduce Commercials On Its Networks; Is This The First Step Into A New Model? Traditional broadcast media outlets have historically been slow to adapt to changes in the television industry. But at a recent private event, the ad sales chief of Fox Networks Group announced that the network is hoping to switch things up in a significant way: by cutting its ad time down to two minutes per hour by the year 2020....

George R.R. Martin Says A ‘Game Of Thrones’ Movie Could “Tie Things Up” With the fourth season ofGame of Thronesabout to premiere on HBO, talk about the end of the series is revving up once more. Story creatorGeorge R.R. Martinhas penned five novels in the ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series, and this fourth season adapts the second half of book three,A Storm of Swords. With two books left to publish and no reliable publication timeline in place, how will the series line up with the end of the books?...