Sydney Sweeney on Fame, Hollywood Fakery

►On the cover. Sydney Sweeney is having a moment, with Emmy acting nods for HBO prestige hits The White Lotus and Euphoria (which nearly didn’t cast her). THR's Seija Rankin spoke to Sweeney who reveals she feels an intense need to keep her momentum going: "I still can’t get my mind to shut up, and I don’t sleep." The cover story. 

—Sacré bleu! France has overhauled the committee that selects what film the country submits to the best international feature film category at the Academy Awards. The move, unveiled by the French culture ministry on Wednesday, comes after an exceptionally long Oscar drought for France, with the last win coming in 1993 with Régis Wargnier’s Indochine. The story.

—The Algorithm Cinematic Universe. Netflix’s spy thriller The Gray Man is getting its own universe at Netflix. The original feature, which was produced with franchise potential in mind, will be getting a sequel, as well as a spin-off movie. The sequel has Ryan Gosling and directors Joe and Anthony Russo set to return, with The Gray Man co-writer Stephen McFeely set to pen the screenplay. The story. 

—Together again. Kate Winslet has signed on to star in the HBO limited series The Palace. Winslet will also exec produce the drama, which chronicles a year inside an authoritarian regime as it begins to unravel. Succession writer and EP Will Tracy created the series, and Stephen Frears is set to direct. This is the second HBO project Winslet has boarded in recent weeks. The story.

—Falling into line. Hulu will now accept political issue advertising after parent company Disney reevaluated its advertising policies. Disney unveiled the decision on Wednesday morning, saying that the new policy brings streamer Hulu in line with its general entertainment networks and ESPN+. The story. 

'Avengers: The Kang Dynasty' Finds Its Director 

►Wasting no time. THR's Borys Kit has the huge scoop that Destin Daniel Cretton, who helmed last year’s Marvel hit Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, will direct Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.

It is unclear who is writing Kang Dynasty movie or what heroes would even make up the Avengers roster for a story that helps close out the MCU's Phase 6. Marvel chief Kevin Feige laid out a timeline that sees Kang Dynasty arrive May 2, 2025, with another Avengers movie, Avengers: Secret Wars, hitting Nov. 7, 2025. The story.

—Are you not entertained?! Peacock announced a straight-to-series order for gladiator drama Those About To Die. Based on author Daniel Mannix’s book of the same title, the show is described as “a large-scale drama set within the spectacular, complex and corrupt world of gladiatorial sports in Ancient Rome. Independence Day filmmaker Roland Emmerich will direct and exe produce, with Robert Rodat in place as showrunner. The story.

—More Thai cave rescue content on the way. Netflix’s long-in-the-works series about the miraculous 2018 cave rescue of a Thai youth soccer team finally has a launch date. The six-episode limited series Thai Cave Rescue will release on the streamer on Sept. 22. Filmed entirely in Thailand, the story unfolds from the perspectives of the boys themselves. The series is one of at least four screen projects to tackle the sensational story. The story. 

John Lasseter's Second Act

►"He’s a master storyteller." No one could tell a story like John Lasseter, the creative force behind much of Pixar's greatest successes. But he abruptly resigned as Disney Animation/Pixar’s chief creative officer in 2018 in the wake of #MeToo complaints. Now head of Skydance Animation, THR's Rebecca Keegan spoke to Lasseter, in one of his first interviews since his departure from Disney and ahead of the fledgling studio's upcoming Apple TV+ release, Luck. The story.  

—"I want to build something special here." Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo is returning to primetime TV with NewsNation, the cable news channel owned by local TV giant Nexstar. Cuomo, who was fired by CNN in December over a scandal involving his brother the former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, will debut on the network in the fall. The story.

—🤝 Producing deal 🤝 Bryan Cranston is reuniting with former Sony Pictures Television chairman Steve Mosko. Cranston has inked a TV producing deal with Mosko’s Village Roadshow. Mosko, during his tenure atop Sony, was among the primary executives who developed and oversaw Breaking Bad. Under the pact, Cranston and his Moonshot Entertainment banner will create and develop TV content for various distribution platforms. The story. 

—Inflation strikes. Amazon is set to raise the prices of Prime memberships in Europe by up to 43 percent. U.K. subscribers will see their monthly fee rise 12.5 percent to $10.80, with the annual subscription rising 20 percent to $114. In France, subscribers will pay 43 percent more, or $70.74 for an annual membership, while in Germany, subscribers will pay 30 percent more, or $90.95. The story.

—The Lord cometh. THR's man in London Alex Ritman has the scoop on Blackbird, the directorial debut of Lord of the Dance star Michael Flatley, securing a U.K. theatrical release. Alex has aggressively pursued the fate of Blackbird since its glitzy 2018 world premiere, and now it seems the British public can enjoy the spy thriller once thought lost forever. The story. 

Pro Sports' Dilemma: Ownership or Rich TV Rights Deals?

►Splitting the difference. In the wake of the NFL entering the sports streaming wars with NFL+, THR's Alex Weprin looks at how major leagues are increasingly planning to balance direct-to-consumer fan relationships with billion-dollar rights deals from Disney, Comcast or tech giants like Apple and Amazon. The analysis. 

—"Make Instagram Instagram Again." Instagram head Adam Mosseri took the unusual step to respond directly to the growing unhappiness of celebrity users such as Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian who have complained about new video-first features and have called on the social media platform to “stop trying to be TikTok.” The story.

—Exceeding expectations. Music streaming giant Spotify ended Q2 2022 with 188m paying subscribers, up from 182m as of the end of Q1, exceeding its own forecast. Spotify also said on Wednesday that it hit better-than-expected 433m monthly active users as of the end of June, up from 422m as of the end of March. The results. 

—Slight miss. YouTube brought in $7.34b in advertising revenue during Q2, parent company Alphabet reported in its quarterly earnings on Tuesday. The Q2 revenue was up only 4 percent on the video platform’s second quarter revenue of just over $7b in the same period of 2021. The results.

—Ad spend down. Microsoft missed revenue expectations Tuesday, as the tech giant cited “evolving macroeconomic conditions and other unforeseen items” for the unfavorable results. Xbox content and services revenue decreased six percent compared to a year earlier due to lower engagement hours and monetization in third-party and first-party content. The results. 

Film Review: 'DC League of Super-Pets' 

►"The voice cast are the real superheroes." THR film critic Frank Scheck reviews Jared Stern's DC League of Super-Pets. Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Keanu Reeves, Kate McKinnon and Olivia Wilde provide the voices for this animated adventure, in which Superman must be rescued by his loyal dog and animal friends possessing superpowers. The review.

—"A cozy, cushy throwback, for better or worse." THR TV critic Angie Han reviews Netflix's Uncoupled. Neil Patrick Harris leads Darren Star and Jeffrey Richman's rom-com series as a 40-something gay man who finds himself newly single after getting dumped by his partner of 17 years. The review. 

—"Compelling, if a bit limited in scope." Angie reviews Netflix’s The Most Hated Man on the Internet. The docuseries chronicles the downfall of Hunter Moore, founder of Is Anyone Up? and self-proclaimed "professional life-ruiner," as spearheaded by the mother of one of his victims. The review.

—This Week in TV. THR's Rick Porter runs down the TV premieres, returns and specials over the next seven days. Among the things to look out for over the coming week include Amazon's Paper Girls, an adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s award-winning comic book, season three of Disney+'s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and the debut of HBO Max's Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. The full guide.

In other news...

—Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio teaser trailer drops

—Pearl trailer reveals origins of Ti West’s X villain

—Jenny Groom exits NBCUniversal's top reality post

—SkyShowtime hires Roberto Soto as chief strategy officer 

—Mr. Malcolm’s List director Emma Holly Jones signs with CAA 

What else we're reading...

—Peter Kafka writes that the January 6 hearings brought politics into the TikTok age [Vox]

—Emily Baker-White reports that TikTok owner ByteDance used another one of its apps to push pro-China messages [BuzzFeed] 

—The always excellent Dave Itzkoff has published another excellent profile, this time the subject is first time director B.J. Novak [NYT]

—Hannah Strong expresses her love for Jon Bernthal, Hollywood's sexiest doofus [Gawker]

—Soutik Biswas on why Bollywood star Ranveer Singh posing nude in Paper Magazine is causing such a fuss back home in India [BBC]

Today...  

...in 1984, Warner Bros. unveiled Prince’s R-rated Purple Rain in theaters for moviegoers. The musical drama grossed over $72m worldwide, won an Oscar for best original song score and saw the supporting soundtrack album sell north of 25m copies. The original review.

Today's birthdays: Norman Lear (💯), Maya Rudolph (50), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (52), Taylor Schilling (38), Bryan Fuller (53), Donnie Yen (59), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (45), Rade Serbedzija (76), Julian McMahon (54), Cliff Curtis (54), Lou Taylor Pucci (37), Kenny Wormald (38), Seamus Dever (46), Ryan Michelle Bathe (46), John Putch (61), Roxanne Hart (70), Kubbra Sait (39), Paul Levesque (53), Gabrielle Glaister (62)