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The truth is, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” was never a huge hit.
When the two part play opened in March 2018 — after a hit run in London’s West End — the show was hot. But it was also long — three hours more including a food break.
In 2021, after the pandemic, the plays were combined into something more reasonable. But box office was never off the charts.
Then came Tom Felton. The actor who played scheming Draco Malfoy oined the cast a few weeks ago, before the holidays.
Now, with families returned to their homes from vacations, guess what’s the hottest ticket in town?
“Cursed Child” was number 1 last among all Broadway shows, doubling its best days in one fell swoop.
It beat everything on the Rialto including “Hamilton” (now back to normal without Leslie Odom Jr.), “The Lion King,” and “Wicked.”
Felton’s presence should be a lesson to everyone on Broadway. He’s the draw. So many shows don’t have one, and either sputter along or close. He’s such a magnet for ticket buyer that Saturday night’s performance is sold, so is Sunday’s and the rest have very few openings.
I hope the producers are paying him for kicking up the jams! Felton is staying through May.
If only they could Daniel Radcliffe to pop in from his new play, or Emma Watson or Rupert Grint to come for a couple of weeks.
From the minute she was told that she’d received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Venezuelan leader started dangling the gold disc in front of Trump.
She knew how much he craved it, and spoke about it endlessly. Her first reaction was “let him have it,” “he deserves it,” “I’ll share it with him.”
Today she arrived in Washington and turned over the medal to his twitching hands. She made an incoherent speech to press outside the White House. Now Machado just hopes she’ll be installed as president of Venezuela and be a happy Trump puppet.
All of this despite the Nobel rules: awards are not transferable. They will never recognize this transaction. So it was all for show.
According to what used to be the rules, Trump would have to leave the medal at the White House. But you know that by this weekend he’ll be parading it around at Mar-a-Lago, where it will stay.
BREAKING: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado:
“I presented the president of the United States with the Nobel Peace Prize”.
So in other words, the President requires that he have a prize he came nowhere close to winning, in order to possibly do the right thing.… pic.twitter.com/KobcRnDxhF
It was a throwback to that time Edward R. Murrow revealed he’d been writing fan letters to Patti Page for years.
It was also a little when Walter Cronkite announced the release of Bobby Sherman’s new single, “Julie Do You Love Me.”
Tony Dokoupil, the “host” of the CBS Evening News, today delivered the breaking headline that UK Pop star Harry Styles was releasing a new album. Completely disrespected over his first 10 days, Dokoupil felt it necessary to inform his viewers that he’s as shallow as a toddler’s pool.
Tony is hoping to get a free Styles boa from the merch shop.
You can’t make this up.
Harry Styles announced his highly anticipated fourth studio album will arrive in the spring. “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally” will be his first full-length project in four years. pic.twitter.com/ECrk713aRf
— CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil (@CBSEveningNews) January 16, 2026
After midnight tonight, at 3am, Netflix drops a new movie with no reviews.
“The Rip” is directed by Joe Carnahan and stars Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Teyana Tayler.
Taylor is in the middle of on Oscar campaign for “One Battle After Another.” She doesn’t need a bomb to hurt her chances.
But so far there are no reviews for “The Rip.” Personally, I’ve never even received a press release for it, let alone a screener.
UPDATE: NY Times review: the concept is immediately, perfunctorily legible, and that’s usually what anybody and their mother tune in to Netflix for on a Thursday night. But to do that to a cast like this — with Damon and Affleck, with Chandler, Steven Yeun and Teyana Taylor? These are heavy hitters who suddenly look like small potatoes in a subpar popcorn shootout movie.
A spy who did see it recently said, “Uh, it’s good…it’s okay.” That will not be a quote on the poster.
“The Rip” is just going to Netflix and not to theaters. If it’s really bad, I’m sorry, because Affleck and Damon’s “Air,” was so good on Amazon Prime a couple of years ago.
And Taylor really doesn’t need a bad mark on her resume now that all systems are go.
I guess we’ll find out tomorrow morning — way after 3am!
Harry Styles has finished plundering 70s rock and is moving on to disco.
His new album is called “Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally.’ It drops on March 6th with 12 new tracks.
“Kiss All the Time” is Styles’s first new album since his Grammy winning, “Harry’s House.”
Kid Harpoon is producing.
Styles is literally filling up the space abandoned for some reason by Justin Timberlake.
He also follows Bruno Mars, whose own dance album will appear a few weeks earlier.
There’s a tour coming, no doubt, and a whole line of merch, and lots of disco fashion – you can only imagine that Harry — who’s been trudging around Rome in a trench coast for the last year — is waiting to put on platform sneakers and feathers.
According to the trailer for Season of “Euphoria,” Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) and Nate (Jacob Elordi) tie the knot.
They’re registered at the CBD store in Van Nuys. Or you can just bring cash.
Sam Levinson and HBO had to go a distance to Sweeney, Elordi, and Zendaya back for one last round of this phenom show. Returns April 12th.
Can these two crazy kids make it in today’s mixed up world?
BREAKING: The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.
At 6:30pm the CBS Evening News will continue to dig its own grave.
They’re touting this scoop:
“BREAKING: The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.”
The shooter, Jonathan Ross, was wearing significant safety wear. He walked away from the shooting without an evidence of pain. It’s all on video tape.
CBS had better show some evidence to back up this claim. If anything Ross gave himself an ulcer from killing an unarmed woman.
But internal bleeding from a car moving 20 mph?
Another freakazoid night of the Tony Dokoupil show starts soon…
BREAKING: The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.
Paul McCartney’s extraordinary music career is coming to a theater near you.
In the documentary “Man on the Run,” directed by Morgan Neville, Paul pays tribute to his transition from the Beatles to a solo career to Wings, his 1970s group.
Wings had a huge run of hits, quite unexpected after the Beatles’ overwhelming success. Now we have Paul’s thoughts and narration, and incredible home movie footage.
He explains about John Lennon: “We’d loved each other all our lives,” but it was time to move on.
When he did learn Linda could sing? “On our wedding night,” he jokes.
Premieres on Amazon MGM on February 27th.
PS There are a lot of greatest hits albums, etc. But do listen to “One Hand Clapping” to get the essence of Wings.
After everything we’ve heard about the Hamas bombing of Israel on October 7, 2023 it’s hard to imagine breaking bread with someone who survived it.
And yet, there was Liat Beinin Atzili, last week, at Serafina restaurant in the theater district. (She was not seeing a show.) If you watch the Oscar shortlisted “Holding Liat,” filmed by her family friend, Brandon Kramer, while Liat was held hostage by Hamas (54 days), you can’t believe it.
The very powerful film — eligible for an Oscar, now playing at New York’s Film Forum and starting Friday in Los Angeles — should be seen by everyone because it humanizes a horrific time that resonates even more today. The triumph of “Holding Liat” — which counts among its producers Darren Aronofsky — is how, under these grim circumstances the film manages to hold in emotional and dramatic proportion all sides of the latest stage of the Middle East conflict.
Liat and her husband Aviv were kidnapped by Hamas from their Kibbutz near Gaza. They’re in their 50s but look younger. They had three adult children and both sets of grandparents. They were the perfect, loving family until this massive tragedy blew them apart.
Liat and Aviv were immediately separated by Hamas after their kidnapping. In short time we learn that Aviv was killed. The family actually visits the blood stained site of his murder.
But we’re skipping ahead.
The main characters here are Liat’s parents: the extraordinary father, Yehuda, and mother, Chaya. As Kramer films them cinema verite style, the couple jumps into action to find their daughter and her husband. They meet with all the press, every politician, and at one point Yehuda travels to Washington DC where he’s shocked to find himself embraced by Gaza-hating right wingers. He has no such enmity. He just wants his daughter back.
When Liat is finally reunited with her family, the first thing she says is “Nothing bad happened to me” — meaning no physical torture. But
was she fed adequately? Could she go to the bathroom in privacy? did they abuse her at all? Liat does not want to say. Rather, her awareness that others were not so lucky is at the forefront of her thoughts, as well as the understanding that she did not have to be held for 54 days, nor did others have to remain for 200 such horrific days; she was simply not the priority of her government.
Did that mean that her captors were humane? Her “luck” is bittersweet. Liat let on that she had the thought: she was not far from her family If only she could write them and the children an email to say she was all right. They could maybe drop her off at a place in Gaza. She could find her way home. These daydreams occupied her. They were Hamas, after all, much younger than she was; they had made their choices.
Filmmaker Brandon Kramer had met this family, when he and his brother Lance, a producer on the film, had gone to Israel on Birthright. When the October massacre occurred, he got in touch to find out how these distant relatives were, not even thinking they would respond. They met up with Yehuda when he came to Washington as part of a delegation to help free the hostages.
The Kramers began the film just hoping to document a family story, but found so much more as the speakers included Yehuda’s brother, Joel, a professor who lives in Portland, Oregon (and has radically different views than his brother). Liat’s younger sister Tal, who moved to Portland, adds her voice. The family becomes a microcosm of differing opinions on Israeli/ Palestinian politics. Brandon Kramer allows the close-ups on Yehuda’s rolling eyes to tell a story itself, recognizing how much his family members are pawns in an emotional drama that sacrificed Israelis and Palestinians alike.
And Liat, despite the recognition that the priorities of those in power do not align with hers, like many hopeful Israelis, works to find a path to peace.– with Roger Friedman
The dean of Deadline.com, Baz Bamigboye, reports earth shaking news today.
“Wicked” stars Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey will reunite in 2027 for a London production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George.”
Marianne Elliott — who had such a success with Sondheim’s “Company” revival a couple of years ago — will direct at the Barbican Theater. Ticket prices will involve mortgages.
There’s no doubt “George” will come to New York after that. But we do have time to start saving up!
Baz writes:” At early read-throughs, I’ve heard that both Grande and Bailey have excelled in the parts. They’re joined at the hip as friends having now worked together for the past few years on Wicked and this year’s terrific Wicked: For Good with director Jon M. Chu and Cynthia Erivo.”
Great scoop, as usual!
“Sunday in the Park” has had many iterations, by the way. The most recent one in New York was with Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford. It was a huge hit! But buyer beware: the first act of “Sunday in the Park” is actual perfect. The second half is odd, although in the end it all works out very well!
