Mason Thames attends the premiere of ‘Black Phone 2’ at TCL Chinese Theatre on Oct. 8, 2025, in Hollywood, California. (Kayla Oaddams/WireImage via Getty Images)
Mason Thames has joined the John Wick universe.
The actor is set to star in the upcoming Lionsgate film Caine, ABC Audio has confirmed. Caine will be a John Wick spinoff directed by and starring actor and martial artist Donnie Yen as the titular fan-favorite character from John Wick: Chapter 4.
As previously announced, Rina Sawayama has also been cast in Caine. She will reprise her role as Akira. Also part of the cast is Stranger Things actor Dacre Montgomery.
Thames’ role is currently being kept under wraps, as is the film’s logline. According to Lionsgate, it will continue Yen’s story arc through the events of John Wick: Chapter 4, “as Caine has been freed from his obligations to The High Table.”
The film is currently in production, with John Wick star Keanu Reeves producing.
The Batman Part II writer Mattson Tomlin, who also wrote the adaptation of the Reeves-created comic book BRZRKR, wrote the screenplay with Michael McGrale.
Lionsgate says Caine will be “shaped by Yen’s signature approach to action filmmaking, blending precision choreography with emotional storytelling.”
Thames recently finished production on the live-action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon 2. He will appear in the upcoming Green Day inspired film Nimrods as well as the Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr. starring film Idiots.
Backrooms is now the highest-grossing A24 film at the domestic box office.
The Kane Parsons-directed film crossed $100 million in the North American box office on Wednesday, A24 confirmed to ABC Audio.
This makes it the studio’s first film to reach such an achievement. It surpassed the Timothée Chalamet film Marty Supreme‘s domestic total of $96 million in only six days.
According to the studio, Backrooms’ global box office number stands at $144 million as of Wednesday. This means Backrooms is close to surpassing the best picture Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once‘s worldwide total of $148 million to become A24’s second highest grossing movie. Marty Supreme is currently A24’s highest grossing movie worldwide with a total of $191.3 million.
Backrooms opened in theaters on May 29. It brought in more than $81 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend, off a $10 million budget. This made it the biggest debut in history for an original horror film, as well as the biggest debut for a first-time filmmaker on a non-franchise film. At 20 years old, Parsons is the youngest director to have a #1 film at the box office.
The horror film is based on Parsons’ popular YouTube series. It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve as two people who enter a secret doorway into a maze of seemingly endless rooms.
Marcello Hernandez attends the 2025 Night of Too Many Stars at Beacon Theatre on March 31, 2025 in New York City. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
The 2026 ESPY Awards are almost here and this year, the annual awards ceremony honoring the best in sports will feature a new host.
Comedian Marcello Hernández will present the star-studded evening, which is returning to New York City this year. Hernández is taking over duties from comedian Shane Gillis, who hosted last year from Los Angeles.
“It is an honor, and frankly feels crazy to be hosting the ESPYS this year in New York,” Hernández said in a statement Wednesday. “I’m sure the energy is going to be great.”
Hernández is described by ESPN as an “avid sports fan” who played soccer at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio.
The ESPYS, which first began at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 1993, will take place on Wednesday, July 15 at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center.
The 2026 ESPYS will air live at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and stream on the ESPN app. The awards ceremony will also be available to stream on Disney+, Hulu, the ESPN App, and ABC Video on Demand on July 16.
Craig Lazarus, executive producer of the ESPYS, called Hernández a “natural fit” to serve as this year’s ESPYS host.
“Marcello is one of the most electric, young comedians today. His genuine enthusiasm for sports and his ties to New York City make him a natural fit to host this year’s ESPYS,” Lazarus said in a statement. “We are excited to partner with him to celebrate the best moments in sports and look forward to the fresh take he’ll bring to the show.”
The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ABC News, “Good Morning America,” and ESPN.
A sequel to War Machine looks to be in the works. Deadline reports that Netflix is moving forward with a second installment with director Patrick Hughes back at the helm. Hughes will produce and co-write the movie with James Beaufort. The outlet reports that star Alan Ritchson is likely to return for the sequel to the original film, which follows the final recruits of a Special Ops boot camp as they encounter a mysterious deadly force …
You can now watch the trailer for A24’s upcoming film, Onslaught. The action movie stars Adria Arjona as an army sniper and a mother who lives in a desert trailer park and fights to protect her family from genetically engineered super soldiers. Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard helmed the film, which also stars Alex Pereira, Drew Starkey, Rebecca Hall, Reginald VelJohnson, Michael Biehn, Eric Wareheim and Dan Stevens. It arrives in theaters on Sept. 4 …
The official trailer for America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders season 3 has arrived. The Netflix documentary series returns for its third season on June 16. It follows the 2025–2026 squad through auditions, training camp and the NFL season, offering a candid, behind-the-scenes look at the iconic cheerleading team …
Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal speak during the 25th Tribeca Festival Bloomberg reception on June 1, 2026 in New York City. (Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)
The 25th anniversary edition of New York’s Tribeca Festival kicks off Wednesday night with a screening of a new Earth, Wind & Fire documentary, followed by a performance by the legendary band. The festival, which runs through June 14, features TV, movie and documentary screenings, plus premieres, panels, reunions and stars galore. Not bad for an event that started as a one-off.
The festival was founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal as a way to revitalize downtown New York City after the 9/11 terror attacks. “It was only, how could we bring people back downtown, how we could give our neighbors something to look forward to. As far as I was concerned, it was one and done,” Rosenthal told ABC Audio. “Bob always believed we were gonna do it again, though.”
“I felt very positive about it once it happened,” De Niro said. “My feeling was it’d be great if it could be part of the fabric of New York, a New York tradition that just goes on forever, you know?”
De Niro will also appear at one of this year’s special events: a 50th anniversary Taxi Driver screening and conversation with him, director Martin Scorsese and co-star Jodie Foster. De Niro said celebrating any of his films — even a classic like Taxi Driver — after the fact isn’t something he ever thought would happen.
“When you’re doing a movie, a project, you don’t ever think that it would be received in the way you’re saying Taxi Driver’s been received, ever,” he told ABC Audio. “You just don’t think that. So it’s nice, but you just don’t ever expect it … it’s just, you do the project and that’s it.”
The festival will close with the documentary Alicia Keys: Girl from Hell’s Kitchen; Keys will appear after the screening.
Will Arnett is set to star with Kristen Stewart in The Challenger.
The actor will play George Abbey, the influential NASA official often referred to as the architect of the modern astronaut corps, in Prime Video’s upcoming limited series, ABC Audio has confirmed.
Arnett joins Stewart, who, as previously reported, will portray Sally Ride in her TV debut.
The Challenger is created by Golden Globe winner Maggie Cohn. She also writes, executive produces and showruns the program, which is inspired by Meredith E. Bagby’s 2023 book The New Guys. James Hawes, who has worked on Slow Horses and Black Mirror, will direct and executive produce the show. Kyra Sedgwick, Stewart and Bagby also executive produce.
The series follows “the gripping story of one of the most defining moments in space history, both the unprecedented events leading up to the tragedy, and the shocking investigation that followed,” according to Prime Video.
“As the members of the 1986 Rogers Commission interrogate the complex inner workings of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to find what, or who, was responsible for the Challenger’s doomed fate, the show explores Commission member Sally Ride’s personal journey,” its description continues. “We follow Sally, and the rest of the diverse Astronaut Class of ’78, through the ranks of the shuttle program, through initial recruitment and training, professional and personal highs and lows, until Sally’s historic glass ceiling moment as she becomes the first American woman in space.”
“There is no one better than Maggie Cohn to bring to life the complex story of the Challenger and the new class of astronauts recruited by NASA in the early 1970s, all through the eyes of an American hero, Sally Ride,” Sedgwick said in a press release when the project was announced back in March.
Apple TV has released a new official trailer for the third season of its drama series starring and executive produced by Rebecca Ferguson.
Season 3 will consist of 10 episodes, the first of which will premiere on July 3. A new episode will debut every Friday that follows through Sept. 4.
Silo‘s third season will continue the saga of the dystopian society of 10,000 people who live underground in mysterious circumstances, as well as an origin story of the society that’s set centuries in the past.
“In the present, Juliette Nichols (Ferguson) survives her forced ‘cleaning’ but returns with memory loss as the silo recovers from rebellion and faces a dangerous new threat,” according to an official description from Apple TV. “Meanwhile, in the ‘Before Times,’ journalist Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick) and Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) uncover a conspiracy that pulls them into a chain of events with catastrophic, irreversible consequences.”
The trailer finds Ferguson’s Juliette dealing with the difficult society she lives in.
“I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t even know who’s looking back at me,” she says. “I get splinters of memories. If the founders cared so much, why do they need to kill a silo?”
Also starring in season 3 are Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, Alexandria Riley, Shane McRae, Remmie Milner, Rick Gomez, Billy Postlethwaite and Clare Perkins.
Silo has already been renewed for a fourth and final season. The show is based on the Silo trilogy of books by Hugh Howey.
Tom Holland attends the MLS match between Inter Miami CF and Philadelphia Union at Nu Stadium on May 24, 2026, in Miami, Florida. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
Tom Holland is opening up about delaying production on Spider-Man: Brand New Day so that he could be part of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
In a recent interview with GQ, Holland spoke about an “uncomfortable conversation” he had with Sony Pictures head Tom Rothman about the possibility of delaying production on Spider-Man: Brand New Day in order to star in Nolan’s epic, as both films had the exact same production start date.
“So I said to Chris, like, ‘Look, I want to do this movie, but if I’m going to do it, I’m going to have to call Sony and have a very uncomfortable conversation,’” Holland said.
The call went well, Holland said, partly due to Nolan’s reputation as a filmmaker. The Odyssey‘s production started on schedule and actually finished nine days early, Holland noted.
“I think one of the reasons why Sony were happy to move is because Chris has that reputation of, ‘This movie isn’t going to go five months over, and we aren’t actually going to lose Tom for two years,’” Holland said. “Any other director, it might have been a slightly different conversation.”
Both films are premiering to theaters this summer. Holland said this period really “feels like the beginning of the next chapter of my life.”
“I really feel like a young man now,” Holland continued. “I have so much amazing stuff happening in my personal life to take me through to the rest of my life, and I feel like I have a new perspective on where I want to exist in Hollywood.”
The Odyssey arrives in cinemas and to IMAX screens on July 17, while Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters on July 31.
Disney is the parent company of ABC News and Marvel Entertainment.
Robert De Niro enjoyed working with Ariana Grande on their upcoming comedy Focker-In-Law — but he has yet to see her in Wicked, the movie that earned her an Oscar nomination.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the legendary actor said, “I didn’t see her movie, and I still am trying to see it, believe it or not, but I want to see it. I’m going to see it with my daughter. And she’s, of course, seen it.”
Despite missing Wicked, De Niro tells EW he was aware of Ariana because “I had seen her in some stuff with my daughter, some sitcom thing she had done. I’m forgetting the name. My kid was into that. I was aware of her then and, of course, aware of her in other ways. She was great.”
De Niro was likely referring to one of Ariana’s Nickelodeon shows, Victorious or Sam & Cat.
The actor, who’s 82, praised Ari’s work in Focker-In-Law as Olivia, the girlfriend of Henry Focker, who’s the grandson of De Niro’s character, Jack.
“She was very professional,” he says. “She’s terrific and very quick and got it all. She was very much part of the whole process.”
ABC News’ David Muir will lead 24 hours of coverage to mark America’s 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026. (ABC News)
Disney is bringing its magic to America’s 250th anniversary celebration with a series of special events, including a live concert in Nashville, one-of-a-kind experiences at Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resort and a two-hour primetime special on ABC.
The company-wide initiative, Disney Celebrates America, will also include a 24-hour multiplatform broadcast led by World News Tonight anchor David Muir that will take viewers across all 50 states beginning Friday, July 3 through Saturday, July 4.
The cross-platform broadcast will span ABC, Disney+, Hulu, National Geographic, FX, Freeform, ABC News Live, ESPN, and ABC Owned Television Stations and affiliates and will feature anchor Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America co-anchors Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos and Michael Strahan, Nightline co-anchors Juju Chang and Byron Pitts, 20/20 co-anchor Deborah Roberts and Prime and WNT Sunday anchor Linsey Davis.
On Monday, June 29, 20/20 anchor Deborah Roberts and ABC News national correspondent Will Reeve will host a two-hour primetime special, Disney Celebrates America: The Pursuit of Happiness, reporting from Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resort, respectively.
The special will air from 8-10 p.m. ET/PT across ABC, Disney+, Hulu, National Geographic, and ABC News Live.
Disneyland Resort in California and Walt Disney World in Florida will also celebrate America’s 250th anniversary with the launch of “Soarin’ Across America” at EPCOT and Disney California Adventure Park, patriotic lighting on Spaceship Earth at EPCOT, special performances and decor and limited-time merchandise, food and beverages leading up to July 4.
Disney Parks will continue the celebration with community events and offerings honoring veterans and military families.
In Nashville, Disney Celebrates America: Nashville’s Star-Spangled Bash will feature live music performances and one of the largest fireworks and drone shows in the U.S. set to a live score by the Nashville Symphony.
As part of the celebration of America, National Geographic and ABC News will also, between now and July 4, unveil a new list, “Seven Natural Wonders of America,” highlighting seven awe-inspiring locations across the country.
“As our nation marks its 250th anniversary, ‘Disney Celebrates America’ is our way of honoring this historic milestone by celebrating the people, places, and shared moments that define who we are,” Ken Potrock, president of major events integration for The Walt Disney Co., said in a statement Tuesday.
“Through immersive and creative park experiences and unprecedented broadcast moments, Disney invites everyone to come together and celebrate America in a truly meaningful way by reflecting on where we’ve been and imagining the extraordinary future we can create together.”
The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ABC News.
