Nick Jonas to star in horror holiday flick, ‘White Elephant’
Nick Jonas at the 2026 Oscars. (Disney/Ser Baffo)
Nick Jonas has lined up his next movie project.
The youngest Jonas Brother is set to star in a horror holiday flick called White Elephant, alongside Kathryn Newton.
Deadline reports that the film is about eight friends whose “annual festive holiday gift exchange spirals into a cutthroat game of Christmas carnage.” It will be directed by Clown in a Cornfield’s Eli Craig.
“Let’s get it! So excited about this one.” Nick wrote on his Instagram Story.
White Elephant is the latest in a string of recent acting gigs for Nick. He’ll be seen next in Power Ballad opposite Paul Rudd, out in theaters June 5. He’ll also star in the latest Jumanji installment with Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart, due out later this year.
ABC’s The Oscars hosted by Conan O’Brien. ((Disney/Mark Seliger)
The 98th annual Academy Awards went down in Hollywood Sunday, with host Conan O’Brien kicking things off with a taped segment set to Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage,” which had him made up to look like Amy Madigan’s character in Weapons and dropping into Oscar-nominated films.
He opened his monologue by saying he was honored to be the “last human host of the Academy Awards,” before joking, “Last year when I hosted Los Angeles was on fire, but this year everything’s going great.”
Noting that security was tighter at the Oscars this year, he joked it was because of concerns over “attacks from both the opera and ballet communities,” a reference to Timothée Chalamet’s recent comments, adding “they’re just mad you left out jazz.”
There were also cracks about the Oscars getting political, joking there’s an alternate Oscars hosted by Kid Rock at Dave & Buster’s, as well as jokes about it being Netflix’s Ted Sarandos’ first time in a theater and several about the nominated films, including Hamnet and Bugonia sounding “like off-brand lunch meat.”
But it wasn’t all jokes, with Conan then getting serious about why the Oscars are important.
“Everyone watching around the world is all too aware that these are very chaotic, frightening times,” he said. “It’s at moments like these that I believe that the Oscars are particularly resonant.”
“Every film we salute is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages, working hard to make something of beauty,” he added. “We pay tribute tonight, not to just film but to the ideals of global artistry, collaboration, patience, resilience and that rarest of qualities today, optimism.”
Finally he noted, “So let us celebrate not because we think all is well, but because we work and hope for better in the days ahead.”
Body horror is on full display in the Clayface teaser trailer.
DC Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures have released the first trailer for the upcoming thriller film from director James Watkins. It stars relative newcomer Tom Rhys Harries as the titular Gotham City villain.
According to its official description, Clayface “unravels one man’s horrifying descent from rising Hollywood star to revenge-filled monster in a story that explores the loss of one’s identity and humanity, corrosive love, and the dark underbelly of scientific ambition.”
The teaser, which runs for just over a minute, finds Harries in character as the titular villain. He lies down, covered head to toe in bandages, on what appears to be a hospital bed. As he rests, we see moments from his Hollywood past in quick flashbacks. It is all cross-cut with imagery of his body and face changing in many different ways.
The Batman director Matt Reeves is producing Clayface from a script by Mike Flanagan, who is known for his Netflix horror projects The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass. DC Studios co-head James Gunn also produces the project, which marks the studio’s first-ever foray into the horror genre.
Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan, Nancy Carroll and Joshua James also star in the upcoming film.
Clayface opens in theaters just ahead of Halloween on Oct. 23.
A visitor dressed in costume as Dorian Arno, a character from ‘Assassin’s Creed Unity,’ poses in front of a Ubisoft logo during the Paris Games week on Oct. 29, 2015, in Paris, France. (Chesnot/Getty Images)
Cameras have started rolling on the Assassin’s Creed live-action TV series.
Netflix has announced that the upcoming series adaptation of the popular video game franchises has started filming in Rome, Italy.
The show’s original story will be set in Rome in 64 AD, with production taking place at Cinecittà Studios.
The TV show will be a high-octane thriller about “the secret war between two shadowy factions — one set on determining mankind’s future through control and manipulation, while the other fights to preserve free will,” according to its official logline. “The series follows its characters across pivotal historical events as they battle to shape humanity’s destiny.”
The Assassin’s Creed video game franchise arrived in 2007 from the video game publisher Ubisoft. This upcoming show is nearly five years in the making, becoming the first series developed under Netflix’s agreement with Ubisoft.
Emmy nominees Roberto Patino and David Wiener created the series, and will serve as showrunners and executive producers.
The show’s previously announced cast includes Lola Petticrew, Toby Wallace, Zachary Hart, Laura Marcus, Tanzyn Crawford, Nabhann Rizwan, Claes Bang, Noomi Rapace, Ramzy Bedia, Sean Harris and Corrado Invernizzi.
Four new recurring cast members have joined the show’s ensemble: Sandra Guldberg-Kampp, Youssef Kerkour, Mirren Mack and Louis McCartney.
Assassin’s Creed is one of the bestselling series in video game history with over 230 million units sold, according to Netflix.
