Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is taking a tour of U.S. defense contractors, on Friday visited a Long Beach rocket maker, where he told workers they are key to President Trump’s vision of military supremacy.
Hegseth stopped by a manufacturing plant operated by Rocket Lab, an emerging company that builds satellites and provides small-satellite launch services for commercial and government customers.
Last month, the company was awarded an $805-million military contract, its largest to date, to build satellites for a network being developed for communications and detection of new threats, such as hypersonic missles.
“This company, you right here, are front and center, as part of ensuring that we build an arsenal of freedom that America needs,” Hegseth told several hundred cheering workers. “The future of the battlefield starts right here with dominance of space.”
Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, the company makes a small rocket called Electron — which lay on its side near Hegseth — and is developing a larger one called Neutron. It moved to the U.S. a decade ago and opened its Long Beach headquaters in 2020.
Rocket Lab is among a new wave of companies that have revitalized Southern California’s aerospace and defense industry, which shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. Large defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin moved their headquarters to the East Coast.
Many of the new companies were founded by former employees of SpaceX, which was started by Elon Musk in 2002 and was based in the South Bay before moving to Texas in 2024. However, it retains major operations in Hawthorne.
Hegseth kicked off his tour Monday with a visit to a Newport News, Va., shipyard. The tour is described as “a call to action to revitalize America’s manufacturing might and re-energize the nation’s workforce.”
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, a Democrat who said he was not told of the event, said Hegseth’s visit shows how the city has flourished despite such setbacks as the closure of Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III transport plant.
“Rocket Lab has really been a superstar in terms of our fast, growing and emerging space economy in Long Beach,” Richardson said. “This emergence of space is really the next stage of almost a century of innovation that’s really taking place here.”
Prior stops in the region included visits to Divergent, an advanced manufacturing company in aerospace and other industries, and Castelion, a hypersonic missile startup founded by former SpaceX employees. Both are based in Torrance.
The tour follows an overhaul of the Department of Defense’s procurement policy Hegseth announced in November. The policy seeks to speed up weapons development and acquisition by first finding capabilities in the commercial market before the government attempts to develop new systems.
Trump also issued an executive order Wednesday that aims to limit shareholder profits of defense contractors that do not meet production and budget goals by restricting stock buybacks and dividends.
Hegseth told the workers that the administration is trying to prod old-line defense contractors to be more innovative and spend more on development — touting Rocket Lab as the kind of company that will succeed, adding it had one of the “coolest factory floors” he had ever seen.
“I just want the best, and I want to ensure that the competition that exists is fair,” he said.
Hegseth’s visit comes as Trump has flexed the nation’s military muscles with the Jan. 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing drug trafficking charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Hegseth in his speech cited Maduro’s capture as an example of the country’s newfound “deterrence in action.” Though Trump’s allies supported the action, legal experts and other critics have argued that the operation violated international and U.S. law.
Trump this week said he wants to radically boost U.S. military spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027 from $900 billion this year so he can build the “Dream Military.”
Hegseth told the workers it would be a “historic investment” that would ensure the U.S. is never challenged militarily.
Trump also posted on social media this week that executive salaries of defense companies should be capped at $5 million unless they speed up development and production of advanced weapons — in a dig at existing prime contractors.
However, the text of his Wednesday order caps salaries at current levels and ties future executive incentive compensation to delivery and production metrics.
Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa is one of the leading new defense companies in Southern California. The privately held maker of autonomous weapons systems closed a $2.5-billion funding round last year.
Founder Palmer Luckey told Bloomberg News he supported Trump’s moves to limit executive compensation in the defense sector, saying, “I pay myself $100,000 a year.” However, Luckey has a stake in Anduril, last valued by investors at $30.5 billion.
Peter Beck, the founder and chief executive of Rocket Lab, took a base salary of $575,000 in 2024 but with bonus and stock awards his total compensation reached $20.1 million, according to a securities filing. He also has a stake in the company, which has a market capitalization of about $45 billion.
Beck introduced Hegseth saying he was seeking to “reinvigorate the national industrial base and create a leaner, more effective Department of War, one that goes faster and leans on commercial companies just like ours.”
Rocket Lab boasts that its Electron rocket, which first launched in 2017, is the world’s leading small rocket and the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket behind SpaceX.
It has carried payloads for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office, aside from commercial customers.
The company employs 2,500 people across facilities in New Zealand, Canada and the U.S., including in Virginia, Colorado and Mississippi.
Rocket Lab shares closed at $84.84 on Friday, up 2%.
In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.
“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”
“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”
WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.
That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.
Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.
Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.
WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.
In a new partnership with chipmaker Nvidia, Universal Music Group plans to introduce what it calls “responsible AI” that could change music discovery and creation.
The companies will begin research on how to advance human music creation and compensation for rights holders in the age of AI, as revealed in the deal announced Tuesday. With this technology, the new partners say they hope to leverage AI-powered tools to aid and protect artists’ work, instead of using hands-off generative AI.
“We look forward to working closely with NVIDIA to direct AI’s unprecedented transformational potential towards the service of artists and their fans as we work together to set new standards for innovation within the industry, while protecting and respecting copyright and human creativity,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, Universal Music Group’s chief executive, in a press release.
Universal Music Group will use Nvidia’s Music Flamingo program, a large audio-language model designed to understand music in-depth. It was launched in November and can understand musical elements like structure, harmony, instrumentation and lyrics. The program can process songs up to 15 minutes long and will also be able to capture the historical and cultural context, as well as various emotional arcs.
With the program’s ability to process songs thoroughly, Universal Music Group aims to use this tool to help connect artists and fans. Instead of relying on typical genres or tags, Music Flamingo allows listeners to discover new music in a more automated fashion.
There are also plans for Nvidia and Universal Music Group to begin developing an incubator in which artists, songwriters and producers will help design and experiment with new AI tools. The company said it hopes this process will help AI tools fit into creative processes with greater ease.
Universal Music Group, with its corporate headquarters in the Netherlands and another office in Santa Monica, was founded in 1996. The music giant behind artists like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish is valued at roughly $40 billion on the U.S. stock market, with shares selling around $25.35 each. The deal with Nvidia follows several other AI agreements that Universal has inked with companies like Klay and Stability AI.
Nvidia was founded in 1993, with the original goal of bringing 3D graphics to video games and multimedia projects. As the tech industry has continued to evolve, Nvidia has emerged as the leader in computer chips designed to power AI tools and applications.
“By extending NVIDIA’s Music Flamingo with UMG’s unmatched catalog and creative ecosystem, we’re going to change how fans discover, understand, and engage with music on a global scale,” said Richard Kerris, the general manager for media and entertainment at Nvidia, in a statement.
“And we’ll do it the right way: responsibly, with safeguards that protect artists’ work, ensure attribution, and respect copyright.”
Santa Fe, N.M. — Meow Wolf is coming to Los Angeles. And with its move to the Southland, the experiential art collective isn’t just taking over a former movie theater, it is, in a sense, placing a skewed spotlight on Hollywood’s grandiosity itself.
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Born in Santa Fe, N.M., more than a decade ago, Meow Wolf’s fast-tracked rise has taken the company to Denver, Las Vegas, Houston and the Dallas suburbs. Along the way the firm has skirted the line between theme park-like interactive experiences and hand-made, outsider art, pitching itself as a new form of all-encompassing, maximalist, sensory overloaded entertainment — or, in the words of one of its creative directors, “that classic feeling of good confusion.”
Destined to open in late 2026 at West L.A.’s Howard Hughes entertainment complex, Meow Wolf has kept much of its plan for Los Angeles under wraps. Until now.
Meow Wolf arist Chris Hilson spins a hanging mobile. Hilson is working on multiple pieces for Meow Wolf Los Angeles.
(Gabriela Campos / For The Times)
A work in progress piece by Los Angeles collective Everything Is Terrible. “Los Angeles is a city built on madness, dreams — broken and realized — and most importantly, simulacra. With this work, we are confronting propaganda, competing narratives, forgotten labor and myths that refuse to die,” said the group in a statement.
(Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
It’s been known that the installation would be taking over a large section of what had long been the Cinemark movie theaters. Meow Wolf, however, is using the location to lean into one of L.A’s longest standing — and currently troubled — ritualistic experiences. In the same way exhibitions in Santa Fe or Las Vegas begin in an otherworldly house or an extraordinary grocery store before getting truly psychedelic, Meow Wolf Los Angeles will launch via a fantastical movie theater, one complete with a concession stand — beware of the animated, sentient candy — and a grand auditorium. Here, describes co-founder and executive vice president Sean Di Ianni, guests may spy transparent seats that appear to be floating.
“Over your head will be etherealized seats — sculptures of these kind of translucent seats that will be animated with light and hyper-directional sound,” Di Ianni says. “You might hear the inner monologue of a previous audience.”
Sean Di Ianni, co-founder of Meow Wolf, is leading development of the Los Angeles space, which is taking over part of Cinemark movie theaters at the Howard Hughes entertainment complex.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
A view into the Meow Wolf warehouse during a walk through of new art projects that will be featured in Meow Wolf L.A.
(Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
When Meow Wolf announced Los Angeles as its next destination for a full-scale, walk-through exhibition in 2024, it did so during a time of tumult, the company having just undergone a round of severe layoffs. And thus, Los Angeles became not just Meow Wolf’s next step but its rebirth.
During a two-day tour of Meow Wolf’s Santa Fe headquarters late last year, the company unveiled multiple pieces of art in various stages of planning, with installation in Los Angeles set to ramp up in the coming weeks. Though Meow Wolf is keeping certain story elements off the record for now, and some plans may shift as art is completed, expect an exhibit based around an intergalactic roadside attraction, a location destined for a pilgrimage. Throughout, guests will explore the hulls of a spaceship, hop on planet-traversing bikes and uncover a divey greasy spoon at the end of the galaxy, complete with sculptures of the proprietor at various stages of his life.
Artist Karen Lembke looks to see how the cape falls for a piece destined for Meow Wolf Los Angeles.
(Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
But by grounding it in the nostalgia and timeless appeal of a movie theater, the hope is to also learn some lessons from more linear entertainment. “We pushed really hard on this one to take that story experience to the next level,” says Shakti Howeth, creative director. “We got so much feedback from other shows that people want more of that. They want it to make sense. They want to understand it. They want to think about it afterwards. They want to grab onto certain characters.”
Thus, it will be Meow Wolf’s first exhibition with a firm beginning, middle and conclusion, even if the latter is a bit open-ended. Meow Wolf is known for its byzantine tales, but here the company is aiming to simplify, zeroing in on a story that coalesces around our instinct for a rite of passage. Think, for instance, of the way humans may trek to witness a newborn panda, or similarly cross the globe to capture the aurora borealis. Locally, ceremonial destinations such as Disneyland or the corner chapel spring to mind — anywhere people gather craving community, connection, reverence and, hopefully, a revelation.
Though narrative plans date to 2022, before Los Angeles was chosen as the locale, once the team knew it was moving into a former movie theater it was sold on the concept. That’s in part due to the transcendent nature of cinema, but also a recognition of what Los Angeles represents culturally.
“It’s cool that we’re creating a story about a pilgrimage because L.A. is that for so many artists, especially people involved in storytelling,” says Howeth. “It’s one of those places that’s built on layers and layers of dreams, and we’re really exploring that here. Not only dreams, but broken dreams — the compost that can happen when you digest broken dreams.”
It’s not the only way the exhibition hopes to reflect Los Angeles. Throughout, we’ll follow the lives of three characters, some known to Meow Wolf die-hards and some new creations, such as a Boyle Heights-raised usher. Elsewhere, an installation bathed in neon and shape-shifting projections nods to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House. And Meow recently completed the filming of multiple short movies that serve as cinematic parodies — a Bob Fosse-inspired musical, a Clint Eastwood-style western, a “Lethal Weapon”-like action flick and more. They’ll be shown throughout the space, and expect to encounter characters possessing a cult-like obsession to the films.
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1.Work in progress pieces by aritst Jess Webb.2.Costumes by Emmanuelle John.3.Chris Hilson’s space bike model.(Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
It isn’t lost on Meow Wolf creatives that they’re dabbling in themes of religious-like devotion to the art of storytelling at a time when Hollywood is in flux. The very venue for the exhibition, for instance, was open to the team largely because of the struggles that movie theaters have had to confront.
Early concepts had the exhibition starting, perhaps, in a motel, or a work that nodded to L.A.’s Midcentury architecture. “But being in L.A., a number of sites, due to the dire state of the movie theater business right now, were movie theaters,” says James Longmire, who works on Meow Wolf’s story development. “So why not a movie theater? Why not lean into that? In my mind, that immediately started to connect and feel a lot more resonant to this idea of art and story being important forces in humanity and human growth and how we grapple with not having answers to big questions.”
An art installation, partly inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House, is planned for Meow Wolf Los Angeles.
(Gabriela Campos / For The Times)
And it will be interactive. A spiritual temple, for instance, will house a secretive space that Meow Wolf creatives refer to as a “reverse escape room,” in which guests will have to work together to find and break into. Creative director Elizabeth Jarrett, who worked on Scout Expedition’s long-running immersive L.A. show “The Nest,” is helping to devise a handful of quests and what Meow Wolf is calling “story moments,” which will take over an entire space. Lighting and visual cues, for instance, may direct audience members to collaborate or reposition themselves — a psychic motel room, perhaps, where a tree has grown into a couch. Sit in the right spot and cause the room to come alive with projections and cinematics.
It was important, says Jarrett, for the so-called story moments to be triggered by the audience. “The audience has a sense of agency in the story advancing,” Jarrett says. “We’re communicating when an opportunity is arising for you to choose to engage. The guests are a protagonist and a character as much as any other character in this world. There are characters who speak directly to the audience. We’re experimenting with breaking the fourth wall.”
Not all of the art, of course, will reference film. Meow Wolf is planning, for example, a two-player game in which tarot cards will be digitally constructed exquisite corpse-style. And art curator AJ Girard is working closely with dozens of L.A. artists to bring them into the space. Gabriela Ruiz is one such artist who will have a large presence in the exhibition, a part of Ruiz’s work being an adorably vibrant, multicolored insect that will serve as a periscope.
“I thought about a little bug because they have the ability to see infrared and visualize the world differently than we do,” Ruiz says.
Girard, too, views the space as something of a commentary on L.A. “Social media and social capital is so relevant in our city,” Girard says. “How do we make fun of it in an avant garde, punk, radical way? How do we poke holes at it?”
Meow Wolf Los Angeles will house a cafe that will feature neon art.
(Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
It won’t be easy, especially for a city that sometimes takes its main, exportable art a bit too self-serious. But if Los Angeles has long viewed the movie theater as a temple, perhaps it’s time someone turns one into a playground.
“It’s partly our job to be playful with it, to not let that weight crush us,” Di Ianni says. “Let’s poke fun at movies. Let’s celebrate them. Let’s have fun with the reputation of Los Angeles and its insane impact. We have to play. That’s what we’re inviting the audience to come in to do. They’ll hopefully have meaningful, emotionally resonant experiences that show them a different perspective on their own stories, but to get them there, they’re going to have to play.”
A broadcast TV show about a middle-aged guy who becomes an LAPD cop wouldn’t seem like your typical teen magnet.
Yet, the “The Rookie” was the most-streamed show among young people under 18 across all broadcast series in the 2024-2025 broadcast TV season, according to Nielsen data.
Odd as that may seem, the numbers match showrunner Alexi Hawley’s own experience. He says he is often approached by parents telling him how much their kids gravitate to the ABC police procedural.
Recently, he said, actor Dwayne Johnson visited the Los Angeles set with his preteen daughter, who loves the Nathan Fillion-led series, now in its eighth season.
“You’re always surprised in this business at success,” Hawley said in an interview.
He offers multiple explanations: “A lot of it has to do with the comfort food of the show. Bad things happen on our show a lot, but I think the mix of humor and action and heavy stuff resonates with people.”
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Part of it, too, he says, is that the show is very “clippable.”
“The Rookie,” which is produced by Lionsgate Television and 20th Television and shot in Los Angeles, has 2.8 million followers on TikTok. In the last 12 months, its biggest audience on the platform were people aged 18 to 24, according to TikTok Studio.
At a time when the broadcast TV business faces steep challenges — including continued cord-cutting and declining ad dollars — the ability of “The Rookie” to captivate young viewers is noteworthy. And its stars’ embrace of social media, particularly TikTok, might have lessons for other broadcast shows looking to draw new and younger eyeballs in the streaming era.
Eric Winter, who plays the serious Sgt. Tim Bradford on “The Rookie,” is especially active on the platform, despite some initial resistance.
“I was anti-TikTok,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m never doing it. I’m never gonna have an account. I won’t be seen doing a post or a dance, acting like a fool.’ And my wife was like, ‘You’re launching a premium rum brand. You’ve got to be out there. You’ve got to be public with it.’”
And he’s seen teen fandom up close — at publicity events kids will line up to get his autograph.
After launching his TikTik about two years ago, Winter now has about 6.6 million followers, and he’ll post pranks with his co-stars from the set or group TikToks.
Even Fillion has gotten in on the action and has asked Winter for advice. Many other cast members are active on the platform as well.
“We’re all trying to outdo each other with TikTok, and it’s grown into its own little beast that drives the eyeballs,” Winter said. “I just started doing a lot of goofy ones that worked.”
Beyond jokes from the set, clips from the show itself have driven people to the series who may not have otherwise found it. Scenes involving the will-they-won’t-they romance between Winter’s character Bradford and co-star Melissa O’Neil’s Sgt. Lucy Chen (collectively known to fans as “Chenford”) also drive major views, as do shorts with Fillion.
“We have these funny moments, and these little stories that we can do because we’re a patrol show where anything can happen anytime they get out of their car,” Hawley said. “And I think those translate really well to 30-second, one-minute clips that just bring people to want to watch more.”
It’s kind of like movie trailers for the new generation. While young viewers can’t watch an entire show via social media, the shorter clips are clearly one way of introducing them to the series — and getting them hooked. Collaborations with YouTube stars also help.
Last season, YouTube personalities Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej guest starred in an episode of “The Rookie” in which the pair investigates a haunted psychiatric facility. Hawley learned of Bergara and Madej’s “Ghost Files” paranormal show through his kids.
This year, he’s planning a similar crossover with comedy streamer Dropout.TV.
“Rather than doing crossovers with traditional shows, like other ABC shows, given our growing young fan base, I’m like, ‘Well, what can I pull into our show that younger people relate to more,’” Hawley said.
“The world is hard right now,” Hawley said. “It’s very stressful. There’s something that’s just comforting about putting us on and the number of episodes we have. Our show is an escape for people.”
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Disney-owned 20th Century Studios’ “Avatar: Fire and Ash” cracked the $1-billion mark at the global box office on Sunday. The film is the third Disney film released in 2025 that has crossed $1 billion worldwide, following the animated “Zootopia 2” and the live-action adaptation of “Lilo & Stitch.”
Topping it off, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is the third of three “Avatar” films to reach $1 billion globally. The James Cameron-directed franchise has now grossed more than $6.35 billion so far.
Universal Music Group is investing $80 million for a stake in one of India’s biggest Bollywood production companies, Excel Entertainment Pvt.
Universal Music India, a division of Universal Music Group, will acquire a 30% equity interest in the Mumbai-based movie studio. In the deal, announced Monday, the companies will work together on forthcoming films, series, music and emerging formats.
While getting involved in India’s local film industry, Universal Music will also now receive global distribution rights for all future original soundtracks attached to projects produced or owned by Excel. There are also future plans for the companies to launch an Excel-linked music label that will allow UMG and Universal Music India artists to appear in various Excel titles.
The investment underscores the rapid growth in the Indian entertainment industry.
India is the 15th-largest recorded-music market globally.
Founded by producers Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar in 1999, Excel is responsible for making over 40 different films and scripted shows. Its most popular titles include “Dil Chahta Hai,” “Don” and “Talaash.” The company is currently valued at approximately $290 million.
“India’s entertainment landscape continues to grow from strength to strength, and this is the perfect moment to build meaningful global collaborations,” said Sidhwani and Akhtar in a joint statement. “Together, we aim to take culturally rooted stories to the world.”
Universal Music Group, with its corporate headquarters in the Netherlands and another office in Santa Monica, was founded in 1996. The music giant behind artists like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish is valued at roughly $48 billion on the U.S. stock market, with shares selling around $25.80.
As a stunned world processes the U.S. government’s sudden intervention in Venezuela — debating its legality, guessing who the ultimate winners and losers will be — a company founded in California with deep ties to the Golden State could be among the prime beneficiaries.
Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. Chevron, the international petroleum conglomerate with a massive refinery in El Segundo and headquartered, until recently, in San Ramon, is the only foreign oil company that has continued operating there through decades of revolution.
Other major oil companies, including ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil, pulled out of Venezuela in 2007 when then-President Hugo Chávez required them to surrender majority ownership of their operations to the country’s state-controlled oil company, PDVSA.
But Chevron remained, playing the “long game,” according to industry analysts, hoping to someday resume reaping big profits from the investments the company started making there almost a century ago.
Looks like that bet might finally pay off.
In his news conference Saturday, after U.S. Special Forces snatched Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Caracas and extradited them to face drug-trafficking charges in New York, President Trump said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela and open more of its massive oil reserves to American corporations.
“We’re going to have our very large U.S. oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump said during a news conference Saturday.
While oil industry analysts temper expectations by warning it could take years to start extracting significant profits given Venezuela’s long-neglected, dilapidated infrastructure, and everyday Venezuelans worry about the proceeds flowing out of the country and into the pockets of U.S. investors, there’s one group who could be forgiven for jumping with unreserved joy: Chevron insiders who championed the decision to remain in Venezuela all these years.
But the company’s official response to the stunning turn of events has been poker-faced.
“Chevron remains focused on the safety and well-being of our employees, as well as the integrity of our assets,” spokesman Bill Turenne emailed The Times on Sunday, the same statement the company sent to news outlets all weekend. “We continue to operate in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations.”
Turenne did not respond to questions about the possible financial rewards for the company stemming from this weekend’s U.S. military action.
Chevron, which is a direct descendant of a small oil company founded in Southern California in the 1870s, has grown into a $300-billion global corporation. It was headquartered in San Ramon, just outside of San Francisco, until executives announced in August 2024 that they were fleeing high-cost California for Houston.
Texas’ relatively low taxes and light regulation have been a beacon for many California companies, and most of Chevron’s competitors are based there.
Chevron began exploring in Venezuela in the early 1920s, according to the company’s website, and ramped up operations after discovering the massive Boscan oil field in the 1940s. Over the decades, it grew into Venezuela’s largest foreign investor.
The company held on over the decades as Venezuela’s government moved steadily to the left; it began to nationalize the oil industry by creating a state-owned petroleum company in 1976, and then demanded majority ownership of foreign oil assets in 2007 under Chávez.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves — meaning they’re economical to tap — about 303 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
But even with those massive reserves, Venezuela has been producing less than 1% of the world’s crude oil supply. Production has steadily declined from the 3.5 million barrels per day pumped in 1999 to just over 1 million barrels per day now.
Currently, Chevron’s operations in Venezuela employ about 3,000 people and produce between 250,000 and 300,000 barrels of oil per day, according to published reports.
That’s less than 10% of the roughly 3 million barrels the company produces from holdings scattered across the globe, from the Gulf of Mexico to Kazakhstan and Australia.
But some analysts are optimistic that Venezuela could double or triple its current output relatively quickly — which could lead to a windfall for Chevron.
Spirits. Cosmetics. Apparel. Fragrance. As the categories most closely associated with the rise of celebrity brands become increasingly saturated, A-list talent is venturing into new terrain — and taking on names like Clinique, L’Oreal, Kiehl’s and Harry’s in the process.
With the likes of Beau Domaine, Papatui and Loved01, male stars such as Brad Pitt, Dwayne Johnson and John Legend, respectively, have broken into the growing market for men’s skincare, which was estimated at $18 billion in 2025 and is projected to nearly double by 2034, according to Precedence Research.
“Beauty is almost becoming its own genre, like music and sports,” says Katie Martin, executive vice president and managing director of e-commerce and marketing agency Front Row. “It’s becoming more genderless, community-based and something people talk about and share.”
Even as men’s shaving products and fragrances aligned with celebrities — think Johnny Depp for Dior’s Sauvage — have long been accepted, there’s been a cultural shift when it comes to beauty. Quickly vanishing is the stigma of men buying and using their own skincare products. In many quarters, it’s desirable and even expected for men to care about their skin. And celebrity skin, often seen in revealing high-def and on the big screen, is certainly a model to emulate.
“Men’s personal care habits have shifted significantly in the past decade, and many more men are open to and interested in taking care of themselves, skin included,” says Allison Collins, co-founder and managing director of advisory firm the Consumer Collective. “This shift started with younger millennial and Gen Z men, but has stretched upwards — and now skincare is something many men are into.”
(Photos by Dana Richards / Golden Hours)
With Papatui, Johnson, whose long career as a wrestler and actor defines a certain brand of masculinity, hopes to change the perception that skincare for men is complicated. “That’s something we’re actively changing. Taking care of yourself on the outside is just as important as the inside,” he says. “Just like training, nutrition or recovery. Papatui removes the intimidation and makes it straightforward and focused on what men really need.”
Johnson founded the company after learning important tips from dermatologists over the years, which he says made a difference given his long work days, demanding training regimen and constant travel.
“I wanted products that feel good, are powered by high-performing formulas, and fit into a busy guy’s routine. I’m hands-on with everything along with our incredible team of experts,” Johnson says.
Another selling point is the line’s availability at Target and Walmart. “Dwayne Johnson’s line is super-approachably priced, which is good for today’s market when consumers are a bit more strapped for cash,” notes Collins.
Johnson is especially proud of the fact that he’s getting guys to use under-eye patches for hydration, brightening and smoothing fine lines. His own routine is pretty basic: cleanse, tone and moisturize along with using the line’s other products including facial scrub, antiperspirant and body washes.
(Photos by Tamera Darden and John Campos / Loved01)
After collaborating with other brands including Kiehl’s and SKII, Legend’s Loved01 launched in 2024 with a pop-up store at Westfield Century City and at CVS locations around the country. It is now sold mostly via QVC, on Amazon and on the company’s website. A TikTok shop launched in early December.
“We’re really trying to meet our customers where they are and adjust to the way they’re buying things,” Legend says. “We were getting much more traction through e-commerce and so we’ve really been focused on that along with television.”
The company just released its hydrating cream cleanser, joining other bestselling products like hand wash, face and body moisturizer, cleansing wipes and face and body oil.
“We believe that it shouldn’t cost luxury prices to get the kind of care that everybody deserves,” Legend says. ”That was one of the beats for the company from the very beginning, that everybody deserved great skincare with great ingredients and that are vegan and cruelty-free with wonderfully sourced ingredients from Mother Nature.”
“John Legend is famous for being a really good family guy and his brand is about increasing equity and how people buy into their family,” says Martin.
Pitt espouses a concept of simplicity in his men’s skincare routine — a three-step ritual starting with cleansing, serum to target signs of aging and then cream to lock in moisture.
Teaming with the Perrin family, winemakers in the South of France, Beau Domaine incorporates organic grape water, known for its soothing and moisturizing properties, into some of its products. The three-step regimen lists for $279 on the brand’s website, which also boasts enthusiastic reviews from users.
“Brad Pitt does have a higher price point, and you could say he’s leaning on ease, but it is probably much more about being premium. And of course Brad Pitt is premium,” says Martin. “He is obviously very well known for being very good-looking. They’ve been really smart there with the equity that Brad holds as a celebrity.”
Whatever the target demographic, all three companies are representative of the evolution of celebrity brands to include the full gamut of product categories and meet the needs of a changing marketplace. And with men’s skincare set for further growth, you can bet you’ll see more Hollywood names in the space before long.
Jan. 2 (UPI) — Danish renewable energy giant Orsted filed suit Thursday against the Department of Interior because it paused its lease on a $5 billion off-shore wind farm in Rhode Island.
Orsted’s Revolution Wind project is 87% complete, and “is expected to be ready to deliver reliable, affordable power to American homes in 2026,” a press release said.
Orsted shares jumped more than 4% on the lawsuit news, CNBC reported.
The administration put a halt to the project last month. The Interior Department announced it would pause the leases of five offshore wind farms being built on the East Coast.
Besides Revolution Wind, the projects are Vineyard Wind 1, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind. The projects are in New England, Virginia and New York. Revolution Wind is a joint venture between Orsted and Global Infrastructure Partners’ Skyborn Renewables. It’s about 15 miles off the coast of Rhode Island.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced on X in December: “Due to national security concerns identified by @DeptofWar, @Interior is PAUSING leases for 5 expensive, unreliable, heavily subsidized offshore wind farms! ONE natural gas pipeline supplies as much energy as these 5 projects COMBINED.”
The department explained in a press release that “unclassified reports from the U.S. government have long found that the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called ‘clutter.’ The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of the wind projects,” it said.
But Orsted argues that, “Revolution Wind has spent and committed billions of dollars in reliance upon, and has met the requests of, a thorough review process. Additional federal reviews and approvals included the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Marine Fisheries Service, and many other agencies.”
Revolution Wind faces “substantial harm” from the lease suspension order, Orsted said. “As a result, litigation is a necessary step to protect the rights of the project.”
Orsted’s other project, Sunrise Wind, which also had its lease suspended, “continues to evaluate all options to resolve the matter, including engagement with relevant agencies and stakeholders and considering legal proceedings,” Orsted said. Sunrise Wind is about 30 miles off the coast of New York.
President Donald Trump has made it clear that he dislikes wind energy, calling the turbines “ugly” and saying the noise they make causes cancer.
On Aug. 22, the administration ordered Orsted to stop construction on Revolution Wind to “address concerns related to the protection of national security interest of the United States.”
On Aug. 29, the Department of Transportation announced it was cutting about $679 million in funding to 12 wind farms, calling the projects “wasteful.”
Orsted then filed suit in September to reverse the stop-work order. In that filing, it said the project had already spent $5 billion.
John Mayer calls it “adult day care”: the historic recording studio behind the arched gates on La Brea Avenue where famous musicians have been keeping themselves — and one another — creatively occupied since the mid-1960s.
Known for decades as Henson Studios — and as A&M Studios before that — the three-acre complex in the heart of Hollywood has played host to the creation of some of music’s most celebrated records, among them Carole King’s “Tapestry,” Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” Guns N’ Roses’ “Use Your Illusion” and D’Angelo’s “Black Messiah.”
In 1985, A&M’s parquet-floored Studio A was where Quincy Jones gathered the all-star congregation that recorded “We Are the World” in a marathon overnight session; in 2014, Daft Punk evoked the studios’ wood-paneled splendor in a performance of “Get Lucky” with Stevie Wonder at the 56th Grammy Awards.
A soundstage on the property has seen nearly as much history, including filming for TV’s “The Red Skelton Show” and “Soul Train” and the production of the Police’s MTV-defining music video for “Every Breath You Take.” More recently, Mayer and his bandmates in Dead & Company took over the soundstage to workshop their cutting-edge residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, not long after Mayer cut his most recent solo LP, 2021’s “Sob Rock,” at Henson.
“I used to come here even if I didn’t quite have anything to do,” says the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter known for his romantic ballads and bluesy guitar heroics. “I just wanted to be around music — to have a place to go as an artist to find some structure in my life.”
Now, with an eye on preserving the spot at a moment of widespread upheaval in the entertainment industry, Mayer and his business partner, the filmmaker McG, have finalized a purchase of the lot, which they bought for $44 million from the family of the late Muppets creator Jim Henson and which they’ve renamed Chaplin Studios in honor of the silent-film giant who broke ground on it more than a century ago.
Their vision for Chaplin, which takes up half a city block between Sunset Boulevard and De Longpre Avenue, is ambitious. “We’re doing our best to create kind of a Warhol’s Factory thing of like-minded artists bumping into each other to do their best work possible,” says McG.
And the duo already have some powerful support behind them.
“A lot of my friends and I were very happy to see that Henson was being taken over by some great people,” Paul McCartney tells The Times in an email. The rock legend, who made 2001’s “Driving Rain” and 2018’s “Egypt Station” at Henson, admits that news of the studio’s changing hands left folks in his world “worried that it might not be handled sensitively.”
“However, we realize now we have no reason to be as John Mayer and McG seem to be doing a fantastic job in keeping the famous studio alive.”
Still, the challenges they face are real: Thanks to advances in cheap audio equipment — and with the economics of streaming having cut into once-lavish recording budgets — even A-list artists often opt these days to record at home rather than shell out to book into an old-line studio like Chaplin. (Consider that at least two of the songs nominated for record of the year at February’s Grammys ceremony — Billie Eilish’s “Wildflower” and Chappell Roan’s “The Subway” — were constructed primarily at home.)
“Everyone with a computer and a microphone has a studio,” Mayer says, and that’s not even accounting for the proliferation of music conjured up by AI out of the digital ether.
On the film side, the ongoing exodus of production from L.A. raises natural doubts about the ability to keep a soundstage busy with clients — doubts, one presumes, that led the owners of Occidental Studios near Echo Park to put that lot up for sale last summer.
“The real estate guys weren’t necessarily saying what a prudent business move this was,” says McG, who directed the 2000 blockbuster “Charlie’s Angels” and executive produced TV’s “The O.C.” “But it’s not about the dividend or the monthly spit-out. I admire John for throwing down.”
Says Mayer: “I love doing things that people tell me aren’t gonna work. That’s how I know I’m onto something.”
McG inside the soundstage at Chaplin Studios.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Mayer, 48, and McG, 57, are lounging on a December afternoon in Mayer’s ranch-hand-chic office, which occupies what once was the mill where wood for Charlie Chaplin’s movie sets was cut. Last night the co-owners threw a holiday party for the studio’s staff and friends; McG breakdanced — “My neck hurts today, but I got through it,” he says — while Mitchell turned up and played the piano in Mayer’s personal Studio C, where she liked to work in the ’70s.
As we talk, Mayer is sipping no fewer than three different smoothies — an approach he says he picked up from the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who evidently would order multiple smoothies to ensure he wasn’t missing out on a new discovery.
“There’s something I relate to about that,” Mayer says, his Double RL boots propped on a coffee table in front of him. “I’m gonna have this smoothie and a little bit of these other smoothies to figure out: Does that smoothie beat this smoothie as my all-time-favorite order? What if there’s a smoothie out there in the world that you haven’t tried yet that could be your favorite?”
He puts down one cup and picks up another. “This one has wheatgrass in it,” he reports. “Not for me.”
The singer met McG, whose real name is Joseph McGinty Nichol, in 2024 through the studio’s longtime manager, Faryal Ganjehei. Each had ample experience on the lot: In the 1990s, McG shot music videos on the soundstage for the likes of Sublime and Smash Mouth; Mayer first recorded at Henson in 2005 when he cut a version of “Route 66” for the soundtrack to “Cars.”
“You’d think John and I would have known each other just from around here or from Ari Emanuel’s or whatever,” McG says. “But this was actually a bit of an arranged marriage” between two people who’d separately heard rumblings that the Jim Henson Co. might be looking to move its operations. (The company, which makes a variety of children’s television shows, is now headquartered at Studio City’s Radford Studio Center.)
“One year in, we’re still performing vigorous lovemaking,” McG says of his and Mayer’s union.
“Can’t wait to see that in Times New Roman,” Mayer adds.
Herb Alpert, left, and Jerry Moss at A&M headquarters in 1966.
(Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)
Charlie Chaplin, who was born in London, began building the lot in 1917 in a white-and-brown English Tudor style; he went on to direct some of his best-known films, including “Modern Times” and “The Great Dictator,” on the property. After Chaplin left the United States in 1952, the lot was used for episodes of “The Adventures of Superman” and “Perry Mason.”
In 1966, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss bought the place and made it the base for their A&M Records; they converted two of the lot’s soundstages into high-end recording studios that drew the the likes of Sergio Mendes, the Carpenters, Stevie Nicks, U2 and John Lennon. Henson took over in 2000 and continued to cultivate what many of the studio’s regulars describe as a cozy family vibe.
“It was truly my home away from home,” says John Shanks, who produced hit records by Sheryl Crow, Miley Cyrus and Ashlee Simpson, among many others, at Henson. “My kids celebrated birthdays there — they knew where the candy was in Faryal’s office.”
Mayer and McG say they’re putting $9 million into improvements on the lot — “an up-to-speed-ovation,” the director calls it — but have no plans to make significant structural or stylistic changes. Ganjehei’s staff of around 22 engineers, techs and runners will stay on, as will artists who maintain offices and studios on the property, among them Daft Punk’s production company and the duo of Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman.
“We’ve all seen places we loved get renovated and then you go, ‘Yeah, I don’t like it there anymore,’” McG says.
Such as?
“The Four Seasons on Doheny,” Mayer responds. “They took out the old dining room and put in a Culina, and it’s no fun anymore.” Of Chaplin, he says, “This place has a beating heart. All we have to do is effectively not kill it, right?” He laughs. “Just stay away from the big red button that says, ‘I got an idea.’”
Adrian Scott Fine welcomes that attitude.
“It’s what we like to hear — it’s not what we often hear,” says the president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to historic preservation. “When places transfer out of long-term stewardship, that always raises our spidey senses: What does this mean for the future? Sometimes they go into safe hands with the next owner. Oftentimes it means radical change, loss of character, maybe demolition or redevelopment. So we’re very hopeful when someone says that because it doesn’t happen enough in L.A.”
John Mayer, right, and McG inside Studio B at Chaplin Studios.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
As a show of historical continuity, Mayer and McG initially wanted to call the property Chaplin A&M. But Mayer says he couldn’t get Universal Music Group, which controls the A&M brand, to sign off on the name.
“I’ve never seen fruit so close to the ground before,” he says of the idea to bring back A&M. “Everyone I spoke to did the thing that people at record companies do, where it starts to get very gauzy as it moves up the flagpole: ‘Listen, I get it, but I can’t get the person above me to see it.’” (Moss died in 2023, and a spokesperson for Alpert said he wasn’t available for an interview. A UMG spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
More disappointing, Mayer and McG say, was the Henson family’s decision to take down the 12-foot statue of Kermit the Frog — dressed as Chaplin’s Little Tramp character — that presided for 25 years over the lot’s front entrance.
“It was important to the Hensons to have Kermit — that was expressed very early on,” Mayer says of the statue, which the family is donating to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. “We might have had the delusion of a reprieve. But they didn’t change their mind.”
“I talk to people I know and they say, ‘My kids go to school on La Brea, and every day we drive by and say, “What’s up, Kerms?”’” McG says. “It saddens me that the people of Los Angeles won’t be able to share in Kermit looking over them. If I sold Randy’s Donuts to a barbecue place, I’d hope the barbecue guy would keep the giant doughnut. It’s in the ‘I Love L.A.’ video with Randy Newman, OK?
Until recently, a 12-foot statue of Kermit the Frog presided over the front entrance to the Henson property on La Brea Avenue.
(AaronP / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images)
“This isn’t a McG thing,” the director adds. “It’s not a John Mayer thing. With the greatest respect, it’s not even a Henson thing. Kermit, to me, had transcended all of that and become a part of the fabric of this community.”
Did they make that emotional case to the Hensons?
“We tried,” Mayer says.
And it fell on deaf ears?
“Indeed,” says McG. (A spokesperson at the Jim Henson Co. declined to comment.)
Mayer has seen the comments on social media blaming him for Kermit’s disappearance, which is no doubt why he’s eager to get the word out that it wasn’t his doing. Yet the singer — a tabloid fixture since the days when he dated Taylor Swift and Jessica Simpson — says he’s not tortured by his haters.
“They should be worried about what I think of them,” he says with a laugh. “Honest to God, sometimes I read stuff and I go, ‘If only you knew …’ And I don’t have to apply that to myself as a balm so I stop feeling bad. I’m at the age now where I’ve seen everything you could possibly write, and I’ve survived.”
Not so long ago, Mayer would happily jump into the rough and tumble of online discourse. “But don’t you find yourself scrolling away from things so obviously designed to outrage you?” he asks. The sun is starting to go down outside — this is the time of day, he says, when Chaplin’s bucolic grounds remind him of Montecito’s San Ysidro Ranch — and he’s getting slightly philosophical.
“Millennials had their brains ripped out by the things they read. Gen Z is beginning to go, ‘I think a lot of these are bots.’ And I think Gen Alpha will be the generation that looks and says, ‘There’s a whole bunch of clankers writing bulls—. We don’t care.’
“My years of trash talking or being critical of any artist in any way — I think they’re over,” he says. “It never felt as good as it feels to run into people in the hallway and be glad they’re here.”
The sense of community Mayer feels — and is trying to nurture — at Chaplin is one reason he’s optimistic the studio will succeed.
“I think we’re leaving an era of ‘I did it myself — aren’t you amazed?’ Look at Dijon onstage at ‘SNL,’” he says of the R&B singer and producer who led an expansive group of musicians through a vivid TV performance in early December. “We’ve heard our hands applauding the fact that people have done it alone, and now we’re turning the corner and loving collaboration again. And you can’t come into a place like this and do it alone.”
“I love doing things that people tell me aren’t gonna work,” John Mayer says.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Even so, bills wait for no vibe shift. Beyond the business of recording, Mayer and McG are eager to make Chaplin’s soundstage a destination for acts in need of rehearsal space — AC/DC was recently in there practicing — as well as for certain high-end live events.
“If Anna Wintour’s gonna do ‘Women of Hollywood,’” McG says, “I need Anna Wintour going, ‘John, it’s got to be at your place.’”
Mayer says he’s fantasized about a sitcom or a talk show taking up residence on the soundstage.
“I hear John’s pretty good friends with Andy Cohen,” McG says of the Bravo host. “We’ll see where his show goes.”
“He looked at it,” Mayer says. “I think he needed more space to be able to do ‘Real Housewives’ reunions. Think about the number of Star Waggons you need for that.”
Yet music remains at the heart of Mayer’s ambitions for Chaplin, which he says he intends to own long enough to “sit down in a chair for a documentary several times, talking about other people’s records that were made here.” (Mayer himself says he’s been “defending the calendar of 2026” to record an album of his own.)
“Every time an artist drives through that gate, they’re taking an emotional risk,” he says. “Hoping they have a song in them but not being sure — it’s a very vulnerable state to be in. Everyone’s walking around, bumping into walls, thinking about what the rhyme is to that word. I want to make this the greatest place you could ever struggle.”
Walt Disney Co. is on track to fully integrate its streaming platforms Hulu and Disney+ in 2026.
Hulu isn’t disappearing; Disney hasn’t set a date to retire the stand-alone app. But the Burbank entertainment giant is making progress on its plan to fold Hulu content into the Disney+ platform sometime next year.
The Burbank entertainment giant announced last summer that it was merging Hulu programming onto Disney+. Executives declined Tuesday to provide a timetable for the launch of the integrated platform.
“We are building on Disney’s value proposition in streaming by combining Hulu into Disney+ to create a unified app experience featuring branded and general entertainment, news, and sports, resulting in a one-of-a-kind entertainment destination for subscribers,” Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger told Wall Street analysts during an August earnings call.
Until 2019, Hulu was owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Disney and Fox.
Earlier this month, Disney engineers refreshed the Disney+ homepage to allow users to seamlessly move among its various catalogs — Disney+, Hulu and ESPN.
Disney has said Hulu will live on as the global brand for general entertainment, with such shows as “Only Murders in the Building,” “Paradise” and “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.”
As part of the Mouse House’s choreographed months-long rollout, the company switched the Star tile for international Disney+ customers in October. Now, the green Hulu logo appears for those users. (Star, a popular television service in India, was also among the Fox assets that Disney acquired nearly seven years ago.)
Disney separately operates Hulu + Live TV, a pay-TV service with popular broadcast and cable channels, including ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and ESPN. Eventually, that service will be folded into the Disney+ app.
Hulu subscribers will continue to be able to access the app well into next year.
After the launch of the combined platform, Hulu subscribers will be able to watch Hulu-branded shows, but Disney is designing the experience to entice users to upgrade to a Disney bundle. The company’s goal is for fewer subscribers to drop their plans and, instead, spend more time on the Disney+ app.
As the year draws to a close, Disney is celebrating a successful year at the box office. It released two movies that surpassed $1 billion in global ticket sales: “Zootopia 2,” and “Lilo & Stitch.” The James Cameron movie “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which debuted this month, so far has made more than $750 million worldwide.
The company’s TV programmers are under pressure to boost their slate of original television and streaming shows.
Disney mustered just three entries in Nielsen’s Streaming Top 10 for the last week of November, according to the rating agency’s most recent report.
All were acquired shows, including “Homeland,” a decade-old Showtime production that runs on both Hulu and Netflix. “Homeland,” starring Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin, was ranked fifth for that week, lagging well behind Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” which broke records. Paramount+’s “Landman,” from Taylor Sheridan, was the second-most popular streaming show.
“Bob’s Burgers,” a show created for Fox and available on Hulu, ranked seventh. “Bluey,” an Australian cartoon distributed by Disney+ was the eighth most popular streaming show.
State regulators ordered Southern California Edison to identify fire risks on its unused transmission lines like the century-old equipment suspected of igniting the devastating Eaton wildfire.
Edison also must tell regulators how its 355 miles of out-of-service transmission lines located in areas of high fire risk will be used in the future, according to a document issued by the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety on Dec. 23.
State regulations require utilities to remove abandoned lines so they don’t become a public hazard. Edison executives said they did not remove the Eaton Canyon line because they believed it would be used in the future. It last carried power in 1971.
The Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety said Edison must determine which unused transmission lines are most at risk of igniting fires and create a plan to decrease that risk. In some cases that might mean removing the equipment entirely.
While the OEIS report focuses on Edison, the agency said it also will require the state’s other electric companies to take similar actions with their idle transmission lines.
Scott Johnson, an Edison spokesman, said Monday that the company already had been reviewing idle lines and planned to respond to the regulators’ requests. He said Edison often keeps idle lines in place “to support long-term system needs, such as future electrification, backup capacity or regional growth.”
“If idle lines are identified to have no future use, they are removed,” he said.
Johnson said that since 2018, Edison has removed idle lines that no longer had a purpose seven times and provided a list of those projects.
The investigation into the cause of the Eaton wildfire by state and local fire officials has not yet been released. Edison has said the leading theory is that the dormant transmission line in Eaton Canyon briefly reenergized on the night of Jan. 7, sparking the fire.
Unused lines can become energized from electrified lines running parallel to them through a process called induction.
The Eaton wildfire killed at least 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes and structures in Altadena.
After the fires, Edison said it had added more grounding equipment to its old transmission lines no longer in service. The added devices give any unexpected electricity on the line more places to disperse into the ground, making them less likely to spark a fire.
The OEIS issued its latest directives after Edison executives informed the agency they had no plans to remove any out-of-service lines between now and 2028, the report said.
State regulators and the utilities have long known that old transmission lines can ignite wildfires.
The Times reported how Edison and other utilities defeated a state regulatory plan, introduced in 2001, which would’ve forced the companies to remove abandoned lines unless they could prove they would use them again.
In its report the OEIS noted it would require Edison and other electric companies to provide details of how often each idle line was inspected and how long it took to fix problems found in those inspections.
Edison has said it inspected the unused line in Eaton Canyon annually before the fire — just as often as it inspects live lines. The company declined to provide The Times with documentation of those inspections.
In the OEIS report, energy safety regulators said they expect to to approve Edison’s wildfire mitigation plan for the next three years despite the problems they found with the approach.
For example, the report noted that Edison is behind in replacing or reinforcing aging and deteriorating transmission and distribution poles. The regulators said the backlog “includes many work orders on [Edison’s] riskiest circuits.” A circuit is a line or other infrastructure that provides a pathway for electricity.
Officials said the company must work on reducing that backlog. They also criticized Edison executives for not incorporating any lessons they learned from the Jan. 7 wildfires into the company’s fire prevention plans.
Johnson, Edison’s spokesperson, said the company already improved the backlog of pole replacements. He said the company also planned to tell regulators more about the lessons it learned after the Eaton fire.
Under state law, the OEIS must approve a utility’s wildfire mitigation plan before it can issue the company a safety certificate that protects the company from liability if its equipment ignites a catastrophic fire.
The OEIS issued Edison’s last safety certificate less than a month before the Eaton fire — despite the company having had thousands of open work orders, including some on the transmission lines above Altadena, at the time.
Edison is offering to pay for damages suffered by Eaton fire victims and a handful already accepted its offers. The utility says that because it held a safety certificate at the time of the fire it expects to be reimbursed for most or all of the payments by a $21-billion state wildfire fund.
If that fund doesn’t cover the damages, a law passed this year enables Edison to raise its electric rates to make up the difference.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers passed laws to create the state fund and safety certificate program to protect utilities from bankruptcy if their equipment starts costly wildfires. Critics say the laws have gone too far, potentially leaving utilities financially unharmed from fires caused by their negligence.
Edison is fighting hundreds of lawsuits filed by victims of the Eaton fire. The company says it acted prudently in maintaining the safety of its system before the fire.
Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, the utility’s parent company, told The Times this month that he believed the company had been “a reasonable operator” of its system before the fire.
“Accidents can happen,” Pizarro said. “Perfection is not something you can achieve, but prudency is a standard to which we’re held.”
In an uneven year that saw two billion-dollar hits and a viral “chicken jockey” craze, but also a disastrous first quarter and a nearly 30-year-low at the October box office, the end of December was the last chance for theaters to make up ground.
But even James Cameron and the Na’vi — the latest “Avatar” film has already grossed more than $472 million globally — couldn’t save 2025 from a disappointing conclusion.
Box-office revenue in the U.S. and Canada is expected to total $8.87 billion for the year, up just 1.5% from last year’s disappointing $8.74 billion tally, according to movie data firm Comscore. More troubling is that 2025’s domestic box-office haul is projected to be down more than 20% compared with 2019, before the pandemic changed audiences’ movie-going habits and turbocharged streaming in ways that the exhibition industry is still grappling with.
The problem: Fewer people are buying movie tickets. Theatrical attendance is running below last year’s levels, with an estimated 760 million tickets sold as of Dec. 25, according to media and entertainment data firm EntTelligence. Last year, total ticket sales for 2024 exceeded 800 million.
Part of the explanation for the falloff in cinema revenue and admissions lies in the movies themselves.
Industry experts and theater owners say the quality and frequency of releases led to dips in the calendar that put extra pressure on the other movies to perform. Once-reliable genres such as comedies and dramas are facing a much tougher time in theaters, and female moviegoers — who came out in droves in 2023 for “Barbie” — were underserved in a year that largely skewed toward male-leaning blockbusters.
“It’s fair to say that 2025 didn’t quite reach the levels many of us expected at the start of the year,” Eduardo Acuna, chief executive of Regal Cineworld, said in a statement. “A big part of that comes down to a lack of depth in the release schedule, and the struggle of many smaller titles to break through.”
Even big-name stars such as Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Dwayne Johnson and Sydney Sweeney couldn’t prop up attendance for films such as Sony Pictures’ “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” A24’s “The Smashing Machine” and Black Bear Pictures’ “Christy,” all of which flopped.
And despite the critical acclaim and stacked cast list for Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” the film has stalled domestically at $71 million, with a global total of $205 million.
“One Battle After Another” had a budget of about $130 million, while “The Smashing Machine” reportedly cost $50 million and has grossed just $21 million worldwide.
“The challenge facing Hollywood is how to reconcile the budgets of these films with how much they can earn in theaters and down the road, eventually, in streaming,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore.
Universal Pictures’ “Wicked: For Good” hauled in more than $324 million, but it was one of few big blockbusters targeted to women. (Taylor Swift’s “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” which brought in $50 million globally, was another.)
Though the summer was marked by a number of big films, including Warner Bros.-owned DC Studios’ “Superman,” Universal’s “Jurassic World Rebirth” and Apple’s “F1 The Movie,” most were geared toward male audiences.
Female-focused films are “are few and far between,” said Jeff Bock, senior box-office analyst at Exhibitor Relations, an entertainment data and research firm. “There should be something for everyone playing most of the time, and that isn’t the case.”
To be sure, there were some bright spots for the industry, including success from young audiences.
Warner Bros. Pictures’ “A Minecraft Movie” was the highest-grossing domestic film this year, with $423.9 million. Close behind was Walt Disney Co.’s live-action adaptation “Lilo & Stitch,” which collected $423.8 million in the U.S. and Canada and a total of $1 billion worldwide.
Counting those two, five of the year’s top 10 domestic-grossing films had PG ratings, including “Wicked: For Good,” Disney’s animated “Zootopia 2” and Universal’s live-action “How to Train Your Dragon.”
“In general, the good news about the year is that most of the big hits involved young audiences,” said Tom Rothman, chair and CEO chief executive of Sony Pictures’ motion picture group. “There is a bit of a youth-quake.”
Disney capitalized on the big year for family-friendly fare.
The Burbank entertainment giant recently crossed $6 billion at the global box office for the year, powered by billion-dollar hits such as “Lilo & Stitch” and “Zootopia 2,” and marking the company’s biggest year since 2019. (Though it wasn’t all sunny for Disney this year, as Pixar’s original animated film “Elio” misfired, as did the live-action film, “Snow White,” which was mired in controversy.)
Another notable youth driver was “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” from Sony Pictures in partnership with its anime banner, Crunchyroll. The film had a massive opening weekend haul of $70 million in July on its way to a domestic gross of $134 million and a global total of $715 million, highlighting the increasing popularity of anime.
“The mainstreaming of anime at the theatrical box office is a really significant part of what happened this year and a really good sign,” Rothman said. “You’re bringing in young audiences.”
Not surprisingly, established intellectual property — whether video games, known franchises, novels or comic books — still topped the charts this year, with nine of the top 10 domestic films tied to an existing title.
That familiarity at the box office counts when moviegoers, particularly families, are looking for movies to watch. Viewers can be choosy about how they spend their cash and time, and may not always want to gamble on a movie they’ve never heard of.
“Meaningful IP still has an advantage in getting people to come to the theater, though it’s not the only way to do it,” said Adam Fogelson, chair of Lionsgate’s motion picture group, which saw success this year with an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel “The Long Walk,” as well as franchise film “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.”
Horror flicks also scared up plenty of business in 2025. Warner Bros., in particular, had a string of wins in fearful films, including Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” and “Final Destination Bloodlines.”
In one notable exception, Blumhouse had a rare miss with “M3GAN 2.0,” the follow-up to the 2022 cult favorite. In an interview on “The Town” podcast, Blumhouse Productions Chief Executive Jason Blum blamed the sequel’s shortcomings on a change in genre from the original.
As 2025 draws to a close, industry insiders and theater owners are more optimistic about next year’s box office prospects.
Several big films are set to release in 2026, including Christopher Nolan’s much anticipated “The Odyssey,” Disney and Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Doomsday,” Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Three,” as well as Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” from Universal, Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment.
That anticipation is also clouded by the uncertainty of the impending Warner Bros. deal and what that will mean for movie releases.
Many cinema owners fear that a takeover by Netflix will limit or eliminate the theatrical exclusivity of Warner Bros. films, though Netflix executives have said they will honor the company’s current and future commitments to the big screen. And if Paramount were to buy the company, theatrical exhibitors fear that the number of films would decrease, leaving them with less content to show. (Paramount CEO David Ellison has said the company did not plan to release fewer movies.)
Any deal is expected to take at least a year to complete.
In the meantime, Hollywood will wait to see how strong the 2026 slate truly is.
“There are a lot of great titles out there, and that’s why people have been calling 2026 a return to form,” said Bock of Exhibitor Relations. “Even though 2026 is very promising, can Hollywood keep delivering year-in and year-out?”
This year alone, Hallmark has 80 hours of original holiday-themed programming, including two unscripted series, two scripted series, a holiday special and 24 movies with titles such as “The Snow Must Go On” and “Christmas at the Catnip Cafe” that run from mid-October to Christmas.
The company also has branched out into the experiences business with a Hallmark Christmas Cruise and the Hallmark Christmas Experience festival in Kansas City, Mo., where the company is based.
“I think that’s one of the most brilliant business decisions they’ve made, and they’re expanding there because they have to,” Anjali Bal, associate professor of marketing at Babson College, said of Hallmark’s experiences business. “It allows a connection between the consumer and the brand on a direct level in a way a movie can’t provide.”
It may seem like a far cry from Hallmark’s roots as a greeting card purveyor, but company executives say the holiday feelings evoked by its cards, ornaments and gift wrap translate into the type of content they produce.
And that plethora of content has turned Hallmark into a Christmas juggernaut, fueling competitors such as Lifetime and Netflix, which also produce holiday romantic comedies in the vein of Hallmark movies.
But Darren Abbott, Hallmark’s chief brand officer, doesn’t seem overly concerned.
“There’s a reason everyone else is trying to do this, and it’s because consumers are looking for this,” he said.
Hallmark’s legacy is rooted in celebrating holidays and Christmas, he said, “and no other business or brand has that.”
Countdown to Christmas
Founded in 1910 by an 18-year-old entrepreneur hawking postcards, Hallmark built its brand over the years through cards, holiday ornaments and retail stores.
The family-owned business ventured into entertainment in 1951 with the television presentation Hallmark Hall of Fame. Today, Studio City-based Hallmark Media operates three cable networks, including the Hallmark Channel, which debuted in 2001, as well as a subscription streaming service.
Though Hallmark had aired holiday movies practically since the inception of its cable channel, the company doubled down on the season in 2009, rolling out “Countdown to Christmas,” a 24-hour-a-day programming block focused solely on holiday content, a tradition that has lasted for 16 years.
Hallmark produces about 100 movies a year, both holiday and non-holiday films.
As a privately-held company, Hallmark did not disclose its finances, though executives acknowledge the holiday season is a key driver of entertainment revenue.
The expansion into entertainment is a way for Hallmark to stay in the zeitgeist over multiple generations and to diversify its business beyond just cards and retail products, analysts said.
“Their television stations and experiences business allows them to stay culturally relevant while staying true to their origin,” said Bal, the marketing professor.
Holiday programming — and the breezy, romantic fare Hallmark has become known for — has become increasingly popular with audiences.
Holiday features, both old movies and new, typically make up more than a third of total movie viewing time in December, according to U.S. television data from Nielsen. That percentage has remained fairly consistent for the last three years, though it reached 42% in December 2021.
Hallmark’s television viewership also edges up in the months leading into the holidays. In October, Hallmark commanded 1% of total viewership across linear TV and streaming, ticking up to 1.2% in November, according to Nielsen data. During that same time, competitor A&E, which owns Lifetime, remained constant at 0.9%.
Hallmark’s feel-good movies typically resonate with audiences across the country. They invariably conclude with happy endings (and at least one kiss), where romantic misunderstandings, financial difficulties and family drama all get resolved. After years of criticism, the movies’ casts and plot lines are diversifying, though experts say there is still room for improvement.
“These films are designed to be highly appealing to broad audiences,” said Kit Hughes, associate professor of film and media studies at Colorado State University, who watched every single Hallmark film released in 2022 for research on the portrayal of small business owners. “They’re good consensus movies.”
To grow its audience and the types of stories it tells, Hallmark has increasingly turned to brand partnerships, including with the NFL.
Last year, the company released a movie centered around a Kansas City Chiefs romance; this year, it released one about Buffalo Bills fans. Hallmark also has a partnership with Walt Disney Co. to release a holiday movie next year set at Walt Disney World. The film stars Lacey Chabert, who Abbott describes as Hallmark’s “Queen of Christmas.”
Meeting Hallmark stars on cruise ships
Hallmark’s foray into the cruise business might seem odd, but it follows a long tradition of entertainment companies creating real-world experiences with their fans, whether that’s on a ship, in a theme park or on a stage. As part of its massive tourism business, Disney operates its own line of cruise ships that promote the company’s classic characters.
Hallmark launched its first “Hallmark Christmas Cruise” last year on Norwegian Cruise Lines. The inaugural cruise from Miami to the Bahamas sold out even before a planned TV marketing campaign. After racking up a wait list of 70,000 people, Hallmark had to add a second cruise, Abbott said.
For this year’s cruise, from Miami to Cozumel, Mexico, Hallmark had to book a bigger ship to accommodate demand. During the November cruise, attendees participated in various Christmas festivities, such as ornament-making workshops and cookie-decorating, and mingled with Hallmark stars in various on-stage games.
The cruises even spawned an unscripted Hallmark show focused on the experiences of several attendees and their interactions with Hallmark actors.
Many are not exactly household names, but they’ve starred in dozens of Hallmark holiday movies over the years and have loyal fan bases.
Abbott joined the cruise last year, and while he’s not a “cruise person,” he said he was fascinated to see how guests interacted with the stars.
“We’re a bit of a respite from what’s going on in the world right now,” he said, “and these experiences sort of hit on that at the right time and the right place.”
Four years ago, California startup Theta Labs’ cryptocurrency was soaring, and its future appeared bright when it landed a partnership with pop star Katy Perry.
The Bay Area company had built a marketplace for digital collectibles known as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and had teamed up with Perry to launch NFTs tied to her Las Vegas concert residency. Its THETA token jumped by more than 500% in early 2021, reaching a peak of more than $15, making it one of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrencies. Later in the year, the spotlight shone on the company when it announced the Perry partnership.
“I can’t wait to dive in with the Theta team on all the exciting and memorable creative pieces, so my fans can own a special moment of my residency,” Perry said in a June 2021 news release.
Today, like many cryptocurrencies, THETA is 95% off its 2021 peak. It took a hit this week after former executives accused it of manipulating markets to dupe consumers into buying its products. On Tuesday, it was trading at less than 30 cents.
Two former executives from Theta Labs sued the startup, alleging in separate lawsuits that the company and its chief executive, Mitch Liu, engaged in fraud and manipulated the cryptocurrency market for his benefit. Liu retaliated against them after the employees refused to engage in deceptive business practices and raised concerns, the lawsuits say.
Some of the alleged misconduct involved placing fake bids on Perry’s NFTs, engaging in token “pump and dump” schemes and using celebrity endorsements and “misleading” partnerships with high-profile companies such as Google to deceive the public, according to the December lawsuits filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Perry is not accused of any wrongdoing in the suit, and Theta denies the charges.
The lawsuits against Theta Labs are the latest controversy to rattle an industry beset by scandals.
Cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed, and its founder, Samuel Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 after being found guilty of multiple fraud charges. Binance founder and former Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao also got prison time after he pleaded guilty to violating money laundering laws, but President Trump pardoned him this year.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission previously charged celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and Ne-Yo for promoting crypto without disclosing they were paid to do so.
Theta Labs created a network that rewarded people with cryptocurrency for contributing spare bandwidth and computing power to enhance video streaming and lower content delivery costs. The company describes Theta Network as a “blockchain-powered decentralized cloud for AI, media and entertainment.” The network has two tokens: THETA, used to secure the network, and TFUEL, used to pay users for services and power operations.
The whistleblowers suing Theta Labs are Jerry Kowal, its former head of content, and Andrea Berry, previously the company’s head of business development.
“Liu used Theta Labs as his personal trading vehicle, perpetrating fraud, self-dealing, and market manipulation,” said Mark Mermelstein, Kowal’s attorney, in a statement. “His calculated ‘pump-and-dump’ schemes repeatedly wiped out employee and investor value. This suit is about demanding accountability and proving no one is above the law.”
Theta, Liu and its parent company, Sliver VR Technologies, deny the allegations and “intend to prove with evidence the fallacy of the stories being told in the lawsuits,” according to Kronenberger Rosenfeld, the law firm representing the defendants. The lawsuits are an attempt to paint the company in a negative light in hopes of securing a settlement, a lawyer for the firm said.
Kowal has sued his former employers before. In 2014, he accused Netflix of spreading false claims that he stole confidential information and Amazon of wrongful termination.
The latest lawsuits allege that Liu profited from buying and selling THETA tokens using insider knowledge about partnerships with celebrities, studios and others in the entertainment industry.
“Liu’s true motive in pursuing such partnerships was not to develop a sustainable content business but to generate publicity that could be used to artificially inflate token prices for Liu’s personal gain,” Kowal’s lawsuit says.
Kowal worked for Theta from 2020 to 2025.
In 2020, Liu traded and sold tokens knowing that the company would close a content licensing deal with MGM Studios, according to the lawsuit. After the deal’s announcement, THETA token’s market capitalization increased by more than $50 million in just 24 hours, the lawsuit says.
When NFTs started to take off in 2021, Kowal closed deals with high-profile partners such as Perry, Fremantle Media and Resorts World Las Vegas for the startup’s NFT marketplace.
As part of the deal with Perry, the singer received $8.5 million and additional warrants for the right to license her image and likeness for the NFTs.
To inflate the price and demand for these digital collectibles, Liu allegedly made bids on NFTs and directed employees to do the same. This led to people overpaying for the Perry NFTs.
Representatives for Perry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Multiple examples of alleged manipulation are outlined in the lawsuits. In one instance from 2022, the startup launched a new token called TDROP that employees also received as part of a bonus.
Liu gained control of 43% of the supply of the cryptocurrency, according to Kowal’s lawsuit. When the TDROP token reached a high, he then sold the token, and its price collapsed by more than 90% within months.
Berry’s lawsuit also alleges that Theta Labs announced “misleading” or fake partnerships with high-profile companies such as Google and entities including NASA to pump up the value of the THETA token. Theta paid for Google Cloud products but claimed it was a partner when it was a Google customer, according to the lawsuit.
“South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who this summer landed one of the richest TV deals ever, are being called Scrooges by performers at their Casa Bonita restaurant near Denver.
In late October, the performers, including the famed cliff divers, went on a three-day strike, citing unsafe working conditions and stalled negotiations over their first contract. The performers voted unanimously to unionize with Actors’ Equity Assn. a year ago.
The strike ended when the restaurant’s management agreed to bring in a mediator to assist in the negotiations.
But the standoff has continued, prompting Actors’ Equity to take out an ad in the Denver Post this week that depicts a “South Park” cartoon-like Parker and Stone awash in hundred-dollar bills while their staff, including a gorilla and a person clad in a swimsuit, shivers outside in the Colorado cold.
The union said its goal is to prod the star producers to resolve the labor tensions by giving about 60 Casa Bonita performers, including magicians and puppeteers, a pay increase and other benefits along with their first contract.
A full page ad is running in the Denver Post on Dec 24.
(Actors’ Equity Association)
Other Casa Bonita workers voted earlier this month to join the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 7.
“At Casa Bonita, we value all of our team members and their well being,” the restaurant management said in a statement. “We are negotiating in good faith with our unionized team members in the hopes of concluding fair collective bargaining agreements.”
Parker and Stone declined to comment through a spokesperson.
The pair, who also created the hit Broadway play “The Book of Mormon,” rescued the kitschy, bright-pink Mexican-themed eatery in Lakewood, Colo., from bankruptcy in 2021 and have since plowed more than $40 million into the restaurant to upgrade and correct unsafe electrical, plumbing and structural issues after the facility had fallen into disrepair.
For “South Park” super-fans, the venue has become something of a mecca since first being featured in the seventh season of the long-running Comedy Central cartoon.
In that episode, Cartman flips out when Kyle invites Stan, Kenny and Butters Stotch to his birthday party at Casa Bonita (not Cartman), where they are serenaded by the restaurant’s ubiquitous mariachi bands.
Along with legions of other kids who grew up in Colorado, Parker and Stone fondly remember making the trek to the Casa Bonita of their 1980s youth. Restoring the restaurant has become a passion project for the writers, a journey that became grist for a documentary, “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!,” which streams on Paramount+.
In July, Paramount managers were eager to tie up loose ends to facilitate the company’s sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media and RedBird Capital Partners. The incoming management team also became involved in the protracted negotiations to strike a new deal with Parker and Stone’s production company, Park County, to avoid having the situation unravel, possibly tripping up their corporate takeover.
Paramount ultimately agreed to extend the overall deal for Park County as well as lock up the show’s exclusive global streaming rights for $300 million a year over five years. Until this year, the show streamed exclusively on HBO Max.
The overall deal is slated to bring Parker and Stone’s firm $1.25 billion through 2030.
As part of the pact, the team agreed to create 50 new “South Park” episodes for Paramount. The series has enjoyed a ratings bounce and increased cultural resonance this year as it routinely roasts President Trump.
Actors’ Equity, which also represents Broadway performers, is seeking pay raises for its members at Casa Bonita. Union representatives said performers’ wages there average $21 to $26 an hour.
“Matt and Trey have become fabulously wealthy by pointing out the hypocrisy of rich and powerful people,” said David Levy, communications director for Actors’ Equity. “And now they are behaving exactly like the people they like to take down.”
Netflix and Paramount are locked in an epic tug-of-war for HBO and Warner Bros. — the historic film factory behind Batman, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo, “Casablanca” and “The Matrix.”
Warner Bros. Discovery awarded the prize to Netflix, prompting Paramount to mount a hostile takeover bid valued at $108 billion for all of the Warner assets, which also include CNN, TBS, HGTV and TLC. The Larry Ellison-backed media company, run by his son David Ellison, has asked Warner shareholders to sell their shares to Paramount.
Warner Bros.’ sale has become the industry’s game of thrones.
The streaming king, Netflix, hopes to buy a chunk of the company — HBO, HBO Max, Warner Bros. film and TV studios and the 110-acre lot in Burbank — through its $82.7-billion deal. Not included are Warner’s basic cable channels, which are set to be spun off into a separate, publicly-traded company called Discovery Global.
Both deals would fundamentally reorder Hollywood and raise antitrust concerns. Netflix would boast more than 400 million subscribers worldwide, furthering its market dominance. And Paramount’s takeover would combine two major film studios and two leading news organizations, CNN and CBS News, under Ellison family control.
The year was 1923, and thousands of people a month were flooding into Los Angeles in hopes of finding a job in the nascent film business.
Many planned to start as background actors, dreaming they’d be discovered by a director and finally get their big break. These behind-the-scenes actors would wander from studio lot to studio lot, lining up in hopes of being cast.
But the chaos of aspiring actors searching for jobs eventually became too much. Even silent screen star Mary Pickford took to warning wide-eyed newcomers that they should save enough money to survive for five years before coming out to Hollywood.
Out of calls to create safeguards around this fledgling business, and more order around background acting opportunities, emerged the Central Casting Corp.
Central Casting — now so eponymous that its name has become a cultural phrase — celebrated its 100th anniversary earlier this month.
I recently spoke with Mark Goldstein, president and chief executive of the Burbank-based company, to talk about changes in the industry, including the threat of artificial intelligence, runaway production and the role of a background actor in 2025.
Goldstein acknowledged the tough environment for background performers, also commonly known as extras, who populate restaurants, parks and other film and TV scenes to make the environment seem more realistic — all without saying a word.
After the lows of the pandemic, and then the explosion of content during the peak TV era, one of the main challenges for Central Casting’s members is just finding new roles, he said.
“There’s been a little bit of a pullback in production over the last year,” said Goldstein, who serves as president and CEO of Central Casting as well as production finance and management tools firm Entertainment Partners, which owns the agency. “It’s really just constantly finding the right roles for people.”
In Southern California, of course, jobs have been more scarce as production has flowed to other states and countries offering steeper film incentives.
Then there is the advent of computer-generated imagery, which has lessened the need for massive crowd scenes that were once standard.
“Before [CGI] technology, we may fill up an arena, like we may fill a 5,000-person shoot or a 10,000-person shoot,” Goldstein said.
Remember the long lines for casting calls?
No more.
More recently AI has been a key concern for background actors, though Goldstein said he doesn’t think the new digital tools and the rise of synthetic characters will eliminate the need for background actors.
“There’s a lot of conversation [about] is it human or technology? And we kind of view it as human and technology,” he said. “The consumer wants believability, and so there’ll be situations where it’s really important to have the human role involved, but there may be other situations where AI and technology can be helpful.”
He added: “We have legendary people that started their career because they wanted to follow their dream to become an actor in Hollywood,” he said, ticking off the names of famous alumni such as Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Eva Longoria, Will Ferrell and Brad Pitt. “And we don’t see that changing.”
Despite the challenges, aspiring actors still register with Central Casting every day, Goldstein said. The company has 200,000 background actors in its database, with more than 20,000 new names added a year. About 3,000 are placed in roles each day, the company says.
One of those is Jaylee Maruk, 38, who signed up with Central Casting in 2009 and has worked steadily ever since.
Maruk works often on “Grey’s Anatomy” and has credits on Hulu’s “Paradise” and Apple TV’s “Shrinking.” She once stood in for Greta Lee in Apple TV‘s “The Morning Show.”
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“What I love about doing background is it really gives a solid foundation about what it’s like to be on set and what the expectations are,” Maruk said.
But she worries about her future, especially with the rise of AI and the migration of production.
“Productions will pack up and leave,” she said. “They’ll go somewhere cheaper, and it’s becoming harder and harder for us. That’s really the biggest concern, trying to entice and support productions staying here.”
Towns in far-off countries like Hungary and Turkey can be made to look just like places in America, she says. And they can cast local residents instead of U.S.-based performers like Maruk. After all, background actors don’t have speaking roles, so not speaking English isn’t a problem.
“We want our work to be here,” said the Lake Balboa resident. “Our families are here, our lives are here.”
Last year, I got a glimpse into the world of background acting when I covered the annual Los Angeles Union Background Actors Awards. Though tongue-in-cheek at times — the awards themselves are called Blurries — the ceremony and winners’ speeches also highlighted these actors’ key roles in Hollywood.
I met background actors who had done the job for years, including one who got his first role as a 12-year-old in “Hello, Dolly!” Many talked about the difficulty of the last few years and the desire for respect for their professional work. Some were full-time background actors; others did the work part time. All were passionate about what they did.
“It really is just preparedness and luck, as they say,” Maruk said. “And also just having a lot of motivation and resilience.”
Stuff We Wrote
Film shoots
Number of the week
James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” brought in $89 million in the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend. Globally, the film made $346 million, with big hauls in China and France.
That opening total came in at the lower end of box office analysts’ expectations and is also less than the massive opening weekend for its predecessor film, 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which grossed $134 million in its domestic debut. But “Avatar” films tend to build momentum at the box office over subsequent weekends, so the Na’vi aren’t vanquished yet.
In addition to “Avatar,” this past weekend also saw strong performances from Angel Studios’ animated “David,” as well as Lionsgate’s thriller “The Housemaid,” pushing the year-to-date domestic box office total a slim 1% above the same time period last year. That’s helpful for theaters but doesn’t bode well for the box office’s overall performance this year.
Finally …
My colleague Josh Rottenberg looks at what movie stardom will mean in an age of AI. In that story, he has an interview with the creator of Tilly Norwood, the AI-generated character that recently sparked a furious debate in Hollywood about the role of synthetics in film and TV.
Under the glow of fluorescent lights at Seafood City market in North Hills, packages of pre-made adobo, salted shrimp fry and and dried anchovies glisten in meat coolers.
A DJ, dressed in a traditional barong, blasts a dance remix of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” as a crowd gathers to take a shot of fish sauce together.
“That was disgusting!” a man shouts into the mic, flashing a grimacing expression.
At Seafood City, DJs 1OAK, left, EVER ED-E and AYMO spin in barongs, the Philippines’ national formal shirt.
The smells of lechon and lumpia float through the air. Smiling children munch on halo-halo (a Philippine dessert made with ube ice cream, leche flan and shaved ice). Flags of the Philippines wave in the air as a man in UCLA Health scrubs hops into the center of an energetic dance circle. Employees shoot store coupons out of a money gun and toss bags of Leslie’s Clover Chips into the crowd. Fathers hold their children on their shoulders as a group of college students perform a Tinikling routine, a traditional Philippine dance in which performers step and hop over and between bamboo poles.
“This is so Filipino,” a woman says, in awe of the scene.
Sabria Joaquin, 26, of Los Angeles, left, and Kayla Covington, 19, of Rancho Cucamonga hit the dance floor at “Late Night Madness” in North Hills.
“I came here for groceries,” explains an elderly man, adding that he decided to stay for the party.
Seafood City, the largest Philippine grocery store chain in North America, typically closes at 9 p.m. But on certain Friday and Saturday nights, its produce or seafood aisle turns into a lively dance floor for “Late Night Madness.” On social media, where the gathering has exploded, it looks like a multigenerational nightclub that could use dimmer lighting. But for attendees who frequent the store, it’s more than that. It’s a space for them to celebrate their Filipino heritage through food, music and dance in a familiar setting.
“This is something that you would never expect to happen — it’s a grocery store,” says Renson Blanco, one of five DJs spinning that night. He grew up going to the store with his family. “My mom would [put] us all in the minivan and come here, and she’d let us run free,” he adds. “It’s comfortable here. It’s safe here.”
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1.Rhianne Alimboyoguen, 23, of Los Angeles follows an employee through the produce section.2.Allison Dove, 29, left, and Andrea Edoria, 33, both of Pasadena, enjoy Philippine street food. 3.Katie Nacino, 20, left, Daniel Adrayan, 21, and Sean Espiritu, 21, of the Filipino American Student Assn. at Cal State Northridge, practice tinikling, a traditional Philippine folk dance, in an aisle.
The first Seafood City location opened in 1989 in National City, a suburb of San Diego, which has a nearly 20% Asian population including a rich Filipino community. For its founders, the Go family, the mission was simple: to provide a market where Filipinos and people within the diaspora could comfortably speak their native language and buy familiar products. It’s since become a community anchor. Of the nearly 40 locations in Northern America, at least half of them are based in California, which has the highest population of Asian Americans in the United States.
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The first “Late Night Madness” event happened in September in Daly City, Seafood City’s newest location. The company wanted to launch a street food program at the store’s food hall in a fun and creative way.
The DJ played a selection of hip-hop, pop, soul and classic Pinoy records like VST & Company’s “Awitin Mo, Isasayaw Ko.” Hundreds of people showed up, and videos of people of all ages turning up in the popular supermarket spread like wildfire. So the company decided to continue hosting the event in October during Filipino American History Month and for the rest of the year. It’s since expanded to more locations around the country and in L.A., including Eagle Rock.
By 10 p.m. at the Seafood City in North Hills, at least 500 people are dancing in the produce section, next to rows of saba bananas, fresh taro leaves and bok choy. The lively crowd forms dance circles throughout the night, taking turns jumping in the center to show off their moves to songs like Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Let’s Groove,” “Nokia” by Drake and Justin Bieber’s “I Just Need Somebody to Love.” At one point, TikToker and artist Adamn Killa hops on the mic and says “If you a Filipino baddie, this is for you,” before doing his viral dance.
Among the Philippine street food offerings were pandesal sliders, lumpia-style nachos, lobster balls and various skewers.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
A group of employees dance behind the counter as they serve hungry patrons who fill their trays with various Filipino street food including pandesal sliders (soft Philippine bread filled with adobo, lechon or longganisa) and Lumpia Overload (think nachos, but a bed of lumpia instead of tortilla chips), lobster balls and barbecue chicken skewers. (No alcohol is served.) Meanwhile, a few lone shoppers sprinkle into the store to get their weekly groceries as music blasts through the speakers.
First-generation Filipino American Andrea Edoria of Pasadena says “Late Night Madness” reminded her of the family parties she attended as a child in L.A. and in Manila, where her parents are from.
“Growing up as a child of immigrants, I was kind of self conscious about displaying too much of my culture,” she says between bites of spiral fried potato. She went to the Eagle Rock event with her mother last month as well. “So it kind of fed my inner child to see so many people celebrating this shared culture and experience that we each grew up [with].”
A multi-generational crowd is drawn to the dance floor. At center is Jade Cavan, 44, of Chatsworth.
Members of the Filipino American Student Assn. at Cal State Northridge perform a tinikling performance.
She adds, “I think it’s so important especially now at a time where our country is so divisive and culture is kind of being weaponized, I think it’s a beautiful reminder that we can come together and find something that unites us.”
About 10 minutes before midnight, the grocery store is still bustling with activity. A dance battle breaks out and people begin hyping up the young women. The DJ transitions into slower tracks like Beyoncé’s “Love on Top” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” The remaining folks sing along loudly as they walk toward the exit, smiles imprinted on their faces. Staff rush to clean up, then huddle together for group photos to memorialize the evening.
After the final song is played, employees rush to clean up the supermarket.
Patrick Bernardo, 34, of Van Nuys looks at the counter, where a man had been chopping lechon, before stepping outside.
“There’s barely anything left on that pig,” he says, pointing to it as proof that the night was a success.
Billionaire Larry Ellison has stepped up, agreeing to personally guarantee part of Paramount’s bid for rival Warner Bros. Discovery.
Ellison’s personal guarantee of $40.4 billion in equity, disclosed Monday, ups the ante in the acrimonious auction for Warner Bros. movie and TV studios, HBO, CNN and Food Network.
Ellison, whose son David Ellison is chief executive of Paramount, agreed not to revoke the Ellison family trust or adversely transfer its assets while the transaction is pending. Paramount’s $30-a-share offer remains unchanged.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s board this month awarded the prize to Netflix. The board rejected Paramount’s $108.4-billion deal, largely over concerns about the perceived shakiness of Paramount’s financing.
Paramount shifted gears and launched a hostile takeover, appealing directly to Warner shareholders, offering them $30 a share.
“We amended this Offer to address Warner Bros. stated concerns regarding the Prior Proposal and the December 8 Offer,” Paramount said in a Monday Securities & Exchange Commission filing. “Mr. Larry Ellison is providing a personal guarantee of the Ellison Trust’s $40.4 billion funding obligation.”
The Ellison family acquired the controlling stake in Paramount in August. The family launched their pursuit of Warner Bros. in September but Warner’s board unanimously rejected six Paramount proposals.
Paramount started with a $19 a share bid for the entire company. Netflix has offered $27.75 a share and only wants the Burbank studios, HBO and the HBO Max streaming service. Paramount executives have held meetings with Warner investors in New York, where they echoed the proposal they’d submitted in the closing hours of last week’s auction.
On Monday, Paramount also agreed to increase the termination fee to $5.8 billion from $5 billion, matching the one that Netflix offered.
Warner Bros. board voted unanimously to accept Netflix’s $72-billion offer, citing Netflix’s stronger financial position, the board has said.
Three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds representing royal families in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi have agreed to provide $24 billion of the $40.4-billion equity component that Ellison is backing.
The Ellison family has agreed to cover $11.8-billion of that. Initially, Paramount’s bid included the private equity firm of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, but Kushner withdrew his firm last week.
Paramount confirmed that the Ellison family trust owns about 1.16 billion shares of Oracle common stock and that all material liabilities are publicly disclosed.
“In an effort to address Warner Bros.’s amorphous need for ‘flexibility’ in interim operations, Paramount’s revised proposed merger agreement offers further improved flexibility to Warner Bros. on debt refinancing transactions, representations and interim operating covenants,” Paramount said in its statement.
Paramount has been aggressively pursuing Warner Bros. for months.
David Ellison was stunned earlier this month when the Warner Bros. board agreed to a deal with Netflix for $82.7 billion for the streaming and studio assets.
Paramount subsequently launched its hostile takeover offer in a direct appeal to shareholders. Warner Bros. board urged shareholders to reject Paramount’s offer, which includes $54 billion in debt commitments, deeming it “inferior” and “inadequate.” The board singled out what it viewed as uncertain financing and the risk implicit in a revocable trust that could cause Paramount to terminate the deal at any time.
Paramount, controlled by the Ellisons, is competing with the most valuable entertainment company in the world to acquire Warner Bros.
Executives from both Paramount and Netflix have argued that they would be the best owners and utilize the Warner Bros. library to boost their streaming operations.
In its letter to shareholders and a detailed 94-page regulatory filing last week, Warner Bros. hammered away at risks in the Paramount offer, including what the company described as the Ellison family’s failure to adequately backstop their equity commitment.
The equity is supported by “an unknown and opaque revocable trust,” the board said. The documents Paramount provided “contain gaps, loopholes and limitations that put you, our shareholders, and our company at risk.”
Netflix also announced Monday that it has refinanced part of a $59 billion bridge loan with cheaper and longer-term debt.
A shell company with Israeli ties exploited Palestinians desperate to flee the ongoing war in Gaza, charging them large sums of money to covertly exit the country in what may be an official plan to ethnically cleanse the territory.
In an exclusive digital investigation, Al Jazeera probed last month’s mystery flight that spirited 153 passengers from Gaza to South Africa, unearthing figures working for Al-Majd Europe, an unregistered front organisation that falsely claimed to be working for humanitarian aims.
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The Palestinians arrived at OR Tambo International Airport, which serves the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, on November 13. Refused entry by border police as they did not have departure stamps from Israel on their passports, they were stuck on the aircraft for 12 hours before being allowed to disembark.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted the passengers “out of compassion”, but said at the time that his government, which has long been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, would investigate as it seemed that they had been “flushed out” of the Gaza Strip.
Forced evacuations
Israeli officials have previously openly stated that they support what they have termed the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, in what effectively would be their forced evacuation.
In March 2025, Israel’s security cabinet set up a controversial bureau to get Palestinians to leave Gaza voluntarily, which was headed by former deputy director of the Ministry of Defence, Yaakov Blitstein. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said at the time that 40 percent of Gaza residents were “interested in emigrating”.
The previous month, Al-Majd Europe set up its online presence with a new website stating that it focused on relief efforts in Muslim countries, specifically “for Gazans wishing to exit Gaza”, with claims that it had organised mobile health clinics in the enclave and trips for Palestinian doctors abroad that Al Jazeera later discovered to be false.
A passenger from the November flight to South Africa, whose identity was kept hidden for his own protection, said he contacted the organisation after finding the link online, which promised not only a way out of Gaza, but safety and medical treatment for injuries. “Initially, it said it was free. Then they asked for $1,400 [per person]. Then the price went up to $2,500,” he said.
Testimonies gathered by Al Jazeera showed that payments requested varied from $1,000-2,000 per person, with strict criteria for signing up. Only families would be accepted on condition that they kept their departure secret, with details on flight departures only released a few hours before takeoff.
Passengers say they were told to arrive at the Karem Abu Salem crossing (called Kerem Shalom in Israel) in southern Gaza. When they arrived, their personal belongings were confiscated, and they were put on buses to Ramon Airport, near the Israeli city of Eilat, apparently by Israeli authorities.
Nigel Branken, a South African social worker who helped tho Palestinians on the plane, previously told Al Jazeera that there were “very clearly … marks of Israel involved in this operation to take people … to displace them”.
Evacuees told Al Jazeera they were not informed of their final destination until moments before boarding. They were then escorted onto a flight registered to a brand new airline called FLYYO without exit stamps in their travel documents.
Al Jazeera discovered that FLYYO has organised a number of similar flights, all taking off from Israeli airports, headed to Romania, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya and other destinations.
False identity
Further scrutiny of Al-Majd Europe, which said it was a “humanitarian foundation established in 2010 in Germany”, with a head office located in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, later revealed its identity to be a sham.
Al Jazeera found no company registered by that name on any German or European database. The supposed address does not appear in official Jerusalem records, with the location on Google Maps corresponding to a hospital and a cafe.
While digging into the flights, Al Jazeera found two faces linked to the organisation – both Palestinians. The first was Muayad Hisham Saidam, which the organisation lists as its humanitarian projects manager in Gaza.
A search of Saidam’s name reveals that in May 2024, his wife created a public page to ask for donations to help her family leave Gaza. A year later, Saidam posted an image of himself boarding a plane chartered by Fly Lili, another Romanian airline, announcing that he was departing Gaza.
Using the angle of his shadow, time of the flight and the location of the plane on the Ramon Airport runway, Al Jazeera discovered Saidam was likely on a flight on May 27, 2025, which left Israel for Budapest, with 57 Palestinian passengers from Gaza.
It appears that Saidam’s identity is real, and that his family was likely evacuated to Indonesia. But his connection to Al-Majd Europe is unclear.
The second public face of the organisation belongs to a man named only as Adnan, though he appears to have no digital footprint.
On November 13, the day of the Johannesburg flight, a page containing a number of partner companies was deleted from Al-Majd’s website. Using open-source intelligence techniques, Al Jazeera recovered the page, which showed a number of well-known groups that Al-Majd claimed to have been working with, including the International Red Cross.
One name stood out: Talent Globus – a recruitment company established in Estonia in 2024, with a fund containing only $350. Its website lists four employees, including Director Tom Lind, a businessman with Israeli and Estonian citizenship.
Lind’s name has been linked to a number of other companies where he’s listed either as a founder or director – all without official registration or physical addresses.
Lind’s name appeared in reports by Israeli newspaper Haaretz as one of the coordinators of the flights of Palestinians leaving Ramon Airport.
In May 2025, Lind posted on his LinkedIn page that he had left Talent Globus, and was instead focused on “humanitarian efforts to support Palestinians”. He said that, alongside a network of individuals and groups, he had assisted with the evacuation of a “substantial number” of people from Gaza.
Photos of the other three employees of Talent Globus from its website – James Thompson, Maria Rodriguez, David Chen – all turned out to be stock images.
And much like those employees, it appears as though Al-Majd itself is a fake humanitarian group, leading to the question of what those behind the organisation are trying to hide.
Publicly, Israel has seemed to back down from its plan to encourage “voluntary emigration”. But Al Jazeera’s investigation poses more questions – is Al-Majd part of a bigger plan, a way to quietly empty Gaza of its inhabitants, one secret flight at a time?
Walt Disney Co. is expanding its presence in the Middle East, inking a deal with Saudi media conglomerate MBC Group and UAE firm Anghami to form a streaming bundle.
The bundle will allow customers in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to access a trio of streaming services — Disney+; MBC Group’s Shahid, which carries Arabic originals, live sports and events; and Anghami’s OSN+, which carries Arabic productions as well as Hollywood content.
The trio bundle costs AED89.99 per month, which is the price of two of the streaming services.
“This deal reflects a shared ambition between Disney+, Shahid and the MBC Group to shape the future of entertainment in the Middle East, a region that is seeing dynamic growth in the sector,” Karl Holmes, senior vice president and general manager of Disney+ EMEA, said in a statement.
Disney has already indicated it plans to grow in the Middle East.
Earlier this year, the company announced it would be building a new theme park in Abu Dhabi in partnership with local firm Miral, which would provide the capital, construction resources and operational oversight. Under the terms of the agreement, Disney would oversee the parks’ design, license its intellectual property and provide “operational expertise,” as well as collect a royalty.
Disney executives said at the time that the decision to build in the Middle East was a way to reach new audiences who were too far from the company’s current hubs in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
