television

‘Teen Wolf’ Star Arden Cho Confirms She Was Offered Less Than Half of Lead Co-Stars’ Salaries for Movie

Teen Wolf” actress Arden Cho has opened up about the AAPI pay disparity she experienced on the project.

Cho, who played supernatural teen Kira Yukimura in the original series, said she was offered far less than her counterparts’ salary to return for the upcoming Paramount+ revival film.

A new interview in The Cut brought up a Deadline report from February 2022 alleging that Cho turned down the film after being “offered half the per-episode salary proposed to her three counterparts.”

“I think I was actually offered even less,” Cho clarified of the staggering wage gap between co-stars that led her to turn down the film version of the MTV series. She added that whoever leaked the pay disparity wasn’t in her camp. “I probably would’ve never shared it,” she said.

“Someti...

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television

Hayden Christensen Is ‘Absolutely’ Open to a Darth Vader ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Spinoff

Hayden Christensen said he’s open to a possible Darth Vader standalone series after reprising his iconic role for “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and upcoming “Ahsoka” shows.

“Yeah, I mean, you know, absolutely,” Christensen told ET Canada after being asked if he would consider leading his own series. “I think this is a character that sort of resonates in our culture and in a very kind of profound way. And there’s certainly more there to explore. There are so many other stories that have been told in these other mediums.”

Christensen added, “I would love to get to continue my journey with him.”

The star first played Anakin Skywalker in the 2002 prequel film “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones...

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awards

‘Squid Game’ Creator Planted S2 Clues ‘Just in Case’ There Was Another Season

ConsiderThis

Welcome to It’s a Hit! In this series, IndieWire speaks to creators and showrunners behind a few of our favorite television programs about the moment they realized their show was breaking big.  

Korean auteur Hwang Dong-hyuk had written and directed four local features when he intuited that Netflix might be interested in expanding his “Squid Game” screenplay, which had been collecting dust for over a decade, into a series. After a torturously long writing process, and an eight-month shoot that was so stressful that the first-time showrunner and director lost six teeth, Hwang anticipated that his first foray into episodic television might hit big in Korea.

But he didn’t expect “Squid Game” to be a global hit...

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Film

Simu Liu Is Now Hairless Thanks to ‘Barbie’: Waxing Was ‘One of the Most Painful Experiences of My Life’

Simu Liu is totally waxed for his next role.

The “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” Marvel star bared it all for “Barbie,” writer/director Greta Gerwig’s upcoming film based on the iconic Mattel doll franchise. While Margot Robbie is playing the titular doll come to life, Liu is rumored to be playing an alternate Ken alongside lead star Ryan Gosling. And that totally smooth Ken means Liu had to be hairless.

“Waxing has been an education, to say the least,” Liu told The Independent. “It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. I have such a newfound admiration for the incredibly brave women who go through this on a monthly basis.”

Dare we wonder if Gosling underwent the same cosmetic feat for the role?

While the plot of “Barbie” has been kept under w...

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‘Stranger Things’ Season 4: How the Duffer Brothers Channeled Freddy Krueger for the Vecna Monster

 IndieWire The Craft Top of the Line

[Editor’s Note: The following story contains spoilers for “Stranger Things 4.”]

For the supersized, penultimate Season 4 of “Stranger Things” (Volume 1 is currently streaming on Netflix; Volume 2 premieres July 1), creators Matt and Ross Duffer channeled “A Nightmare on Elm Street” to give a more tangible horror vibe to their latest monster: Vecna, a humanoid creature from the Upside Down. Similar to the “Elm Street” franchise’s Freddy Krueger, Vecna preys on his victim’s minds, psychically manipulating their traumatic memories into terrifying hallucinations before murdering and possessing them.

Vecna represents the series’ most ambitious creature work to date; it’s good enough that it could win the series’ first VFX Emmy...

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television

Daniel Dae Kim: I Love ‘Friends,’ but Series Was ‘Challenged’ When It Came to Diversity

Daniel Dae Kim is reflecting on the lack of Asian-American representation in Hollywood.

The “Lost” icon and “Hawaii Five-O” alum opened up about teaching his children to appreciate when Asian stars are onscreen, in everything from a commercial to blockbuster movies.

“When my kids are watching shows, my wife and I always did this natural thing, which was whenever there was an Asian face on screen, to point it out to say, ‘Look,’” Kim told Esquire. “Just by doing that, it kind of created a dynamic where you would notice when you didn’t see it.”

One of the shows Kim in which saw no AAPI representation? “Friends.”

“My kids loved ‘Friends’ because they would watch repeats and they would say to me, ‘Hey, how come in their New York everyone is white?’” Kim continued...

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television

‘Stranger Things 4’ Shatters Netflix’s Premiere-Weekend Viewing Record

Stranger Things 4” is already turning Netflix viewership records Upside Down. The sci-fi drama just experienced the streaming service’s best-ever debut weekend for an English-language series, drawing 286.79 million hours viewed.

That tally dethroned “Bridgerton” Season 2, which hit 193 million hours over its own premiere weekend.

The fourth season of “Stranger Things” set another new premiere-weekend record when it reached number one in 83 countries. (Netflix tracks 93 countries; “Stranger Things 4” made the top 10 in all of them.)

Catchup viewing was also in full force: “Stranger Things” Seasons 1-3 also made the top 10 in the U.S. last week.

While Netflix’s top 10 spans Monday-Sunday, “Stranger Things 4” debuted on Friday. The 286...

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television

‘American Gigolo’ Teaser: Jon Bernthal Transforms Into Male Escort Julian Kaye for ’80s-Inspired Thriller

Julian Kaye just wants to escape himself.

Jon Bernthal stars as the iconic male escort character originated by Richard Gere in Paul Schrader’s 1980 film “American Gigolo.” The Showtime series reimagining of the famed feature is set in the present day, with Julian (Bernthal) trying to decipher why he was framed and wrongfully convicted for murder.

“I can always just be this other guy,” Bernthal as Julian says in the teaser trailer. “This guy isn’t scary. I jumped in water and then I washed him off. And then I get to be me.”

Julian is a former escort released from prison after serving 15 years for a murder he didn’t commit...

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Film

The Best Movies of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, According to 75 Critics

A time of division indeed.

The last two editions of Cannes, the critics IndieWire polled were in lockstep with the jury’s picks, at least for Best Film. In 2019, they chose “Parasite” and “Titane,” both winners of the Palme d’Or. In 2022, the critics are shaking things up.

This year’s Palme d’Or winner, “Triangle of Sadness,” tied with “EO” for fourth place in our Best Film rankings. Consensus was not the order of the day this time around. And more critics voted in our survey than ever before: 75 in total, representing five continents and a couple of dozen countries.

The critics chose Lukas Dhont’s “Close” as the best film of the festival...

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awards

‘Yellowjackets’ Creators Guess an ’Anti-‘Ted Lasso’ Effect’ May Have Helped Their Grim Thriller

ConsiderThis

Welcome to It’s a Hit! In this series, IndieWire speaks to creators and showrunners behind a few of our favorite television programs about the moment they realized their show was breaking big.  

In the streaming age, it’s virtually impossible to verify a TV show’s success or failure. Viewing statistics are guarded or difficult to substantiate; traditional ratings only cover a slim margin of total viewership; network priorities shift from company to company, so one company’s “hit” could be quickly canceled somewhere else.

But “Yellowjackets,” well, it’s about as close to an empirical success as any show can get. The Season 1 finale pulled in 1.3 million viewers in just three days. During its initial run, episodes averaged more than 5 million viewers across platforms...

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