Hollywood

Zeitgeist is a fascinating subject for study, conducive to a number of questions. Here are three. At what point does the culture change? When does the change become undeniable? Does it come from the top down or the reverse?

For players in the entertainment business, these are not abstract questions but crucial monetary ones that will determine the success or failure of their product. They may ignore the warning signs to maintain ideological purity, but they can’t escape the consequences. Then, the ultimate question becomes how badly will they get hit? One answer — badly, but not badly enough to make them reverse course, until they’re thrown out.

The Disney Grooming Syndicate is angry over the FCC initiating an early license renewal for Disney-owned ABC.

“Disney-owned ABC formally asked the Federal Communications Commission [FCC] to renew licenses for its eight broadcast TV stations on Thursday, but not without chastising Chair Brendan Carr for infringing the Constitution,” reports the disgraced far-left Politico.

Currently, according to The Quorum, a company that tracks enthusiasm for upcoming movies, interest in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is plummeting, and when I say plummeting, I mean that more people are excited about Scary Movie 6, the latest installment in a 26-year-old franchise.

That movie has bigger problems if the Achilles casting is true.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is looking at a $47 million to $65 million opening, which would be a disaster for a superhero tentpole that costs $175 million to produce and at least another $75 million to promote.

That puts break-even at right around $500 million global, and if you open to $65 million domestic, that ain’t happening.

The Disney Grooming Syndicate’s return to Star Wars feature films has resulted in the lowest opening ever for a Disney Star Wars movie. If you figure inflation in, it’s the lowest opening since 1999.

The Mandalorian and Grogu thudded over the Friday-Saturday-Sunday with just $81 million. With the extra day due to the four-day Memorial Day weekend, it is expected to bellyflop at right around $97 million.

Not a surprise given the flop stars the Male Rachel Zegler.

The long whimpering finish of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week confirmed a sad truth. Hollywood killed comedy. A century of laughter provoked by comic geniuses — Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Fields, Hope, Brooks, Martin, Carrey, and Saturday Night Live alumni (Belushi, Aykroyd, Murray, Murphy, Sandler, Ferrell, Myers, Stiller) ended in the first decade of this one. Mirth has either been missing from the screen since 2010 or reduced to conservative man-bashing, as on every late-night show. The latter is questionably rewarded by “clapter,” the former depends on mocking the now unmockable — to Hollywoke if not the audience.

The long awaited sequel to Mel Gibson’s groundbreaking The Passion of the Christ became all the more real this week when he unveiled the first look for The Resurrection of the Christ.

“None of the above” trounced all other choices when a national poll asked U.S adult citizens to name “the best” late-night comedian on TV – yet another sign of viewers’ growing disdain for the hateful political commentary that has replaced entertainment.

In a national survey conducted May 15-18, 2026, The Economist/YouGov asked:

“Who do you think is the best late-night comedian on TV?”

The reason Stephen Colbert has never been funny is that he is incapable of making fun of himself. Even during his tenure on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, he only mocked people on the right, specifically Fox News hosts.

Colbert not only lacks a true sense of humor, any hint of warmth, or the appeal of a guy you’d want to have a beer with (I’d have a beer with Jon Stewart), but also is void of anything approaching humility.

Alternate headline: Blogger Discovers Keynote Speaker for the Anti-Communist Film Festival. And yes, I’ve alerted Mark Judge, except he’s been on the effort for almost three months.

Back in March, Mark wrote about a new novel from best-selling author James Ellroy, whose novels Hollywood had made into films such as the James Woods thriller Cop, Brown’s Requiem, The Black Dahlia, and most famously, L.A. Confidential. Mark noted the publication of Ellroy’s latest novel, Red Sheet, set in Ellroy’s favorite setting of 1950s Hollywood, only with a surprising and audacious twist. The novel takes the position that the so-called Blacklist was not only a Hollywood studio manipulation, but that the anti-Communists at the time were right about the Soviet influence operation targeting the American entertainment industry …

The Disney Grooming Syndicate got busted Sunday after trying to pass off a staged event as a surprise moment for a random group of Star Wars fans — as though Star Wars fans still exist.

Pedro is gonna Michael Stipe himself out of a career anyway.

CBS is canceling The Late Show after the conclusion of Thursday’s episode. Since 2015, The Late Show has been hosted by Stephen Colbert, who by the time Thursday comes around will have hosted 1,801 episodes of the show that began under David Letterman in 1993.