07-16-2026 Daily Edition

July 16, 2026 Print David and Larry Ellison Sued by Paramount Investor Over Alleged Trump Side Deal The lawsuit claims that the Ellisons illegally promised to overhaul CNN as the administration looks to reshape media. The complaint follows a coalition of state attorneys general, the Writers Guild of America and Paramount+ subscribers filing lawsuits against the studio. Donald Trump and Larry Ellison at the White House in January 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images A fourth lawsuit has been filed looking to block Paramount ‘s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, this time by shareholders who accuse David Ellison and his father, Oracle scion Larry Ellison, of striking an illegal deal with President Trump for approval of the merger. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Delaware Chancery Court, the investors claim that the Ellisons promised to make sweeping changes at CNN to greenlight the acquisition. They also point to an alleged promise for up to $20 million in free advertising and a $16 million payment to Trump through a prior settlement by the studio’s previous ownership to resolve an allegedly frivolous lawsuit he had filed against CBS. “The Ellisons’ actions not only harm the reputations of the news outlets they currently own, which are hemorrhaging viewers, but they are latent liabilities waiting to be triggered by a future administration,” states the complaint. The lawsuit brings claims for breaches of fiduciary duty for creating “enormous financial and legal risk” for Paramount. It names the Ellisons and other members of Paramount’s Board of Directors. The legal action follows a coalition of 12 state attorneys general, the Writers Guild of America and Paramount+ subscribers suing the studio for a court order to stop the merger. Paramount didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In the complaint, the investor alleges that Trump helped ensure that Paramount won the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery and removed regulatory barriers to the deal. Congress and future administrations will likely investigate the studio, creating significant long-term legal exposure, the lawsuit says. At the same time, CBS News is hemorrhaging viewers, with the broadcast news network recording its lowest ratings in 25 years, according to the complaint. The lawsuit also says that Paramount’s decision to transform CBS’s coverage has triggered a talent exodus. “After receiving regulatory approval, the Ellisons proceeded to remake CBS in the President’s image, bought properties he enjoyed, and even hosted events to honor him,” writes Mary Thomas, a lawyer for the investor, in the complaint. “This helped the Ellisons, but it appears to have hurt Paramount and its media outlets.” In a near-midnight announcement on July 1, Paramount Global said it would pay $16 million “in total” to settle a lawsuit from President Trump, who sued over an interview that 60 Minutes conducted with Kamala Harris. That night, New York Post ‘s Charles Gasparino reported that there was also a “side deal” that helped seal the pact worth up to $20 million of programming in support of conservative causes, which was immediately followed by Paramount clarifying that it wasn’t aware of such terms. Trump later said he received millions in advertising from the “new owners” of Paramount. Paramount has denied claims that the settlement includes public service announcements and said it “has no knowledge of any promises or commitments made to President Trump.” It’s maintained that the terms of the deal “are those disclosed by us” in the July 1 announcement. On Wednesday, ProPublica reported that FCC chairman Brendan Carr and fellow Republican FCC commissioner Olivia Trusty received pricey gifts valued at thousands of dollars from Paramount: Tickets to the Kennedy Center Honors, which were televised by the network. Since 2024, the Federal Communications Commission has had significant oversight of the studio. It signed off on Skydance’s deal to acquire Paramount Global, approving the transfer of broadcast licenses. It’s also currently reviewing a request that would permit Gulf sovereign wealth funds to own a 49.5 percent stake in the combined company, though they wouldn’t have any governance rights. ‘The Batman Part II’ Release Delayed, Again, by Warner Bros. The studio has also moved J.J. Abrams' 'The Great Beyond' back nearly a year to Oct. 1, 2027. Robert Pattinson in 'The Batman.' Jonathan Olley/©Warner Bros./ Courtesy Everett Collection Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Studios have The Batman Part II flying off to a new date, again. The film will now open on Feb. 18, 2028 in Imax, after being previously slated for an Oct. 1, 2027 release. DC Studios had the film earlier set for a release date on Oct. 3, 2025, which had to be moved in the wake of the 2023 writers and actors strikes. Warner Bros. is now putting The Batman Part II in the same corridor as 2022’s The Batman , which nabbed the second best opening of the pandemic with $134 million domestically, on its way to a global haul of $770.3 million. The Batman Part II move was part of a larger shuffle. The other big one was The Great Beyond , the J.J. Abrams sci-fi fantasy starring Glen Powell and Jenna Ortega, moving from a previously scheduled Nov. 13, 2026 release to open in theaters on Oct. 1, 2027 in Imax and with a two-week Imax 70mm run thrown in. The Great Beyond will fill the date previously held by The Batman Part II as Abrams marks his first directorial effort since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker. Panic Carefully , described as a paranoid thriller reminiscent of Silence of the Lambs, stars Elizabeth Olsen, Julia Roberts, Eddie Redmayne, Brian Tyree Henry, Ben Chaplin, Aidan Gillen, Joe Alwyn and Naledi Murray. Other calendar date changes at Warner Bros. includes Sam Esmail’s Panic Carefully , previously slated for a Feb. 26, 2027 release now delayed to an April 9, 2027 rollout in Imax. Warner Bros. Pictures’ and New Line Cinema’s Revenge of La Llorona will now open theatrically on Feb. 26, 2027 after being previously slated for a April 9, 2027 release. The Batman Part II, directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell and Scarlett Johansson, will now get more time in post-production, according to Warner Bros., and a new release window that allows the film a domestic four-day weekend. The Batman sequel also saw its start of production delayed five months due to the Hollywood strikes. Danny McBride to Direct G.I. Joe Movie for Paramount The triple threat was already on board as screenwriter for the Paramount feature. Danny McBride Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images Danny McBride is going commando. The star and creator of HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones is attached to direct an untitled G.I. Joe feature for Paramount Pictures. The move is really just a change of ranks for McBride as he also wrote the screenplay for the action project that is based on the Hasbro toy line. It would, however, mark his feature directorial debut, a notable step up after helming several episodes of Gemstones . A Joe feature is one of the big priorities at the studio, which, under new owner David Ellison, has been ramping up development of major IP and brands such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Star Trek. Some of those titles are moving on multiple development tracks, including Joe , which earlier this year had a second script being developed by Max Landis . That one did not move ahead . Plot details for McBride’s version are being kept under the Chaplain’s Assistant School’s motor pool in Fort Wadsworth. Joe is the popular action figure line launched in mid-1960s as a realistic soldier toy but was relaunched into its modern incarnation in the 1980s. Capturing the decade’s macho and patriotic zeitgeist, it was appropriately named G. I. Joe: A Real American Hero. This version not only introduced a commando strike force featuring soldiers with monikers such as Duke, Roadblock and Snake Eyes, but also its over-the-top, hi-tech adversary, the terrorist organization known as Cobra with key bad guys including Cobra Commander, Baroness, Destro and Zartan Paramount has made three G.I. Joe movies — 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and 2013’s G.I Joe: Retaliation, plus a Snake Eyes spinoff in 2021 . The studio has been trying to find a way to reboot the franchise ever since. Although known for his acting work and voice work in movies such as Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express and The Mitchells vs. The Machines , McBride has proven to be a creative force in TV, where he has squeezed pathos and comedy out of sometimes dark situations, whether it’s a jerk baseball player in Eastbound & Down or scheming school employees in Vice Principals , both of which he co-created for HBO. Gemstones showcased his ability to weave disparate elements such as comedy, drama, and crime into well-regarded and well-made whole. McBride is repped by Range Media and Hansen Jacobson. ‘The Odyssey’ Review: Christopher Nolan Crafts High-Minded if at Times Snoozy Spectacle Out of an Episodic Journey Led by a Brooding Matt Damon Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway and Robert Pattinson flesh out the stacked ensemble of this monumentally scaled epic, also featuring Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya and Charlize Theron. Matt Damon and Zendaya in 'The Odyssey.' Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Christopher Nolan ’s passionate love affair with the Premium Large Format moviegoing experience peaks with The Odyssey , a gigantic undertaking that marks the first feature shot entirely with IMAX Film Cameras. The result is a meditative action movie both immense and intimate, albeit one whose flow is impeded by the inherently episodic nature of the nonlinear source material and some questionable casting choices. Still, audiences hungry for the kind of brawny all-star spectacle now largely confined to sci-fi and comic book tentpoles should turn out for this bold retelling of Homer’s epic poem. It’s ironic, given the foundational influence of the text on modern Western storytelling, that there has never been an indisputably great screen version of Homer’s Odyssey , though Nolan, who also penned the adaptation, gets closer than some. The poem built the template for the Hero’s Journey, shaping literature’s approach to character, adventure and conflict in a narrative that encompasses mortals, gods and monsters, history and mythology, tests and triumphs. But it’s less surprising when you consider Homer’s disjointed structure, starting in medias res then folding in flashbacks while stringing together isolated encounters over a 10-year period, like stories within a story. Then there’s the protagonist, Odysseus — played here with introspective intensity by a commanding Matt Damon — whose internal transformation, from a hubristic warrior to a man humbled by trauma and loss, is as near to a continuous plotline as the movie gets. It’s hard to effectively dramatize someone piecing together memory fragments on a gradual path to moral, spiritual and existential awakening. Harder still when much of that process happens in a dream-like haze on an island beach, where the nymph Calypso (a distractingly contemporary Charlize Theron ) is keeping Odysseus as her lover, feeding him lotus petals to ease the pain in his body and prevent him from remembering the loyal men he lost along the way — even if it’s ostensibly to spare him that psychological torture. These dull interludes stop the narrative dead in its tracks, recalling Sean Penn’s purgatorial wanderings in Malick’s The Tree of Life . When the movie’s engines are fired up, however, it’s muscular filmmaking, freely folding in elements from Homer’s preceding epic, The Iliad . Accessible even when the plot requires untangling, the action chronicles Odysseus’ 10-year journey home to his kingdom, traveling across the Mediterranean to the Greek isle of Ithaca, after another decade away fighting the Trojan War for Agamemnon (Benny Safdie), king of Mycenae. In his fifth consecutive collaboration with Dutch cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Nolan starts from the striking image of the massive Trojan Horse half-buried in sand on a beach — like the Statue of Liberty at the end of the original Planet of the Apes . The siege that followed, once the soldiers of Troy had hauled the horse inside the city gates with Odysseus and his men hidden inside waiting to attack, is at the heart of what haunts the title character. Call it Ancient Greek PTSD. Back in Ithaca, Queen Penelope ( Anne Hathaway ) is plagued by a house full of freeloading suitors, the most conniving of them Antinous ( Robert Pattinson ) and Polybus (Corey Hawkins). They grow increasingly impatient with her delay in conceding that Odysseus must be dead after 20 years’ absence and will not be returning. The royal couple’s son, Telemachus ( Tom Holland ), is ready to claim the throne and while Antinous assures Penelope he will respect the line of succession if she agrees to marry him, Telemachus is smart enough to know he has a target on his back. Guided by the goddess Athena ( Zendaya ), who informs Telemachus that his father is alive and trapped on an island, he sets out to find proof. The first sign of it comes via an audience with Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus (Jon Bernthal), king of Sparta, whose rage over the the abduction (or flight?) of his wife, the fabled beauty Helen (Lupita Nyong’o), was the root of the allied Greek army’s war against Troy. Nyong’o also plays Helen’s twin sister Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon, but these scenes feel cursory, which is not the only time the dense script buckles under the weight of everything Nolan tries to cram into it. One of the issues is that the writer-director never finds much balance between the parallel journeys of Odysseus and Telemachus, making the movie feel structurally clumsy. It doesn’t help that Holland, while always an appealing screen presence, is wrong for the role. Like Pattinson, the Brit actor plays his character with an American accent. But he comes across as, well, Peter Parker in a tunic, sapping the gravitas from Telemachus’ path to maturity. Classicists might grumble about key incidents from Odysseus’ voyage home being skipped or given such hasty treatment that they carry no weight. Blink and you might miss Scylla, the six-headed sea monster that Odysseus and his men dodge while steering their long boat around a whirlpool. And only audiences with excellent recall of their high-school English studies are likely to have much idea what’s going on when the man-eating giants called Laestrygonians make a rampaging appearance. On the other hand, several key episodes do build tension. The dramatic escape of Odysseus and his men from the cave dwelling of the sheep-herding one-eyed giant Polyphemus (physical performance specialist Bill Irwin, somewhere in there) is a horror-tinged nail-biter, which has consequences for the voyage given that the enraged Cyclops is the son of vengeful sea god Poseidon. There’s eerie poetry in the crew’s fear as they pass the island inhabited by Sirens whose songs lure sailors to their death on the rocks, with Odysseus in agony as he’s tied to the mast to resist their call. The standout interlude is the soldiers’ visit to the island domain of Circe, a treacherous witch played with deceptive calm and a misleading air of distraction by a bone-chilling Samantha Morton . Starved for provisions, the men make the initial foray to Circe’s home, where she feeds them a stew that turns them into gluttonous animals. When they fail to return to the boat, Odysseus intervenes, drawing on the wiliness of his years in battle to convince Circe to reverse her dark magic. The climax that ties together the almost 3-hour film comes when Odysseus at last makes it back to Ithaca, disguised as a beggar both to test Penelope’s love and to throw off Antinous and others who want him dead. Van Hoytema’s cameras seem to be everywhere at once when Odysseus launches into a visceral clash, aided solely by Telemachus. It’s exactly the kind of large-scale set piece at which Nolan excels, a high-stakes melee in a confined space, triggered by a test set by Penelope, whose sharp wits make her a good match for her husband. It’s here too that the movie’s themes finally acquire potency — about the sobering disillusionment that follows war; the fragility of heroism; defiance of the gods; the uncertainties of homecoming after a long absence. The most resonant theme is conscience, as Odysseus weighs his achievements against his sacrifices, from the drowning of his men to the slaughtered Trojans, tricked by a gift to the gods in violation of all that is considered sacred. One death especially, that of his young cousin Sinon (Elliot Page), troubles him most of all. Nolan’s intentions are clear, tracing man’s instinct for war back to the Bronze Age but making it relevant to today by eschewing classical speech and leaning into the cadences of modern conversation. Even so, I winced at anachronistic language like Penelope telling her rowdy suitors, “I’ve listened to you party,” or Telemachus referring to his father as “dad.” While The Odyssey is uneven, and no match for the sure-footedness and intellectual complexity of Oppenheimer , it’s elevated by the blindingly charismatic ensemble. (I refuse to get into the tiresome online controversy about Nolan’s unconventional casting choices; since nobody here is Greek or Turkish, complaining about one or two actors dismissed as “DEI hires” is absurd.) Damon is superb, going to dark places seldom if ever explored in his previous roles; Hathaway is a model of steely self-possession masking vulnerability; Pattinson bites into his character’s villainy with gusto, showing Antinous to be a cowardly conspirator, loyal only to himself. Even actors whose roles have limited scope, like Zendaya, Nyong’o, Hawkins and Mia Goth as Penelope’s duplicitous maid, register as vital presences. Perhaps the best of the secondary players, alongside Morton, are Himesh Patel as Eurylochus, Odysseus’ second-in-command, steadfast until even he loses faith in the captain’s recklessness; and John Leguizamo , affecting as Eumaeus, Odysseus’ servant and friend, a swineherd whose blindness does not hinder his powers of observation. Work on the craft side unsurprisingly is top-notch. Van Hoytema fills the giant frame with imposing images shot in evocative international locations, grand and powerful in scale. Sequences of the long boats at sea are stunning, even more so during a fierce storm. While Nolan often wrangles what seems like a cast of thousands, the look departs from the Old Hollywood vision of the sword-and-sandal epic, creating something equal parts majestic and strange, as befits a story peppered with fantastical elements. The push for in-camera spectacle over digital fakery wherever possible pays off in terms of dropping the audience right into the middle of the action — particularly in the intricately choreographed final battle back in Ithaca. Production designer Ruth De Jong’s colossal sets (the city of Troy is especially impressive) and Ellen Mirojnick’s costumes, drawn from both history and myth, add to the immersive feel of the storytelling. And Ludwig Göransson’s shape-shifting score fuels a turbulent soundscape, notably in percussive passages when it builds into the pounding drums of warfare, a motif of contemporary life just as it was 30-plus centuries ago.