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Los Angeles Times
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Crews and filmmakers built Hollywood. What happens to them as AI's reach expands?
You may not know Eliot Mack's name, but if a small robot has ever crept around your kitchen, you know his work. Before he turned his MIT-trained mind to filmmaking, Mack helped lead a small team of engineers trying to solve a deeply relatable problem: how to avoid vacuuming. Whether it was figuring out how to get around furniture legs or unclog the brushes after a run-in with long hair, Mack designed everything onscreen first with software, troubleshooting virtually and getting 80% of the way there before a single part was ever manufactured. The result was the Roomba. When Mack pivoted to filmmaking in the early 2000s, he was struck by how chaotic Hollywood's process felt. 'You pitch the script, get the green light and you're flying into production,' he says, sounding both amused and baffled. 'There's no CAD template, no centralized database. I was like, how do movies even get made?' That question sent Mack down a new path, trading dust bunnies for the creative bottlenecks that slow Hollywood down. In 2004 he founded Lightcraft Technology, a startup developing what would later be known as virtual production tools, born out of his belief that if you could design a robot in software, you should be able to design a shot the same way. The company's early system, Previzion, sold for $180,000 and was used on sci-fi and fantasy shows like 'V' and 'Once Upon a Time.' But Jetset, its latest AI-assisted tool set, runs on an iPhone and offers a free tier, with pro features topping out at just $80 a month. It lets filmmakers scan a location, drop it into virtual space and block out scenes with camera moves, lighting and characters. They can preview shots, overlay elements and organize footage for editing — all from a phone. No soundstage, no big crew, no gatekeepers. Lightcraft's pitch: 'a movie studio in your pocket.' The goal, Mack says, is to put more power in the hands of the people making the work. 'One of the big problems is how siloed Hollywood is,' he says. 'We talked to an Oscar-winning editor who said, 'I'm never going to get to make my movie' — he was pigeonholed as just an editor. Same with an animator we know who has two Oscars.' To Mack, the revolution of Jetset recalls the scrappy, guerrilla spirit of Roger Corman's low-budget productions, which launched the early careers of directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. For generations of creatives stuck waiting on permission or funding, he sees this moment as a reset button. 'The things you got good at — writing, directing, acting, creating, storytelling — they're still crazy useful,' he says. 'What's changing is the amount of schlepping you have to do before you get to do the fun stuff. Your 20s are a gift. You want to be creating at the absolute speed of sound. We're trying to get to a place where you don't have to ask anyone. You can just make the thing.' AI is reshaping nearly every part of the filmmaking pipeline. Storyboards can now be generated from a script draft. Lighting and camera angles can be tested before anyone touches a piece of gear. Rough cuts, placeholder VFX, even digital costume mock-ups can all be created before the first shot is filmed. What once took a full crew, a soundstage and a six-figure budget can now happen in minutes, sometimes at the hands of a single person with a laptop. This wave of automation is arriving just as Hollywood is gripped by existential anxiety. The 2023 writers' and actors' strikes brought the industry to a standstill and put AI at the center of a fight over its future. Since then, production has slowed, crew sizes have shrunk and the streaming boom has given way to consolidation and cost-cutting. According to FilmLA, on-location filming in Greater Los Angeles dropped 22.4% in early 2025 compared with the year before. For many of the crew members and craftspeople still competing for those jobs, AI doesn't feel like an innovation. It feels like a new way to justify doing more with less, only to end up with work that's less original or creative. 'AI scrapes everything we artists have made off the internet and creates a completely static, banal world that can never imagine anything that hasn't happened before,' documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis warned during a directors panel at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival, held in the midst of the strikes. 'That's the real weakness of the AI dream — it's stuck with the ghosts. And I think we'll get fed up with that.' How you feel about these changes often depends on where you sit and how far along you are in your career. For people just starting out, AI can offer a way to experiment, move faster and bypass the usual barriers to entry. For veterans behind the scenes, it often feels like a threat to the expertise they've spent decades honing. Past technological shifts — the arrival of sound, the rise of digital cameras, the advancement of CGI — changed how movies were made, but not necessarily who made them. Each wave brought new roles: boom operators and dialogue coaches, color consultants and digital compositors. Innovation usually meant more jobs, not fewer. But AI doesn't just change the tools. It threatens to erase the people who once used the old ones. Diego Mariscal, 43, a veteran dolly grip who has worked on 'The Mandalorian' and 'Spider-Man: No Way Home,' saw the writing on the wall during a recent shoot. A visual effects supervisor opened his laptop to show off a reel of high-end commercials and something was missing. 'There were no blue screens — none,' Mariscal recalls. 'That's what we do. We put up blues as grips. You'd normally hire an extra 10 people and have an extra three days of pre-rigging, setting up all these blue screens. He was like, 'We don't need it anymore. I just use AI to clip it out.'' Mariscal runs Crew Stories, a private Facebook group with nearly 100,000 members, where working crew members share job leads, trade tips and voice their growing fears. He tries to keep up with the steady drip of AI news. 'I read about AI all day, every day,' he says. 'At least 20 posts a day.' His fear isn't just about fewer jobs — it's about what comes next. 'I've been doing this since I was 19,' Mariscal says of his specialized dolly work, which involves setting up heavy equipment and guiding the camera smoothly through complex shots. 'I can push a cart in a parking lot. I can push a lawnmower. What else can I do?' Before AI and digital doubles, Mike Marino learned the craft of transformation the human way: through hands-on work and a fascination that bordered on obsession. Marino was 5 years old when he first saw 'The Elephant Man' on HBO. Horrified yet transfixed, he became fixated on prosthetics and the emotional power they could carry. As a teenager in New York, he pored over issues of Fangoria, studied monsters and makeup effects and experimented with sculpting his own latex masks on his bedroom floor. Decades later, Marino, 48, has become one of Hollywood's leading makeup artists, earning Oscar nominations for 'Coming 2 America,' 'The Batman' and last year's dark comedy 'A Different Man,' in which he helped transform Sebastian Stan into a disfigured actor. His is the kind of tactile, handcrafted work that once seemed irreplaceable. But today AI tools are increasingly capable of achieving similar effects digitally: de-aging actors, altering faces, even generating entire performances. What used to take weeks of experimentation and hours in a makeup trailer can now be approximated with a few prompts and a trained model. To Marino, AI is more than a new set of tools. It's a fundamental change in what it means to create. 'If AI is so good it can replace a human, then why have any human beings?' he says. 'This is about taste. It's about choice. I'm a human being. I'm an artist. I have my own ideas — mine. Just because you can make 10,000 spaceships in a movie, should you?' Marino is no technophobe. His team regularly uses 3D scanning and printing. But he draws the line at outsourcing creative judgment to a machine. 'I'm hoping there are artists who want to work with humans and not machines,' he says. 'If we let AI just run amok with no taste, no choice, no morality behind it, then we're gone.' Not everyone sees AI's rise in film production as a zero-sum game. Some technologists imagine a middle path. Daniela Rus, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and one of the world's leading AI researchers, believes the future of filmmaking lies in a 'human-machine partnership.' AI, Rus argues, can take on time-consuming tasks like animating background extras, color correction or previsualizing effects, freeing up people to focus on what requires intuition and taste. 'AI can help with the routine work,' she says. 'But the human touch and emotional authenticity are essential.' Few directors have spent more time grappling with the dangers and potential of artificial intelligence than James Cameron. Nearly 40 years before generative tools entered Hollywood's workflow, he imagined a rogue AI triggering global apocalypse in 1984's 'The Terminator,' giving the world Skynet — now a cultural shorthand for the dark side of machine intelligence. Today, he continues to straddle that line, using AI behind the scenes on the upcoming 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' to optimize visual effects and performance-capture, while keeping creative decisions in human hands. The latest sequel, due Dec. 19, promises to push the franchise's spectacle and scale even further; a newly released trailer reveals volcanic eruptions, aerial battles and a new clan of Na'vi. 'You can automate a lot of processes that right now tie up a lot of artists doing mundane tasks,' Cameron told The Times in 2023 at a Beyond Fest screening of his 1989 film 'The Abyss.' 'So if we could accelerate the postproduction pipeline, then we can make more movies. Then those artists will get to do more exciting things.' For Cameron, the promise of AI lies in efficiency, not elimination. 'I think in our particular industry, it's not going to replace people; it's going to free them to do other things,' he believes. 'It's going to accelerate the process and bring the price down, which would be good because, you know, some movies are a little more expensive than others. And a lot of that has to do with human energy.' Cameron himself directed five films between 1984 and 1994 and only three in the three decades since, though each one has grown increasingly complex and ambitious. That said, Cameron has never been one to chase shortcuts for their own sake. 'I think you can make pre-viz and design easier, but I don't know if it makes it better,' he says. 'I mean, if easy is your thing. Easy has never been my thing.' He draws a line between the machine-learning techniques his team has used since the first 'Avatar' to help automate tedious tasks and the newer wave of generative AI models making headlines today. 'The big explosion has been around image-based generative models that use everything from every image that's ever been created,' he says. 'We'd never use any of them. The images we make are computer-created, but they're not AI-created.' In his view, nothing synthetic can replace the instincts of a flesh-and-blood artist. 'We have human artists that do all the designs,' he says. 'We don't need AI. We've got meat-I. And I'm one of the meat-artists that come up with all that stuff. We don't need a computer. Maybe other people need it. We don't.' Rick Carter didn't go looking for AI as a tool. He discovered it as a lifeline. The two-time Oscar-winning production designer, who worked with Cameron on 'Avatar' and whose credits include 'Jurassic Park' and 'Forrest Gump,' began experimenting with generative AI tools like Midjourney and Runway during the pandemic, looking for a way to keep his creative instincts sharp while the industry was on pause. A longtime painter, he was drawn to the freedom the programs offered. 'I saw that there was an opportunity to create images where I didn't have to go to anybody else for approval, which is the way I would paint,' Carter says by phone from Paris. 'None of the gatekeeping would matter. I have a whole lot of stories on my own that I've tried to get into the world in various ways and suddenly there was a way to visualize them.' Midjourney and Runway can create richly detailed images — and in Runway's case, short video clips — from a text prompt or a combination of text and visuals. Trained on billions of images and audiovisual materials scraped from the internet, these systems learn to mimic style, lighting, composition and form, often with eerie precision. In a production pipeline, these tools can help concept artists visualize characters or sets, let directors generate shot ideas or give costume designers and makeup artists a fast way to test looks, long before physical production begins. But as these tools gain traction in Hollywood, a deeper legal and creative dilemma is coming into focus: Who owns the work they produce? And what about the copyrighted material used to train them? In June, Disney and Universal filed a federal copyright lawsuit against Midjourney, accusing the company of generating unauthorized replicas of characters such as Spider-Man, Darth Vader and Shrek using AI models trained on copyrighted material: what the suit calls a 'bottomless pit of plagiarism.' It's the most high-profile of several legal challenges now putting copyright law to the test in the age of generative AI. Working with generative models, Carter began crafting what he calls 'riffs of consciousness,' embracing AI as a kind of collaborative partner, one he could play off of intuitively. The process reminded him of the loose, improvisational early stages of filmmaking, a space he knows well from decades of working with directors like Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. 'I'll just start with a visual or a word prompt and see how it iterates from there and what it triggers in my mind,' Carter says. 'Then I incorporate that so it builds on its own in an almost free-associative way. But it's still based upon my own intuitive, emotional, artistic, even spiritual needs at that moment.' He describes the experience as a dialogue between two minds, one digital and one human: 'One AI is artificial intelligence. The other AI is authentic intelligence — that's us. We've earned it over this whole span of time on the planet.' Sometimes, Carter says, the most evocative results come from mistakes. While sketching out a story about a hippie detective searching for a missing woman in the Himalayas, he accidentally typed 'womb' into ChatGPT instead of 'woman.' The AI ran with it, returning three pages of wild plot ideas involving gurus, seekers and a bizarre mystery set in motion by the disappearance. 'I couldn't believe it,' he says. 'I would never have taken it that far. The AI is so precocious. It is trying so much to please that it will literally make something out of the mistake you make.' Carter hasn't used generative AI on a film yet; most of his creations are shared only with friends. But he says the technology is already slipping into creative workflows in covert ways. 'There are issues with copyrights with most of the studios so for now, it's going to be mostly underground,' he says. 'People will use it but they won't acknowledge that they're using it — they'll have an illustrator do something over it, or take a photo so there's no digital trail.' Carter has lived through a major technological shift before. 'I remember when we went from analog to digital, from 'Jurassic Park' on,' he says. 'There were a lot of wonderful artists who could draw and paint in ways that were just fantastic but they couldn't adapt. They didn't want to — even the idea of it felt like the wrong way to make art. And, of course, most of them suffered because they didn't make it from the Rolodex to the database in terms of people calling them up.' He worries that some artists may approach the technology with a rigid sense of authorship. 'Early on, I found that the less I used my own ego as a barometer for whether something was artistic, the more I leaned into the process of collaboratively making something bigger than the sum of its parts — and the bigger and better the movies became.' Others, like storyboard artist Sam Tung, are bracing against the same wave with a quiet but unshakable defiance. Tung, whose credits include 'Twisters' and Christopher Nolan's upcoming adaptation of 'The Odyssey,' has spent the last two years tracking the rise of generative tools, not just their capabilities but their implications. As co-chair of the Animation Guild's AI Committee, he has been on the front lines of conversations about how these technologies could reshape creative labor. To artists like Tung, the rise of generative tools feels deeply personal. 'If you are an illustrator or a writer or whatever, you had to give up other things to take time to develop those skills,' he says. 'Nobody comes out of the womb being able to draw or write or act. Anybody who does that professionally spent years honing those skills.' Tung has no interest in handing that over to a machine. 'It's not that I'm scared of it — I just don't need it,' he says. 'If I want to draw something or paint something, I'll do it myself. That way it's exactly what I want and I actually enjoy the process. When people tell me they responded to a drawing I did or a short film I made with friends, it feels great. But anything I've made with AI, I've quickly forgotten about. There's basically nothing I get from putting it on social media, other than the ire of my peers.' What unsettles him isn't just the slickness of AI's output but how that polish is being used to justify smaller crews and faster turnarounds. 'If this is left unchecked, it's very easy to imagine a worst-case scenario where team sizes and contract durations shrink,' Tung says. 'A producer who barely understands how it works might say, 'Don't you have AI to do 70% of this? Why do you need a whole week to turn around a sequence? Just press the button that says: MAKE MOVIE.' ' At 73, Carter isn't chasing jobs. His legacy is secure. 'If they don't hire me again, that's OK,' he says. 'I'm not in that game anymore.' He grew up in Hollywood — his father was Jack Lemmon's longtime publicist and producing partner — and has spent his life watching the industry evolve. Now, he's witnessing a reckoning unlike any he, or anyone else, has ever imagined. 'I do have concerns about who is developing AI and what their values are,' he says. 'What they use all this for is not necessarily something I would approve of — politically, socially, emotionally. But I don't think I'm in a position to approve or not.' Earlier this year, the Palisades fire destroyed Carter's home, taking with it years of paintings and personal artwork. AI, he says, has given him a way to keep creating through the upheaval. 'It saved me through the pandemic, and now it's saving me through the fire,' he says, as if daring the universe to test him again. 'It's like, go ahead, throw something else at me.' Many in the industry may still be dipping a toe into the waters of AI. Verena Puhm dove in. The Austrian-born filmmaker studied acting and directing at the Munich Film Academy before moving to Los Angeles, where she built a globe-spanning career producing, writing and developing content for international networks and streamers. Her credits range from CNN's docuseries 'History of the Sitcom' to the German reboot cult anthology 'Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction' and a naval documentary available on Tubi. More recently, she has channeled that same creative range into a deepening exploration of generative tools. She first began dabbling with AI while using Midjourney to design a pitch deck, but it wasn't until she entered a timed generative AI filmmaking challenge at the 2024 AI on the Lot conference — informally dubbed a 'gen battle' — that the creative potential of the medium hit her. 'In two hours, I made a little mock commercial,' she remembers, proudly. 'It was actually pretty well received and fun. And I was like, Oh, wow, I did this in two hours. What could I do in two days or two weeks?' What started as experimentation soon became a second act. This summer, Puhm was named head of studio for Dream Lab LA, a new creative arm of Luma AI, which develops generative video tools for filmmakers and creators. There, she's helping shape new storytelling formats and supporting emerging creators working at the intersection of cinema and technology. She may not be a household name, but in the world of experimental storytelling, she's fast becoming a key figure. Some critics dismiss AI filmmaking as little more than 'prompt and pray': typing in a few words and hoping something usable comes out. Puhm bristles at the phrase. 'Anybody that says that tells me they've never tried it at all, because it is not that easy and simple,' she says. 'You can buy a paintbrush at Home Depot for, what, $2? That doesn't make you a painter. When smartphones first came out, there was a lot of content being made but that didn't mean everyone was a filmmaker.' What excites her most is how AI is breaking down the barriers that once kept ambitious ideas out of reach. Luma's new Modify Video tool lets filmmakers tweak footage after it's shot, changing wardrobe, aging a character, shifting the time of day, all without reshoots or traditional VFX. It can turn a garage into a spaceship, swap a cloudy sky for the aurora borealis or morph an actor into a six-eyed alien, no green screen required. 'It's such a relief as an artist,' Puhm says. 'If there's a project I've been sitting on for six years because I didn't have a $5 million budget — suddenly there's no limit. I remember shopping projects around and being told by producers, 'This scene has to go, that has to go,' just to keep the budget low. Now everything is open.' That sense of access resonates far beyond Los Angeles. At a panel during AI on the Lot, 'Blue Beetle' director Ángel Manuel Soto reflected on how transformative AI might have been when he was first starting out. 'I wish tools like this existed when I wanted to make movies in Puerto Rico, because nobody would lend me a camera,' he said. 'Access to equipment is a privilege we sometimes take for granted. I see this helping kids like me from the projects tell stories without going bankrupt — or stealing, which I don't condone.' Puhm welcomes criticism of AI but only when it's informed. 'If you hate AI and you've actually tested the tools and educated yourself, I'll be your biggest supporter,' she says. 'But if you're just speaking out of fear, with no understanding, then what are you even basing your opinion on?' She understands why some filmmakers feel rattled, especially those who, like her, grew up dreaming of seeing their work on the big screen. 'I still want to make features and TV series — that's what I set out to do,' she says. 'I hope movie theaters don't go away. But if the same story I want to tell reaches millions of people on a phone and they're excited about it, will I really care that it wasn't in a theater?' 'I just feel like we have to adapt to the reality of things,' she continues. 'That might sometimes be uncomfortable, but there is so much opportunity if you lean in. Right now any filmmaker can suddenly tell a story at a high production value that they could have never done before, and that is beautiful and empowering.' For many, embracing AI boils down to a simple choice: adapt or get cut from the frame. Hal Watmough, a BAFTA-winning British editor with two decades of experience, first began experimenting with AI out of a mix of curiosity and dread. 'I was scared,' he admits. 'This thing was coming into the industry and threatening our jobs and was going to make us obsolete.' But once he started playing with tools like Midjourney and Runway, he quickly saw how they could not only speed up the process but allow him to rethink what his career could be. For an editor used to working only with what he was given, the ability to generate footage on the fly, cut with it immediately and experiment endlessly without waiting on a crew or a shoot was a revelation. 'It was still pretty janky at that stage, but I could see the potential,' he says. 'It was kind of intoxicating. I started to think, I'd like to start making things that I haven't seen before.' After honing his skills with various AI tools, Watmough created a wistful, vibrant five-minute animated short called 'LATE,' about an aging artist passing his wisdom to a young office worker. Over two weeks, he generated 2,181 images using AI, then curated and refined them frame by frame to shape the story. Earlier this year, he submitted 'LATE' to what was billed as the world's first AI animation contest, hosted by Curious Refuge, an online education hub for creative technologists — and, to his delight, he won. The prize included $10,000, a pitch meeting with production company Promise Studios and, as an absurd bonus, his face printed on a potato. But for Watmough, the real reward was the sense that he had found a new creative identity. 'There's something to the fact that the winner of the first AI animation competition was an editor,' Watmough says. 'With the advent of AI, yes, you could call yourself a filmmaker but essentially I'd say most people are editors. You're curating, selecting, picking what you like — relying on your taste.' Thanks to AI, he says he's made more personal passion projects in the past year and a half than during his entire previous career. 'I'll be walking or running and ideas just come. Now I can go home that night and try them,' he says. 'None of that would exist without AI. So either something exists within AI or it never exists at all. And all the happiness and fulfillment that comes with it for the creator doesn't exist either.' Watmough hasn't entirely lost his fear of what AI might do to the creative workforce, even as he is energized by what it makes possible. 'A lot of people I speak to in film and TV are worried about losing their jobs and I'm not saying the infrastructure roles won't radically change,' he says. 'But I don't think AI is going to replace that many — if any — creative people.' What it will do, he says, is raise the bar. 'If anyone can create anything, then average work will basically become extinct or pointless. AI can churn out remakes until the cows come home. You'll have to pioneer to exist.' He likens the current moment to the birth of cinema more than a century ago — specifically the Lumière brothers' 'Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat,' the 1896 short that famously startled early audiences. In the silent one-minute film, a steam train rumbles toward the camera, growing larger. Some viewers reportedly leaped from their seats, convinced it was about to crash into them. 'People ran out of the theater screaming,' Watmough says. 'Now we don't even think about it. With AI, we're at that stage again. We're watching the steam train come into the station and people are either really excited or they're running out of the theater in fear. That's where we are, right at the start. And the potential is limitless.' Then again, he adds with a dry laugh, 'I'm an eternal optimist, so take what I say with a grain of salt.'
Express Tribune
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Robert Carlyle joins 'Watson' season 2 as Sherlock Holmes in CBS drama twist
Robert Carlyle is set to play Sherlock Holmes in the second season of CBS' drama series Watson, according to Variety. The Scottish actor, known for his roles in Trainspotting, The Full Monty, and Once Upon a Time, will appear in a recurring guest role opposite Morris Chestnut's Dr. John Watson. Season 1 of Watson followed Dr. Watson as he opened a clinic specializing in rare conditions following Holmes' apparent death during a confrontation with Moriarty (played by Randall Park). Throughout the season, Holmes only appeared as a hallucination, voiced by Matt Berry. However, Season 2 brings a major twist: Sherlock Holmes is revealed to be alive. According to the official synopsis, Watson 'faces an unexpected twist when Sherlock Holmes, who was presumed dead, resurfaces, forcing him to confront a buried secret from his past — one that lies hidden within his own body.' Showrunner Craig Sweeny expressed excitement over Carlyle's casting, calling him 'the mighty Robert Carlyle' and praising his history of iconic roles. Sweeny noted, 'He now steps into the shoes of the most iconic detective of all, Sherlock Holmes.' Carlyle is the second actor to portray Holmes on CBS in recent years, following Johnny Lee Miller's seven-season run in Elementary. The new season also stars Eve Harlow, Peter Mark Kendall, Ritchie Coster, Inga Schlingmann, and Rochelle Aytes. Morris Chestnut previously hinted in interviews that he believed Sherlock was still alive, and now the storyline confirms that suspicion. The return of Holmes is expected to reshape the dynamic and deepen the emotional arc of Watson's character. Watson Season 2 premieres Monday, October 13 at 10/9c on CBS and streams the following day on Paramount+.
Yahoo
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Austin Butler's Dating History Includes Vanessa Hudgens, Kaia Gerber, and More
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." THE RUNDOWN While Austin Butler has kept his love life relatively private, he has had a number of famous past girlfriends. His most notable long-term relationship was with Vanessa Hudgens, whom he dated for over seven years. Butler is currently publicly single but last dated Kaia Gerber. Austin Butler had been very busy lately, with starring turns in some of the biggest blockbuster hits of recent years, like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Dune, and as Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. The star has also managed to have a personal life, which includes some high-profile romances. Though Butler is often in the spotlight, he's generally pretty close-mouthed about his love life. He may walk the red carpet with his partners, but Butler keeps details of his relationships discreet. Here's what is known about Butler and his complete dating history so far. Vanessa Hudgens Hudgens and Butler met on the set of High School Musical, according to the Daily Mail. At the time, Hudgens was dating Zac Efron, but she and Butler remained friends. They didn't spark dating rumors until 2011, a year after she split from Efron. In September of that year, they were seen leaving her house in Los Angeles. In January 2012, they were photographed kissing at a Lakers game. Soon after, they made their red carpet debut at the premiere of Hudgens' film, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. In December 2013, Butler made his first appearance on Hudgens's Instagram timeline, as part of a group of friends from her church, Hillsong. She wrote in the caption, 'We may be rowdy but man we have fun. Love these people with all my heart. Thanks @hillsong for my new home.' The couple didn't discuss their relationship that much in public, but in August 2015, Hudgens told Entertainment Tonight, 'It's important to put that other person first. If you're constantly looking for ways that you can make them happy, and they're constantly looking for ways that they can make you happy, then you kind of lift each other up as much as possible, and you can't go wrong.' Reports that the couple might be on the outs began appearing in late 2019, after they spent the holidays apart. On Jan. 2, 2020, Hudgens discussed the difficulties of often being long-distance with Butler in an interview with Cosmo UK. 'It's eight years this year–FaceTime, good communication, respect and trust [are what keep us going],' she said. 'The longest we've been apart was four months. It sucks! You start hating hearing yourself say, 'I miss you.' But if it's your person, you make it work.' In mid-January 2020, Us Weekly reported they'd broken up, with a source saying, 'Vanessa and Austin are officially broken up, and Vanessa has been telling those close to her about their breakup.' Two sources speaking with E! said that the pair 'are split for now,' but claimed they planned to 'see what happens.' The insider continued, 'They have such a history and deep connection [that] they could find their way back to one another. Right now, she felt like he needed to go and be single and see if that's what he really wants.' Butler was shooting Baz Luhrmann's Elvis Presley biopic in Australia at the time, while Hudgens was working in Los Angeles. The second source claimed that 'they're just shooting on two different continents, and it's a matter of distance. There is no bad blood at all, and they have a lot of respect for each other.' However, the two never publicly reconciled, and Hudgens went on to marry baseball player Cole Tucker. In January 2023, Butler did comment on his past relationship with Hudgens after referring to her as his 'friend' when discussing who motivated him to play Elvis. Fans noted the designation, and it sparked some controversy. In a follow-up with the Los Angeles Times, reporter Mark Olsen asked Butler, 'There's something else I hope you can clear up. You've talked about a moment even before you had the role, it was Christmastime, and an Elvis song came on and you were with a friend, and you were singing along.' Butler interjected to say, 'I was with my partner at the time.' After Olsen asked if that partner was Hudgens, Butler replied, 'That's right. We'd been together for so long, and she had this sort of clairvoyant moment and so I really, I owe her a lot for believing in me.' Olivia DeJonge Butler worked with Olivia DeJonge on the set of Elvis, and it was rumored they had a brief fling after they were seen at a movie theater looking cozy in Melbourne, and then again on the beach in November 2020, per the Daily Mail. But they were never seen together after that year. Lily-Rose Depp In August 2021, Butler was photographed kissing Lily-Rose Depp in London, who had herself recently split up with her boyfriend Timothée Chalamet. They were also not seen together again, and Depp went on to date rapper 070 Shake. Kaia Gerber Like with most celebrity romances, Butler's connection with model Kaia Gerber began as a rumor. But in December 2021, a source confirmed with Us Weekly, 'They are low-key dating. It's still very new.' Butler had been seen on December 8 at a Celine fashion show in Los Angeles, where Gerber was walking the runway. Butler was accompanying her parents, Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber. A source told People a few weeks later, 'She seems really happy. All of her friends think he's really cute.' Though they made many public appearances throughout their relationship, the couple did not speak about their love much in public. In February 2024, Gerber told WSJ magazine, 'Honestly, I feel like so few things in my life are private, and that is one of the things that I try to keep as sacred as possible.' In May 2022, Butler was asked about Gerber by GQ and replied, 'I don't think there's anything I want to share about that. But thank you for providing the space.' That same month, they were seen kissing in Cannes after a screening of Elvis. In September 2023, a source told Us Weekly that after almost two years together, they were both feeling good about their relationship. 'They've both been so busy with their careers that the time has flown by,' the source said, adding that 'they spend as much time together as they can. Although Austin and Kaia are both in the public eye, they're really down to earth and have a very secure relationship, so they never let jealousy or anything like that get in the way.' They continued, 'Kaia loves that her family gets along so well with Austin. He's joined them on several vacations, and he's definitely a part of the family.' Butler did tell Entertainment Tonight in February 2024 that he was proud of Gerber's British Vogue cover that month. 'It was legendary,' he said. 'It was amazing. I loved getting to see that. What an exciting cover. I loved it.' Gerber and Butler were last seen together in October 2024, heading from dinner to Gracie Abrams's concert at Radio City Music Hall. But rumors of a breakup started circulating after they failed to make more public appearances. In January 2025, sources told TMZ that they had split 'around the end of 2024.' 'The relationship just simply ran its course after a good three years together,' the insider claimed. Gerber began dating actor Lewis Pullman in early 2025. You Might Also Like The 15 Best Organic And Clean Shampoos For Any And All Hair Types 100 Gifts That Are $50 Or Under (And Look Way More Expensive Than They Actually Are)
New York Post
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
‘Resident Alien' canceled at USA Network in shocking move ahead of Season 4 finale
It's a close encounter of the canceled kind. Syfy and USA Network have pulled the plug on 'Resident Alien' just ahead of its Season 4 finale, series creator and showrunner Chris Sheridan revealed to TV Insider on Thursday. The sci-fi comedy follows an alien disguised as a small-town doctor trying to navigate human life while hiding his true identity. It is currently airing its fourth season, which premiered on June 6 and is set to conclude on August 8. Advertisement 6 Season 4 still from 'Resident Alien,' featuring Alan Tudyk and Sara Tomko. ©Syfy/Courtesy Everett Collection While the cancellation may come as a shock to the show's most devoted fans, Sheridan, 57, admitted he wasn't entirely caught off guard. 'I knew going into it that this was likely going to be our final season,' he told the outlet. Advertisement In fact, Sheridan said that knowing the show was headed for cancellation actually allowed him to work toward tying things up nicely for viewers. 6 Chris Sheridan at the Season 4 premiere of 'Resident Alien.' Getty Images 'Creatively, that was exciting because I knew we could spend the time wrapping up some storylines and driving toward an ending,' he said. 'I'm so proud of how good Season 4 is and especially proud that we were able to finish as strongly as we did.' Sheridan added that the Season 4 finale, now serving as the series finale, is 'probably [his] favorite episode of the series.' Advertisement 'Resident Alien,' based on Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse's comic book of the same title, stars Alan Tudyk, Sara Tomko and Corey Reynolds — each of whom took to social media to react to the news. 6 'Resident Alien' creator and stars pose for TV Guide Magazine. Getty Images Tudyk, 54, who plays the titular alien in human form, Harry Vanderspeigle, wrote on Threads: 'It was a hell of a fun playground to play in. Laughter through the tears:))).' Tomko, who portrays Asta Twelvetrees, a nurse in the show's fictional town of Patience, Colorado, shared on Instagram that 'it will take time for [her] to process and digest this fully.' Advertisement The 'Once Upon a Time' actress, 41, posted a carousel of photos with her castmates from the set, noting that she 'will definitely be sharing BTS photos of [their] many years together in time.' 6 Sheridan, Tomko and Reynolds at 'Resident Alien's' 2024 WonderCon panel. David Yeh/SYFY via Getty Images 'For now, I can say with a full heart that this show changed my life completely,' Tomko's caption read. 'Every season we were told how lucky we were to still have a job, and I can say with full certainty that luck had nothing to do with it because this cast, our chemistry, our crew, our circumstances, our strength was always held up by an incredible team of writers, producers and our ever-growing fans whose unwavering loyalty kept us enduring.' 'I will never forget this time in my life nor the effect this show had on all of us,' she added. 'Thank you for your love and support.' Similarly, Reynolds, who takes on the role of Sheriff Mike Thompson, the town's sheriff, called 'Resident Alien' the 'best job [he's] ever had,' offering a special thank you to fans: 'The feeling was absolutely mutual 👽🤠😥.' 6 Season 4 still from 'Resident Alien,' featuring Reynolds as Sheriff Mike Thompson. ©Syfy/Courtesy Everett Collection In his post on Threads, the 'All American' actor, 51, described the cancellation as 'a disappointing turn of events.' 'Frankly, I would've been happy playing Sheriff Mike 'Big Black' Thompson for the rest of my life 🤠,' he wrote. 'But, if there is an upside here, it's that we were somewhat prepared for this, so you, the fans, will still get a completely story. A beginning. A middle. And an end.' Advertisement Both Tomko and Reynolds wrapped up their posts by teasing that the final three episodes will deliver. 6 Season 3 still from 'Resident Alien.' ©Syfy/Courtesy Everett Collection 'We have three episodes left, and what an incredible ride it has been,' Tomko said. 'Join us as we make our way to the grand finale.' Reynolds, for his part, wrote: 'We've still got 3 episodes to go, and they are f—ing great!! So, onward we will go 👽 friends… 🫶🏾🫵🏾.' Advertisement Sheridan agreed, telling TV Insider that the finale 'gives 'Resident Alien' a very satisfying ending while also leaving the door cracked open for any future this world may have.' 'I can't wait for everyone to see it,' he concluded. The series finale is set to premiere on USA Network at 10 p.m. ET on Friday, August 8.
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Burt Reynolds Was Laid to Rest… 3 Years After His Death
Read the full story on Modern Car Collector Burt Reynolds was larger than life. To car enthusiasts, he wasn't just a Hollywood star—he was the guy who made the Pontiac Trans Am a legend in Smokey and the Bandit and turned cross-country racing into high-octane comedy in Cannonball Run. But in a strange and unexpected twist, the man who inspired a generation of car lovers wasn't laid to rest until nearly three years after his death. The Bandit's Legacy For gearheads, Reynolds wasn't just an actor. His easygoing grin and rebellious charm made the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am more than just a muscle car—it became an icon. The chase across the Mulberry Bridge in Smokey and the Bandit remains one of the most recognizable car stunts ever filmed, and his films helped cement America's love affair with fast cars and freedom. When Burt passed away on September 6, 2018, at the age of 82, tributes poured in from fans around the world. Many expected a big public memorial for the man who had been larger than life both on and off-screen. But that didn't happen. A Delayed Burial For reasons never fully explained, Burt Reynolds wasn't laid to rest until February 2021—two and a half years after his death. Family members reportedly attended the small, private ceremony via Zoom, and a temporary marker was placed at his final resting place. Plans for a public ceremony, including a bronze bust, have been discussed, but details remain vague. The delay has raised questions among fans. Burt died before COVID-19 restrictions halted large gatherings, so why the long wait? Was it family disagreements, financial arrangements, or simply a desire to hold a public memorial later? No official explanation has ever been given. A Career Cut Short At the time of his death, Reynolds was preparing to join Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, proving he was still in demand in his later years. His passing was described as 'unexpected,' even though he had faced previous health issues. It's a quiet, strange ending for a man who lived life at full throttle. Remembering Burt Reynolds Despite the unusual circumstances surrounding his delayed burial, Burt Reynolds' impact on car culture will never fade. He was the Bandit, the lovable outlaw who could outrun Smokey with a smile and a wave, and the man who made countless kids (and adults) dream of owning a black-and-gold Trans Am. As Burt himself once said: "They told me I had to behave, and I'm good at a lot of things, but I am lousy at that." And that's exactly why we loved him. What's Your Favorite Burt Reynolds Movie? Burt Reynolds will forever be remembered as an icon of car culture and Hollywood charm. What's your favorite Burt Reynolds car movie? Smokey and the Bandit? Cannonball Run? Comment below and let us know! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
