Is the cause of Wings something that really needs to be … evangelized? Apparently so. When “Man on the Run,” a documentary about Paul McCartney’s 1970s Wings period, had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival over the weekend, you could hear patrons talking about what a revelation it was that he generated so much good music in the wake of the Beatles’ breakup, as if he hadn’t remained one of the biggest artists in the world throughout the subsequent decade. So maybe there’s some desire for further vindication that has driven McCartney to write a book about those years (coming out in the fall) as well as executive produce this Morgan Neville-directed doc (hitting select theaters and then Prime Video next year).

Maybe everyone who sold McCartney’s post-Beatles period short previously has their reasons for putting blinders on, even in the face of that inescapable a juggernaut. “I was a John guy,” said one enthusiastic, 70-plus festivalgoer, as if that were a completely reasonable explanation for a 50-year immunity to the charms of “Jet” and “Let Me Roll It.” Or perhaps it just takes the creep of old age to agree with the wisdom of the sages, that it isn’t silly … love isn’t silly … love isn’t silly at all.

“Man on the Run” is a heck of a lot of fun to watch, if you aren’t still so married to your worn copy of “Plastic Ono Band” that you can’t acknowledge the obvious: If there had been no 1960s (imagine no Beatles, it’s easy if you try), McCartney would still have to be acknowledged as on

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 2 of “Wednesday,” now streaming on Netflix.

After more than a few near-death experiences, Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) came out of Season 2 triumphant — mostly.

By the finale of Season 2, Wednesday had identified her newest foes to be Francoise Galpin (Frances O’Connor) and Isaac Night (Owen Painter), the mother and uncle, respectively, of Season 1 monster Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan). Like Tyler, Francoise is a Hyde, and Isaac is the fully regenerated version of Slurp, Pugsley’s (Isaac Ordonez) pet zombie from earlier episodes. Together with Tyler, Francoise and Isaac kidnap Pugsley, planning to use his ability to generate electricity to power a machine to save Francoise. Her monstrous transformations are killing her, and the device Isaac invented will take her powers away and give her her health back.

This isn’t Francoise and Isaac’s first attempt at the procedure. Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) reveals to Wednesday and Hester (Joanna Lumley) that Isaac tried to carry out this same experiment as a student at Nevermore, using Gomez (Luis Guzmán) as the electricity source. (Before hearing this, Wednesday and Hester both thought Gomez had never had powers.) Morticia, however, disrupted the process by chopping off Isaac’s hand, leading the machine to blow up and kill Isaac. Gomez and Morticia buried him, but kept his disembodied hand, which eventually became Thing (Victor Dorobantu).

Wednesday first tries to save Pugsley from Isaac’s clutches by positioning Thing out of sight, ready to shoot. But Isaac catches Thing’s dart, then reattaches Thing to his arm and buries Wednesday alive. Agnes (Evie Templeton) and Enid (Emma Myers) manage to dig her up, but Enid endangers herself in the process. She has just learned that alpha wolve

Goodbye, Scranton — hello, Toledo! Dunder Mifflin’s Oscar has a new cubicle and new co-workers in The Paper, a new spinoff series of The Office that has already been renewed for a second season.

Premiering Thursday, Sept. 4, on Peacock, The Paper follows the staff of The Toledo Truth-Teller, a once-proud regional newspaper that has fallen on hard times and that now shares office space with a toilet paper company. Created by Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, the mockumentary series stars The Office‘s Oscar Nuñez, Domhnall Gleeson as TP salesman-turned-EIC Ned, Sabrina Impacciatore as interim managing editor Esmeralda and others.

At a glance: How to watch The Paper online

Determined to revitalize the paper, but without any financial resources to speak of, Ned invites the paper’s staff, plus any interested parties from the toilet paper company, to serve as volunteer writers. Rounding out the cast is Chelsea Frei, Duane R. Shepard Sr., Ramona Young, Melvin Gregg, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Alex Ede

It’s hard to be a movie star and a dad at the same time — just ask Channing Tatum.

On the latest episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, Daniel D’Addario, Variety chief correspondent, details his reporting for Variety’s Sept. 2 cover story featuring Tatum and director Derek Cianfrance discussing how they brought a stranger-than-fiction true crime story to life in Paramount Pictures’ “Roofman.”

Tatum and Cianfrance came together as collaborators at a time when both of them were regrouping in their careers. Tatum is extremely open in discussing the challenges of juggling movie shoots around the world with his most important job of being a parent to his 12-year-old daughter.

Tatum, D’Addario notes, is at a key transition point in his career as he reaches his mid-40s. “Roofman,” which premieres Saturday at the Toronto Film Festival, tells the story of a blue-collar North Carolina man, Jeffrey Manchester, who wound up living secretly in a Toys R Us store and robbing McDonald’s fast food restaurants in order to provide for his daughter. Manchester was sentenced to 34 years in prison after being convicted of several robberies in 2000.

“I think of [Tatum] as the guy from ‘Magic Mike’ or ’21 Jump Street’ — a fun loving, a goofball. He’s lived a lot of life since then,” D’Addario says. “Those movies were almost 15 years ago, and at 45, he is extremely reflective about the kind of career he wants to have and the kind of work he want

Variety spoke to Jacoby about “This Is Not A Drill,” which premiered at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival.

I traveled around the country for a year looking for people who were already feeling the climate crisis, personally, and wer

SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from “Your People Are in Danger,” the Season 1 finale of “Countdown,” now streaming on Prime Video.

Over the course of the last three decades, Jensen Ackles has quietly built up one of the most notable TV careers of his generation. After breaking out as Eric Brady on the long-running NBC soap opera “Days of Our Lives” — which earned him three consecutive Daytime Emmy nominations — in the late ’90s, Ackles carved out a niche for playing tortured heartthrobs in all kinds of broadcast dramas: high-concept sci-fi (“Dark Angel”), teen (“Dawson’s Creek”), and superhero (“Smallville”). In 2005, he debuted as Dean Winchester, one-half of a dynamic duo of monster-hunting brothers, on The CW’s “Supernatural.”

Since saying goodbye to the long-running series which transformed him and his onscreen brother Jared Padalecki into icons of fantasy storytelling, Ackles has spearheaded a short-lived spinoff about the Winchester parents (he was the narrator and an executive producer of “The Winchesters”), played a charming county sheriff (“Big Sky”), voiced Batman in a series of DC animated projects and reunited with “Supernatural” creator Eric Kripke in “The Boys” as the hyper-masculine anti-hero Soldier Boy.

Ackles’ latest show, “Countdown,” by comparison, feels just a little more grounded in reality. Created by Derek Haas, who oversaw the inception of NBC’s venerable “One Chicago” franchise, the new crime drama stars Ackles as Mark Meachum, an LAPD detective who is recruited to a covert task force to investigate the deat

Oscar Isaac scored his second Venice ovation in five days as Julian Schnabel’s literary epic “In the Hand of Dante” premiered to eight minutes of applause on Wednesday night. Isaac also leads Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” which debuted on the Lido Saturday to a rapturous 13-minute reception.

As the credits rolled on “In the Hand of Dante,” in which Isaac plays both the 14th-century poet Dante Alighieri and 21st-century author Nick Tosches, the actor embraced his director and waved to a crowd of adoring fans.

Earlier on the red carpet, Isaac posed for photos with co-star Jason Momoa, who wore a baby pink suit with matching Birkenstocks. Though Momoa walked into Venice’s Sala Grande with his director and cast — including Louis Cancelmi, Franco Nero and Benjamin Clementine — the actor soon made an exit before the film started and was not present for the ovation. The film’s co-stars Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Martin Scorsese and Al Pacino were also unable to attend.

Based on the novel of the same name by Tosches, “In the Hand of Dante” follows a New York City author in the early aughts as he is enlisted to confirm the origins of a manuscript believed to be Dante Alighieri’s original handwritten poem “The Divine Comedy.”

“After the sudden death of his daughter, Nick is summoned from self-imposed exile by a mafia don for his expertise on the Italian writer. With the help of an unpredictable assassin named Louie, the pair embark on a dark and murderous journey to steal and authenticate the priceless work,” the film’s synopsis reads. “Moving between

Channing Tatum is finally a member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after debuting as Gambit in “Deadpool and Wolverine,” but it turns out he tried to enter the mega-franchise years earlier as Thor. In his latest Variety cover story, Tatum opened up about bombing his audition to play the God of Thunder in Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 superhero movie.

“I didn’t really want to be Thor,” Tatum admitted. “But I wanted to audition in front of Kenneth Branagh.”

The audition itself did not go well. As Tatum explained: “After I did one take, [Branagh] was like, ‘You’re not allowed to move. Put your hands on this chair.’ And I froze. He nailed my crutch. I spent the next five years really trying to learn stillness.”

Chris Hemsworth would ultimately win the part of Thor, with Tatum later moving on to develop a Gambit movie at 20th Century Fox as part of the studio’s “X-Men” franchise. Gambit was always Tatum’s passion when it came to superheroes. The movie had multiple fits and starts over the years. It was once dated for an October 2016 release before a script overhaul delayed the project. Variety reported in November 2017 that Lizzie Caplan had boarded the movie as the female lead. It still never got off the ground and ultimately collapsed when Disney bought Fox.

Tatum told Sep 3, 2025

Clothing retailer American Eagle is thrilled with the results of its “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” marketing campaign — which became part of the national political conversation — and says it’s planning to do more with the actor later this year.

The company said Sweeney’s jeans collaboration sold out within a week with some items selling out within one day. American Eagle announced the partnership with Sweeney on July 23. Sweeney “is a winner, and in just six weeks, the campaign has generated unprecedented new customer acquisition,” CMO Craig Brommers told analysts on the earnings call.

In after-hours trading Wednesday, American Eagle stock was up nearly 25%.

However, while the company beat Wall Street expectations for the second quarter ended Aug. 2, 2025, American Eagle’s total net revenue of $1.28 billion for the period was down 1% compared with last year and total comparable sales also decreased 1%. Operating profit was $103 million, an increase of 2% versus the year-earlier period, while diluted earnings per share came in at 45 cents, up 15%.

In another celeb tie-up, American Eagle teamed with Travis Kelce — announcing a new design collaboration with the Kansas City Chiefs star’s sports and lifestyle brand Tru Kolors, one day after his engagement to Taylor Swift became public.

American Eagle CEO Jay Schottenstein said in prepared remarks with the earnings release, “The fall season is off to a positive start. Fueled by stronger product offer