Today is
Thursday June 04, 2026
The horror genre scared up big numbers at the box office this weekend.
A24’s Backrooms, directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, took the #1 spot with $81.5 million. In addition to beating box office expectations, the film broke all kinds of records.
According to Variety, Backrooms had the biggest debut in history for an original horror film, as well as the biggest debut for a first-time filmmaker on a non-franchise film. Parsons is the youngest director to have a #1 film at the box office.
The film is based on Parsons’ popular YouTube series, and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve as two people who enter a secret doorway into a maze of seemingly endless rooms.
Coming in at #2 in its third week of release was another horror film from a young director and former YouTuber, Obsession, which took in $26.4 million. The film, directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, tells the story of a crush gone horribly wrong.
The week’s other two new releases, Nate Bargatze’s The Breadwinner and the World War II film Pressure, came in at numbers 5 and 7, respectively.
Here are the top 10 films at the box office:
1. Backrooms -- $81.5 million
2. Obsession -- $26.4 million
3. Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu -- $25 million
4. Michael -- $11.7 million
5. The Breadwinner -- $7.5 million
6. The Devil Wears Prada 2 -- $5.9 million
7. Pressure -- $5.75 million
8. The Sheep Detectives -- $4.6 million
9. Passenger -- $2.6 million
10. Mortal Kombat II -- $2 million
Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
We all know bad weather has the power to wreck plans, but it's a little different when those plans involve the most pivotal operation in World War II.
The new film Pressure, out Friday, recounts this little-known piece of WWII history.
Andrew Scott stars as Capt. James Stagg, the meteorologist tasked with forecasting the weather for D-Day. When he realizes that a storm is on its way to derail the Allied Forces’ plans for the massive seaborne invasion, he must deliver the bad news to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, played by Oscar winner Brendan Fraser. Together, they need to find a way forward or risk losing the war — and with just 72 hours to make a crucial decision, the pressure is a lot more than barometric.
“Who doesn't want Brendan Fraser yelling in your face?” Scott jokes of their tense scenes together.
“I love the fact that they're two quite formidable characters, but in very, very different ways, from very, very different cultures, who ultimately have a great deal of respect for each other, and a great deal of humility about their position in the world and what their duty is,” he tells ABC Audio.
Scott adds that it’s moving to see two people who wanted to do the right thing by the world rather than peacock their own achievements.
It was a quality Fraser came to admire about future U.S. president Eisenhower and how he ultimately humanized such an imposing historical figure for the film.
“The things that were important to me that I grew to admire about Eisenhower were his ability to listen to people rather than just hear them and also that he took accountability for the choices that he made,” Fraser says.
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Allie and Dean are taking center ice in season 2 of Off Campus.
Prime Video has confirmed what fans of the hockey romance series already suspected – Mika Abdalla and Stephen Kalyn will be the show’s new leads, taking over for Ella Bright’s Hannah and Belmont Cameli’s Garrett.
While season 1 of the show adapted Elle Kennedy’s first book in her Off Campus series, The Deal, season 2 will adapt Allie and Dean’s love story in the third book, The Score.
“One couple made a deal. The next one is keeping the score,” reads the post on the Off Campus official Instagram account. “From Garrett & Hannah to Dean & Allie — the Off Campus love story continues in Season 2.”
According to Prime Video, season 1, which debuted May 13, reached 36 million viewers worldwide in its first 12 days.
Adballa, who plays aspiring actress Allie, and Kalyn, who plays hockey playboy Dean, are both also starring in a new audio erotica series for Quinn, called Rent Free.
Season 2 of Off Campus is currently in production.
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Hollywood is calling to Kennedy Ryan, in more ways than one.
In addition to a TV show in the works at Peacock and a first-look deal with Universal, the romance author has released the latest book in her Hollywood Renaissance series, Score.
The story, a follow-up to 2021’s Reel, centers on the second chance romance between screenwriter Verity Hill, who’s living with bipolar disorder, and musician Bellamy “Monk” Wright — former college lovers who reunite on the set of a period film called Dessi Blue.
“I think I related to Verity as a writer. And I really related to her desire specifically around the Black community, around Black art and Black history,” Ryan says. “Really that's the soul of what this whole series is.”
Ryan also took great care to make sure Verity’s bipolar disorder was represented accurately. She says it was “one of the hardest books I've ever written” for that reason.
“In media, we have seen bipolar disorder sensationalized, misrepresented, harmful representation,” Ryan says. “And I really didn't want to perpetuate that, which meant really digging in with people who have the diagnosis, their family, their partners, their psychiatrist, their therapist. And that's really the foundation for the representation in this book. And I'm very, very proud of it.”
While her books cover some heavier topics, Ryan promises her readers that by nature of the romance genre, they’ll never get “hurt without healing.”
“There is someone who will walk with you through hurt to healing,” she says. “It is also to encourage people who have actually lived those experiences that joy is a possibility for us in life.”
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Michael reclaimed the top spot at the box office this weekend, dethroning previous two-week champ The Devil Wears Prada 2.
The Michael Jackson biopic brought in $26.1 million in its fourth weekend of release. That brings its total domestic gross to $283 million.
The Devil Wears Prada 2, starring Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep, fell to the #2 spot with an $18 million haul, while the weekend’s new horror release, Obsession, debuted at #3 with $16.1 million.
Mortal Kombat II and The Sheep Detectives round out the top five with $13.4 million and $9.3 million, respectively.
Here are the top 10 films at the box office this week:
1. Michael -- $26.1 million
2. The Devil Wears Prada 2 -- $18 million
3. Obsession -- $16.1 million
4. Mortal Kombat II -- $13.4 million
5. The Sheep Detectives -- $9.3 million
6. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie -- $4.5 million
7. Project Hail Mary -- $3.9 million
8. Top Gun/Top Gun: Maverick (2026 rerelease) -- $3.1 million
9. In the Grey -- $3 million
10. Is God Is -- $2.2 million
Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Lupita Nyong’o’s role in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has been confirmed.
In a new TIME magazine cover story on Nolan, it’s revealed that the actress plays not one, but two characters in the upcoming film. She plays Helen of Troy, as well as Helen’s sister Clytemnestra.
The piece says it’s one of “several striking adaptation choices” Nolan makes to Homer’s epic poem.
Nyong’o has yet to appear in the trailers for the film, which led to fan speculation about who she would play.
The Odyssey tells the story of the Greek hero Odysseus' (Matt Damon) 10-year journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. He is filled with interruptions in his quest to return home to his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), and his grown son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), who fights off suitors who are desperate to steal his father's throne.
Nolan wrote and directed the film, his first since the Oscar-winning blockbuster Oppenheimer. He also produced the movie with his wife, Emma Thomas.
The Odyssey opens in movie theaters on July 17.
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Fourth Wing is taking flight.
The screen adaptation of the popular romantasy book by Rebecca Yarros has been ordered to series by Prime Video.
Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan is executive producing, along with Yarros and showrunner Meredith Averill. Lisa Joy will direct the first episode.
"I'm thrilled to be working with this dedicated, experienced team and grateful for their passion for both the books and the readership behind them,” Yarros said in a statement.
Fourth Wing follows the story of Violet Sorrengail, who is forced to enroll at Basgiath War College, where she joins hundreds of candidates working toward becoming elite dragon riders.
Amazon MGM Studios and Jordan’s Outlier Society acquired the rights to the books around the time the first book was released in 2023. There have since been two other books in the series, Iron Flame and Onyx Storm.
Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Kennedy Ryan is bringing her beloved books to the screen.
The romance author is currently hard at work adapting the first book in her Skyland series, Before I Let Go, into a TV series for Peacock with the help of filmmaker Malcolm D. Lee.
Ryan tells ABC Audio one of the “biggest encouragements” in her book-to-screen journey has been seeing the success of Heated Rivalry, a series based on the hockey romance books by Rachel Reid.
“I think that it has done so much for our genre,” Ryan says. “I think, being very frank, I think right now in Hollywood, a lot of us feel like we're in a climate where certain stories aren't being told or aren't allowed through the door. And I think Heated Rivalry was like, there are underrepresented voices, queer voices that will make room. Like if you do it right and if you put it out there, people will respond.”
Ryan hopes to continue that trend through her first-look deal with Universal, where she’ll get to bring other untold stories to the forefront. She says the deal was born out of “an organic desire to see other people's books get the opportunity that I was getting.”
It's an opportunity she doesn't take for granted as she writes the Before I Let Go pilot with Lee with the hope "that people walk away from this show feeling what they felt when they read the book."
Fans are already buzzing online with their suggestions on who should be cast, and Ryan is taking note.
“I don't comment on them, but I'm like, furiously noting, ‘Oh, we hadn't thought about that person! Oh my gosh, I'm adding that person to my list!’” she says.
In the meantime, her new book, Score, will be out May 19.
Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.