EXCLUSIVE: Margaret Qualley and Sabrina Carpenter have joined Tom Holland in the Spider-Man star’s next project: the untitled Fred Astaire biopic in which Holland will portray the American actor and dancer.
The development comes nearly five years after Holland first revealed that he would be leading the project.
Qualley will star as Adele Astaire, and Carpenter will star as Ginger Rogers. Fred and Adele were major stars on Broadway and London’s West End before Fred Astaire went on to be one of cinema’s greatest stars with co-star and dance partner Rogers.
Paul King will direct the film, which is produced by Amy Pascal and Rachel O’Connor, Holland on behalf of Billy17, and Ben Holden and Josh Hyams on behalf of Lightbulb Pictures. Executive producers are Harry Holland and Will South on behalf of Billy17, Will Clarke and Andy Mayson on behalf of Altitude Films and Steven Levenson. Fred Astaire’s daughter Ava Astaire McKenzie lends her support to the project. Her son, Tyler McKenzie, serves as a consultant and co-producer.
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“I am thrilled and honored to have been entrusted with telling the story of Fred Astaire and his original dance partner — his big sister Adele — to the big screen,” King said. “Fred left a timeless legacy of dance on film, most famously in his collaborations with Ginger Rogers, while Adele’s work has been lost to history; indeed, no footage of her dancing survives. The cinematic challenge of bringing to life these icons of the 20th century is one that I could not imagine without Tom Holland, Margaret Qualley and Sabrina Carpenter by my side.”
Steven Levenson and King wrote the script, based on the book The Astaires: Fred & Adele by Kathleen Riley. Riley also serves as a script and story consultant.
“I’m delighted to support this endeavor to celebrate the extraordinary careers and enduring legacy of my father and aunt, who were among the biggest musical stars of their era,” Astaire McKenzie said. “With Kathleen Riley’s seminal biography as its foundation and the creative team in place, the story of their partnership both on and off the stage is in the best care.”
McKenzie added, “Guided by the incredible filmmaking team led by director Paul King, writer Steven Levenson, producer Amy Pascal and Tom Holland, I know their legacy will be beautifully brought to life for a whole new generation.”
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Qualley is coming off of The Dog Stars, in which she starred alongside Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin and Guy Pearce. She made her debut on HBO’s The Leftovers. Last year, she earned a Golden Globe nomination for The Substance, opposite Demi Moore, which received multiple Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. She received Emmy nominations for her roles in FX’s Fosse/Verdon and Netflix’s Maid. She also starred in Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls. Additional credits include A24’s How to Make a Killing, Ethan Coen’s Honey Don’t, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness, Netflix’s Maid, Fosse/Verdon, Blue Moon, Sanctuary, Stars at Noon, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Native Son, Seberg, and her debut film Palo Alto. She is repped by CAA, Anonymous Content, and Sloane and Offer.
Two-time Grammy-winning superstar Carpenter most recently received her first Primetime Emmy Nomination in the Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) category recognizing her work as an EP and performer in The Muppet Show. Her film credits include The Short History of the Long Road, Work It and The Hate U Give. She is repped by Paradigm Talent Agency, Foundation Media Partners, Volara Management, Perlman Management Group and Goodman Genow.
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Holland began his career as a dancer on the West End stage, where he played the titular role from 2008-10 in the dance-driven musical about a boy born to dance, Billy Elliot The Musical, written by Lee Hall. Holland can currently be seen in Sony Pictures’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is breaking box office records with a worldwide gross of more than $2 billion, and The Odyssey, which has topped $1.72 billion. He is repped by WME and Sloane Offer.
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King most recently directed Warner Bros’ Wonka, starring Timothée Chalamet. He also directed the first two Paddington films, which were critical and box office successes, collectively earning nearly $500 million globally. King executive produced the third film in the series, Paddington Goes to Peru and is writing a sequel to Wonka. He is repped by Independent Talent Group, WME, and Davis Law Group.

Free speech and media advocacy groups urged a judge to block a California settlement with Paramount Skydance that would let the company finalize its $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Twelve states led by California sued to block the deal in July and were able to delay it when US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín ruled that Paramount combining with Warner Bros. would likely reduce competition substantially and violate antitrust laws. Despite that initial victory, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a settlement with Paramount earlier this week and the other states involved in the lawsuit signed on to the deal.
Martínez-Olguín must decide whether to approve the settlement. A coalition of free speech and media advocacy groups told the judge in a filing yesterday that the deal will give residents of the states that sued Paramount “virtually nothing.” The filing was submitted by the Committee for the First Amendment, Free Press, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Future Film Coalition, and International Documentary Association.
Bonta “publicly criticized the very behavioral remedies that the parties now ask the Court to approve,” the filing said. That’s a reference to Bonta saying that proposed merger conditions such as Paramount’s pledge to release 30 movies a year are “typically not enforceable in the way that we like,” and “not particularly good at solving the problem.”
The groups said the lawsuit filed by states two months ago alleged that “the tie-up would ‘extinguish competition’ between the two and raise prices, reduce output, lower quality, and lessen choice… But whatever the reasons for the States’ about-face, neither time nor circumstance changes the fact that this merger lessens competition.”
The League of United Latin American Citizens raised similar concerns in its own court filing. The states alleged that the “merger would permanently eliminate competition between Defendants over the films and television programming Americans can watch,” but the settlement “leaves that loss of independent decision-making largely intact,” the filing said.
“The proposed consent decree requires no divestiture as a condition of closing. Instead, it relies on conduct commitments that leave important pleaded harms unaddressed even when the combined company fully complies,” the Latin American group said.
Judge has some questions
At a hearing yesterday in US District Court for the Northern District of California, Martínez-Olguín told lawyers that “the court isn’t a rubber stamp of your agreement… I have some questions,” Variety reported. Martínez-Olguín reportedly said she wants to ensure “that this is not something that was the result of collusion, but instead was more of an arm’s length process.”
Martínez-Olguín asked the parties to submit replies to a letter sent by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who said the companies should be required to explain “how each provision remedies each harm alleged in the complaint.” Booker wrote that “the Court should measure the proposed remedies against the relief the States originally sought: an injunction blocking the merger altogether,” and argued that the settlement doesn’t address the lawsuit’s core claims that the merger is anticompetitive and will eliminate jobs.
Judges evaluating settlements generally look at whether a deal resolves the lawsuit’s complaint and whether it was tainted by collusion or corruption. Even if a judge personally does not like a settlement, the judge may still approve it if it meets the minimum legal standards for fairness and reasonableness.
The free speech and media groups’ filing said the deal with Paramount should be rejected “because it is both procedurally and substantively unfair to third parties and the public.” The filing responded to each major provision in the proposed settlement that was submitted for the court’s approval. The film distribution guarantees “appear to lock in fewer films post-closing than the parties are committing to produce in 2027 on their own,” the groups said.
The commitment to release 30 films is lower “than what the companies have together forecasted to investors for 2027 as independent companies,” the filing said. Warner Bros. projected it would release 19 films while Paramount forecast 15 or more, the filing said.
The groups criticized a related condition requiring four independent films each year. The settlement’s definition of “independent film” includes any movie based on an original screenplay even if it is wholly financed, developed, and owned by the studio, the filing said.
Small business owners “get nothing”
If Paramount fails to release enough films, it would be required to divest Miramax Studios and pay $30 million per missed film toward the health and retirement trust funds of various unions and to the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) for more antitrust enforcement.
Meanwhile, “small business owners and independent contractors like those that populate the independent and documentary industries—the very groups that would stand to potentially gain from greater production and distribution in competitive markets—get nothing,” the filing by free speech and media groups said.
The settlement requires Paramount to set up an “Editorial Independence Board” for CBS News and CNN. The Editorial Independence Board members would be chosen by Paramount and would report to Paramount’s board of directors, which is chaired by CEO David Ellison.
“To be sure, there are serious questions about editorial independence following reports that the Ellisons offered President Trump what were described as ‘sweeping changes’ and an ‘overhaul’ at CNN in exchange for federal regulatory approval of this merger,” the free speech and media groups said. “But conditioning the States’ approval of the merger on agreeing to create an oversight board on news content is constitutionally fraught.”
The filing said the settlement “memorializes this government intrusion into editorial decisions. Presumably, if the Combined Entity allegedly breaches its vague editorial independence obligations, Plaintiff States may return to the Court to enforce these terms. That would place the Court in the position of superintending content and viewpoint choices by newsrooms with its contempt power.”
Groups: Cable condition won’t prevent higher prices
The settlement requires the post-merger entity to conduct separate negotiations for the licensing of basic cable channels owned by Paramount and Warner Bros. Bonta’s office said the condition, which lasts for five years, would “preserv[e] the existing competitive dynamic between the companies” and help “keep prices down for consumers.” This provision does not apply to premium cable channels, streaming services, and broadcast content.
The free speech and media groups’ filing said this means “the Combined Entity still would be free to use its power in other offerings—a combined HBO and Showtime (premium cable channels), a combined HBO Max and Paramount Plus (streaming services), and CBS (broadcast)—to extract higher prices in basic cable negotiations, as this form of leveraging is carved out.” The negotiation provision also doesn’t resolve the states’ allegation that combining the companies’ cable portfolios would lead to reduced investment in basic cable channels, the filing said.
Bonta defended the settlement by saying it will guarantee “massive investment in domestic film production and provid[e] enforceable guardrails to help keep cable prices competitive.” He said the deal “is not a vote of support for this merger. But we believe this settlement, which resolves our antitrust concerns in every market alleged in our case, protects competition and consumer choice, and puts workers’ needs, concerns, and futures first, is the best course of action.”
The Writers Guild of America reluctantly settled its own lawsuit against the merger after learning of the agreement with California. The Writers Guild said its settlement prohibits writer layoffs in the CBS News broadcast division for five years and requires $17.5 million in payments to the group’s health fund.
“We continue to believe the merger will cause damage to writers and the industry at large,” the Writers Guild said. “Now that the attorneys general have settled with Paramount, however, as a nonprofit, the WGA must contend with the reality of forging ahead alone, with no backing from government enforcers, with a complex antitrust lawsuit that would cost millions of dollars to pursue through trial.”
A Bloomberg article said the Paramount/California deal was initially opposed by Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Minnesota. But attorneys general in those states reportedly “concluded the expense of the legal battle was not justifiable without California at the helm.”

Chris Hansen finally took a seat for “Primetime,” and he was not happy about the portrayal of himself.
The former “To Catch a Predator” host said on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime” in August that he left the offices of distributor A24 without seeing the film due to the legal agreement they wanted him to sign. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” he said of the agreement. He also said he found Robert Pattinson’s impression “overly dramatic,” but that his family thought it was a “pretty good imitation.”
Now that Hansen has seen Lance Oppenheim’s drama, he is prepared to share his reaction. In a short clip filmed outside a theater, Hansen gave a teaser of his initial thoughts, with a promise to post his full reaction on his podcast and YouTube channel, “Have A Seat With Chris Hansen,” at 7 p.m. ET on Friday.
“It was so bizarre and so in-and-out of reality,” Hansen said. “Obviously, I’m not objective because the character is, you know, me, but it was so detached from reality or anything I’ve experienced then or now doing the investigations. I’m not sure what the point of it was.”
The film stars Pattinson as Hansen in 2006 as “To Catch a Predator” transitioned from “Dateline NBC” to its own primetime block. A24 labeled the film as “inspired by true events,” rather than a biopic.
Pattinson himself hoped Hansen would come around on the portrayal. “I would hope the amount of inspiration his character has given a lot of people for years is some kind of compliment,” the actor said following Hansen’s comments on his imitation.
“Primetime” opened this week in theaters, after making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it garnered buzz and a seven-minute ovation.

After becoming the first studio to cross the $4 billion global mark at the 2026 box office, Universal is now the first studio again this year, shooting past $5B worldwide.
Broken out, Uni counts $1.788B at the domestic box office and $3.218B abroad.
The milestone reps the third time in Universal’s history that it has surpassed $5 billion in a single calendar year. Already, Universal is 29% ahead of its final 2025 global tally of $3.89B. The milestone, reached with this week’s grosses, comes less than a decade after Universal previously clicked past $5B at the global box office in 2017, following its first achievement of the milestone in 2015.
The success this year has been propelled by Christopher Nolan and Universal’s highest grossing movie ever in The Odyssey (with more than $1.73B and counting), Illumination and Nintendo sequel Super Mario Galaxy Movie ($1B), Lionsgate’s Michael ($656.4M international), Focus Feature’s highest grossing movie ever, Obsession ($519M), and Illumination’s Minions & Monsters ($523.6M). Three of the five pics that surpassed $1B (Michael being one of them) were released by Universal.
Other stats regarding this milestone:
–Universal International and Focus Features films represent five of the 10 highest-grossing films worldwide in 2026: The Odyssey (#2), Michael (#4), The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (#5), Minions & Monsters (#8) and Obsession (#9).
–Universal has topped the global weekend box office for 11 weekends so far this year.
Upcoming Films on Universal’s 2026 Slate
9/25 | DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island
10/9 | Other Mommy
10/16 | Sense & Sensibility
Starting 11/20 (Platform Release) | Elsinore
11/27 | Focker-In-Law
12/4 | Violent Night 2
12/25 | Werwulf

UPDATE, with CBGB news: The organizers of three New York City outdoor festivals — the Global Citizen Festival, the All Things Go music festival and the CBGB Festival — have canceled this weekend’s events due to forecasts of extreme weather caused by the unusual September Nor’easter expected to hit the East Coast.
Global Citizen pulled the plug on its event Friday afternoon. “Due to the extreme weather forecast for New York City this weekend, we have made the difficult decision, in consultation with the City of New York and NYC Parks, to cancel this year’s Global Citizen Festival,” organizers said. “Forecasts predict dangerous conditions and circumstances in which we cannot safely bring tens of thousands of Global Citizens, artists, crew, vendors, partners, and staff onto the Great Lawn, let alone all of the equipment required.”
The statement continued: “Safety has to come first. This is the first time in 14 years we’ve had to cancel. We have spent this week working through countless contingencies, which were ultimately not possible, and cancelling is a decision we have not taken lightly.”
Earlier on Friday, the weekend-long All Things Go NYC Festival scheduled for New York’s Forest Hills Stadium was canceled due to the weather predictions. The open-air music fest was to have featured performances by Zara Larsson, Lola Young, Brandi Carlile, Ethel Cain, Muna, Carly Rae Jepsen, Rebecca Black, Cara Delevingne, Blue DeTiger, Chloe Qisha, CMAT, Jensen McRae, Meg Stalter, Natalie Jinju, the Beaches, Hemlock Springs, Grace Ives and Cherry Bomb.
“The safety of our fans, the artists and local crew is our top priority,” All Things Go organizers said on Instagram (see the message, including refund info, below). “We don’t really know how to put into words how heartbroken we are. Thank you for understanding, and thank you to the fans, artists, and crews who make this festival what it is.”
The annual Global Citizen festival, which raises money and awareness to end extreme poverty around the world, was to have taken place this year on Saturday, September 26, on the Great Lawn in Central Park. Hosted by Hugh Jackman, the festival was to have featured appearances by Alicia Keys, Yeonjun, Ms. Lauryn Hill & Wyclef Jean, Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Lainey Wilson, Shaboozey and Tomorrow X Together, among many others.
Following the success of the first-ever FIFA World Cup Final Halftime Show, which was produced by Global Citizen and helped raise $60 million for the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund, this year’s festival was designed to raise awareness and raise funds for childrens’ global educational opportunities, smallholder farmers and electricity for 2.5 million homes.
According to Global Citizen, the organization over the last six weeks has secured $208.8 million in financial commitments to help more than 2 million children access education and stay in school, and support 7.5 million people, including smallholder farmers, women, youth, and indigenous communities. Ireland and Canada committed $151.6 million to help children get in and stay in school; and Burundi, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Guinea, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, the Minderoo Foundation, and the Green Climate Fund will support small farming businesses.
“The Festival is one day,” the organization said, “but the actions you took and the impact you created will reach far beyond Central Park. Conflict, extreme weather, and rising costs are forcing millions of families from their homes, disrupting education, threatening food supplies and pushing communities back into extreme poverty, but we have seen what is possible when we take action together.”
Tickets to the Global Citizen Festival were free and could be secured by visiting the Global Citizen app and earning points by completing “action journeys” related to the core issues.
“You took action to earn your tickets,” today’s statement said. “You made plans, booked travel, and in many cases came to New York from across the country and around the world to be with us in Central Park, and we are sincerely grateful for your commitment to our mission.”
Festival tickets that were purchased outright will be refunded automatically. People who made a donation to secure tickets can also receive refunds, with email instructions being sent to outline options.
Food that was due to be available at the Festival will be donated to local organizations serving the people of New York City.
“We are enormously proud of what we have achieved together this year – one of the most impactful years for our movement around the world – and we are deeply grateful to every artist, world leader, partner, crew member, vendor, global citizen, and our team,” Global Citizen said, adding that the festival “will be back in Central Park next year.”
Another open-air festival – the CBGB Festival featuring Patti Smith, Buzzcocks, Morrissey, Sex Pistols and many other acts associated with punk and the legendary CBGB venue – has canceled Saturday’s day-long concert at Brooklyn’s Under The K Bridge Park in Greenpoint after consulting local officials. (A Friday night concert featuring The Prodigy, also at Under The K Bridge Park, has also been canceled.)
“We have made the difficult decision to cancel The Prodigy on September 25th and CBGB Festival on September 26th at Under The K Bridge Park due to forecasted severe weather and high wind conditions in the New York Metropolitan area throughout the weekend,” organizers said in a statement. “The safety of our fans, the artists, and local crews is our top priority.”
Refunds are available at original point of purchase. Ticketholders who purchased through AXS will be automatically refunded.