Category: 5. Entertainment

An adaptation of a 2021 novel by May Cobb, the series was greenlit by Starz in 2023. At that point, the network was owned by Lionsgate. However, in May of this year, Lionsgate separated its studio and Starz businesses into two standalone, publicly traded entities. Lionsgate reacquired the rights to the show, which also stars Malin Akerman, Chrissy Metz, and Dermot Mulroney, and immediately started shopping it around. “It’s noisy, it’s commercial…it’s going right into the teeth of the gale but in a non-threatening way,” Lionsgate Television Group chair and chief creative officer Kevin Beggs told me, explaining why he was determined to get the show on screens.

Netflix snapped up the U.S. rights and within a few weeks, and following what Beggs calls “a scrappily put together” marketing campaign led by Lionsgate, the show was available to stream. It quickly became a hit. At one point, it was not only the most popular show on Netflix, but the most-streamed series across the U.S., according to the data and analytics company Luminate. While there are no official statistics regarding the political makeup of this audience, its scale indicates that the show is appealing to “all cultural perspectives,” Beggs says.

“The series shows that [political] labels don’t get into what’s really going on with these women and their deep psychologies, desires, secrets and family life,” says Suzanne Leonard, a professor of race, gender, and sexuality at Simmons University in Boston. “It shows how superficial those labels are, while at the same time, having some real fun.”

The show’s creator, Rebecca Cutter, was braced for criticism from viewers on both sides taking issue with the show’s representation of their politics. So far, it hasn’t come. “I guess fun, sexy, murder mystery trumps political affiliation,” she told me. “Everyone can see themselves in this show…I wasn’t setting out to mock anyone.”

And therein lies a key to The Hunting Wives’ success. The women at its center, whether MAGA-coded or left-leaning, are both messy and aspirational. They are capable of being cruel one second and kind the next. It’s this refusal to judge along party lines (as well as outlandish plot twists) that makes the show so watchable—and fresh. It’s a good lesson for our polarized times. Here’s hoping for a second season.

Ellie Austin
ellie.austin@fortune.com

The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

Two Fed officials disagree on the economy. Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack says inflation is rising, the labor market is reasonably good, and she would not support cutting rates. Meanwhile, Boston Fed President Susan Collins signaled an openness to lowering rates. Wall Street Journal

Gatorade is studying women’s sweat. The Gatorade Sports Science Institute wants to understand the specific hydration and sodium needs of female athletes. Sports Business Journal

One hundred and thirty-one organizations are pushing for the Clinical Trial Modernization Act. The legislation would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to issue grants to help reach underserved populations in clinical trials. 

Sephora is dealing with fallout from Huda Beauty. The brand’s founder Huda Kattan posted an antisemitic TikTok monologue, in which she theorized that Israel could have been responsible for World War I, World War II, and 9/11. She has apologized, and Sephora now has to decide how to handle the future of a major brand on its shelves. Puck

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

MarginEdge, a restaurant management and bill payment platform, named Tara Clever chief revenue officer. 

ON MY RADAR

Apple fitness chief accused of toxic culture and harassment New York Times

Hooters’ $30 million turnaround hinges on it becoming less risqué Wall Street Journal

Katie Porter leads California’s governor’s race, boosted by former Kamala Harris supporters Politico

PARTING WORDS

“The very idea that there will be some people who say, ‘She doesn’t need this, she shouldn’t be on it,’ is why she’s perfect for it.” 

—Ro cofounder and CEO Zach Reitano on why Serena Williams is the face of the telehealth company’s new campaign for GLP-1 drugs. The tennis star disclosed she has been taking a GLP-1 as part of a partnership with the company. 

This is the web version of MPW Daily, a daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.

BBC

Between disputed thrones and fragile pacts, a new contender advances: King & Conqueror. The mere name is enough to shake loyalties once thought solid. It remains to be seen who will stand when ambitions collide.

A new epic for fans of historical sagas

After “Vikings” and “Vikings: Valhalla”, a new television saga is set to captivate medieval history enthusiasts. King & Conqueror, announced as one of the major events of the year, delves into England in 1066, amidst rival ambitions and decisive confrontations. With Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as William the Conqueror, the production promises memorable moments and dramatic tension that meets expectations.

An immersion in the Norman conquest

Focus on the year 1066, a pivotal moment where the destinies of Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, and William the Conqueror intersect. The narrative revolves around the Battle of Hastings, the pinnacle of the Norman conquest that permanently reshapes the kingdom’s landscape and disrupts the balance of power.

This approach sheds light on the transition from the Viking era to the rise of the Normans, a familiar territory for “Vikings” fans but revisited with a new focus. Between alliances, oaths, and betrayals, the series features figures as imposing as they are fascinating, promised to arcs rich in stakes.

A top duo: Harold and William

At the heart of the setup, two exceptional adversaries: James Norton as Harold Godwinson and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as William the Conqueror. One fights to preserve his kingdom, the other, an implacable strategist, aims to win by force and cunning. The face-off, both psychological and military, promises to be thrilling.

Driven by the intensity of the performers, this rivalry promises memorable confrontations, recalling the energy and complexity of “Game of Thrones” or the latest seasons of “Vikings”, between duty, ambition, and conflicting loyalties.

A star-studded cast to revisit history

The cast expands beyond its headliners: Emily Beecham plays Edith, Harold’s companion, offering an intimate counterpoint to the grand history, while Clémence Poésy portrays Matilda of Flanders, William’s wife and political support. The tableau is also enriched by notable figures like Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, whose shadow looms over Harold’s fate.

• Emily Beecham as Edith
• Clémence Poésy portraying Matilda of Flanders
• A focus on Harald Hardrada, a major military player of the year 1066

Between political maneuvers, thwarted passions, and disillusionments, “King & Conqueror” emerges as an ambitious human fresco, true to the complexity of the forces at play.

A highly anticipated release for epic series enthusiasts

Scheduled for a premiere on the BBC, “King & Conqueror” marks the return of high-intensity historical epics. “Vikings” fans will be on the lookout for solidly built plots, while “Game of Thrones” fans await Nikolaj Coster-Waldau‘s performance in a role tailor-made for him.

The trailer, already available, confirms the promise of a meticulously crafted visual universe and spectacular battle scenes, heralding a historical spectacle that is both immersive and demanding.

An unattributed missile is launched at the US, setting off a desperate effort inside the White House to determine who fired it and how to respond: not the latest news headline but the premise of Kathryn Bigelow’s political thriller A House of Dynamite, which will premiere at the Venice film festival.

The film marks a return to the large-scale, geopolitically attuned storytelling that made Bigelow one of the most decorated directors of her generation.

Few film-makers have been so consistently engaged with the faultlines of American power as Bigelow. In 2008’s The Hurt Locker she charted the psychological intensity of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. Four years later, in Zero Dark Thirty, she dramatised the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden. Her latest film turns to a different, though no less urgent, anxiety: the prospect of nuclear catastrophe.

“I grew up in an era when hiding under your school desk was considered the go-to protocol for surviving an atomic bomb,” Bigelow, 73, said before the premiere. “Today, the danger has only escalated. Multiple nations possess enough nuclear weapons to end civilisation within minutes. And yet, there’s a kind of collective numbness – a quiet normalisation of the unthinkable.”

Bigelow was born in San Carlos, California, in 1951, the daughter of a factory manager and a librarian. By her own account she was a shy child, drawn to art as an outlet. She studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute before moving to New York, where she immersed herself in conceptual art and studied under Susan Sontag at Columbia. “Painting is a bit elitist,” she later said. “Film crosses culture and class.”

Her first feature, The Loveless (1981), co-directed with James Cameron and starring a young Willem Dafoe, gave little indication of the trajectory to come. (Bigelow and Cameron married in 1989, though the union lasted only two years.)

In the 1980s and 1990s she built a reputation directing cult thrillers that inverted genre conventions, including the vampire western Near Dark (1987), the cop drama Blue Steel (1990), and the surfer-heist thriller Point Break (1991), which starred Keanu Reeves and was later hailed as a cult classic in action cinema. Bigelow’s pivot toward historical, politically grounded narratives came with K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), a cold war drama about a group of men aboard the Soviet Union’s first nuclear-powered submarine, starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson.

But her real breakthrough did not come until 2008 with The Hurt Locker, a film she partly self-financed and shot under punishing conditions in Jordan, where temperatures reached 54C. The story of three soldiers disarming roadside bombs, written by the journalist Mark Boal, won six Academy Awards, including best picture and best director. Bigelow became the first woman to win the directing prize, beating her ex-husband, who was nominated for Avatar.

Until Bigelow, only three women had been nominated for best director in nearly a century of Academy Awards. In the years since, just two others – Chloé Zhao and Jane Campion – have joined her. But Bigelow resisted the moment’s symbolism and has repeatedly rejected overt labels. In interviews, she paraphrased Gertrude Stein – “A filmmaker is a filmmaker is a filmmaker” – and said her aptitude was not to “break gender roles or gender traditions” but to “explore and push the medium”.

Still, critics have pointed to the undercurrents of masculinity and power in her films, which tend to centre on themes of violence. In 2010 Time Magazine paid tribute to her ability to capture “the intense, skewered madness of war and the distortion in men’s souls, “naming her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world”.

Bigelow’s follow-up in 2012, Zero Dark Thirty, revisited the US’s “war on terror” with a procedural account of the CIA’s pursuit of Bin Laden, starring Jessica Chastain. The film was a critical and commercial success but provoked controversy for its depiction of “enhanced interrogation” techniques such as waterboarding. Anti-torture activists staged protests outside its premiere in Washington DC.

Bigelow defended the work, writing in the Los Angeles Times: “Depiction is not endorsement. It does seem illogical to me to make a case against torture by ignoring or denying the role it played in US counter-terrorism policy and practices.” The director also described herself as a “lifelong pacifist” and said such sentiments would be more appropriately directed at those who instituted and ordered US policies.

In the decade since Zero Dark Thirty, Bigelow’s output has been sparse. She directed Detroit in 2017, a harrowing account of the 1967 Detroit uprisings, and produced the Netflix documentary Cartel Land in 2015, which won an Emmy.

That long gap is partly what makes A House of Dynamite so highly anticipated. Produced by Netflix and starring Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts, Greta Lee and Jared Harris, it unfolds through the perspective of White House officials grappling with an imminent ballistic threat. It will premiere in competition in Venice before a limited theatrical release and a rollout on Netflix in October.

“I wanted to make a film that confronts this paradox – to explore the madness of a world that lives under the constant shadow of annihilation, yet rarely speaks of it,” Bigelow said.

For a director who has long been drawn to life’s toughest adventures, including once climbing Kilimanjaro, it marks the resumption of a career defined by confronting some of the world’s most volatile flashpoints.

Before Meghan Markle became Rachel Zane on Suits (and later a royal), she was just another actress fighting for a break in Hollywood.

According to biographer Sean Smith in his 2020 book Meghan Misunderstood, the then-teenage Duchess of Sussex was “impatient to make a start as a proper actress” despite facing rejection after rejection, as reported by the Daily Mail.

Smith recalls one early audition where Meghan, now 44, refused to play by the rules. When asked to repeat a line, she boldly told the director: “I can. However, I’ve read the script and I really respond to this other role and I’d like to audition for that.”

Smith remarked, “This was not how auditions worked. This panic spread across the room because who does that? Who takes that sort of risk?” Meghan didn’t get the role she wanted, but she did secure a small part as “Hot Girl #1” in A Lot Like Love alongside Ashton Kutcher.

Her line was brief, but it got her foot in the door. Guest spots on CSI: NY and other shows followed until Suits made her a household name.

Decades later, Meghan has traded auditions for producing. 

Her Netflix show With Love, Meghan returns August 26 for a second season with celebrity guests including Chrissy Teigen, Mindy Kaling, and more. 

On her and Prince Harry’s new first-look deal with the streamer announced earlier this month, she said: “We’re proud to extend our partnership with Netflix… to create thoughtful content across genres that resonates globally.”

Do Kinaray starring Momina Iqbal and Junaid Khan has hooked the audience since the very first episode. The show has a toxic heroine which is a first. People love Dureshehwar’s antics while at the same time calling her out for all her schemes. Momina Iqbal has nailed the character making this show one of the most watched on television.

The latest twist in Do Kinaray had seriously divided fans. We saw Dureshehwar running when Shaheer tried to kill her. She was able to survive and finally she was able to get a phone, and called Waleed, as she had memorized his number only. Waleed did not even take a minute before he came to rescue Dureshehwar from her ordeal with her brother Taimoor. She saw her with envy in her eyes as he rescued her.

Here is the dramatic rescue mission:

Fans are now divided into two camps. One camp wants them back together. One user wrote, “They should patch up. Waleed and Dure look good together.” Another added, “Mawra looks like a maasi. Marry Dure again. You can keep two wives.” While the other camp is hating on Waleed for rescuing Dureshehwar.” One said, “Waleed loves Dure’s looks and can’t get over her.” Another said, “He is a two-faced hypocrite. He never loved Mawra.” A viewer added, “He needs to care more for his family and less for Dure.” This is what happened after the latest episode of Do Kinaray:

The paternity row between singer Conor Maynard and The Traitors star Charlotte Chilton has intensified after a second DNA test reportedly confirmed he is not the father of her baby daughter, Penelope.

Charlotte first claimed last year that Maynard had fathered her child following a one-night stand. 

According to Daily Mail, she accused him of refusing to acknowledge the baby and cast doubt on an initial test result that excluded him, alleging irregularities in the testing process.

As per The Sun, both parties underwent fresh swabs earlier this week, with results once again ruling out Maynard as the father.

Moreover, a source close to Charlotte said she was left “shell-shocked” by the outcome after fighting for answers for over 18 months as a single mother. 

In this regard, the outlet added, “It’s never been about money or fame. Charlotte just wanted the truth and her daughter’s father on the birth certificate.”

Additionally, Maynard’s spokesperson said the singer hoped the second test would allow the matter to be resolved “once and for all.”

As per the publication, the dispute has taken a toll on both sides, with Charlotte speaking about the pressures of single motherhood and Maynard admitting the accusations affected his mental health.

Furthermore, Charlotte rose to fame on the BBC reality show The Traitors in 2024, while Maynard recently opened up on This Morning about the strain the paternity saga placed on his personal life.

OULU, Finland — Passionate performers are lining up in Finland to pluck musical honors out of thin air.

This year’s Air Guitar World Championships reach their climax with a final Friday evening on a square in the western city of Oulu. It’s the 28th edition of an event that, over its three days, brings together competitors from 13 countries.

Contestants are judged on the performance of two songs in two separate rounds, each lasting 60 seconds. Passion is a must, but much of the rest is up to the contenders. Props and costumes are allowed, but backup bands and real instruments are off-limits.

The two-hour final pits last year’s winner, Canada’s Zachary “Ichabod Fame” Knowles, against eight national champions and seven contenders who emerged from the qualifying rounds. The challengers include U.S. champion Saladin “Six String Sal” Thomas and German champion Patrick “Van Airhoven” Culek.

The winner is chosen by a five-member jury of performing arts professionals. Whoever is crowned will win an actual guitar — a “Flying Finn” made by Finnish guitar maker Matti Nevalainen.

The championships were first held in 1996. Their organizers state that “according to the competition ideology, wars will end, climate change will stop and all bad things will vanish when all the people in the world play the air guitar.”

Contestants may, according to the rules, “use an electric or an acoustic air guitar, or both.” The jury takes into account “originality, the ability to be taken over by the music, stage presence, technical merit, artistic impression and Airness.”

Each jury member scores the performances with a mark between 4.0 and 6.0. Each contestant’s scores from the first and second round — the first with a song chosen by the performer and the second with one chosen by the organizers — are added together and the candidate with the highest total score wins.

Nary a day go by without us minding our business only for Taylor Swift’s website to inform us that yet another countdown is happening. Like, the PANIC I went through yesterday upon the release of the Baby, That’s Show Business edition cannot be overstated.

It’s barely been over a week since Taylor launched her new era, but we’ve already had one countdown to her album cover reveal, another countdown to The Shiny Bug edition, and yet another countdown to the Baby, That’s Show Business edition. And fans have noticed a trend.

Each countdown is becoming shorter in length, starting with five hours, then four, then three. Which presumably means we have two more countdowns incoming, which will be two hours and one hour respectively.

And assuming Taylor is, in fact, counting down in her countdowns, we can probably expect something major to drop in the one-hour reveal. Potentially her first single? Just speculating / clowning here!

Also side note before we go: Taylor explained how she thinks about Easter eggs on New Heights, giving specific details and saying “I have parameters. There’s dos and donts. I don’t do an Easter egg that ties to my personal life. It points to my music…it’s something you don’t know why I’m saying for a specific reason, but then you’ll look back and go ‘oh my god.’”

Her minnnnnd.

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