Toronto International Film Festival sets lineup with Sydney Sweeney, Aziz Ansari and ‘Knives Out 3’.

#TIFF laid out the selections to its galas and special presentations programs, which make up the bulk of the red carpet premieres to North America’s largest film festival. Films making their world premieres include Ansari’s “Good Fortune,” starring Keanu Reeves as an angel trying to teach a struggling man (Ansari) a lesson; David Michôd’s “Christy,” with Sweeney playing the boxer Christy Martin; and Alice Winocour’s “Couture,” starring Jolie as an American filmmaker attending Paris Fashion Week.

Those films join previously announced TIFF world premieres including Rian Johnson’s “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.” All three of Johnson’s “Knives Out” films have premiered in Toronto.

Also debuting in Toronto will be Derek Cianfrance’s “Roofman,” starring Channing Tatum as a struggling father turned thief; Nia DaCosta’s Ibsen adaptation “Hedda,” starring Tessa Thompson; Nicholas Hytner’s WWI drama “The Choral,” with Ralph Fiennes; Steven Soderbergh’s third 2025 release, “The Christophers”; Hikari’s “Rental Family,” starring Brendan Fraser as an American actor in Japan; and Paul Greengrass’ “The Lost Bus,” with Matthew McConaughey as a bus driver navigating California’s 2018 Camp Fire.

The Toronto International Film Festival will kick off Sept. 4 with the debut of the documentary “John Candy: I Like Me,” from director Colin Hanks and producer Ryan Reynolds. The festival runs through Sept. 14.

Toronto has long been one of the prized launching pads to the fall movie season, though many of the top films often first go to the Venice or Telluride film festivals. This year, that includes TIFF selections like Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” and Edward Berger’s “Ballad of a Smaller Player.” The designation of those premieres suggests “Frankenstein” will first play Venice, while the other two will likely play both Venice and Telluride.

Other notable films premiering in Toronto include James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg trials drama “Nuremberg,” with Rami Malik and Russell Crowe; Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s “Swiped,” starring Lily James as Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd; and Agnieszka Holland’s Franz Kafka drama “Franz.”

Several directorial debuts will be landing in Toronto including those by Brian Cox (“Glenrothan”) and Maude Apatow (“Poetic License”). Other selections include “Bad Apples,” with Saoirse Ronan as a teacher with a poorly behaved student; “Easy Waltz,” a Las Vegas-set drama starring Vince Vaughn and Al Pacino; and Alex Winter’s “Adulthood.”

A number of standouts from May’s Cannes Film Festival will also play in Toronto, such as Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner “It Was Just an Accident,” Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” Oliver Laxe’s “Sirât” and Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague.”

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press

‘Superman’ flexes its might in second weekend with $57.3 million.

None of the week’s new releases — “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “Smurfs,” and “Eddington” — came close to touching Warner Bros. and DC Studios’ superhero success. “Superman” dipped 54 per cent from its domestic opening, an average decline for a big summer film.

In two weeks, “Superman” has grossed $406.8 million worldwide, a good start for the movie DC Studios is banking on to restart its movie operations. A big test looms next weekend, when the Walt Disney Co. releases Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

Strong audience scores and good reviews should help propel the $225 million-budgeted “Superman” toward profitability in the coming weeks. For Warner Bros. and DC Studios, “Superman” is key to kicking off a 10-year plan for the comic book adaptation studio. Co-heads Gunn and Peter Safra were tasked with rehabilitating the flagging operation. Next on tap are the films “Supergirl” and “Clayface” in 2026.

But “Superman” is far from flying solo in theaters right now. Universal Pictures’ “Jurassic World: Rebirth” came in second this weekend, with $23.4 million in its third week of release. The seventh “Jurassic” movie, this one starring Scarlett Johansson, held its own despite the competition from “Superman.” In three weeks, it accrued $648 million worldwide.

Apple Studios and Warner Bros.’ “F1: The Movie” has also shown legs, especially internationally. In its fourth weekend, the Brad Pitt racing drama dipped just 26 per cent domestically, bringing in $9.6 million in North America, and another $29.5 million overseas. Its global total stands at $460.8 million.

But both of the biggest new releases — Sony Pictures’ “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and Paramount Pictures’ “Smurfs” — fell flat.

“I Know What You Did Last Summer” opened with $13 million, a fair result for a movie budgeted at a modest $18 million, but a disappointing opening for a well-known horror franchise. The film, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, is set 27 years after the 1997 original. Teenagers played by Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders are again haunted for covering up a car accident.

The movie’s reviews (38 per cent “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes) were poor for “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and audiences graded it similarly. The film notched a “C+” on CinemaScore. The original collected $72.6 million in its domestic run in 1997.

Paramount Pictures’ “Smurfs” debuted in fourth place this weekend with $11 million. The latest big-screen reboot for the woodland blue creatures prominently features Rihanna as the voice of Smurfette. But reviews (21 per cent “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes) were terrible. Audiences were kinder, giving it a “B+” on CinemaScore, but the $58 million-budgeted release will depend largely on its international sales. In 56 overseas markets, “Smurfs” earned $22.6 million.

Ari Aster’s “Eddington” opened with $4.2 million on 2,111 screens for A24. Since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, “Eddington” has been particularly divisive. The pandemic-set Western features Joaquin Phoenix as the right-wing sheriff of a small New Mexico town who faces off with its liberal mayor (Pedro Pascal).

While Aster’s first film, 2018’s “Heredity” ($82.8 million worldwide against a $10 million budget) helped establish A24 as an indie powerhouse, but the less-than-stellar launch of “Eddington” marks the second box-office disappointment for Aster. His 2023 film “Beau Is Afraid” cost $35 million to make but collected just $12.4 million worldwide. “Eddington” cost about $25 million to produce. Audiences gave it a “C+” on CinemaScore. None of Aster’s previous films have been graded higher.

Yet collectively, Hollywood is enjoying a very good summer. According to data firm Comscore, the 2025 summer box office is up 15.9 per cent over the same period last year, with the year-to-date sales running 15 per cent ahead of 2025. Summer ticket sales have amassed about $2.6 billion domestically, according to Comscore.
Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “Superman,” $57.3 million.

2. “Jurassic World Rebirth,” $23.4 million.

3. “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” $13 million.

4. “Smurfs,” $11 million.

5, “F1: The Movie,” $9.6 million.

6. “How to Train Your Dragon,” $5.4 million.

7. “Eddington,” $4.3 million.

8. “Elio,” $2 million.

9. “Lilo & Stitch,” $1.5 million.

10. “28 Years Later,” $1.3 million.

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press

Coldplay’s Chris Martin offered concertgoers a friendly warning before ‘Jumbotron Song’

Katy Perry nearly plummets from floating butterfly as giant prop malfunctions during her show.

First Beyoncé, now Katy Perry.

The “Part of Me” singer was in San Francisco on Friday night performing as part of her Lifetimes Tour, when a giant butterfly prop she was riding malfunctioned as it hung suspended over the crowd.

As seen in several video clips shared by audience members on social media, Perry was in the midst of performing her 2013 hit “Roar” at the Chase Center when the prop – on which Perry was rigged – jerked and dropped suddenly.

Perry immediately stopped singing and managed to regain her balance and composure, at first looking up at the contraption that connected the butterfly to cables above.

As the prop swung, Perry soon began performing the song again.

CNN has reached out to representatives for Perry for comment.

The near-mishap is at least the second such incident at a major tour this summer, after a flying car prop feratured in Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter tour tilted midair during a concert in Houston last month.

The singer was quickly lowered down and without injury, according to Beyoncé’s entertainment and management company at the time.

Joey Logano set to become youngest driver in NASCAR with 600 starts. How much does he have left?

Set to make his 600th career start, the youngest driver in NASCAR history to reach that milestone, the 35-year-old Logano has constructed a Hall of Fame career.

Take a look at the resume: three career NASCAR championships, a Daytona 500 victory, the youngest driver to win a Cup race, 37 career victories, and seemingly tethered to the No. 22 Ford for Team Penske for as long as he can race.

“At first glance, I said, ‘Well, it’s just starts,‘” Logano said. “But then when you start thinking about it, to be able to be around in a sport as an athlete competing at a top level for 16-plus years, and hitting 600 starts, it’s pretty incredible to have a career that long.”

Logano will be 35 years, 1 month, 26 days old when he hits No. 600 on Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway. He’ll top seven-time NASCAR champion and Hall of Famer Richard Petty by six months. Consider, only three previous drivers among the 33 others in NASCAR history were in their 30s when they hit 600 starts.

Logano has also topped the massive expectations set for him when he entered the sport as a teenager hyped as NASCAR’s next great driver. He entered NASCAR with the nickname “Sliced Bread,” as in, the best thing since, and navigated a slow start to his career to blossom into one of the best over the last 13 years at Team Penske.

He’s now married with three kids — his Instagram bio notes he’s a “3X NASCAR Champion” and “3X father” — and is considered a team leader at Penske and Ford.

“I grew up in front of everybody. All of us change over the years as you grow up,” Logano said. “Life comes at you and you evolve and keep going with it. Everybody, when you were 18 years old to 35 years old are some of the biggest changes in your life happen in that period of time. Getting married, having kids — that’s the biggest change you can ever have in your life, I think — but I did all of this in front of everybody.”

Logano qualified for his first career Cup start on Sept. 14, 2008, at New Hampshire on car owner points, because rain washed out qualifying. He started 40th and was penalized only 39 laps into the race for taking the jack with him as he exited pit road. He finished three laps down in 32nd place in the No. 96 Toyota for Hall of Fame Racing, essentially on loan from Joe Gibbs Racing to get some experience. The two teams even agreed to move JGR’s Home Depot sponsorship to Hall of Fame’s car for the 18-year-old Logano’s first race.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal making my first start,” Logano said that first day. “I was ready to go as soon as we started.”

He wasn’t necessarily ready for the big time.

Logano was pegged with enormous expectations to replace Hall of Famer and three-time champion Tony Stewart in 2009 for Gibbs.

Just a teenager, the enormity of the ride combined with Gibbs’ impatience made for a brief run at JGR. Logano did win his first race — also at New Hampshire, in 2009 — but won only one more time before Gibbs cut him loose after the 2012 season.

The timing worked out for Logano.

Penske needed a driver and 2012 NASCAR champion Brad Keselowski urged his boss to sign the 23-year-old Logano, convinced a change of scenery could do wonders for his career.

Logano made the most of his Penske lifeline and is now the only active three-time champion in NASCAR and one of only 10 drivers in history to win three or more titles.

He spent the week headed into Dover — where he flipped eight times on the concrete track during a scary 2009 incident in a second-tier race — hobnobbing with the sports world’s brightest stars at the ESPYs and he got to yuk it up with guest host Jelly Roll on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

Petty is the only driver to win his 600th career start and he would make 1,184 overall in Cup, one of many NASCAR records he holds. Logano might not catch The King in total starts — but the driver who has never missed a race over his full-time career is in no rush to slow down.

“I would be an idiot to think you can be competing at the top level into your 50s,” Logano said. “What athlete has ever done that? Something changes at some point, but, right now, I still feel as fresh as ever. I feel as sharp as ever. I’m driven as much as ever. I still care. I still get emotional about things, so that shows me I care a lot. With those factors still there when the end is, I don’t know yet. I don’t know.”
The Tys have it as final four is set for the In-season Challenge

NASCAR is down to its version of the final four.

The midseason tournament that pays $1 million to the winner pits Ty Dillon vs. John Hunter Nemechek and Tyler Reddick vs. Ty Gibbs in the head-to-head challenge at Dover.

The winners face off next week at Indianapolis. Reddick is the betting favorite to win it all, per BetMGM Sportsbook.

“Did John Hunter change his name yet,” Reddick quipped.

Nemechek has a career-best six top-10s and is 20th in the standings in his second full season at Legacy Motor Club. Nemechek — who drives for Jimmie Johnson, who won a record 11 times at Dover — enjoyed trash-talking Dillon this week from, of all places, the carpool lane.

Their young children go to the same school, and the families have become friendly.

“The running joke between us is that they are boyfriend-girlfriend and they’re going to get married one day, the way that they walk around the racetrack,” Nemechek said.

Hey, maybe a US$1 million could help pay for the big day.

NASCAR seeded 32 drivers for the first In-season Challenge, a five-race, bracket-style tournament that mirrors the NCAA basketball tournaments.

“I think it’s really cool from a millennial perspective, from a younger generation, it’s neat to be able to bring something in the sport that hasn’t been done before,” the 28-year-old Nemechek said. “It kind of gives you something to race for even if you’re not racing for the win.”

Legacy has yet to win a race, or even contend in many, since Johnson signed on at the end of 2022 and eventually became majority owner. Nemechek said Johnson has balanced many roles, that includes the occasional race, and was committed to making Legacy a championship team.

“We joke around about his legacy 2.0 being a team owner and hopefully we can go in and win 83 races and seven championships for him,” Nemechek said.
Odds and ends

Denny Hamlin is the betting favorite to win at Dover, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. Hamlin has two career wins at Dover, including last season. He’s trying to win the first July race at Dover since the track’s first one in 1969.

Pacquiao is back, but how back is he? Saturday’s fight against Barrios will reveal all.

But back to what he was when Pacquiao was one of the planet’s most dominant fighters, building a massive fanbase and a gold-standard resume that put him in the International Boxing Hall of Fame last month? That is the real question.

He will get a chance to answer it Saturday night when the 46-year-old from the Philippines will try to take the WBC welterweight belt from Mario Barrios. It will be Pacquiao’s first fight since losing by unanimous decision to Yordenis Ugás nearly four years ago. His last victory occurred in 2019, a split decision over Keith Thurman.

“Saturday night, it’s going to be a great fight,” Pacquiao said. ”It’s been a while that I’ve been out of the ring, but I’m still active and exercising all the time. I’m going to prove to everyone that I’m in great condition.

“I’ve been enjoying training camp like I did in the past, just like when I was 26 years old. The discipline is still the same. Even with my layoff, my passion is still there.”

Barrios, a 30-year-old from San Antonio, is a -275 favorite at BetMGM Sportsbook to spoil Pacquiao’s return. But he needs to bounce back from a split-decision draw on Nov. 15 against Abel Ramos that dropped his record to 29-2-1, 18 wins by knockout.

“Manny is one of a kind,” Barrios said. ”He’s not an easy style to copy in training camp. We’ve gotten a lot of different southpaw looks, so I’m feeling extremely comfortable.

“It feels amazing to be in this position. I poured everything into this sport since I was (a) kid, and now I get to walk the (Las Vegas) Strip with my family and see my name all over. It’s something that I’ve always dreamed of. Now it’s my job to show why I’m going to continue to be the champion.”

The build-up to this bout hasn’t come with the usual forced hatred that envelops many title fights. The combatants even chatted during the standard face-off pose at Wednesday’s news conference and then broke into laughter.

Hard to imagine that happening at a Gervonta Davis presser.

Barrios cautioned not to read too much into the mutual respect and admiration when it comes to what the action in the ring might look like, that each boxer would bring his all.

Pacquiao enters with a resume that includes 12 world championships in eight divisions as well as a 62-8-2 record with 39 KOs. He’s considerably older and gives away about seven inches in height to the 6-foot Barrios.

Pacman is back, but how back he truly is will be revealed Saturday night.

“I’ve been a challenger many times and it’s always the same feeling,” Pacquiao said. “I’m excited to take the belt. He’s a good fighter also, but our job is to entertain the fans. We’re going to give them a real fight.”

Joaquin Phoenix reflects on ‘horrible’ Letterman interview that the actor calls ‘one of the worst nights of my life’.

On Tuesday’s episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Phoenix talked about the famous 2009 interview in which he was interviewed by David Letterman while in character from his mockumentary, “I’m Still Here.”

The Letterman appearance went so badly that some wondered if Phoenix was having a breakdown, and it led to Phoenix apologizing later for the incident, which also ended up in his movie.

On Tuesday night, the star said that he originally did the pre-interview in character and “I realized that it was just a little silly, so I called them back and I said, ‘Listen, this is what I’m doing. I’m coming out here and I’m doing this whole thing.’”

“And I just want Dave to like, lacerate me. I just want it to be really dangerous,’” Phoenix said. “That was the kind of intention… I just always wanted to get this reaction and see how I would respond to that. So it was beneficial for no one to know, except when needed.”

The interview ended up being “horrible” he said.

“It was strange because in some ways, it was a success, and it was also just one of the worst nights of my life,” he added.

Colbert wondered if Letterman might be watching and Phoenix noted that if he was, he wanted to say “I’m sorry.”

“It was so uncomfortable,” the “Joker” star said. “I regret it. I’ll never do it again. I’m so sorry.”

Letterman retired from his show in 2015 and was replaced by Colbert. Phoenix is currently starring in the film “Eddington.”

Pete Davidson and Elsie Hewitt are expecting their first child. Pete Davidson is going to be a dad. His girlfriend, Elsie Hewitt, announced their baby news Wednesday on Instagram with an ultrasound preview.

The model and actor posted photos of herself and the “Saturday Night Live” alum with the caption: “welp now everyone knows we had sex.” She included a video of herself getting an ultrasound and an up-close sonogram image.

A rep for Davidson, 31, confirmed the news via email. It’s the first baby for both.

Davidson and Hewitt, 29, were first spotted out together in March, romping in the waves and making out in Palm Beach, Florida. Their relationship comes after Davidson’s 10-month stretch with actor Madelyn Cline ended last July.

Hewitt, who’s appeared in “Industry,” “Dave” and a Benny Blanco music video, had previously been linked to celebrities like Jason Sudeikis and Blanco. Davidson, who has several comedy specials in addition to his acting credits, has been known for his dating life, including high-profile relationships with Ariana Grande and Kim Kardashian.

Davidson, who has spoken of a rough childhood and lost his own father in the Sept. 11 attacks, has long wanted to be a dad, telling Kevin Hart on Hart’s talk show three years ago: “It’s gonna be so fun to dress up a little dude. I’m so excited for, like, that chapter.”

The Associated Press

Unreleased Beyoncé music stolen from her choreographer’s rental car during Cowboy Carter tour stop in Atlanta

#Sports: Carlos Alcaraz insisted his intense rivalry with Jannik Sinner will drive him to new heights after his reign as Wimbledon champion was shattered by the relentless Italian on Sunday. #News