"Empire" co-creator Lee Daniels said Wednesday that he has felt pain, anger, sadness and frustration due to the ever-evolving Jussie Smollett "incident."

The showrunner, who immediately defended Smollett when the actor alleged being the victim of a possible hate crime in January, has kept relatively mum about the case's shocking developments.

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The domestic box office reached a record high in 2018, with $11.9 billion in tickets sold in the U.S. and Canada, up 7 percent from the previous year. But overseas, box-office receipts were less stellar, declining 1 percent to $29.2 billion, according to a new report.

The Motion Picture Assn. of America said Thursday in its newly released ...Read more

Winter, late 1945. Near the banks of the Elbe River, not far from ravaged, bombed-out Hamburg, a grieving Englishwoman and her German host, whose wife died in the war, stroll through a snow-blanketed forest that looks enchanted -- fastidiously gorgeous in the patented Ridley Scott manner. (Scott executive produced.)

They pause for a snowball ...Read more

At the end of a recent conversation regarding the new Motley Crue biopic "The Dirt," the band's drummer, Tommy Lee, paused to reflect on those halcyon days of the 1980s, when heavy metal ruled the Sunset Strip and his band was on top of the world.

"Today's so different. We got away with murder," he said.

Based on Motley Crue's 2001 best-...Read more

On screen, nothing dates faster than recent history. "The Hummingbird Project," a fictional yarn set in 2011 and 2012, concerns a pair of Wall Street traders who implement a plan to lay underground fiber optic cable halfway across America, thereby gaining a few milliseconds' advantage in stock information over their fierce competitor and former ...Read more

In film, the director holds the creative top spot.

But in television, that position is almost always held by a writer, aka the showrunner. A quick primer on how it works: Showrunners are the key decision-makers on a series, from casting to determining a season's narrative arc to hiring a writers room to help build out and script each episode.

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APOLLO 11. 3.5 stars. Todd Douglas Miller directs this documentary that looks at the first journey by people to the moon while demonstrating the unique power of reality to amaze. Adapted from previously unreleased film using the latest digital technology. Best seen in IMAX. 1 hr 33 G -- Gary Thompson

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY. 2.5 stars. Brian Singer ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- When Lindy West was first approached about turning her best-selling memoir, "Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman," into a TV series, she was skeptical.

"There's not a lot of plot in me screaming about body positivity, but there's a lot of character in there," says West. "A lot of purpose."

West is known for her lacerating wit and ...Read more

Jordan Peele's "Us" begins so spectacularly well, and sustains its game of doubles so cleverly for most of its two hours, it's an unusual sort of letdown when the story doesn't quite hang together and "deliver" the way Peele managed with his 2017 debut feature, "Get Out."

That movie sent people out of the theater with rattled nerves and a ...Read more

DETROIT -- Lin-Manuel Miranda made a surprise visit Tuesday night to the room where it was happening in Detroit.

The "Hamilton" show's creator walked onstage during the show's curtain call at the Fisher Theatre to huge cheers and a standing ovation from the stunned audience.

Miranda made his appearance just as cast members were encouraging ...Read more