Here’s who won and lost this year in entertainment. Starring Zendaya, Will Smith, Katy Perry, ‘The Penguin’ and more.
This year’s Winners and Losers list might sting a bit — particularly for Hollywood progressives. You might not love some of these winners. You might not like us saying that certain names lost this year. It’s perhaps appropriate, with Donald Trump being reelected, that our annual rundown reads a bit like Revenge of the Canceled. But the people have spoken and here we are. The list below also features several talented actresses who had arguably their best year ever, bold creatives who took huge risks that flopped, two Gotham City villain projects with very different fates, a sci-fi franchise whose fandom lost hope, and more — including literal aliens. In such divisive times, take heart that there’s at least one thing all Americans can all feel pretty good about: Everybody finally stopped talking about NFTs this year.
WON: Zendaya and Other Former Child Stars
Four stars who got their start on Disney Channel/Nickelodeon are on quite a hot streak: Zendaya was the emotional core of the blockbuster Dune Part Two, and her sexy tennis drama Challengers managed to pull in $100 million globally (and earned the actress $10 million). Her beleaguered HBO hit Euphoria is back on track to shoot season three, and she’s been cast in Christopher Nolan’s top secret next movie (our sources say it’s something grandiose yet intellectual with a bombastic orchestral score). While a year ago, would you have guessed Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez would be contenders for Oscar nominations? Both have solid odds thanks to their stellar performances in Wicked and Emilia Pérez, respectively. Meanwhile, the Lindsay Lohan comeback is looking real, with the actress starring in a Netflix Christmas comedy Our Little Secret and the upcoming Freaky Friday sequel.
LOST: Kevin Costner, Francis Ford Coppola
People really appreciate a filmmaker who pursues a challenging passion project and takes a personal gamble to deliver a daring vision to theaters — except, of course, when their projects are cruddy. Coppola sold his wine company and bet more than $100 million to make a baffling film with a terrible title (Megalopolis), which only grossed $12 million globally. But at least Coppola only tried to make one movie, whereas Costner likewise ditched his day job — which happened to be the biggest drama on TV (Yellowstone) — to try and make make four movies (Horizon: An American Saga), two of which might never get made after the first grossed only $31 million in theaters.
Runner-up: Festival de Cannes. The French film fest increasingly looks like the best way for filmmakers to get a roaring 10-minute standing ovation only to see their movie ripped to shreds online. Hey filmmakers, the reviews are coming from inside the house.
Honorable Mention: Clint Eastwood. This legend is 94 years old and made what’s probably his last movie in Juror #2 — and critics and audiences agree that’s it’s really good; it ranks as his highest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes in three decades — and Warner Bros. wouldn’t even give his film a couple hundred theaters and some TV ads? Are they going to have security kick Eastwood off the studio lot with cardboard box in his hands too? The studio claims they secretly always meant the film to be for Max, as if that makes it better. It adds to Warner Bros.’ reputation that they pick out certain creatives to beat with tire irons. (Unless they’re J.K. Rowling, of course — they love her!).
WON: Joe Rogan and Podcast Disrupters
This is just facts: Joe Rogan seemed like a kingmaker this election cycle. His three-hour normalish-sounding podcast interview with Trump one week before the election became Apple’s most popular podcast episode of the year and YouTube’s most-watched election-related video. Their sit-down was even cited by some voters as they exited the polls as helping make their decision. Kamala Harris going on Rogan wouldn’t have saved her campaign, but her team’s decision to not make Rogan’s show a bigger priority now looks like a misstep. Rogan has bragged that his format is superior to traditional TV interviews during what feels like every podcast he’s conducted for the last decade (seriously, he repeats himself a lot). This year, he proved it.
Runner-Up: Alex Cooper. Cooper may have taken some shrapnel for her Harris sit-down but it boosted Call Her Daddy to a new level of mainstream relevance right after she signed a Sirius XM mega deal.
Honorable Mentions: Charlamagne tha God, Theo Von, Club Shay Shay and Ben Shapiro, and even Bill Maher snarked his way to renewed relevance.
LOST: The Joe Biden / Kamala Harris Cheer Squad
It’s not the fault of celebrities that Harris lost (though some think their endorsements might have backfired). But spending your fandom’s goodwill to go hard for a candidate who then loses is always a bit embarrassing, and the list of celebs that went all-in for Harris is long, particularly in the music industry — such as Beyoncé (more on her later!), Taylor Swift, Eminem, Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion and Charli XCX. The most unfair post-election barbs have been directed at George Clooney, whose infamous New York Times essay about Biden’s apparent cognitive struggles simply pointed out what was painfully obvious to everybody who wasn’t donor wrangler Jeffrey Katzenberg — who came across like he was propping up an inert Biden and waving the president’s arms for checks, Weekend at Bernie’s style.
Runners-up: Last Night Hosts. Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert. Not sure when late-night hosts became the self-appointed moral guardians of our republic, but there was a lot of self-righteousness on display in this trio’s pre-election episodes.
It was a great year for song-filled movies not about The Joker. Wicked, of course, but also: One Love, Moana 2 and even that Mean Girls reboot didn’t do shabby. All of which bodes well for upcoming projects (like the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Robbie Williams’ Better Man, the Michael Jackson biopic Michael and Wicked 2) and should grease the wheels for the many-many biopics in various stages of development and production (like Ridley Scott’s Bee Gees biopic and others based on Janis Joplin, Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springsteen). Like all genre trends, 2024’s movie musical success is a sign of permanent audience interest and fatigue will never set in.
WON: Everybody Involved With ‘The Penguin’
HBO needed another win this year between a stultifying season of House of the Dragon, the cancellation of Tokyo Vice and its dreary Dune magic nuns show. And DC needed a win because of nearly everything they’ve made in recent memory. The Penguin was supposed to be a limited series to hold The Batman fans over until The Batman Part II. Instead, the show scratched that post-Sopranos itch for HBO to return to the mob drama genre and cast a much wider audience net than anybody expected, becoming the streamer’s third-biggest first-season show ever. Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti gave Emmy-worthy performances and executive producer Matt Reeves will likely get a blank check to create more content for the IP-insatiable WBD empire.
LOST: Everybody Involved With ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’
Weirdly, The Penguin and The Joker tried the same thing — do Batman without Batman by focusing on an iconic villain, make him seem like a real person in a gritty urban hellscape, then add a strong female co-lead and some time in Arkham Asylum. While HBO’s flightless bird soared, Folie à Deux was so difficult to endure that one critic accused writer-director Todd Phillips of making the film “bad on purpose.” The movie’s budget was a baffling $200 million for a film that basically took place on two sets (and eventually grossed $200 million globally, which doesn’t come close to recouping the film’s cost), and even global superstar Lady Gaga couldn’t salvage things. The great Joaquin Phoenix didn’t help his reputation by also flaking on Todd Haynes’ untitled gay romance movie. And Warners largely escaped Joker 2 blame after some “but anybody would have greenlit this sequel!” stories (from us too). But even if Phillips had made Titanic, you don’t greenlight Titanic 2 as a steampunk martial arts movie set aboard a lifeboat (which still sounds more fun than watching Folie à Deux again).
Runners-up: Madame Web, Kraven the Hunter and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. Granted, Kraven doesn’t open for a week, but box office tracking has the film opening to only $17 million, so we’re comfortable going out on a limb on this.
Honorary Mention: Borderlands. The Eli Roth sci-fi action comedy cost at least $100 million and eventually grossed $33 million globally. The saddest part: At least people have heard of Madame Web.
WON: Chappell Roan and the Pop Girls of Summer
An incredible year for pop music thanks to releases by Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and Billie Eilish. Roan arguably delivered the most infectious album of the bunch — the happy-horny The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess — and had the most uplifting social media story to go along with it: Videos (like the one below) endlessly circulated of Roan going from busking her song “Pink Pony Club” to 50 people in a park in 2021 to performing it to a massive singalong crowds at Lollapalooza and ACL Fest. Last year’s THR Winners’ list topper Taylor Swift had a terrific Grammy-stuffed year too, despite The Tortured Poets Department feeling somewhat bloated. Swift remains the industry’s empress, yet it was refreshing to see a tiara on another H-O-T act.
LOST: Katy Perry
All aboard the pop girl summer party bus — not so fast, Katy Perry. Like a Kevin Costner of music, Perry quit her American Idol day job (though Idol is no longer landing Yellowstone numbers, to be sure) to launch a comeback album that some mused must have been made by AI. The album was titled 143 — which might as well have been its position on the Billboard chart for all the blowback she got (according to Luminate, the total album sales-and-streaming consumption of 143 was 100,000 compared to., for instance, Roan’s 2.2 million). Lead single “Woman’s World” was an extremely on-the-nose feminism anthem in every respect, except for that choice of Dr. Luke as producer. Look, this doesn’t feel great. We’re rooting for her “dance party tour” next year to be a success (as well as her next comeback album).
WON: Aliens!
At the box office, there was Alien: Romulus resurrecting the Alien franchise and A Quiet Place: Day One once again proving the star power of Lupita Nyong’o. On the small screen, there was Hulu’s hit No One Will Save You. And in the unscripted space, there were several documentaries about the UAP phenomena across various streamers (such as Netflix’s The Manhattan Alien Abduction, Investigation Alien, and MGM’s Beyond: Aliens and the Unknown). Yet the most riveting alien-inspired streaming content lately has been courtesy of Congress and their two bipartisan hearings (highlights from last year and this year) with former Pentagon officials and top military whistleblowers being questioned by the likes of AOC and Lauren Bobart. Apparently, it only takes the possibility of actual extraterrestrials coming to Earth to inspire a public display of bipartisan unity.
WON: FX
How will this literate and very specific cable TV brand fare after being swallowed up by the Disney empire? Just fine. FX chief John Landgraf’s big bet on Shogun paid off by winning a record 18 Emmys, Fargo returned to its best season in a few cycles, and The Bear remains a hit even if its pretentious third season played like a SNL parody of itself (which viewers saw right through with a plummeting Rotten Tomatoes audience score). Imagine what Landgraf could do with an Apple TV+ budget. Speaking of which….
LOST: Apple TV+/Apple Studios
You can’t buy a pizza these days without being offered three months of Apple TV+ as a free topping. Their ubiquitous subscription giveaway is like those inescapable Bed Bath and Beyond 20 percent off coupons of the 2000s. This year, Apple even started selling their streamer through Amazon’s Prime Video, which must sting their pride a little. Reportedly, Apple spent more than $20 billion since 2019 to build their original content library, yet average less than 1 percent of U.S. screen viewing. On the film side, Argyle and Fly Me to the Moon underperformed, and the star-studded Wolfs was yanked from theaters. On the TV side, did you even hear of The Big Door Prize? Kindred Spirits? Schmigadoon? Time Bandits (not the movie, the TV show)? Make or Break? Constellation? All were canceled, and you didn’t notice one of those shows wasn’t real (amazingly, it wasn’t Schmigadoon). The thing is, we love the idea of the world’s largest company throwing its pocket change to creatives to make lavish and literate content. We just wish their shows were a Schmigadoon better.
WON: Nicole Kidman and Actresses of a Certain Age
Kidman had an incredible year: A No. 1 Netflix show (Perfect Strangers), a best actress win at Venice Film Festival (Babygirl) and another season of Lioness. While a surprising number of other AARP-eligible actresses gave, in the eyes of many, the best performance of their career this year, such as — long list alert — Demi Moore (The Substance), Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl), Tilda Swinton (The Room Next Door), Amy Adams (Nightbitch), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths), June Squibb (Thelma), Julianne Moore (The Room Next Door) and Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez).
WON: Will Smith
It’s probably true that Trump could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and be forgiven by his supporters. But also: Will Smith can walk on stage during the Oscars and slap presenter Chris Rock hard across the face for telling a joke and still have his movie, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, make $400 million at the global box office. Plus, Smith started inking deals again for new projects and thrilled Coachella with a surprise performance of the Men In Black theme song. America and Hollywood — both such forgiving places! (Unless you’re Gina Carano, of course, who’s apparently a monster).
LOST: Cable TV
Admittedly, we could have put “Cable TV” on this list any of the last 10 years. But 2024 might have broken the model for good. Comcast announced plans to spin out its channels — including USA, MSNBC, CNBC and E! into a new vehicle. Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Disney all took massive write-downs on the value of their channels. And pay-TV providers saw their video subscribers fall even faster. It’s a sad state of affairs for something that was arguably once the greatest media business of all time. A particular slow clap for MSNBC, who — right in the middle of all this contraction — has been taking fire for their ever-vacillating fingers-to-the-wind Morning Joe hosts; Joe Scarborough is The Simpsons “I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords” meme come to life.
WON: Taylor Sheridan
Sheridan is starting to become the J.D. Salinger of showrunners — tucked away from the world on his massive Texas ranch and avoiding all press (his last major sit-down with a journalistic outfit was over a year ago with, well, with us). But he’s remained prolific as hell. Yellowstone returned huge despite the loss of Costner, proving once again a hit brand is bigger than any one piece of talent. Sheridan’s new drama Landman is getting strong reviews and ratings (even with the cringiest father-daughter content this side of PornHub). “Shut up and make stuff” seems to be Sheridan’s new strategy and given how many people he tends to upset when he speaks out, maybe that’s for the best.
Runner-up: Richard Gadd, whose Baby Reindeer blew up on Netflix, racked up Emmys, and snagged him a next project (even with a defamation suit).
WON: Skeezy Streaming Dating Shows
In the age of dating-app fatigue, viewer can’t get enough of hot young people falling in love, cheating, splitting up, and rinse and repeat. So perhaps it’s no surprise that Love Island USA and Love Is Blind all had their most-watched seasons this year. Nobody wants The Bachelor’s rose, they want #MyPerson — or at least a fun frolic in The Hideaway and a flood of new Instagram followers. An overhauled Love Island USA, in particular, came into its own for a sixth season that landed the series in the streaming Top 10 for the first time after producers finally realized Americans want their reality TV as filthy as the Brits.
LOST: Star Wars
Another Star Wars film pushed. Another Star Wars trilogy announced (does anybody think these announcements are real and not a money laundering scheme?). Another Star Wars series which flopped — this one $180 million and generated massive controversy and fan division (some of which was super toxic, but also: How many times can Disney blame their audience for not liking what they make?). The franchise’s new kids show, Skeleton Crew, is getting good reviews for its first two episodes, so that’s at least something. Part of the blowback against Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy is just people being jealous: Who doesn’t want to be able to have projects repeatedly stumble and still keep one of Hollywood’s top jobs? The rest of us can only dream of failing so successfully!
WON: Adam Silver and the NBA
There is only one sports entry on this list, promise. The NBA, led by commissioner Silver, secured 11-year media rights deals with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon for an eye-watering $76 billion. When the new deals kick in next year, the NBA will go from having 15 games on broadcast TV to 75, and every single national game will also be on streaming, which the league hopes will lure younger viewers who have no idea what “broadcast TV” even means.
LOST: BBC
There’s only one entry about a non-U.S. company on this list, promise: The BBC apologized for their handling of complaints about unseemly behavior by their presenter Huw Edwards. The BBC then apologized for an inaccurate story about Nigel Farage’s finances. And the BBC also apologized for Strictly Come Dancing contestants in general for abusive behavior on the set, and, months later, apologized specifically to contestant Amanda Abington. Still, unlike many U.S. news outlets, at least the British Blunder Concession network owns their shit.
