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This Week's Headlines:

• Timothee Chalamet is hoping that the third time is the charm, as he became the youngest actor (at age 30) to receive three Best Actor Oscar nominations. His performance as the title character in Marty Supreme earned Chalamet that third nomination, and he is widely considered the favorite to win the Academy Award. Chalamet has already won a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award for his performance. Marty Supreme earned nine total Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. 

• The recent box office success of Avatar: Fire and Ash has vaulted Zoe Saldana into first place as the highest-grossing actor of all time, based on total box office receipts. As with other recent title holders like Scarlett Johansson, Saldana's placement at the top of the list isn't so much a sign of her strength as a box office draw as a matter of being in the right place at the right time. She has appeared in three  Avatar films, five Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, and three Star Trek films, all of which have grossed over $1 billion apiece at the box office. Saldana is also the first actress to appear in four movies that have grossed $2 billion or more at the box office.

• The battle for control of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has spilled over from the boardroom to the courtroom as Paramount filed suit in Delaware state court asking the court to order WBD to release information that would allow WBD shareholders to make an informed decision on whether to accept Netflix's bid for the company. Paramount also intends to nominate a competing Board of Directors at the WBD annual meeting to be held in a few weeks. WBD has called the Paramount lawsuit meritless and a distraction from Paramount's failure to submit a Bbetter bid than the one the WBD Board rejected initially. Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit and shareholders meeting, regulatory approval of any accepted bid is likely to take 12-18 months. 

• Disney scored a big win in the courtroom, as a federal jury found the studio's popular 2016 animated film, Moana, did not infringe upon an earlier copyright. Screenwriter Buck Woodall claimed the Disney film infringed on his 2011 work, "Bucky the Wave Warrior." The jury deliberated for only three hours before finding in favor of Disney. The jury found that Disney did not have access to the earlier screenplay, an essential element in a copyright infringement case. Woodall has also filed a second lawsuit, alleging that Disney's 2024 sequel, Moana 2, also infringed on his copyright. That case is still pending.

• Playing archvillains in superhero movies can be a big career boost; just ask Michael B. Jordan or Willem Dafoe. Or Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender, who both benefited from playing different versions of Magneto. However, Jesse Eisenberg feels his portrayal of Lex Luthor in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice set back his career. The film did well at the box office but was critically panned, with Eisenberg earning a Worst Supporting Actor Razzy for his performance. Eisenberg said: "In the industry, if you’re in a huge, huge movie and not seen as good, the people who are choosing who to put next in their movie are just not gonna select you."  Eisenberg's career has recovered nicely, however; he's received critical acclaim as an actor and director for his latest project, A Real Pain. 

• Horror grows up as Blumhouse and Atomic Monster announced they are developing Soulm8te, an erotic thriller to be released in 2026. If the peculiar spelling of the title seems familiar, it should. This movie is the next installment in the M3GAN universe. A man grieving over his recently deceased wife acquires an AI android companion to help him cope with his loss. What could possibly go wrong? Kate Dolan will direct.

• Sam Raimi's topical #MeToo era action film, Send Help, led the box office this weekend with a $19.1 million total, while another newcomer, the video game with a cult following adaptation, Iron Lung, finished second at $17.8 million. The much ballyhooed and equally as much derided documentary, Melania, came in third at $7.2 million,