Too soon, too tasteless or just too cruel, take your pick, but Bill Maher‘s two Ariana Grande weight jokes during his opening monologue on Friday’s Real Time With Bill Maher were met with mixed audience reactions.

Maher sidled up to the subject by recapping some of the bad news of the week, then saying, “I hope the aliens are here, I do. I hope they’re here and watching us and they’re going to save us.”

So far, so good.

Then:

“And, by the way, the administration this week, just a few days ago, maybe yesterday, unleashed a new trove of UFO files. Interesting things in there. Triangular craft, weird lights over an army base, a stick-like figure with large eyes – oh, that was just an Ariana Grande video.”

The Real Time audience took that one in stride, giving it a good laugh and applause, but then Maher pushed his luck.

Doing his usual butter-wouldn’t-melt bit, the host continued, “Please, we kid. We kid. Maybe that joke will make her eat something.”

That last jab – misguided from a treatment standpoint if nothing else – was a step too far for the audience, who responded with groans and awwws. “I’m saying, maybe it will help,” Maher continued before quickly segueing to another food topic: “Democrats,” he said, “have found a candidate who hates Thanksgiving.”

Grande recently announced that she was dropping plans to appear in a West End revival of the musical Sunday in the Park with George alongside Jonathan Bailey. Despite widespread concern and commentary over her appearance in the new music video “Petal,” the singer has not specified a reason for her temporary career break beyond noting that “boundaries, they need to be set. Human beings can need a break sometimes.”

Watch the Maher segment below.

It would be tragically reductive to label Jane Schoenbrun’s “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” as a simple slasher movie, but the sapphic summer camp homage makes no attempt to hide its love for them. The film is centered around a reboot of a tired horror franchise with myriad sequels that line video store shelves, taking clear inspiration from the likes of “Friday the 13th” and its competitors. Schoenbrun shows a genuine affection not just for the films themselves, but for the quantity-based approach to filmmaking that can leave young cinephiles with dozens of sequels of varying quality to explore and debate.

The film’s release prompted us to check in on the health of the real franchises that inspired it. It can be daunting to keep track of the endless reboots, mythology resets, rights debacles, and crossovers, and you’d be forgiven for simply waiting for another movie to come out before you resume caring about any of these series. If you need a refresher, keep reading for our health status update on five of horror’s biggest slasher properties.

“Friday the 13th”

Last Entry: “Friday the 13th,” Marcus Nispel’s 2009 reboot attempt that ignored prior continuity in favor of a sleek, modern aesthetic. One of the more competent entries in the franchise, even if it’s not particularly memorable and did not lead to any sequels.

Next Up: The franchise is heading to television with “Crystal Lake,” an A24-produced prequel series from showrunner Brad Caleb Kane that streams on Peacock this October.

Status: It’s remarkable that we haven’t seen a new “Friday the 13th” movie since 2009, given that the last film was technically the 12th entry in the series. “Friday the 13th 13” feels like the ultimate marketing no-brainer, but none of the franchise’s many rights holders have been able to get a new film off the ground in the past 17 years. The rights to future “Friday the 13th” movies originally lied with Warner Bros., who famously traded then to Paramount as part of the deal to make “Interstellar.” They reverted back to Warner Bros. in 2018, but lawsuits regarding ownership of the characters has continued to stall new films. (“Friday the 13th” presents a particularly tricky legal situation because its main villain did not truly materialize until the third film, prompting debates about how much ownership the team behind the first film deserves.) Everyone from Brian Fuller to LeBron James has flirted with the property over the past decade, but its big screen future continues to be murky. But there are worse ways to relaunch a franchise than an A24-backed series that’s premiering at TIFF, so it’s possible that “Crystal Lake” paves the way for more films in the near future.

“Halloween”

Last Entry: “Halloween Ends” (2022), the epic conclusion to David Gordon Green’s rebooted trilogy that began with 2018’s “Halloween.”

Next Up: No films have been announced, but Miramax has been developing an untitled “Halloween” TV series since 2023.

Status: It feels safe to say that “Halloween” did not end with “Halloween Ends.” The franchise has been one of Hollywood’s most durable horror properties since debuting in 2018, supporting 13 films across multiple continuity timelines thanks to its elastic name, ambiguously defined villain, and iconic soundtrack. Green’s trilogy famously ignored everything that happened after the first “Halloween,” leading to a definitive conclusion that tied up Jamie Lee Curtis’ arc as Laurie Strode. Blumhouse lost the rights to the franchise after “Halloween Ends,” so the next creative team will be starting from scratch. Given Curtis’ apparent satisfaction with how her story ended, it seems like a page-one reboot is in order whenever this franchise returns.

“A Nightmare on Elm Street”

Last Entry: “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” a 2010 reboot from Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer that turned a solid profit despite negative reviews.

Next Up: Nothing has been officially announced, though recent reporting from Puck indicates that Warner Bros. and Paramount are each developing separate reboot films.

Status: The problem with “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is how distinct the original films felt. No franchise on this list is more indebted to a single auteur (Wes Craven) and a single actor (Robert Englund), who turned the saga of Freddy Krueger into something uniquely horrifying. While the original “Nightmare” spawned plenty of sequels without Craven’s involvement, it was always Englund playing the iconic dream killer. And unlike the other killers on this list, he doesn’t hide behind a mask. With Englund now 79 years old, rebooting the franchise will be a challenge that requires some real creativity. It can be done, but you can’t just slap an interchangeable actor behind a mask. There’s little doubt that Hollywood will make a new “Nightmare” eventually, but this franchise hasn’t yet proven its ability to thrive without its original figureheads.

“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”

Last Entry: 2022’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” a Netflix film that lampooned the seriousness of other recent slasher reboots to mixed reviews.

Next Up: An untitled, A24-backed reboot written and directed by Curry Barker.

Status: “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” has the lowest floor and the highest ceiling of any slasher franchise. Tobe Hooper’s original film is arguably the best artistic achievement that the genre has ever seen, boasting an unflinching portrayal of brutality that holds up to this day. But even with an iconic villain like Leatherface at their disposal, the sequels never captured the magic of the original or the campy creativity of some of the late period “Friday the 13th” or “Nightmare on Elm Street” sequels.

But as of 2026, no franchise has a brighter future. Enlisting Curry Barker to reboot the franchise should give the series its biggest boost of attention in decades. Given the brutality on display at the end of “Obsession,” he was a great fit on paper before his film became a box office juggernaut. Now that he’s also Hollywood’s hottest horror director, there’s every reason to believe his film will bring Leatherface back to the center of the zeitgeist. The only thing A24 has to worry about is Barker dropping out due to the bigger offers he’s likely getting now. But if that doesn’t happen, it feels like a surefire hit.

“Scream”

Last Entry: “Scream 7,” which grossed over $200 million worldwide on a $45 million budget this year.

Next Up: Paramount is developing “Scream 8” with screenwriters Lilla and Nora Zuckerman, though no release date has been announced.

Status: Despite all the turmoil in the lead-up to “Scream 7” — Melissa Barrera’s controversial dismissal, Jenna Ortega’s abrupt exit, Neve Campbell’s public negotiations, and threats of boycotts — “Scream” is undeniably the slasher franchise in the stablest condition. The latest film broke box office records for the franchise, and the current continuity appears to be connecting with fans. Even as actors and directors cycle in and out of the franchise, there’s no reason to believe “Scream” movies will stop or be rebooted anytime soon.

CNN‘s Sara Sidner, who first revealed a stage 3 breast cancer diagnoses two years ago and has occasionally provided updates with her audience since, is now sharing a harrowing experience that had the anchor struggling through “15 days of torture” under the mistaken notion that her cancer had advanced to an incurable stage 4.

Directly addressing viewers during her CNN News Central segment Friday, a somber Sidner began, “I want to share this update with you, about me. During these past few weeks i thought that cancer had spread all over my body.” She then went on to describe how a recent PET scan “lit up like a Christmas tree.”

“It indicated I was likely metastatic,” she continued. “Stage 4 cancer, incurable. It appeared to have spread to my hip, my spine, my liver, my lungs. I was inconsolable at the time. I immediately, as one does, looked up how long do I have to live. The number came back: Less than five years. That is the median overall survival time for stage 4 breast cancer.”

Sidner was, understandably, gobsmacked. “It knocked the breath out of me, as you might imagine,” she said. “Then I cried. My husband cried with me. My mother was stunned and scared, but surprisingly hopeful, bless her.”

The PET scan was followed by a biopsy in which doctors, Sidner said, “stick needles in a few areas to try to get a sample of your body to test it. Fifteen days of torture later, waiting for results, they came back.”

She received the good news – the biopsy results were negative – via email while she was in the CNN studio.

“Like a moth to a flame,” she said, “I had to open it. ‘Negative,’ it said. I uncharacteristically grabbed [co-anchor] John Berman’s hand in the cubby hole where we work side by side. ‘Negative,’ I croaked. A lump of tears was in my throat.”

Sidner said that her doctor explained that “biopsy beats scan” in diagnosing cancer. “I had a deep, guttural sigh of relief,” she said, adding that a molecular cancer blood test confirmed the negative result.

Sidner also shared the advice given to her by co-anchor Berman after she told him the good news. Saying she shouldn’t “do what you always do, which is to look for the next worst thing that’s gonna happen down the road,” Berman told Sidner: “Just celebrate the win.”