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ESPN Co-Founder Bill Rasmussen Dead At 93

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Bill Rasmussen, a visionary who founded ESPN in 1979 with his son Scott as the world’s first 24-hour sports television network, died Tuesday at 93 of the effects of Parkinson’s disease at his home in Florida.

Rasmussen revealed in 2019 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, a degenerative disease, in 2014.

Shrugging off skeptics, the pioneering Rasmussen – after being fired as communications director of the New England Whalers — acquired space on a communications satellite using a personal credit card. He went door to door to all the major sports leagues, cable operators and potential investors, garnering enough support to launch the Entertainment and Sports Programming network on September 7, 1979. He was the network’s first CEO.

“Bill was a remarkable man — a visionary and an innovator who conceived the idea of a network entirely devoted to sports,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement today. “Quite simply, none of us would be here today if it wasn’t for Bill’s passion and all the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit he put into building ESPN in the late 1970s — key aspects of our company culture that still carry on to this day.”

The Rasmussens secured early financial backing from Getty Oil and a rights deal with the NCAA. The studio in Bristol, CT, was still under construction when ESPN went on the air, the AP reported. Sports commentator George Grande welcomed viewers to the first SportsCenter broadcast before the network’s first live event, a slow-pitch softball game between the Kentucky Bourbons and the Milwaukee Schlitz.

Father and son stayed only a year at the network they founded, which was 85% owned by Getty Oil. Texaco, which acquired Getty, sold the stake to ABC in 1984.

In 1999, network executives reconnected, inviting Rasmussen to the network’s 20th anniversary festivities.

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Naomi Watts to Receive Zurich Fest Golden Eye Award

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The Zurich Film Festival (ZFF) will honor two-time Oscar nominee Naomi Watts this year with a Golden Eye Award for her performance in Ben Shirinian’s The Housewife.

In the ’60s-set drama, based on a true-story, a young New York Times journalist, played by Tye Sheridan, tracks down a man he suspects of being a Nazi officer living secretly in Queens (Luke Evans). But when the reporter befriends the suspect’s elegant and enigmatic wife (Watts), the implications of his investigation become much more unsettling.

The Housewife will have its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival before heading to Zurich. Watts will accept her Golden Eye honor in person in Zurich on Sept. 26 and take part in a ZFF masterclass.

“Since her breakthrough in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, Naomi Watts has been one of the most fascinating actresses of our time,” said Zurich Festival CEO Christian Jungen, announcing the honor on Thursday. “Her greatest performances thrive on the tension between glamour and darkness, between what a character reveals and what she conceals — making her the kind of character actress Hitchcock would have loved.”

In The Housewife, said Jungen, Watts “masters this ambiguity as an elegant and mysterious woman [and] delivers one of the most compelling performances of her career.”

Watts is a two-time Academy Award nominee, nominated for best actress in 2004 for her turn as a grieving mother in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams; and in 2013 for her role as a survivor of the 2004 tsunami in J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible. On the small screen, her performance as Baby Paley in the second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud earned her an Emmy nomination for best actress in a limited/anthology series or TV movie.

Previous winners of Zurich’s Golden Eye Award include Kristen Stewart, Jude Law, Benedict Cumberbatch and Dakota Johnson. The 2026 Zurich Film Festival runs Sept. 24 – Oct. 4.

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Hayden Panettiere’s ‘Heroes’ Co-Star Jack Coleman Pays Tribute

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As Hollywood and fans mourn the death of Hayden Panettiere, her Heroes onscreen dad is recalling the late actress’ talent and heart.

Jack Coleman, who starred as Claire’s (Panettiere) father Noah Bennett on the NBC superhero drama, remembered Panettiere as a “prodigious talent” and “extraordinary young woman” in a heartfelt statement after her death at age 36.

“I’m heartbroken. I couldn’t begin to put my thoughts into words until now, and they will be inadequate,” he began on Instagram. “I’ve loved Hayden since day one of the pilot of Heroes, 20 years ago, when she introduced herself by shouting ‘daddy’ and throwing her arms around me. From that day on, she called me daddio. She was Haydini, because she was a magician.”

Coleman continued, “She was a prodigious talent. During an early scene, a tear rolled down her cheek on the same line, take after take. I marveled at her technique. ‘It’s not technique,’ she corrected me. ‘I’m not a trained seal. I feel it and the tears just happen to come at that moment.’ She was 16.”

The actor took aim at the members of the press who “routinely asked obnoxious questions, mostly some version of ‘when are you going to go off the rails?’ Today, we’d recognize those questions for the misogynistic provocations they were.”

“She was hunted,” he recalled. “Everywhere she went, there were photographers with 300 millimeter lenses—the kind that can make even the most innocent activity look sinister. Once, when she came to our house, paparazzi hid in the bushes behind our yard and drove onto neighbors’ lawns. They were predatory. No one, especially a teenager, should be targeted that way.”

Coleman starred alongside Panettiere for the show’s four-season run from 2006 to 2010, during which she played a high school cheerleader who has regenerative powers. Unbeknownst to Claire, her father Noah works for a secret agency that wants to terminated people with special abilities.

“She brought joy to the set and a photographic memory,” Coleman continued. “Everyone was in awe of her ability to bring it every take. A tiny colossus who loved to laugh. We laughed a lot. That shining face, that megawatt smile, that wasn’t just for the camera. That was her. She glowed.

“Today I’m filled with sorrow and regret. And anger. But that’s for another time. Right now I want to remember an extraordinary young woman who was blessed and cursed. She was vulnerable. She felt everything. It made her a remarkable actor and susceptible to the heartache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”

Coleman added, “I love you, Hayden. I’ll miss you. I’m so sorry you suffered. I’ll remember how happy you were on set and on the European press tour; how you championed Tess when she was being bullied; your commitment to animal welfare and the courage to put yourself in harm’s way to protect them. I only wish you had been given that same protection. Good night, sweet girl. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

On Monday, Panettiere’s rep confirmed the actress’ death to Deadline, as police in Greenville, South Carolina initially announced that no foul play was suspected.

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‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Box Office Set to Beat ‘Insidious’ Sequel

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Spider-Man: Brand New Day looks to continue its indefatigable run at the box office against such new challengers as horror sequel Insidious: Out of the Further and the Jason Statham-led Mutiny.

Sony Pictures releases Insidious: Out of the Further in roughly 3,000 North American theaters on Friday, with the studio projecting an opening weekend around $23 million. Hailing from Screen Gems, Stage 6 Films and Blumhouse Atomic Monster, Out of the Further is the sixth title in the franchise that kicked off with 2011’s Insidious and carries an $18 million production budget.

Amelia Eve, Brandon Perea and Lin Shaye star in writer-director Jacob Chase’s film that centers on a young mother who can bring spirits back with her to the real world. Out of the Further follows 2023’s Insidious: The Red Door, which saw the return of original series stars Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne and opened to $33 million domestically before hitting a global total of $189 million for its run.

Insidious: Out of the Further holds a 65 percent approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, critic Frank Scheck wrote that the film “proves routine in its elaborate plot machinations that remind you how tiresome a place the Further can be.”

Jason Statham as Cole Reed in Mutiny.

Dan Smith/Lionsgate

Opening in roughly 2,700 North American locations is Mutiny, starring Jason Statham as a former Marine who sets out to prove his innocence after he is framed for murder. Lionsgate releases the movie that is tracking to open in the high single-digit range and carries a $40 million production budget. MadRiver Pictures and Punch Palace Productions produced the project.

Jean-François Richet helmed the feature that holds a 49 percent approval score from reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes. Statham’s recent films include Shelter, which opened to $5.5 million domestically earlier this year, while 2025’s A Working Man launched with an initial weekend of $15.5 million in North America. Next year sees the star leading The Beekeeper 2.

Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Jay Maidment/Sony Pictures

Other new theatrical offerings this weekend include the Andrew Garfield-led The Magic Faraway Tree and Spa Weekend, starring Isla Fisher, Leslie Mann and Anna Faris.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day continues its historic run into the waning days of summer, as the Sony Pictures juggernaut that stars Tom Holland and Zendaya is set to lead the box office for its fourth consecutive weekend. Having recently set the record as the fastest movie to hit $800 million domestically, director Destin Daniel Cretton‘s feature is expected to surpass 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home as the No. 3 highest-grossing title ever in North America.

The success of Brand New Day — along with other titles like The Odyssey and Toy Story 5 — has helped bring the 2026 summer box office to a total of $4.24 billion domestically as of Sunday, according to Rentrak, putting the season 23.7 percent above last year’s tally to that point. The all-time summer mark remains 2013’s $4.75 billion.

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