Hollywood top news: Russell Brand’s trial begins, Netflix announces layoffs, Paul Bettany on AI | Hollywood News

Brand, 51, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The charges involve six women and alleged offenses between 1999 and 2009.

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones told jurors at Southwark Crown Court in London that the six women, who don’t know each other, were assaulted by Brand in “a hotel room, workplaces, a toilet cubicle in a bar and at his home address.”She said Brand at the time had an “indiscriminate and voracious” desire for sexual contact, and “women were simply a means to an end.”

Russell Brand has arrived at court for the start of his rape and sexual assault trial. https://t.co/D4e9wJFZBx

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) October 12, 2026

The prosecutor said Brand could be funny and charming, “a flirt with a huge sexual appetite — childlike in his expectation that his every desire should be met.”

“He was ruthless, he was calculating, he was manipulative. And, the prosecution say, he was a sexual predator,” Karmy-Jones said.

The jury will hear from Brand’s accusers later in the trialBrand listened intently from the dock as the prosecutor described each of the alleged incidents, including the earliest, in which Brand allegedly raped a woman in a hotel room during the Labour Party’s annual conference in 1999. Brand, then a rising stand-up comedian, was performing in a cabaret on the fringe of the conference in the English coastal town of Bournemouth.

Two years later, another woman alleges, Brand tried to drag her into the men’s bathroom at the office building where she worked.“There can be little doubt as to what Mr. Brand’s intention was,” Karmy-Jones said.A third woman alleges that Brand orally raped her in 2004 in the restroom of a London bar, telling her “Don’t be a spoilsport” when she asked him to stop.

The prosecutor said the other complainants include a woman who says Brand kissed and groped her at a London radio station in 2004 or 2005, leaving her feeling “dirty and disgusting”; and a then-21-year-old fan who says Brand anally raped her at his home after she met him at one of his shows in 2009. She said the following year she exchanged text messages with Brand, telling him: “You treated me like an animal.” He replied: “I’m sorry.”

The final complainant says Brand demanded a massage and pressed his face into her groin during the recording of an advertisement in 2009.

Karmy-Jones told the jury that none of the alleged victims reported the alleged assaults at the time, due to guilt, shame and concern that they would be blamed. They individually went to police after a 2023 television program broadcast anonymous claims against Brand, she said.

The prosecutor said that jurors would hear from the women later in the trial, and “I have no doubt you will find their evidence compelling.”The first witness to give evidence was Mark Pinheiro, a former friend of Brand who accompanied him on the 1999 trip to Bournemouth. He said that the day after the alleged rape, Brand made them leave town abruptly and seemed “incredibly alert and incredibly afraid.”

“Whenever a police siren passed the car, Russell would cower down behind the side window so he couldn’t be seen,” Pinheiro said.

Brand’s lawyer, Ian Winter, questioned Pinheiro’s recollection of events more than a quarter century ago.

Brand denies all the charges. In police interviews, he denied ever engaging in nonconsensual sexual activity. The trial is expected to last up to 10 weeks.

Brand has shifted away from mainstream media to an online audience

Brand is on bail and arrived at court on Wednesday to a crowd of photographers and video journalists. He said he felt “blessed.”“I feel, of course, concerned but hopeful that this process will lead to good outcomes for everybody involved,” Brand said. “That’s my prayer.”Known for risque stand-up routines and battles with drugs and alcohol, Brand rose to prominence in the early 2000s, hosting television programs and his own BBC radio show. He appeared in Hollywood films including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek” and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry.

In recent years he has moved away from mainstream media, relocated to Florida and built a large online following with videos mixing wellness, conspiracy theories and discussions of his religious devotion.

Netflix is laying off 6 per cent of its workforce

Netflix plans to lay off about 6per cent of its workforce, amounting to nearly 1,000 positions, as the streaming giant makes wider “organisational changes.” Co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos announced the job cuts in a memo to employees Wednesday. They said the company’s product, tech, legal and human resources teams would be the most impacted.

“Decisions like these are never easy, and we don’t take them lightly,” Peters and Sarandos wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The Associated Press. They maintained business was strong — but that Netflix needed to be “disciplined about where we prioritise our people and resources” as it invests in future growth and “high impact areas to improve our service.” Beyond the memo from its chief executives, Netflix declined to comment further about Wednesday’s cuts.

Between membership signups and price increases, Netflix’s profit has grown this year. In its second financial quarter, the company earned USD 3.4 billion and racked up revenue of USD 12.56 billion — up 9 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively, from the same period last year.

Still, Netflix’s forecast for the third quarter fell below Wall Street’s expectations. The company plans to report those earnings next week.

The Netflix layoffs were announced Wednesday.

Competition in the streaming space is growing more crowded overall. Netflix continues to be a dominant player (accounting for 19 per cent of the market per the latest data from streaming guide JustWatch), but rivals like Amazon’s Prime Video and Disney+ are close behind.

HBO Max and Paramount+ are also now under the same roof — Skydance — after Paramount’s USD 81 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery closed last week. The new Hollywood giant plans to unify its streaming products “into a single service over time.” Netflix initially inked a deal to buy Warner’s studio and streaming business late last year, but walked away from that offer back in February.

At the end of 2025, per regulatory filings, Netflix had about 16,000 full-time employees worldwide. The layoffs announced Wednesday mark the biggest round of cuts the California-based company has rolled out in years.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Wednesday’s news of the layoffs.

There are two versions of future and they’re both dystopian: Paul Bettany

Hollywood star Paul Bettany voiced the character of an AI assistant at a time when the technology was still largely the stuff of fantasy, as shared by PTI. With the world now increasingly embracing it, the British actor says he feels “trepidatious” about the strides artificial intelligence has made.

For Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans, Bettany was the voice of J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony Stark’s AI assistant, in 2008’s “Iron Man” and it was a role that he continued voicing in subsequent films that featured the billionaire superhero character, famously played by Robert Downey Jr.

He then made his on-screen debut as Vision, an android superhero created using J.A.R.V.I.S’s consciousness, in “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015). He now reprises the part in the latest series “VisionQuest”.

So, what does he make of the AI advancements today? “I think like everybody, I’m slightly trepidatious about AI. I think there’s a race to get to super intelligence. And that’s frightening,” Bettany told PTI in a virtual interview.

“That’s a really big unknown. And it seems to me that there are two versions of the future. And they’re both pretty dystopian at the moment, which is the subjugation of human beings and loss of agency. And the other is a massive underclass of people who don’t know how to use AI in a way that makes you super powered,” he added.

Bettany advocated for a version “that is more democratised and offers that superpower to everybody”.

Paul Bettany as Vision in WandaVision series. (Photo: wandavision/Twitter)

“Because my son knows how to use AI in a way that makes him super powered. But I don’t,” he added.

His VisionQuest co-star Ruaridh Mollica said it all depends on who is behind the technology.

“You know, I think if someone’s got the good intentions of humanity and people behind it, then it will go that way. And if someone doesn’t, it will go the (other) way,” Mollica, who has a degree in computer science, said.

VisionQuest, which started streaming on JioHotstar on Tuesday, is the concluding instalment of a trilogy that began with “WandaVision” and continued with “Agatha All Along” (2024).

The new series follows Vision as he goes into hiding and searches for a new purpose, consulting artificial intelligence programmes embedded in his system, including J.A.R.V.I.S., F.R.I.D.A.Y. and E.D.I.T.H., as well as the villainous Ultron, voiced by James Spader.

The eight-episode series, created for television by Terry Matalas, features Mollica as Thomas Shepherd, a mysterious young man who may be connected to Vision’s family The character of Vision, though a specialized artificial humanoid, was shown to be a reasonable machine with the quality of empathy for humanity and seeing grace in their failings.

Asked whether he believes AI will be as empathetic as Vision in future, Bettany said he has no idea, which also makes him anxious.

“I think that human beings are just very inefficient. And it’s one of the things that is great about them. Art is inefficient. Children don’t become useful until they’re older. There’s years where they’re inefficient.

“And that worries me because inefficiency seems to be the thing that AI would want to get rid of. But also, I want to say just a clarifying thing, which is that we’re just stupid actors that really shouldn’t be answering (these) questions. I dress up as other people for a living. I’m not talented enough to make the clothes that I wear in the films,” he quipped.

Mollica said if there is one thing that he would want people to learn from the show, it would be “the importance of what it means to be human”.

VisionQuest, which is available for streaming in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, also features Todd Stashwick, T’Nia Miller, Lauren Morais, Orla Brady, Diane Morgan, Polly Frame, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, Emily Hampshire, and James D’Arcy.

Scarlett Johansson reveals why she shares “great chemistry” with Sam Rockwell

The actors, who previously worked together in Iron Man 2 and Jojo Rabbit, reunite for Brad Bird’s animated Netflix film Ray Gunn, releasing in select theatres on December 4 and on Netflix on December 18, as shared by ANI.

Scarlett Johansson has praised her long-standing professional and personal rapport with Sam Rockwell, saying their friendship and mutual admiration have helped them develop great chemistry across three films, including their upcoming animated feature Ray Gunn.

Speaking to People magazine at the London Film Festival premiere of Ray Gunn on October 10, Johansson discussed her experience working with Rockwell, with whom she previously shared the screen in Iron Man 2 (2010) and Jojo Rabbit (2019).

The upcoming film marks their third collaboration, with both actors lending their voices to the Netflix animated project.

Scarlett Johansson has praised her long-standing professional and personal rapport with Sam Rockwell.

“Oh, I love Sam. I mean, he’s one of my favourite actors, period,” Johansson said on the red carpet, adding, “And so when I get to work with him, it brings me a lot of happiness because I just get to work opposite somebody that I humongously admire, and I’ve known him for a long time, and I feel like he could do anything.” Johansson also explained why their working relationship translates into strong onscreen chemistry.

“I think we have great chemistry because we’re friends, and you both admire one another. So it’s a pleasure,” she said, adding, “We’ve been all over, like, decades, have done all different kinds of stuff together. So I love that camaraderie.” Directed by Brad Bird, known for The Incredibles, Ray Gunn is set in an alternative reality styled after the 1930s.

Rockwell voices Raymond Gunn, a private investigator drawn into a case involving aliens, murder and a multimedia star named Venus Nova, voiced by Johansson.

The film also features the voices of Tom Waits, Bobby Cannavale, Michelle Rodriguez, Alan Tudyk and Patton Oswalt, among others.

Johansson discussed the challenges of voice acting, explaining that performers have to convey emotion and character without the physical expressions and movements that accompany live-action performances.

“You don’t have, obviously, the rest of your physical body,” she said, as cited by People magazine.

She added that working together in the recording process can bring an additional dimension to their performances.

“When we were together and working through stuff, I think you get something out of the performance that you don’t necessarily get when either one of us is just laying down the vocal without the other person there because you get the chemistry and it’s messy and stuff like that,” she said.

Johansson also highlighted Bird’s approach to animation, noting that the filmmaker embraces the imperfections that can make a performance feel authentic.

“And I think for Brad, it’s fun,” she continued, adding, is a fun challenge because he’s animating something that is messy a little bit. It’s not perfect, and he loves that. Both actors are also part of other high-profile films scheduled for release this autumn.

Johansson stars alongside Miles Teller and Adam Driver in ‘Paper Tiger’, which is set to release in theatres on November 13. Rockwell, meanwhile, reunites with writer-director Martin McDonagh for ‘Wild Horse Nine’, scheduled to release on November 6.

Ray Gunn will arrive in select theatres on December 4 before beginning its Netflix streaming release on December 18.

The X-Files returns! Ryan Coogler’s reboot to feature new FBI agents

Filmmaker Ryan Coogler’s X-Files reboot is all set to get started, as reported by ANI. A reimagining of the 1990s sci-fi drama, the show will feature Danielle Deadwyler and Hinesh Patel as “two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents who form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena,” as per the official synopsis, Variety reported.

According to a source, Deadwyler and Patel will be seen in new characters instead of iterations of Gillian Anderson’s Dana Scully and David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder.

The show, which was picked up by Hulu in February, has been written, directed, and executive produced by Ryan Coogler. The Oscar-winning filmmaker will also serve as executive producer of the series alongside showrunner Jennifer Yale.

“I’ve loved The X-Files for a long time, so getting the chance to write and direct the pilot has meant a great deal to me. What Chris Carter created is special, and we wanted to honour everything that made the original series connect with so many people while also finding our own way into that world. Danielle and Himesh, along with the rest of our cast, have brought such original perspectives and performances to these characters, and watching that come together has been one of the most rewarding parts of the experience,” Coogler said, as quoted by Variety.

The upcoming X-Files is produced by Proximity Media, which Coogler co-founded with Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian, as well as 20th Television.

The original X-Files ran for 11 seasons in total on Fox, earning 61 Emmy nominations and 15 wins. It went on to become a sci-fi touchstone with vast influence on television and pop culture.