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The first season finale of “Euphoria” left viewers buzzing about the fate of Rue, the series’ protagonist played by Zendaya in an Emmy-winning performance. Season 1’s final episode ended in ambiguous fashion after Rue relapsed and got thrown into a surreal musical fantasia that left some fans convinced the character was dead. The cast of the hit HBO series quickly shut down those theories (Rue is alive, rest assured), and now viewers will get to see the aftermath of Rue’s relapse in a special “Euphoria” Christmas episode airing in December....

Both studies — USC Annenberg Inclusion Initative’s “Inclusion in the Director’s Chair” report and the San Diego State Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film’s “Celluloid Ceiling” report — looked at the number of women who directed the top 100 films of the year. This year, just 10 women — Olivia Newman (“Where the Crawdads Sing”), Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Woman King”), Olivia Wilde (“Don’t Worry Darling”), Jessica M....

Comedy rules are made to be broken. If all laughter comes from some great psychological misdirect, then it follows that the funniest series are the ones that continue to take the unexpected routes. But sometimes a comedy is memorable because of the rules that it inadvertently puts in place. Some foundational TV series have endured not because they were ratings or cultural juggernauts in their time, but because their spiritual descendants dotted programming lineups years — maybe even decades — after their cameras stopped rolling....

DNEG, the London-based VFX and animation company behind “Dune,” “Tenet,” and “Stranger Things 4,” announced Tuesday it will launch a full-service VFX studio in Sydney with “Furiosa” as its flagship project. (It will serve as the film’s primary — but not only — effects house.) Its creative director will be Andrew Jackson, an Australian national who received an Oscar nomination for “Mad Max: Fury Road” and won an Oscar for “Tenet....

“They had spent over $30 million on a ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel pilot that was in production when I got there,” Greenblatt said in the new HBO book “Tinderbox” (via Insider). “And when I saw a cut of it in a few months after I arrived, I said to [HBO boss Casey Bloys], ‘This just doesn’t work and I don’t think it delivers on the promise of the original series.’ And he didn’t disagree, which actually was a relief....

“I was offered $35 million for one day’s work for an airline commercial, but I talked to Amal [Clooney, the human rights lawyer he married in 2014] about it and we decided it’s not worth it,” Clooney said. “It was [associated with] a country that, although it’s an ally, is questionable at times, and so I thought: ‘Well, if it takes a minute’s sleep away from me, it’s not worth it....

One person who is not concerned about the series? “Game of Thrones” author George R.R. Martin, who once again took to his blog this week to praise the spinoff. “I’ve now watched rough cuts of nine of the ten episodes, and I continue to be impressed,” Martin wrote. “I cannot speak to the SFX, many of which are not in yet, but the look of it is great, and the acting, the directing, and writing are first rate....