Tonight’s episode of Hollywood After Dark was a ride — part heartfelt tribute, part industry breakdown, part fandom intervention. We kicked things off remembering Robin Williams, marking eleven years since we lost one of the most brilliant comedic minds to ever hit a stage or screen. We talked about his battle with Lewy body dementia, how misunderstood his death was, and why his legacy still matters. And yes, I couldn’t help but imagine him somewhere in the afterlife pulling a Little Nicky-style gag, making Hitler sit on a pineapple. Because if anyone could turn cosmic justice into a punchline, it’s Robin.
From there, we jumped into James Cameron’s latest Terminator dilemma — the filmmaker says AI has gotten too real, making it hard to write a story that doesn’t feel like a documentary. We broke down why that’s ironic coming from the man who practically invented cinematic AI paranoia with Skynet, and why being on the board of Stability AI might be making him see too much of the nuts-and-bolts to find the mystery again. Cameron’s track record with sequels is still unmatched, but right now, he’s the old man yelling at the cloud he helped build.
We also talked about the resurgence of physical media. Blu-ray, DVD, 4K, even VHS — it’s all finding new life thanks to streaming’s unreliability. Tim Burton recently talked about the tactile joy of owning movies, and I couldn’t agree more. We dove into the Barnes & Noble and Arrow Video sales, the scalper problem with steelbooks, and why owning your films outright beats waking up to find they’ve vanished from your “digital library.”
Then came the big industry play from Warner Bros. Discovery — a 10-year plan for the Harry Potter TV reboot. Seven books stretched into a decade of television is already a risky creative gamble, but the real weight around its neck is J.K. Rowling’s involvement. She’s a producer and creative consultant, which means every press cycle is going to be as much about her political controversies as the show itself. We talked about how they might eventually distance the brand from her without tanking the show, and whether the expanded pacing could actually improve on what the movies left out.
And because it wouldn’t be Hollywood After Dark without a little Star Wars chaos, we took on the Ewan McGregor/Ahsoka Season 2 “confirmation” that wasn’t. One convention comment about enjoying watching his wife play Hera got twisted into “McGregor’s back as Obi-Wan!” — with zero sourcing. We fact-checked it, explained how this kind of fake news spreads, and why it sets fans up for disappointment when reality doesn’t match the hype.
Finally, we wrapped with John Boyega’s comments about what he wanted for Finn in the Star Wars sequels — a Force-sensitive arc that would eventually put him in direct conflict with Rey. We looked at how that could have been the Obi-Wan/Anakin rivalry of the new trilogy, why The Last Jedi derailed his momentum, and whether Lucasfilm could still bring that arc to life in future films.
From heartfelt tributes to industry irony to fandom’s self-inflicted wounds, this episode of Hollywood After Dark had it all. Robin Williams, James Cameron, Terminator, physical media, Harry Potter, Star Wars rumors, and Finn’s lost arc — six stories, one show, and a whole lot of unfiltered perspective.
Hollywood After Dark 