The WTF Moments That Shook Movie & TV Biz In 2025

And so we say au revoir to another year in showbiz. It’s rarely quiet, and there’s always something dominating the pixels of this website, so we endeavored to take a moment and reflect on some of the stories that have shaped 2025. From Karla Sofía Gascón’s car crash awards campaign, to the gawp-inducing resignation of the BBC’s top brass, and a new birth for James Bond, here’s a rundown of the WTF moments that shook the global film and TV industry.

January 

January 2025 will be remembered as the month that wildfires caused devastation in Hollywood, killing 31 people. It was a heartbreaking time for the town, and the fallout was felt far beyond Los Angeles. International stars, including Anthony Hopkins and Eugene Levy, were among the thousands who lost homes in the blaze. Hopkins spoke for many when he said: “The only thing we take with us is the love we give.”

In the same month, Karla Sofía Gascón’s bid for Oscar glory was dramatically derailed when the Emilia Pérez star’s ugly historical tweets about Muslims and George Floyd were uncovered. She was the front-runner for Best Actress and would have been the first openly trans person to clinch a golden statuette. In the end, she skipped the red carpet and was roasted by host Conan O’Brien. “YOU TWEETED WHAT?” he screamed — words that will have resonated with Netflix’s campaign team.

February

We were left shaken (and perhaps a little stirred) in February, when Amazon MGM Studios signaled a new era for James Bond. Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli relinquished control of the British super spy in a $1 billion deal with Jeff Bezos’ studio, paving the way for development to begin on Bond 26, four years on from Daniel Craig’s last tour of duty in No Time to Die. 

Amazon later announced that Denis Villeneuve would helm the new 007 movie, with David Heyman and Amy Pascal producing. No word yet on who will fill Craig’s shoes, but Villeneuve will begin the search for a fresh-faced Brit once he’s done with Dune: Part Three. As for Broccoli, our Baz Bamigboye revealed the loss of Bond was like a “death in the family.”

From a British hunk to a Spanish one: February was also the month for the “Montoya, por favor!” viral sensation on Spain’s version of Temptation Island. Contestant José Carlos Montoya hijacked our social media feeds as he made a desperate charge across a moonlit beach to confront his girlfriend as she slipped between the sheets with another man. It was a moment of pure cinema from one of the world’s top reality shows.

March

Adolescence went from low-key British original on Netflix to globe-straddling giant in March 2025. The story of a British teenager radicalized by the manosphere — told through the prism of four episodes all captured in one shot by a pioneer of the form, Philip Barantini — became Netflix’s second most-watched series of all time. It established Stephen Graham as one of the UK’s finest acting exports, burnished the credentials of prolific writer Jack Thorne, and birthed a breakout star in the shape of Owen Cooper. 

Adolescence went on to win eight Emmys and made its way into political conversation in the UK, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a deal with Netflix to stream the series for free in secondary schools. It also marked a peculiar bit of dissonance: while Adolescence was conquering Netflix, British drama producers were wringing their hands about a funding crisis on home soil. Despite Channel 4 accusing Netflix of “TV tourism,” Adolescence showed that, at its best, UK drama is both a commercial and creative force.

April

The White Lotus and Aimee Lou Wood’s teeth (thanks in part to a Saturday Night Live sketch slammed as “mean and unfunny” by the British actress) were the talk of the internet in April, but it was a slower-burning story that caught the eye. Two years after The Sunday Times published allegations that Russell Brand sexually assaulted four women at the height of his fame, the Forgetting Sarah Marshall star was charged with rape, indecent assault, and sexual assault by London’s Metropolitan Police. In December, the Met brought two fresh charges of rape and sexual assault against him.

Brand has reinvented himself as a Christian convert who evangelizes about free speech and free thinking in MAGA America, but he saved UK authorities a potential extradition headache by appearing in court in May. Brand pleaded not guilty and will face trial in June 2026. “I’m now gonna have the opportunity to defend these charges in court, and I’m incredibly grateful for that,” he told his followers.

Brand was not the only British actor to be charged with rape in 2025: Micheal Ward appeared in court over similar allegations. The Top Boy star, who was quickly dropped by UK agency Olivia Bell Management after the charges were announced, had not long returned from Cannes, where he was on the promotion trail for Ari Aster’s Eddington.

May

Donald Trump surprised the industry by revealing that he planned to slap 100% tariffs on film imports, describing overseas production as a “national security threat.” He would later say that luring Hollywood shoots away from the U.S. with tax breaks was like taking “candy from a baby.”

Overseas producers heaved a collective groan of disbelief at Trump’s Truth Social pronouncement, with a feeling that the tariffs would be disastrous for countries that have become heavily dependent on U.S. production, not least the UK. Although the tariffs are yet to materialize, Trump has continued to chunter about the film biz in recent months, and history tells us he’s prepared to follow through with threats.

May was also the month when the new Harry Potter was introduced to the world. Step forward young Scottish actor Dominic McLaughlin, who will star as the titular wizard in HBO’s hugely anticipated TV adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s behemoth. He will be joined by Alastair Stout and Arabella Stanton, who will play Potter’s trusty sidekicks Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, respectively.

Harry Potter casting has been one of the themes of 2025, with others attached including Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid, John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore and Janet McTeer as Professor McGonagall. Filming has been ongoing for months ahead of a 2027 premiere.

June

June was the month that Netflix hugged good old-fashioned linear TV, striking a “new kind of partnership” with TF1 to carry the French commercial network and 30,000 hours of its on-demand content. The distribution pact was the equivalent of NBC, or another major American commercial network, handing over its output to Netflix.

At the time, Deadline noted that the deal was probably “the start of something bigger.” We were right. Just a month later, Disney inked a content-swap agreement with UK network ITV, under which shows like I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! stream on Disney+ and ITV gained access to Star Wars titles like Andor. Disney has since struck similar deals with ZDF and Atresmedia.

Elsewhere in June, punk rap band Bob Vylan became a household name in the UK after their performance at Glastonbury Festival. Frontman Bobby Vylan screamed “Death, death to the IDF” on stage, and his words were streamed live by the BBC, causing an almighty stink. It would pile pressure on the BBC’s director general Tim Davie in a way that would take on extra significance later in the year… 

July

One of the bigger headlines of July was the defenestration of presenter Gregg Wallace from the UK version of MasterChef following a misconduct investigation, but we wanted to focus on a couple of peculiar movie stories.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is shaping up to be the cinema event of 2026, so it’s no surprise that details from the movie, as well as first-look pictures and trailers, have gone very viral throughout this year. One story from production that raised eyebrows, however, was the backlash against Nolan’s decision to briefly film in Morocco-occupied Western Sahara.

Morocco’s authority over Western Sahara, which is roughly the size of New Zealand, is not recognized by the international community. Nolan’s entry into this sensitive political arena was painful for indigenous Sahrawi people and their supporters. The Western Sahara International Film Festival (FiSahara), which takes place in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria, issued a provocative statement saying that the celebrated British director was fueling “brutal repression.”

July also gave us a literary scandal that had ramifications in the film world, when The Observer newspaper alleged that author Raynor Winn gave misleading information about her life story in her beloved book The Salt Path. The novel had only just been the subject of a film starring Gillian Anderson as Winn and Jason Isaacs as her ailing husband, Moth Winn. Winn denied wrongdoing and said the reporting was “grotesquely unfair.” Number 9 Films and Shadowplay Features said they were unaware of the claims at the time of optioning the book.

August

August was the month when KPop Demon Hunters confirmed its status as a monster hit, with the Sony Pictures Animation becoming Netflix’s most popular movie of all time. The milestone was announced after a sing-along version of the film hit big screens in the U.S., finishing No. 1 at the box office with an estimated $19.2 million. Little wonder then that, in the same month, Netflix started early talks about a sequel.

September

While Jimmy Kimmel was briefly taken off air by ABC in a real-world, dismay-inducing free speech row, the business was equally spooked by an artificial intelligence creation. Introducing Tilly Norwood, an AI “actress” who went massively viral after Deadline reported on the thoughts of her creator, Eline Van der Velden, at the Zurich Summit. 

Norwood was a vessel for all the industry’s worst fears about AI replacement, even if UK-based Van der Velden tried to reassure people that Norwood was less a Skynet baddie and more “a piece of art.” She told Zurich that agents were circling Norwood, but a couple of months later, Van der Velden was still being coy about potential representation in an interview with Deadline. Expect Norwood to be back in the headlines in 2026.

October

Paddington Bear is the genial literary creation that has spawned a movie franchise, a West End stage play, and now, a bizarre legal tussle. Deadline revealed in October that StudioCanal, maker of the Paddington movies, was suing UK producer Avalon for satirizing the marmalade-loving mammal in its iconic puppet sketch show Spitting Image. A YouTube version of the sketch show depicted Paddington as a potty-mouth podcast host with a series titled The Rest is Bulls*!t.

Spitting Image responded to the High Court proceedings by having its version of Paddington wiping his derrière with the legal filing and declaring: “Your writ, my s**t.” Avalon later removed episodes featuring Paddington, but not before The Rest is Bulls*!t was watched by 191 million viewers. Avalon is yet to file its defense, but is expected to make a full-throated case for freedom of expression against the company described by rogue Paddington as “Studio C Anal.”

Another big, but less surprising story, was Disney’s decision to drop BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who. Deadline spoke with multiple sources in Doctor Who‘s orbit who said the co-production deal fell apart for a variety of reasons, including concerns over the Ncuti Gatwa show’s failure to break out from its established fan base and big-ticket budget. Others suspected that fears of a “woke” backlash may have been a factor.

November

A true shocker dominated November, as the BBC became entangled in a ghastly dispute with the most powerful man in the world. 

In case you missed the scandal, Panorama, the BBC current affairs show, clumsily edited Donald Trump’s January 6 speech to make it appear as if the U.S. president had incited violence. BBC executives spent the better part of a year privately defending the edit. The row then exploded into the open when a BBC editorial advisor’s misgivings about the edit were leaked to The Daily Telegraph. 

BBC boss Tim Davie dramatically quit on a Sunday evening, as the Trump scandal became the final straw in a tumultuous year. Deborah Turness, the BBC’s news chief, also resigned. Then Trump promised to sue — a threat he made good on in December, taking the BBC to court in Florida, seeking up to $10 billion in damages. 

The BBC believes it can argue strongly that the Panorama film did not harm Trump, but is now in the invidious position of having to make this case in an expensive legal battle. U.S. networks have folded under similar pressure — will the BBC stand strong?

December

The war for Warner Bros. Discovery reached something of a climax in December, with Netflix apparently winning out. There’s a long way to run on this one, and it’s still unclear how any takeover will shake out for Warner Bros. Discovery’s international operations. Experts say the EU is unlikely to block any deal, but Europe and beyond have echoed Hollywood’s concerns about theatrical windows, licensed content, and the power that will be concentrated in Netflix’s hands after it has already won the premium streaming wars.