California’s Film & TV Tax Credit Program allocated roughly $193 million in conditional tax credits on April 23 to 38 feature productions, marking the first time animated features are eligible under the state’s expanded incentive program. The awards include $21.9 million to 20th Century Studios’ The Simpsons Movie 2, $24.7 million to an untitled DreamWorks Animation feature, $25.9 million to an untitled Paramount crime thriller, $3.5 million to Disney’s Phineas and Ferb film and $10.9 million to Netflix’s 13 Going on 30 reboot. The round is expected to generate nearly $800 million in statewide economic activity, more than 1,019 shoot days, employment for over 5,300 cast and crew plus roughly 20,800 background actors, and more than 45% of shoot days outside Southern California. The Legislature last year expanded the program — boosting annual capacity to $750 million and explicitly adding animated projects — as state officials seek to recapture production business lured overseas by foreign incentives.

ABC and Disney announced on April 22–23 that reality stars Ciara Miller and Maura Higgins are the first celebrity cast members confirmed for Dancing With the Stars Season 35, which will air this fall on ABC and Disney+ with next-day streaming on Hulu. The announcement was made during Hulu’s Get Real House event. Miller, a Summer House regular who also appeared on The Traitors, joins the show amid intense public attention after a recent Bravo cast fallout; Higgins, an Irish model and former Love Island contestant who finished runner-up on The Traitors US and has hosted Love Island USA spin-offs, has a substantial social-media following. The network also unveiled Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro, a new summer spinoff premiering July 13 and hosted by Season 34 winner Robert Irwin; Mark and Shirley Ballas will judge. DWTS is produced by BBC Studios with Conrad Green as showrunner. The casting follows Season 34’s strong ratings and record fan voting, reflecting the franchise’s recent resurgence and its strategy of leveraging reality-TV crossovers and social media engagement to attract younger viewers.

Darrell Sheets, a longtime cast member of A&E’s reality series Storage Wars, was found dead at his home in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, on April 22, 2026. Lake Havasu City police said officers who responded around 2 a.m. located a man who had suffered what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head; the death is under active investigation and the body was turned over to the Mohave County Medical Examiner. Sheets, 67, who billed himself as “The Gambler,” rose to fame on Storage Wars after the show debuted in 2010 and appeared in more than 160 episodes across multiple seasons before retiring in 2023 to run an antique shop in Arizona. Colleagues and the network offered condolences; several cast members, including René Nezhoda, have said Sheets had been targeted online and urged authorities to look into alleged cyberbullying. A spokesperson for A&E said the network was saddened; family members including his son Brandon and daughter Tiffany have been notified. Mental health resources and crisis helplines have been highlighted in media coverage.

Netflix’s four-part docuseries Hulk Hogan: Real American, which began streaming on April 22, 2026, features the late wrestler’s final on-camera interviews recorded months before his July 2025 death. In the series Hogan (Terry Bollea) describes extreme opioid use while trying to return to wrestling after his 2009 divorce and stint with Total Nonstop Action: he recounts taking what he called 80‑milligram fentanyl pills twice daily, wearing multiple patches and consuming fentanyl “lollipops” — amounts a pharmacist in the program tells him would normally be lethal. The doc also covers Hogan’s long-term health troubles, including atrial fibrillation and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia disclosed in medical records, and confirms his death was ruled an acute myocardial infarction at age 71. Episodes probe his 2007–09 divorce, a period of suicidal ideation, and pain over his brother Alan Bollea’s overdose; Hogan asks producers to stop questioning him about that loss during his final interview.

Antoine Fuqua’s Michael, a biopic of Michael Jackson produced by Graham King and starring Jaafar Jackson, opened April 23, 2026 amid major fanfare and polarized reviews. Domestic projections heading into the weekend ranged roughly $65 million–$80 million, which would eclipse prior music-biopic openers such as Straight Outta Compton and Bohemian Rhapsody; global opening estimates are in the $140 million–$165 million area. Early international receipts showed a robust $18.5 million on opening day, led by France ($2.6m), the U.K. and Ireland ($2.6m), Italy ($1.3m), Mexico ($1.1m) and Spain ($1.1m). The film—released domestically by Lionsgate with Universal handling most overseas markets—cost at least $155m–$170m to produce after extensive reshoots. Critics have been largely negative (Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score around the low 30s), and the film deliberately ends in 1988, omitting later child-sex-abuse allegations after legal and estate constraints required removing certain scenes. The Los Angeles premiere drew thousands, including Jackson family members, and the release is already shaping up as one of 2026’s highest-profile global box-office tests.

Sophy Romvari’s feature debut Blue Heron, a semi‑autobiographical drama filmed in British Columbia, is drawing strong reviews and industry attention as it opens in Canadian theatres. The film — set on Vancouver Island in the 1990s and running roughly 90 minutes — follows eight‑year‑old Sasha (Eylul Guven) and her family as they struggle to understand the erratic, self‑destructive behaviour of her teenage half‑brother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes). Critics have praised Romvari’s formal inventiveness: archival textures, shifting perspectives and an audacious time‑jump into the present in which adult Sasha (Amy Zimmer) investigates her past. Cinematographer Maya Bankovic’s work and the young cast’s performances have been singled out. Blue Heron was shot in Vancouver and Nanaimo, opens in Toronto April 24 (with wider Canadian dates in May), and has received seven 2026 Canadian Screen Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and a Best Supporting Actor nod for Beddoes. Reviewers compare its emotional terrain to recent autobiographical films while noting its restrained refusal to offer tidy catharsis.