For nine seasons, Emmy Rossum played Fiona Gallagher on Shameless. The role made her familiar to millions of viewers. According to Rossum, it also meant that some men arrived at a first date believing they already knew her.

Speaking with Maria Sharapova on the Pretty Tough podcast, Rossum said the show’s nude scenes made dating in her twenties “quite tricky.” Men she went out with, she said, brought assumptions about her personality and sexuality based on what they had watched on screen.

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One encounter has stayed with her. Rossum recalled meeting a man on a plane and later going on a date with him. He told her he hoped to become president someday, then asked whether dating someone who had appeared nude on television might complicate a run for office. Rossum remembered thinking it was an “insane conversation to have.” She did not identify the man.

When viewers confuse an actor with a character

Rossum was 24 when she began playing Fiona. She told Sharapova that she was still figuring out who she was as a person and an artist while strangers were forming opinions about her from the work she did for the show. That distinction could disappear quickly in a dating setting: someone who knew Fiona Gallagher from television assumed he knew Emmy Rossum, too.

The podcast conversation also looked back at Rossum’s nine years on Shameless and her fight for equal pay. She now stars in and executive produces the thriller Furious. Her story about dating, however, describes a cost of visibility that had little to do with fame itself: the difficulty of being seen as a person when someone thinks a performance has already told them everything.

The frightening thing about Carrie has always been how much of its horror feels ordinary. Before the supernatural powers come the humiliation, the isolation and the adults who make a vulnerable teenager’s life unbearable.

Now, Mike Flanagan is bringing that story to Prime Video as an eight-episode series, scheduled to premiere on October 7, 2026. His adaptation revisits Stephen King’s 1974 novel with a contemporary setting and more room to explore the people surrounding its troubled protagonist.

The early critical discussion turns on a familiar problem for streaming adaptations: a longer story can offer greater depth, but does greater depth necessarily make it more compelling?

Summer H. Howell and Samantha Sloyan lead the new adaptation

Summer H. Howell plays Carrie White, the sheltered teenager whose telekinetic abilities emerge amid bullying and abuse. Samantha Sloyan portrays Margaret White, her controlling, religiously fanatical mother.

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The Daily Beast’s review praises the adaptation’s emotional approach, describing a Carrie who has more social confidence and a Margaret whose fears incorporate contemporary conspiracy thinking. It also highlights the use of a documentary-style framework to revisit the tragedy.

Those changes suggest an adaptation interested in the environment that produces Carrie’s suffering, as well as the suffering itself. The mother-daughter relationship remains central to that story: home offers Carrie another source of fear when she desperately needs protection.

The bullying follows Carrie onto her phone

One of the clearest updates involves social media harassment.

According to The Verge, an anonymous Instagram account becomes a tool for tormenting Carrie. The review argues that this digital dimension gives the familiar story renewed relevance.

The implication is unsettling. Cruelty that once depended on a school corridor or a crowded classroom can now travel further, gather an audience and remain visible long after the original incident.

For a story built around public humiliation, that is a meaningful change in setting rather than a merely cosmetic update.

More time means more possibilities—and more scrutiny

The longer format also gives supporting characters greater attention. The New York Post’s review welcomes the additional development of figures including Margaret White and Chris Hargensen, while noting that some new material could divide viewers.

The Hollywood Reporter’s review headline, meanwhile, acknowledges Flanagan’s ability to expand the classic while questioning whether expansion was necessary.

That distinction matters. Explaining more about a character can enrich a tragedy; it can also interrupt its momentum. An adaptation of Carrie must balance the desire to understand its world with the pressure of a story moving towards catastrophe.

There are reservations about the supernatural additions, too. The Verge questions a subplot connecting Carrie’s abilities to King’s wider fictional universe, arguing that it weakens her agency.

A familiar tragedy with a contemporary question

Flanagan arrives with substantial experience adapting King, including Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. His latest project gives him a different challenge: finding fresh emotional territory in a story many viewers already know.

Early reviews offer reasons for interest, particularly the modern treatment of bullying and the expanded character work. They also leave a question hanging over the series: will eight episodes bring viewers closer to Carrie, or put more distance between them and the devastating simplicity of her story?

Seven years after its original release, Avengers: Endgame has unfinished business at the box office.

The Marvel Studios blockbuster has overtaken James Cameron’s Avatar to become the highest-grossing film worldwide once again. According to The Walt Disney Company’s October 4 announcement, Endgame now holds an estimated $2.9255 billion, narrowly ahead of Avatar’s $2.9237 billion. That puts just $1.8 million between two of cinema’s biggest hits.

The lead is small. The comeback, however, is substantial: a film released in 2019 has drawn enough fresh ticket sales to rewrite the all-time chart.

The ‘Encore’ release that tipped the balance

The latest theatrical run, titled Avengers Endgame: Encore, has earned $126 million worldwide, according to TheWrap. That includes $36.2 million in North America and $89.8 million from international markets—the extra business that pushed the film back into first place.

Audiences also had a reason to return beyond revisiting a familiar blockbuster. TheWrap reports that the reissue features a modified ending and three new scenes during and after the credits, connected to Avengers: Doomsday. The release therefore serves two purposes: bringing an established favourite back to cinemas and giving viewers a bridge to the next Avengers story.

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A rivalry with a history of reversals

This is another change of leadership in a box office contest that has lasted for years.

Endgame first displaced Avatar in 2019. Cameron’s science-fiction epic regained the crown following its Chinese re-release in 2021. Now, another theatrical return has swung the result in Marvel’s favour. Re-releases have become a decisive part of the competition, extending both films’ earning lives well beyond their original runs.

The distinction matters: this is the record for worldwide theatrical revenue without adjustment for inflation, including re-release earnings. It measures money collected rather than the number of tickets sold.

Why ‘Endgame’ matters to ‘Doomsday’

The timing gives Marvel’s comeback an added significance. Avengers: Doomsday is scheduled to reach cinemas on December 18, 2026, and Disney has positioned Endgame as an important foundation for that next chapter.

Explaining the connection, Anthony Russo said: “You really need to pick the story up from where you left it in Endgame.”

That makes this return more than a victory lap. A film remembered for closing a major chapter of Marvel’s story is now helping introduce the next one—and, along the way, has taken back Hollywood’s most closely watched box office title.