Hwood 2025: The Year of the Cat… in the Hat?

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

On the night of Dec. 14, 2025, by about 8:44 pm on that fateful Sunday night before Hanukkah, 99% of Hollywood knew or believed that Rob Reiner had been a victim of parricide. Texts have been flying since.

But in those crucial hours post-slaying, in a small town like Hwood, even the fringes heard the “rumor” that no one other than his son could be the alleged slayer. And that’s the defining moment of 2025 in Hollywood for most of us in the business, forget the movies, the noms, the Best of anything. When elder statesman Billy Crystal shows up, like an oarfish before a major earthquake, just about everyone in entertainment knows Hollywood will be forever changed... and it was on that terrible night in Brentwood.Oh, but the town's great creative achievements of 2025? Please. The first two weeks of 2026 just confirmed how horrendous ’25 had been

‘Clooney Fucks Off to France’ is the unspoken headline, along with “Netflix vs Ellison for Warner Bros” scrolling news in Hollywood.

Back to the Reiner Murders, with more than half of Hollywood denizens still in shock a month later. Was there really a CBS “Scenes from a Life” comedian-led tribute merely a week later on Dec. 21, 2025? Yes, there was, despite 90% of Everyone thinking it was way too soon. Even prime suspect Nick Reiner was not formally arraigned until Jan. 7, 2026. High-powered legal beagle Alan Jackson stepped in post-arrest in mid-December, but withdrew from the case that same day Jan. 7, which resulted in a postponement of the arraignment. Meaning? ‘ Mr. Green did not show up,’ as they decried in the parlance of lawyer-speak. In other words, no money forthcoming, the million plus retainer allegedly a no-show. While the Dec. 21 airing of a tribute to Rob Reiner, with his slain wife Michelle also honored, the message here is that perhaps comedians who knew him best were the first to process the crisis.  You could excuse the “too soon” special for that reason. Perhaps Comedians have a way of understanding the human condition instantly, from situational comedy to absurdist observational comedy to deadpan delivery. No pun intended. But we also have a sad Crisis of Comedians ongoing in Hollywood now…

From the finger-pointing after the Conan O’Brien party Nick Reiner attending with his parents just before the murders to the unfair pillorying of gifted comedian Bill Hader. Why, for enforcing a privacy boundary at said party with Reiner’s son? Not to mention the breaking of the only unspoken rule among famous people: ‘do not ask who is famous.’ Or for last names. It’s ‘lookie-loo .’

The actual son of a superstar legend like Rob Reiner breaking those rules is basically a blatant attempt to humiliate said legend, an act of defiance so specific only insiders probably weighed the gravity of that behavior. So what are our favorite movies of 2025? See how ridiculous that sounds? And yet, this is Show Business, and the Show Must Go On… but how do we go on from here? No genius human-touch filmmaker Rob Reiner now? While the father Carl Reiner made a mark on the industry before him, Rob Reiner’s “This is Spinal Tap,” “When Harry Met Sally,” to name only two of his marvelous films, also made a mark. Nick Reiner, ‘if guilty,’ has not made a mark - he has now left a mark. A mark on the industry and audiences worldwide as indelible as his forefathers before him in Hollywood. So who’s our favorite actors, best pictures, best directors of 2025? Yes, we have some. Because thousands in the business above and below the line still put their best forward in 2025, and so Award Season must roll on.  No doubt 2025 was, literally, the Year of the Snake. A winding unseen menace under the tall grass in Hollywood. We have Warner Bros being whipsawed by Paramount Skydance in a “hostile” take-over bid vs Netflix with their chop-shop eye toward separating WB from CNN and Discovery. That battle still rages, no matter the turmoil among creatives and the public in processing, in truth, everything that has happened in Movieland since Harvey’s unmasking in 2018. The seven years of Me Too leading up to 2025 were iffy to begin with, and now many inside and outside the industry have declared “Hollywood is Toast.”

Be assured, 2025 was, literally, the Year of the Snake. A winding unseen menace under the tall grass in Hollywood. We have Warner Bros being whipsawed by Paramount Skydance in a “hostile” take-over bid vs Netflix with their chop-shop eye toward separating WB from CNN and Discovery. We have James Cameron, whose AVATAR franchise is on the vanguard of tech, decrying AI even though his “dances with Smurfs” series of films relies on advances AI capabilities.

We have Tom Cruise also decrying AI, meanwhile AI has invaded post-production like oxygen - both needed and required for Hollywood survival. We’ve got riderless horse Leonardo DiCaprio at 51, sans spouse and children, as top man to fill the Clooney spot in leadership with his track record of “over 25 is too old” for his paramours.

 We’ve got Sydney Sweeney, a legit bombshell on the order of Marilyn Monroe potentially (without the demise), being raked over the coals for possible political leanings to the right. Not to mention the earthshaking rumbles in 2025 that shook “Little House on the Prairie” star Melissa Gilbert, past five-time president of SAG, into a full-blown scandal in the second week of 2026… a scandal not of her own making, but chewing at a beloved staple of studio-made TV.

Award Season in 2026, the Year of the Fire Horse, is something to behold. As if we’re all in on a pact to restore normalcy after 2025, which turned out to be more like The Year of the Cat in Hat.

After the Los Angeles fires ripped the face off everything familiar on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and in Alta Dena; Pac Pal, and even the Reel Inn burned off the landscape on PCH? It felt like the reel and rod symbolically meant reels of film under the rod of unprecedented destruction.

A year later now, the fire still burns in the displaced, who haven't had their lives go back to normal... then came the Christmas Eve floods in 2025.

And now Nick Reiner’s upcoming legal horrors, and Paramount Skydnce vs Netflix carry over from Cat in the Hat Year.

With Paramount Skydance pushing hard to unseat favorite Netflix… that battle still rages, no matter the turmoil among creatives and the public in processing, in truth, everything that has happened in Movieland since Harvey’s unmasking in 2018. The seven years leading up to 2025 were iffy to begin with, and now many inside and outside the industry have declared “Hollywood is Toast.”

Those who make the toast claim don’t know the power of industry icons like the ever-adapting acting icon Shirley MacLaine, who once said “you have to play to both sides of the aisle.” MacLaine published her latest memoir “The Wall of Life” in 2024. In the Year of the Fire Horse, she will turn 92, and if she can scale the wall of life, so can we. So goodbye 2025. Two weeks into 2026? Well, Rob and Michelle Reiner, we love you still; and hope A+ stories will be told by human storytellers inspired by Rob Reiner.

For 2026, as the Fire Horse Year begins formally on Feb. 17, we’re still chasing out the Snake in post-toast Hollywood. Because we love movies, even if we have to call it “filmed content” now.

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