Rachel Leishman
Rachel Leishman treats entertainment journalism as an extension of fandom, covering movies and television through the eyes of someone who lives inside genre worlds and celebrity obsessions. She is a writer and editor whose work at Collider and The Mary Sue centers on nerd culture, franchise storytelling, and the people who bring those stories to life. Her coverage blends news, interviews, and commentary with a direct, often comedic voice that foregrounds what matters to fans as much as to the industry.
Nerd culture as a lens on film and television
Leishman’s work at Collider is built around a deep familiarity with “nerdom,” using geek culture as the frame for how she writes about film and television. She publishes a high volume of entertainment news pieces, with hundreds of articles focused on genre properties and fan-forward stories. Her coverage of series like Stranger Things returning in 2026 “with a catch” shows her interest in how creative decisions and scheduling choices affect long-term fan engagement around major streaming hits.
Articles on legal turmoil around Top Gun: Maverick and its fallout demonstrate how she connects blockbuster franchises to off-screen conflicts that shape their legacy. When she writes about network shows such as Walker being canceled by The CW, she ties the announcement to the emotional impact on viewers and the career arcs of stars like Jared Padalecki. Even when examining a renewed conversation around Gilmore Girls through a star’s comments about Rory’s love life, she approaches it as a living text that fans and actors continue to debate years after the original run.
Across these topics, her beat is not “movies and TV” in the abstract; it is the ongoing relationship between fans and the stories they follow.
Celebrity-focused stories and interviews
Leishman consistently centers performers and creators, using celebrity interviews and personality-driven stories to anchor her entertainment coverage. Her profiles and Q&As at The Mary Sue foreground how actors and reality stars understand their own work, as in her interview with The Real Housewives of New York cast member Gia Giudice about family dynamics and a contentious relationship with Bethenny Frankel. Pieces on figures like Jeremy Allen White responding to viral memes around The Bear show her interest in how fame, online discourse, and character portrayal intersect.
At Collider, she writes exclusives that probe the people behind iconic franchises, including her story on George Lucas’s new movie role and the “secret passion” it reveals, which uses a specific casting moment to illuminate his personal interests and long-running creative obsessions. Her professional profiles describe her as a writer who shares her love of movies and television in all of her work and as someone whose job includes interviewing celebrities about their projects.
Taken together, these threads mark her as a reporter who treats public figures not just as promotion vehicles but as fans, workers, and storytellers in their own right.
News-driven coverage of franchises and industry shifts
Leishman’s Collider output is heavily news-oriented, with the bulk of her bylines filed as entertainment news rather than pure opinion or long-form criticism. She covers renewals, cancellations, production moves, and legal disputes across film and television, translating industry decisions into plain language for a general audience.
Stories about Stranger Things returning, Walker ending, and legal actions tied to Top Gun: Maverick reflect a focus on developments that change how and when audiences see the franchises they follow. She moves easily between prestige-adjacent series like The Bear, long-running favorites like Gilmore Girls, major studio blockbusters, and reality television, treating each as part of the same entertainment ecosystem.
Her membership in the Critics Choice Association and ongoing work across multiple outlets underscore that this news coverage is grounded in a professional critic’s perspective on how industry shifts affect both content and viewers.
Podcasts, ongoing obsessions, and comedic voice
Beyond written work, Leishman extends her entertainment focus into multiple podcasts dedicated to specific actors and filmographies.
She co-hosts a comedy and film commentary show that attempts to watch and discuss all of Harrison Ford’s films in chronological order, treating his career as a long-term project and source of running jokes. Her personal site notes additional podcasts centered on other performers, including shows about Pedro Pascal and related cinema, which reinforce the idea that she approaches entertainment as a sustained, actor-driven obsession rather than a series of isolated reviews.
Professional bios emphasize that she brings a “unique brand of comedy” to her writing and that she thrives in her knowledge of nerd culture, a tone that carries over into both her articles and audio work. On social channels, she describes herself in fan terms - “fangirl,” “nerdy girl” - and foregrounds her roles at The Mary Sue and Collider, aligning her public identity with the same mix of fandom, humor, and professional entertainment reporting that shows up in her coverage.
4 more entertainment journalists.
Aaron Couch
Aaron Couch connects fan-driven genre stories with the business of filmmaking at The Hollywood Reporter, where he is film editor and co-writer of the Heat Vision newsletter. He covers big-budget franchises, comic book properties, horror and genre cinema, studio deals, film development and the producers who shape them. His beat includes trailers, superhero films, franchise strategy, comic-to-film adaptations, production deals and the people behind repeatable genre hits. He has written about Tom Holland’s Spider-Man return, Sony acquiring Michelle Yeoh’s The Surgeon, adaptation interest in a Boston Globe article about lesbian bars, and horror producers Roy Lee and Steven Schneider. He reports on both fandom and industry mechanics, connecting trailers, creators and comics with careers, dealmaking, publicity cycles and franchise stewardship.
Adam Blevins
Adam Blevins tracks how major entertainment projects perform, stall, and evolve across theaters and streaming platforms. He is a senior author at Collider covering film, television, superhero and science-fiction franchises, and gaming-related screen projects. His core beat is box office results, streaming performance, release windows, budgets, production changes, cancellations, sequels, and franchise durability. He has written exclusives involving Avengers: Doomsday, The Penguin, and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. Earlier, he wrote gaming features at Screen Rant and became a senior editor at Agents of Fandom, where he interviewed talent connected to Marvel Studios, House of the Dragon, and Planet of the Apes. He also visited the set of The Chosen. His reporting is high-volume, direct, and data-driven, using metrics, release details, interviews, and production context to explain commercial prospects and fan interest.
Adele Ankers-Range
Adele Ankers-Range is a senior writer at MovieWeb who tracks streaming thrillers, book-to-screen adaptations, and industry announcements through the fan conversations around them. Writing professionally since 2015, she has also contributed to IGN, Sideshow Collectibles, Screen Rant, and other genre-focused brands. Her beat covers new and upcoming film and television titles, especially thrillers, high-concept genre releases, literary franchises, and projects moving from development to release. She reports on teaser reveals, casting, release dates, CinemaCon announcements, platform strategy, and early critical response. Her coverage often uses reception metrics such as Rotten Tomatoes scores to show how a release is landing. She returns to adaptations as they develop, following announcements, talent attachments, marketing, and final release details. Her work is fast, news-driven, concise, and attentive to fan theories, speculation, and the reasons a project matters.
Adrianna Freedman
Adrianna Freedman turns fan-driven TV and streaming moments into fast, service-focused entertainment stories for Good Housekeeping. She covers network dramas, procedurals, Hallmark titles, streaming releases and book-to-screen projects, including renewals, premiere dates, cast news, release timing, platforms and pricing. Her work centers on how developments affect committed viewers. She also reports on daytime hosts and celebrities, covering health updates, family milestones, career changes, social posts and fan response without gossip or speculation. Freedman conducts interviews and writes features on subjects such as personal books, career milestones and awards. She has written for or across Hearst titles including ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health and Town & Country, as well as Prevention and Oprah Daily. Her coverage of television, movies, music and celebrity pop culture uses clear language, concise explainers and direct, headline-driven angles.