Entertainment

The 2022 Winter Olympics officially ended Sunday as the least-watched of all time for NBCUniversal, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Viewers for the biennial event dropped by almost half, averaging 11.4 million viewers across all of NBCU’s platforms in primetime — a 42% drop from the 2018 winter games in South Korea. The networks coverage of the Beijing Olympics also dropped about 26 percent compared to the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics. On the upside, streaming for the winter games was either the largest or second largest for any Olympics to date, depending on the measurement…

Ashley Reyes is officially a series regular in the CW’s Walker, Deadline reports. Reyes will star in a lead role opposite Jared Padalecki as Cassie, his new partner. Reyes addition comes after Lindsay Morgan, who played Walker’s partner since the pilot, exited the series earlier this season for personal reasons. Reyes’ first appearance will be in the next episode titled “Nudge” and is set to premiere on March 3…

America’s Got Talent alum Jane Marczewski has died. She was 31. The singer, known also as Nightbirde, gained notoriety after appearing on the talent show last year. Just weeks after earning AGT‘s coveted Golden Buzzer, she announced that she was dropping out of the competition due to her battle with breast cancer. On Monday, her family said in a statement obtained by Deadline, “It is with the deepest heartache that we confirm that after a four year battle with cancer, Jane Marczewski, known to many of you as Nightbirde, passed away on February 19th 2022.” AGT  also issued the following statement: “Your voice, your story, and your message touched millions,” reads “Nightbirde will always be a member of the AGT family. Rest In Peace, Jane.”…

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With nine women remaining and hometowns right around the corner, Monday’s episode of The Bachelor saw Clayton deciding on the three women whose families he’d meet, leading to one of the most heartbreaking eliminations of the season.

First, two of the ladies had a score to settle after Mara, angry over losing a one-on-one date to Sarah — who already had one — warned Clayton that the 23-year-old wasn’t ready for marriage. Clayton, without revealing his source, confronted Sarah with the accusation and, after an emotional conversation, gave her the date rose.

Back at the hotel, Mara told Sarah that she was the one who approached Clayton, leading to an argument between the two. The drama ended at the rose ceremony where Mara — along with Eliza — was sent home.

The action then moved to Vienna, Austria, where a Sarah, Teddi, Genevieve, Rachel and Gabby took turns opening up with an intimate couples’ therapy session. The task proved to be too daunting for Genevieve, forcing Clayton to send her home. 

At the conclusion, Clayton was rocked by the therapist’s observation that one of the remaining ladies wasn’t being honest with her answers.

After speaking with each of them at the afterparty, Clayton determined that Sarah was the guilty party and sent her packing as well. He rejoined the others with the announcement that he couldn’t give any of them the date rose.

Elsewhere, a pair of one-on-one dates ended with Susie and Serene taking home date roses.

That led to the most heartbreaking rose ceremony yet, as Teddi was sent packing.

Here are the four women whose families Clayton will meet:

Gabby, 30, an ICU nurse from Denver, Colo.
Rachel, 25, a flight instructor from Clermont, Fla.
Serene, 26, an elementary school teacher from Oklahoma City, Okla.
Susie, 28, a wedding videographer from Virginia Beach, Va.

The Bachelor returns Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Marry Me webcomic creator Bobby Crosby achieved something few have accomplished — he turned his original story into a blockbuster starring Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson.  Speaking to ABC Audio, Crosby offered advice to his fellow creatives who also dream of turning their work into a movie.

“My main advice is to be original.  It’s all about the concept,” he stressed, “The cheat code is an original concept.  If you have something that, when people hear it, they laugh or they’re intrigued, you [want them to go] ‘Wow… I want to read that.'”

Crosby also dismisses the principal of “write what you know,” saying, “That’s not writing. That’s transcribing your life. Write an autobiography if you want to write what you know, otherwise make something up. Be a writer… Write whatever you want all day long and have fun with it.”

The best way to create a movie-worthy story, says Crosby, is to “take a lot more time on that concept and make sure it’s very intriguing.”  The creative confesses, “I don’t really want to write something until I have the idea.”

Crosby adds his journey in turning his story into a movie is on the unconventional side because he didn’t pitch it to production companies — they “came to me.”  In that case when the studios aren’t making the first move, Crosby advises, “Get an agent.  He also stressed the importance of making one’s work as visible as possible to grab attention and encouraged,  “Put it out there.”

For Crosby, he increased his comic’s visibility by hiring Malaysian artist Remy “Eisu” Mohktar to illustrate it.  Crosby chose Mohkhtar because his style complimented Marry Me‘s vibe.  “It’s clean and solid and fun,” said Crosby, adding he knew it would also “make the readers smile.”   

Marry Me is in theaters now.

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After announcing in 2019 that he was retiring Madea, Tyler Perry is back with A Madea Homecoming, debuting February 25 on Netflix.

Perry says the pandemic and racial tension from the Black Lives Matter movement inspired him to bring the hilarious character out of retirement.

“Everything we have been through during the last few years I thought, you know, ‘I just really want to laugh. What do I have that can make people laugh?’ And it is totally Madea,” the actor/producer/director/writer told Entertainment Tonight. The film adaptation of Perry’s stage production Madea’s Farewell Play follows Madea planning a celebratory dinner for her great-grandson’s graduation, but family secrets threaten to ruin the event.

In other news, Ava DuVernay is joining the Spotify boycott. Following India.Arie, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and other recording artists who pulled their music from the streaming platform, the Emmy-winning director will no longer produce podcasts for the company, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Last year, DuVernay signed a multiyear contract to produce scripted and unscripted podcasts with Gimlet, the studio owned by Spotify. The boycott is in response to Spotify podcaster Joe Rogan being accused of using racist language, and spreading false information about COVID-19.

Finally, The Hollywood Reporter also announced that Amazon Studios has renewed the series Harlem, starring Megan Good, for a second season. Pharrell Williams joined the cast members on Instagram to celebrate the news.

“When I walked into a bar in Harlem and overheard folks excitedly discussing the show, I knew we had a hit,” said creator and executive producer Tracy Oliver. “Harlem has resonated with so many people, and I’m beyond grateful to Amazon for giving it a second season. Most of all, I’m excited to reunite with the beautiful cast.

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(NOTE LANGUAGE) Actor Scott Eastwood confirms that a fight he had with Shia LaBeouf during the filming of their 2014 movie Fury got so bad that Brad Pitt had to physically break it up. 

Eastwood, the Suicide Squad star son of Clint, tells Insider, “[Shia] got mad at me, and it turned into a volatile moment that Brad Pitt ultimately got in the middle of.”

At issue was Eastwood’s spitting tobacco inside the World War II tank that was their very cramped primary shooting location in the period film.

LaBeouf’s on-set hijinks were already well documented — like forgoing showers because their characters couldn’t shower, having one of his teeth pulled because dentistry would be scarce on the battlefield, and actually cutting his own face to simulate war wounds.

Eastwood confirmed his part in the spit-induced scrap.

“This is make-believe, it’s fun, and at times it’s serious, and you’re doing emotional work, and you give people space to do that in, but everything has to have its parameters,” he noted.

For his part, Pitt told GQ back in 2014 that there were fights on set “every day.”

And for the record, Pitt was no fan of Eastwood’s spitting either, even if it was in the script.

“I’m starting to get hot, because this [tank] is our home, he’s disrespecting our home, you know?” Pitt explained. “So I said, in the scene with the cameras rolling, ‘You’re going to clean that s*** up.'”

Eastwood told Insider that regardless of an actor’s “process,” it “should never hinder how people are treated on set.”

He added, “It should always enhance the production, not…put people in a situation where it’s a s****y work environment, or you’re rude or people have to be in an uncomfortable situation.”

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They say “if you got it, flaunt it,” and Nicole Kidman certainly does that in a new cover shoot for Vanity Fair. The 54-year-old Academy Award nominee and newly-minted Being The Ricardos Oscar nominee posed in a barely-there Miu Miu miniskirt and matching midriff-bearing pleated bra top for the magazine’s 2022 Hollywood Issue.

However, the glam shoot didn’t go over well with many fans online, who were quick to say the look was more befitting “Baby One More Time” than Being the Ricardos.

The website Jezebel sniped that in the picture, Kidman’s fit figure “appears quite flattened and even slightly robotic,” and “like an NFT version of herself.”

One Twitter user griped, “We need answers from who decided to place 54-year-old Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman in a knockoff Paris Hilton outfit from 2004.”

Another joked, “This is like someone has tried to paint a copyright-free Nicole Kidman on the side on an ice cream van.”

“Absolutely no reason for Nicole Kidman, queen goddess respected actress of the universe to dress like a teen on Euphoria. How weird,” yet another replied to Vanity Fair‘s post.

However, Kidman had their share of supporters, too. One pushed back against many people griping she’s been Photoshopped by saying, “people are saying nicole’s abs are fake and THIS is the time i’m ready to whole heartedly defend a celebrity on the internet.”

Oh… oh my… Win all the Oscars you want,” another Twitter user praised.

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As any admitted fangirl would be, Rosario Dawson is pretty psyched. She’s part of the Star Wars universe, thanks to playing former Jedi Ahsoka Tano in The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and her upcoming spin-off, Ahsoka. 

She’s also working on a movie based on Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride and — completing a rare pop culture hat trick of Disney-owned properties — her former Netflix show, Daredevil, is now officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, thanks to co-star Charlie Cox‘s appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Dawson played Marvel’s heroic nurse Claire Temple in Daredevil, as well as in Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and The Defenders. She enthuses to ABC Audio, “I had a whole moment, I was like, ‘Charlie’s back, so I guess that means I’m part of the MCU, YAY!'”

“All the universes!” she adds with a laugh.

As for Ahsoka, Dawson explains, “We haven’t started, I haven’t even read an episode yet or anything,” admitting her interview with ABC Audio started a little late, because she had just been “talking about stuff” with Ahsoka producer Dave Filoni.

“So we’re we’re a ways away, but it’s still really…exciting to start getting into it. …I literally am like, ‘I can’t hang out because I’m saber training.’ Like, that’s an actual thing I got to say, which is really, really fun and cool!”  

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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While she’s still grieving the loss of her TV dad Bob Saget, Candice Cameron Bure says his untimely death on January 9 hasn’t shaken her belief in God.

“I don’t question my faith,” the 45-year-old actress tells Us Weekly. I believe with all of my heart that God knows everything that’s happening and there’s nothing that catches him by surprise. He doesn’t make mistakes.”

Saget, 65, was found dead in his Orlando, Florida hotel room following a comedy performance the previous night. Investigators say he died from a head injury sustained in a fall. 

Bure, who played D.J. Tanner in Full House opposite Saget from 1987 to 1995, as well as on its follow up Fuller House, added, “Of course, I’m gonna have a lot of questions when I get to talk to God face-to-face one day.”

She continued, “It always makes me cling closer to God. …I mean, I love God in the good times, but I’m so grateful that he’s there in the difficult times.”

On Wednesday, Bure appeared on Fox and Friends and said she had “questions” surrounding the comedian’s untimely death, particularly as the severity of Saget’s injuries came to light. “It’s been difficult these past couple weeks because of more things that have come out and there’s a lot of questions,” she noted.

“I’m trying honestly not to think about it in the sense that I just – I want to remember Bob and what a kind and loving and amazing person that he was. And let it be that,” the 45-year-old said.

A rep later clarified the comments were made before Bure learned that Saget’s family had successfully filed a motion to prevent Saget’s autopsy results and other related material from being publicly released.

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Candace Bushnell is sharing how she really feels about And Just Like That….

In an interview with The New Yorker, the author, who wrote the column that inspired the original series Sex and the City, revealed that she was “really startled by a lot of the decisions made in the reboot.”

“You know, it’s a television product, done with [And Just Like That creator] Michael Patrick King and Sarah Jessica Parker, who have both worked with HBO a lot in the past,” Bushnell said. “HBO decided to put this franchise back into their hands for a variety of reasons, and this is what they came up with.”

Bushnell added, “I mean, Carrie Bradshaw ended up being a quirky woman who married a really rich guy. And that’s not my story, or any of my friends’ stories. But TV has its own logic.”

And Just Like That… recently finished its first season on HBO Max and has yet to be renewed for season two. 

The reimagined series brought back Parker as Carrie, as well as Cynthia Nixon as Miranda and Kristin Davis as Charlotte. Noticeably missing was Kim Cattrall’s Samantha. While her character has been kept alive on-screen via text messages, it’s not likely she’ll appear on-screen in the flesh. 

Aside from Cattrall making it clear she has no interest in returning to the franchise after turning down a third movie, SJP recently told Variety she wouldn’t be okay with her return.

“I don’t think I would, because I think there’s just too much public history of feelings on her part that she’s shared,” she said.  

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Out of the blue clear sky, the trio behind the 1994 film Forrest Gump is reuniting for an adaptation of Richard McGuire‘s 2014 graphic novel, Here. Deadline reports Eric Roth will co-write the script with Robert Zemeckis, who will also direct, and Tom Hanks will star. All three won Oscars for Forrest Gump. “Set in one room,” Here “focuses on the many people who inhabit it over years and years, from the past to the distant future,” according to the outlet…

Disney+ has tapped Oscar-winning composer John Williams to write the theme for Obi-Wan Kenobi, its newest small-screen Star Wars project, premiering May 25. Williams recorded last week with a Los Angeles orchestra under tight security, sources tell Variety. It marks the first time Williams has composed the theme for a weekly dramatic series since Steven Spielberg‘s Amazing Stories for NBC in 1985, although he wrote two for PBS: Masterpiece Theatre in 2000 and Great Performances in 2009. His news and Olympics themes, written decades ago, continue to air on NBC. He won an Oscar for the original Star Wars score in 1977 and received nominations for five of the sequels — The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in 1980 and 1983, followed by The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker in 2015, 2017 and 2019. Disney is the parent company of ABC News…

Amanda Seyfried has joined Tom Holland in Apple TV+’s “seasonal anthology” series centering on mental illness, The Crowded Room, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The first season follows Billy Milligan — played by Holland — the first person to ever be acquitted of a crime because he suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder, which was known then as Multiple Personality Disorder. Milligan was indicted for a string of rapes and kidnappings in 1977 but ultimately acquitted, after claiming he had 24 personalities living inside him. The court at the time found he committed the crimes but wasn’t responsible for them. Having avoided prison thanks to the successful defense, Milligan spent his life at a psychiatric hospital in Ohio, where he died in 2014. Seyfried’s role has not been revealed…

FX announced on Thursday that the award-wining Donald Glover series Atlanta will end with season four, according to Variety. The show’s third season, which takes place almost entirely in Europe with the characters in the midst of a successful European tour, premieres March 24, while season four, which is already in the can, is set to air in the fall. “Death is natural,” Glover said during FX’s portion of the Television Critics Association winter press tour. “I feel like when the conditions are right for something, they happen, and when the conditions aren’t right, they don’t happen. I don’t feel any longevity. Because then things start to get weird”…

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