Entertainment

Saturday marked the one-year anniversary of Chadwick Boseman‘s death from colon cancer at age 43. Lupita Nyong’o, Viola Davis and many other celebrities honored the Black Panther star’s memory on the anniversary of his unexpected passing.

Nyong’o and Michael B. Jordan, who starred alongside Boseman the Marvel film, offered heartfelt memories of the late actor.

“I did not know that I could miss both his laughter and his silence in equal measure. I do. I do… One year after his passing, the memory of @chadwickboseman remains this alive in me,” wrote Nyong’o on Twitter, alongside a photo of the two sharing a hearty laugh.

Jordan shared a snap the two at a formal event and captioned it, “Not a day goes by bro… Love and miss you but I know you still with us.”

Marvel Studios also commemorated Boseman, and wrote on Twitter, “Honoring our friend, our inspiration and our King, Chadwick Boseman.”

Davis paid homage to her Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom co-star and shared a still from the two-time Oscar-winning movie, and expressed, “This day last year you left this earth and us. Man you are missed!!!”

Many others paid tribute to Boseman, with Josh Gad sharing one of the last text messages he received from the late actor. “Not a day goes by one year later, where it doesn’t still hurt. But in the darkness, he always reminds us of the light. He was an angel on this planet and is now a Saint on high. Love you and miss you more than ever… forever,” he tweeted.

Kerry Washington also honored Boseman, writing, “One year without Chadwick Boseman. Thank you for watching over us. We miss you King.”

 

 

 

 

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It was sweet victory for Jordan Peele‘s Candyman, crushing the box office with a $22.4 million opening weekend.  Considering the surge in COVID-19 cases across the country, paired with the arrival of Hurricane Ida in the Gulf Coast, the movie performed above expectations for a horror flick and enjoyed the third-best opening numbers for a final weekend in August.

The R-rated thriller, considered the spiritual successor of the classic 1992 film, nearly made back its entire $25 million production budget in its debut weekend in the U.S.

Candyman — which stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris and Colman Domingo — made a much smaller splash overseas, raking in an additional $5.23 million for a global haul of $27.6 million.

Ryan Reynolds‘ Free Guy dropped to second place over the weekend, earning an additional $13.55 million in its third week of release and pushing its overall domestic box office earnings to $79.3 million.

Free Guy, showing exclusively in theaters, is from 20th Century Studios, which is owned by ABC News’ parent company, Disney.

Coming in third was Paramount’s Paw Patrol, which dug up an additional $6.6 million in its second week.  The movie, which stars the voices of Tyler Perry, Kim Kardashian, Dax Shepard and Jimmy Kimmel, earned $24 million to date.

Dropping to fourth in its fifth week of release is Disney’s Jungle Cruise, earning an estimated $5 million. That brings the movie’s domestic box-office total to $100.1 million.  Jungle Cruise is also available to Disney+ subscribers for a $30 surcharge. 

Rounding out the top five Don’t Breathe 2, now in its third week of release, with an estimated $2.8 million.  Overall, the movie has earned $24.6 million during its box office run.

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Bachelor super-fan Lance Bass takes over guest hosting duties tonight onBachelor in Paradise and while he loves the entire franchise, he tells ABC Audio that Paradise is his absolute favorite version.

“Paradise, to me, I just feel is the better chance of people finding love,” he explains.

“When you have multiple people as an option to fall in love with, it’s just way more fun to watch… as opposed to when you watch The Bachelor and you just have one person vying for 30 people,” Bass adds. “It just causes a lot more drama. Of course, we’re in it for the drama. Let’s be real.”

Speaking of drama, the pop singer was also fascinated by how real it all was. Sharing that he had a TV in his dressing room and could “watch every conversation,” Bass says, “…it is amazing how real this can get in such a short amount of time, especially when you’re there just focused on finding love and no outside world. It’s the craziest speed dating on Earth.”

Another thing that took the boy bander by surprise — the heat in Mexico, which, for him, does not create a great environment for romance.

“…there’s like sweating and just like wait do I smell. And when I’m hot, the last thing I want to think about is kissing someone or having sex, like I just want to be like, no, don’t touch me, don’t touch me,” he says with a laugh.

Though the heat was tough, the most difficult thing for Bass was learning everyone’s names.

Sharingthat he had 20 minutes to pair the names and faces, he reveals, “… that was definitely the hardest part, was keeping all the names together and which ones were coupled up, and which ones were fighting.”

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Betty White is the last woman standing.

Ed Asner, who along with White was one of two living main cast members of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died at age 91, according to his verified Twitter account. “We are sorry to say that our beloved patriarch passed away this morning peacefully,” read the tweet. “Words cannot express the sadness we feel. With a kiss on your head- Goodnight dad. We love you.”

The Emmy-winning Asner portrayed Mary Richards’ tough boss Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and in the hour-long spinoff drama Lou Grant. He was the only actor to win Emmys for playing the same character in both a comedy and drama.

While he’s best-known for playing Grant, Asner also won Emmys for his roles in the hit TV miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man and Roots, bringing his career Emmy total to seven.

The series Lou Grant took on social issues, as Asner did in his personal life and as president of the Screen Actor’s Guild. However, his activism didn’t always sit well with network executives or advertisers. When CBS abruptly canceled Lou Grant while it was still a top-10 show, Asner believed that it was due to his left-wing political views.

According to Variety, Asner defended his political activism throughout his life, calling it “not a luxury, but a necessity.”

After MTM and Lou Grant ended, Asner continued to work in movies and on TV, most recently appearing on Grace & Frankie, Cobra Kai, Dead to Me, Modern Family and Blue Bloods. In addition, he had a successful career providing voiceovers for animated movies like Up, in which he played the lead role of Carl Fredricksen. Among the animated TV shows he lent his voice to: King of the Hill, American Dad, SpongeBob SquarePants, Central Park and many more.

Asner, whose two marriages ended in divorce, is survived by four children.

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Eddie Murphy reportedly will be teaming up with Jonah Hill for a new comedy that will be directed by black-ish veteran Kenya Barris.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that the three very funny guys will collaborate on an as-yet-untitled project that the trade described as an “incisive examination of modern love and family dynamics and how clashing cultures, societal expectations and generational differences shape and affect relationships.”

Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall vet Hill, who of late has been exploring his more dramatic side on screen, also co-wrote the upcoming film with Barris, who co-wrote the hit sequel Coming 2 America for Murphy.

Kenya also will be making his feature film directorial debut on the film, the trade says.

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Disney+ has unveiled the first trailer for Doogie Kamealoha M.D., the Hawaii-set reboot of the Neil Patrick Harris medical dramedy Doogie Howser, M.D.

The sneak peek kicks off with Andi Mack veteran Peyton Elizabeth Lee as the title character, saving a man’s life on an O’ahu beach, with the help of a sunbather’s hair pin.

The original show even gets name-dropped in the trailer, with people calling the 16-year-old doctor as “a real-life Doogie Howser.”

The trailer shows how the series will see the young doctor will be “juggling a budding medical career and life as a teenager,” including using the scientific method to deduce whether a guy likes her, in-between her rounds at the hospital.

The series, which also stars a diverse cast including Kathleen Rose Perkins, Jason Scott Lee, Matthew Sato, Wes Tian, Emma Meisel and Ronny Chieng, debuts on Disney+ on September 8.

The original Doogie Howser, M.D. ran for four seasons on ABC, from September 19, 1989, to March 24, 1993.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Starz has renewed its hit comedy series Run the World for a second season.

Along with the renewal announcement, the network shared that Rachelle Williams will serve as the season two showrunner. She’ll executive-produce alongside Yvette Lee Bowser and series creator Leigh Davenport. As previously reported, the series, starring Amber Stevens West, Andrea Bordeaux, Bresha Webb and Corbin Reid, follows a group of successful thirty-something Black women who work, live and hang out in Harlem. A season two premiere date for Run the World has yet to be announced.

In other news, Deadline has learned that In the Heights star Corey Hawkins has signed to Warner Bros. upcoming feature adaptation of the Broadway musical The Color Purple. Deadline reports that Hawkins will play Harpo in the film, which will be adapted from a screenplay based on Alice Walker‘s 1982 novel of the same name. WB’s The Color Purple, directed by Blitz Bazawule, is scheduled to hit theaters December 21, 2023.

Finally, ABC has shared a new trailer for The Wonder Years, a reboot to the original ’90s ABC family comedy. As previously reported, the new iteration focuses on a Black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama during the 1960s. It follows preteen Dean Williams, played by Elisha “EJ” Williams, in the central role, with Don Cheadle taking on the adult voice of the character and narrating the show. The Wonder Years premieres Wednesday, September 22, at 8:30 p.m. ET. Meanwhile, the network also released an extended trailer for Queens, the upcoming comedy about a group of four women in their 40s trying to relive their days of hip-hop fame. Starring Brandy, Eve, Naturi Naughton, and Nadine Velazquez , Queens will premiere Tuesday, October 19, at 10:00 p.m. ET.

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Monica Lewinsky says she had to hire a therapist while working on Impeachment: American Crime Story.

The FX drama, which begins airing a 10-episode season September 7, tells the infamous story of the affair between a then 22-year-old Lewinsky and the former POTUS, Bill Clinton, which lead to the second impeachment of a U.S. president. 

Lewinsky worked as a producer on the series, alongside creator Ryan Murphy. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she revealed that she had to hire a therapist to help her get through it. She said that the therapist would sit on Zoom with her while taking notes on the show “because it’s hard” reliving the darkest time in her life.

“It’s really hard, especially with the dramatic license that needs to be taken,” Lewinsky said. 

Looking back on the highly publicized affair and how it affected her, she recalled, “You go to bed one night a private person, and the next day you’re a public human being and the whole world hates you.”

“And you might go to jail. And you’re going to bankrupt your family. And, and, and…And just because I wasn’t on the news every night for 20 years in the same way that I was in 1998 doesn’t mean that this story ended,” she continued. “10 years on, I still could not get a job. I couldn’t support myself.”

At the end of the day, both Lewinsky and Murphy believe that Impeachment: American Crime Story will help viewers to see her in a new light, but she says that’s not the only goal.

“Of course I have a number of selfish reasons for wanting to participate,” Lewinsky admitted, “but a big goal for me is that this never happens to another young person again.”

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Ahead of the September 3 release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Marvel Studios has surprised fans by dropping on Disney+ All Hail the King, one of its “One-Shot” short films that previously was only released on the DVD for Iron Man 3.

The short takes place after Shane Black‘s 2013 blockbuster, which had a twist that its menacing villain, who called himself “The Mandarin,” was actually a has-been actor named Trevor Slattery, played by Oscar winner Ben Kingsley.

However, All Hail the King, written and directed by Iron Man 3 co-writer Drew Pearce, reinforces that there is a real Mandarin — who appears in Shang-Chi — and he, as is the rest of his deadly Ten Rings organization, is understandably none too happy with Slattery. Kingsley, too, appears in the upcoming film.

Some fans are still vocal about the Iron Man 3 twist, which somehow stayed secret in the age of social media — something that shocked Pearce. He told ABC Audio, “How did we get away with having an actual twist that nobody knew about in advance!? We were at the London premiere. “We were like, it’s a week ’til this comes out in America. This is not going to be a surprise to any human in the world. And for some reason, people like respected it as a twist, you know.”

And Pearce clarified that All Hail the King wasn’t an “apology” for the Mandarin twist, as some fanboys had snarked. “I always thought it was weird that like to somehow placate the people that were annoyed by Trevor Slattery, I would make a whole new film with Trevor Slattery where he’s even more Trevor Slattery-ish than he was in the original film,” Drew laughs.

He added, “[W]e stated fairly clearly in [Iron Man 3] that the Mandarin was a mantle that had already existed and would continue to exist. And All Hail the King was really just in the lineage of that.” 

Pearce adds, “I’m so proud of Iron Man 3, like it’s so esoteric as a superhero movie that I don’t think people even remember that until they re-watch it. It’s its own movie, and it’s pretty bonkers in places. And I love that.” 

Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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Candyman director Nia DaCosta knew she was stepping on hallowed ground when she signed on to direct “a spiritual sequel” to the 1992 supernatural horror film of the same name. 

“I was a huge fan of the original film,” DaCosta tells ABC Audio. “I saw it when I was really young…and watched when I was older…and had a completely different perspective, but still loved it.”

DaCosta’s says her love for the original made her want to do right by its sequel, noting that she “pitched” her own ideas to producers Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld.

“When I heard that Jordan was going to do a version of it, I didn’t really know what that meant,” she shares. “But I read the script that he and Win had co-written together, and I was like, ‘Oh, I see what they’re doing with this…this is really exciting.’ And I pitched…based on the script that I read, and we were really aligned where we wanted to take the story.”

While DaCosta’s 2021 film serves as a continuation of the Candyman legacy, the director laughs when you remind her that’s she creating her own by being among the few Black women to director a horror film.

“[I]t’s so funny. I’m just trying to make sure I eat, drink enough water…call my mom more. So I don’t generally think about it in those terms,” she says. “And then usually [it’s] at times like this when I’m like, ‘Oh, right. That is a thing.'”

DaCosta continues, “[But it’s] really exciting…as someone who wanted to be doing this for such a long time… But there’s many more of us now, like Melina Matsoukas…Ava DuVernay and Kasi Lemmons. It’s so great to be in that company.”

Candyman is now in theaters.

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