Entertainment

Halloween is fast approaching, which means it’s almost time to crawl onto the couch, mummify yourself in a blanket, unwrap a king-size candy bar and prepare for Freeform’s annual 31 Nights of Halloween.

This year’s lineup of spooky movies was released Wednesday, and it’s packed with classics, fan favorites and some new faces.

Joining the roster this year will be the premiere of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Jaws, Fright Night, Men in Black II and many others.

However, it’s not 31 Nights of Halloween without the staples, with Casper kicking off the inaugural event at 2:30 p.m. ET on Friday, October 1.  Other must-have classics that will keep viewers up at night will be Hocus Pocus, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Craft, Halloweentown, The Addams Family and Ghostbusters. 

Multiple movies and Halloween-centric episodes from Family Guy, The Simpsons and others will play every day until Halloween, with Ghostbusters capping off another year of spooks and frights.

You can view the full schedule on Freeform’s website.

In addition, Los Angeles residents will be able to enjoy an additional fright fest when Freeform takes over Heritage Square Museum from October 1 to the 5 for Freeform’s Halloween Road, “a bewitching bash full of mischief and mayhem” where fans can enjoy an “immersive outdoor walk-thru experience” through the worlds of Hocus Pocus, Tim Burton‘s The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ghostbusters and The Addams Family.

Tickets for the spooktacular event are currently sold out.

Freeform is owned by Disney, parent company of ABC News.

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Some of the best party guests are those who weren’t invited…like Jamie Foxx, who crashed a woman’s bachelorette over the weekend.

The New York Post reports that Foxx walked into the Miami club Kiki on the River and decided to surprise the soon-to-be-bride.

“When Jamie took a walk inside, he stumbled upon a bachelorette party all decked in sailor hats,” a witness told the newspaper. “At first, they didn’t recognize him because he was wearing a mask, but then it clicked and they were shocked.”

Foxx, who was at the joint to celebrate a friend’s birthday, reportedly took selfies with the women at the party.  The New York Post obtained a photo of the actor taking a group selfie with the ladies.  

The Soul star enjoyed himself at his friend’s party, with a witness saying he ordered 20 bottles of Dom Pérignon, a brand of vintage Champagne that costs over $100 per bottle, as well as oysters, grilled chicken and fish, and Greek salads.

Foxx capped off the night by jumping behind the DJ booth and belting out Alicia Keys and Jay-Z‘s “Empire State of Mind.”

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Billy Porter is ecstatic he was able to become the character that he needed to exist when he was younger, and credits Cinderella for making that magic happen.

Speaking to ABC Audio, Porter gushed about playing the Fairy Godmother — since renamed to Fab G — in the Amazon Prime Video film, adding that it allowed him to become closer to his idol, Whitney Houston.

“As a black, queer man on this planet growing up in the 70s and 80s, there wasn’t anything to really identify with. The thing I identified with the most was Whitney Houston,” the Pose star explained. “By the time I was a teenager, I wanted to be the male Whitney Houston.”

Houston famously played the Fairy Godmother in the 1997 TV musical Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella.

“Imagine getting this part all these years later… I’m playing the Whitney Houston part!” Porter exclaimed, “I could die and go to heaven today.”

As for becoming a character he needed to see on television when he was younger, Porter, who turns 52 this month, is thankful that he is able to let queer, Black boys see themselves represented on screen. He also admitted that he was unable to become that person when he first started in Hollywood, telling ABC Audio, “I was trying to fit in the masculinity box, so that I could eat, right? There was never a possibility for anything that looked like this [movie.]”

Continued the Emmy winner, “As far as Cinderella is concerned?  That looks like me! As far as Billy Porter in the world and the way that I resonate right now, it didn’t exist [before.]” 

Cinderella, also starring Camila Cabello, Idina Menzel and Pierce Brosnan, premieres on Amazon Prime Video this Friday.

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The wait for Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is almost over! The film hits theaters for preview screenings tonight but until then, Meng’er Zhang, who stars as Shang-Chi’s butt-kicking sister, gave ABC Audio a preview of what to expect.

“It’s a film about family. It’s a film about bond and love. We have a lot of drama, good comedy and countless breathtaking action sequences in it,” the actress spilled. “And I mean, it’s just it’s unlike anything you have ever seen in the Marvel Universe, right?”

Also unlike anything seen before, Shang-Chi is Marvel’s first Asian superhero movie and it was important to avoid the typical stereotypes when it comes to Asian characters on screen — so much so that they ditched over a month’s worth of content.

Explaining that her character once had red extensions, Zhang said, “…One day I read an article from Teen Vogue talking about how Asian female characters in Hollywood films, they always had some color in their hair to show that they’re a rebel, to show that they can fight, to show that they are tough. And I don’t want my character to follow that trend. So I called our director, Destin [Cretton], and asked him if we could take that out. And just the next day we took it out.”

Another first is that Shang-Chi is Zhang’s first film and its also the first time she’s done martial arts training — which is what might have contributed to her punching co-star Simu Liu in the face.

“I didn’t mean to! It was an accident… but I did enjoy it,” she said with a laugh.

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Gregg Leakes, the husband of Real Housewives of Atlanta alum Nene Leakes, has lost his battle with cancer. He was 66.

“Today the Leakes family is in deep pain with a broken heart,” reads a statement from a rep for the famous couple. “After a long battle with cancer, Gregg Leakes has passed away peacefully in his home surrounded by all of his children, very close loved ones and wife Nene Leakes.”

The statement concludes, “We ask that you pray for peace and strength over their family & allow them to mourn in private during this very very difficult time.”

Incidentally, the news came days after Nene told patrons at her Atlanta lounge that Gregg “was transitioning to the other side.”

Gregg was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2018, but it went into remission after treatment. In June, Nene shared that the cancer had returned and Gregg had undergone surgery.

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Paramount has made 2022 the year of Tom Cruise. The studio has bumped his pandemic-delayed Top Gun: Maverick until 2022, along with the star’s anticipated seventh Mission: Impossible film. 

Paramount now says Maverick will open May 27, over Memorial Day weekend of 2022, and Mission: Impossible 7 will come to theaters on Sept. 30, 2022.

Incidentally, Top Gun: Maverick‘s move from its November 19, 2021 release date led Sony to bump by a week the release of its own pandemic-delayed film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The movie will now open on that date to take advantage of IMAX and other higher-quality theaters that Top Gun‘s move freed up.

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Taraji P. Henson and Gabrielle Union are teaming up behind the camera for a brand-new project.

According to Deadline, the two have signed on to produce Sorcerority, a feature film adaptation of Mikhail Sebastian and George Watson‘s graphic novel of the same name. The book follows Melanie, a young girl who follows in her late mother’s footsteps by enrolling into a historically African-American coven and university of magic. There, she “discovers her enrollment into the school may not be entirely of her own choosing, but rather the calculated actions of a higher authority.” Casting for the film has yet to be announced.

In other news, Jay Ellis, Kiersey Clemons and Alison Brie are set to star in Dave Franco‘s romantic comedy Somebody I Used to Know. Directed and co-written by Franco, the film follows Brie as a workaholic who reunites with an ex-boyfriend, played by Ellis, during a trip to her hometown. During their encounter, Ally begins to “question all of her prior life choices.” A release date for Somebody I Used to Know has not been announced.

Finally, fresh off of his Candyman box office success, Jordan Peele has inked a multi-year television deal with Universal Studios via his Monkeypaw Productions banner, Deadline reports. As you may recall, Peele had previously signed a first-look TV deal with Amazon Studios back in 2018. Under his new deal, the Oscar winner will get to develop television projects across Universal Studio Group divisions.

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Starting today, the streaming service Shudder is getting a jump on the spooky season with its second annual “61 Days of Halloween” lineup.

The subscription service, which caters to fans of horror movies and thrillers, announced a massive slate of both new and classic content that will unfurl as we get closer to October 31. 

The lineup features new movie premieres and original series debuts. Included will be a new Halloween special with genre fave Joe Bob Briggs, a new season of the drag competition Dragula, and new offerings to Shudder’s library of scary films, including Brian De Palma‘s classic Carrie and Tobe Hooper‘s Poltergeist. 

Shudder will also unveil a new version of its annual yule log — that is, the 24/7 streaming jack-o-lantern known as the Ghoul Log — as well as a return of Shudder’s Halloween Hotline, which lets fans get personalized movie recommendations from the streaming service’s head curator, Samuel Zimmerman.

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If you’re a model car collector, you might as well stop now — that is, unless you’re one of the 25 people who managed to scoop up the ultimate toy: a full-scale model of James Bond’s iconic 1965 silver Aston Martin DB5. 

The famous car company has teamed up with the well-known die-cast metal model making company Corgi to create the extremely limited edition replicas, which, yes, come standard with 007 gadgets like rotating license plates, a retractable bulletproof rear shield, and pop-out machine guns.

All 25 models that were made available to the public sold out immediately, for a price that’s not child’s play: $3.1 million.

Three more models were also created for promotional purposes: One is on display to the public at The Coaling Jetty, Battersea Power Station in London through October 1. 

The cars actually drive, too, but they’re not street legal in the UK, due to the gadgets.

The models are exacting matches not just to the original classic car, but to Corgi’s best-selling toy-scale versions of Bond’s whip. The full-scale versions even come with a giant Corgi model box big enough to fit the full-size version.

This clever bit of engineering was also a fun way for Aston to promote its continued relationship with MGM and Ian Fleming‘s super spy: Daniel Craig will again be seen behind the wheel of 007’s DB5 in October’s No Time to Die.

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(NOTE CONTENT) Last week, the video platform OnlyFans made headlines by apparently pulling a 180,  reversing a previous announcement that it would ban adult content. The ban led to an outcry from content creators and followers alike, which the platform claimed was in part behind their decision to “suspend” the ban.

The initial decision was to placate “banking partners and payout providers” who apparently balked at being associated with a platform that wasn’t necessarily built for NSFW content, but certainly flourished because of it.

Mia Isabella, an OnlyFans provider and adult film star, told ABC Audio that the now-suspended ban was ironic on its face: “[OnlyFans] had an acquisitions person that came out to acquire the talent from my industry to build a platform, that was how it was started.”

She explains, “I’m very grateful that they decided to keep the terms and actually stand up to whatever discriminatory practices…are being used against our particular industry.”

That said, for many content creators, the reversal was greeted with skepticism. Addison Sins gave up a career in the healthcare industry for a far more lucrative career on OnlyFans. She tells ABC Audio about the now-suspended ban, “A lot of us are trying to know…was it a publicity stunt?” 

She adds, “It’s just that there’s so much uncertainty now that they’ve done something like that, that a lot of the community of the girls I work with no longer trust OnlyFans.”

Another adult performer, Marcela Alonso, offers, “They said suspend, not cancel, ‘suspend’ means that it’s just temporary. So with that being said, I personally am not keeping my eggs all in one basket…And it’s up to each content creator to…learn about the other platforms and just diversify, just in case.”

The subscription platform is pushing to branch out, with mainstream celebrities signing on, and the launch of its OFTV offshoot platform, which features cooking shows and the like, But Mia says ultimately, OnlyFans needs the content it tried to ban.

“I understand that seems so cool that musicians and athletes and people that are not in the adult industry might join the platform. But the platform wasn’t built for them.” She adds of OnlyFans, “They’re not going to make money. All those hundred and twenty million members are fans of the adult performers. They’re not going to be watching musicians and paying membership fees to see what their next single is going to be. They could just go on YouTube.”

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