Entertainment

On Monday, Netflix unveiled the trailer to Squid Game: The Challenge, the reality game show version of the blockbuster Korean import.

From the drop, one can see that the 456 contestants vying for the game’s $4.56 million top prize are fans of the show: They are floored just entering a recreation of the series’ iconic bunk rooms, and marvel at the other sets.

However, the similarities don’t stop there: Young-hee, the creepy doll statue known for famously announcing the deadly Red Light/Green Light game is there, too, and is seen staging a massive, real-life version of the game from the show.

The only thing missing is the losers getting machine-gunned if they move after she says, “red light.”

They do, however, suffer being shot by paintballs.

“This is a savage game,” one contestant says in voiceover. “You can’t trust anybody in here,” another says as the action unfolds, showing the bridge of death, the feverish cookie trimming, marbles and the other games adapted from the original show.

Squid Game: The Challenge debuts November 22 on Netflix.

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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has Instagrammed that he’s seen the controversy revolving around his wax statue that was recently unveiled at a museum in France — and he says help is on the way.

As reported, the Grévin Museum’s now-deleted post of the new attraction was met with universal ridicule, as it was the wrong shade.

To his post, Johnson added comedian James Jefferson‘s riff, saying among other things, that the wax Rock looked like David Beckham or a member of the Royal Family, rather than the Black and Samoan superstar.

“Did y’all even Google him?” the comedian jabbed, adding to white people, “Is this how y’all felt when you lost The Little Mermaid? I understand!”

“Let’s all do an Uno Reverse, you can have the Little Mermaid back…and we get The Rock back,” Jefferson joked.

For his part, Johnson captioned, “I knew my boy @jamesjeffersonj had this Rock wax statue in his roasting crosshairs.”

“For the record, I’m going to have my team reach out to our friends at Grevin Museum, in Paris, France so we can work at ‘updating’ my wax figure here with some important details and improvements- starting with my skin color,” he wrote, adding a laughing emoji and a Black emoji fist and bicep.

He also commented, “And next time I’m in Paris, I’ll stop in and have a drink with myself.”

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Monday is Ryan Reynolds‘ 47th birthday, and to celebrate, Rob McElhenney once again staged an elaborate birthday gift/prank for his buddy and co-chair of the Wrexham football club.

This year, he got the Deadpool star an “actual superhero” to help him: Chris Pratt.

The hilariously awkward Instagram video has Pratt at first waiting while McElhenney finishes up paperwork. He then plays clueless as to why he’s seated opposite the Always Sunny in Philadelphia co-creator and star, and admits he’s never seen the b-day back and forth between McElhenney and Reynolds.

“No, you’ve seen it on social media,” McElhenney insists. Pratt interrupts, saying, “Do I have had to follow you to see that? I might have seen it if it was on his.”

McElhenney then protests, dejected, “I have a lot of followers, too,” noting he can give Pratt his handle in case he doesn’t follow him.

“Anyway, this year, my idea involves a park,” McElhenney says. Pratt considers it before sarcastically adding, “Oh, because I was on Parks and Recreation. “

Before he finishes his sentence, the theme from the show that made Pratt famous starts, and McElhenney details his plans for the Ryan Rodney Reynolds Memorial Park, located near their shared soccer team’s stadium in Wrexham, Wales.

In voiceover, the actor promises the spot will be beautiful, with open green spaces, pop-up restaurants, movie screenings and “actual green lanterns.” There will also be “benches for old guys to swing on” and a “hideous statue” that “may or may not look like Ryan.”

McElhenney also plugs a website, dubbed ParksAndWrex.com, for details.

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Mandy Moore is officially a mom of two toddlers.

The This Is Us actress shared a carousel of photos Sunday on Instagram featuring her family celebrating the first birthday of her son, Oscar Bennett, aka Ozzie.

In the first photo from the post, Ozzie, who turned 1 on Friday, can be seen posing adorably and wearing a birthday hat while sitting in a highchair.

“Turns out 1 is NOT the loneliest number when you have family like this to help you celebrate your birthday!” Moore wrote in the caption.

Another photo featured Ozzie’s birthday cake, made by Top Chef: Just Desserts alum Danielle Keene, which was approved by the birthday boy, the actress said.

Other sweet images included photos of Ozzie and his big brother August, aka Gus, 2, and their dad, Taylor Goldsmith, the frontman of the folk-rock band Dawes.

Moore also posted a sweet tribute on Instagram Friday to mark Ozzie’s milestone by sharing a series of photos of the toddler.

“Our sweet Ozzie is 1. How?!!” she captioned the post. “I honestly can’t remember a moment before this beautiful beaming ball of pure love was in our lives,” she said in part.

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SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood’s major studios announced in a joint statement on Saturday, October 21, that they will return to the bargaining table on Tuesday — nearly two weeks after the management side called a halt to talks, saying the sides were too far apart, according to Variety. The union’s negotiating committee confirmed in a message to members that the outreach to resume talks came from the management side, sources tel the outlet…

Variety reports Jimmy Kimmel is out as host of L.A. Bowl, SoFi Stadium’s owned and operated college football bowl game, and Rob Gronkowski is in. The former NFL star has entered into a multi-year deal, the SoFi Stadium announced on Saturday. L.A. Bowl Hosted by Gronk — formerly titled Jimmy Kimmel L.A. Bowl, — will take place at SoFi Stadium on Dec. 16, featuring the Mountain West’s No. 1 selection face off against the Pac-12’s No. 5 selection…

Elaine Devry, an actress who appeared in such films as A Guide for the Married Man and on dozens of TV shows after becoming the fourth of Mickey Rooney’s eight wives, died September 20 in her home in Grants Pass, Oregon, according to a notice placed on a local funeral home website. She was 93. Devry had shown up as a guest star on shows like Bachelor Father, Perry Mason, Death Valley Days, 77 Sunset Strip, Bonanza, I Dream of Jeannie, My Three Sons, Family Affair, Marcus Welby, M.D., and Cannon, before leaving acting in the late 1970s…

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Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour topped the domestic box office for the second straight grabbing an estimated $31 million. The concert film added an estimated $10.5 million, for a worldwide total of $164.8 million.

Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon, based on David Grann‘s bestselling book about the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, had to settle for a second place debut, earning an estimated $23 million at North American box office. There was better news for the Robert De Niro/Leonardo DiCaprio-led film overseas, where it took in an estimated $21 million, for a $44 million global debut, beating The Eras Tour‘s $41.5 million weekend global tally.

The Exorcist: Believer pulled up in third place with an estimated $5.6 million, bringing its three-week domestic total to $54.2 million and $107.6 million globally.

Grabbing fourth place was Paw Patrol: The Might Movie, collecting an estimated $4.1 million in its fourth week of release. Its domestic tally now stands at $56.1 million and $148.4 million globally.

Rounding out the top five was the re-release of Tim Burton‘s 1993 Halloween classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas, delivering an estimated $4.1 million at the North American box office. While it earned a modest $50 million in its initial release, subsequent re-releases have brought that total to $95.3 million.

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In talking about the real-life genocide behind his new film Killers of the Flower Moon, legendary director Martin Scorsese explained to Timothée Chalamet his take on movie morality.

The filmmaker sat down with the Dune franchise star for GQ and says he found it silly that some critics claim he doesn’t take a stand against amoral characters in classics like Goodfellas or Leonardo DiCaprio‘s character in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

The based-on-real-life story centers on DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort, a Wall Street executive whose life of white collar crime afforded him a spiraling sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.

“I only learned the other day from an interviewer who said, ‘You’re not aware of the war [over] Wolf of Wall Street?’ … Apparently, I was told this, there were two camps: One camp [of critics] that loved the picture and the other camp that was furious, saying I didn’t take a moral stand on Jordan Belfort.”

Scorsese continues, “And one of the critics from the other group that liked the picture said, ‘Do you really need Martin Scorsese to tell you that that‘s wrong?'”

Chalamet asked him, “Does that moralistic attitude bore you a bit now?” to which Scorsese scoffed,
“It’s beyond boring, I think.”

Killers of the Flower Moon, which stars DiCaprio, as well as Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone and John Lithgow, is now in theaters.

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The Rock is in wax at a French museum and Instagrammers are waxing not poetic, but sarcastic, about it.

The images of the Grévin Museum in Paris’ Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson statue that were posted to Instagram have been met with near universal derision by fans, who have a lot to say about the not-so-lookalike to the movie star. He is WWE’s People’s Champion, after all.

Much of the flak is because viewers feel the waxy avatar is the wrong color. “[W]ho is this because uhhhh… You do know he’s Samoan and black right?” one snarked.

Another Instagrammer posted a gif of cleaning icon Mr. Clean in response to the pics.

“That’s not Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, that’s Wayne ‘The Opal’ Johnson,” jabbed another.

And as if the insults didn’t come fast and furious enough, others posited it looked more like one of Johnson’s co-stars than him, with “Dwayne Vin Diesel Johnson” from one commenter and “That’s Vin ‘The Rock’ Diesel,” coming from another.

So far, there’s no comment from the flesh-and-blood version of the superstar.

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Lupita Nyong’o is addressing rumors that she and partner Selema Masekela have separated in a lengthy note shared to social media about pain and deception.

After seemingly acknowledging the current Israel-Hamas war, noting there are “much more important things” happening in the world, Nyong’o updated fans on her relationship status.

“At this moment, it is necessary for me to share a personal truth and publicly dissociate myself from someone I can no longer trust,” she said.

Nyong’o expanded on her current “season of heartbreak,” writing of a “love suddenly and devastatingly extinguished by deception.”

“I am tempted to run into the shadows and hide, only to return to the light when I have regained my strength enough for me to say, ‘Whatever, my life is better this way,'” she said. “But I am reminded that the magnitude of the pain I am feeling is equal to the measure of my capacity for love.”

The Oscar-winning actress said that in “choosing to face the pain” and finding the courage to deal with life in the moment, she trusts that “this too shall pass.”

She continued, “The promise, they say, is that a tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness.”

Nyong’o said that by sharing her message and revealing the breakup, she hopes to help others who may be “experiencing the grip of heartbreak.”

“Let’s face our pain so we don’t spread it,” she said.

Her announcement comes days after she was captured at an event with Joshua Jackson, who’s wife, Jodie Turner-Smith, recently filed for divorce after four years of marriage.

Nyong’o and Masekela went public with their relationship by sharing a since-deleted Instagram video in December 2022.

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A medical drama headlined by Star Trek star Zachary Quinto will be coming to NBC.

The drama Dr. Wolf is based on the life of the late British neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, whose book Awakenings was made into the Oscar-nominated 1990 film of the same name starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.

According to NBC, the new series “follows revolutionary, larger-than-life neurologist Oliver Wolf (Quinto) and his team of interns as they explore the last great frontier — the human mind — while also grappling with their own relationships and mental health.”

The network says the show will be based not only on Sacks’ work but his books that explored the mysteries of the mind: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars.

The series is being co-produced by actor-director Andy Serkis and his Imaginarium company, which had plans to adapt those books going back to 2018, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Dr. Wolf will also star Tamberla Perry, Ashleigh LaThrop and Alexander MacNicoll, among others, but with the SAG-AFTRA strike still ongoing, it’s unclear when it will air on the network.

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