Entertainment

Harry Potter fans have just gotten an update about Warner Bros.’ planned TV series about the boy wizard.

Variety reports that while speaking at Mipcom in Cannes, Warner Bros. TV Group Chairman and CEO Channing Dungey shared some tidbits about what to expect, and it seems the show plans to delve into the Potter world even more than the movies did.

Dungey said that being part of the series is an “unbelievable dream, honestly … and as somebody who is a huge fan of the books, the opportunity to get to explore them in a little bit more in-depth that you can in just a two-hour film … that’s the whole reason we’re on this journey.”

As for what stage the project is in, Dungey shared that the “writing staff was in place and they’re doing what they need to do, and casting calls have opened up in the U.K. and Ireland, so the process is moving along.” 

Dungey also offered an update on the future of Ted Lasso, noting, “We are in conversations about season four, and they are very exciting conversations, but it’s still early days.” 

Earlier reports said Warner Bros. TV had picked up the options for series regulars Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein and Jeremy Swift, and it sounds like star Jason Sudeikis could be returning as well in some capacity.

“We had always been clear that we there wasn’t going to be more Ted Lasso if Jason [Sudeikis] and team weren’t feeling excited about it,” Dungey said, “and I can tell you firsthand that he’s in a place where he’s feeling really excited and feels good about it”

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Leslie Uggams was already an entertainment legend before a whole new generation got introduced to her thanks to her role as Deadpool’s potty-mouthed roommate and sidekick Blind Al in 2016’s Deadpool. 

She reappeared in that blockbuster’s hit sequel in 2018 and entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the most recent installment, the smash Deadpool and Wolverine. In between that, she also snagged a co-starring role in the Prime Video series Fallout. 

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she enthused to ABC Audio about her career resurgence.

Uggams took part in an event at New York City Comic Con over the weekend that saw a gaggle of Deadpool costumers board a tour bus and travel through the city. 

“I didn’t get to ride with them. But I tell you, it’s so comforting to see how many people love Deadpool and are willing to get in those outfits because it ain’t easy.” 

Between her role in the hit franchise and Fallout, the 81-year-old singer and actress says, “I’m having so much fun. I can’t tell you the fun I’ve been having.” 

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Zoe Saldaña has a record-breaking box office track record: Her movies have made more than $14 billion, and she is the only actress to have four movies make more than 2 billion bucks with 2009’s Avatar, 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, 2019’s Avengers: Endgame and 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water. 

That said, she tells Variety that somewhere along the way she lost her “spark” — which she found, along with Oscar buzz, for the musical drama Emilia Pérez. 

She confesses to the trade, “I felt stuck, in the sense that I was taking things for granted too much. I entered this cycle of doing these sequels, and for some reason I became cavalier with them.”

She also adds, “I wish I could go back and do a better job for [her Marvel character] Gamora and Uhura [in the Star Trek franchise],” commenting, “I think I did enough, but I could have done more. That’s just how I am.”

Although her dyslexia and her own “self-sabotage” make auditioning difficult — and she hadn’t done so in a while, what with all the sequels — she auditioned for French filmmaker Jacques Audiard for Emilia via Zoom. Twice, in fact.

He tells the trade she “constantly dazzled” him as Rita.

“Rita was supposed to be only 25 years old; however, as soon as I had Zoe in front of me, I realized that I’d been mistaken all along,” Audiard says.

The actress now says, “I just have this brand-new little spark. And I feel like Emilia really did that for me.”

Emilia Pérez, which is also generating Oscar buzz for Zoe’s co-star Selena Gomez, opens in select theaters in November and on Netflix Nov. 13.

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan is no stranger to the Comic Con experience, but it still floors him how fans have reacted to him since he joined The Walking Dead universe as Negan. 

“I mean, I had been in the kind of the comic book world for a little bit. I’d done, you know, Watchmen and The Losers. So I’d done some stuff. But Walking Dead, when I came in in season 6 was a whole ‘nother world.”

He adds, “I mean … it was huge. And I don’t think there’s any way to get to prepare yourself.”

He continues, “Yeah, it was nuts.”

“It still is!” said Morgan, who was sharing a press conference with his Walking Dead: Dead City co-star Lauren Cohan. “I still, you know, see stuff … you see people dressed as our characters or any number of toys and action figures, I think that it’s always a lot — in a good way.”

“Never gets old!” Cohan enthuses. “It’s exciting!” he agrees. 

Also at New York Comic Con over the weekend, the pair debuted a teaser to the second season of their hit AMC show Walking Dead: Dead City, which the actors also executive produce. It debuts in the spring of 2025.

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Believe it or not, Eva Mendes says she “never considered herself” beautiful — but it’s her longtime partner Ryan Gosling who makes her feel “really f****** sexy.”

That’s what the actress, mom, author and entrepreneur tells the Times of London in a new interview about her life and career. 

On the latter, she’s frank. “I was never in love with acting. I don’t mean this in a self-deprecating way, but I wasn’t a great actress,” Eva says, allowing, “I had my moments when I worked with really great people.”

Two of those films are 2013’s The Place Beyond the Pines, on which she met her Barbie star beau and the mother of her two children, Esmeralda, 10, and Amada, 8, and 2014’s Lost River, the 50-year-old’s last film and Ryan’s directorial debut. 

“He gets something out of me that’s never been accessible before,” she says. 

On that note, the actress credits Gosling with something else. 

“I feel really f****** sexy at times,” Mendes says. “The way my man looks at me is just … at times I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ That might not sit well with people, but so much of how I feel is a reflection of what he’s giving me.”

She adds, “There’s so many things that can make me feel sexy and I’d say that I feel more sexy than not. I guess because I’ve never considered myself beautiful, but I’ve always felt very sexy.”

For the record, Eva says she was “totally fine” with turning 50, adding, “It’s just that number sounds crazy.”

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Daredevil: Born Again will premiere March 4, 2025, on Disney+, the streaming service announced at New York Comic Con Saturday, according to Variety. Daredevil: Born Again stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, the blind superhero-lawyer, reprising the role he played for three seasons on the popular Netflix series Daredevil. Vincent D’Onofrio co-stars, along with Jon Bernthal, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson and Wilson Bethel …

Lost actor Michael Emerson will join the season 2 cast of CBS’ Elsbeth in a recurring role, opposite his wife, series star Carrie Preston, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Emerson will play Judge Milton Crawford, “a haughty, soft-spoken and bespectacled man from an old New England family of public servants who sees his place in the nation’s elite as a birthright,” per the outlet. The series follows Preston’s titular character Elsbeth Tascioni, a role she previously played on The Good Wife and The Good Fight, as she leaves Chicago and heads to New York for a new investigative role …

Only Murders in the Building‘s Martin Short has been added to the voice cast of the Fox animated series Grimsburg in a recurring role, according to Variety. He’ll will play Otis Volcanowitz — the newest, and youngest, detective at the Grimsburg police department. The series features Jon Hamm as the voice of down-on-his-luck detective Marvin Flute, who “must return to Grimsburg, a town where everyone has a secret or three, and redeem himself in the eyes of his fellow detectives, his ferocious ex-wife and his lovably unstable son.” Other guest voices set to appear in season 2 include Tina Fey, J.K. Simmons, Anna Osceola, Joel McHale, Tom Segura and Danny Trejo …

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Smile 2 opened with an estimated $23 million to top the domestic box office this weekend. The psychological thriller, starring Naomi Scott, did equally well overseas, where it grabbed an estimated $23 million, for a global tally of $46 million.

The Wild Robot took second place, delivering an estimated $10.1 million at the North American box office in its third week of release, for a total of $101.7 million. Overseas, the animated adventure earned an estimated $23 million, for a worldwide tally of $193 million.

Terrifier 3 scared up an estimated $9.3 million, bringing its domestic total to $36.2 million after four weeks. The horror flick added an estimated $3 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $44.8 million.

Fourth place went to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, collecting an estimated $5 million at the North American box office after seven weeks. Its domestic tally now stands at $284 million. Globally, the sequel has earned $434.5 million to date.

Rounding out the top five was the Florence Pugh/Andrew Garfield-led romantic drama We Live in Time, which added an estimated $4.1 million in its first week of wide release. It’s domestic total currently stands at $4.5 million and $4.8 million worldwide.

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Jennifer Lawrence is expecting her second child with husband Cooke Maroney. Her representative confirmed the exciting news to Vogue.

ABC News has reached out to Lawrence’s representative for comment.

The couple are already parents to their 2-year-old son, whom they welcomed in February 2022.

During a conversation with Cameron Diaz for Interview magazine last June, the No Hard Feelings star gushed over her art gallery owner husband, calling him “the greatest father in the entire world.”

“So when I’m working, I don’t have any more guilt than the usual, every-day, all-day parent guilt,” she said at the time.

In 2022, Lawrence opened up about her life as a mom to Vogue, sharing that it had been “so scary to talk about motherhood” because it’s so different for everyone.

She recalled having girlfriends who were honest about their journeys with her, and how it prepared her to be forgiving.

“I remember walking with one of my best friends at, like, nine months, and being like, ‘Everyone keeps saying that I will love my baby more than my cat. But that’s not true. Maybe I’ll love him as much as my cat?'” she said at the time.

Lawrence has since fallen in love with motherhood, saying that the morning after she gave birth, it felt like her life had started over.

“Now I hear a baby crying in a restaurant and I’m like, ‘Awwww, preciousssss,'” she told Vogue. “My heart has stretched to a capacity that I didn’t know about.”

Lawrence and Maroney got engaged in 2019.

They tied the knot in October later that year at Belcourt of Newport, a museum and historical site in Newport, Rhode Island, before family and a guest list that included famous friends like Diaz, Adele and Emma Stone.

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A new take on Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel American Psycho is in the works, with Variety reporting that Challengers director Luca Guadagnino in talks to helm the project.

The trade notes that the film won’t be a remake of the 2000 dark comedy starring Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman and instead will be a new adaption of the novel. 

“We are thrilled to add another elite filmmaker to our upcoming slate,” Lionsgate Motion Picture Group chair Adam Fogelson said. “Luca is a brilliant artist, and the perfect visionary to create a whole new interpretation of this potent and classic IP.”

American Psycho follows a New York City investment banker who leads a double life as a serial killer. The 2000 film also starred Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto and Chloë Sevigny.

The film’s soundtrack was filled with ’80s hits from artists like David Bowie, Phil Collins, New Order and more. Huey Lewis and the News‘ “Hip To Be Square” played a prominent role in the film, but was removed from the soundtrack because it was included without getting the band’s permission.

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The Bear star Jeremy Allen White is set to play Bruce Springsteen in the upcoming movie Deliver Me From Nowhere, and The Boss has shared his thoughts on the actor’s singing voice.

Springsteen appeared on the latest episode of The Graham Norton Show, where he talked about the film. According to People, he said, “It’s a lovely cast and I am involved a little.”

The Boss also acknowledged that portraying him on the big screen could be a challenge for White.

“This is not easy to do because you can’t do an imitation, you have to do a personal interpretation,” he said. “It’s difficult but he is a great actor and sings pretty good.”

White previously revealed in an interview with GQ that he’d be doing his own singing in the film.

“I’m really lucky that there’s sort of a team of folks now in place to help young actors portray rock stars,” he said. “I’ve got a really talented group of people helping me train vocally, musically, to get ready for this thing.”

Deliver Me From Nowhere, directed by Scott Cooper, follows Springsteen’s efforts to make his 1982 solo album Nebraska. The film is based on Warren Zanes‘ book Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.

In related news … After rumors circulated in May that Succession star Jeremy Strong was in talks to play Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau in the film, the actor has now confirmed his participation.

“It just always spoke to me, there’s a melancholy to it,” he told NME of Nebraska. “I am doing [Deliver Me From Nowhere] but I’d always felt that way about that album. There’s a narrative to it that comes from a very deep place in him and you can feel that.”

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