Entertainment

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. opened the weekend with an estimated $114 million domestic gross — a few million below expectations, but still good enough to knock The Super Mario Bros. Movie down a notch. Globally, the film — starring Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan and Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket Racoon — pulled in $282 million.

That gives Pratt the week’s two top films, as The Super Mario Bros Movie, slips to second place with an estimated $18.6 million weekend. It’s the highest-grossing film of the year so far with a total of $518 million in North America and $1.15 billion globally.

Supernatural horror sequel The Evil Dead Rise dropped to third place, delivering an estimated $5.7 million. Its three-week domestic tally to $54 million and $110 million globally.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, the adaptation of Judy Bloom‘s beloved book, took fourth place with an estimated $3.38 million in its second week of release. That brings its current gross to $12.6 million against a budget of $30 million.

Rounding out the top five was the Priyanka Chopra Jonas-led rom-com, Love Again, earning an estimated $2.4 million.

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(NOTE LANGUAGE) Pete Davidson‘s new comedy series, Bupkis, is now on Peacock.

The show takes a fictionalized view of Davidson’s real life as he tries to juggle family and a career, as well as mental health struggles and addiction issues.

As reported, Pete gathered an all-star cast for the show, including Emmy winner Edie Falco as his mom. Davidson also managed to lure Academy Award winner Joe Pesci out of retirement to play his grandfather.

Everybody Loves Raymond siblings Ray Romano and Brad Garrett also star, with the stand-up playing two versions of himself and Garrett playing Pete’s Uncle Roy.

Garrett said it was an easy decision to sign up. “You know, what a cast. And so this was a no-brainer for me.”

Romano explained he had a friendship with Pete ahead of the show, but they hadn’t hung out much. He added, “And so when this came along … I really took to him. And when I heard Brad was in it, I had to think twice, but I went with it nonetheless.”

Ray and Garrett don’t appear together in the show, but the R-rated comedy let them do things they’d never do on Raymond. “I don’t have much dignity left,” Garrett jokes.

“They wrote stuff worse than you … see on the screen, you know, and I let it rip,” Romano says with a smile.

As evidence, one line has Ray’s alter-ego calling Davidson “P**** Thanos,” thanks to his rumored collecting of starlets like so many Infinity Stones.

It’s particularly funny to find out neither Romano nor Garrett had heard of the Marvel movie baddie, with Garrett admitting, “I thought it was a reference to Theranos,” the bioetch company that imploded for fraud.

Bupkis also features Charlie Day, John Mulaney, Sebastian Stan, Simon Rex and Kenan Thompson.

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While it remains to be seen what the final Guardians of the Galaxy film does in theaters over the weekend, where it goes head-to-head with another Chris Pratt-fronted film — the more than billion dollar-grossing Super Mario Bros. Movie — it’s off to a good start. 

The Wrap says Guardians already made $17.5 million from Thursday night previews. The movie also screened in certain IMAX theaters Wednesday evening, where it capped a special “Trilogy” showcase of writer-director James Gunn‘s space opera trilogy.

So far, the film has an 80% Critics Score and a 96% Audience Score from aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. That’s certainly good news for Marvel Studios, whose last film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, only managed a 47% from Critics and an 80% Audience Score, and which tumbled massively during its second week in theaters. 

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

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The Daily Mail is reporting that former Aquaman star Amber Heard has “quit Hollywood and quietly relocated” to Spain with her 2-year-old daughter, Oonagh Paige.

Reportedly quoting a friend, the publication said of Heard, “She’s bilingual in Spanish and is happy there, raising her daughter away from all the noise.” Further, the source stated, “I don’t think she is in any hurry to return to work or to Hollywood, but she will probably come back when the time is right for the right project.”

Buttressing the report, the Daily Mail notes Heard sold her home in Yucca Valley, California, in July, after a U.S. jury decided she had defamed ex-husband Johnny Depp.

In December of last year, she dropped an appeal of the verdict and settled the highly publicized case.

Heard hasn’t worked on any major projects since last spring, and there have been rumors her role as Mera in the December sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has been significantly edited down.

More than 4.6 million people have signed a petition calling for her to be cut completely — not that that is any final determination.

Meanwhile, Depp’s first film project following the defamation case, the French-language love story Jeanne du Barry, will debut at the Cannes Film Festival on July 16.

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Paramount Network’s smash hit Yellowstone will be riding off into the sunset after its fifth season concludes, ABC Audio has confirmed.

The hit drama, which stars Oscar winner Kevin Costner as ranch empire owner John Dutton, will however launch a new, as-yet-untitled sequel series following his clan, also from creator Taylor Sheridan.

Considering Sheridan’s success, not just with the mother ship series, but its prequels 1883 and 1923 — as well as the hits Tulsa King and Mayor of Kingstown — the “epic” sequel has already been given the greenlight as a full series by the network.

Yellowstone returns in November; the cast for the sequel show will be announced shortly, and the show will premiere in December, when Yellowstone‘s fifth season wraps on Paramount Network and later on Paramount+.

In a statement, Chris McCarthy, president & CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, enthused, “Yellowstone has been the cornerstone on which we have launched an entire universe of global hits- from 1883 to Tulsa King, and I am confident our Yellowstone sequel will be another big hit, thanks to the brilliant creative mind of Taylor Sheridan and our incredible casts who bring these shows to life.”

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Former Dancing With the Stars pro Lindsay Arnold revealed on Thursday, May 4 that she and husband Sam Cusick welcomed their second daughter.

“We are so in love,” Lindsay, captioned a pair of delivery room photos posted to her Instagram. “Mama and baby are healthy and we are soaking up every minute with our little piece of Heaven. thank you for all the love.”

Earlier in the day, Lindsay, 29, took to her Instagram Stories to share that she was having contractions.

The baby’s name was not revealed.

Arnold, 29, announced the pregnancy to E! News last October, following a false positive test two months earlier.

Lindsay and Sam, are also parents to 2-year-old Sage.

Arnold, who left DWTS last year after 10 seasons, told the outlet she hasn’t ruled out a return to the show somewhere down the road.

“I’ll never say never to Dancing with the Stars, it is part of who I am,” she said. “It’s part of what kind of made me and I love it. That door will never be closed. There’s always going to be family to me and we’ll see what happens in the future.”

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Padma Lakshmi is serving up another season of her Hulu series Taste the Nation, premiering Friday. It looks at food and immigration issues in various communities all around the United States, but she tells ABC Audio, “We don’t just go into an immigrant community or an indigenous community, find out about them and then rinse and repeat.”

“We’re looking at the whole big issue of immigration in this country, which is so central to the foundation of our republic and so integral to the continued evolution of America,” Lakshmi explains. “We would not be a superpower if it wasn’t for all of the generations of Americans who have come here and given us the best of their cultures and stayed and helped to build this country.”

That diversity, says Lakshmi, is also one of the reasons the food is so great in the U.S.

“American high-end chefs, you know, Michelin star chefs and the like, have been influenced by all the different brown and Black folk that work in their kitchen,” she shares. “You open the door to any five-star restaurant in New York and you look at who is in the kitchen staff, it’s all immigrants.”

So what’s on tap for season 2?

“In Puerto Rico, we’re looking at sovereignty and food sovereignty specifically, but also just whether they should be a state, whether they should continue as a territory. With the Cambodian episode in Lowell, Massachusetts, Cambodians came there as refugees with nothing but the shirts on their backs. And within a generation they have revitalized Lowell so much so that they one in four Lowellians is Cambodian,” she says. “In the Nigerian episode in Houston, we talk to Nigerian Americans, but we also tackle a very sensitive topic about Blackness in America.” 

(A previous version of this story contained an error in the headline. The text above has been updated to correct the error.)

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While Jeremy Renner continues to recover from his near-fatal snowplow accident in January, he posted to Instagram showing he’s still putting in the work.

The last time the public saw Renner, when he promoted his new Disney+ series Rennervations, he needed a cane to walk around, consequence of the more than 30 bones he broke in the accident.

However, the new video shows the Marvel movie star and two-time Oscar nominee doing squats, jogging in place, and hopping from foot to foot as he hangs onto a cable machine handle anchored to a treadmill.

“I’ve decided to push through the pain of progress(this damn shattered tibia) and take the new parts for a tiny test drive,” Renner captioned the post.

“The body is miraculous…. Even though I feel like the Tin Man, needing oil for all my new joints (hips, knees, ankles, tibia etc ) . Encouraged after this warm up to press on ( don’t tell my PT),” he says, referring to his physical therapist.

Renner’s updates got love — and hundreds of thousands of likes — from fans online, and more than a few famous friends, including Ryan Reynolds, who trumpeted, “That’s the stuff!” along with a heart emoji.

Renner’s Avengers series co-star Josh Brolin celebrated with a series of “party horn” emojis, and Rachael Leigh Cook commented, “!!! Making the case for miracles here…”

The “new parts” comment, incidentally, is reminiscent of a scene in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which Renner’s Clint Barton/Hawkeye undergoes advanced surgery to repair a battlefield injury. “I’m gonna live forever. I’ll be made of plastic,” he says sarcastically.

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Ray Donovan star Liev Schreiber is in talks to star in the action-thriller The Guns of Christmas Past, according to Deadline. In the film, described as “A Christmas Carol meets John Wick,” Schrieber would play Ebb, a former mob hitman who’s coaxed out of hiding by the murder of his best friend and partner. Ebb’s plan to exact revenge is thwarted by the arrival of ghosts of past, present and future…

Citadel, the new spy series from Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo, starring Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas, is heading for one of Amazon Prime’s highest debuts for a series, according to the streamer. “Citadel, the #1 title on Prime! In its series debut, this show attracted one of the largest global audiences in the history of Prime Video – such an incredible performance for new and original IP!” Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke wrote on Instagram.” While she didn’t cite actual numbers, according to Citadel’s show Twitter account, the drama is Prime Video’s number one title in nearly 200 countries and territories…

Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss is re-teaming with her The Handmaid’s Tale co-star star Max Minghella, who’ll direct the psychological thriller Shell, according to Deadline. The film is “set in a near future when humanity’s cultural obsession with youth and beauty has been taken to new extremes,” per the outlet, also stars Glass Onion‘s Kate Hudson and Babylon actress Kaia Gerber…

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Writer-director James Gunn‘s final Guardians of the Galaxy movie hits theaters today.

The original Guardians came out in 2014, and managed to turn obscure Marvel Comics characters like Rocket Raccoon and Groot into household names.

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige commented on the original, “It was really our attempt of saying, ‘We don’t want to just do superhero movies. We don’t want to only just do Iron Man movies or Avengers movies.’ And it worked in a crazy way. It worked entirely because of James Gunn.”

He adds, “So it does feel like this trilogy and James writing and directing all three of them, it represents something unique within the pantheon of the MCU that I’m very proud of.”

Gunn expressed, “I’m going to miss the characters. That’s the saddest part. And I love all of them. I think there are certain ones that I have a special fondness for, especially Rocket. And yet the saddest part of all of this is…I’m not going to be writing the characters again, at least not in the near future.”

Guardians of the Galaxy turned Chris Pratt from that chubby Andy guy from Parks and Rec into a superhero. He teases that this time around, his Peter Quill/Star-Lord isn’t the plucky guy he seemed to be. “He’s lost,” the actor says, adding, “He’s a guy who’s constantly been searching for who he is.”

“He had found himself with the Guardians of the Galaxy, and then he thought he could find himself with who his father was [in Vol. 2]. And then he found it again in his relationship with [Zoe Saldaña‘s] Gamora,” but that too is “stripped away,” Pratt says.

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

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