Entertainment

While 22% of Americans say they have a home theater, far fewer have a pickleball court.

But integrating the hot new sport into the moviegoing experience is just one perk of a $2.2 billion upgrade to the country’s major theater chains that has been announced by the National Association of Theatre Owners.

The upgrades include amenities you might expect — everything from upgraded seats to sound systems; laser projectors to air conditioning; and more offerings at the concession stand — but also ones you may not, like pickleball courts, arcades and suspended rope courses.

All of it is designed to get you off your couch and back to the movies, says the association’s president and CEO, Michael O’Leary, in a statement — well, not in so many words: “This investment reflects that commitment in a tangible way that every moviegoer will see and enjoy.”

He adds, “The competition for consumers’ hard-earned dollars is fiercer than ever. Going to the theatre is an unparalleled entertainment experience, and exhibitors are dedicated to making every visit to their theatres memorable.”

As an example, the B&B Theatres location in Red Oak, Texas, has been refurbished into a full-on entertainment center, that not only has 12 theaters, but a performance space, bowling lanes, an outdoor bar and, yes, two pickleball courts.

The eight largest theater chains in the U.S. and Canada are taking part in the efforts, including AMC Entertainment, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas.

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The bombshell Prince Andrew interview about Jeffrey Epstein that caused Andrew to step back from his royal duties is the subject of the limited series A Very Royal Scandal, which started streaming Thursday on Prime Video.

Michael Sheen plays the prince, opposite Ruth Wilson as Emily Maitlis, the former BBC Newsnight anchor whose hard-hitting questions sent shock waves through the U.K. and beyond. Wilson remembers that interview vividly and tells ABC Audio that like the rest of the nation, she was left “gobsmacked.”

“My takeaway from that was, ‘How on earth did this happen? … Why did he put himself in that scenario?’ And now, you know, having done this drama, we’ve interrogated that and we’ve got all the answers on that. Or not,” she laughs.

The fallout came as no surprise to Sheen, who tells ABC Audio that the interview checked a lot of boxes when it comes to the kinds of things that fascinate the British people.

“There’s both the kind of media frenzy, the tabloid fodder kind of nature of it. … And then also, of course, underlying it all was this much darker, more serious, more disturbing issue that it was dealing with about, you know, the exploitation of young women and the relationship with Epstein and all that kind of stuff.”

Sheen had to gain a bit of weight for the role and tried to portray Andrew as this former military stud who was far removed from his glory days.

“The aging process, losing your looks, putting on a bit of weight, all of that stuff, the media no longer being interested in you as being kind of, you know, tabloid fodder. … It’s getting, moving further and further away from the center of power and all that kind of stuff. … It was that sort of trajectory.”

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Starz has revealed the premiere date for its new dark comedy Sweatpea, along with the official trailer. The six-part series stars Yellowjackets‘ Ella Purnell as Rhiannon, “a quiet wallflower who develops a vengeful and intoxicatingly liberating taste for murder.” Almost invisible to people at first, Rhiannon’s “killer secret” turns everything around and she becomes “a young woman capable of anything,” according to the official synopsis. Sweatpea launches Oct. 10 on Starz …

The trailer for season 2 of the Paramount+ spy thriller Lioness dropped on Thursday. Based on a real-life CIA program, Taylor Sheridan‘s espionage thriller follows Laysla De Oliveira as a new Lioness operative helping bring down a terrorist organization from within, according to the streaming service. Genesis Rodriguez and Morgan Freeman have been added to the season 2 cast, joining returning stars Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman and Michael Kelly. The second season of Lioness premieres with two episodes on Oct. 27 …

Ahead of Industry‘s penultimate episode of season 3, airing Sunday, HBO announced it has given the drama series a fourth season. In season 3, Yasmin, Robert and Eric — played respectively by Marisa Abela, Harry Lawtey and Ken Leung — are “front and center in the splashy IPO of Lumi,” a green tech energy company, led by Kit Harington‘s Sir Henry Muck, per the premium cable channel. Meanwhile, Myha’la‘s Harper “is eager to get back into the addictive thrill of finance and finds an unlikely partner in FutureDawn portfolio manager Petra Koenig” — played by Sarah Goldberg. Industry‘s third season concludes Sept. 29 …

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Halle Berry hasn’t been seen in a horror film since 2003’s Gothika, but that changes on Friday with the release of the thriller Never Let Go.

In the film, she plays the mother of two young boys who’s trying to keep them safe in their remote home after an unseen evil takes over the world. The trio is all alone against this threat, bonded by blood and a rope they keep tethered to their home, and themselves, when they venture outdoors.

While Halle hasn’t scared moviegoers in a while, she tells ABC Audio, “I love this genre … And I liked this script because it represented something that I had never seen.”

The Oscar winner continues, “While it’s… got some similarities to other movies, I had never seen a family like this, a mother and two sons in the middle of nowhere having to, you know, figure their way through this predicament that they’re in.”

Regarding that “middle of nowhere,” they shot in “an old, abandoned house” in very rural Oregon, not a soundstage.

Halle says it was everything for her and her young co-stars, Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins. “I loved it because … it kept us all in the reality of this world,” the actress said, adding “being out in the elements” meant the occasional danger of bear encounters, helping show them how quickly that “beautiful place would turn into a horrific place.”

Halle says she made sure the movie’s heavy subject matter didn’t take a toll on the young performers. “Being a mother, that’s one of the things I worried about. And I … wanted to send them back home the way they came,” she adds with a laugh. “And I think they did. So I think that’s a huge accomplishment.”  

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There has been a rallying cry in this country to pay our educators more, and Warner Bros. Television has apparently listened — even though the Abbott Elementary cast only pretends to be teachers on ABC. 

Deadline is reporting the cast of the show created by producer and co-star Quinta Brunson has gotten “major salary increases” for the fast-approaching fourth season of the series. 

According to the trade, the six regular cast members of the series — Brunson, Tyler James Williams, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Janelle James, Chris Perfetti and Lisa Ann Walter — have been given “big” per-episode bumps, in the “triple digit” percentage compared to the last season, in fact. 

William Stanford Davis, who plays the wise-cracking janitor Mr. Johnson, was also given a “generous raise,” according to the trade. He only became a series regular in the second season, but according to the trade, he will be pulling in $100,000 an episode.

School is back in session for the fourth season of Abbott Elementary on Oct. 9 at 9:30 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Sebastian Stan won’t stand for any Marvel hate.

The actor, who made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as Bucky Barnes in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, teased his next movie in the long-running film series and shut down those who want to “pick on” the franchise in a new interview with Variety, published Thursday.

“It’s become really convenient to pick on [Marvel films],” he told the outlet. “And that’s fine. Everyone’s got an opinion.”

“But they’re a big part of what contributes to this business and allows us to have smaller movies as well,” he continued. “This is an artery traveling through the system of this entire machinery that’s Hollywood. It feeds in so many more ways than people acknowledge.”

Stan said he gets “protective” of the franchise “because the intention is really f****** good.”

He added, “It’s just f****** hard to make a good movie over and over again.”

Stan will star in Thunderbolts* next summer, in which he leads a ragtag group of heroes — many of them reformed villains — including Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell and Hannah John-Kamen. 

Julia Louis-Dreyfus also reprises in the film.

Stan says the movie is “kind of like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” describing both of them as being about “a guy coming into this group that was chaotic and degenerate, and somehow finding a way to unite them.”

With Stan playing Barnes aka The Winter Soldier across numerous movies and even a TV series, the actor is “constantly … challenging” himself.

As proof, he’s in two of the year’s buzziest films heading into awards season: A Different Man, out Sept. 20, and The Apprentice, out Oct. 11.

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

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Amazon’s Prime Video platform has signed Jamie Lee Curtis and Nicole Kidman to two seasons of an adaptation of bestselling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell‘s beloved Kay Scarpetta book series.

Ariana DeBose has also been added to the cast, along with The Irishman‘s Bobby Cannavale and Simon Baker.

As reported back in February, Curtis and her Comet Pictures company had been itching to adapt Cornwell’s work and teamed up with another fan — Kidman — and her Blossom Films company to have her co-produce and star as Cornwell’s famed forensic pathologist.

Curtis will play another main character in the two-dozen-strong book series, Kay’s sister Dorothy, while DeBose will appear as Lucy Farinelli-Watson, Dorothy’s daughter.

In the announcement, Curtis said in part, “I have wanted to bring Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta to a screen … for a while,” noting, “I’m particularly excited that Nicole Kidman will finally bring her to life.” 

She added, “I know the ardent fans of the books will be very happy, and the new audience will be compelled by the characters, crimes, and mysteries that are the trifecta of Patricia’s masterful storytelling.” Curtis ended with a warning: “There WILL be BLOOD.”

Kidman said her desire to adapt Cornwell’s “epic and thrilling books” goes back “nearly 20 years,” expressing her excitement to “unite with the formidable Jamie Lee Curtis.”

Kidman added the project “feels like it was meant to be.”

“I cannot wait to inhabit Kay Scarpetta and am so thankful to Patricia Cornwell for entrusting me with her,” Kidman said.

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As part of its Geeked Week festivities, Netflix has teased the star-studded seventh installment of its out-there sci-fi anthology Black Mirror. 

Paul Giamatti and Jesse Plemons will be featured, as will Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae and Emma Corrin, the latter of whom played the heavy in the blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine.

Also appearing will be Peter Capaldi, Awkwafina, Milanka Brooks, Patsy Ferran, Cristin Milioti and
Chris O’Dowd, among others. 

The streaming service teases that one of the six new episodes will revisit the Star Trek-like season 4 opener “USS Callister.”

This time around, Plemons plays Robert Daly, “a brilliant but troubled” video game programmer who is so “unhappy with a perceived lack of recognition at his gaming company [he] creates a simulated reality within the game.” 

Netflix says Daly gives himself “the role of a Captain Kirk–like figure aboard a starship … leading an adoring crew — based on his real-life co-workers — on zany sci-fi adventures.” 

“Of course, because this is Black Mirror, things take an unexpected and sinister turn,” Netflix continues. 

Other episodes for the 2025 season are still under wraps.

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Francis Ford Coppola‘s star-studded, mostly self-funded, pet project Megalopolis can’t seem to avoid controversy regarding its reviews.

While he has said he didn’t know how possibly AI-generated fake reviews ended up on a now-deleted trailer for his movie, this latest hiccup literally has his name on it. 

Megalopolis now appears on the film enthusiast social media platform Letterboxd, and its user reviews are as mixed as pro critics’ critiques have been — however, among those cineastes who gave the movie a five-star review is apparently one Francis Ford Coppola. 

The filmmaker didn’t elaborate on the project, for which he’s spent decades and a fortune of his own money to get to theaters. 

One user of the platform wasn’t nearly as kind, snarking Megalopolis “is to Coppola what This Is Me Now…is to J.Lo.”

Ouch.

Incidentally, also among Coppola’s few Letterboxd recommendations are The Last Showgirl — the Pamela Anderson film that happens to be directed by his granddaughter Gia, and which has been getting legitimately glowing reviews; 2023’s The Good Half, directed by Robert Schwartzman, who is Coppola’s nephew; and Between The Temples, a 2024 film starring his other nephew — and Schwartzman’s brother — Jason.

Megalopolis hits theaters Sept. 27.

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Florence Pugh needed a summer vacation. 

In an interview with British Vogue, Pugh — who in recent years starred in Marvel’s Black Widow and Hawkeye; Oppenheimer; Dune: Part Two; Marvel’s Thunderbolts; and the forthcoming drama We Live in Time with Andrew Garfield — confessed she needed a break.

“It was the first time ever in my career when I’ve actually asked for a summer break,” she tells the magazine. “I’m an absolute work maniac, [but] I [could] see I’m exhausted.”

She adds, “I suddenly woke up last year and I was like, ‘I hate how much of my life I’ve missed.’ Yes, I want to have a career forever, but that’s not going to happen if I work myself into the ground.”

She’s back at work now, promoting We Live in Time, an out-of-order romance drama with Garfield, who calls his love interest an “incredibly accessible actor” who boasts that “extra mysterious factor that can’t be named.”

Pugh says apart from her career aspirations, family is “always” on her mind. “I’ve always been thinking about starting a family. I’ve wanted to have kids since I was a child myself. I love the idea of a big family.”

She adds, “I love kids. I love hanging out with kids. If ever there’s a dinner party, I go straight to the kids to chat to them. So much easier. I love the honesty. I love how bored they can get. I’ve never stopped knowing that I want to have kids. It’s just figuring out when.”

We Live in Time, from Oscar-winning indie studio A24, opens Sept. 7.

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