Entertainment

Joaquin Phoenix has reportedly abandoned a controversial film from director Todd Haynes just five days before the shoot was about to start in Guadalajara, Mexico.

IndieWire was first to report the news, adding that Haynes previously described the project as an “explicit” love story between two men set in the ’30s.

Some crew claim that’s what caused the mercurial actor to drop out, though Haynes insisted to the publication in 2023 that Phoenix was well aware of the content. “Joaquin was pushing me further and going, ‘No, let’s go further.’ This will be an NC-17 film,” Haynes said.

“The whole experience was prompted by Joaquin,” he said at the time. “It was prompted by his daring, his desire to push through barriers and to really get into the uncomfortable places about this relationship.”

Variety confirmed the exit, reporting the crew had already built sets for the film Phoenix helped develop, but days before Haynes could call action he got “cold feet.”

The trade reported in July that Top Gun: Maverick star Danny Ramirez had joined the cast.

The publication says the last-minute exit could end up costing seven figures: Phoenix’s role can’t be recast and the movie was pre-sold internationally based on his name being attached to it, as is common in Hollywood dealmaking.

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When Bob Iger returned to his role as CEO of The Walt Disney Company nearly two years ago, he said he would focus on returning creativity to the center of the company known for blockbusters and classics ranging from Star Wars to Cinderella.

As Iger prepares to headline this year’s D23 fan event in Anaheim, California, there is much creativity to celebrate.

This summer The Walt Disney Company earned a record-breaking 183 Emmy nominations and released two blockbuster movies, Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2.

Iger told ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis in an interview that aired Friday on Good Morning America, “When I returned to the company in 2022 … it was very, very clear to me that we had to put creativity back to basically the center of this company.”

Both the creativity of Disney and the company’s legendary fandom will be on display starting Friday at D23, an annual Disney fan event that Iger started in 2009.

The event draws its name from the year 1923, when Walt Disney founded The Walt Disney Co.

On Friday Iger will kick off the event that, over the following two days, will see tens of thousands of Disney fans flock to Anaheim for sneak peeks of and behind-the-scenes looks at Disney theme parks, movies, Broadway, TV shows and more.

On tap will be peeks of Moana 2, upcoming titles from the world of Star Wars and more.

“Every time I’ve been to this event … I leave with a sense of incredible pride, but actually, a real sense of joy seeing what impact we’ve had on people all over the world, and to see it up close,” Iger said. “It’s an extraordinary feeling.”

Disney is the parent company of ABC News. 

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As most fans know, Channing Tatum tried to star in a movie about the X-Men hero Gambit for four years. The project dissolved in 2019 when ABC News’ parent company, Disney, bought Fox.

However, Tatum tells Variety that after his mealy mouthed mutant’s surprise appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine, he’s looking to the Almighty to spin off his appearance into his own film.

“I sure hope so,” Tatum told the trade’s Marc Malkin when asked if he’d suit up in his own movie.

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” he said at the Thursday premiere of his new movie Blink Twice in Hollywood.

Channing pleaded, “Write it into existence, my friend. Please.”

Tatum said that “of course” both Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige and Disney CEO Bob Iger are well aware of his wish. “I’ve been saying I want it for the last 10 years,” Tatum insisted. “It’s in Bob Iger and Kevin Feige’s hands. I pray to God.”

Channing recently profusely thanked Ryan Reynolds for giving him the chance to finally realize his superhero dreams on screen. More recently, the Magic Mike star also posted footage of his training for the movie’s climactic fight scene.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Have no fear, your reality roundup is here! Here’s a look at what happened in the world of reality television this week:

Love Island USA (Peacock)
This season’s champs, Serena Page and Kordell Beckham, are officially official. The two announced this week that they are boyfriend and girlfriend. “I just asked her out yall she said yes,” Kordell, 22, wrote on his Instagram Story. Serena, 24, jokingly responded, “Somebody help me.”

Meanwhile, Vanderpump Rules’ Katie Maloney is playing coy about her rumored date with Love Island’s Connor Newsum. “Was I on a date?” she said on the Disrespectfully podcast. “I’m not going to deny anything.”

The Real Housewives of New Jersey (Bravo)
Teresa Giudice is used to betrayals at this point. In the season 14 finale of RHONJ last weekend, Teresa found out that Jackie Goldschneider had been secretly communicating with her husband’s ex – but no tables were flipped at the revelation. In a post-finale interview with Bravo, Teresa says she already expected that her husband’s ex was speaking to her rivals and she’s fine it. “I already knew what they were gonna say and I didn’t even flinch,” she said, adding that she understands why Jackie did it – because Teresa previously repeated a rumor that Jackie’s husband was cheating on her.

RuPaul’s Drag Race (MTV)
Season 15 winner Sasha Colby is dishing on her love life. She tells Out magazine she’s polyamorous and loving it. “I have three partners!” she says. “I have two partners and someone else I’m dating.”

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On his Instagram, 55-year-old Hugh Jackman had a little fun with a joke at his expense in the blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine.

In the film, Ryan Reynolds‘ Deadpool tweaks his on-screen and real-life buddy that Disney is going to make him play Wolverine “’til you’re 90.”

Jackman posted a video of himself looking pretty banged up at the end of the film. The snippet, set to Madonna‘s “Like A Prayer,” features Deadpool’s whispered tease on a loop.

It freezes with a title card reading, “See you in 2058.”

The Oscar-nominated actor will in fact be a nonagenarian that year.

Deadpool & Wolverine is expected to break the billion-dollar mark in its third weekend in theaters.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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While its Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score has risen — from zero to 7% — some of those behind the video game adaptation Borderlands are hoping moviegoers “give it a chance.”

In USA Today, Cate Blanchett explained she was pulling double duty making the critically panned action comedy in 2021 — ironically alongside an Oscar-nominated film, Tár.

She said, “Sometimes the films we hold up as the greatest of all time were not financial or audience successes, yet they’ve become classics.”

The actress continues, “I’m not saying Borderlands is a classic! It’s fun, fun, fun, but it’s not Citizen Kane!”

“I mean, it’s not The Grapes of Wrath. It’s not Blade Runner. It’s its own strange, weird thing, and when you look at the casting, there’s a motley quality to it,” she noted.

The movie also stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart, Gina Gershon and Ahsoka‘s Ariana Greenblatt.

Cate adds, “I don’t think anyone would call Borderlands art, but it’s fun.”

Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take Two Software, which acquired Borderlands‘ video game producer Gearbox and co-produced the film, took a similar tack.

He said on an earnings call, “Let’s give the film a chance.”

“A lot of people worked really hard on it. The underlying intellectual property is phenomenal, the cast is amazing, I think the look and feel is really terrific. So let’s see what audiences have to say,” he said, according to IGN.

Borderlands is now in theaters.

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Travis Scott was arrested Friday while in Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games.

The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed he was arrested at the Georges V hotel following an altercation with security, who tried to break up a fight between him and his bodyguard. An investigation is now underway. 

Travis’ Paris arrest comes as footage of his arrest in Miami Beach has been released. The body-camera footage obtained by TMZ shows his exchange with police back in June, in which he tells the officers he’s scared and outnumbered.

The cops had run into Travis, born Jacques Bermon Webster, while responding to a call about a fight at Miami Beach Marina. He’d been arguing with someone on a boat when they approached him, smelled alcohol and asked if he’d been drinking, to which Travis replied, “It’s Miami.”

He was arrested for disorderly intoxication and trespassing; the former charge was dropped.

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We’re all guilty of misunderstanding the lyrics to popular songs — there are many website postings dedicated to it, in fact, but here’s one you may not have thought about and could have trouble hearing it any other way.

Haliey Welch, better known as the “Hawk Tuah” girl for her viral, onomatopoetic take on an oral sex practice, sat down with Bill Maher on his Club Random podcast and the topic turned to music.

While the 22-year-old said she prefers “old rap” to newer stuff, she’s certainly “heard of older” rappers like Tupac and Jay-Z, though she confesses she “doesn’t listen to them that often.”

Except that one song from Hova, she says, singing, “‘Concrete jungle-wet dream-tomato,’ you know, about New York.” For the record, the actual lyrics are “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,” as sung by Alicia Keys in the hit.

“‘Wet dream tomato’?” Maher asked.

Her interpretation may just be her second viral moment, with one Facebook user clipping it and interspersing it with the real song. “Now I can’t unhear it,” the user said with “crying laughing” emoji.

Maher said he wanted to “mentor” Welch on how best to use her “chip” — that is her “sudden” fame — to “move past” her “origin story.”

He likened her to the Kardashians, who have become household names “from a sex tape.”

“That’s why it’s important to figure out your next step,” Maher warned. “America gets tired of s*** quick.”

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Hulu has dropped the trailer for season 2 of the romantic drama Tell Me Lies. The new season picks up with Lucy Albright and Stephen DeMarco — played respectively by Grace Van Patten and Jackson White — returning to college and picking up their addictive dynamic, despite not speaking after breaking up at the start of the summer. Meanwhile, their friends must deal with the fallout from their breakup and the unexpected impact it has on their lives. Cat Missal, Spencer House, Sonia Mena, Branden Cook, Alicia Crowder and Tom Ellis return for season 2, along with newcomer Thomas Doherty, who plays Lucy’s new love interest. Tell Me Lies returns with two episodes Sept. 4 on Hulu …

Netflix has announced Oct. 31 as the premiere date for season 2 of The Diplomat. After Kate — played by Keri Russell — learned that Britain’s prime minister was responsible for the attack on one of its warships, she’ll have to prove it in season 2, series creator Debora Cahn tells Netflix’s Tudum. She’ll also have to contend with the bomb that exploded in the season 1 finale, in which Kate’s colleagues and her estranged husband, portrayed by Rufus Sewell, “are victims of a politically motivated attack in London that takes some lives and shatters the rest. The marriage she thought was over, the relationship she thought was beginning … all of it, in pieces.” Allison Janney will join the cast for season 2, playing Vice President Grace Penn …

The Apple TV+ comedy thriller Wolfs, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, is already getting a sequel ahead of its premiere at the 81st Venice Film Festival, kicking off Aug. 28, with Wolfs helmer Jon Watts to write and direct the follow-up. Wolfs features Clooney as “a professional fixer hired to cover up a high-profile crime,” per the streaming service. “But when a second fixer — played by Pitt — shows up and the two ‘lone wolves’ are forced to work together, they find their night spiraling out of control in ways that neither one of them expected.” Amy Ryan, Richard Kind, Austin Abrams and Poorna Jagannathan also star. Wolfs opens in limited release Sept. 20 and streams on Apple TV+ Sep. 27 …

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What’s the truth behind the Milli Vanilli lip-synching scandal of the late ’80s/early ’90s? The new movie Girl You Know It’s True, opening in select theaters across the country and available on digital and on-demand platforms on Aug. 9, takes us behind the scenes and into the lives of frontmen Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, producer/mastermind Frank Farian, the label executives at Arista Music and more.

After admitting to not singing on the hits that made them famous and won them a Grammy, Rob and Fab were chased out of the industry. While Fab was able to weather the storm psychologically, Rob was not. He slipped further into addiction, dying of an overdose in 1998.

Fab tells ABC Audio the emotions of what happened are still near the surface, as evidenced by what happened at a recent screening of the film in San Francisco.

“I was doing a Q&A. And as I was talking, I was reliving this scene in the movie of Rob. And bro, I broke out. Like I was talking and suddenly I’m crying, like, ‘Oh my God.’ And it just happened in 20 seconds.”

“Rob paid a price with his life … I had the strength and resilience to go through this gauntlet and come out stronger,” says Fab, but the others involved “continued to go on about their business, there was no consequences for them.”

Looking back, Morvan says he’d “get us in the studio while Frank was sleeping [and] change those voices … and then we’d be good. I would have saved myself and Rob the pain of being called … not talented, can’t sing. Because I’ve had to deal with that my whole professional life as an artist.”

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