Entertainment

Jeremy Renner‘s Mayor of Kingstown has its third season finale on Sunday, and Paramount+ just dropped a sneak peek of the final chapter.

In the snippet, Renner’s fixer Mike McLusky and his longtime criminal friend and sometimes frenemy Bunny, played by Tobi Bamtefa, seek to divvy up influence in the titular city.

“That’s a whole lotta territory. There’s a whole lot of ambition right there,” Bunny says, as the pair look out on the city.

“When you go across the lines, there’s monsters waiting,” Renner’s character warns. “Monsters bigger than you. … You settle for Kingstown.”

Bunny replies, “What about you?”

Mike says, “I get some sort of peace. Twisted as it is.”

As his show winds up, Renner is playfully jabbing that “son of a b****” Robert Downey Jr. for hiding the news he’s rejoined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Dr. Doom.

“I had no idea,” Renner told Us Weekly, “and we’re close friends.”

Renner said he started “blowing up” RDJ’s phone on the old Avengers chat string, which also features Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and Mark Ruffalo.

“I’m like, ‘What’s going on? Are you hiding this from us?'”

Renner said he’s “really, really excited about it” and teased whether we may see his Clint Barton aka Hawkeye in Downey’s next entries, Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.

“I think it’s going to be challenging to get everybody together,” said the actor, who miraculously survived being crushed by a snowplow in 2023.

He added of the new movies, “I’m excited about it. We’ll see. I think we’ll probably be doing it.”

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After a successful launch on Disney+, a second season of Percy Jackson was slated to get underway in the fall, but evidently shooting has already begun.

The Adam Project‘s Walker Scobell returns as Percy, a young man who discovered he’s the titular son of the Greek god Poseidon.

The show’s director/executive producer James Bobin shared a shot of a movie “clapper” on July 31, noting, “Excited to get going on this next adventure. Going to be epic.”

On Thursday, co-executive producer Becky Riordan — whose husband Rick Riordan wrote the bestselling Percy Jackson books and also executive produces the series — showed off concept art of a season 1 location, noting, “they are filming the opening scene of Season 2, and it is perfect.”

The first episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians debuted on Disney+ on Dec. 19, 2023, and by Christmas Day it had drawn an audience of some 13.3 million viewers across Disney+ and Hulu.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Comedian and Saturday Night Live cast member Punkie Johnson says she won’t be returning to the show for its 50th season this fall.

Johnson broke the news following a stand-up date at Brooklyn’s Union Hall on Wednesday evening, when an audience member asked her what she’s looking forward to in what would have been her fifth season on the sketch show.

Johnson replied, “Oh, I’m not coming back.”

Because her comment was abrupt, Johnson said she woke up on Thursday to texts and messages about it — so many that later Thursday evening she took to social media to clarify. “There’s no bad blood, there’s no bridges burned,” she insisted.

“Bro, I love my people. I didn’t think this was gonna be a big deal. This is why Dave Chappelle make people lock up their phones,” she joked, referencing how the comedian doesn’t allow people to shoot his stand-up shows.

“SNL was a dream that I didn’t even know that I could achieve,” she continued. “Man, I was part of one of the most elite institutions in comedy, and I’m so grateful. That’s still my people.”

Her video post got support from former cast members like Cecily Strong, and current ones including Chloe Fineman and Ego Nwodim, the latter of whom wrote, “Love you til the death of me Punkie!! Now get off instagram and whatever tf editing app you used and call me back please!”

Incidentally, it was recently announced that former SNL star Maya Rudolph will return to play Vice President Kamala Harris in the run-up to the 2024 election; Punkie had played Harris in a few sketches since joining SNL in 2020.

Meanwhile, Molly Kearney, who joined Saturday Night Live in 2022, just announced on Instagram “a wrap on my time on SNL,” calling it “an honor.”

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With newly minted Emmy nominee Matt Berry‘s What We Do in the Shadows gearing up for its sixth and final season comes news the Krapopolis voice star will appear in yet another show, Prime Video’s Citadel. 

ABC Audio has confirmed that both Berry and Ferrari co-star Gabriel Leone have signed on to the sophomore season of the spy show that stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden.

The actors’ roles have not been revealed, but the show centers on a pair of memory-wiped spies, played by Priyanka and Madden, who do battle with an evil espionage enterprise known as Manticore.

The series is produced by Marvel Studios veterans Joe and Anthony Russo and their AGBO company; their Citadel series has been exported into international spin-offs, including the just-announced Indian version called Citadel: Honey Bunny and Citadel: Diana for Prime Video’s Italian-language market.

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One tiny, tear-filled cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine has had fans — and according to the movie, Deadpool himself — wondering what it could mean.

The scene in question comes via a screen at the Time Variance Authority in the beginning of the film: Ryan Reynolds‘ character is getting an eyeful of what the heroes of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe have been up to while he was starring in movies for 20th Century Fox, when he catches a glimpse of something that hasn’t happened yet.

In the snippet, Chris Hemsworth‘s Thor is cradling the head of a badly injured Deadpool and crying over the Merc with a Mouth — but back in the present, Pool is told he wasn’t supposed to see that.

“Why was Thor crying?!” becomes a running joke in the film and has become a hashtag since the movie’s record debut.

Reynolds showed a photo of the moment on social media, teasing, “I know why Thor was crying. I can’t unknow it.”

Hemsworth reposted the photo in reply on Thursday, adding, “I can keep secrets too” and a “Shh” emoji.

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

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With the upcoming third season of Bel-Air on the way, Peacock hosted a summer barbecue to celebrate, which featured a surprise performance from Will Smith. 

Will, who serves as executive producer for the series, was invited onstage by Coco Jones, who plays Hilary Banks. After singing her new song “Here We Go,” Coco called Will out in the crowd and asked him to perform “Summertime.” He then walked onto the stage, mic already in hand, and rapped the 1991 track.

Also at the Bel-Air event were cast members Jabari Banks, Adrian Holmes, Jimmy Akingbola, Olly Sholotan, Akira Akbar, Jordan L. Jones and Simone Joy Jones.

The event featured food trucks, photo ops and yard games.

Bel-Air season 3 premieres Aug. 15 with three episodes.

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Netflix has just announced it is holding its fourth annual Geeked Week, starting Sept. 16 and “culminating with a live, in-person fan event” in Atlanta on the evening of Sept. 19.

The streaming giant notes it will be the first time its celebration of nerd-friendly titles — from live-action shows like Squid Game, Stranger Things, Wednesday and Avatar: The Last Airbender to anime titles including Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion — will be live.

More details on the week of programming will be released in the coming weeks, but last year’s celebration saw the streaming service debut a slew of new trailers, teases for video games and celebrity interviews. 

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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:

The Valley (Bravo)
Jax Taylor is working on his mental health. The 45-year-old reality star announced this week that he has checked himself into an in-patient mental health facility. He posted a photo of his 3-year-old son, Cruz, and captioned it, “Working on getting better for you buddy, I love you.” Jax and wife Brittany Cartwright announced their separation in February.

The Bachelorette (ABC)
In case you missed it, there was quite the twist on The Bachelorette this week. On Monday’s episode, Jenn Tran’s ex-boyfriend Matt Rossi hopped on a plane to New Zealand and surprised her. She was left with the choice of whether to add Matt to her roster of suitors this season. See what she decides when the show returns Monday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey (Bravo)
Teresa Giudice dished on family drama on Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa. She said the show fractured her relationship with brother Joe Gorga and sister-in-law Melissa Gorga so she will “never again” be on camera with them. “First of all, to me, family is so sacred,” she says. “I’m all about The Godfather movie. You never go against the family.” While she says she forgave Joe and Melissa for her parents’ sake, things will never be the same. “Me and my brother were best friends … until this happened, until the show,” she says.

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Tom Cruise‘s next death-defying stunt won’t be for a Mission: Impossible movie, but for the 2024 Olympics. 

TMZ reports Cruise “quietly” shot a skydiving stunt in March that will be edited into the closing ceremony to the 2024 Games in Paris on Aug. 11. 

The gag, to use industry parlance, will serve as a symbolic hand off to the 2028 Games, which will be held in Los Angeles. 

The gossip site’s paps caught the superstar performing the Los Angeles segment of the two-part feat back in the spring, but nobody realized it was for the Games. 

During the closing ceremony, Cruise will reportedly be seen rappelling down Paris’ Olympic arena, known as the Stade de France, where he’ll acquire the Olympic flag and then hop a plane, from which he’ll skydive to the iconic Hollywood sign.

From there, he’ll be handing off the flag to athletes “including a cyclist, skateboarder and volleyball player,” according to the site.

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Matt Damon looked back at his breakout role in Good Will Hunting and his action star turn in the Bourne franchise for the Good Morning America series “Take It From Me.”

The 53-year-old actor, whose latest film The Instigators debuts Aug. 9 on Apple TV+, says he learned “innumerable lessons” from the late Robin Williams while filming 1997’s Good Will Hunting.

“He was one of the hardest working people that I ever, ever worked with. Take after take, he was absolutely tenacious and he was inventive and creative,” said Damon, who won an Oscar for writing the film with his best friend Ben Affleck.

“He just was exploding with ideas and creative energy, and he was really, really kind to everybody,” he said of Williams, who died by suicide in 2014.

Damon starred as the titular math genius MIT janitor Will Hunting in the film; Williams won an Oscar for playing Dr. Sean Maguire, a psychologist who both challenges and helps Will.

Damon continued, “I just feel incredibly lucky not just that he said yes to this movie, because that is why it got made, ultimately, but that I was exposed to that kind of a human being early on in my career while my work habits were still forming.”

Matt added, “I couldn’t have asked for a better role model or kinder scene partner and friend.”

Damon was also asked if he would ever reprise his role as Jason Bourne, the character he first played in 2002’s The Bourne Identity and its subsequent sequels, the most recent of which released in 2016.

“I would definitely take on this role again if there was a good script, if we could figure out where to take the character to make it interesting for the audience,” he explained. “… I would definitely — definitely — do that again.”

If you are in crisis or know someone in crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or by visiting 988lifeline.org. You can also contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

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