Entertainment

Tim Burton‘s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will open the Venice International Film Festival on August 28 as reported, but the event’s organizers have just revealed a massive amount of star power to follow.

Joker: Folie à Deux, Todd Phillips‘ anticipated sequel to his blockbuster Oscar winner, will also screen at the 81st annual event, as will Wolfs, the two-hander comedy thriller starring Academy Award winners George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

Maria, the drama about opera singer Maria Callas starring another Oscar winner — and famously, Pitt’s ex — Angelina Jolie, will also screen at the festival, as will Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas‘ erotic thriller Babygirl, from director Pablo Larraín, the filmmaker behind the Oscar-nominated Spencer.

Among the other films that are screening are The Brutalist, starring Oscar winner Adrien Brody, as well as Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones, and Queer, starring Daniel Craig and Jason Schwartzman and directed by Challengers‘ Luca Guadagnino.

The festival runs from August 28 through September 7.

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Sharon Stone will reportedly play the heavy in the sequel to Nobody, the unlikely 2021 action hit that starred Bob Odenkirk, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The plot of the follow-up is unknown, but the trade says Stone will be playing the main villain. Odenkirk reprises as the boring family man who the original film revealed was a deadly government assassin in his earlier days. Universal has slated the sequel’s release for Aug. 15, 2025 …

The Toronto International Film Festival has announced that its next incarnation, starting in September, will feature films from newly minted Emmy nominee Selena Gomez; Angelina Jolie and Ron Howard; a buzzy Pamela Anderson drama; and a documentary about Elton John. Selena’s Cannes prize winner Emilia Pérez will screen at the fest, as will Howard’s historical thriller Eden starring Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby. Jolie will be showcasing her directorial effort Without Blood, starring Salma Hayek; and the fest will also screen the documentary Elton John: Never Too Late. Anderson’s film, the drama The Last Showgirl, was directed by Gia Coppola, and Anderson is already winning praise for her performance …

Ella Purnell, Naveen Andrews, Alfred Enoch, Jason Isaacs and Peter Serafinowicz are lending their voices to The Seneschal, an audio project set hundreds of years before Zack Snyder‘s Rebel Moon movies. Before Snyder’s Rebel Moon director’s cut hits Netflix on Aug. 2, the podcast project tells the story behind the creation of the Jimmys, the robotic knights voiced by Anthony Hopkins in Snyder’s sci-fi epic. The Seneschal debuts its first installment on July 29, with five additional episodes dropping weekly wherever you get your podcasts …

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Brendan Fraser has found his next big movie role.

The Oscar winner will play Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower in the upcoming film Pressure, Deadline reports. The ticking-clock drama will follow the events of D-Day, with Fraser acting as the army general who went on to become the 34th president of the United States.

Alongside Fraser in the film is Andrew Scott, who was previously cast to star as Britain’s Chief Meteorological Officer James Stagg.

Anthony Maras is set to direct Pressure, which follows the true story of Stagg informing Eisenhower of the weather conditions that would either make or break the Normandy invasion during World War II.

“In the 72 hours leading up to D-Day, all the pieces are in place except for one key element — the British weather. Britain’s Chief Meteorological Officer James Stagg is called upon to deliver the most consequential forecast in history, locking him into a tense standoff with the entire Allied leadership,” the film’s official synopsis reads.

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Blake Lively is clearly Deadpool’s #1 fan. Sure, it helps that she’s married to Ryan Reynolds, the actor portraying the iconic “merc with a mouth,” but her fandom goes way deeper.

The Gossip Girl alumna shared a post to Instagram on Monday in which she gushes about the forthcoming Deadpool & Wolverine film while simultaneously noting that her new movie, It Ends With Us, comes out in a few short weeks.

“Brb I’m buying milky pens to write your name on my hand @vancityreynolds,” she wrote.

“My y2k girlies, I should be competitive bc @itendswithusmovie is coming out in 3 weeks,” she continued, explaining that she couldn’t pass up a chance to note all her “middle school obsessions” that have made it into the Deadpool films.

“MY WORD… it’s hard not to encourage my ladies to spot all the ways we’ve influenced @deadpoolmovie,” she wrote. “I’ve never been more proud. And I’ve given birth 4 times,” she added with a laughing emoji and two hearts matching Deadpool and Wolverine’s respective red and yellow suits.

Lively also shared a photo of her kissing Reynolds — fully in his scarred Wade Wilson facial makeup — as well as a video of her showing how she has influenced many of the movie series’ references.

“Tell me Deadpool’s married to a millennial girl in real life without telling me,” she says in an accompanying video.

The clip goes on to show Deadpool making references to Harry Potter, Frozen, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, My Little Pony, Judy Blume and needle drops for Avril Lavigne, Celine Dion and *NSYNC.

“I have never felt more seen,” Lively said at the end of the video.

Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters July 26 from Marvel Studios, which is owned by ABC News’ parent company, Disney.

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One of Hollywood’s most iconic leading ladies, Elizabeth Taylor, takes center stage in a new HBO Original documentary, a trailer for which just dropped. 

Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes debuts Aug. 3 and “allows Elizabeth Taylor’s own voice to narrate her story, inviting audiences to rediscover not just a mega star of Hollywood’s Golden Age but a complex woman who navigated lifelong fame, personal identity, and public scrutiny on a global stage from early childhood.”

Taylor died in 2011 at 79 years old.

The network continues, “Through newly recovered interviews with Taylor and unprecedented access to the movie star’s personal archive, the film reveals the complex inner life and vulnerability of the Hollywood legend while also challenging audiences to recontextualize her achievements and her legacy.”

Taylor is heard via recently unearthed audio from a 1964 interview, and director Nanette Burstein also had “extraordinary access to personal photos, home movies, archival interviews, and news footage.” The project is “illustrated with clips from the iconic roles that mirror her real-life challenges and triumphs.” 

The Lost Tapes “offers an unprecedented window into the life of a woman who defied the era’s expectations, ultimately found peace within herself, and who cemented her legacy by turning the tables on her own fame by becoming a fierce activist and advocate for the LGBTQ community.”

Alongside Elizabeth Taylor, the documentary features the voices of Debbie Reynolds, Richard Burton, Roddy McDowall, George Hamilton, and others who knew and worked with the star.

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The rumors that Taylor Swift would be involved in Deadpool & Wolverine have literally been going on for years, mostly because Taylor and star Ryan Reynolds have been friendly for years. But Reynolds says he’s finally putting a stop to them.

Over the years, we’ve seen Taylor wear Reynolds’ Deadpool suit for Halloween, Reynolds wear a T-shirt with a picture of Taylor’s cats Meredith and Olivia onscreen in Deadpool 2, and Reynolds and his co-star Hugh Jackman attend a Chiefs game with Taylor. There’s also a teaser for the new movie in which a blond woman whose face we can’t see walks onscreen wearing a Deadpool suit.

Speaking to E! News, Reynolds says, “I will say once and for all that the cameo thing with Taylor — because she’s our friend — that is not in this film.”

Reynolds then goes on to say, “I always do say that if anyone ever were to take over the role of Deadpool, actually Taylor would be very good. Because that’s a superpower that I don’t know that she shows everyone too often: She’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.”

We’ll find out if Reynolds is telling the truth when Deadpool & Wolverine arrives in theaters July 26.

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A follow-up to the 1997 thriller I Know What You Did Last Summer will star some new faces and could feature some favorites from the original, ABC Audio has confirmed. 

Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt are in talks to return from the original hit. Also in talks to join the cast are Do Revenge‘s Camila Mendes; Glass Onion‘s Madelyn Cline; Jonah Hauer-King from Disney’s recent Little Mermaid live-action film; and Sarah Pidgeon from Tiny Beautiful Things.

Do Revenge director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson is helming the follow-up, which Sony Pictures will release in theaters on July 18, 2025.

I Know What You Did Last Summer starred Hewitt, Prinze, Prinze’s eventual wife Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe. It followed a group of friends stalked by a hook-handed maniac after they fled the scene of a tragic accident.

The film earned over $125 million worldwide and spawned the sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer in 1998.

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On a new installment of his Full House Rewind podcast, Dave Coulier welcomed his “brother” and former Full House co-star John Stamos, and the pair reminisced about the loss of their friend and former co-star Bob Saget.

Saget died Jan. 9, 2022, in his Florida hotel room. The cause of death for the 65-year-old actor and comedian was determined to be head trauma.

“We’re still processing the loss of him,” Stamos said. Coulier agreed, saying Saget’s death “left a huge void in our lives.”

Stamos reiterated something he once told ABC Audio about how people reacted to Saget’s death: “The saddest part for me is that he didn’t know how loved he was.”

“I mean when he died it was like a tsunami of love. I’m not being funny, but I don’t even remember a person before Bob getting that much attention when they passed, maybe Princess Diana,” Stamos said.

“And that’s the sad part because he was very hard on himself,” the actor continued.

Stamos also revealed he took comfort in hearing Saget’s voice via the audio version of the comic’s 2014 book, Dirty Daddy: The Chronicles of a Family Man Turned Filthy Comedian. “The night he died, I put on his audio tape and it gave me such comfort,” Stamos expressed. “I listened to it every night when I went to sleep.”

However, all that re-listening led to Stamos finding an eerie detail. “One morning I woke up and I was like, ‘In his book, did he say he hit his head and that’s how he died? Nah, that couldn’t be.’ And I went back to it and he talks, as a joke, about, ‘I would hit my head and call TMZ and [say] I’m dying.'”

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Twisters blew into the box office over the weekend to the tune of more than $81 million in the States, but what fans didn’t see was a kiss between its storm-chasing leads Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell that had gone viral before the movie came out.

Turns out, executive producer Steven Spielberg had it trimmed out. 

“I think it’s a Spielberg note, wasn’t it?” Edgar-Jones asked Powell in an interview with Collider. 

She agreed with the choice, too. “I think it stops the film feeling too clichéd, actually,” the English actress said.

“I think there’s something really wonderful about it feeling like there’s a continuation. This isn’t the end of their story. They’re united by their shared passion for something.”

Powell agreed. “I also think that this movie is not about them finding love. It’s returning Kate to the thing that she loves, which is storm chasing. So that’s what you have at the end of the movie.”

He adds, “They share this thing, and her passion is reinvigorated, and her sense of home is reinvigorated.”

That said, some fans weren’t happy. “Always remember what they took from us,” griped one, who posted video of the smooch.

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20th Century Studios has announced Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes will make its streaming debut on Hulu on Aug. 2.

The synopsis for the film reads, “Set several generations in the future following Caesar’s reign, apes are living harmoniously as the dominant species — and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows.”

It continues, “As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.”

Director Wes Ball‘s movie will join other installments in the franchise on Hulu, including 1968’s original Planet of the Apes; Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970); Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971); Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972); Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973); Planet of the Apes (2001); Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011); Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014); and 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes.

20th Century Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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