A rare uncorrected proof of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone that was bought for just $1.27 is expected to fetch a mint when it is auctioned in Dallas, Texas, on July 25.
The opening bid for the book is already at $12,500.
Just 200 such proofs were printed with an error on the main title page listing author JK Rowling‘s name as “J. A Rowling.”
The rare book up for grabs was purchased by a school in the English village of Minister Lovell. It was forgotten until a local businessman found it, intending to donate it to a museum.
However, the museum reportedly balked at having such a potentially valuable item in its collection, so the book’s sharp-eyed new owner, Dale Henry, decided to auction it off for charity.
All proceeds from the Heritage Auction will be reinvested into the cash-strapped town.
McConaughey, Hudson in 2016 – Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Baby2Baby
Kate Hudson is beautiful, but she might not smell that way to some.
The star appeared on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live and was asked by a fan if the rumor was true that she forced her Fool’s Gold costar Matthew McConaughey to wear deodorant.
“No,” Kate said flatly, but then confirmed neither star partakes in any underarm protection. “We’re au naturel, you know?” she said with a laugh.
“He doesn’t wear deodorant, and by the way, I don’t either,” she said before explaining she knew when McConaughey was around because they “were so close” while shooting she could “smell him from a mile [away].”
Apparently, however, she isn’t against it in public, as she told host Andy Cohen that she was looking for a little protection backstage before she went on camera.
Evidently this all comes back to a 2008 Playboy interview in which McConaughey revealed he swore off the stuff decades ago, though he said he showers multiple times a day. “I just never wore it. No cologne, no deodorant,” he said, adding, “The women in my life, including my mother, have all said, ‘Hey, your natural smell smells, one, like a man and, two, smells like you.'”
In McConaughey’s defense, his Tropic Thunder co-star Yvette Nicole Brown insists he smells alright (alright alright).
She told the Jess Cagle Show back in 2021 she specifically wanted to sniff the star after she got wind of his aversion to deodorant. She insisted he smells “delicious,” like “granola and good living.”
On Wednesday, HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm scored its 11thEmmynomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, tying a record set by classics Cheers and M.A.S.H. for the most nominations in that category.
“HBO told Larry [David] and I that and we both … we’re pretty cynical, but that was pretty cool,” Curb showrunner Jeff Schaffer tells ABC Audio. “It’s a pretty special honor to get for the show’s final season. You know, those are two of the foundational sitcoms of all time. So that was, that’s pretty neat.”
Schaffer gives show creator Larry David his flowers for the nomination, saying it’s “a testament to Larry, and Larry’s demented cranium … and his great ideas.”
He adds, “You know, there’s been 12 seasons of us surprising, annoying, scaring our audience. Look, if a show can get a nomination in its 12th season, it says, like, oh, we’re still surprising people the way we’d want to surprise them.”
That said, Schaffer knows their odds of winning this year are a real bear — or more specifically, The Bear. The FX series scored 23 nominations in the Comedy category, despite most thinking it’s been placed in the wrong one.
“I love The Bear,” Schaffer says. “The Bear‘s a great show.”
However, he adds, “It’s not a comedy, and I don’t think they think it’s a comedy. No one thinks it’s a comedy. And there’s a reason for that. It’s not a comedy. It’s a really good drama.”
Shaffer adds of Curb, “All we’re trying to do is make people laugh. We’re just trying to make the funniest show possible.”
The 76th Primetime Emmy Awards will be held in LA on Sept. 15, airing live on ABC.
Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer is teaming up with 20th Century Studios for a film adaptation of the TV series 24, sources tell Variety. 24 ran for nine seasons between 2001 and 2014, each season covering 24 consecutive hours in the life of Jack Bauer, an agent from the U.S. government’s fictitious Counter Terrorist Unit, played by Kiefer Sutherland. There’s no word yet on whether Sutherland will reprise his role for the proposed film …
Downton Abbey‘s Dan Stevens has been tapped to executive produce and star in the third installment of AMC’s The Terror anthology series, Devil in Silver, according to Deadline. Based on Victor LaValle‘s novel of the same name, the season follows Pepper — played by Stevens — whose bad luck and temper land him in the New Hyde Psychiatric Hospital, where he uncovers the presence of a malevolent force — possibly the Devil himself — that threatens them all …
Variety reports Emilia Clarke, Gerard Butler and Simone Ashley are lending their voices to upcoming animated musical The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland, based on Carys Bexington’s bestselling book, which combines Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Clement Clarke Moore‘s Twas the Night Before Christmas. Butler, Clarke and Ashley will voice St. Nick, the Queen of Hearts and Alice, respectively. “This time, it’s St Nick’s turn for an adventure down the rabbit hole,” per Universal Pictures. “There he meets the Mad Hatter … the White Rabbit … the Queen of Hearts … her antagonistic sidekick, the Cheshire Cat and Alice herself, whose kindness helps St. Nick save Christmas” …
Benjamin Bratt is the latest addition to the cast of Peter Farrelly‘s Amazon Studios action comedy Balls Up, joining Mark Wahlberg, Paul Walter Hauser and Molly Shannon, according to Deadline. Balls Up centers around “two American marketing executives who are fired for blowing a client sponsorship opportunity and decide to use their free tickets to a major soccer match,” per the outlet. “Their drunken debauchery leads them to be hunted by every person across the country” …
Of the many things Natalie Portman has done in her career, starring in a TV series hasn’t been one of them, until now. She stars opposite Moses Ingram in the new Apple TV+ drama Lady in the Lake, premiering Friday. The show follows the very different lives of two women, one Black, one Jewish, in Baltimore in the 1960s — two very different lives that share some striking similarities.
Portman tells ABC Audio that when this role came about she had been in the process of researching her family tree, leading to a discovery that gave her a special connection to the role.
“I discovered … the immigration papers of my family when they moved from Eastern Europe to Baltimore and the addresses where they lived in census data,” she shares. “And walking into the Jewish deli that still exists after 100 years thinking, like, my great grandmother probably came here and bought her meat.”
Ingram is actually a Baltimore native, and noted show creator and director Alma Har’el “would have people from the community come and set up chairs and watch. And so we were all there together, you know. It was really beautiful.”
Har’el says telling Jewish stories is very important right now: “I think as a Jewish person you are a living contradiction … in some ways, you are a person who can easily be shunned, persecuted, seen in the wrong light, stereotyped. And at the same time, you can also be an oppressor … somebody who is tone-deaf to your assimilation into white America or privilege or however you want to call it. So there’s a lot of duality in that existence. And I think that’s very relevant to our time.”
During an appearance on Good Morning AmericaThursday, Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy boiled the movie down to a “surprising friendship” between Ryan Reynolds‘ “Merc with a Mouth” and Hugh Jackman‘s razor-clawed X-Man.
Levy says there’s “definitely the action and the spectacle, but I think what maybe people are expecting a little less is the warmth of this movie.”
“Because it really was a movie made by friends about friendship,” he continues. “You have these two characters who really don’t match up in an easy way, but, eventually, through a lot of conflict, find something of a surprising friendship.”
Levy also said the film was “built for audience joy” and teased that fans can expect “huge surprises.”
The Stranger Things and Free Guy filmmaker teases, “I’m just thrilled that our movie’s coming out soon, and there’s huge surprises that somehow the internet has not anticipated and the world is not yet aware of.”
He called that “a nice thing, all of the unexpected things.”
In true Deadpool fashion, the character apparently hijacked the official synopsis for the film, with the famous potty-mouth even breaking the fourth wall in the movie’s description, writing, “synopses are so f****** stupid.”
“A listless Wade Wilson toils away in civilian life. His days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him,” his description continues.
“When his homeworld faces an existential threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctantlier… reluctanter? Reluctantest? He must convince a reluctant Wolverine to…” it continues.
More helpfully, the trailers for the July 26 release show the Time Variance Authority from the Loki series tapping Wade to help recruit Wolvie on a Multiverse-spanning mission.
Marvel Studios is owned by ABC News’ parent company, Disney.
Comedian and TV star Bob Newhart has died, ABC News has confirmed. He was 94.
His longtime publicist, Jerry Digney,reported the legendary comedian with the trademark deadpan delivery died at his home in Los Angeles “after a series of short illnesses.”
The Chicago native, born George Robert Newhart, became a household name with the release of his 1960 comedy album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. It won Newhart three Grammys: Album of the Year, Best New Artist and Best Comedy Album.
After the success of The Button-Down Mind, Newhart got his own variety show with NBC, The Bob Newhart Show. Though it was canceled after one season, Newhart earned an Emmy nomination and a Peabody Award.
He went on to guest star on shows including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Ed Sullivan Show over the next few years, and in 1972 he took on the starring role in The Bob Newhart Show. In that show, Newhart played a psychologist named Robert Hartley who was constantly interacting with patients and colleagues.
That show lasted six seasons, and in 1982 he took on a new sitcom, Newhart, in which he portrayed an innkeeper named Dick Loudon. Newhart earned the actor three Emmy nominations, and its finale — which saw him wake up in his bedroom from The Bob Newhart Show — has been lauded as one of the greatest in television history.
Newhart went on have two other shows, Bob and George and Leo, though neither became the hits that The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart were.
In 2003, he starred in Jon Favreau‘s holiday classic Elf as Will Ferrell‘s adoptive father, Papa Elf.
Newhart won his first Emmy in 2013 for a guest-starring role in The Big Bang Theory.
A voice-over artist who lent his talent to films such as The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under, Newhart is survived by four children — Jennifer, Courtney, Timothy and Robert — and numerous grandchildren.
Virginia “Ginnie” Newhart, his wife of 60 years, passed away in 2023.
Selena Gomez in ‘Only Murders In the Building’ S3; Patrick Harbron/Hulu
Selena Gomez‘s birthday is July 22, but she got a celebratory cake Wednesday for another milestone.
Selena received her first-ever Emmy nomination for acting, for her role as Mabel Mora in Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. The star posted a photo of herself in front of a frosted cake with the message “Congratulations Emmy Nominee!” written in pink icing.
She wrote, “I’m honored and insanely grateful for this. Thank you @onlymurdershulu for giving me Mabel.”
As previously reported, Only Murders is nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series for the third consecutive year. This counts as a nomination for Selena as well because she’s an executive producer of the show. Per Variety, that makes her the most-nominated Latina producer in the history of the Emmys.
The fourth season of Only Murders in the Building, which will focus on the shooting of Jane Lynch‘s character, Sazz Pataki, debuts in August. The 76th Emmy Awards will broadcast live on ABC on Sept. 15 and stream the next day on Hulu.
Selena also recently earned kudos for her acting in the upcoming movie Emilia Pérez.
A new trailer has dropped for Tim Burton‘s forthcoming sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and fans of Jenna Ortega — and her alter ego Wednesday Addams — are sure to be delighted by it.
The clip begins with her sarcastic Astrid getting a call from her “Alleged Mom” — according to her cellphone contact — and getting pranked by a group of high school mean girls who try to jump scare her with a phony ghost.
“When you’re all driving carpool and banging your Pilates instructors to fill the empty void in your life, we’ll see who gets the last laugh,” Astrid deadpans, wiping the smiles from their faces.
According to the teaser, Astrid is a skeptic about ghosts, even though her mom, Lydia (Winona Ryder), is apparently a “legend” in that department in their small town of Winter River, Connecticut, thanks to her run-in with Michael Keaton‘s titular “ghost with the most.”
However, the supernatural comes for Astrid anyway, leading Lydia to summon Beetlejuice for help.
“How do I know you’re gonna keep your word?” Lydia asks him.
“I swear on my dead mother’s soul,” he says as he makes the sign of the cross — and his chest bursts into flames.
The rest of the trailer is as madcap as you’d expect from Wednesday producer Burton, including Beetle literally spilling his guts in therapy, sucking cellphone shutterbugs into their own phone screens, and a callback moment from the original film of a possessed dance between Astrid and her grandma Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara).
Justin Theroux also gets terrorized in the trailer and Willem Dafoe pops up, seemingly as an investigator, as does Monica Bellucci‘s character, who is so frightening she even scares an F-bomb out of Beetlejuice.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice haunts theaters and IMAX Sept. 6.
HBO has just dropped a new teaser to its forthcoming small-screen spin-off of the Warner Bros. blockbuster Dune franchise, along with news it will debut in November.
As reported, Dune: Prophecy is set 10,000 years before the ascension of Timothée Chalamet‘s Paul Atreides on the big screen, and “follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind and establish the fabled sect that will become known as the Bene Gesserit,” according to the network.
“You wish to serve the great houses, and shape the flow of power, you must first exert power over yourself,” a woman says in voice-over, as a group of the powerful sorority stand with their arms folded.
Debuting in the fall, the series is inspired by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson‘s book Sisterhood of Dune, based on the world created by legendary sci-fi author Frank Herbert.
“The more influence our sisterhood gains, the more enemies we make,” one of the group’s leaders warns the others.
“Our hands our poised on the levers of power, but yet our grasp on it is still fragile,” Emily Watson‘s Valya says. “I am trying to protect the Imperium.”
The teaser shows there are plenty who aren’t happy about the “sorceresses” having so much influence over the empire’s rulers, which includes Mark Strong‘s Emperor Corrino.
A title card reads “True power begins with control,” referencing The Voice, a powerful hypnotic-like skill the Bene Gesserit practice.
Watson’s character ends the teaser with a stern, “Sacrifices must be made.”
The series is co-produced by Max and Legendary Television; Legendary produced the Academy Award-winning film and its hit sequel.
The series also stars Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel, Jodhi May, Josh Heuston, Chloe Lea and Yerin Ha.
