Entertainment

The Nathan’s Fourth of July hot dog eating contest no longer cuts the mustard for all-time eating great Joey Chestnut.

The 16-time winner of the contest, including every year since 2016, will not be competing at this year’s contest, according to Major League Eating. And it’s all over his decision to endorse vegan hot dogs instead of Nathan’s.

“We are devastated to learn that Joey Chestnut has chosen to represent a rival brand that sells plant-based hot dogs rather than competing in the 2024 Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest,” Major League Eating said in a statement.

Nathan’s, the venerable Coney Island hot dog brand, has long required eaters not to endorse a rival brand if they are going to compete in the country’s most famous eating contest.

“MLE and Nathan’s went to great lengths in recent months to accommodate Joey and his management team, agreeing to the appearance fee and allowing Joey to compete in a rival unbranded hot dog eating contest on Labor Day,” Major League Eating said in a statement. “For nearly two decades we have worked under the same basic hot dog exclusivity provisions. However, it seems that Joey and his managers have prioritized a new partnership with a different hot dog brand over our long-time relationship.”

Chestnut is endorsing the Impossible brand, the popular purveyor of vegan burgers, hot dogs and sausages, according to the New York Post, which was first to report the news of Chestnut not competing.

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The Daily Show will return with Jon Stewart at the anchor desk following the forthcoming presidential debates between President Joe Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.

The political face-offs are scheduled for June 27 and Sept. 10; The Daily Show‘s special coverage will air live at 11 p.m. ET on Comedy Central both nights.

The post-debate show will be a part of The Daily Show‘s Indecision 2024 election coverage, which includes a full week of shows filmed from both the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee (from July 15 to July 18) and Chicago’s Democratic National Convention (from Aug. 19 to Aug. 22).

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It’s one of Johnny Depp‘s most iconic roles, but could you imagine Tom Cruise as the lead character in Edward Scissorhands?

Well, according to Depp, it almost happened.

The Mission: Impossible icon “was not far away from actually playing Edward Scissorhands — true story,” People quotes Depp as saying in a docuseries about the movie’s director, Tim Burton.

Depp says other famous names were bandied about at the time, including Tom Hanks and even Michael Jackson.

In the as-yet-untitled docuseries, Depp explained he felt “pigeonholed” as a TV heartthrob with 21 Jump Street and wanted to break out of the mold. Being in John Waters‘ subversive 1990 movie Cry-Baby “was the first solid step in the direction I wanted to go,” Johnny says, according to the magazine, and the lead in Burton’s quirky Scissorhands was the next step.

Depp said Caroline Thompson‘s “beautiful” Edward Scissorhands script “passed through everything, anything, solid and went to the very core of whatever I am.”

He recalled thinking, “Edward was me,” and the script was “exactly what I should be doing.”

That said, self-doubt as a “TV actor guy” led him to panic and tell his agents to cancel a meeting with Burton. “He’s never going to cast me when everyone in Hollywood is after the part,” Depp remembers thinking.

Of course, Depp did get the part, and he and Burton went on to collaborate on seven other films: Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Dark Shadows and Sweeney Todd.

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In the new trailer to Prime Video’s forthcoming spin-off series Sausage Party: Foodtopia, food items have risen up against the humans who are supposed to eat them.

“Commence Operation Dessert Storm!” orders Kristen Wiig‘s Brenda Bunson, the anthropomorphic hot dog bun from the film, as the birthday candle fuses of apparently explosive cupcakes are ignited.

The food evidently starts its own society, Foodtopia, which unfortunately comes to a quick end when a rainstorm makes the unwrapped snacks perishable.

Seth Rogen‘s hot dog, Frank, then sets out on a quest to find a human being to show the food how to successfully run its society.

The trailer is full of all of the R-rated humor that made the original film a blockbuster hit — indeed, the tagline reads, “Your favorite foods are back for sloppy seconds.”

The eight-episode series also features the voices of returning Sausage Party stars Michael Cera, David Krumholtz and Edward Norton reprising their roles, with Will Forte, Sam Richardson, Yassir Lester and Natasha Rothwell also lending their voices.

Sausage Party: Foodtopia debuts on Prime Video July 11.

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Amazon’s Emmy-nominated skewed superhero series The Boys will end with its fifth season, showrunner and executive producer Eric Kripke just spilled on social media.

The news comes just two days before the series’ fourth season has its three-episode debut on Prime Video.

“Season 4 Premiere Week is a good time to announce: Season 5 will be the Final Season!” Kripke said, noting it was always his plan for that to be the case. “I just had to be cagey till I got the final OK from Vought.”

Vought is the all-owning media conglomerate from the series.

“Thrilled to bring the story to a gory, epic, moist climax,” he said, noting, “the end has begun!”

The producer added a photo of a page from the fourth season’s finale, with everything but “Fade In” redacted.

On that note of secrecy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan appears in a new social media promo for The Boys‘ fourth season, his first.

The Walking Dead veteran previously worked with Kripke on Supernatural, and in the tease, he mentions his character — whose name is bleeped out — is “old buddies” with Karl Urban‘s Billy Butcher.

However, where they met, what they did in the past and what they do in the forthcoming season is also bleeped out as Morgan talks about it.

The actor then realizes everything he’s saying is being redacted, and he follows up with the not-censored, “Are you f****** joking? Can I at least tell them that me and Butcher” — only to cut off by more bleeps.

“Fine. Here’s what I’ll tell you,” he relents. “The Boys season 4 is going to be f****** insane. And I can promise you this, you are not f****** ready for it.”

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While the tone of the movie’s unexpectedly comedic first trailer took some commenters by surprise, a tease of Paramount’s forthcoming animated prequel Transformers One for an audience in France was nothing short of a “rousing” success, according to reports.

Parts of the movie were screened for an audience on Monday at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, introduced by the movie’s director, Josh Cooley, and Paramount Animation President Ramsey Naito.

The Hollywood Reporter and other outlets say the crowd went wild, with the trade noting “spontaneous applause” at various points, as well as “a rousing standing ovation as the lights went up.”

As reported, the movie has Chris Hemsworth voicing Orion Pax, the robot who will become Autobot leader Optimus Prime in the movie, with Brian Tyree Henry voicing D-16, who will become Optimus’ nemesis, Megatron.

Opening in theaters Sept. 20, the movie also features the voice of Scarlett Johansson, as well as those of Laurence Fishburne, Jon Hamm, Steve Buscemi and Keegan-Michael Key.

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If you think you’ve got what it takes to be on Love Island USA — or you just want your social followers to think you do — Peacock is bringing the villa to you.

Love Island USA pop-ups are headed to New Jersey, Chicago and Los Angeles, and will give visitors the chance to see if they’ve got what it takes to be Peacock’s next reality TV bombshell.

“Come answer some cheeky casting questions, strut your best islander walk, get your make-up done, hang with your favorite former islander, enjoy photo opps and show us your rizz — all in the name of sexy, steamy romance,” the streamer teases.

Participants must be over 18, and the fun at the destinations — at Bar Anticipation in Lake Como, New Jersey; the Parking Lot in Old Town Chicago; and LA’s The Atrium at Westwood Century City — is first come, first served.

The Los Angeles location kicks things off on Friday; Chicago’s event will be June 22; and the Jersey Shore stop will be on June 29.

All three locations will be open from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. local time. Check out the website for more details.

The newest season of Love Island USA streams exclusively on Peacock beginning Tuesday.

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Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan is going viral for getting something off her chest, about her chest.

According to fan video of a Q&A event in Dublin, the actress got the crowd cheering when she gave a cheeky response to a journalist who called her “very brave” for literally showing so much of herself as Penelope Featherington in the bodice-ripping Netflix series.

“You know, it is hard because I think women with my body type — women with perfect breasts — we don’t get to see ourselves onscreen enough,” the 37-year-old said through cheers.

“And I’m very proud as a member of the perfect breasts community,” she added. “I hope you enjoy seeing them.”

In a cover article for Stylist, the Irish actress recently addressed all the commentary on her body that surrounds her work on the series. “It’s insulting because I worked hard on this show; a year of fittings and dance lessons and shooting, I barely saw my family, I gave it my absolute all,” Coughlan said.

“And then I start doing press and all people want to talk about is my body? It’s so f******* disappointing and reductive.”

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We’re going back inside the mind of Riley for Inside Out 2, which premieres in theaters on Friday. In the Pixar sequel, Riley is now 13 years old and puberty introduces some new emotions, like Anxiety and Embarrassment, to her “old” emotions — Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear and Sadness. Paul Walter Hauser is the voice of Embarrassment, though he tells ABC Audio it’s not an emotion he spends a lot of time with.

“No, I probably should be more embarrassed by some of the stuff I’ve done and said. But yeah, I’m kind of a loud and proud extrovert who probably doesn’t think through things enough to be embarrassed,” he says.

As for which emotion was controlling him at 13, that’s something Hauser would rather not discuss.

“I don’t think I can say it on camera. You know, you’re discovering a lot of 13,” he jokes. “No, I think the desire of, like, hunger, sugar, sugar, and movies and sports. Just all about consumption. A little gluttonous monster of wanting fun at all times. Self amusement.”

Lewis Black returns as the voice of Anger, telling ABC Audio that at 13 the thing most often controlling his brain was sarcasm.

“I could work a classroom, because I was, you know, to me it would be like it’s starting to drag … then all of a sudden someone would say something, there’d be a pause and I’d be, boom,” he recalls. “And I think sarcasm comes from anger.”

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Paul Mescal, Quentin Tarantino and Rita Moreno will be honored at the fourth annual Academy Museum Gala, the organization announced on Monday. Mescal will be recognized with the Vantage Award for emerging artists; Moreno is getting the Icon Award for the significant global impact of her career; and Tarantino will be given the Luminary Award for expanding the “creative possibilities of cinema.” The event, set for Oct. 19 in Los Angeles, functions as a fundraiser for the museum, including its exhibitions, education initiatives and public programming …

David Howard Thornton, who plays mysterious killer Art the Clown in the Terrifier series, has been tapped to play Steamboat Willie in the upcoming horror comedy Screamboat, according to Variety. The movie, the latest horror flick to center around the iconic Disney character, which entered the public domain back in January, follows a group of New York ferry riders who are terrorized by a murderous mouse and must band together to prevent their commute from turning into a nightmare. Screamboat is set to hit theaters in 2025 …

How to Have Sex star Mia McKenna-Bruce is set to star alongside Helena Bonham Carter and Martin Freeman in a new Agatha Christie adaptation for Netflix, titled The Seven Dials Mystery, according to The Hollywood Reporter. McKenna-Bruce will play Bundle, a “young, determined sleuth” who attempts to unravel the mystery of a joke that has gone “horribly, murderously wrong.” Filming is set to begin sometime this summer …

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