Entertainment

Scarlett Johansson is not happy that OpenAI used a voice eerily similar to hers for the newest version of its ChatGPT system.

The company recently announced they were pausing the use of the its voice-enabled chatbot, Sky, after users pointed out its similarity to Johansson’s voice. Now, in a statement issued by her publicist to ABC News, Johansson says OpenAI founder Sam Altman actually contacted her in September about using her voice but she declined their offer, “after much consideration and for personal reasons.”

She says she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief,” when she heard the newly released Sky demo, noting that the voice was so similar to hers that, she says, “my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference.” She noted that Altman “insinuated that the similarity was intentional” because he posted the word “her” to X, referring to Johansson’s 2014 movie Her, in which she voiced a similar chat system. 

Scarlett adds that before the ChatGPT launch, her agent was contacted about reconsidering her decision, but the system went live before she even responded.  

“As a result of their actions, I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAI, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the ‘Sky’ voice,” she says. “Consequently, OpenAI reluctantly agreed to take down the ‘Sky’ voice.”
 

“In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity,” she concludes. “I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”

In a statement, Altman denied that Sky was based on Johansson’s voice, adding, “It was never intended to resemble hers.”

“We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson,” the statement continued. “Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.”

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This summer’s upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, thus making it the first Deadpool movie to be a Disney film.

In a new interview with Fandango, star Ryan Reynolds said he couldn’t believe what Disney allowed him and director Shawn Levy to get away with for this latest installment with the raunchy superhero.

“I hope it doesn’t sound condescending, I’m really proud of them for doing this. I think it’s a huge step for them,” Reynolds said. “I mean, it adds a whole other color to this kaleidoscopic wheel that is that company and the different people that they have been entertaining forever.”

Deadpool & Wolverine is the first R-rated film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not only was Reynolds proud of Disney for allowing the film to have a hard R rating, but he says he was surprised.

“I was surprised though, that they let us go as hard R, but very grateful. I mean there’s no other way to do it,” Reynolds said. “[The R rating] really [allowed] us to do anything and everything in a world where anything and everything is possible.”

Deadpool & Wolverine comes to theaters everywhere on July 26.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News and Marvel.

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Jerry Bruckheimer has a promising update for Pirates of the Caribbean fans: He expects two new films to set sail soon.

The longtime producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean films told Entertainment Weekly he hopes to reboot the franchise and make a standalone film in the universe from Margot Robbie.

“It’s two different movies,” Bruckheimer said. “We hope to get ’em both made, and I think Disney agrees they really want to make the Margot one, too,” Bruckheimer says.

Bruckheimer adds he’d produce the film that would kick off the new reboot, with a script from Jeff Nathanson, who wrote the upcoming Young Woman and the Sea. The second film would be from Robbie’s team, with a script by Birds of Prey scribe Christina Hodson.

Bruckheimer says while the reboot would not follow characters from the original series, such as Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow, he would support them returning.

“It’s a reboot, but if it was up to me, he would be in it,” Bruckheimer said. “I love him. He’s a good friend. He’s an amazing artist and he’s a unique look. He created Captain Jack. That was not on the page, that was him doing a little Pepé Le Pew and Keith Richards. That was his interpretation of Jack Sparrow.”

While less is known about Robbie’s Pirates film, she did give a sneak peek as to what one could expect from it in a 2022 Vanity Fair cover story.

“We had an idea and we were developing it for a while, ages ago, to have more of a female-led — not totally female-led, but just a different kind of story — which we thought would’ve been really cool, but I guess they don’t want to do it,” Robbie said at the time.

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The Duttons have headed back to the ranch for one last rodeo.

Yellowstone has started production on its final episodes, Paramount Network announced on Monday. The series, which will return for the second half of its fifth and final season in November, is currently filming in Montana. This final part of Taylor Sheridan’s megahit series will be made up of six episodes.

The show, of course, follows the Dutton family, which controls the largest contiguous cattle ranch in the United States. It covers the almost constant conflict the ranch faces with everything that it borders, including an expanding town, a Native American reservation and America’s first national park.

The first half of season 5 aired from November 2022 to January 2023. Production on this final installment was delayed due to the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023.

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OpenAI is pausing the use of an emotive voice on its newest version of ChatGPT that sounded suspiciously like Scarlett Johansson.

Users noticed that the voice, called Sky, sounded like Johansson, who famously played the voice of an emotive AI in the 2013 sci-fi drama Her. During the demo of the new offering, OpenAI founder Sam Altman posted “her” on social platform X, fueling more questions about the voice’s origins.

OpenAI now says it is pausing the use of Sky while it addresses “questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT.” In a blog post shared Monday, the company said the voice used was not meant to mimic Johansson’s.

“We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice — Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice,” it reads. “To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents.”

This all comes after the voice was joked about on the season 49 finale of Saturday Night Live.

The May 18 episode included a staple of recent finales — the joke swap tradition between Weekend Update hosts and head writers Michael Che and Colin Jost.

As part of the swap, the comedians read jokes the other had prepared for them, without any kind of a heads-up. It can be a dangerous game, as Jost — who is married to Johansson — found out when he read a joke about his wife that Che had written.

“ChatGPT has released a new voice assistant feature inspired by Scarlett Johansson’s AI character in Her,” Jost said. “Which I’ve never bothered to watch, because without that body, what’s the point of listening?”

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Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons have been tapped to star in Bugonia, the latest movie from Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It’s based on the 2003 South Korean sci-fi comedy, Save the Green Planet. Stone has previously worked with Lanthimos on The Favourite and Poor Things. She and Plemons both appear in Lanthimos’ next film, Kinds of Kindness, out June 26 …

John Stamos honored his late Full House co-star Bob Saget on May 17, on what would have been Saget’s 68th birthday.  “Bob was the heart of our “Full House” family. His legacy of kindness and compassion was evident in the faces around me, (on Dumbo) in the gentle ways we supported one another, echoing the love he always extended,” Stamos captioned an Instagram snap of the entire surviving cast — including Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen — taken at the comedians’s funeral. Bob, you are with us in every joke we share and every hug we give. Rest in peace, dear friend. Your family misses you more than words can say,” he concluded the post.  Besides Stamos and the Olsens, Dave Coulier, Jodie Sweetin, Candace Cameron Bure, Scott Weinger and series creator Jeff Franklin also appear in the photo …

Sony Pictures announced July 18, 2025, as the release date for its I Know What You Did Last Summer remake, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The 1997 film, about a group of teenagers stalked by a killer one year after a fatal accident on their graduation night, grossed $125 million worldwide and helped launch Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr.‘s careers, as well as those of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe. The outlet reports Hewitt and Prinze were in talks to reprise their roles for the remake …

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John Krazinski‘s live-action CGI fantasy comedy IF topped the domestic box office with an estimated $35 million opening weekend — slightly below the $40 million it was expected to take in.

The film — starring Ryan Reynolds and Cailey Fleming, and featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, Bradley Cooper and George Clooney — is about a girl who can see people’s imaginary friends. It opened in France and Belgium last week. After expanding to more international markets this weekend, it added an estimated $20 million, for total earnings of $59 million worldwide.

Last week’s number one film, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, dropped to second place, earning an estimated $26 million, pushing its North American tally past $100 million. It also took in an estimated $40.6 million overseas, for a total global haul of $237.5 million.

Third place went to the horror film The Strangers: Chapter 1, which beat expectations with an estimated $12 million North American debut.

The Fall Guy took fourth place, delivering an estimated $8.1 million at the domestic box office, for a three-week total of $63 million. Internationally, the Ryan Gosling/Emily Blunt-led action film collected an estimated $7.2 million, for a worldwide total of $64.6 million.

Rounding out the top five was Challengers, with an estimated $2.9 million in North America. As of Sunday evening, it held a narrow lead over the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black. The latter earned an estimated $2.85 million in its opening weekend.

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Dabney Coleman, best known for his role as the sexist boss of Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin‘s characters in the 1980 hit 9 to 5, has died. His daughter Quincy Coleman said in a statement to ABC News that he died Thursday, May 16, at age 92, at his home in Santa Monica, surrounded by family.

“My father crafted his time here on earth with a curious mind, a generous heart, and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humor that tickled the funny bone of humanity,” she continued. “As he lived, he moved through this final act of his life with elegance, excellence and mastery.”

The statement concluded, “…Dabney Coleman is a gift and blessing in life and in death as his spirit will shine through his work, his loved ones and his legacy…eternally.”

Coleman’s early roles included parts in The Towering Inferno and TV shows like That Girl, The Fugitive, Bonanza and Columbo. He also starred as Fernwood mayor Merle Jeeter in the soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. But he finally broke through in 9 to 5 as Franklin Hart, the boss who mistreats his female underlings until they get their revenge on him. In 1982, he starred in Tootsie as  the sexist director of the soap opera in which Dustin Hoffman‘s character is cast.

Coleman’s other film roles included 1979’s North Dallas Forty, 1981’s On Golden Pond, 1983’s WarGames, 1984’s Cloak and Dagger, 1984’s The Muppets Take Manhattan, 1998’s You’ve Got Mail and two big-screen remakes of classic TV shows: 1987’s Dragnet and 1993’s The Beverly Hillbillies.

On TV, Coleman won an Emmy for the 1987 TV movie Sworn to Silence and was nominated for his starring role as the title character in the sitcom Buffalo Bill.  He also starred in the TV series The Slap Maxwell Story, appeared in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire for two seasons, and had a guest role as the father of Kevin Costner’s character in Yellowstone.

Coleman is survived by his sister, four children and five grandchildren.

Lily Tomlin’s official X page posted a photo of Tomlin and Coleman together onscreen in 9 to 5, with the caption, “We just loved him.”

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Laura Dern and Margaret Qualley are joining forces to star in a limited series adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling novel Forever, Interrupted.

Both actresses will executive produce the project, which comes from A24 and will stream on Netflix, Deadline reports.

Forever, Interrupted follows Elsie, played by Qualley, and her whirlwind romance with Ben. The couple fell in love fast and married within months of meeting one another. After Ben’s unexpected death, Elsie must face her mother-in-law Susan, played by Dern, who had no idea Elsie existed.

The story will be told through a dual timeline, going between the epic love story and Elsie and Susan’s connection.

This marks the second time a limited series adaptation has come from one of Jenkins Reid’s novels – the first was the 2023 Prime Video show Daisy Jones & the Six.

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It’s no theory – Young Sheldon went out with a big bang.

The Big Bang Theory spin-off show finished its seven-season run on Thursday with a two-episode finale that reached 8.95 million viewers, according to live and same-day Nielsen data.

Not only does this make Young Sheldon’s series finale the top broadcast program of that night, it’s also the most-watched episode of the show in four years, after the season 3 finale back in April 2020.

“I always wondered what this day would feel like and now it’s here!” Iain Armitage, who played young Sheldon Cooper, wrote on Instagram on Thursday. “Thank you for a wonderful ride. I will miss everyone so much and I want you to know that it’s been an honor to play this part, and it’s been a joy to work with people I love so much.”

While the finale wrapped things up for Armitage’s Sheldon, the Big Bang universe will continue with the upcoming spin-off of this prequel series, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, which airs its first episode September 1 on CBS.

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