Entertainment

Red One wasn’t quite the box office gift that its producers hoped it would be, with a debut of $34 million against a budget said to be $250 million. 

The movie is essentially a Christmas kidnap caper: When J.K. Simmons‘ Santa Claus is snatched, his head of security, Callum, played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, taps an unlikely ally to try to find him: Chris Evans‘ bounty hunter Jack O’Malley, who is firmly on Santa’s naughty list. 

At a recent press event, Evans and Johnson said an action comedy through the snow globe-lens of Christmas isn’t as odd as it may seem.

“There’s such great Christmas lore, folklore, not just the stories we all grew up with, but internationally, you know what I mean?” Evans says.

“When you hear some of these creatures and stories and mythology, it almost begs for some sort of, you know, action-adventure movie. So it’s not quite as hard as you think.”

Johnson agrees, saying the movie’s “heart” is really what makes it all possible: “It’s one of my favorite parts of the movie where J.K. as Santa Claus reminds me that it’s our job to see the best in people and look at that child.”

“Look beyond if they’re on the naughty list like this guy,” he says pointing to Evans. “Look beyond it and look at the kid in everybody. As Chris was saying, it really wasn’t that hard.”

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Paramount Pictures has dropped a final trailer to Gladiator II, as overseas box office receipts for the film are already proving as muscular as its lead Paul Mescal. 

According to BoxOfficeMojo, the movie that opened in foreign markets on Nov.13 has already made $87 million; the follow-up to director Ridley Scott‘s Oscar-winning original opens in the U.S. on Nov. 22. 

The film also stars Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington, as well as original Gladiator star Connie Nielsen. 

The new trailer jams in the action, with sieges, epic set pieces and of course swordplay — along with glowing critics’ blurbs about the film. 

Paramount calls the movie an “epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome.” 

The studio continues, “Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.”
 

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 Timothée Chalamet and the cast of A Complete Unknown recently talked to Rolling Stone about the making of the Bob Dylan film, and Chalamet shared some insight into his commitment to what he calls a “role of a lifetime.”

“It was something I would go to sleep panicked about, losing a moment of discovery as the character — no matter how pretentious that sounds — because I was on my phone or because of any distraction,” he says. “I had three months of my life to play Bob Dylan, after five years of preparing to play him. So while I was in it, that was my eternal focus.” 

He adds, “He deserved that and then more … God forbid I missed a step because I was being Timmy. I could be Timmy for the rest of my life!”

Chalamet was listed as “Bob Dylan” on the film’s call sheet, and it fooled co-star Elle Fanning, who got an invite to a preproduction meeting with director James Mangold and “Bob,” thinking she was meeting the rock icon.

“I’m probably the first person in life to be let down by having a rehearsal with Timothée Chalamet, right?” she tells Rolling Stone. “Like, the first girl in history.” 

Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez, said Chalamet “wasn’t so full-on” with his method acting, but she noted he was “in his own world” on set, “in a way that I think Bob often was as well.”

And Ed Norton, who plays Pete Seeger, described Chalamet’s commitment as “relentless.”

“No visitors, no friends, no reps, no nothing,” he said. “And I agreed totally — it was like, we cannot have a f****** audience for this. We’ve got to believe to the greatest degree we can. And he was right to be that protective.”

A Complete Unknown opens Dec. 25.

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Actor Josh Brolin is opening up about his sobriety after cutting out alcohol over a decade ago.

The Dune: Part Two actor discussed maintaining his sobriety and life events that led him to become sober in a recent interview with British paper The Times published on Saturday.

“I was born to drink. I was birthed to drink. My mother drank exactly like I did, and I was raised to be a man and drink like the male equivalent of my mother,” writes Brolin in an excerpt of his new memoir, From Under the Truck, obtained by The Times.

Brolin told The Times he had decided to commit himself to sobriety after visiting his grandmother on her deathbed when he was intoxicated in 2013.

“I knew that was going to be the last time I drank,” said Brolin, who entered rehab, according to The Times interview.

Brolin, who is 56, said aging has made being sober all the more easy.

“I like getting older. It’s like a great excuse to finally go, ‘OK, just mellow out, you don’t need to constantly spin,'” he said.

In reflecting on his sobriety, Brolin shared that he has enjoyed staying away from drinking.

“I love being sober. I have more fun,” he said. “There’s nothing that I go through that I am absolutely certain wouldn’t be worse if I was drinking.”

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Gladiator II star Paul Mescal has been announced as the guest host for the Dec. 7 episode of Saturday Night Live, with musical guest Shaboozey. The announcement was made during the NBC late night sketch comedy show’s Nov. 16 episode featuring Charli XCX as host and musical guest. Gladiator II — also starring Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington — opens in theaters Nov. 21 …

The U.S. postal service announced it will honor the late Betty White with her own stamp, coming out in 2025. The comedic actress, who died Dec. 31, 2021 at the age of 99, entertained TV audiences for seven decades on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls, among others and was also an animal advocate. Dale Stephanos created the digital illustration based on a 2010 photograph by Kwaku Alston. Greg Breeding, an art director for USPS, designed the stamp …

Netflix‘s livestream of the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight attracted 60 million households, peaking at 65 million concurrent streams according to the streaming service. The co-main event fight featuring Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano was seen in nearly 50 million homes. The bouts, held at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, resulted in victories for Paul and Taylor …

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Red One — starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans — had a disappointing debut, delivering an estimated $34 million at the domestic box office against a $250 million budget.

The holiday film, also starring J.K. Simmons as Santa, along with Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt and Lucy Liu, added an estimated $14.7 million overseas, for a worldwide total of $84.1 million.

Venom: The Last Dance fell to second place after spending three weeks at No. 1, collecting an estimated $7.3 million. That brings its four-week North American haul to $127.6 million and $436.1 million globally.

Third place went to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever with an estimated $5.4 million, bringing its two-week North American tally to $19.9 million.

Heretic landed in fourth, grabbing an estimated $5.16 million in its second week of release. The horror film, starring Hugh Grant, has delivered a total of $20.4 million domestically.

Rounding out the top five was the animated feature The Wild Robot, earning an estimated $4.3 million. Its eight week tally now stands at $137.7 million in North America and $308 million worldwide.

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Much like Texas, it seems like reboots are also forever.

According to Variety, Universal Television is working on bringing back the high school football drama Friday Night Lights with a new storyline and characters.

The original Friday Night Lights show ran from 2006 to 2011 and centered around the fictional Dillon Panthers high school football team in West Texas. It was inspired by the 1990 book of the same name and its 2004 film adaptation, both of which were about the real-life Permian High School Panthers of Odessa, Texas.

The show starred Kyle Chandler as Eric Taylor, coach of the Dillon Panthers and, in later seasons, the school’s crosstown rivals, the East Dillon Lions. Connie Britton, who also starred in the FNL film, played Eric’s wife and Dillon High faculty member, Tami Taylor.

Among those who portrayed the players and students were Zach Gilford, Taylor Kitsch, Scott Porter, Minka Kelly, Gaius Charles and Adrianne Palicki, as well as Michael B. Jordan and Jesse Plemons in early breakout roles.

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Cross debuts on Prime Video Friday. Aldis Hodge stars as brilliant criminal psychologist Alex Cross, the hero from James Patterson‘s bestselling book series.

ABC Audio caught up with Hodge, who described how he brought his own flavor to the character, who had been previously played by Morgan Freeman in the 1997 hits Kiss the Girls and 2001’s Along Came a Spider, and then by Tyler Perry in 2012’s Alex Cross.

“The flavor was tied to my honest nature,” Hodge said at New York Comic Con. “Every time I approach a character, it starts with: What is his ‘why,’ who is he as a man? And the first time I sat down with [show creator Ben Watkins] to talk about this, we didn’t even talk about the character development. We talked about who we were personally, and that’s what fed into who the character became.” 

Hodge continues, “So I don’t even have to worry about who [Cross] is, I already know him. And now we just have to figure out how he approaches and figures out situations. It makes it really seamless,” Hodge says. 

The series centers on Cross’ hunt for a sadistic serial killer. “As Alex and his partner, John Sampson (Isaiah Mustafa), track this killer, a mysterious threat from Cross’ past appears, aiming to destroy what he’s done to keep his grieving family, career, and life together,” the show’s synopsis teases.

Cross has already been renewed for a second season.

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The new Disney+ short film An Almost Christmas Story is inspired by the true story of an owl who was found inside the Rockefeller Christmas tree in New York City. In this version, the owl can talk, and his adventure is narrated by John C. Reilly.

In taking on the role, Reilly, who also performs four songs in the short, tells ABC Audio he was inspired by the late Burl Ives‘ Snowman narrator character in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

“I thought, ‘I’ve learned so much music from Burl Ives, wouldn’t it be cool to, like, step into his shoes?'” says Reilly, who also stars in a stage production called Mister Romantic. “Or at least perform a role that was similar to what he’s done in the past.”

An Almost Christmas Story also hearkens back to the look of those classic holiday specials in its animation style, though it was made digitally instead of with traditional stop-motion. Still, Reilly wanted to get a stop-motion figure of his character made, even though he laughs he was “hoping it would look less like me.”

“I was like, ‘But will you please still make mine?'” Reilly says. “Then [director] David Lowery‘s like, ‘Yeah! Totally, we should still make yours!’ So I’m gonna have to ask Disney where that thing is.”

As for the film itself, you can expect a heartwarming tale and some adorable animals, which Reilly feels might bring some comfort amid stressful times, personal or otherwise.

“Somehow I think [the film] really does meet the moment for the way people are feeling right now in the world,” Reilly says. “So I’m happy to spread a little love and a little empathy with this.” 

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Conan O’Brien will host the 2025 Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Friday, marking his first time hosting the star-studded awards show.

“America demanded it and now it’s happening: Taco Bell’s new Cheesy Chalupa Supreme. In other news, I’m hosting the Oscars,” the Emmy-winning television host, writer, producer and comedian said in a press release.

O’Brien is best known for hosting Late Night with Conan O’Brien from 1993 to 2009, stepping in after David Letterman‘s departure, and Conan from 2010 to 2021. Prior to that, he was a writer for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons.

Since 2018, he’s hosted the podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. Most recently, he’s also starred in the travel show Conan O’Brien Must Go on Max.

The 97th Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, March 2, 2025, live from the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood at 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PT on ABC, and will be broadcast in over 200 territories worldwide.

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