Entertainment

Warner Bros. released a second trailer to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the prequel to its Oscar-winning epic Mad Max: Fury Road, on Tuesday.

Anya Taylor-Joy plays the younger version of Furiosa, Charlize Theron‘s character from that film, and the new snippet shows glimpses of her backstory: She was snatched from her family by Chris Hemsworth‘s post-apocalyptic warlord Dementus.

“As a child, my world was forever changed,” she says. “He took it all from me.”

Apparently, she escapes captivity, and now, according to a title card, “She is back for vengeance.”

Furiosa says, “My childhood. My mother. I want them back!” triggering an all-out chase and all new vehicular mayhem for which visionary director George Miller is famous.

Furiosa apparently also forges an alliance with Immortan Joe, the skull-faced warlord she fought years later in Fury Road, warning him of Dementus, “If you find him, he’s mine.”

We also see Anya’s character shearing off her hair. With her grease-blackened forehead, she’s a spitting image of Theron’s version.

A voiceover notes, “There will always be war. But to get home, Furiosa fought the world.”

At the end of the trailer, she finally comes face-to-face with Dementus as an adult: “Remember me?!” she asks.

The movie from Warner Bros. Pictures revs into theaters May 24.

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Lucasfilm revealed the trailer to its anticipated Star Wars series The Acolyte, which will debut on Disney+ with two episodes on June 4.

The series from Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland is set around a hundred years before the Star Wars prequels when the Jedi Order was at its zenith as the source of peace and justice throughout the galaxy.

The trailer begins with Squid Game‘s Lee Jung-jae as Jedi Master Sol, leading a group of younglings in meditation with a familiar phrase: “Your eyes can deceive you, you must not trust them.”

He asks what they see.”Light,” one young student offers, while another says “balance.” A third, likely the younger version of Amandla Stenberg‘s assassin character, darkly says “fire.”

Stenberg’s masked assassin is shown facing off with a Jedi played by The Matrix franchise veteran Carrie-Anne Moss. She repeatedly dodges then uses the Force to shove her away.

“Someone is killing Jedi,” a character explains. “It doesn’t make sense.”

There’s a shot of a hunting party of eight Jedi and a quick reveal of a pensive Wookiee with his normally furry head shaved in the style of a samurai, complete with a top knot.

“This isn’t about good or bad,” Jodie Turner-Smith‘s Aniseya advises. “This is about power and who is allowed to use it.”

The hunting party, including Logan veteran Dafne Keen, ultimately find themselves facing a threat in a dark forest. Just then, a red Sith lightsaber spins through the air, slashing the trees around them before its unseen owner calls it back to their hand.

At this, all the Jedi ignite their sabers and charge the threat, only to be blown back by a tremendous Force blast, and the trailer ends.

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In just the third month of 2024, Timothée Chalamet has already passed a billion bucks at the box office.

The 28-year-old actor’s Wonka, which came out December 15, has made more than $630 million worldwide so far, and it continues earning in theaters after the movie came to streaming.

Dune Part Two only came out March 1, but the sequel is already sand running toward the $500 million mark globally.

Of note, neither Wonka nor Dune were based on any comics property; with some exceptions — Hi, Barbie! — the superhero genre has had the lion’s share of billion-dollar-plus earners in recent years.

Incidentally, Chris Pratt had a blockbuster 2023, starting with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which went on to make more than $1.36 billion worldwide and adding the more than $845 million made by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. However, his impressive grand total of more than $2.2 billion was tallied at the end of the year.

Considering how fast Chalamet’s movies have propelled him past a billion bucks, and with his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown slated for release some time in 2024, it will be interesting to see where Chalamet’s box office bank will end up come New Year’s Day.

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Richard Simmons is reaching out to fans after he posted a cryptic Facebook message about dying.

The fitness personality apologized on Monday for the message, writing, “Sorry many of you have gotten upset about my message today. Even the press has gotten in touch with me. I am not dying.”

“It was a message about saying how we should embrace every day that we have,” he added. “Sorry for the confusion. Love, Richard.”

Simmons said that he was dying but noted how everyone should live life to the fullest.

“I have some news to tell you. Please don’t be sad. I am …. dying,” he began. “Oh I can see your faces now. The truth is we all are dying. Every day we live we are getting closer to our death.”

“Why am I telling you this? Because I want you to enjoy your life to the fullest every single day,” he continued. “Get up in the morning and look at the sky… count your blessings and enjoy.”

He ended his message by saying, “If you have time I want you to listen to a terrific song. It is by Tim McGraw it is called Live Like You Were Dying. Live today and don’t forget to pray. Love, Richard.”

Earlier this year, Simmons was in the headlines after it was announced that a biopic about him was in development.

Simmons addressed the biopic in a Facebook post and said that he had, “never given my permission for this movie.”

“Don’t believe everything you read,” he added. “I no longer have a manager, and I no longer have a publicist. I just try to live a quiet life and be peaceful.”

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Barry creator and Emmy-winning star Bill Hader leads the voice cast of a new adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, opening in theaters March 6, 2026, according to Variety. The all-star cast also features Abbott Elementary‘s Quinta Brunson, Saturday Night Live‘s Bowen Yang, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness‘ Xochitl Gomez, What We Do in The Shadows‘ Matt Berry and Girls5eva‘s Paula Pell. A 2003 live-action adaptation, starring Mike Myers as the titular troublemaker, earned a disappointing $134 million at the box office …

Hulu has given a six-episode series order for the Jimmy Kimmel-produced “workplace reality series” High Hopes, centering on two brothers running a cannabis shop in Los Angeles. The series, premiering on — when else — 4/20, “follows Belarus-born brothers Slava and Mishka, and their stoned crew through the trials and tribulations of taking their cannabis business to new heights,” per the streaming service. The season, “builds to their biggest day of the year — 4.20 — as the gang attempts to expand nationwide and release their own top-shelf cannabis brand” …

Walt Disney Animation Studios’ latest animated feature, Wish, will stream on Disney+ beginning April 3, the streaming service announced on Monday. The original musical comedy takes place in the magical kingdom of Rosas, where a 17-year-old girl named Asha — voiced by Ariana DeBose — makes a wish to the stars in a moment of need, leading her to meet a living, magic star that has fallen from the sky, with whom she stands up to the kingdom’s evil ruler, Magnifico (Chris Pine). Wish grossed roughly $252 million at the global box office, a poor showing by Disney standards …

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Joey Graziadei‘s “The Woman Tell All” episode of The Bachelor aired Monday, March 18, took a moment to address “a noticeable rise in hate on social media” aimed at many of the ladies — particularly season 28 contestant Rachel Nance.

Nance, the daughter of an African American father and Filipino-American mother, struggled to hold back tears as she revealed that following hometowns, she’s been receiving “a lot of racist comments” toward her, calling her the N-word and “jungle Asian,” among other things, and TikTok videos insinuating they threw up every time she and Joey kissed.

Host Jesse Palmer responded by noting, “This season of The Bachelor, the love for these women, for the most part, has been really remarkable, but for all the love that Joey and these women have received, there’s also sadly been a noticeable rise in hate on social media.”

Palmer then asked, by a show of hands, how many of this season’s women — as well as some Golden Bachelor alums seated in the studio audience — had received hateful messages online. Nearly all the ladies raised their hands to indicate that they had.

“Here’s the thing Bachelor Nation,” Palmer said. “We love your strong opinions. I think it’s important that we uplift these women, who are brave enough to be vulnerable and to share their stories with Joey and with all of us at home. These women, they deserve our praise and not our hate.”

“I think people are so quick to be little keyboard warriors and kind of pop off because there’s no consequences, but we [the contestants] have to pay the consequences mentally and emotionally,” added Nance. “Just be kind. Your words have weight to them, and things that you say really hit home sometimes. Just be kind.”

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The producers behind the horror pic Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey aren’t letting leading this year’s Razzie Awards get them down.

Instead, ABC Audio has confirmed Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Films are doubling down, creating a shared “Poohniverse” a la Marvel Studios’ MCU, which will focus on the now-public domain characters from Pooh creator A.A. Milne and other works including J.M. Barrie‘s Peter Pan and Disney’s Bambi.

A sequel to Blood and Honey is already on the way on March 26, as is Bambi: The Reckoning in the fall and Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare around Halloween.

After those, beloved children’s book characters including Pooh, Tigger, Owl, Rabbit and Piglet will break bad along with Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Bambi and the Mad Hatter in the team-up Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, which is slated for release in 2025.

“Some of the villains also will not see eye to eye which will allow for some carnage within the group in some epic sequence of monster vs monster,” producer Scott Chambers, who also plays Christopher Robin in the films, says in a statement.

“It will be complete carnage,” Jagged Edge producer and Monsters Assemble director Rhys Frake-Waterfield teases. “We are heavily influenced by Freddy Vs Jason and The Avengers. We would love to see a horror movie where the villains group together and are going after their survivors.”

He adds, “We have some incredible set pieces in mind and some sequences I think will truly shock people.”

Moviegoers catching Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 in theaters the weekend of March 26 will get a sneak peek.

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On Monday, Netflix dropped an action-packed trailer to the second chapter of director Zack Snyder‘s sci-fi epic Rebel Moon. 

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver continues where the original film’s cliffhanger left off: Sofia Boutella‘s Kora and her band of rebels have fought off an occupying force on the peaceful planet Veldt. 

However, all is not well: “As the full force of the Realm bears down on the burgeoning rebellion, unbreakable bonds are forged, heroes emerge, and legends are made,” Netflix teases.

With the exposition handled by the first film, Snyder gets down to the action in the second trailer: Kora is seen battling enemies with her pistol and disarming and running through a baddie with his own lightsaber-like energy sword. 

“Their nightmare is you and I fighting together,” she tries to convince Jimmy, an ancient robot knight who is voiced by Anthony Hopkins.

“You must know you cannot win,” he warns her as a fleet of attack crafts are shown swooping down. 

Djimon Hounsou‘s General Titus tries to even the odds by recruiting more allies. “You’re all here because there is nothing to return to,” he tells them.

Meanwhile, Ed Skrein‘s ironically named baddie Admiral Noble has apparently been cloned after his death in the original and is on the warpath. 

It’s enough to get Jimmy back in the game. “I have no choice but to fight,” he declares, and while Audioslave‘s “Cochise” blares, Jimmy is then shown easily dispatching enemy soldiers as their shots bounce harmlessly off of him. 

The film debuts April 19 on Netflix.

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On Monday, Lucasfilm revealed that its anticipated Star Wars series The Acolyte will debut June 4 on Disney+.

A trailer will drop Tuesday, the company also noted.

A poster marking the release date shows a lightsaber hilt, but with a streak of blood emerging where its glowing blade should be, teasing the darker nature of the show, which stars The Matrix‘s Carrie-Anne Moss, Logan‘s Dafne Keen and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies‘ Amandla Stenberg.

A legend on the poster reads, “In an age of light, a darkness rises,” hinting the series takes place during the galaxy far, far away’s relatively peaceful time known as the High Republic era.

The show centers on the “investigation into a shocking crime spree that pits a respected Jedi Master (Squid Game‘s Lee Jung-jae) against a dangerous warrior from his past (Stenberg).”

“As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems,” Lucasfilm teases of the show from Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland.

Lucasfilm is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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On Monday, Sony Pictures announced it is bringing every single live-action Spider-Man movie back to theaters, beginning with 2002’s Spider-Man, starting April 15.

That means fans can watch Tobey Maguire in his original turn as Peter Parker/Ol’ Webhead, as well as 2004’s Spider-Man 2 and 2007’s Spider-Man 3 — yes, even with that dance scene.

Also on tap is Andrew Garfield‘s turn as the web-slinger in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and its less successful 2014 sequel, as well as Tom Holland‘s 2017 effort Spider-Man: Homecoming, his Spider-Man: Far from Home from 2019 and then 2021’s blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home, which united all three actors thanks to a little tinkering with the Multiverse from Benedict Cumberbatch‘s Dr. Strange.

And just like that, much like a spell from the former Sorcerer Supreme himself, fans might just forget about Sony’s Spidey-adjacent flop Madame Web.

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