Entertainment

Mel Gibson is apparently scouting locations for The Resurrection, the follow-up to his 2004 blockbuster The Passion of the Christ.

This piece of news came from the Italian-language publication ItalPress, which reported the actor, producer and director has met with Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela and checked out locations on the island he governs, Malta. 

The publication says Gibson is heading up an 11-member team in conjunction with the Malta Film Commission for the sequel, which will reportedly have Jim Caviezel reprising his role as Jesus Christ. According to ItalPress, also are on the docket for Gibson and company are locations in Morocco, Italy and Israel. 

Co-written and produced by Gibson, The Passion of the Christ was for a time the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time — that is, before Ryan Reynolds put on his Deadpool suit back in 2016, a fact Reynolds in character specifically mentions in 2018’s Deadpool 2.

Gibson’s film earned more than $612 million against a budget of around $30 million.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Saturday Night Live has revealed that Jean Smart will be the first guest host of the show’s 50th season on Sept. 28. It will mark her debut on the stage of Studio 8H.

Smart and her HBO show Hacks were honored Sunday at the 76th Emmy Awards with an upset win for Outstanding Comedy Series, and Smart picking up her sixth trophy.

Incidentally, Jelly Roll, who was featured in the Emmys in memoriam statement, will be Smart’s musical guest.

SNL also announced that stand-up comic Nate Bargatze is returning with Saturday Night Live veteran Coldplay on Oct. 5; Wicked star Ariana Grande will be Oct. 12’s guest host, with Stevie Nicks as her musical act.

The Oct. 19 show will feature Michael Keaton, with Billie Eilish returning as musical guest, while Nov. 2 show will welcome back John Mulaney, with Chappell Roan making her SNL debut.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The trailer has dropped for Mickey 17, director Bong Joon-ho‘s follow-up to his Best Picture Oscar winner Parasite, and it stars Robert Pattinson. Or, more accurately, Pattinsons.

An adaptation of Edward Ashton‘s novel Mickey 7, the darkly comedic sci-fi film has the star playing the title role(s).

English actor Pattinson’s voice in character is unrecognizable. “Nothing was working out, and I wanted to get off Earth,” he explains in voice-over.

To that end, he signs up to be an “expendable.”

That’s a deep space exploration gig so perilous that death is common — requiring a new clone to be printed, imprinted with the previous one’s memories.

The character is shown falling into a crevasse and being attacked by aliens, all to be “born” again.

The 17 refers to how many times he’s been printed to replace the previous one, but troubles arise as Mickey starts to question his true purpose. “Even on my 17th go-round, I hate dying,” he confesses.

But he’s particularly shook when he discovers an 18th version of him, also played by the The Batman star, that emerges while Mickey 17 is still alive.

Mickey 17 also stars Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo and Naomi Ackie. It hits theaters Jan. 31.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

For a streaming movie about two bickering burglars, the upcoming Prime Video movie Brothers boasts some A-list names.

Game of Thrones Emmy winner Peter Dinklage joins Oscar nominees Josh Brolin and Glenn Close, and Oscar winners Brendan Fraser and Marisa Tomei, in the caper comedy that centers on a cache of emeralds with a large side of family dysfunction.

Oh, and there’s also an amorous orangutan named Samuel. 

The trailer opens with the diminutive Dinklage getting tossed into a bathtub and held underwater by Fraser, who asks where the stones are.

Rewinding, Dinklage explains, “Some families have a long line of dentists and lawyers. We had a long line of felons.” 

He says that since childhood, he and his “big ugly twin brother,” played by Brolin, were always stealing stuff. “I had the plans, he had the hands,” the actor narrates.

While Brolin’s character has gone straight, Dinklage proposes one last score — for the stones. 

Complicating matters is the return of their mother, played by Close. “You were gone 30 years!” Brolin says, with Close responding, “I can apologize only so much.” 

“You haven’t apologized at all,” Brolin replies.

Evidently, however, she’s needed so the trio can get their hands on the $4 million haul. 

There’s a ton of physical comedy and R-rated wordplay from director Max Barbakow — and Brolin’s character is apparently molested by the ape, requiring the embarrassed thief to slather hand sanitizer all over himself afterward. 

The movie hits Prime Video Oct. 17. 

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Broadway legend Patti LuPone is now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, thanks to a scene-stealing role as Lilia Calderu, a 450-year-old Sicilian witch in Agatha All Along. 

And while she tells Variety she still knows “nothing” about the MCU at large, she has thrown down the gauntlet with one of its newest superstars, Ryan Reynolds. 

Not Reynolds’ foul-mouthed, fourth wall-breaking character, mind you, but apparently the affable actor from Vancouver who helped save the MCU from its recent box office slump with Deadpool & Wolverine.

She hasn’t seen any Avengers movies, and confessed she didn’t want to, before adding, “Maybe I should say I want to because I want to be in the Marvel Universe.”

She explained she’d like to either play a “good witch or a villain” on the big screen, then called out Reynolds personally. “Is Deadpool, are they Marvel?” she asked. When she heard that is indeed the case, she added, “I would fight Ryan Reynolds. I have no idea what Deadpool is, but I would just fight Ryan Reynolds.”

Incidentally, LuPone told the trade she watched WandaVision three times to prepare for her role in the spin-off, which debuts Wednesday on Disney+, adding, “I finally understood a little of it.” 

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

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Aging, beauty and the pressure to look young — those are some of the themes explored in the movie Shell, which just had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Shell stars Elisabeth Moss as an actress pressured into a radical medical treatment in order to stay good-looking enough to be relevant in Hollywood.

Moss’ The Handmaid’s Tale co-star Max Minghella directs the film, and tells ABC Audio the film explores our obsession with youth and good looks.

“Central to this film is sort of the concept of mortality and vanity, and beauty and all of these things that are so universal to everybody, but actually so hyper-relevant to this kind of moment in time when everybody is sort of on Ozempic and people being worked on, and filters and social media,” he says.

The film is set in the near future, but has a kind of throwback ’80s vibe to it that pays homage to some of Minghella’s influences.

“Certainly Paul Verhoeven and Brian De Palma were filmmakers I thought about a huge amount making this. And if you look at the work of Paul Verhoeven, there’s a quite a lot of this tonality, especially around science fiction and futurism,” he shares. “So the movie Shell itself is a love letter to a kind of period of our films.”

Production is underway on The Handmaid’s Tale‘s sixth and final season, and Minghella shared his thoughts on the dystopian series ending.

“I’m very sentimental about it,” he says. “It’s been an almost 10-year journey making this show. It’s been a huge chapter in my life with an incredible group of people. And I feel very lucky that it came into my life. And I will be sad to see it go.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Netflix has dropped a teaser trailer for Woman of the Hour, starring Pitch Perfect‘s Anna Kendrick in her directorial debut. The “stranger-than-fiction story,” based on real events, follows “an aspiring actress in 1970s Los Angeles and a serial killer in the midst of a yearslong murder spree whose lives intersect when they’re cast on an episode of The Dating Game,” according to a synopsis in the teaser’s description. Woman of the Hour, starring Kendrick and Daniel Zovatto, premieres Oct. 18 on Netflix …

The trailer for season 3 of the Netflix drama Heartstopper, released on Sept. 17, features Charlie and Nick — played respectively by Joe Locke and Kit Connor — looking to take their relationship to the next level. As their relationship blossoms and “they learn more about each other and their relationships, plan social events and parties and start thinking about university choices, everyone must learn to lean on those they love when life doesn’t go to plan,” according to the official synopsis. Heartstopper season 3 launches Oct. 3 on Netflix …

Apple TV+ has canceled its TV adaptation of Terry Gilliam‘s 1981 cult classic Time Bandits after just one season, according to Variety. The fantasy series, created by Jemaine Clement, Iain Morris and Taika Waititi, follows “a ragtag group of thieves” — led by Friends alum Lisa Kudrow — “and their newest recruit: an 11-year-old history buff named Kevin. Together they set out on a thrilling quest to save the boy’s parents — and the world,” per the streaming service …

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Kathryn Hahn reprises in the title role of Agatha Harkness in the very witchy Marvel Television series Agatha All Along on Wednesday.

Two episodes of the spin-off of WandaVision kick things off.

In the series, “the infamous Agatha Harkness finds herself down and out of power” until “a suspicious goth teen (Joe Locke) helps break her free from a distorted spell.”

They pull together a desperate coven and set about to come back into their missing power via the mysterious Witches’ Road, a magical gauntlet of trials.

Jac Schaeffer wrote the acclaimed series WandaVision, and this time she was also behind the camera as director. She tells ABC Audio, “I of course had anxiety about following WandaVision because it was so … embraced in such a big way. But centering a show on Agatha and on Kathryn Hahn, of course you have to do a lot of work, but a lot of your work is done.” 

She added, “So then it was less about how do we top WandaVision and it was more, how do we nail Agatha? Like, how do we do this right?”  

Hahn’s coven also stars Aubrey Plaza, Saturday Night Live‘s Ego Nwodim and the legendary Patti LuPone. 

Plaza plays Rio Vidal, a mysterious witch who first appears undercover, trying to push Agatha to return to her power. At a press conference, she deadpanned about spoilers: “I signed up to do the show because I thought we weren’t allowed to talk afterwards.” She teased “a very intense dynamic” between her character and Hahn’s. 

Hahn teased “some genuine good old-fashioned surprises” for the show.

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

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Demi Moore hit the red carpet for her new film The Substance on Monday night in Los Angeles with daughters Scout LaRue Willis, Tallulah Willis and Rumer Willis by her side.

Moore shares her three daughters with actor Bruce Willis, to whom she was married from 1987 to 2000.

The Substance, which hits theaters Sept. 20, took home the award for 2024’s best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

The film, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat and co-produced by Fargeat, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, follows “a former A-lister past her prime and drawn to the opportunity presented by a mysterious new drug,” according to an official synopsis.

“All it takes is one injection and she is reborn — temporarily — as the gorgeous, twentysomething Sue (Margaret Qualley),” the synopsis continues. “The only rule? Time needs to be split: exactly one week in one body, then one week in the other. No exceptions. Easy, right?”

In addition to Moore and Qualley, The Substance stars Dennis Quaid and Gore Abrams.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Eugene and Dan Levy may never have hosted an awards show together, but the Schitt’s Creek stars’ stint onstage on ABC Sunday night delivered numbers not seen since 2021. 

The telecast broke a streak of all-time low ratings earned by the last two broadcasts, according to numbers confirmed by ABC Audio.

The Levys — but more importantly the coronation of two already-popular shows The Bear and Shōgun — boosted the viewership by more than 54% from the last one, which was held in January on Fox, to nearly 7 million people.

That January telecast, the strike-delayed 75th annual Emmys, drew just 4.3 million people.

ABC points out that the 2021 telecast, which was held on CBS, also benefitted from an NFL game lead-in, which Sunday night’s telecast didn’t have. 

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.