Entertainment

On Wednesday, 30 presenters were announced for the 30th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which will be held at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles on February 24.

Two-time SAG Award winner Idris Elba will open the ceremony, the organization announced. This year’s presenters will include Oppenheimer‘s Robert Downey Jr., Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt; Barbie‘s Michael Cera and America Ferrera; Killers of the Flower Moon‘s Brendan Fraser; and The Color Purple‘s Taraji P. Henson.

The full list can be found here.

Additionally, Barbra Streisand fan Jennifer Aniston will present the 59th SAG Life Achievement Award to the legendary performer and director.

For this year’s event, Barbie and Oppenheimer lead the competition on the movie side with four nominations apiece. On the TV side, HBO’s trophy magnet Succession leads with five.

This year’s telecast will be streamed live by Netflix for the first time.

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A new The Hollywood Reporter article details the reported “retooling” underway at Marvel Studios after several disappointments, including Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and the Disney+ movie Secret Invasion.

One of the behind-the-scenes changes that was revealed was that the studio has apparently retitled one of its major upcoming movies.

2026’s Avengers: The Kang Dynasty was to feature Jonathan Majors‘ Kang The Conqueror, a character he portrayed in variant forms in Loki and Quantumania, but the trade says the movie will be retitled.

According to THR, the move was already in play before Majors was convicted in December in connection to an altercation with Grace Jabbari, which led the studio to sever its ties with the actor. Instead, the poor reception of the Ant-Man threequel was the motivation behind the title change.

Another change mentioned in the article is the addition of The Bear‘s showrunner Joanna Calo to retool the script for Marvel’s forthcoming team-up movie Thunderbolts, which will star Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh, and David Harbour, among others.

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

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Despite the blockbuster success of Barbie, a new report from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative shows that 2023’s movies featured the lowest percentage of female leads and co-stars in a decade.

Just 30% of the top 100 films of 2023 featured a female star or co-lead, according to the study as quoted by Variety, as major movie productions focused on male protagonists.

The researchers found that 2007 had the lowest percentage of female protagonists, at 20%, and 2022 had a record high of 44%.

The initiative’s founder, Stacy L. Smith, called 2023’s 30% mark a “catastrophic step back for girls and women in film.”

Her statement added, “These numbers are more than just a metric of how often girls and women are in protagonist roles. They represent the career opportunities offered to women in the industry.”

Smith continued, “Even by looking at the films that were moved to 2024 because of the strike, we cannot explain the collapse of women leads/co-leads in 2023,” categorizing it as “an industry failure.”

Further, only three movies in 2023 — not counting ensemble movies like 80 for Brady — featured actresses who were 45 or older. In that same year, 32 movies starred men in that age group. 

On a related note, a January report from the initiative showed the lack of gender diversity also applied to work behind the camera in 2023: Of the 116 directors evaluated in 2023, just 12.1% were women.

Further, looking back 17 years and taking into account the work of 1,769 directors, just 6% were women. The researchers noted that back in 2007, just 2.7% of directors were women — but by 2022, that needle only moved to 9%.

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More than two years after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on the New Mexico set of Rust, the film’s weapons handler is set to go on trial in the high-profile case.

Armorer Hannah Gutierrez was charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the October 2021 on-set death. She faces an additional charge of tampering with evidence, with state prosecutors claiming she handed off a small bag of cocaine following her interview with police the day of the shooting.

Gutierrez has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence. She has not been charged with any drug offenses.

Actor Alec Baldwin, who was practicing a cross-draw with a Western-style Colt .45 revolver when the gun fired a live bullet that struck Hutchins, was also recently re-charged with involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors initially dropped the case. Baldwin has pleaded not guilty.

Jury selection in Gutierrez’s case is scheduled to begin Wednesday in Santa Fe County after the judge denied the defense’s latest effort to dismiss the charges.

Jury selection could be challenging for such a high-profile case, Kate Mangels, a partner at Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir LLP in Los Angeles, told ABC News.

Potential jurors knowing general information about the case wouldn’t be enough to disqualify them, she said. But both the prosecution and defense will “pay very close attention in jury selection to make sure no one ends up on the jury who already has feelings about this.”

Potential jurors’ opinions about firearms and drug use could also factor in, she said.

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Kevin Costner and Christine Baumgartner have officially finalized their divorce.

The Notice of Entry of Judgement regarding the dissolution of the former couple’s marriage was officially filed on Tuesday, February 20, according to documents obtained by Entertainment Tonight.

Costner and Baumgartner have agreed to share custody of their three children, Cayden, 16, Hayes, 14, and Grace, 13, per the documents.

Baumgartner filed for divorce from the Yellowstone actor back in May, after 18 years of marriage. The divorce continued to make headlines for months afterward, with Baumgartner initially asking for nearly $250,000 a month in child support “to maintain the children in their accustomed lifestyle” according to People.

They reportedly settled in September, with Costner reportedly moving on with singer-songwriter Jewel.

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Three-time Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel reveals the movie Barbie convinced him to return for a fourth go-round.

The host of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! tells the Los Angeles Times in an interview published on Tuesday, February 20, that after hosting the awards show in 2017, 2018 and 2023, he wasn’t sure he would “ever” do it again.

“I did two of them, and they went well — something crazy happened at one of them with a story I’ll have for the rest of my life,” he joked, referring to La La Land accidentally being announced as the Best Picture winner instead of Moonlight at the 2017 telecast.

Then, says Kimmel, “I am sitting in a movie theater watching Barbie and thinking, ‘Well, maybe I’ll do this again, because at least I have a point of reference with everyone.’”

Kimmel recently reunited three Barbie cast members — Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera and Kate McKinnon — for an Oscars promo inspired by the film.

Only three people have hosted the Oscars more times than Kimmel. Bob Hope did it 19 times, Billy Crystal nine, and Johnny Carson five times.

As for how he found himself in such esteemed company, Kimmel tells the outlet, “So much of my life makes no sense, I’ve stopped trying to make sense of it.”

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A new trailer for Civil War, the new action drama from Ex Machina writer/director Alex Garland, was revealed on Tuesday, February 20. The film, set in the not-too-distant future, depicts a U.S. where 19 states — including unlikely allies Texas and California — have seceded from the union. The remaining states are ruled by a tyrannical three-term president — played by Nick Offerman — who orders the military to stamp out the rebellion. Civil War, also starring Kirsten Dunst, opens April 12 …

Emma Stone, an Oscar nominee for her performance in Poor Things, is in talks to reteam with director Yorgos Lanthimos for his remake of the Korean comedy Save the Green Planet, according to Variety. The film, set to start shooting in the U.K. this summer, follows “a disillusioned young man who captures and tortures a businessman whom he believes to be part of an alien invasion,” per the outlet. “A battle of wits ensues between the captor, his devoted girlfriend, the businessman and a private detective” …

Paramount Pictures has tapped The Goldbergs director and executive producer David Katzenberg to helm Sam and Victor’s Day Off, a followup to the beloved 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The spinoff film centers on Sam and Victor, the two valets from the original film who take the Ferrari belonging to the father of Alan Ruck’s character, Cameron Frye, for a joyride. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which starred Matthew Broderick in the title role, grossed $70 million in its theatrical run …

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Now that it’s been announced that Sam Mendes will direct four separate movies about The Beatles — one for each band member — the speculation about who’ll play Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr has begun.

Variety has offered up some of suggestions, including Daisy Jones & The Six’s Sam Claflin as Lennon. Its other Lennon suggestions include Heartstopper’s Kit Connor; Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played Lennon in 2009’s Nowhere Boy; and Love & Mercy’s Paul Dano.

Jacob Elordi, who played Elvis Presley in Priscilla, is one of its picks for McCartney. Other suggestions include Billy Elliott‘s Jamie Bell, although the publication notes that at 37 he could be too old; and Tom Holland, although it points out his Spider-Man schedule could get in the way.

For Harrison, it offers up Timothée Chalamet — although with him already playing Bob Dylan in an upcoming movie, Variety says that could be “one too many trips through the counterculture” for the actor. Other picks for Harrison include Sex Education’s Asa Butterfield and even Harrison’s son, 45-year-old Dhani Harrison, although it questions his age and whether he can act.

Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan and Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe are suggested for Starr, although it also mentions Daniel Day-Lewis to play the drummer, even though it notes he’s too old and already retired from acting.

Of course, it isn’t just Variety offering up suggestions. Vulture has a couple, as well, including Harry Styles as McCartney and Masters of the Air actor Callum Turner as Lennon.

Mendes’ planned films mark the first time Apple Corps Ltd. and The Beatles have granted a studio the rights to the life stories of band members and their legendary catalog of music. The films are due out in 2027.

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Saturday Night Live announced on Tuesday that Madame Web and Anyone but You star Sydney Sweeney will be making her debut on the long-running sketch show on March 2.

Her musical guest will be Kacey Musgraves.

Meanwhile, one person you won’t see hosting SNL is Mark Ruffalo, at least according to the Poor Things actor.

He told Marc Maron‘s WTF podcast on Monday that he turned down Lorne Michaels once, and for that reason, “I’ll never be asked back.”

Ruffalo blamed his dyslexia — and the show’s reliance on cue cards — as the reason the prospect of hosting “scared the living s***” out of him. “I’ve been watching that my whole life and like, I don’t want to be the guy, the host who sucks. I owe Lorne Michaels more than that,” he said.

On February 24, SNL‘s host will be Shane Gillis, who was fired from the sketch show in 2019 before he even took the stage at Studio 8H after some offensive stand-up made headlines. 21 Savage will be the musical guest.

On March 9, Dune franchise star Josh Brolin returns to host SNL for the third time, with Ariana Grande also returning for the hat trick as the show’s musical act.

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AMC has dropped a sneak peek of Parish, its forthcoming six-part crime series starring Emmy-nominated Breaking Bad and Mandalorian star Giancarlo Esposito.

The new thriller features Esposito as Gracian “Gray” Parish, the proud owner of a luxury car service in the Big Easy whose son is brutally murdered.

His business soon collapses, and Gray returns to his life as a wheelman for crime jobs that set him “on a high-stakes collision course with a violent criminal syndicate,” according to the network.

The clip offers a glimpse of one of Gray’s early meetings with a group of criminals led by Zackary Momoh as a New Orleans-based gangster known as The Horse.

Apparently in the crook’s eyes, a job has gone wrong. But Gray assures The Horse, as well as his overprotective older sister Shamiso (Bonnie Mbuli) and brother Zenzo (Ivan Mbakop), that he’s adequately covered his tracks.

“Nobody saw me. This won’t come back to you,” Parish says confidently.

And as for the mysterious duffel he was charged to deliver? “What’s in the bag is none of my concern,” Parish says, to which Zenzo comments, “A man of integrity. A rare quality.”

The show, which also stars Get Out‘s Bradley Whitford, Paula Malcomson, Skeet Ulrich and Dax Rey, premieres Sunday, March 31, at 10 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+.

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