Entertainment

Have no fear, your reality roundup is here! Here’s a look at what happened in the world of reality television this week:

The Real Housewives of Atlanta (Bravo)
It’s official: Porsha Williams is returning to The Real Housewives of Atlanta for season 16. The reality star took to Instagram to share her excitement about returning to the franchise. “I’m incredibly thankful for the vision and faith NBCUniversal has put in me to be a larger part of their family,” Porsha said. “I’m looking forward to being back on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and showing the world my new world!”

The Bachelor (ABC)
Former Bachelor Nick Viall thinks show’s current lead, Joey Graziadei, is a people pleaser. On the newest episode of the Viall Files podcast, Viall said Graziadei has yet to send a contestant home outside of a rose ceremony — aside from Sydney Gordon‘s exit after a two-on-one date. “To me, that’s just Joey, the people pleaser, wanting to be kind of nice,” Nick said. “It comes across as super nice. It very much does, but it’s less authentic … It’s much easier to not give someone a rose than to actually say, ‘Hey, listen, you know, I just don’t think this is it. Can I walk you out?’”

Love Undercover (Peacock)
Peacock announced their new reality dating series Love Undercover on Thursday. It follows five international soccer players as they leave their lavish lives behind to date single women in America who don’t know about their fame overseas. It launches on May 9. Additionally, Peacock also announced the return of Love Island USA, which is set to come back with its sixth season over the summer, as well as season 2 of Queens Court.

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Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actor Dennis Quaid will play the Happy Face serial killer in the forthcoming Paramount+ series that shares the killer’s name.

Happy Face is inspired by the true-crime podcast Happy Face, as well as the autobiographical book Shattered Silence, penned by the real-life killer’s daughter Melissa Moore.

Tony-winning actress Annaleigh Ashford will play Melissa in the series.

The eight-episode streaming show centers on the Canadian-American murderer of at least eight women, who earned his moniker by leaving a smiley face in his messages to taunt the authorities, as well as his daughter, who was horrified to learn her once-beloved, now incarcerated dad was leading a double life.

CBS Studios teases, “After decades of no contact, he finally finds a way to force himself back into his daughter’s life. In a race against the clock, Melissa must find out if an innocent man is going to be put to death for a crime her father committed.”

The studio adds, “Throughout, she discovers the impact her father had on his victims’ families and must face a reckoning of her own identity.”

Happy Face goes into production this spring.

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At the Berlin Film Festival promoting his new thriller A Different Man, Sebastian Stan called out a reporter who used an arguably offensive term to describe a person with a facial disfigurement.

In the film, Stan wears prosthetics to play Edward, an aspiring actor whose features are disfigured and who later undergoes reconstructive surgery to attain movie star looks.

However, Edward becomes obsessed with the disfigured performer portraying him in a play about his former life. Adam Pearson, who in real life has facial deformities from a condition called neurofibromatosis, plays that actor, Oswald.

On Friday, one of the foreign press members assembled for the film festival event referred to Stan’s “transformation from this so-called beast,” drawing criticism from the actor.

“I have to call you out a little bit on the choice of words there,” he interrupted.

The actor continued, “Part of why the film is important is because we often don’t have the right vocabulary. It’s a little more complex than that and obviously there is language barriers and so on and so forth, but, you know, ‘beast’ isn’t the word.”

Stan said, “I feel like that is what the film is saying, you know, we have these preconceived ideas. We are not educated to understand this experience in particular.”

For his part, Pearson, who has been a fixture on the red carpet as the A24 and Killer Films project rolls out, said he hopes A Different Man changes those preconceived ideas.

“A good film will change what an audience thinks for a day, but a great film will change how an audience thinks the rest of their lives,” he expressed.

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Nerdist founder — and massive Disney fan — Chris Hardwick takes viewers on a trip through Disney history in the new series Up for Auction, which is now streaming on the CW’s website and the CW app ahead of a video-on-demand bow in May.

In the eight-episode series, the former Talking Dead host gets an inside look at the world of high-dollar auctions as his gallery owner friends Mike and Janeen Van Eaton get ready to put the largest privately owned Disney Park memorabilia collection in the world under the hammer.

“He has like five times as many things as went up for auction,” Hardwick tells ABC Audio of Joel Magee‘s massive trove.

“So they had to pick the best 1,499 pieces for this particular auction … it wasn’t even his whole collection — wasn’t even the majority of it!” Chris enthuses.

A collector himself, Hardwick insists “just getting to see it like in a warehouse first, like, covered up. It was so, like, you know, Raiders of the Lost Ark … just like this archeological dig of, like, lifting up a tarp and, ‘Oh my God, here’s a Dumbo ride car! Here’s the control panel for the Haunted Mansion! Or here’s a Skyway car!’ … I rode that ride a ton, it doesn’t exist anymore.”

Hardwick says seeing people’s “emotional reactions” to the exhibition was a high point for him, and then to have a “front row seat” to the auction action “was a nerdy dream come true.”

Hardwick says there’s “a little something for everyone” in the series. “There’s a lot of history in there, there’s a lot of great stories … And you also do get that, ‘Oh my God, that sold for how much?!'”  

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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While big-budget movies like Killers of the Flower Moon and Oppenheimer were well-represented in terms of nominations for the upcoming 96th Academy Awards, a new ranking of the Best Picture nominees shows money isn’t everything.

The website CSGOLuck compared budget data from IMDb on this year’s Best Picture hopefuls, to find out which of the acclaimed films got the most bang for their proverbial buck.

With a budget of around $6.6 million, Anatomy of a Fall earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Actress for Sandra Hüller. It also earned the title of most cost-effective Best Picture hopeful, according to the entertainment website.

In second place was The Holdovers: With a budget of $10 million, it also scored five nominations, including a Best Actor nom for Paul Giamatti.

In third place was The Zone of Interest: Its $15 million budget translated into five nominations.

Fourth place went to Poor Things: The offbeat comedy starring and produced by Best Actress nominee Emma Stone received 11 nominations from its $35 million production budget.

Rounding out the top five most cost-effective Best Picture nominees according to the site was American Fiction. The $20 million film earned five Oscar noms, including Best Actor for Jeffrey Wright.

By contrast, Oppenheimer might have led the pack of this year’s nominations with 13, but with a reported budget of $100 million, it placed eighth on the ranking.

While Barbie earned seven Oscar nominations, including one for supporting actor Ryan Gosling, its production budget was also $100 million, placing it ninth on the listing.

Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon earned 10 nominations, but it reportedly cost $200 million to make, placing it last on the most cost-effective Top 10.

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Milo Ventimiglia’s newest film, the action thriller Land of Bad, hits close to home for the actor.

“It’s deeply personal to me,” he told ABC Audio.

The movie – which also stars Liam Hemsworth and Russell Crowe – follows a U.S. Army Delta Force special ops mission that goes horribly wrong, resulting in lives lost and a wild rescue operation.

Ventimiglia, whose father is a Vietnam War vet, says he nearly went into the Navy.

“I wanted to fly jets when I was, when I was a kid. Took a very different path, and now I wear makeup and read lines for a living,” Ventimiglia said. “I spend quite a bit of time in the military space these days. Active-duty members, veterans, Gold Star families – the families who lost loved ones in combat – I do a lot of advocacy for those that wear the uniform.”

Understandably, it was this personal connection that drew him to Land of Bad.

“To have an opportunity to play a character in uniform and understand the experience that they go through, the missions they’re on, the specificity, and the real professional quality of what they do for a living — it was a draw,” Ventimiglia said.

He opened up about the specific parts of the script that really spoke to him, including the tragic reality for so many military families.

“I have a lot of friends who lost loved ones in combat,” Ventimiglia said. “We can play Hollywood, and it’s entertainment, of course, but these things happen and they’re very real. So, you know, it’s sometimes tough to wear. But we do our best as actors. We do our best as entertainers. And you know, hopefully we’re just honoring those folks that are in the real profession.”

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Meryl Streep has inked a deal to reprise her role as Loretta Durkin, the love interest to Martin Short‘s Oliver Putnam, in the fourth season of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, according to Deadline. She joins Molly Shannon, who was added to the cast in a recurring role in season 4. The new episodes will find Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez‘s characters visiting Los Angeles before returning to The Arconia in their search of Saz’s killer, according to the trade …

Mad Men alum Jon Hamm has been tapped for a recurring role on Taylor Sheridan‘s upcoming Paramount+ series Landman, the streaming service announced on Thursday, February 15. He joins Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Michelle Randolph, Jacob Lofland, Kayla Wallace, James Jordan, Mark Collie, Paulina Chávez and Demi Moore. The series, based on the podcast Boomtown, is described as “a modern-day tale of fortune seeking in the world of oil rigs … an upstairs/downstairs story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires fueling a boom so big, it’s reshaping our climate, our economy and our geopolitics.” Hamm will play Monty Miller, “a titan of the Texas oil industry who has a long personal and professional relationship with Thornton’s character, Tommy Norris” …

Marvel Animation shared the teaser trailer for Disney+’s upcoming series X-Men ’97. The 10-episode series, “revisits the iconic era of the 1990s as the X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them,” per the streaming service. The mutants “are challenged like never before … forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.” X-Men ’97 launches March 20 …

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Dakota Johnson gets her first crack at the superhero world with the new movie Madame Web, in theaters this weekend. She plays the title character, an EMT who discovers she has superpowers that have laid dormant inside her since birth.

Johnson tells ABC Audio that taking on the new genre was “really fun,” but challenging as well, because “It was such a new thing for me to do a big action-y movie.”

” … [E]ven the days that we worked on blue screen was new for me,” she adds. “And I don’t know it. It was mostly just fun.”

One of the most challenging parts of making the movie, says Johnson, was training and keeping up her stamina.

“Like, if I go running now, I’m dead for like three days, I can’t walk. It’s like I’m a mess,” she says. “But I did a lot of training to make sure that I was good for this movie.”

Dakota also learned valuable tips about how to fuel a superhero’s body. For instance, she says, “Bananas are good for muscle spasms, you know? And, yeah, a lot of protein, water, you know, electrolytes. Stay hydrated.”

Aside from the physical strength, the movie’s titular character is clairvoyant, a superpower the Fifty Shades of Grey actress wouldn’t want for herself.

“It would really stress me out,” she shares. “And I also really like being surprised by the future. So I’m happy to not have those powers.”

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Zendaya stunned on the red carpet for the world premiere of Dune: Part Two.

The actress channeled a chic robot while dressed in a look from Mugler’s Autumn/Winter 1995-1996 Cirque d’Hiver 20th anniversary couture collection.

She wowed fans and photographers alike in London on Thursday as she walked the carpet, which was completely covered with sand, alongside her co-stars, including Timothée Chalamet, Anya Taylor-Joy, Florence Pugh and Austin Butler.

Zendaya’s longtime stylist Law Roach styled her look for the event, which was completed with a vintage Bulgari necklace.

After taking photos in the robot-inspired look, Zendaya changed into a Mugler dress – this one a long, classic black gown. “Past and Present,” Roach wrote alongside photos of both looks on his Instagram Story.

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Just when you thought the star-studded cast of Dune: Part Two couldn’t shine any brighter, it’s now confirmed Anya Taylor-Joy is part of the film’s ensemble.

The actress walked the sand-filled red carpet of the London premiere of Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi sequel on Thursday, confirming her appearance in the project. She posed with her fellow co-stars, which include A-listers Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler and Florence Pugh.

Rumors swirled online in the days leading up to its world premiere about Taylor-Joy possibly appearing in the movie. It all started when fans noticed the film-sharing social media app Letterboxd listed Taylor-Joy in the credits of Dune: Part Two for a short period of time. While the credit has since been deleted, screenshots circulated, fueling hype about a potential appearance from the actress.

Variety confirmed Taylor-Joy does appear in the film as a major character from the franchise that they did not spoil.

Dune: Part Two arrives in theaters on March 1.

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