Entertainment

Lindsay Lohan must have felt a strong sense of déjà vu as she attended the premiere of the new Mean Girls movie 20 years after the original film’s release.

The Parent Trap actress stepped out at AMC Lincoln Square theater in New York City on Jan. 8 to celebrate the film adaptation of the Mean Girls Broadway show alongside some new and familiar faces.

Lohan posed for photos with Tina Fey, who wrote the screenplay for both movies, as well as the new cast, which includes Reneé Rapp, Auliʻi Cravalho, Bebe Wood, Christopher Briney and Angourie Rice, who plays Cady Heron, the role she previously played.

Lohan recently reunited with her former Mean Girls co-stars Amanda Seyfried and Lacey Chabert, among others, for a Walmart Black Friday ad back in November.

Rachel McAdams later explained her absence from the reunion, saying she “wasn’t that excited about doing a commercial” and that it “just didn’t feel like my bag.”

A lot has changed for Lohan in the past 20 years since the original Mean Girls was released and became a cult classic.

She went on to star in films like Herbie: Fully Loaded, Georgia Rule and most recently, 2022’s Falling For Christmas. In her personal life, she has found love with husband Bader Shammas, with whom she shares a son named Luai.

The new Mean Girls musical film releases in theaters Jan. 12.

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Rumors Martin Short is romantically involved with his Only Murders in the Building co-star Meryl Streep haven’t gotten the requisite headlines of other supposed celebrity couplings — perhaps because they’re stars of a certain age — but there’s apparently a whole Reddit thread dedicated to shipping the two.

Seeing Short, who is a widower, and Streep, who was recently separated, seated together at Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards also added fuel to the fire — although co-stars from nominated movies and TV shows are traditionally bunched together at the event.

Time Out New York theater editor and critic Adam Feldman went so far as to say the pair is dating, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, back in early December. He added a “mind blown” emoji for effect.

Jimmy Kimmel Live writer Louis Virtel weighed in on clips of the pair on and off-camera at this year’s Golden Globes, commenting, “Are Meryl Streep and Martin Short dating… because if that’s true… that’s like Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner multiplied by Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft…”

Alas, a rep for Short tells The Messenger that the Only Murders stars are only friends. “They are just very good friends, nothing more,” the flack tells the site.

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One of the biggest box office surprises of 2023 was the video game adaptation Five Nights at Freddy’s — and apparently one of those who was shocked was its main star, Josh Hutcherson.

In the modestly budgeted thriller, The Hunger Games franchise vet played a troubled security guard who takes a night shift at a defunct family fun center that harbors a murderous secret.

Years after the game became a hit — and two years after a very similar premise was teased by the Nicolas Cage bomb Willy’s Wonderland — Five Nights opened in theaters on October 27 to more than $80 million in its first weekend, on its way to a nearly $290 million global haul.  

The performance was even more impressive considering it also dropped on Peacock on the same date, meaning fans who grew up playing the jump-scare game made it a point to see it in theaters. 

When asked if the movie’s performance surprised him, Hutcherson tells ABC Audio, “Absolutely.”

The star of the upcoming The Beekeeper expressed, “You know, the game obviously has a huge following and those fans are die-hard. And to bring something like that to life, it’s really cool to be a part of. But I don’t think anybody really thought it would connect as well as it did with audiences.”

He added of the Universal/Blumhouse production, “I loved it. It was really fun to make. I’m chomping [sic] at the bit to see … what they do for the sequels and stuff.”

The movie not only brought Hutcherson and co-star Matthew Lillard to a whole new audience, it made Josh the star of countless memes. “It’s crazy,” he says with a laugh. “The internet’s gone wild. They’ve lost it. I love it, but they’ve lost it.”

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Willem Dafoe, famous for his work in such films as The Lighthouse, Spider-Man and Poor Things, has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Dafoe was honored during a ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard on Monday, January 8. In a speech, the actor said the recognition was “wonderful.”

“It’s real humbling to be here and to be part of this,” Dafoe continued. “I love making films. It’s arguably the most collaborative of art forms.”

The actor was also celebrated by family and friends at the Walk of Fame ceremony, including his wife — director Giada Colagrande — filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, and actors Mark Ruffalo and Camila Morrone. Patricia Arquette and Pedro Pascal also paid tribute to Dafoe during the ceremony.

Dafoe starred in Arquette’s 2023 film Gonzo Girl — in which Morrone also starred — and the two are currently working together with Pascal on the film Tropico, which is being directed by Colagrande.

“Few people know that we call Willem the pope of Hollywood,” Arquette said. “There’s only one Willem Dafoe. Willem is one of those people who exceeds your hopes when you work with him, when you get to meet him.”

Pascal echoed Arquette’s speech and said Dafoe is “an amazing friend” and has been Pascal’s “greatest teacher.”

“Nothing can really match up to the man, the artist, the friend — Willem has shown me that in the early stages of my development, there is no one way to create a character, to steal a scene, to terrify, to seduce, to make people laugh and to be a leading man,” Pascal said.

“He is the greatest American actor in our lifetime,” Pascal added. “You cannot compare his career to anyone’s, truthfully.”

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The Fab Five are back as Netflix’s Queer Eye returns for its eighth season. A new trailer shows Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Karamo Brown, Jonathan Van Ness and Bobby Berk heading back to New Orleans, offering physical and emotional makeovers to a former nun looking for a love, a football coach and teacher to the Deaf dealing with his own personal struggles and a Bayou sportsman trying to spice up his marriage, among others. The upcoming season also marks the last for Berk, who announced his departure back in November. Queer Eye season 8 premieres January 24 on Netflix …

Welcome to Chippendales’ Annaleigh Ashford has been tapped to star in the upcoming Paramount+ true crime drama series Happy Face, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Dropout‘s Michelle Showalter has signed on to direct the series pilot, based on the titular podcast, which itself is based on Melissa Moore’s autobiography Shattered Silence. Ashford will portray the 15-year-old version of Melissa, who discovers her father is the serial killer known as “Happy Face” …

Netflix has dropped the first trailer for One Day, a series adaptation of David Nicholls‘ 2009 novel, which follows the 20-year love story of Emma and Dex — played respectively by This Is Going to Hurt‘s Ambika Mod and The White Lotus‘ Leo Woodall. The book was previously made into a 2011 film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. The 14-episode series launches February 8 on Netflix …

The ratings for Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards rose 50% from last year and grabbed its largest audience since 2020 with an average of 9.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen time zone-adjusted fast national including Out of Home ratings for Sunday, January 7. The show, which aired on CBS for the first time, was also the network’s second-largest live-streamed special event on Paramount+ ever in terms of AMA and reach …

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All five episodes of Marvel Studios’ Echo have debuted on Disney+.

The show, Marvel’s first mature-rated series, spins off Hawkeye‘s Maya Lopez/Echo, played by Alaqua Cox. Also returning is Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin, who as is established in Hawkeye, acted as an uncle to young Maya.

Deaf and an amputee, like Cox, Maya rises through his criminal ranks as an assassin, until she ultimately finds out he was the one to blame for her father’s death at the climax of Hawkeye, and gets even with Fisk at the end of a gun.

Echo both fleshes out their relationship before and after her final confrontation with Fisk.

D’Onofrio’s brutal portrayal of the classic Marvel villain is universally praised by fans, who are normally a fickle bunch. “I am aware of it and very happy about it,” he tells ABC Audio of fans’ reaction.

He teases of Fisk and Maya, “It’s just an amazing relationship … just a intense father/daughter kind of story when there’s good and evil involved and all this kind of intensity, very kind of emotionally violent [and] the series can be physically violent at times as well.”

D’Onofrio is currently working on Daredevil: Born Again, which reunites him with Fisk’s Hell’s Kitchen nemesis from the Netflix days, Charlie Cox‘s Matt Murdock/Daredevil. The actor teases the show has the same R-rated “vibe” as that and Echo.

“I’m having a ball,” D’Onofrio says. “Not only is it a great character to play,” but Marvel is “giving Charlie Cox and I a lot of freedom.” He adds that Born Again is “really intense stuff.”  

Disney is the parent company of Marvel and ABC News.

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Golden Globes host Jo Koy is explaining himself after a joke about Taylor Swift appeared to fall flat during the broadcast. 

Critics pointed out it wasn’t the only joke of the night that didn’t land.

“I’d be lying [if I said] it doesn’t hurt,” he said to GMA3 on Monday. “I hit a moment there when I was like, ‘Ahh!'” 

He continued, “Hosting is a tough gig,” and noted he had “an off night.”

Swift appeared unamused when Koy joked the camera would cut away more sparingly to Swift during the 81st Golden Globe Awards than it does during NFL games.

The first-time host and comedian later downplayed the joke, which has now gone viral.

“It’s a tough room and it was a hard job. I’m not gonna lie. Getting that gig and then having the amount of time that we had to prepare was a crash course,” Koy said.

“The Taylor one was just a little flat and you know, it was a weird joke, I guess, but it was more on the NFL. You know what I mean?” Koy continued.

“I was trying to make fun of the NFL using cutaways and how the Globes didn’t have to do that. And so it was more of a jab towards the NFL but it just didn’t come out that way,” he insisted.

During the live broadcast, when the camera panned to Swift, who was nominated for cinematic and box office achievement for her Eras Tour film, she seemed to purse her lips and then take a sip from a champagne glass.

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They’re going back to Hawkins one last time.

Production on the fifth and final season of Stranger Things officially started on Monday. Netflix and the official Stranger Things social media accounts posted a black-and-white photo of the cast gathered for their final first table read to mark the occasion.

“THIS IS A CODE RED,” their captions read. “STRANGER THINGS 5 production has officially begun!!!”

The cast poses for the camera in the photo, holding their scripts in their laps as they sit in front of a neon red #5 sign. Among the group are returning cast members Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, David Harbour, Winona Ryder, Joe Keery, Natalia Dyer, Sadie Sink and Caleb McLaughlin.

Also included are Maya Hawke, Charlie Heaton, Brett Gelman, Priah Ferguson, Cara Buono and Amybeth McNulty.

Series creators Matt and Ross Duffer stand at the head of the photo. Jamie Campbell Bower, who played season 4’s big bad Vecna, is also pictured, alongside series newcomer and Terminator star Linda Hamilton.

Schanpp reposted the photo to his Instagram. “Saved the best for last,” he captioned the picture. Wolfhard also posted the photo to his main feed, simply captioning it with a smiley face emoji surrounded by hearts.

The final season was close to beginning production last year before the WGA strike halted things in May 2023. While the crew is finally back to work on the last batch of episodes, a 2025 release date is expected, possibly even early 2026. 

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After his Oppenheimer became the big winner in Sunday night’s Golden Globes telecast, Christopher Nolan was asked the question many people really wanted the answer to: has he taken another Peloton class?

As reported, Nolan recently revealed he saddled up for a class back in 2020 only to hear the instructor — later outed by the internet as Jenn Sherman — take shots at his film Tenet, without knowing he was watching.

She described the time-slipping movie as “two and a half hours I’ll never get back.”

The story blew up so big that Sherman took to Instagram to apologize, calling the filmmaker “one of the leading filmmakers of the 21st century,” and noting of her criticism, “It was 2020. It was a dark time.”

She also invited Nolan to sit in for another one of her classes, which she promised would be “insult free.” She added he could sit up front. “You can critique my class. We’ll have a great time. You’ll sit in the front row. And I promise you it’ll be insult-free.”

She also expressed that while Tenet may have “gone right over my head,” she has seen Oppenheimer twice. “And that’s six hours that I don’t ever want to give back.”

To the assembled press backstage at the Globes, however, Nolan said Sunday, “Nothing but love for Peloton, but I did not climb on it today.” He added, “I might just skip it for a little while, but thank you for your concern.”

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Jodie Foster has been working on camera since she was 3 years old — and maybe that’s why, at 61, the two-time Oscar winner has a bone to pick with the work ethic of today’s young people.

To The Guardian, the True Detective: Night Country star huffed of Gen Zers, “They’re really annoying, especially in the workplace. They’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10:30 a.m.'”

She continues, “Or, like, in emails, I’ll tell them this is all grammatically incorrect, did you not check your spelling? And they’re like, ‘Why would I do that, isn’t that kind of limiting?'”

That said, there’s one particular member of that demographic that Jodie can’t say enough good things about, and that’s The Last of Us Golden Globe nominee and Game of Thrones alumna Bella Ramsey.

Foster made it a point to meet Ramsey at Elle magazine’s Women in Hollywood celebration. “I reached out to Bella, because we’d never met, and said, ‘I want you to introduce me at this thing,'” the actor and director says.

Foster continued, expressing that the organizers of the event “are very proud of themselves because they’ve got every ethnicity, and I’m like, yeah, but all the attendees are still wearing heels and eyelashes. There are other ways of being a woman, and it’s really important for people to see that. And Bella, who gave the best speech, was wearing the most perfect suit, beautifully tailored, and a middle parting and no makeup.”

“I do a lot of reaching out to young actresses,” Foster explained. “I’m compelled. Because it was hard growing up.”

Foster also lamented not having the “freedom” to express her sexuality in her early years, as Bella did, declaring to British Vogue recently that she’s “not 100% straight.”

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