Entertainment

Filmmaker Dean Fleischer Camp, co-creator of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, is being tapped by Disney for a live-action take on the 2002 Disney animated film Lilo & Stitch, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project will be the latest in a series of live-action remakes of Disney theatrical cartoons, including Jon Favreau‘s The Jungle Book and The Lion King, and Guy Ritchie‘s Aladdin.  The animated Lilo & Stitch is set in Hawaii and centers on a little girl named Lilo, who befriends a dog-like alien named Stitch. The film spawned DVD sequels and an animated series. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, meanwhile, has a 99% favorable rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and stars co-creator Jenny Slate voicing a tiny shell looking for his family.  The character went from a series of viral shorts, to books, before coming to theaters and becoming a smash in limited release…

Greg Berlanti will direct and Channing Tatum is in negotiations to star in the Apple TV+ feature Project Artemis, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Jason Bateman was to direct the film but left in early June due to creative differences, while Tatum replaces Chris Evans, who was originally set to star opposite Scarlet Johansson, but exited the project due to scheduling conflicts. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but Project Artemis is described “as a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the 1968 Apollo 11 moon launch”…

Hulu on Thursday dropped the first teaser trailer for season five of The Handmaid’s Tale. Here’s what we can expect to see in new season, per the streamer: “June faces consequences for killing Commander Waterford, while struggling to redefine her identity and purpose” as “the widowed Serena attempts to raise her profile in Toronto as Gilead’s influence creeps into Canada.” Meanwhile, “Commander Lawrence … tries to reform Gilead and rise in power” as “June, Luke and Moira fight Gilead from a distance as they continue their mission to save and reunite with Hannah.” The Handmaid’s Tale will return Sept. 14 with two episodes. New episodes will stream Wednesdays on Hulu…

Keanu Reeves is working on a yet-to-be-titled documentary about Formula One racing for Disney+, according to Variety. The docuseries “will focus on Formula 1 managing director Ross Brawn, who in 2009 bought the Honda team, renamed it Brawn GP and took it to two unprecedented championship victories,” sources tell the outlet. Reeves will host the documentary as well. Reeves, a racing enthusiast with an extensive motorcycle collection, founded his own motorcycle manufacturer, Arch Motorcycle, with Gard Hollinger…

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In the new coming of age dramedy Don’t Make Me Go, out Friday on Prime Video, John Cho plays a single dad who embarks on a cross-country road trip with his less than thrilled teen daughter, played by newcomer Mia Isaac, and Cho tells ABC Audio it was a movie he wanted to make the second he read the script.

“The father daughter relationship obviously was the thing that was really attractive,” he says. “I’m a parent, so there was so many similarities for me in sentiment and worldview. But beyond that, my impression when I closed the script was, I wish I could see this movie…I wish it existed. And it seemed like something I would watch.”

The Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle star particularly enjoyed the road trip scenes, noting, “It was a lot like a real road trip. There were games and singing and trivia and conversation and being bored and snacking.”

Don’t Make Me Go marks Isaac’s big screen debut, and the 18-year-old actress admits she wasn’t that familiar with her co-star’s Harold and Kumar movies until her parents filled her in.

“I remember like getting off of the directors call back and I was like, yeah, apparently I’m supposed to be working with this guy, John Cho,” she recalls. “And my parents were like John Cho! And I was like, and then of course they had me watch everything. And I was a true John Cho fan by the time we got to New Zealand.”

Jokes Cho, “That seems like irresponsible parenting, if you ask me.”

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Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu revealed on Twitter Thursday that backlash from a series of tweets she’d sent back in 2019 led her to attempt suicide. 

Wu, who also starred in Hustlers with Jennifer Lopez, caught flak online when she replied to news of her former ABC sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat, being renewed by saying, “So upset right now I’m literally crying,” and “Ugh F***ing hell,” among other responses. 

Her comments were flamed online by fans of the show and others, who called her ungrateful for the show’s success and worse. 

In a lengthy statement posted to the social media platform Thursday, Wu revealed, “I was afraid of coming back on social media because I almost lost my life from it.”

“3 years ago, when I made careless tweets about the renewal of my TV show, it ignited outrage and internet shaming that got pretty severe. I felt awful about what I’d said, and when a few DMs from a fellow Asian actress told me I’d become a blight on the Asian American community, I started feeling like I didn’t even deserve to live anymore,” she continued.

Some of these DMs accused her of being “a disgrace to AsAms [Asian Americans],” and said that, “they’d be better off without me,” she said.

“Looking back, it’s surreal that a few DMs convinced me to end my own life, but that’s what happened. Luckily, a friend found me and rushed me to the ER,” Wu wrote.

The actress added, “For the next few years, I put my career aside to focus on my mental health. AsAms don’t talk about mental health enough…there’s a lot of avoidance around the more uncomfortable issues within our community.”

“After a little break from Hollywood and a lot of therapy I feel OK enough to venture back on here,” Wu said of Twitter, adding she’s scared, but “I’ve decided that I owe it to the me-of-3-years-ago to be brave and share my story so that it might help someone with theirs.”

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, or worried about a friend or loved one, help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even if it feels like it, you are not alone.

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Just weeks after their new movie, Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, dropped on the platform, Paramount+ has announced new Beavis and Butt-Head episodes will debut on August 4. 

The streaming service promises the pair will be “back and stupider than ever” in new episodes — their first foray back into episodic TV since an eighth season aired on MTV in 2011. 

Creator Mike Judge‘s initial seven seasons ran on MTV from March 8, 1993, to November 28, 1997, spawning the hit theatrical movie Beavis and Butt-Head Do America in 1996. That film can also be seen on Paramount+, which will be home to the entire original series soon. 

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Zombies 3 sings and dances its way onto the Disney+ streaming service this Friday, and its main stars say this installation is both satisfying and supernatural.

Milo Manheim, who plays the zombie Zed, tells ABC Audio the movie not only picks up right where Zombies 2 left off — with aliens landing in their hometown of Seabrook — it drastically ups the ante. “It becomes otherworldly this time,” he teased.

Much like the theme of the previous two installments, with the humans of Seabrook learning to live life with another species, Manheim added of Zombies 3, “We’re still exploring those themes of acceptance, but there’s just a little twist on this one.”

“We realized that it’s important to have conflict because conflict leads to conversation, which leads to progress and growth,” he continued. 

Aside from the “important message” of learning acceptance, Meg Donnelly, who plays the human cheerleader Addison, notes there’s plenty of entertaining numbers that’ll get the audience moving. “There’s so many amazing dance number songs,” she gushed.

This third and final chapter will also finally solve the mystery of Addison’s brilliant white hair, which began glowing at the end of the second movie. Donnelly said fans will be “really, really happy” to learn the truth, hinting, “It’s very satisfying.”

“Addison finds where she belongs,” Manheim added of the “impactful” reveal. “That’s been a theme throughout the whole franchise … She finds out who she is in this movie.”

Donnelly noted this is a welcome arc for her character because she’s spent the past two films accepting others for who they are. “I really look up to her. She’s such an amazing role model for young kids,” she grinned. “I can only hope to be as good as a person as she is.” 

Zombies 3 arrives on Disney+ this Friday, July 15.  

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Joe and Anthony Russo directed four Marvel Studios films: fan-favorite Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014; Captain America: Civil War in 2016, Avengers: Infinity War in 2018 and 2019’s Endgame, which is the second highest-grossing film of all time.

After that high water mark, the pair went on to direct and produce their own films, including 2021’s Cherry with Tom Holland and the Netflix thriller The Grey Man starring Ryan Gosling and their Marvel star Chris Evans.

But would they come back to the MCU? The pair tells Deadline they would — for the multiverse-rending, world-ending epic Secret Wars.

“…Our love for Marvel is based on the books we read as kids and the books that we fell in love with,” Joe explained on the red carpet premiere of The Grey Man. “The one series that we adored growing up was Secret Wars. It’s incredibly ambitious – it would be bigger than Infinity War and Endgame – it’s a massive undertaking and those two movies were really very hard to make. So trying to imagine making another two movies even bigger than those two, we’re gonna have to sleep on it.”

The 2015 comic series to which Joe referred saw the multiverse and our Earth destroyed and many of the comics’ biggest heroes forced to fight each other in a realm known as Battle World.

For fans of the MCU, of course, some of these elements are already in place, including the multiverse, and as introduced in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the dimensional-shredding danger known as an incursion.

Some suspect that the upcoming Disney+ show Secret Invasion could also set the scene for a Secret Wars movie.

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

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On Thursday, Amazon Studios dropped an extended look at what’s said to be the most expensive television series ever made: The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power.

As previously reported, the show, set in author J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, takes place thousands of years before Peter Jackson‘s Oscar-wining LOTR trilogy — in a time known to fans as the Second Age.

The teaser is vague on the plot, but the Elven Queen Galadriel, played by Morfydd Clark, has a vision that something very bad is afoot — and tries to convince Robert Aramayo‘s Elrond of the same.

“The enemy is out there,” she warns him. “The question now is where?”

“You have fought long enough, Galadriel,” Elrond protests. “Put up your sword.” For the uninitiated, Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving play their respective roles in the previous films.

The teaser also shows sprawling vistas of Middle-Earth and some of the settings in which the shows take place: The delicate beauty of the Elven kingdom of Númenór; the rugged, stone-hewed underground kingdom of the dwarves; Khazad-dûm and the fields of Men. Viewers are also introduced to the nomadic Harfoots, the most common form of Hobbits, the small-statured, leather-footed beings that were featured in Jackson’s films.

The series — which also stars Ismael Cruz Córdova, Markella Kavenagh, Charlie Vickers, Maxim Baldry and Owain Arthur — debuts September 2 on Amazon Prime.

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FX has renewed its summer hit The Bear for another season. The show follows Jeremy Allen White‘s Carmine, a fine dining chef who returns to his native Chicago after a death in the family, and all the drama that occurs as he takes over his family’s sandwich shop.

The network says, “As Carmy fights to transform both The Original Beef of Chicagoland and himself, he works alongside a rough-around-the-edges kitchen crew that ultimately reveal themselves as his chosen family.”

The Bear currently has a 100% score on the ratings aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

In a statement, the network’s Entertainment President Eric Schrier said the buzzy new show has “exceeded our wildest creative and commercial expectations.”

In reaction to the renewal news, the series’ creator, Christopher Storer, and co-executive producer Joanna Calo noted, “We are so grateful to FX, our insanely talented cast, our crew who worked hard, fast, and in the dead of winter, not to mention everyone who watched. And we can’t wait to bring you all back to The Bear in 2023.”

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Kevin Spacey pleaded not guilty to accusations of sexual offenses in a London court on Thursday morning.

The actor, 62, entered the plea during a hearing at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales. The judge set a date of June 6, 2023, for the trial to begin and said it would last three to four weeks.

The two-time Oscar-winning actor, who served as artistic director of London’s Old Vic theater between 2004 and 2015, is accused of four counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.

The charges stem from claims by three men that Spacey had sexually assaulted them in England almost 20 years ago. The alleged incidents took place in the British capital between March 2005 and August 2008, and in Gloucestershire in April 2013. The victims are now in their 30s and 40s.

Spacey’s lawyer previously stated that the actor “strenuously denies” the allegations.

London’s Metropolitan Police Service formally charged Spacey in June, and he was granted unconditional bail and allowed to return to the United States following a preliminary hearing on June 16.

In a statement given exclusively to ABC News’ Good Morning America in late May, Spacey said he would “voluntarily” appear in court in the U.K. capital, and was “confident” he would prove his innocence.

Spacey was praised for his starring role as a ruthless politician in the Netflix series House of Cards. But he was written out of the show after being fired in 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of sexually assaulting him at a party in New York City in 1986, when Rapp was 14.

Spacey has denied the allegations and was criticized for coming out as gay in his apology to Rapp. In a statement at the time, Spacey said he had “admiration” for Rapp, adding he was “beyond horrified” to hear his allegations — which Spacey said he “honestly” couldn’t remember.

“But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior,” Spacey concluded.

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Filming is underway for the Netflix YA comedy You Are SO Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah!, Fiona Rosenbloom’s beloved coming-of-age novel, the streaming service announced on Tuesday. Adam Sandler will produce and star in the movie, along with his real-life family — daughters Sunny and Sadie and his wife Jackie, as well as his Uncut Gems co-star Idina Menzel, Saturday Night Live newcomer Sarah Sherman and Punch Drunk Love actor Luiz Guzmán. Their specific roles have not been revealed. The plotline, per Netflix, reads, “A girl’s bat mitzvah plans comedically unravel and threaten to ruin one of the most important events of her young life”…

My Therapist Says co-founders, Lola Tash and Nicole Argiris are taking the viral Instagram account to TV with the help of Kenan Thompson and John Ryan Jr.’s Artists for Artists banner, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The account, which launched in 2015 and currently has 7.5 million followers, features amusing memes focused on mental health and inspired the 2020 book, My Therapist Says: Advice You Should Probably (Not) Follow. “Lola and Nicole have a unique and hilarious perspective that has resonated with people all over the world. I’m so excited to welcome our funny sisters to the AFA fam!” said Thompson in a statement obtained by THR…

Paramount+ has given the green light to a revival of the police drama Criminal Minds, which originally aired on CBS from 2005-2020, according to TVLine. Original cast members Joe Mantegna, Kirsten Vangsness, Adam Rodriguez, A.J. Cook, Aisha Tyler and Paget Brewster are all on board, though Matthew Gray Gubler and Daniel Henney will not return. Mantegna teased the revival on Twitter Tuesday, with a picture of himself on a partially built set. “Just doing a little inspection today for an upcoming project. #criminalminds,” he wrote…

Jeff Goldblum will play the vengeful god Zeus, in Netflix’s dark comedy series Kaos, according to Deadline. The Jurassic World Dominion star replaces Hugh Grant, who originally had been tapped for the role, but had to back out over a schedule conflict. Kaos is a “contemporary take on Greek mythology, exploring love, power and life in the underworld. Goldblum will play Zeus…

Zazie Beetz, Paapa Essiedu, Josh Hartnett, Aaron Paul, Kate Mara, Danny Ramirez, Clara Rugaard, Auden Thornton and Anjana Vasan round out the cast o Netflix’s dystopian series Black Mirror for its upcoming sixth season, according to Variety. This casting specifically spans three episodes, and sources tell the outlet that more actors will join up for further episodes of the show. A premiere date for season six has not been announced yet, but the show is believed to be in production…

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