Entertainment

Paramount+ with Showtime has dropped a teaser to Dexter: Original Sin, a prequel series based on the hit avenging serial killer series that starred Michael C. Hall. 

À la Young Sheldon — but far darker — Hall will serve as a narrator of the show, which serves as an origin story with Patrick Gibson playing the younger version of Dexter Morgan.

“I’m a killer but I wasn’t born this way; I was made,” Hall intones. “I was made by my history, by the people around me. They say it takes a village to raise a killer.”

Among those are Christian Slater as Dexter’s dad, who helps him adopt “a Code designed to help him find and kill people who deserve to be eliminated from society without getting on law enforcement’s radar.”

The ’90s-set series sees the younger Dexter interning in the forensics department of the Miami Metro Police Department — a gig the adult Dexter kept, which helped keep the police off his trail as he dispatched all manner of bad people over the original show’s eight-season run that ended in 2013.

Dexter: Original Sin also stars Patrick Dempsey, Christina Milian and Sarah Michelle Gellar. It debuts on Dec. 13 for subscribers of Paramount+ with Showtime. 

For Showtime subscribers, the series launches on Dec. 15.

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One of the most recognized names in Hollywood is going after one of the most recognized trades about Hollywood. 

Francis Ford Coppola is suing Variety — and two of its writers specifically — for libel over articles that alleged he made unwanted advances toward female extras on his movie Megalopolis. 

The coverage claimed Coppola hugged, kissed and danced with extras behind the scenes of a party scene in the film.

Incidentally, Lauren Pagone, one of those actresses quoted in an Aug. 2 follow-up article, has sued “the filmmaker and others in Georgia for civil battery, civil assault, and negligent failure to prevent sexual harassment,” according to Deadline. 

Coppola’s motion, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, doesn’t mention that lawsuit. 

However, the trade says his suit claims the original July 26 article contains “false and defamatory statements” meant to “damage” his reputation and cause him “severe emotional distress.” 

Deadline quotes the suit from Coppola’s attorneys: “Some people are creative. Very few people are creative geniuses. In the world of motion pictures, Plaintiff Francis Ford Coppola … is a creative genius. Some people are jealous and resentful of genius. Those people therefore denigrate and tell knowing and reckless falsehoods about those of whom they are jealous.”

Further, it says, “Variety Media, LLC … its writers and editors, hiding behind supposedly anonymous sources, accused Coppola of manifest incompetence as a motion picture director, of unprofessional behavior on the set of his most recent production,” adding, “Each of these accusations was false and knowingly so.”

Coppola is seeking $15 million in damages.

After the original Variety piece broke, Deadline ran an interview with another extra, Rayna Menz, who insisted the director “did nothing to make me or for that matter anyone on set feel uncomfortable.”

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Deadline is reporting that a defamation lawsuit centering on Netflix’s Emmy-nominated hit Baby Reindeer could have its day in court in May 2025.

A federal judge has set a trial date of May 6, 2025, in the $170 million suit against the streamer from Fiona Harvey, who claims the show’s stalker, Martha Scott, was based on her interactions with its creator, writer and star Richard Gadd.

As reported, Gadd claimed a chance meeting with Harvey at the pub where he worked led to her sending him “thousands of emails, hundreds of voicemails, and a number of handwritten letters” that “often included sexually explicit, violent, and derogatory content, hateful speech, and threats.”

In the series, Scott does the same to Gadd’s character, Donny, eventually leading to her being charged by police — something Harvey claims never happened in real life.

Gadd had previously said he’d testify against Harvey should the need arise, but insisted that his series “is not a documentary” and that “Martha Scott is not Fiona Harvey.”

He also said it was Harvey who outed herself, claiming she inspired the Martha character in an interview with Piers Morgan. In the same interview, she also denied sending Gadd “thousands” of messages — some of which Gadd attached to his formal statement as proof.

The trade notes there is a strong chance the matter will be settled before going in front of a jury.

Meanwhile, Baby Reindeer already won a pair of trophies at the Creative Arts Emmys, and Gadd is nominated for Sunday night’s ceremony for both his writing and his performance in the Best Limited or Anthology Series and Lead Actor categories.

His onscreen stalker, played by Jessica Gunning, snagged a nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

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The Wrap reports The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has become its most-watched unscripted season premiere of the year so far, based on three days of streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, according to Disney internal data. The series follows the “scandalous world of a group of Mormon mom influencers,” led by self-acclaimed MomTok founder Taylor Frankie Paul, which “implodes when they get caught in the midst of a swinging sex scandal that makes international headlines,” per the streaming service …

The soap opera All My Children, which aired on ABC from 1970 to 2011, then briefly ran as a web series in 2013, may get a revival via a series of Lifetime TV movies, sources tell TV Line. The proposed series would feature legacy characters from the classic daytime drama project, which is in the very early stages, with one insider warning the talks are just “exploratory” at this point …

Judd Apatow and Steven Spielberg are attached as the respective director and producer of Cola Wars, a film in development at Sony Pictures, according to Deadline. The project follows the true story of Pepsi’s attempt to end Coca-Cola’s centurylong reign as the world’s top cola, dubbed the “Cola Wars” of the mid-1980s, highlighted by Michael Jackson’s fiery hair mishap and the New Coke debacle. The film is still in early development, per the outlet …

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Shailene Woodley stars in the new limited series adaptation of Lisa Taddeo’s New York Times bestselling nonfiction book, Three Women.

The show follows Woodley as Gia, a character loosely based on Taddeo, as she interviews three different women from across the United States, exploring their varied sexual and emotional experiences.

Woodley told ABC Audio that after she read Three Women, she felt Taddeo had written everything she “felt but didn’t know how to articulate.”

According to Woodley, crafting a character based on Taddeo was more than just collaborating with her.

“It wasn’t a collaboration as much as it felt like a connection and then a true desire to honor what our natural connection elicited,” Woodley said. “Gia is not Lisa, but Gia also isn’t me. It almost felt like she was the intersection of both of us.”

Taddeo wholeheartedly agreed, saying Woodley’s performance made her feel seen “in the most dynamic way.”

“Shailene’s performance made me feel seen without even, like, mimicking or mirroring me,” Taddeo said. “She’s one of the most talented actors out there, but she also has one of the warmest hearts.”

The show covers many serious topics ripe for discussion. So, what does Woodley hope viewers take from it?

“I hope that they walk away feeling a little less alone and maybe feeling like it isn’t weird or obscure to go through things that are very normal, everyday experiences that women have, like miscarriages or, like, having sex on your period or having body dysmorphia,” Woodley said. “I don’t know one woman who hasn’t been through one … if not all of those things. And I think it’s important that we take these situations that have become such taboo in our culture and really normalize them.”

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The legendary actor James Earl Jones will be honored by BET in a prime-time special on Thursday evening, just three days after he passed away at 93 years old.

BET News & ET Present James Earl Jones: Life and Legacy, a collaboration between the network and Entertainment Tonight, will air Thursday at 8 p.m. ET and will rerun Sunday at 12 p.m. ET.

The special will stream on BET+ starting Friday.

“The tribute special will feature archival footage and never-before-seen interviews with the award-winning actor James Earl Jones at various stages of his illustrious and pioneering career,” the producers say.

They continue, “Highlighting his profound impact on both Broadway and Hollywood, [the tribute] will reflect on some of the defining moments of his life and include new interviews with colleagues and friends who have been part of his remarkable career.”

“ET was on the set of many of [Jones’] most significant projects and captured moments of the star’s extraordinary journey. The BET News & ET news special will also highlight his memorable performances, including his powerful voice work as Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King,” they add.

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The collectible company Funko is adding more toys to its Home Alone collection. 

The new toys are now available for preorder.

Of course, there are brand-new toy versions of lovable scamp Kevin McCallister, who was played by Macaulay Culkin in the 1990 movie. 

There are also alternate plastic likenesses of his enemies, the two bumbling burglars Harry and Marv, played respectively by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern in the family comedy.

Kevin gets two versions: One comes with a miniature of his famously booby-trapped home and another one shows him taking a knee, mimicking Culkin’s “Yes!” fist pump.

For their part, Marv has one version posed with his crowbar and Kevin’s iron “brand” on his forehead, and another depicts him bound by holiday ribbon. Harry is depicted captured and tied up by Christmas lights. 

Funko is also selling one of its diorama “scenes,” reenacting Kevin’s braining the bad guys with swinging paint cans as they ascend a staircase.

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Michael B. Jordan will not only star in and produce a remake of the stylish thriller The Thomas Crown Affair, Deadline says he’ll be directing it, as well.

Jordan was already attached to star in and produce the film through his Outlier Society production company, but the trade says he’ll be following his blockbuster directorial debut Creed III with the project — which, despite Amazon’s ownership of MGM Studios and MBJ’s deal with the company, won’t be released on Prime Video, but in theaters worldwide.   

The Thomas Crown Affair was initially a 1968 film starring Steve McQueen and centered on a millionaire who steals rare paintings not for money, but for a hobby. He soon gets into a cat-and-mouse game with a beautiful and smart insurance adjuster, played by Faye Dunaway in the original. 

A 1999 remake saw Pierce Brosnan as the charming thief and Rene Russo in Dunaway’s role.

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Entertainment Tonight asked legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola about the “fake review” controversy that surrounded the trailer to his forthcoming epic, Megalopolis.

As reported, a now-deleted trailer seemed to spin the lukewarm reception the film got from critics at the Cannes Film Festival by trying to claim other critics years ago hated his classics like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now.

However, the apparently AI-generated quotes from real-life reviewers were fake, and the marketing company behind the campaign was dismissed by Lionsgate, which apologized.

For his part, Coppola alleges he had nothing to do with it. “You know, it was a mistake, an accident,” he said. “I’m not sure what happened.”

It’s also open to interpretation what the filmmaker meant when he said, “I know there were bad reviews, I’m the one who said they were bad reviews.” It’s not clear if he meant he’s his toughest critic, or if he’s the one who flagged the phony blurbs.

Coppola also mentioned that the pet project — for which he gathered a who’s who of stars, like Academy Award nominees Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf and Laurence Fishburne, and Oscar winners Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman — was finally a chance for him to make a film that was truly his.

Coppola sunk a fortune of his own money into the movie.

He expressed, “When I made John Grisham‘s The Rainmaker, I took off, and I quit. And I just said, ‘I wanted to study, and … to learn what my kind of film is, whatever that might be.’ And after 14 years of that type of experimentation, I then came out and made a film that was my kind of film. So it’s not like anything you’ve ever seen.”

Megalopolis hits theaters Sept. 27.

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Prime Video just dropped an action-packed trailer to Citadel: Diana, the Italian-language spin-off of Joe and Anthony Russo‘s spy series. 

While the original series stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden — and its second season will also star What We Do in the Shadows’ Matt Berry — Diana stars Matilda De Angelis.

Citadel: Diana, like the Indian spin-off Citadel: Honey Bunny and the flagship show, centers on the titular spy agency, which was scattered by a rival one, Manticore. 

In Diana, De Angelis’ title character, a former Citadel agent, “is alone trapped behind enemy lines as a mole in Manticore” and “finally sees a way out and the chance to disappear forever” — but she has to trust “an unlikely ally … the heir of Manticore Italy and son of the head of the Italian organization.”

Along the way, she’ll hunt the people who murdered her family and tackle a multinational cabal of arms dealers developing bleeding-edge weapons of war. 

The actress goes full-on John Wick in the trailer, which features car chases, gunplay and a show-stopping chase using zip lines over European locations.

The show debuts on Prime Video on October 10.

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