Entertainment

For millions of people, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a turkey day tradition, but they’ll have to wake up a little earlier this year: the festivities kick off a half hour earlier, starting at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

According to Women’s Wear Daily, this year’s event will feature some 49 giant balloons, 5,000 costumes and 300 pounds of glitter. If the latter doesn’t sound like much, try dropping a pinch of it in your house and see how long it takes to clean it all up.

There are 16 character balloons this year, with old favorites taking to the air above New York City once again. But for 2023 there are seven new ones, including Monkey D. Luffy from the popular anime One Piece; Kung Fu Panda‘s Po; Beagle Scout Snoopy; the Pillsbury Doughboy; and at 73 feet, the longest entry: Leo, the lizard who is voiced by Adam Sandler in the new animated movie that shares the reptile’s name.

There’s also the first-ever NFT-inspired parade balloon Blue Cat and Chugs by Cool Cats — good luck explaining to your older relatives what an NFT is over dinner later in the day.

It takes 5,000 volunteers to pull off the event, which will also see stars from Broadway and the world of pop music performing, from Cher and Pentatonix to Bell Biv DeVoe and the Muppets, and themed floats promoting IP like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Warner Bros.’ forthcoming movie Wonka.

On that note, Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell will even be driving a custom Good Burger convertible down the parade route to promote their sequel.

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Harris Dickinson plays Bill, an amateur sleuth, in FX’s twisty neo-whodunnit, A Murder at the End of the World, and the show actually took him all over the world.

His character’s story is intertwined with Emma Corrin‘s Darby Hart: In flashback, they meet on a Reddit forum about trying to track down a serial killer; when they meet in person to try to catch the killer, they end up catching feelings for each other.

Years after they split, they reunite when a billionaire (Clive Owen) picks them for a retreat staged in Iceland — which is interrupted by a murder.

“We started in Iceland and then we went to New York and then we went to Utah,” Dickinson recalls to ABC Audio.

“So it was, like, opposite end of the spectrum, Utah in July, Iceland in March. So we finished in, like, hot desert. Yeah, just beautiful locations. The locations in this series I think are a character in their own right,” he expresses.

The series has been getting impressive reviews, with an average critics score of 88% and an audience score of 90% on the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

So maybe he’ll now take a peek at them, he says. “I kind of keep my head down, man, I try … and not get involved. Although when I hear … that it’s getting sort of nice write-ups, I’m more inclined to go and look at them. Whereas if it was like, ‘Oh, it’s getting pulled apart,’ you then be like, ‘Nah, I’ll keep on keeping my head down.'”

The actor admits, “I sort of think we’re all innately, uh, a little bit vain and narcissistic. So we want to know if good things are being said, you know?”

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Paul Giamatti plays curmudgeonly Professor Hunham – a boarding school teacher from the ‘70s – in director Alexander Payne’s latest film, The Holdovers.

The character gets on his students’ nerves without a care in the world. He also deals with some pretty poor body odor, but Giamatti told ABC Audio he didn’t torture his co-stars by showing up and smelling bad.

“It’s for the other people to subtly have to play,” Giamatti said. “It’s like the thing they say, ‘You don’t need to play the king, everybody around you needs to play that you’re the king.’ So this was, ‘I don’t need to play I smell like fish, everybody around me needs to play I smell like fish.’”

While he briefly considered the possibility, Giamatti decided against showing up with BO after he recalled an experience with a former co-star.

“He put fish in his pockets, and cheese, and stinky cheese to put people — very method — to put people off,” Giamatti said. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to do that, actually,’ because that was really off-putting when that guy did that. So, I’m not going to do that to people.”

And while Professor Hunham has his quirks, Giamatti says that is exactly what he enjoyed about playing him.

“It was a very fun role to play,” Giamatti said. “He’s not a fun guy to other people, but he thinks he’s hilarious. And he thinks he’s really smart and he takes a certain pleasure in being a jerk and then sort of coming up with these really sort of like elaborate putdowns, that kind of, you know, he’s pleased by his own intelligence and stuff. So that was fun to do.”

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Good Morning America’s Chris Connelly sat down with Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio about their new acclaimed drama Killers of the Flower Moon, and Leo called his co-star “electrifying.”

He enthuses, “I’ve never seen Martin Scorsese meet somebody for the first time and say ‘That person is doing the role higher — I want her to be our partner on this film.'”

The based-on-real-life period drama is DiCaprio’s sixth film with Scorsese, whom he called “a national treasure,” but in the eyes of many critics, 37-year-old Gladstone steals the show in Flower Moon for her performance as Molly.

Leo said of his Native American co-star, “the respect … and dedication that she gave to telling the story through the Osage viewpoint the right way. She kind of represented her grandmother in a lot of ways.”

Speaking of Gladstone’s grandmother, she recalled how excited she was to learn Lily was making a movie with De Niro and Scorsese, but had no idea who DiCaprio was. “‘Who?'” Lily recalls with a laughs. “So I pulled out Titanic.”

Killers of the Flower Moon is now playing in theaters, on its way to streaming on Apple TV+.

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The BBC has announced it will “rest” the beloved flagship U.K. version of Top Gear in the wake of a serious 2022 car accident that left host Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff seriously injured. The former cricket star was involved in a wreck on the Top Gear race track last December and subsequently settled with the network for a reported $11.3 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter. In its statement, the BBC noted it “remains committed to Freddie, [and co-hosts] Chris [Harris] and Paddy [McGuinness] who have been at the heart of the show’s renaissance since 2019.” It added, “We know resting the show will be disappointing news for fans, but it is the right thing to do.” …

Variety says Netflix’s trippy hit Black Mirror will return for a seventh season and production will get underway later this year. The trade says show creator and executive producer Charlie Brooker will be back, as will his co-producers Annabel Jones and Jessica Rhoades, but no plot details have been divulged. The sixth season of Black Mirror, which stars Salma Hayek-Pinault, Aaron Paul, Kate Mara and Zazie Beetz, launched in June and spent a month on Netflix’s global top 10 English-speaking TV chart…

The Hollywood Reporter says Disney+ has pulled the plug on The Muppets Mayhem after just a single season. The series starred Lilly Singh as a music executive trying to capture the magic of the Muppet band The Electric Mayhem in the studio. The show debuted in May …

Suits continues to rack up impressive numbers on streaming. According to data quoted by Deadline, the show collected more than 45 billion minutes of viewing time since it debuted on Netflix in June; by October, although the numbers cooled, it was still the streaming service’s most-streamed show in October. Another comeback kid of sorts, Grey’s Anatomy, placed second for the month, while a newbie, The Fall of the House of Usher, jumped to fourth place, even after only debuting on October 12 …

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It’s a wish come true for many – a new Disney animated musical just in time for the holidays: Wish hits theaters Wednesday, starring the voices of Oscar winner Ariana DeBose and Star Trek‘s Chris Pine.

The movie’s writer and Chief Creative Officer of Disney Animation Studios, Jennifer Lee, tells ABC Audio that a couple of years ago they started planning for a new animated Disney movie for 2023 that would honor this year being Disney’s 100^thanniversary. 

“Once someone hit on the idea of wishing on a star, they were off and running,” she explains. “Disney is so connected to the concept of wishing, but what is that? And as you think about a wish, the purpose, your purpose in life, that courage to try to fulfill it, all the things that can be destroyed and exploited — I’m like, ‘There’s so much story in that, just a single word.'” 

Lee then adds, “And that’s when I was like, ‘Okay, can I write it?'”

Co-directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn loaded the movie with Disney Easter eggs. “I know we have a list and we don’t even know all the ones that are in there,” Buck admits. “I think it’s over 100. Some way more subtle than others.”

Producer Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones says he hopes the movie encourages viewers to “persevere and not give up, because that’s also what this movie’s about.”

He adds, “You know, sometimes the world and life can feel tough, but it’s still up to us to continue on. And I think the world needs a movie like that right now.”

Disney is the parent company of ABC News. 

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Superman: Legacy writer/director and co-CEO of DC Films James Gunn has confirmed two roles in the upcoming movie, but a question mark still remains about who will play the movie’s presumed big bad, Lex Luthor. 

Vacation reboot star Skyler Gisondo, currently seen on HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, has been cast as over-eager Daily Planet reporter Jimmy Olsen, Gunn confirmed, while Portuguese model and former Victoria’s Secret angel Sara Sampaio landed the role as villainess Eve Teschmacher.

“After auditioning hundreds of folks for both of these roles, we finally found perfect fits,” Gunn enthused on Instagram Tuesday afternoon. “Can’t wait for you guys to see them in action the summer of ‘25!” 

However, Gunn hasn’t confirmed a persistent rumor that Nicholas Hoult, recently seen in Renfield and the series The Great, will be Superman’s archnemesis, Lex Luthor. 

Several outlets have already confirmed it as fact that the English actor, who starred in Mad Max: Fury Road and as Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast in the X-Men movies, had the role, but Gunn is remaining mum.

Last week, Gunn confirmed María Gabriela De Faría would play the villain The Engineer, and in recent months added Isabela Merced to the cast as Hawkgirl and Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific. 

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Emmy winner Rachel Brosnahan is playing Lois Lane to David Corenswet‘s Clark Kent/Superman when Superman: Legacy flies into theaters July 11, 2025.

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Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio are teaming up for a new Karate Kid film.

Nearly 40 years after the first Karate Kid film made its debut, the two actors are coming together to add another movie to the iconic franchise.

They announced the news in a YouTube video along with Sony Pictures Entertainment on Tuesday.

“Hi everyone! We’ve got big news,” Chan says in the announcement video.

“We’re starring in a new Karate Kid movie together,” adds Macchio, who portrayed Daniel LaRusso in the first three Karate Kid films between 1984 and 1989, as well as the TV series continuing the storyline from the films, Cobra Kai.

The actors then announced that they’re searching for “the next Karate Kid.”

“The global search for the star of our new film starts right now, so let’s wax on, wax off, everybody,” Macchio says, a nod to the iconic lesson from the franchise’s karate master, Mr. Miyagi, who was portrayed by the late actor Pat Morita.

“You mean, ‘jacket on, jacket off,'” Chan says, referring to his lines as the karate master Mr. Han in the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid, in which he starred alongside Jaden Smith and Taraji P. Henson.

“Maybe the new Karate Kid will have to do it all,” Macchio adds. “I’m excited.”

In the open casting call announcement shared by Sony Pictures online, the film seeks an actor to play the lead character, Li Fong.

According to the casting call announcement, Li Fong is described as a teenager between 15 and 17 years old who is Chinese or “mixed-race Chinese.”

“He’s smart, scrappy and a skilled martial artist,” the casting call reads. “Any sort of martial arts, movement, gymnastics, and/or dance experience is a strong plus.”

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On Tuesday, streaming service Max announced it will launch what it calls an “interactive Advent calendar” to showcase different holiday-themed programming each day leading up to Christmas.

The fun begins on Friday, December 1.

“Users can hover over a [title], click, and then be directed to a surprise holiday or holiday-adjacent title each day,” HBO’s streamer explains. “This is one more way for subscribers to discover holiday classics and new favorites on Max.”

Additionally, Max has curated its entire library for the season, with subheadings from “Pure Christmas Joy” — with new and old classics like Elf, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Carol — to “Our Favorite Holiday” episodes, with everything from Billy on the Street to Friends‘ seasonal shows, plus a “Kids Table” selection of kiddie-friendly animated movies and other programming.

Starting Friday, November 24, Max will also unveil yule logs themed to favorite Max titles, from the Harry Potter: Fireplace and World of Westeros Dragon Egg Yule Log to A Very Merry Rickmas Yule Log, helping fans celebrate the holidays Rick and Morty style.

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Bradley Cooper has weighed in on the controversy about his forthcoming biopic Maestro, about the life of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein. 

Cooper directed, co-wrote and starred in the film, opposite fellow Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan. But as reported, the first image of the actor as Bernstein caught flak from some online, thanks to the prosthetic nose he wore. 

Some said it smacked of “Jewface,” but Bernstein’s three children and the Anti-Defamation League said there was nothing to be offended about. 

To CBS Mornings on Tuesday, Cooper said of the prosthetics, “I thought, ‘Maybe we don’t need to do it.’ … But … you know, my lips are nothing like Lenny’s, and my chin. And so we had that, and it just didn’t look right [without it],” Cooper said of tests without the now-controversial silicone sniffer.

For the record, Nina Bernstein Simmons, Jamie Bernstein and Alexander Bernstein appeared with Cooper on CBS Sunday Morning over the weekend, with Nina pointing out that Cooper naturally has a “substantial nose” of his own without makeup, and describing “the fracas” as the “absolute nonissue of all time.”

Maestro will be released in select theaters on Wednesday, November 22, and then on Netflix on December 20. 

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