Entertainment

A League of Their Own won’t be getting a second season on Prime Video after all. The streamer has decided not to bring the comedy-drama, co-created and starring Abbi Jacobson, back, citing “the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strikes, which have delayed TV production, creating large gaps between seasons and making shows miss their target release dates,” according to Deadline. It joins fellow Prime Video series The Peripheral, which also had its season 2 renewal reversed…

Carol Duvall, queen of crafting and host of HGTV’s decade-long program The Carol Duvall Show, died on July 31 in Traverse City, Michigan, her former daughter-in-law Rita Ann Doerr tells The New York Times. She was 97. Duvall began her TV career on a show back in 1951. In 1962, she joined Detroit’s WWJ-TV as news anchor and host of her craft segment, Here’s Carol Duvall. Duvall was then asked to join ABC’s Home Show around two decades later, she developed Duvall her very own program, The Carol Duvall Show, which aired on HGTV from 1994 to 2005, running for more than 1,000 episodes…

Chad Michael Murray and his wife Sarah Roemer have welcomed their third child. “Our baby girl arrived last week with a heart on her ankle,” Roemer shared on Saturday, August 19 on Instagram, alongside a photo of the baby’s heart-shaped birthmark. “We are so in love! Soaking up all the baby squishy moments that go by all too fast. @chadmichaelmurray.” Murray re-posted Roemer’s post in an Instagram Story, captioned, “Heart full. #family.” Murray and Roehmer tied the knot in 2015. They have two other children — a son, born in 2015, and a daughter, who arrived in 2017…

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DC Films’ Blue Beetle ended Barbie‘s four-week reign at the top of the domestic box office, despite falling short of expectations with an estimated $25.4 million debut. Blue Beetle, starring Cobra Kai‘s Xolo Maridueña [SHOW-low Mar-i-DWANE-ya] as the titular character, is the third DC film to stumble out of the gate following Shazam: Fury of the Gods‘ $30.1 million in March and The Flash‘s $55 million in June.

Internationally, Blue Beetle earned an estimated $18 million, for a global total of $43.4 million.

Breathing down Blue Beetle‘s neck in second place was Barbie with an estimated $21.5 million in its fifth week of release. To date, the film has collected an estimated $567.3 million at the North American box office and is poised to overtake The Super Mario Bros. Movie — with $574 million — as the biggest domestic release of the year. Its global tally now stands at $1.3 billion.

Oppenheimer landed in third place with an estimated $10.6 million, bringing its domestic total to $285.2 million. Globally, the movie has generated $717.8 million, making it director Christopher Nolan‘s fourth-highest-grossing movie.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem took fourth place with an estimated $8.4 million. Its three-week total now stands at $88.1 million domestically and $118.4 million globally.

Rounding out the top five was Strays, the R-rated comedy featuring the voices of Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher and Randall Park, which stumbled in its debut with an estimated $3.8 million at the North American Box Office. Internationally, Strays grabbed an estimated $1.9 million for a global tally of $10 million.

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Ron Cephas Jones, the Emmy-winning actor best known for playing William Hill on NBC’s This Is Us, has died, ABC News has confirmed. He was 66.

A statement from his publicist notes that Jones died of a “long-standing pulmonary issue,” and adds, “Throughout the course of his career, his warmth, beauty, generosity, kindness and heart were felt by anyone who had the good fortune of knowing him.”

Jones won two guest actor Emmys for his role as William Hill, the biological father of Sterling K. Brown‘s Randall Pearson, on This Is Us — one in 2018 and one in 2020. His daughter Jasmine Cephas Jones also won an Emmy in 2020 for her role in the Quibi series #freerayshawn, making them the first ever father-daughter duo to win Emmys in the same year.

Jones started his acting career on the stage, appearing in productions with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois, as well as New York’s Nuyorican Poets Cafe and Public Theater. He also appeared in various Broadway and Off-Broadway productions.

His TV credits include Mr. Robot, Luke Cage, Law & Order: Organized Crime, Looking for Alaska and Truth Be Told. He also appeared in movies like He Got Game, Sweet and Lowdown, Half Nelson and Across the Universe.

Jones also continued his theater career, appearing most recently in the Broadway show Clyde’s, for which he received a Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination in 2022.

In 2021, he told the New York Times that the previous year, he’d received a double-lung transplant due to his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and spent two months in the hospital on and off a ventilator.

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Shia LaBeouf will be taking to the stage for the first time this September, in a new production in Los Angeles from Pulitzer-winning writer David Mamet called Henry Johnson.

The actor, who weathered headlines and a lawsuit alleging he had been abusive to his former romantic partner FKA Twigs in 2020, has embraced sobriety after previous failed attempts and run-ins with the law.

Beginning September 2 and running through September 24, Shia’s co-stars will be Oscar-nominated character actor David Paymer, A Different World‘s Dominic Hoffman and The Night House co-star Evan Jonigkeit in a play reportedly about how a man’s compassionate act “upends” his life.

They will be directed by former The L Word: Generation Q showrunner Marja-Lewis Ryan at Venice California’s Electric Lodge venue.

To a Deadline story posted on X, formerly Twitter, LaBeouf said, “I am incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to work with David Mamet. His talent and creativity are unparalleled, and it is truly an honor to collaborate with arguably our greatest living playwright.”

He added to the trade, “Henry Johnson is a unique and compelling story. It has not only inspired me but has also pushed me to grow as a performer. … Working with these artists has deepened my appreciation for the power of storytelling. I am immensely thankful for the chance to learn from and build with them.”

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In a surprise move that will leave far fewer Star Wars fans reaching for their coffee, Lucasfilm announced that Ahsoka will now debut with two episodes on Tuesday, August 22, at 9 p.m. ET.

The show was to kick off on Wednesday, August 23, at the traditional Disney+ debut time of 3 a.m. ET, but after a fan screening of the series openers on August 18, the streaming service and Lucasfilm apparently shifted strategy.

The Rosario Dawson-fronted show’s social media revealed the date change, along with highlights of fan events in New York, Orlando, Brazil, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Anaheim, California.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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The Flash is running home quicker than you might expect.

Deadline reports the movie starring Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Ben Affleck and Sasha Calle will be streaming for free for Max subscribers on August 25.

The film from It series director Andy Muschietti had Miller playing two different versions of Barry Allen aka the Scarlet Speedster, one of whom opens up a tear into another dimension.

The multiverse-spanning film that also starred Affleck and Keaton’s respective Batmen was buoyed by early positive word of mouth, but ultimately stumbled at the box office, with a worldwide take of more than $268 million against a budget reportedly around $220 million, not counting marketing. 

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At a Disney Junior & Friends Playdate event at Disney California Adventure Park on Friday, August 18, Ayo Davis, president of Disney Branded Television, announced plans for content headed to the kids network.

For one, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, the hugely popular 2006 animated series, is getting a reboot. The new show, tentatively titled Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 2.0, “combines the rich heritage of Disney’s beloved classic characters with state-of-the-art CG animation and introduces a whole new generation of preschoolers to Mickey and his pals.”

Also announced, Taye Diggs will play King Triton and Glee alumna Amber Riley will star in the animated series Disney Junior’s Ariel. Raven’s Home co-star Mykal-Michelle Harris will play Ariel in the 2024 musical series centering on “8-year-old mermaid princess Ariel as she and her friends embark on fun-filled, action-packed underwater adventures throughout their Caribbean-inspired fairytale kingdom of Atlantica.”

This holiday season will also see special themed installments of favorite shows, including Halloween episodes of SuperKitties on September 25, Mickey Mouse Funhouse on September 26 and Pupstruction on September 27, ahead of October 1’s Mickey and Friends Trick or Treats’ Halloween Special and the Dia de los Muertos episode of Mickey Mouse Funhouse on October 6.

There’s even a Rosh Hashanah-themed episode of Marvel’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends airing on September 15.

Doc McStuffins: The Doc & Bella Are In!, a new short-form series based on the original, will debut September 6.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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With Barbie crossing $1.2 billion at the box office, Michael Cera apparently has a Zoom link to thank for being one of the dolls in director Greta Gerwig‘s collection.

To GQ, in a video interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike, Cera recalled that getting the role of Allan, Ken’s forgettable friend, was the result of some “last-minute casting.”

He explains, “My manager got a call checking on my availability for it, and he called me and he said, ‘I got a call about this movie. It’s the Barbie movie. Greta Gerwig’s directing it, and it’s filming in London for four months or something, so I told them you probably wouldn’t want to do it because you probably don’t want to go to London.'”

Cera then exclaims, “I was like, ‘What! Call them back!’ He didn’t like blow it or anything, but he’s like, ‘I managed their expectations that you might not want to do it.’ I was like, ‘How can I not do it? I need to do it!'”

The Arrested Development veteran explained he was able to wrangle Gerwig’s email from a mutual friend and implored the director to be in her film. “And she was like, ‘…Here’s a Zoom link, I’ll be on there for the next hour.’ …And…it just all happened really fast from there.”

Cera calls Allan a “sad figure,” noting, “He’s just a person that doesn’t really have any place in the world.”

Mattel apparently thought so, too, at one point, discontinuing the character shortly after it was introduced in 1964. “It just wasn’t selling,” Cera said with a laugh. “The world just didn’t need for Ken to have a friend…So Allan fell by the wayside a little bit.”

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

House of Villians (E!)

E! is launching an all new show, hosted by Joel McHale, dubbed House of Villains. The show will pit 10 iconic TV bad guys against one another in a ruthless competition for a $200,000 prize and the coveted title of “America’s Ultimate Supervillain.” The show will star Jax Taylor (Vanderpump Rules), OMAROSA (The Apprentice), Corinne Olympios (The Bachelor), Tiffany “New York” Pollard (Flavor of Love and I Love New York), Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio (The Challenge), Anfisa Arkhipchenko (90 Day Fiancé), Shake Chatterjee (Love Is Blind), Jonny Fairplay (Survivor), Bobby Lytes (Love & Hip Hop: Miami) and Tanisha Thomas (Bad Girls Club). House of Villains premieres October 12.

Teen Mom (MTV)

Jenelle Evans has addressed recent speculation surrounding her 14-year-old son, Jace, who was reported as a runaway on August 15 amid concerns over her relationship with husband David Eason. The Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Jace’s safe return home after the incident. Jenelle, explaining the situation, emphasized that teenage behavior is part of parenting, stating, “Jace got in trouble at school, we decided to take his phone away and that’s when he decided to run off,” per OK! Magazine. She emphasized that their challenges are typical of raising children and unrelated to her marriage struggles with David.

Vanderpump Rules (Bravo)

Rachel Leviss has broken her silence. Appearing on Bethenny Frankel‘s ReWives podcast, she made several claims, including that she and cast mate Ariana Madix were only “acquaintances who became friends through the show,” and compensation on the show was “not fair.”  

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Robert De Niro turned 80 on Thursday, August 17, and People is reporting a lot of his celebrity friends turned up in New York City that evening for a birthday celebration in his honor.

The magazine says Leonardo DiCaprio and Alec Baldwin were on hand at the dinner held at the New York City restaurant Locanda Verde, located at the De Niro-owned Greenwich Hotel, as were Star Wars creator George Lucas, their mutual friend and De Niro’s frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese, their pal and De Niro’s Godfather Part II director Francis Ford Coppola and De Niro’s Deer Hunter co-star Christopher Walken.

The festivities also reportedly included Bette Midler, David Blaine, De Niro’s A Bronx Tale co-star Chazz Palminteri, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Jane Krakowski.

Also spotted were Paul McCartney and his wife, Nancy Shevell, and of course De Niro’s partner, Tiffany Chen, and their new baby, Gia Virginia Chen De Niro.

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