Entertainment

20th Century Studios has dropped an epic teaser to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, an adventure set several generations after director Matt Reeves‘ heralded Apes trilogy.

The Maze Runner helmer Wes Ball called the shots on the latest installment of the beloved franchise, and the teaser shows apes have become Earth’s dominant species since the days of the reboot trilogy’s sentient ape leader Caesar (Andy Serkis).

Humans, on the other hand, are being hunted like wild animals and forced to live in the shadows, as ape-kind is ruled by a tyrannical leader.

According to the studio, “One young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.”

The teaser shows that youngster revisiting key locations seen in Reeves’ trilogy, as his eyes are opened to the harmonious life humans once shared with their simian counterparts.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes will open exclusively in theaters nationwide May 24.

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The trailer to the big-budget action comedy The Fall Guy is here, and it shows Barbie star Ryan Gosling as an unlikely action hero.

Loosely based on the 1980s action show of the same name that had Lee Majors in the lead role, Gosling plays “the unknown stuntman” this time around. Instead of being the guy who makes “Eastwood look so fine” on camera, as Majors sang in the theme song, Gosling’s Colt Seavers is the go-to guy for car wrecks, alien invasions and the like to spare the biggest action star on the planet, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

However, Ryder goes missing in the middle of a big-budget action movie that’s being directed by his ex, Emily Blunt‘s Jody Moreno, and a ruthless producer, played by Ted Lasso‘s Hannah Waddingham, presses Seavers into service to rescue the star off screen.

Things take a dark turn when Ryder turns up dead, “super dead,” to quote Gosling’s character. Seavers has to take on the “shady people” who killed the star — and maybe win his woman back.

Incidentally, the world of spectacular stunts and doubling for a major movie star is old hat for The Fall Guy‘s director, David Leitch; he was a stuntman himself before directing blockbusters like Hobbs & Shaw and Deadpool 2.

And let’s not forget Gosling played a stuntman in over his head in Drive.

The Fall Guy also stars Black Panther scene-stealer Winston Duke and Academy Award nominee Stephanie Hsu from Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The movie opens March 1.

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On Thursday, FX dropped the trailer to Shōgun, the epic, 10-episode series based on James Clavell’s bestselling novel, which was adapted into an Emmy-winning miniseries on NBC in 1980.

The new series features a primarily Japanese cast, including co-producer Hiroyuki Sanada from Avengers: Endgame and Bullet Train, Anna Sawai and Hiroto Kanai.

Set in Japan in the year 1600, at the dawn of a century-defining civil war, Sanada stars as Lord Yoshii Toranaga, who is fighting for his life with political enemies at his door.

When a European ship is wrecked in a nearby village, Toranaga finds an unlikely ally in John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), an Englishman “bearing secrets that could help Toranaga tip the scales of power and devastate the formidable influence of Blackthorne’s own enemies — the Jesuit priests and Portuguese merchants,” to quote the network.

FX continues, “Toranaga’s and Blackthorne’s fates become inextricably tied to their translator (Sawai), a mysterious Christian noblewoman [who] must reconcile her newfound companionship with Blackthorne, her commitment to the faith that saved her and her duty to her late father.”

The trailer promises all the palace intrigue and sweeping swordplay that made the book and the previous miniseries such a smash.

The series premieres in February and will roll out new episodes weekly.

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As SAG-AFTRA and studio representatives continue to battle it out, networks are continuing to make moves to deal with the Hollywood strikes’ effects on scheduling.

For HBO, that means the anticipated third season of its Emmy magnet series The White Lotus and its It prequel series Welcome to Derry are likely moving to 2025, according to the network’s head Casey Bloys.

Variety reports the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content made the announcement during a press event in New York on Thursday. “Welcome to Derry, we had had that scheduled for Halloween of 2024. That’s likely 2025,” the trade quoted Bloys as saying. “White Lotus‘ Season 3 probably would have been in play for 2024, it’s 2025 [now].”

He also said the second season of its acclaimed video game adaptation The Last of Us could get underway early in 2024.

The White Lotus proved to be a smash for HBO right out of the gate, snagging an Emmy for Jennifer Coolidge and nine other trophies, including one for Outstanding Limited Series.

Its Italy-set second season earned 23 Emmy nominations, including a second nod for Coolidge.

Variety reports the third season was supposed to take place in another exotic location, Thailand.

While the writers strike ended at the end of September, scribes were unable to work on new scripts until it did, and the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike meant no new material could get in the can.

Welcome to Derry had been in production in early 2023 before the SAG-AFTRA strike shut it down in July, the trade notes. The series will star Taylour Paige, James Remar and Madeleine Stowe, among others.

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On Thursday, Paramount Network announced that due to production delays caused by the two Hollywood strikes, Yellowstone fans are going to have to wait until November 2024 to watch the conclusion of the show’s fifth season.

That said, what may soften the blow is the fact that hit-making creator Taylor Sheridan has two more spinoffs of the show on tap: 1944 and 2024. As of now, those are working titles, according to the network.

These follow Yellowstone‘s acclaimed prequel spinoffs 1883 and 1923, which fleshed out the backstory of the show’s Dutton clan.

In a statement, Chris McCarthy, president/CEO of Showtime & MTV Entertainment Studios, trumpeted, “Within five years, we grew Yellowstone from a hit U.S. cable show with five million viewers into a global hit franchise with over 100 million fans around the world and multiple extensions – and, we’re just getting started.”

He added, “Our new planned spinoffs, 1944 and 2024, will take audiences on a thrilling, new and unexpected journey with the complex and compelling storytelling that has become a hallmark of the franchise and has helped turn it into a worldwide cultural phenomenon – thanks to the creative mastermind of Taylor Sheridan.”

Sheridan also has three other hit shows outside the Dutton-verse cooking on Paramount+: Tulsa King starring Sylvester Stallone, Mayor of Kingstown with Jeremy Renner and Special Ops: Lioness starring Zoë Saldaña, Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman.

He’s also about to launch Lawmen: Bass Reeves, starring David Oyelowo, on November 5. Land Man, starring Oscar winner Billy Bob Thornton, is also in the works, but it hit a production snag because of the strikes.

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AI is one of the sticking points in the ongoing SAG-AFTRA fight against the movie studios, with performers trying to prevent their images from being used without consent.

While he contends AI wasn’t used in his case, Nicolas Cage tells Yahoo! Entertainment that visual effects wizards working on The Flash managed to make him, as Superman, do something onscreen that was totally different than the climactic cameo he actually shot.

And he didn’t know it until he saw the movie.

“When I went to the picture, it was me fighting a giant spider. I did not do that. That was not what I did,” the Oscar winner explained.

His comments come after Tim Burton, who was supposed to direct Cage as the Man of Steel in a scuttled movie called Superman Lives, rallied against AI in movies. “I know Tim is upset about AI, as I am,” Cage expressed.

“It was CGI, OK, so that they could de-age me, and I’m fighting a spider. I didn’t do any of that, so I don’t know what happened there,” Cage said.

He continued, “But I get where Tim’s coming from. . . I would be very unhappy if people were taking my art . . . and appropriating [it]. I get it. . . AI is a nightmare to me. It’s inhumane. You can’t get more inhumane than artificial intelligence.”

Cage explained the finished product was “out of my control,” contending, “I literally went to shoot a scene for maybe an hour in the suit, looking at the destruction of a universe and trying to convey the feelings of loss and sadness and terror in my eyes. That’s all I did.”

The actor apparently harbors no hard feelings for The Flash‘s director, Andy Muschietti, who he called, “a terrific director” and a “great guy.”

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Comedian Taylor Tomlinson will host CBS’ Late Late Show replacement After Midnight. Co-producer Stephen Colbert made the announcement on The Late Show on Wednesday, with Tomlinson’s help. “There is currently no host,” said Colbert, noting, “We’ll need someone who is fun, likable, young, in touch with online trends and available every night of the week.” When he solicited the audience and viewers for suggestions, Tomlinson, seated in the audience, volunteered for the job. After suggesting they “focus group” it, Colbert’s audience responded with thunderous applause. After Midnight is based on Comedy Central’s @midnight, which ran between 2013 and 2017…

ABC News’ parent company Disney announced on Wednesday that it plans to acquire the rest of Hulu that it doesn’t already own, Deadline reports. The House of Mouse was already a majority shareholder of the streaming service, but now it’s expected to pay more than $8.6 billion to NBC Universal’s parent company Comcast for the remaining 33% stake in the streamer… 

The Writers Guild has set April 14 as the date for its awards ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York, the organization announced on Wednesday. Nominations will be announced February 21 — nearly a month after the Oscar nominations are revealed on January 23, eliminating its influence on the Academy Awards contest. The 96th annual Academy Awards are scheduled to take place March 10. At the center of the delay is the nearly five-month-long writers strike that ended on September 26. “This year’s Writers Guild Awards are being held in April to allow for a full awards submissions process to occur after the strike,” the WGA said in a statement obtained by Variety…

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Scarlett Johansson has taken legal action against an AI app that used her name and likeness in an online advertisement without her permission.

The 22-second ad, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, and has since been taken down, used an image-generating app called Lisa AI: 90’s Yearbook & Avatar, to take real footage of Johansson and generate a fake image and dialogue for her.

“We do not take these things lightly. Per our usual course of action in these circumstances, we will deal with it with all legal remedies that we will have,” Johansson’s attorney, Kevin Yorn said in a statement obtained by Variety.

The ad, per Variety, opened with an old behind-the-scenes clip of Johansson from the set of Marvel’s Black Widow, saying, “What’s up guys? It’s Scarlett and I want you to come with me … ” A graphic then “covers her mouth and the screen transitions into AI-generated photos resembling the actor. A fake voice imitating Johansson then continued speaking, promoting the AI app,” per the outlet.

“It’s not limited to avatars only. You can also create images with texts and even your AI videos. I think you shouldn’t miss it,” urged a voice made to sound like Johansson.

Fine print under the advertisement read, “Images produced by Lisa AI. It has nothing to do with this person.”

Johansson isn’t the first celebrity to have their name and likeness falsely depicted. A month ago, Tom Hanks warned fans about a fake advertisement using an artificial intelligence-generated version of his likeness without his permission.

“BEWARE!! There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me,” Hanks wrote on his Instagram Story over a photo from the deepfake ad. “I have nothing to do with it.”

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The Eye Network has its eye on replacing its The Late Late Show with James Corden with a reboot of the Comedy Central show @midnight, as previously reported. On Wednesday, Deadline reported CBS is really getting the gears turning.

Originally hosted by Chris Hardwick, @midnight ran from 2013 to 2017 and had the Talking Dead host putting viral video-related questions to a series of comedians.

While the network is officially mum, the trade says CBS has tapped original @midnight showrunner Jack Martin to run After Midnight with The Challenge: USA and The Wheel veteran Eric Pierce.

Further, Deadline says, the network auditioned three potential hosts last week: female stand-up and writer Taylor Tomlinson; Daily Show writing veteran and comic X Mayo; and the sole male of the trio, comic Ricky Velez, who appeared in Pete Davidson‘s The King of Staten Island.

The show is slated to debut in the 12:30 a.m. slot early in 2024.

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The fifth and final Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, will stream for free for Disney+ subscribers on December 1.

The James Mangold-directed, Steven Spielberg-produced film has Harrison Ford‘s Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones trying to keep another priceless artifact out of the hands of the Nazis — this one with the power to change the course of history.

Dial of Destiny also stars Mads Mikkelsen, Boyd Holbrook, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and John Rhys-Davies.

To help celebrate Ford’s last adventure as the whip-cracking archeologist, the streaming service also announced that on December 1 it will premiere a feature-length documentary tribute to the Indy franchise lead with Timeless Heroes: Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford.

A new trailer teases that the documentary features both archival footage of Ford on the sets of his most famous movies and interviews with those whose stories the actor helped make into classics.

“Other actors cannot fill those shoes,” original Indy movie director Spielberg says about the man in the hat.

“When they say ‘a Harrison Ford-type,’ you’ve become an icon,” Indy and Star Wars creator George Lucas declares.

“When they came into my life, things got better,” the once-struggling Ford says of the pair with a smile.

Both upcoming films were produced by Lucasfilm, which, like ABC News, is a subsidiary of Disney.

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