Entertainment

On Wednesday, the sixth and final episode of Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion dropped on Disney+. 

After four episodes’ worth of betrayals, the death of one fan favorite in Cobie Smulders‘ MCU veteran Maria Hill, and a shape-shifting alien conspiracy to doom humankind brought about by an extremist group of the alien Skrull race, Samuel L. Jackson‘s Nick Fury must finally face off with the group’s leader, Gravik (Barbie co-star Kingsley Ben-Adir).

While Fury gets closer to his charge — trudging on what may be a suicide mission to New Skrullos, the alien HQ the extremists built at an abandoned nuclear plant — Dermot Mulroney‘s President Ritson, still ailing from an assassination attempt, is being tricked by other imposters closest to him into starting World War III.

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

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The Back to the Future movie cast recently reunited at an event for the Broadway musical based on the iconic 1985 film.

Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson, who played Marty McFly, Emmett “Doc” Brown and Lorraine McFly in the beloved movie, respectively, attended a gala performance of Back to the Future: The Musical on July 25 at New York City’s Winter Garden Theatre.

The trio showed up in support of the Broadway musical’s cast, which includes Casey Likes and Roger Bart, who are playing Fox and Lloyd’s roles on the stage.

Also in attendance were Robert Zemeckis, who directed and co-wrote the Back to the Future film, and Bob Gale, who co-wrote the film with Zemeckis and wrote the book for the Broadway musical.

Huey Lewis of Huey Lewis and the News, whose song “The Power of Love” was the theme song for the movie, attended the event alongside Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard, who are responsible for the music and lyrics, respectively, in Back to the Future: The Musical.

“My mom was a huge fan of Michael J. Fox and always said that I reminded her of him,” Likes told Good Morning America about stepping into the Fox’s role for the stage production.

“Marty McFly is what we all wanted to be growing up — it’s what I still want to be,” Likes continued. “I’m not doing an impression, but I’m doing enough of a reminder of how special Michael is while also mixing in a little bit of myself and trying to be as cool as I possibly can.”

The musical has already been an award-winning hit on London’s West End and now heads to Broadway, officially opening August 3.

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Brittany Brower is joining Bethenny Frankel‘s rallying of reality show veterans, claiming she wasn’t paid a dime for her season 4 appearance on America’s Next Top Model.

Frankel made headlines the week of July 17 with a series of Instagram videos, saying producers are taking advantage of reality stars by not compensating them fairly despite rerunning their shows.

Brower tells the Daily Mail, “People are constantly sending me emails saying they’re watching my season. I’m like great, I’m so glad the show still has a following and it’s still making money, but I get absolutely nothing from it. It’s just such bulls***.”

She claims the contestants on her season were only given money for groceries. At the time, she considered herself fortunate that she lived at home and had parents who helped her make ends meet.

What’s more, she said when her original season was over, she had trouble converting her screen time to modeling fame. “I got some bookings, sure, but I must be honest, some things I wasn’t able to book because I was on Top Model and the designer didn’t want that kind of look.”

Brower says she was paid to return for one of the show’s All Stars sessions — $1,000 an episode.

Brower supported Frankel’s urging reality stars to band together, particularly as networks are relying on reality TV to fill gaps from the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes. “This is the perfect time to make change happen,” Brower says. “Like, ok, you want us to pick up the brunt of television right now? You want reality stars to be the TV? Well then pay for it.”

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On Wednesday, July 26, Hulu debuted the anticipated third-season trailer to Only Murders in the Building.

Picking up the pieces — and the clues — after the Broadway stage death of Paul Rudd‘s actor Ben Gelroy in season 2, Selena Gomez‘s Mabel, Steve Martin‘s Charles and Martin Short‘s Oliver must figure out whodunnit.

“Finding this killer is the only way you’ll have a show,” Mabel tells Oliver, before she’s seen pitching her building-mates about another season of their true-crime podcast. “Who are we without a homicide?” she asks.

As always, the trio needs to narrow down the suspects: Is it Meryl Streep‘s “stinkarooney” actress Loretta Durkin? Or “Maybe it was Kimber (Ashley Park), the TikTok addicted starlet?” Martin’s Charles muses. “Does she do it as part of an Internet mem?” he asks, unknowingly mispronouncing “meme.”

Joining in this season is Jesse Williams, who at dinner asks Mabel what she and her older counterparts talk about. “Murder, mostly,” she deadpans, before adding, “And how to connect to Bluetooth. We talk about that a lot.”

Real-life Broadway stars Matthew Broderick and Tina Fey are also glimpsed in the trailer for what the streamer is calling the “wildest season yet.”

The bodies hit the floor August 8.

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Barbie is a bonafide smash, but some on the Margot Robbie/Ryan Gosling movie are crying foul, mainly from the right side of the political spectrum.

Conservative columnist Ben Shapiro, for example, said he was “dragged” to see it, calling it “a flaming garbage heap” of a film. For the record, he was dragged online for his 45-minute rant about it, and he’s burning actual Barbies in effigy because of it.

Cowriter and director Greta Gerwin noted to the New York Times the “passion” surrounding the film. She said diplomatically, “My hope for the movie is that it’s an invitation for everybody to be part of the party and let go of the things that aren’t necessarily serving us as either women or men.”

She added, “I hope that in all of that passion, if they see it or engage with it, it can give them some of the relief that it gave other people.”

The Oscar-nominated screenwriter noted it’s “sort of extraordinary” that the movie is actually being received the way she intended: “anarchic and wild and funny and cathartic.”

Greta is also shining some light on Barbie’s other half, Ken.

On Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman and Will Arnett‘s Smartless podcast, she admitted Gosling was her first choice to play the famous himbo, explaining, “We wrote his name into the script and everything…his [name] was everywhere. And then…the studio was like ‘Oh, it’s so wonderful that you know Ryan.’ And I was like, ‘Oh…I’ve never met Ryan…”

She also explained it was the actor’s 2017 guest stint on Saturday Night Live that sold her, particularly his appearance with former cast member Alex Moffat in the recurring sketch “Guy That Just Bought a Boat.” It’s so good,” she gushed, according to Deadline.

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Actor Kevin Spacey was on Wednesday found not guilty in a London court of a series of sexual assaults against several accusers.

Twelve jurors at the Southwark Crown Court had begun deliberating at about noon on Monday following a three-week trial. Spacey, 64, had pleaded not guilty to 12 charges of sexual assault.

Prosecutors had sought during the trial to label Spacey as a “sexual bully,” and the actor took the stand to defend himself. Musician Elton John appeared as a witness for the defense, testifying remotely from Monaco about Spacey once attending a gala at his Windsor home.

Spacey had appeared in a London court in July 2022 to plead not guilty after Metropolitan Police formally charged him.

The Crown Prosecution Service announced five charges against Spacey in May 2022, accusing him of sexual assaults against three men and one charge of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent, prosecutors said. An additional seven charges were added in November 2022.

The Academy Award-winning actor has faced allegations and charges of sexual assault in both the United Kingdom and United States. He was found not liable in October in a civil sexual assault suit brought by fellow actor Anthony Rapp in New York City.

In a lengthy interview in the German publication ZEITmagazin in June, Spacey said he was “ready” for a career comeback when and if he was cleared in the U.K. case.

“…I know that there are people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges in London,” he said. “The second that happens, they’re ready to move forward.”

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“Charity begins at home,” goes the old adage, which is a far kinder way to put the Internet’s reaction to Megan Fox asking her followers to donate their money to help a friend.

On Tuesday, July 25, Fox pointed her more than 21 million Instagram followers to a GoFundMe set up by her nail technician, Brittany Boyce, for Boyce’s father, who was diagnosed with cancer.

The donation site initially asked for $30,000 for Michael Boyce‘s medical bills, but the goal was subsequently doubled. “If you guys are able to help please do,” Fox pleaded.

However, the reaction to it was probably not what she was expecting.

While the Instagram Story has since disappeared, people weren’t ready to let it go, reposting it to Reddit and giving Fox a piece of their minds. Their issue: She’s rich, and has a reportedly even wealthier fiancé, Machine Gun Kelly.

“Your rich! Cover it!” one Redditor noted. “You could work one day and pay off all of his debts.”

Another snarked, “Celebrities posting gofundmes gives me the ick. I feel like 30k would be chump change to her and MGK.”

One poster noted that the exact amount of money Boyce was initially seeking for her dad, 30 grand, was the reported worth of a diamond-encrusted manicure she gave Machine Gun Kelly for the 2022 Billboard Music Awards.

“I think it’s a bit gross in a cost of living crisis for big name celebrities to be asking their fans for money,” noted another commenter. Another pointed out that neither Fox nor MGK appear as donors on the charity page, which so far has raised just $7,646 as of Wednesday morning, July 26.

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Netflix has released the first trailer for season 2 of the hit teen show Heartstopper. The LGBTQ-themed series follows the love story between two British teens — the shy, nerdy Charlie Spring, played by Joe Locke, and the popular rugby player Nick Nelson, portrayed by Kit Connor. New additions include Jack Barton as Nick’s brother, Nima Taleghani as a teacher at Nick and Charlie’s grammar school, Leila Khan, a student from the Higgs Girls school attended by Nick and Charlie’s friends Elle, Tara and Darcy — played respectively by Yasmin Finney, Corinna Brown and Kizzy Edgell — and Bradley Riches as James McEwan, a new character on the show. Heartstopper is set to return August 3…

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is now one of Netflix’s most popular English-language TV series of all time, replacing The Witcher at #10, according to the streamer. The Bridgerton prequel series — which features India Amarteifio playing a younger version of Golda Rosheuvel‘s monarch, who is about to step into the thorny world of royalty — now joins both seasons of Bridgerton on the list — seasons 1 and 2 sit at #4 and #8, respectively…

It’s taken 55 years, but a new installment of William Friedkin’s landmark horror film The Exorcist is here. The Exorcist: Believer stars Ellen Burstyn, reprising her role from the original 1973 film as Chris MacNeil, “an actress who has been forever altered by what happened to her daughter Regan five decades before,” per Universal Pictures. The film also stars The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Ann Dowd, Grammy-winning singer Jennifer Nettles and Fosse/Verdon‘s Norbert Leo Butz. The Exorcist: Believer is set to hit theaters on October 13…

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Ellie Kemper is trying to find herself in the new Netflix movie Happiness for Beginners, and one of the places she’s looking is in the woods.

The movie debuts Wednesday, July 26, and Kemper’s character goes on a wilderness retreat, looking for a challenge. Before the start of the SAG-AFTRA strike, she told ABC Audio that her character, “Helen with an H,” “is trying to move through a very challenging chapter in her life. She’s going through a divorce. She is not feeling good, and I think she needs something to shake up her routine.”

It’s not such a crazy idea according to Kemper, who notes, “There’s something that immediately bonds you when you’re out in the wilderness with a group. Because you’re all facing the same elements, you’re all facing the same obstacles, you know, Oh, the pot won’t boil, it’s starting to rain and you all have to figure out how to move through it. So I think that’s really powerful.”

And, for the record, this isn’t the first time Kemper has been out in nature for a job — she got her Screen Actors Guild card shooting a commercial for K-Mart.

“They were having a sale on tents and the like, I don’t know, comic relief of the commercial was a tarantula crawling on my face! A real tarantula!” she recalls. “… And I think it was to sell the idea that if you’re in a tent, a tarantula can’t get in. So buy a tent.”

The New York City-based actress chose a calmer setting for her most recent hike — the North woods of Central Park.

“It really is an oasis,” she shares. ” … In the middle of this, you know, busy, frantic, crazy city … there’s this place where you can be still.”

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Weeks after his show Rennervations earned an Emmy nomination — and of course, after his “miracle” recovery from a near-fatal snowplow accident — Jeremy Renner has another reason to smile.

He posted a photo of a bottle to his Instagram, along with the comment, “An exciting new week!!!” The Avengers actor added, “I’m so grateful for the progress I’ve made since the start of this year which allowed me to move forward with my interest in Sweet Grass Vodka.”

He adds, “Their mission is rooted in community and shared experience, which is why the second I tried it, I knew I wanted to become a part of it. I’m excited for new ventures ahead.”

According to its website, the spirit is locally sourced and grown in South Carolina and distilled by a family-owned operation.

Renner’s post got more than 56,000 likes and comments of support from his followers — even those who were self-described as living a sober life.

He’s joining the likes of stars who have made a mint with their spirits ventures, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and George Clooney.

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