Entertainment

Although he doesn’t come out and say it, Jeopardy! champion James Holzhauer is seemingly pointing out the hypocrisy from the show’s executive producer’s plans to shoot its 40th season amid the writers’ strike.

Holzhauer, the third-biggest winner in the show’s history, posted a link to Michael Davies‘ recent comments to the Inside Jeopardy podcast, in which he outlined plans to use “a combination of material that our WGA writers wrote before the strike, which is still in the database, and material that has been re-deployed from multiple seasons of the show.”

Holzhauer noted, “If you don’t have time to listen, here’s the executive summary of today’s announcement,” before paraphrasing Davies. “1:00-2:00: Jeopardy’s writers are invaluable and we couldn’t produce the show without them 2:00-15:00: Here is how we will produce the upcoming season without them.”

As previously reported, Ray Lalonde, a Jeopardy! winner who won more than $386,000 on the game show in 2022, said he’s boycotting the show’s upcoming Tournament of Champions in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America strike.

The player bristled at using “recycled material” to make up for striking writers who are unable to write new questions.

Another veteran player, Dan Wohl, agreed, replying that although he qualified for a Wild Card slot, he “will certainly never cross the picket line for [it].”

At least eight other former players were spotted at the time replying in solidarity to Lalonde’s post.

Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik walked away from Jeopardy! in May in solidarity with the WGA strikers, leaving counterpart Ken Jennings to shoot the remaining episodes of season 39.

Season 40 of Jeopardy! is set to premiere on September 11, 2023.

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Octavia Spencer says her friend and fellow Oscar winner Sandra Bullock lost her “soulmate” with the death of her romantic partner Bryan Randall to ALS.

On her Instagram, Spencer, who starred in two films with Bullock, including the sequel to Miss Congeniality, posted a split-screen picture of the couple, adding, “My heart is broken for Sandy and Bryan.”

She continued, “Sandy lost her soulmate and the world lost a talented, handsome, all around good guy! My prayers and condolences to their families. RIP Bryan Randall.”

To Randall, Spencer referenced her own late mother: “In heaven, there’s a tiny little lady up there who looks an awful lot like me bossing the Angels around. Especially Gabriel. She’ll get him to play any song you want to hear. Give her a kiss from me.”

Meanwhile, Bullock’s promise to take time off last year is getting new attention, now that it was revealed she was a caretaker to Randall until the end. Randall’s ALS diagnosis was a secret to all but a handful surrounding the Speed star, but according to Page Six, that circle included Bullock’s buddy and The Lost City co-star Channing Tatum.

While promoting that 2022 film, Bullock noted she planned to take an indeterminate amount of time away from the spotlight.

“I want to be at home,” the actress told CBS Sunday Morning.

She added, “‘Cause I was always running, I was always running to the next thing. I just want to be present and responsible for one thing.”

In that interview, Bullock was asked to rate her life from 1-10, and replied “9.2.” When asked why she replied so specifically, The Blind Side star said, “Because the other shoe will drop. It will.”

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Amid the ongoing Hollywood strikes, actor Billy Porter shared the personal toll it has taken on him revealing that he has no choice but to put his house up for sale.

“I have to sell my house,” Porter shared in a recent interview with the Evening Standard. “Because we’re on strike. And I don’t know when we’re gonna go back [to work].”

“The life of an artist, until you make f***-you money — which I haven’t made yet — is still check-to-check,” the Emmy winner continued. “I was supposed to be in a new movie, and on a new television show starting in September. None of that is happening.”

“So to the person who said ‘We’re going to starve them out until they have to sell their apartments,'” You’ve already starved me out,” the Pose actor said, referencing a controversial comment made by an unnamed studio executive. 

Porter, who is currently in London for work, added that he plans to join the picket lines when he returns home. 

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Netflix dropped the trailer to the steamy new thriller Fair Play on Tuesday. The feature stars Bridgerton‘s Phoebe Dynevor and Solo‘s Alden Ehrenreich, respectively as Emily and Luke, a couple whose forbidden office romance while working at the same cutthroat hedge fund pushes their relationship to the brink when Emily gets promoted over Luke. Fair Play premieres October 13 on Netflix…

Sylvester Stallone‘s Netflix documentary Sly has been tapped to close the Toronto Film Festival on September 17. As a Netflix title, the retrospective documentary, per the streamer, “offers an intimate look at the Oscar-nominated actor-writer-director-producer, paralleling his inspirational underdog-story with the indelible characters he has brought to life.” Sly launches in November on Netflix…

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office has revealed that former child actor Austin Majors, best known for his role as Theo Sipowicz, son of Dennis Franz‘s Detective Andy Sipowicz, on NYPD Blue, died at 27 as the result of an accidental fentanyl overdose, according to Entertainment Weekly. The case remains open. Majors’ other credits included series ER, NCIS, Desperate Housewives and How I Met Your Mother, as well as the films Treasure Planet, The Price of Air, Little Manhattan and The Ant Bully…

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Nick Viall and Natalie Joy will soon be a family of three.

In a joint Instagram post shared on Tuesday, the Bachelor alum and his fiancée announced they are expecting a baby.

“Our biggest dream came true,” they wrote in the caption alongside several photos of them embracing, and an ultrasound image.

The photos were taken by photographer Sarah Partain.

Several Bachelor Nation alums flooded the comments section of the post, including Victoria Fuller from season 24 of The Bachelor, Serena Pitt Amabile from season 25 of The Bachelor and Dean Unglert from season 13 of The Bachelorette.

“I love you guys,” Fuller wrote in the comments. “All 3 of you.”

Viall and Joy announced their engagement in January with several Instagram photos from the proposal, showing off Joy’s ring and snaps of them embracing. They also posted a video of the proposal itself and their engagement party with friends directly afterward.

Nick and Natalie were first linked in 2020, and went public the following year. Nick opened up about his relationship on an episode of The Viall Files podcast.

“It’s fun. It’s great. I’m super happy,” he said in February 2021, later sharing that the two met online. “She slid into my DMs. It was very romantic.”

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Amazon Prime Video has released the trailer to Sitting in Bars with Cake, the adaptation of the based-on-real-life book of the same name by Audrey Shulman.

Grown-ish‘s Yara Shahidi and Hellraiser‘s Odessa A’zion star in the film as, respectively, Jane and Corinne, two 20-something besties in Los Angeles. The streamer teases the movie is “full of baking, dating and drama.”

According to Amazon, “Corinne, the ultimate extrovert, convinces her shy-but-extremely-talented home baker best friend to commit to a year of baking cakes and bringing them to bars, with the goal of meeting people and developing confidence — also known as ‘cakebarring.'”

However, that year brings a “life-altering diagnosis” for Corinne, in what Prime Video calls a “moving celebration of female friendship, forging identity, and finding joy in the most unexpected places.”

Sitting in Bars with Cake, which also stars Ron Livingston and Bette Midler, debuts September 8 on Prime Video.

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The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner said Tuesday, August 8, that an accidental fentanyl overdose killed Robert De Niro’s 19-year-old grandson, Leandro De Niro Rodriguez.

ABC News has learned De Niro Rodriguez died July 2 of what the medical examiner described as the toxic effects of fentanyl, bromazolam, alprazolam, 7-aminoclonazepam, ketamine and cocaine.

The manner of death was ruled accidental.

The findings are incidentally what Leandro’s mother, De Niro’s eldest child, Drena, suspected in an Instagram post captured by TMZ.

Drena said the powerful synthetic drug was the cause of her only child’s death, noting on Tuesday, July 4, “Someone sold him fentanyl laced pills that they knew were laced yet still sold them to him so for all these people still f****** around selling and buying this s***, my son is gone forever.”

A suspect, Sophia Haley Marks, 20, was arrested weeks later at her home in Manhattan by the New York Police Department and Drug Enforcement Agency for allegedly supplying the drugs that killed De Niro Rodriguez, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

Marks was charged with one count of distributing and possessing with intent to distribute fentanyl and alprazolam, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and two counts of distributing and possessing with intent to distribute fentanyl, each of which also carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Marks is allegedly known on the streets as the “Percocet Princess” and is believed to have sold drugs to De Niro Rodriguez, the sources said.

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For the first time since his career was derailed by a pair of sexual assault allegations that surfaced against him in 2021, former Sex and the City star Chris Noth is opening up.

Noth told USA Today that he cheated on his wife, Tara Wilson. The 68-year-old actor told the paper, “I strayed on my wife, and it’s devastating to her and not a very pretty picture. What it isn’t is a crime.”

As reported, Noth was never charged for the accusations from two women, who say they linked up with him in 2004 and 2015, respectively. In a statement, he called the allegations “categorically false” and maintained “the encounters were consensual.”

To the paper, Noth expressed, “There’s nothing I can say to change anyone’s mind when you have that kind of a tidal wave. It sounds defensive. I’m not. There’s no criminal court. There’s no criminal trial. There’s nothing for me to get … my story out.”

He added, “And there’s even more absurd add-ons that are completely ridiculous, that have absolutely no basis in fact.”

Noth claimed he’s “been slimed” by the accusations, which he said could potentially result in civil lawsuits, calling it “a money train for a lot of people.”

Still, Noth, who was fired from The Equalizer show after the reports surfaced and suffered other blowback, remains determined. “I’m not going to lay down and just say it’s over,” he said.

“It’s a salacious story, but it’s just not a true one … I’m an actor. … And I have children to support. I can’t just rest on my laurels.”

He added, “So yeah, I have enough to let a year drift, but I don’t know how to gauge or judge getting back into the club, the business, because corporations are frightened.”

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After breaking records for the large-format theater chain, Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer is staying put in IMAX theaters.

ABC Audio has confirmed IMAX is extending the run of the star-packed, acclaimed movie, which has made $550 million worldwide, nearly unheard of for a three-hour historical drama. All 19 North American IMAX 70mm locations will continue screening the movie starring Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt through the end of August.

Through Monday, August 7, Oppenheimer has made $117.5 million in IMAX theaters alone, making it Nolan’s highest-grossing release in his preferred format, and the eighth highest-grossing IMAX release of all time.

Nolan has always been an innovator using IMAX film, which he has called “a portal into a level of emotion you can’t get from other formats.” He actually helped invent a black-and-white film specifically for Oppenheimer, calling the results “magical and inspiring.”

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The Australian horror pic Talk To Me, which centers on demonic possession when a person happens to shake an embalmed hand, was made for under $5 million, and it already has more than five times that, er, in hand.

The film from Danny and Michael Philippou has made more than $26 million worldwide since its release on July 28. A24, the studio behind it and Oscar winners like The Whale and Everything Everywhere All at Once, apparently have more chills from the pair up its sleeve.

The siblings tell The Hollywood Reporter that they’ve already shot a prequel, centering on the two brothers featured in the movie’s bloody open. “It’s told entirely through the perspective of mobile phones and social media, so maybe down the line we can release that,” Danny told the trade, noting also they’ve also got material…on hand for a follow-up.

Danny explains, “…while writing the first film, you can’t help but write scenes for a second film. So there’s so many scenes. The mythology was so thick, and if A24 gave us the opportunity, we wouldn’t be able to resist. I feel like we’d jump at it.”

With those box office returns, it appears A24 couldn’t resist, either.

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