Entertainment

The judges’ table remains unchanged for the upcoming 22nd season of American Idol, which will mark its seventh year on ABC.

Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan are all back for the new season, which will start in the spring of 2024. Returning as host is Ryan Seacrest, despite the fact that he’s also taking over as host of Wheel of Fortune that year.

Auditions will start August 2 with Idol Across America, where aspiring contestants can sing for an American Idol producer no matter where they live in the world. Contestants will also be given the chance to audition under their genre for the first time. The August 2 audition includes “First 700,” where the first 700 hopefuls can sign up to grab a VIP spot before anyone else.

You can get the full details on how to sign up and how to register to virtually audition in front of an American Idol producer at americanidol.com/auditions. You must be at least 15 years old.

Here’s the Idol Across America schedule: 

First 700 VIP Event (Aug 2)

Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina (Aug 4)

Florida, Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia (Aug 7)

Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas (Aug 9)

Open Call: Singer-Songwriters (Aug 11)

Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Washington (Aug 14)

Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi ( Aug 16)

Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maine, New Hampshire (Aug 18)

Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming (Aug 21)

Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania (Aug 23)

Open Call: Country & Rock (Aug 25)

Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin (Aug 28)

The South: Open Call Pt. 1 (Aug 30)

Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Washington D.C. , Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts (Sep 6)

Open Call: Pop, R&B & Soul (Sep 8)

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Award-winning comedian Dave Chappelle has announced 12 fall dates for his Dave Chappelle Live stand-up tour.

Two back-to-back performances at New York City’s Madison Square Garden will kick off the run starting Tuesday, August 22.

The tour resumes on Friday, September 8, at Cleveland, Ohio’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, followed by dates in Detroit, Michigan; Lexington, Kentucky and Indianapolis, Indiana, before wrapping Wednesday, October 4 in Chicago, Illinois.

Tickets for the Live Nation-produced show will be available starting with local presales on Wednesday, July 26, with general sales set for Thursday, July 27, at 10 a.m. local time at Ticketmaster.com.

The show’s producers note that, as is Dave’s policy, no cellphones, cameras or recording devices will be allowed while he is onstage. “Anyone caught with a cellphone in the venue will be immediately ejected,” Live Nation says, noting patrons will be given Yondr pouches to stow their stuff, which will be unlocked at the end of the show.

In the meantime, Dave is still on the road, with an upcoming date set for Ontario, Canada’s Toyota Arena on August 2.

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Model and Suicide Squad actress Cara Delevingne opened up to Elle UK about her journey to sobriety, saying quitting drinking has made her “stable” and “calmer.”

It has been “worth every second,” she expresses, admitting her nine months sober hasn’t been easy. “It hasn’t, but there have never been moments when I’m like, ‘This isn’t worth it.'”

The 30-year-old explains she checked into rehab after seeing paparazzi photos of herself at the Burning Man festival back in September of last year. The coverage noted her “disheveled” appearance, which led sources to tell outlets like the Daily Mail that her friends were “concerned” for her. 

To Elle UK, Cara calls the coverage a “reality check” that led her to choose sobriety after she was able through rehab “To disappear and come back for air.”

Cara admits, “For a long time, I felt like I was hiding a lot from people who looked up to me. I finally feel as though I can be free and myself, fully,” which included going public about her struggles with substances and with her own mental health — struggles shared by her mother, Pandora.

Despite her successes in modeling, acting and social media, Delevigne continues, “It didn’t feel real. I didn’t feel like I deserved it…I was still stuck in this mindset of not being good enough.”

The 30-year-old adds, “I was doing the best I could…Inside, I felt very different to how I looked.”

The help of Alcoholics Anonymous, a sober sponsor and “instrumental” friends who “have been down this path before” — as well as her relationship with her girlfriend, musician Leah Mason — “have made me so happy and comfortable with who I am,” Cara says.

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Dwayne Johnson lent his support to the SAG-AFTRA strike with a “historic” donation for union members who are currently out of work.

The seven-figure donation to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s relief fund — the most ever received from one individual at one time — “is going to help thousands of actors keep food on their table, and keep their kids safe, and keep their cars running,” the foundation’s executive director, Cyd Wilson, told Variety.

“We rely on donations and grants to provide services — we have been very fortunate that we raised enough money to be able to cover all of our programs,” Wilson explains. “But when we hit a crisis like this and we’re going to spend millions and millions of dollars in financial assistance, this is when we need our high profile talent who can afford it, who are in a situation to help others.”

The national board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, has been on strike since July 14. Among the issues for both SAG-AFTRA and WGA members is how streaming has lessened payments for their work, and the encroachment of AI in the entertainment industry.

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Results are in for the cause of death for Julian Sands, the British actor who was found dead in June near Mt. Baldy, CA after he went missing in January. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Dept tells ABC News his death has been ruled “undetermined.” The cause was due to the condition of his body, and no other factors leading to his death were found by the coroner. This will be the final determination, which ABC News is told is not uncommon after a body has been in the elements for so many months…

Hallmark Channel’s longest-running scripted series, When Calls the Heart, is set to continue filming after getting an interim agreement by SAG-AFTRA, according to Deadline. This opens the door for season 11 of the series to film ahead of its 10th season premiere on July 30. The family drama joins a number of TV series landing interim agreements from the union following similar arrangements for Apple’s Tehran and faith-based series The Chosen…

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is set to rise again on DVD after being completely deleted from Paramount+. Entertainment Weekly reports the prequel to the classic 1978 film musical Grease is already available on digital and a DVD release, reportedly including over 30 minutes of special features, will be rolled out on November 7. Rise of the Pink Ladies was one of four original series canceled by the streamer and recently yanked from its roster…

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It was a week of fun dates and tough eliminations on Monday’s episode of The Bachelorette, as Charity tried to gain some clarity before deciding on which four of her six remaining suitors’ families she’ll meet at next week’s hometowns.

A horse and buggy ride through the city ended with Charity asking Joey a lot of “deep questions” about his ability to navigate an interracial relationship, recalling a previous relationship and her partner’s “lack of awareness” and “ignorance” of the situation. She was ultimately satisfied with Joey’s assurance that while it’s something he wouldn’t be able to learn until they tried “to conquer that together,” he never wanted her to doubt that he “could be that kind of person” for her. After offering him the date rose, he told Charity that he was falling in love with her. In a confessional, Charity said she felt the same.

A two-on-one date with Sean and Tanner didn’t go as well. Charity, trying “gauge between someone who could be a boyfriend versus someone who could be a husband,” didn’t find the clarity she needed from either of them and left without giving out a rose. Both were devastated, but Sean took it especially hard, professing his love for her in a confessional. That led him to pay Charity a visit in her hotel suite that confirmed the worst — that she didn’t think she could “get there” with him.

A final group date saw Tanner losing out to Aaron and Xavier, who both got roses.

The final rose went to Dotun, who opened up about his fears regarding relationships and love and that his time with Charity has taught him to put those fears aside and listen to his heart, which was telling him he is falling in love with her. Charity, in a confessional, declared that Dotun felt like that person she could “navigate her life with.”

Here are the four men whose families Charity will meet:

Aaron B., 29, a software salesman from San Diego, Calif.
Dotun, 30, an integrative medicine specialist from Brooklyn, N.Y.
Joseph “Joey,” 27, a tennis pro from Lawai, Hawaii.
Xavier, 27, a biomedical scientist from Carrboro, N.C.

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On Monday, July 24, Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television dropped the teaser trailer to its The Boys spinoff Gen V.

The series, which debuts globally on Friday, September 29, centers on the students of Godolkin University, the institution run by Vought International, the company who created the superhero team The Seven.

The show’s title refers to Compound V, the chemical that Vought secretly injected into babies, imbuing them with superpowers they grew up to think were God-given.

However, Gen V centers on the training of the first generation of superheroes to know about the chemical, after the lid was blown off the experimentation in the events of The Boys.

“These young, competitive heroes put their physical and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the school’s highly coveted top ranking,” Amazon teases. “They quickly come to learn that ambition comes with sacrifice, and the difference between right and wrong is not as clear as they once believed. When the university’s dark secrets come to light, the students must come to grips with what type of heroes they are going to become.”

Billed as a “safe space” for the students to “thrive,” the teaser shows it’s anything but with the cutthroat rivalries and cliques of any elite school — except Yale and Harvard don’t have super-powered students.

The series cast includes Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo and Patrick Schwarzenegger, among others.

Gen V also features recurring guest stars Clancy Brown and Jason Ritter and appearances from The Boys‘ Jessie T. Usher (Reggie Franklin/A-Train), Claudia Doumit (Victoria Neumann) and Colby Minifie (Ashley Barrett).

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It seems that moviegoers were just waiting for The Flash to come to streaming.

Despite early positive word of mouth, the movie starring embattled actor Ezra Miller as the Scarlet Speedster stumbled in theaters, and the expensive film now ranks as one of the worst-performing superhero movies ever made. 

That said, the movie that also features Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck debuted at the top of the heap in its first week available for rent and purchase on Fandango’s streaming service Vudu. 

Coming in second was Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, with an underperforming animated newcomer to the chart, and Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, debuting in third for the week July 17 through July 23.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Fast X hung tough, finishing off last week in fourth and fifth places, respectively. GOTG Vol. 3 hit digital July 7, while the 10th Fast and the Furious film was released about a month prior.

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Rapper/actor Ice Cube is fly — literally — in a just-released clip from the upcoming animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.

The clip shows a surprised Donatello, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Leonardo meeting Cube’s character, a man-sized fly called, well, Superfly.

“What! Y’all some little tortoises, huh?” Superfly says, “Y’all adorable, man!”

Superfly explains that the radioactive ooze that spilled into a sewer and turned four turtles into anthropomorphic heroes in a half shell also made him. “My dad, Baxter Stockman dumped the ooze down the drain, baby! So technically, we cousins!” he says.

In the film, Nicolas Cantu voices Leonardo; Brady Moon Raphael; Shamon Brown Jr. Michelangelo and Micah Abbey Donatello.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem also stars the voices of producer Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Post Malone, John Cena, The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri, Giancarlo Esposito and Jackie Chan.

The turtles swing into theaters August 2 from Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies.

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With Barbie and Oppenheimer racking up an explosive weekend at the box office — with a combined debut of more than $300 million in the U.S. alone — theater chain AMC and large format chain IMAX are thanking fans and the filmmakers alike.

The movies respectively debuted to more than $337 million and $147 million worldwide.

AMC reports some 7.8 million Americans caught a movie this weekend, with the viewership setting a new post-pandemic single-day attendance record on Saturday, July 22. That was AMC’s busiest day since July 2019, the company trumpeted. 

Moreover “moviegoers came hungry,” AMC explains, recording its second-highest-ever tally for food and beverages sold at its theaters in the company’s 103-year-old history — second only to the Saturday of Avengers: Endgame‘s opening weekend in 2019. 

Also of note, through Sunday evening, more than 87,000 members of AMC Stubs movie club booked themselves the Barbenheimer double-feature.

AMC Chairman/CEO Adam Aron commented, “…AMC sends an enormous thank you and congratulations to Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and the entire team at [Barbie producers] Warner Bros., and to Christopher Nolan and the [Oppenheimer] team at Universal Pictures.”

Aron explained the record weekend would not have been possible without the “on-going solid performances” of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and the child trafficking thriller phenomenon Sound of Freedom.

Oppenheimer broke several records for IMAX theaters as well. 

The movie starring Cillian Murphy set a July earnings record for the format, earning $35 million from 740 IMAX screens worldwide. 

IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond commented, “Around the world, we’ve seen sellouts at 4:00 a.m. shows and people travelling hours across borders to see Oppenheimer in IMAX 70mm — this is a phenomenon beyond compare in IMAX and we’re just getting started.”

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