Entertainment

John Wick: Chapter 4 blew away the competition at the North American box office, opening with an estimated $73.5 million. The latest chapter in the action series, led by Keanu Reeves, recorded a franchise-best debut, topping the previous series high of $56.8 million set by John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.

Internationally, John Wick: Chapter 4 collected an estimated $64 million, bringing its global tally to $137.5 million.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods dipped to second place, with an estimated $9.7 million, bringing its current domestic total to $46 million.

Third place belonged to Scream VI, delivering an estimated $8.4 million. The latest installment in the slasher franchise has grossed $89.8 million in North America and another $49.4 million internationally after three weeks.

Creed III landed in fourth place with an estimated $8.36 million at the domestic box office, bringing its four-week tally to $140.8 million. The third Creed movie added another $105 million at the international box office for a global haul of $245.8 million..

Rounding out the top five was the prehistoric thriller 65, grabbing an estimated $3.2 million in its third week of release. Its domestic tally now stands at $27.8 million.

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Following his arrest in an alleged domestic assault incident Saturday, Jonathan Majors’ attorney released a statement denying allegations of wrongdoing.

“Jonathan Majors is completely innocent … We are quickly gathering and presenting evidence to the District Attorney with the expectation that all charges will be dropped imminently,” Priya Chaudhry, Majors’ attorney, said in a statement Sunday.

Chaudhry said the evidence includes video footage from the vehicle where the alleged assault occurred, witness testimony from the driver and others who both saw and heard the alleged incident, “and most importantly, two written statements from the woman recanting these allegations.”

“The NYPD is required to make an arrest in these situations, and this is the only reason Mr. Majors was arrested. We expect these charges to be dropped soon,” Chaudhry’s statement said.

Police officers initially responded to a 911 call Majors made himself, purportedly over concerns about his girlfriend, with whom he lives in a penthouse apartment in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, police sources told ABC News.

The girlfriend, whose name was not released, told officers she and Majors were in a taxi on their way home from a bar in Brooklyn when, she alleged, he physically attacked her, the sources said.

Majors was charged with two misdemeanor counts of third-degree assault, second-degree aggravated harassment, second-degree harassment and third-degree attempted assault.

He appeared briefly in court, and a judge released him on his own recognizance. His next court date is May 8.

Repercussions over the Creed III actor’s arrest have already started. The U.S. Army Enterprise Marketing Office announced Sunday that it is pulling two advertisements Majors appears in as part of the army’s “Be All You Can Be” recruitment campaign.

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Jonathan Majors was arrested Saturday following an alleged domestic dispute in New York City, ABC News has confirmed.

According to a statement from an NYPD spokesperson, a 911 call was made from a Chelsea apartment Saturday morning. The 30-year-old female victim told police she had been assaulted. Police said the victim “sustained minor injuries to her head and neck and was removed to an area hospital in stable condition.”

Majors was taken into custody on charges of strangulation, assault and harassment.

A representative for the 33-year-old actor told The Hollywood Reporter that Majors “has done nothing wrong.”  “We look forward to clearing his name and clearing this up,” the rep said.

THR reports Majors is no longer in police custody.

Majors most recently appeared in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Creed III.

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Gwyneth Paltrow has taken the stand in the civil trial for a ski accident that occurred on February 26, 2016.

Terry Sanderson, a retired optometrist, filed a lawsuit in January 2019 accusing Paltrow of crashing into him on the slopes at Deer Valley Ski Resort in Utah, claiming he was left “seriously injured” as a result.

Sanderson’s original complaint claims that Paltrow allegedly “skied out of control and hit the back of Terry Sanderson, another skier, who was downhill, knocking him down hard, knocking him out, and causing a brain injury, four broken ribs and other serious injuries.”

In an amended complaint filed in February 2019, Sanderson changed the value of damages he is seeking in the lawsuit from $3.1 million to $300,000.

Paltrow filed a countersuit in which she claimed it was Sanderson who crashed into her, delivering a “full ‘body blow'” when he “plowed into her back.”

The award-winning actress called Sanderson’s lawsuit an “attempt to exploit her celebrity and wealth.”

Paltrow said her injuries were “relatively minor” and that she is only seeking “symbolic damages” of $1 plus costs for lawyers fees from Sanderson for defending herself against “this meritless claim.”

So far in the trial, the jury has heard opening remarks from both Paltrow’s and Sanderson’s attorneys, as well as testimony from a slew of doctors and a person Sanderson’s defense claims is the sole witness of the crash.

Sanderson’s ex-girlfriend and two of his daughters have also taken the stand, as did the brother of Sanderson’s son-in-law.

Paltrow’s attorney said the Goop CEO’s husband, Brad Falchuk, who was her boyfriend at the time of the accident, and her two children, daughter Apple and son Moses, will take the stand in the trial.

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Fans are apparently ready for John Wick to be back. The fourth chapter of the hit franchise has already broken a series record, and it only officially hit theaters on Friday.

Variety reports John Wick: Chapter 4 snagged some $8.9 million in sneak preview ticket sales in this country on Thursday alone.

By comparison, the last film in the series, Chapter 3: Parabellum, earned $5.9 million in its domestic sneaks, John Wick 2 earned $2.2 million and the original made $950,000 during its Thursday night screenings, according to the trade.

The latest installment’s huge sneaks have put Keanu Reeves‘ latest adventure as Baba Yaga on track for not only a record opening for the series, but an impressive weekend open overall, with an expected take of up to $70 million.

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Director-writer Adam McKay, who recently called the shots on Netflix’s environmental disaster movie Don’t Look Up, starring Oscar winners Leo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, has lined up some major stars for his next big comedy.

Deadline reports Oscar-nominated screenwriter McKay has netted Robert Downey Jr., The Batman‘s Robert Pattinson, Till‘s Danielle Deadwyler, and Oscar winners Amy Adams and Forest Whitaker for a dark comedy centering on a serial killer.

The trade reports Average Height, Average Build will have Pattinson playing a killer who turns to a Washington DC lobbyist, played by Adams, in an effort to help change the laws so that he could literally get away with murder.

Deadline says Downey will play a retired cop who still wants to bring the killer to justice. The film will reportedly start production later this year, bound for either theaters or streaming.

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Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth are divorcing after 12 years of marriage.

The Legally Blonde actress took to Instagram on Friday, March 24, to share a joint statement from herself and Toth announcing the split, which comes days before their 12th anniversary on March 26.

“We have some personal news to share,” the statement began. “It is with a great deal of care and consideration that we have made the difficult decision to divorce. We have enjoyed so many wonderful years together and are moving forward with deep love, kindness, and mutual respect for everything we have created together.

“Our biggest priority is our son and our entire family as we navigate this next chapter,” the statement continued. “These matters are never easy and are extremely personal. We truly appreciate everyone’s respect for our family’s privacy at this time.”

Witherspoon and Toth married in March 2011 and share son Tennessee, who turned 10 last year.

Prior to Toth, Witherspoon was married to her Cruel Intentions co-star Ryan Phillippe from 1999 to 2008. She and Phillippe share two children, daughter Ava, 23, and son Deacon, 19.

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Oscar-winning director James Cameron knows a thing or two about artificial intelligence — after all, he conceived of Skynet, the AI system that tried to end humanity in the Terminator films.

However, in real life, he tells Sean Hayes, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman‘s SmartLess podcast that we also have something to fear about the technology.

“I’m not afraid but I’m certainly pretty concerned about the potential of misuse of AI,” the Avatar director said. “I think AI can be pretty great. I think it could also literally be the end of the world.”

He agreed that experts in the field “start laughing” at him when he brings it up, given his Terminator bona fides, but he clarifies, “The point is that no technology has ever not been weaponized.”

Cameron asks, “And do we really want to be fighting something smarter than us that isn’t us? On our own world? I don’t think so.”

He also added, “Look, an AI could have taken over the world and already be manipulating it but we just don’t know because it would have total control over all the media and everything. And what better explanation is there for how absurd everything is right now?” he said. “Because nothing makes a damn bit of sense to me, I don’t know about you guys,” he said to his hosts.

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On Sunday, Kiefer Sutherland returns to TV with Paramount+’s new thriller series Rabbit Hole. The 24 veteran executive produces and stars as John Weir, an expert in corporate espionage, who takes on a routine job that lands him in the middle of a deadly conspiracy. 

The show touches on some ripped-from-the-headlines topics, from fragile digital banking systems to an omnipresent security state and deepfake tech. Sutherland tells ABC Audio, “It’s alarming. But the truth is we’re in the middle of a technological revolution … our capabilities of manipulating information, manipulating other people’s images and voice imaging is changing dynamically by the week.”

He adds, “And, you know, and some of it can be used for good and some of it can be used for bad. We do a bit of both in the context of our show.”

His character is a master of this bleeding edge tech and its uses, but Sutherland explains even he gets in over his head. “The duality of that is what really attracted me to the character. He’s incredibly smart, easy, he’s sophisticated, he’s witty … he’s got a sense of humor, but he’s also incredibly vulnerable.”

Kiefer continues, “With every gift comes, you know, your Achilles heel. And he has a … finite gift with numbers where he can use numbers very fast in his brain to predict probabilities and likely outcomes. But if he runs into a situation that’s so complicated that he can’t round out that number, he starts to go down what we call the proverbial rabbit hole and starts to emotionally come undone.” 

The series kicks off Sunday night on Paramount+. 

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The new series Up Here, out Friday on Hulu, follows a couple working through their anxieties in late ‘90s New York City. Mae Whitman stars as a writer who can’t get out of her own head, and she tells ABC Audio that even though she’s wanted to do a musical for a while, the thought of it also scared her.

“I’m at that point now where I’ve been lucky enough to do so many different things that it’s exciting to me to do something I haven’t done and that really terrifies me,” Whitman says. “This is genuinely the most terrifying thing I could ever possibly imagine. And I was like, well, if I’m scared of it, I should probably make myself try at least.”

Whitman says it was her Parenthood co-star Lauren Graham who convinced her to do the show.

“She slapped me around for three hours at a sushi restaurant, and basically forced me to go and was there for me every step along the way. I honestly don’t think I would have been able to do this without her,” Whitman said. “There were times where I was like, W.W.L.D. – what would Lauren do?”

Carlos Valdes stars as the other half of the show’s main romance, and says he found inspiration in the tone and execution of the FX series Fosse/Verdon.

Whitman, however, found her inspiration on the stage. She moved to New York to film Up Here and was able to catch the Tony Award-winning A Strange Loop before it left Broadway.

“I cried, I laughed, I screamed. It was incredible,” Whitman says. “The story is this person grappling with these insecurities in his head. And I was kind of like, ‘Wow, this is totally kismet. I can draw a lot of inspiration from this.’”

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