Keke Palmer and Kevin Hart are teaming up on an upcoming rom-com in works at Universal Pictures titled, The Backup.
The Emmy-winning actress will star in the project and co-produce through her Big Boss production company and Hart’s Hartbeat banner, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The movie, per the outlet, follows “a player, Ben, who decides he’s finally ready to settle down with his childhood friend Alyssa — played by Palmer. Unfortunately, she reveals she’s engaged to a handsome billionaire and needs him to be her best man. This in turn sets in motion Ben going to the wedding in Maui with his boys to outshine her fiancé and win her back.”
Palmer last starred alongside Daniel Kaluuya in the 2022 Jordan Peele horror film Nope, which grossed over $171 million worldwide.
Quinta Brunson, the Emmy-winning creator of ABC’s hit sitcom Abbot Elementary, has schooled an online sniper who implied Quinta isn’t qualified to speak about public education.
“I’ll share it again. The creator, lead writer and co-producer of [Abbott Elementary] @quintabrunson is from West Philly and attended charter schools her entire education,” tweeted Jeanne Allen, the CEO of an organization called Center for Education Reform.
“She reportedly loved it at the time, heaped praise on it. Once upon a time. Guess money talks,” she noted.
Brunson, who plays a public school teacher in the show, which deals with funding and other issues affecting young Americans’ education, clapped back, “You’re wrong and bad at research. I only attended a charter for high school. My public elementary school was transitioned to charter over a decade after I left.”
She added, “I did love my high school. That school is now defunct- which happens to charters often.”
Cheekily, Brunson also added, “Loving something doesn’t mean it can’t be critiqued. Thanks for watching the show :).”
Quinta’s lesson got more than 32,000 likes and counting, but that didn’t stop Allen, who didn’t admit she was incorrect, saying instead the show creator “quibbled with the facts.”
Brunson’s fans had a field day, with one opining, “Corrected your inaccurate and misleading statements = ‘Quibbled with the facts’? You’re kind of embarrassing yourself here. You should stop.”
Another offered, “Please stop using this woman for clout. You’ve been proven wrong. Go ask for a manager or call the cops or whatever else you do for fun.”
In a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ben Affleck finally unpacked that Grammys moment between him and wife Jennifer Lopez.
Contrary to the memes, Ben insists, “I had a good time at the Grammys.”
He explained, “My wife was going, and I thought, ‘Well, there’ll be good music. It might be fun.'”
However, with Grammy show host Trevor Noah approaching them, Affleck recalls, “I was like, ‘Oh, God.’ … I leaned into her and I was like, ‘As soon they start rolling, I’m going to slide away from you and leave you sitting next to Trevor.’ She goes, ‘You better f****** not leave.'”
In the piece, Affleck also said of his apparently final turn as Bruce Wayne/Batman, “I nailed it in The Flash. For the five minutes I’m there, it’s really great.”
On the other hand, “You could teach a seminar” on what went wrong with 2017’s Justice League, which left him “with the most monstrous taste in my mouth.”
Director Zack Snyder was forced to leave the film after his daughter Autumn‘s death by suicide, and Joss Whedon entered with much-lambasted reshoots and re-edits.
Affleck called it “the worst experience I’ve ever seen in a business which is full of some s***** experiences. … And I started to drink too much. I was back at the hotel in London, it was either that or jump out the window. And I just thought, ‘This isn’t the life I want. My kids aren’t here. I’m miserable.'”
While he was going to direct what became The Batman at one point, the Oscar winner says he’s done with the genre and will “absolutely not” direct for DC Studios CEO James Gunn.
Ben adds, “I have nothing against James Gunn. Nice guy, sure he’s going to do a great job.”
L-R: Fallah, El Arbi on ‘Ms. Marvel’ set — Marvel Studios
(NOTE LANGUAGE) Filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who directed new Oscar winner Brendan Fraser in the eventually shelved Warner Bros. Batgirl film, are all smiles in a cute video in which they rap their congratulations to the star.
The pair explained the video they just posted to social media was the same one they sent to Fraser “just after” he won this year’s Best Actor trophy for his performance in The Whale.
With El Arbi beatboxing, Fallah did the rapping: “Since we were little kids/ We thought you were the sh**/ Then we made Batgirl together, couldn’t believe it.”
“I hope we make another movie back together/ Because we always say Brendan Fraser forever!” they conclude.
“So happy for my bro!!” Fallah captioned the post, adding, “And I know my rap sucks.”
As reported, Fraser was to play the pyromaniac baddie Firefly in the film, which was scrapped after it was shot, reportedly for budgetary reasons. All involved were shocked by the announcement, with Fraser telling Variety the decision was “tragic.”
“The fans really wanted to see this film made,” he said, calling lead Leslie Grace, who played Batgirl/Barbara Gordon, “a dynamo.”
HBO Max’s hit video game adaptation The Last of Us wrapped up Sunday night, and after the tense season ender, Pedro Pascal was in the mood for a laugh.
Actually, it seems he was already there before the show even premiered. To his Instagram, Pascal shared a series of funny behind-the-scenes shots, including pics of him and co-star Bella Ramsey laughing hysterically, and a blooper from a scene with her.
The latter has Pascal’s Joel trying to encourage Ramsey’s Ellie on their arduous post-apocalyptic hike through the United States. But as Joel pontificates, Pedro apparently loses his train of thought and runs out of things to say — and then doubles over laughing.
One commenter suggested it was like a famous scene from The Office, when Steve Carell‘s Michael Scott confusingly attempts to explain his managerial prowess.
Pascal said of the clip, “Beldro on the hill,” using the nickname people have given their two characters.
The actor added, “To #TheLastofUs cast, creators, and crew. I would stay alive for any of you. Apocalypse level gratitude.”
Just as Pedro says in the clip, he and Ramsey will indeed “keep going” … into a second season.
Steven DeKnight, a producer with credits including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Netflix’s Daredevil, is walking back comments he made last week regarding Wednesday star Jenna Ortega.
As reported, Ortega appeared on Dax Shepard‘s Armchair Expert podcast and explained she was “protective” of her title character, Wednesday Addams, to the point of being “almost unprofessional” on the set of the Netflix hit when it came to changing lines and questioning the character’s motives in the script. “I don’t think I’ve ever had to put my foot down more on a set in a way that I had to on Wednesday,” she said in part.
DeKnight took to Twitter last Tuesday to call the comments “beyond entitled and toxic.” He added, “I love her work, but life’s too short to deal with people like this in the business.”
He also tweeted, “She’s young, so maybe she doesn’t know any better (but she should). She should also ask herself how she would feel if the showrunners gave an interview and talked about how difficult she was.”
However, on Wednesday, DeKnight backpedaled, explaining of Jenna in part, “She’s an amazing talent. It was just an unfortunate situation to expose creative differences publicly, and also I’ll admit that writers are on edge because of the impending strike, myself included. A perfect storm.”
He also expressed “over and over” that Ortega is “fantastic,” adding of his comments, “It was an unfortunate gaffe to say that publicly. We’ve all had them. Learning experience for everyone. Me included.”
As one might have guessed, Jenna’s legions of fans didn’t accept the quasi apology, with many expressing sentiments similar to this user‘s: “No, you attacked her for speaking her mind…But you keep defending your attack on a young, woman, of color.”
If you haven’t seen the Academy Award film Tár — or even if you have — you might have been convinced Oscar nominee Cate Blanchett was portraying Lydia Tár, a real-life legendarily headstrong composer.
The thing is, Tár wasn’t a real person.
But either way, Lydia Tár is no more, according to a fake but popular Twitter account that was created in her name.
LydiaTarReal, which describes the character as an “EGOT winner, Chief Conductor of Berliner Philharmoniker, and U-Haul Lesbian,” amassed more than 26,000 followers on the social media service, despite the fact that she’s not actually real, during the movie’s road to the Oscars.
However, not only did the movie not win any of the six Oscars for which it was nominated, according to her posts on the account, Lydia took a “light tumble” down the stairs at the awards show — complete with a terribly Photoshopped picture of the incident.
Sadly, the account informed followers on Monday that this completely fictitious person succumbed to her injuries. “It is with a heavy heart that we share that Lydia Tár, world-renowned conductor and composer, died last night after falling down the steps of the Dolby Theater,” a memoriam tweet explained.
Many of the followers were in on the joke and went along with it. For example, Saturday Night Live‘s Aristotle Atharioffered, “I was there, I gave her cpr. I’m not good at cpr.”
That said, others clearly did not.
One opined, “Wasn’t there just some movie about her? And just days after Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell also fell down some stairs? This is surreal. This is a loss to those who knew and admired her.”
Another expressed, “…why are so many making fun of her death?”
(NOTE CONTENT)Jamie Lee Curtis has been on a post-Oscars win high, posting all sorts of photos from and about last Sunday’s awards show, but one recent snap really should get the blue ribbon.
On Wednesday, Curtis posted a display of three trophies she won for Everything Everywhere All at Once: On the left, her Best Supporting Actress Academy Award; on the right, her shared cast Screen Actors Guild trophy for the film, and in the center, well, is a trophy that her IRS agent character, Diedre Beaubeirdre, earned in the film: “Auditor of the Month.”
However, it’s a cheeky nod, as that honor — which comes into play in a key scene in the film — is a sex toy, mounted as a trophy.
“OK I’LL STOP!” Curtis said, referencing all of her awards-related photos, calling the trophy triple-play, “The TOTALLY unexpected EVERYTHING TRIFECTA of 2023!”
Funnily enough, while plenty of her followers got the joke, many didn’t, apparently not having seen the award-magnet multiverse movie.
One asked, “Who designed the one in the middle?” Another queried, “I have so many questions.”
Peacock has ordered Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, based on the Emmy-winning USA mystery comedy-drama series starring The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s Tony Shaloub as a brilliant San Francisco detective with OCD. Shaloub is set to return for the reboot, along with original series cast members Ted Levine, Traylor Howard, Jason Gray-Stanford, Melora Hardin and Hector Elizondo. The film, per the streamer, follows Monk as he “returns to solve one last, very personal case involving his beloved stepdaughter Molly, a journalist preparing for her wedding.” Monk launched in 2002 and ran for eight seasons through 2009…
On the heels of his Animated Feature Oscar win for Pinocchio, Guillermo del Toro is already planning his next project, the live-action film Frankenstein at Netflix. Sources tell Deadline that Andrew Garfield, Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth are in early talks to star, though del Toro is still working on the script and no formal offers have been given to any actors. Details of the movie have not been revealed…
CBS on Wednesday released a 10-second teaser trailer for Tracker,Justin Hartley‘s first post-This Is Us series regular TV role. The series, formerly titled The Never Game, features Hartley as “a lone-wolf survivalist Colter Shaw, who roams the country as a ‘reward seeker,’ using his expert tracking skills to help private citizens and law enforcement solve all manner of mysteries, while contending with his own fractured family,” according to the network. Tracker is slated to air in the 2023-2024 broadcast season…
Varietyreports Peacock has set May 4 as the premiere date for Bupkis, the eight-episode series starring Pete Davidson, Joe Pesci and Edie Falco. Davidson writes, executive-produces and stars in the series, which is a fictionalized version of his life. Falco plays his mom and Pesci portrays his grandfather. Bupkis will also include an array of guest stars, including Charlie Day, Brad Garrett, Ray Romano and Davidson’s former Saturday Night Live cast mate, Kenan Thompson…
Jeremy Renner is sharing the adorable note his nephew wrote to him as he continues to recover from a snow plow accident.
Taking to Instagram Stories Wednesday, the actor shared a screenshot of the note which read: “I am very lucky because my uncle is hawk eye (witch is 1 of the Avengers). I am also very lucky that my uncle is alive from his accident.”
The Avengers star, 52, responded, “Love my little man, Bless you Auggie.”
In the next story, he shared a snapshot of two stuffed animals and captioned it, “my inside feelings.”
The posts come just months after Renner was involved in a New Year’s Day snow plow accident where he broke more than 30 bones.
