Entertainment

While it’s not great Prince Harry and Meghan were evicted from Frogmore Cottage by his dad, King Charles, Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood reportedly thinks the so-called runaway royal is “lucky” to be living in this day and age — or at least not in Game of Thrones.

In an interview with The Times of London, Atwood is described as “an admirer of Game of Thrones” and speculated a Westeros-worthy scenario for the self-described “spare” heir. She suggested that had he been living at a time when the monarchy still held absolute power, he “probably would have been murdered by somebody lower down in the food chain to get him out the way.'”

It was an off-handed comment, to be sure — and one not without historical precedent — but of course Harry fans weren’t having it on the internet.

“It’s so disheartening to discover some female authors that I revered after reading their books or using them to teach Literature are actually very nasty people,” read one comment found by The Mirror.

It has been reported that the explosive accusations against the royal family in Harry’s memoir, Spare, led to his eviction from the residence left to him in his grandma Queen Elizabeth II‘s will. “The King felt without a doubt it crossed a line – it was the ultimate act of disrespect,” The Mirror has reported, quoting an anonymous source.

Incidentally, disgraced royal Prince Andrew, who became one of the only people implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal, is apparently moving into the spacious residence.

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Angela Bassett is on the Road to the Oscars.

With the March 12 show now less than a week away, the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star is up for Best Supporting Actress. She shared with ABC Audio what the biggest obstacle was getting to this moment. Turns out it’s all self-imposed and mental.

“What comes to mind is always staying positive,” the award-winning actress said. “Staying positive, staying grateful, humble. And yeah, that’s it.”

“Because we know it’s an uphill,” she added. “We don’t know what the future holds. We know what our dreams may be, our hopes and our dreams. And sometimes those things match up and sometimes they don’t. Or sometimes it just takes a moment.”

Like most things, staying positive is easier said than done. So what’s Bassett’s advice for staying in a positive state of mind?

“Surround yourself with people who encourage you and support you and love you,” she said. “Also, first and foremost, love and support yourself.”

Although the Oscars are quickly approaching, Bassett admitted that she’s trying not to think about it. Instead she’s trying to take it one day at a time.

“I just think about being present in the moment, staying grounded and humble, not getting too far ahead of myself, you know, not thinking about that day today, but thinking about this day and how I can just stay chill,” the Marvel star expressed. “[Do] what I can do to deposit something in my, in my spirit and in my life that will just add and not subtract.” 

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

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On Monday, Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie were back in their anchor chairs at Today, with the former describing a hospital stay for her 3-year-old daughter, Hope, was the reason she had been MIA for weeks.

“My youngest, Hope, was in the ICU for a few days and in the hospital for more than a week,” Kotb revealed at the show’s open, adding, I’m so grateful she’s home. I was waiting for that day to come…And we are watching her closely. I am just so happy.”

Getting emotional, Kotb also said, “You know what I realized: When your child is ill, the amount of gratitude you can have for people who helped you out.”

“I’m grateful for the doctors and the nurses,” she explained, adding to Guthrie, “I’m grateful to my family and to friends like you who were there every single day.”

Guthrie also had been absent recently after testing positive for COVID-19.

Last week, it was revealed that a “family health matter” had kept Kotb away from the anchor desk.

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Everything Everywhere All at Once dominated at this year’s Independent Spirit Awards, grabbing seven of the eight awards for which it was nominated, including Best Feature; Best Screenplay: John Patton Ford; Best Director: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert; Best Lead Performance: Michelle Yeoh; Best Supporting Performance: Ke Huy Quan; and Best Breakthrough Performance: Stephanie Hsu. Todd Field’s Tár also won for Best Cinematography. On the TV side, The Bear won for Best Scripted Series, and Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series honors went to Ayo Edebiri. Abbott Elementary‘s Quinta Brunson won Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series honors. The full list of winners can be found at FilmIndependent.org…

Rachael Ray is ending her daytime talk show after 17 seasons. A former Food Network star and frequent guest on Oprah Winfrey‘s talk show, Ray launched her own syndicated chat show in 2006, earning high ratings for 15 years, while winning the Daytime Emmy for best talk show in 2008, 2009 and 2019. Production on Rachael Ray is expected to end by early May. Episodes will remain on the air through the end of the summer. In May, Ray will be inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame…

Ted Donaldson, who starred as Bud Anderson on the original radio version of Father Knows Best opposite Robert Young and as Neely Nolan in Elia Kazan‘s directorial debut — the beloved family drama A Tree Grows in Brooklyn — died Wednesday of complications from a fall in his Echo Park apartment in January, his friend Thomas Bruno tells The Hollywood Reporter. He was 89. Donaldson was offered the Bud Anderson role on CBS’ TV adaptation of Father Knows Best, but turned it down. Billy Gray played Bud for six seasons on the TV show…

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Creed III topped the domestic box office with an estimated $58.7 million opening weekend — well above its projected $40 million take and $23 million more than Creed II‘s 2018 opening gross. Overseas, the movie — starring Michael B. Jordan in his feature directorial debut, along with Tessa Thompson, and Jonathan Majors — grabbed an additional $41.8 million internationally, for a total of $100.4 million worldwide.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — the #1 film in North America for two weeks running, slipped to second place in its third week of release, delivering an estimated $12 million. So far, the film has collected $186 million domestically, outpacing the original Ant-Man, which ended its theatrical run with $180 million domestically, and closing in on the 2018 sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp, which ended up with $216 million. Globally, the film has grossed $420 million to date.

Cocaine Bear grabbed third place with an estimated $11 million, bringing its two-week domestic tally to $41 million. The comedy-horror film has collected $10 million overseas, for a worldwide total of $52 million.

The first of this week’s new major releases, the Japanese anime film Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba: To the Swordsmith Village, opened with an estimated $10.1 million for a fourth-place finish.

Jesus Revolution, the faith-based drama starring Kelsey Grammer, rounded out the top five, debuting with an estimated $8.3 million. Its two-week North American total stands at $30.5 million

The second of this week’s two major releases, the Guy Ritchie action flick Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, fell short of expectations, opening with an estimated $3.1 million, good for a seventh-place finish.

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Mel Brooks fans have been waiting over 40 years for this — the sequel to History of the World Part 1. Part 2 starts streaming Monday on Hulu.

It’s a series this time around, with Wanda Sykes, Ike Barinholtz, and Nick Kroll as executive producers, with some help from Brooks himself, Barinholtz tells ABC Audio.

“He’s a national treasure who’s 96, and we want to make sure that we’re not making him too exhausted. But he would always be there to jump on a zoom and hear a pitch or do a table read. And he’s in the show,” he explains. “…And every time you see him, to quote Wanda, his face pop up on your screen you’re just like, you look around like, is anyone else watching this? Like, this is crazy.”

Barinholtz says Brooks was one of the biggest influences on his young comedy brain, crediting the comedy legend for introducing him to the R-rated comedies he’s grown to love.

“It was because of Mel in the ’70s that I watched movies in the ’80s that weren’t not just Mel’s, but also Trading Places and Vacation and Coming to America and then in the ’90s with the Farrelly brothers and then in the 2000s with… movies like Bridesmaids and Anchorman and stuff,” he recalls. “…And Mel started that s***.”

Sykes agrees, noting, “Blazing Saddles was like my favorite movie, watched it so many times.”

“I think what, Mel teaches us is that you can be hella silly and you can also be crass, but you can also say something,” she continues. “You know, I love how he went after whoever was in charge. He was always bringing down the big guy.”

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Actor Tom Sizemore, who appeared in classic films including Heat, Saving Private Ryan, and Black Hawk Down, has died, after suffering a brain aneurysm at his Los Angeles home on February 18. 

The actor was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital Burbank and listed in critical condition, but according to his manager Charles Lago on February 27, the actor remained in critical condition and in a coma ever since he arrived. Lago’s update explained, “doctors informed his family that there is no further hope and have recommended end of life decision. The family is now deciding end of life matters.”

Sizemore passed peacefully in his sleep at St. Joseph’s with his twin sons and his brother Paul by his side. There will be a private cremation service for the family, with a larger celebration of life event planned in a few weeks, according to Lago.

The versatile character actor was arguably as famous for his off-screen problems as he was for the major films in which he starred. Sizemore battled addiction since he was 15, and over the years ended up running afoul of the law multiple times because of it. 

Sizemore also made headlines for his tumultuous relationship with “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss, with whom he appeared on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew in 2010, and who accused him of assault in 2003.

In February of 2017, he pleaded no contest to assaulting his girlfriend at the time, but his rap sheet also included arrests of suspected battery of another woman in 2009 and 2011, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In 2019, he was arrested in Burbank, California for misdemeanor drug possession, and in 2020, a Utah judge dismissed a civil lawsuit filed against him by a woman who claim he groped her on the set of a film in 2003, when she was 11. The actor had denied the accusations, and no charges were ever filed at the time.

In 2013, Sizemore published a memoir detailing his career and battle with addiction, titled By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There.

The Detroit, Michigan native appeared in scores of movies including True Romance, Pearl Harbor, and Natural Born Killers, in addition to many straight-to-streaming titles in more recent years. 

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20th Century Studios has announced that a ninth film in the Alien franchise will get underway in Budapest on March 9.

The latest entry will be directed and co-written by Don’t Breathe‘s Fede Alvarez. It will be produced by Ridley Scott, who directed 1979’s original Alien, and produced and directed the series’ most recent entries, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.

The new movie stars Mare of Easttown‘s Cailee Spaeny, who will be joined by David Jonsson from HBO’s Industry and Archie Renaux from Netflix’s Shadow and Bone.

According to the studio, the new film will center on “a group of young people on a distant world [who] find themselves in a confrontation with the most terrifying life form in the universe.”

The film took the place of District 9 director Neill Blomkamp‘s once-greenlit project that could have reunited Alien‘s original action hero Sigourney Weaver with Michael Biehn, her co-star in James Cameron‘s acclaimed 1986 sequel Aliens. That project fizzled, in part, when 20th Century Fox was acquired by ABC News’ parent company Disney and later rebranded 20th Century Studios.

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In what could be seen as a tone-deaf, considering the state of the country right now and high crime rates in various cites, costumers aping Scream‘s Ghostface killer have been popping up around the country, in what Variety reports is an attempt to promote the franchise’s sixth installment.

And as the trade reports, the sightings are causing not a few calls to 911.

Sonoma, California, New Orleans, and St. Louis, Missouri, are among the “killer’s” haunting grounds, according to the trade.

While Paramount Pictures is mum, the “real” Ghostface’s official Twitter account took note. It retweeted some of the appearances, saying “I’m watching you,” adding a hashtag for the film.

Viral marketing can be used to great effect for lower budget productions: As reported, during MLB Playoff and World Series games, actors were placed in prime positions to be caught on camera showing off creepy frozen smiles and shirts reading “Smile” — all part of a successful campaign to promote the hit horror movie of the same name.

That said, nobody had heard of Smile at the time, so it didn’t cause any panic. By contrast, most people know the Munch-like mask of Ghostface, so this guerrilla marketing might be seen as … overkill.

Scream VI, which stars Jenna Ortega, Hayden Panettiere, Melissa Barerra and Courteney Cox, opens in theaters March 10.

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(NOTE LANGUAGE) Chris Rock takes the stage Saturday night in Netflix’s first live special, but before Selective Outrage drops, the celebrated comedian appears to have been workshopping some material about Will Smith.

Rock hasn’t said much about being the target of Smith’s infamous Oscar-night slap, but if several reports are accurate, he’s coming loaded for bear when he grabs the mic on March 4.

The Baltimore Sun says Rock reportedly told a packed Hippodrome Theatre of Smith’s latest film, “The other day, I watched Emancipation just so I could watch him getting whipped.”

Indeed, the title of the Netflix special seems to be part of his Smith material. “Will Smith practices selective outrage,” Rock reportedly said, noting frequent jokes at Will’s expense regarding Jada Pinkett Smith‘s reported “entanglement” with singer August Alsina were the real cause. And Rock insists he supported Smith throughout that media circus.

The comedian also mentions how before the infamous Oscars incident, “I rooted for Will Smith my whole life.”

Rock reportedly said of the marital headlines, “I felt so bad for Will, I tried to call and give him my condolences,” Rock reportedly said.

“Everybody was calling him a b**** except me. But who does he hit? Me.”

Rock also reportedly said of the slap, “People who are in the know, know that s*** had nothing to do with me.”

“We have all been cheated on,” Rock reportedly said, adding of Jada, “She hurt him way more than he ever hurt me.”

Also of note, Rock did keep Smith’s “wife’s name” out of his mouth, as Will admonished him to do during the Oscars outburst: The paper mentions Rock never referred to Jada by her name.

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