Entertainment

Walter Hamada, the head of DC Films, took the stand virtually Tuesday morning in the Johnny Depp defamation case, and his testimony stuck a massive pin in one of Amber Heard‘s major claims.

Heard’s team yesterday claimed the actress lost out on a major raise for a sequel to Aquaman and, but for negative social media posts following her controversial op-ed, would have been as big a movie star as Jason Momoa.

For his part, Hamada threw water on the claims in less than 10 minutes on the stand. The movie executive said Heard’s salary for a second film was already set — what in Hollywood parlance is known as an “option.”

“Was Amber Heard’s compensation affected by anything said by [Depp’s then-lawyer] Adam Waldman?” one of Depp’s attorneys asked. Waldman had said various negative things about Heardin the press, including references to the notorious bed-pooping incident.

“No,” Hamada replied.

“What role if any did Ms. Heard’s dispute with Johnny Depp affect concerns casting her for Aquaman 2?” the attorney asked him. “None,” Hamada replied.

Hamada also agreed that there were conversations with director James Wan about replacing Heard in her role of Mera in the sequel.

“There was a concern of chemistry,” Hamada testified, adding, “… it took a lot of effort to get it to work” onscreen with Momoa.

“It’s movie magic, and with editing, and score,” you can “fabricate” chemistry, the exec said. “A good editor can put the right takes together.”

Having good chemistry is “what makes a movie star a movie star,” Hamada said, in the most pronounced swipe at Heard.

Earlier in the proceedings, Judge Penney Azcarate denied Depp’s team’s motion to dismiss Heard‘s counter-suit against the former Pirates of the Caribbean star, leaving it up to a jury to decide its merits.

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In an Instagram post, Vin Diesel revealed he got his “dream” actor to play his character Dom Torreto’s grandmother in Fast X: Rita Moreno.

Diesel took to social media alongside the EGOT-winning legend and co-star Michelle Rodriguez.

“It’s been my dream forever to work with Rita Moreno, and the fact that she’s here playing my grandmother makes my soul smile,” the actor and producer said, adding, “I’m so blessed.”

Moreno added, “You know what … I think my old age was waiting for you to invite me. Isn’t that nice?”

Diesel growled a sweet, “Awww!” in response.

Rodriguez added an enthusiastic, “Rita Moreno in the house, baby!”

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In a new video interview with GQ, Mike Myers runs through some of his biggest hits, from Wayne’s World to Austin Powers, to the 2001 animated film Shrek.

While Wayne’s World had something in common with Austin Powers — in that Myers didn’t think anybody except he and his family would like either of them — Shrek especially resonated with the former Saturday Night Live actor.

“There’s an emotional center there,” Myers recalled of making the original film, which he saw as a “dramatic role.”

He adds, “You know the old joke: ‘I wouldn’t want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member.’ I have always felt that way. The concept of going from a self-loathing ogre to a self-accepting ogre was meaningful to me.”

“I love playing Shrek,” Myers continues. “If I had to do one Shrek a year I’d be thrilled.”

The original Shrek went on to be a blockbuster, winning the first Best Animated Film Oscar and spawning three massively-earning sequels.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the newest film set in the ogre’s universe, will debut in December.

Myers latest effort, the secret society comedy series The Pentaverate, is now streaming on Netflix.

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Broadway legend and five-time Tony Award winner Angela Lansbury will receive the special 2022 Tony for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, Broadway League President Charlotte St. Martin and American Theatre Wing President and CEO Heather Hitchens, announced on Monday. “Angela Lansbury’s contributions to the stage are insurmountable,” they said in a statement. “[She] has given us a lifetime of unforgettable performances, and it is a great honor to present her with the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award.” The 75th Annual Tony Awards, hosted by Ariana DeBose, airs live coast-to-coast, on Sunday, June 12 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+. Julianne Hough and Darren Criss will host The Tony Awards: Act One, streaming live on Paramount+ at 7 p.m. ET…

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is set to debut on HBO Max on May 30, Warner Bros. announced Monday. The Secrets of Dumbledore finds Jude Law‘s titular character enlisting Magizoologist Newt Scamander — once again played by Eddie Redmayne — to lead an intrepid team of wizards to stop the powerful Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald from seizing control of the wizarding world. Mads Mikkelsen replaces Johnny Depp as Grindelwald. The cast also includes Katherine Waterston, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler and Jessica Williams. The film debuted in theaters globally on April 15, opening to $43 million at the domestic box office and a global tally of $193 million…

Station 19 alum Okieriete Onaodowan has been tapped to play the title role in AMC’s Demascus, according to Deadline. The comedic sci-fi series follows Demascus, “a 33-year-old Black man on a mission of self-discovery and the burgeoning field of digital psychiatry that might be the key to defining his truest self, per the outlet. Onaodowan will next be seen as a series regular in season three of Amazon’s Jack Ryan…

Amazon has given a two-season order to The Hospital, the animated sci-fi comedy from executive producers Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyonne, the streaming service announced on Monday. The series follows Sleech and Klak — voiced respectively by Greta Lee and Keke Palmer — “aliens, best friends and intergalactically renowned surgeons — as they tackle anxiety-eating parasites, illegal time loops and deep-space STIs,” per Amazon. “Risking their careers to take on a remarkable case, they put existence itself in jeopardy. Although considering their dismal personal lives, oblivion might be an improvement.” The voice cast also includes Kieran Culkin and Sam Smith, along with Rudolph and Lyonne…

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Marvel dropped the first official trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder during Monday’s NBA Eastern Conference Finals on ESPN.

The clip gives us our first good look at Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster wielding Mjölnir, while confirming reports of Christian Bale playing the heavy, Gorr the Butcher.

Narrated by Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi‘s Korg, the trailer catches us up on Thor’s life since the events of Avengers: Endgame, during which he’s gone from “dad bod to god bod.” But just when he thinks he’s ready to reclaim his title as the one and only Thor, he discovers Jane — his old girlfriend who he hasn’t seen in eight years and is clearly not over — has inherited the mantle.

We also get our first look at Bale’s scary Gorr the Butcher, decked out in white robes, white makeup and yellow eyes, and who vows that “All gods shall die.”

Additionally, we see Russell Crowe‘s Zeus, who, in a bit of comic relief, strips Thor of his “disguise” — a little too thoroughly.

Thor: Love and Thunder, also starring Tessa Thompson, Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel and Dave Bautista, opens in U.S. theaters on July 8.

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

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The final week of testimony continued in the Johnny Depp defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard. Unlike much of last week’s testimony, most of the witnesses on Monday were live in the Fairfax, Virginia, courtroom.

Depp’s attorneys had a chance to cross-examine a series of expert witnesses brought to the court by Heard’s team. Among them was Dr. Richard Moore, a hand surgeon from Wilmington, North Carolina, who claimed the actor’s fingertip could not have been severed by a vodka bottle thrown by Heard, as he claimed.

On cross-examination, however, Moore admitted he never treated Depp and, in the end, he couldn’t “definitively” say what happened to the actor’s finger, except that it appeared “crushed.”

Another witness who was brought to testify by Heard’s attorneys was Kathryn Arnold, who was billed as an expert in the movie industry.

She testified that Heard could have been as big a star as Jason Momoa, Chris Pine, Wonder Woman herself Gal Gadot and Emmy winner Zendaya, but for negative social media attention Heard got as a result of her controversial Washington Post op-ed that Depp claims defamed him.

She missed her “Star is Born moment,” Arnold insisted.

On cross-examination, one of Depp’s attorneys, Wayne Dennison, managed to flummox Arnold, insisting these names were not “comparable actors” to Heard.

“She’s never been the title character in a movie, she’s never been on, what, eight TV shows [like Momoa],” Depp’s attorney said. “You are giving her the same career as Mr. Momoa,” he insisted, incredulous.

“Zendaya is so famous she goes by one name,” the attorney pressed, sarcastically.

On Wednesday, Depp‘s ex Kate Moss is expected to testify live via video. The model, who dated Depp from 1994 to 1997, previously defended Depp against abuse allegations.

Depp’s lawyers were previously seen celebrating quietly when Heard mentioned a tabloid story that claimed Depp threw the model down a flight of stairs. The moment on the stand opened up the opportunity to have Moss defend their client during this trial — and gives Depp’s lawyers the chance to question Heard’s exes, if they choose to do so.

Judge Penney Azcarate has set closing arguments for May 27.

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After being delayed several years, Top Gun: Maverick opens around the country Friday, and the cast can’t wait for it to finally be out.

“I think that what this movie does is it puts you in the cockpit so you really feel as close as possible to what these Top Gun pilots really do,” Lewis Pullman, who plays one of the elite fighter pilots, tells ABC Audio.

“And it has heart. It has humor. It has excitement. It’s got every element that I think a massive blockbuster movie should have,” he adds.

Sharing some behind the scenes secrets, Pullman reveals that they didn’t use a green screen when flying the planes.

“We are sitting in those cockpits and we’re actually flying in the planes,” he says. “I think the Navy was real smart to not let us green pilots man these million dollar machines…we didn’t quite have enough time to get the training. And I think, you know, maybe insurance, but we’re in those cockpits and we’re pulling all those Gs.”

Speaking of training, Pullman says it was pretty intense but the most grueling part, preparing for a water rescue after ejecting out of the plane, wasn’t even in the movie.

“Blindfolded, put in like a mock cockpit of a helicopter, dunked underwater, flipped upside down. And then you have to hold your breath,” he explains. “It’s the most disorienting, discombobulating experience.”

Even though Pullman never questioned the training, which Tom Cruise designed, he admits, “… there’s moments in your mind where you’re like, ‘What would a green screen feel like?’ But then you watch the movie and you’re like, Thank the Lord, man.”

Top Gun: Maverick flies into theaters Friday, May 27.

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What exactly is in that shed? The new sci-fi series Night Sky is streaming now on Amazon Prime.

Academy Award winners J.K. Simmons and Sissy Spacek play an aging couple with their fair share of life stories and secrets, including a portal in their backyard shed that seemingly leads to another part of the universe. Simmons tells ABC Audio there is a very human story here underneath the show’s fantastic premise.

“I didn’t even know when I started reading the script that we were going to go off into sci-fi land. I just started reading from page one in complete ignorance and I fell in love with the characters,” he recalls. “And then as our…universe in the show sort of expands it was just one pleasant, sort of jaw-dropping moment after another.”

So what drew the Spider-Man: No Way Home star to the script? Simmons says it was a couple of things.

“Sissy was already attached when they sent me the script that had me very interested right up front. And then really it was Holden Miller’s script and the insight that he has into a couple of 70-somethings and as we learn in future episodes — you know insights that he has into a lot of things,” he explains.

Night Sky also tackles some pretty big life topics, too, such as aging and our purpose in the world. Spacek told ABC Audio she’s not sure if we’re meant to get all the answers to this life’s burning mysteries.

“I don’t think so, I think this life is a bit of an experiment,” she shares. “A process. That when by the time we get to the end of it hopefully, we’ll understand. But at this point I’m still kinda in the dark!”

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tick, tick…BOOM! co-star Vanessa Hudgens has been announced as the host of the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards.

The event will be held live from the Barker Hangar in Los Angeles on Sunday, June 5, at 8 p.m. and will precede MTV’s celebration of this year’s reality shows, Movie & TV Awards: UNSCRIPTED. More details on the later shows will be forthcoming, the network promises.

Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has grossed more than $1.8 billion, leads all other contenders with seven nominations for this year’s MTV Movie & TV Awards. Euphoria, which also stars No Way Home‘s Zendaya, was a close second, with six.

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While 1993’s blockbuster Jurassic Park is universally thought of as a family-friendly film, two of its stars now say there was something “inappropriate” about it.

That is to say, Laura Dern‘s paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler and her love interest, Sam Neill‘s paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, were quite the May-December romance.

“I am 20 years older than Laura! Which at the time was a completely appropriate age difference for a leading man and lady,” Neill tells the Sunday Times.

“And it was only now, when we returned in a moment of cultural awareness about the patriarchy, that I was, like, ‘Wow! We’re not the same age?'” added Dern.

However, the actress commented, “Well, it felt completely appropriate to fall in love with Sam Neill.”

Neill joked to the paper, “It never occurred to me until I opened a magazine and there was an article called ‘Old Geezers and Gals.’ People like Harrison Ford and Sean Connery acting with much younger people. And there I was, on the list. I thought, ‘Come on. It can’t be true.'”

In their defense, the characters were closer in age in the late Michael Crichton‘s original Jurassic Park novel.

Dern, 55, and Neill, 77, reunite with other Jurassic Park original stars Jeff Goldblum and BD Wong, as well as Jurassic World‘s Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, in June’s Jurassic World Dominion.

The Universal Pictures film opens June 10.

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