Entertainment

On Today Wednesday morning, the show addressed the absence of Hoda Kotb, who has been missing on both the morning show and Today with Hoda and Jenna since Feb. 17.

Co-anchor Craig Melvin explained, “a lot of of you have been wondering how she’s doing. We can tell you that Hoda’s okay, she’s got a family health matter that she’s been dealing with.”

Earlier this week, their colleague Savannah Guthrie left the show early after a positive COVID-19 test.

“We look forward to seeing Hoda and Savannah back on the desk very, very soon” Melvin continued, adding they wished the latter “a speedy recovery.”

“Yeah, we love you both,” Al Roker replied, leading his co-anchors in blowing kisses to the camera.

Kotb has not mentioned her situation on the air, on social media or on her podcast, Making Spice, the latter of which hasn’t posted a new installment since February 20.

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Deadline reports She Hulk: Attorney at Law executive producer and director Kat Coiro will direct and produce the pilot episode of a reboot of Matlock starring Kathy Bates in the title role. Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe winner Bates is executive-producing the reworking of the original show, which starred the late Andy Griffith and ran for nine seasons altogether from 1986-1992, six on NBC and a final three on ABC…

Showtime announced on Tuesday that Damian Lewis is returning to Billions for season seven. The actor, who left at the end of the show’s fifth season, will reprise his role as Bobby Axelrod in six of the new season’s 12 episodes. Bobby was last seen going on the run from legal troubles and settling in Europe. Showtime reveals that in season seven, “Alliances are turned on their heads. Old wounds are weaponized. Loyalties are tested. Betrayal takes on epic proportions. Enemies become wary friends. And Bobby Axelrod returns, as the stakes grow from Wall Street to the world.” Billions — which also stars Paul Giamatti, Corey Stoll and Maggie Siff — returns later this year…

The Office alum Jenna Fischer is joining the cast of Tina Fey‘s upcoming Mean Girls film, based on her hit Broadway musical, set for Paramount+, according to Deadline. Fischer will play Cady Heron’s mother, originally portrayed by Ana Gasteyer in the 2004 movie. Fischer joins previously announced castmembers Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auli’i Cravalho, Jaquel Spivey, Fey, Tim Meadows, Avantika, Christopher Briney and Bebe Wood. The first Mean Girls film grossed over $130 million worldwide…

Variety reports Heroes and NOS4A2 alum Zachary Quinto, who also played Spock in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek film trilogy, has been tapped for a starring role in the NBC drama pilot Wolf, inspired by the books The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars by the late Oliver Sacks. Wolf, per the network, will follow “a revolutionary, larger-than-life neurologist — played by Quinto — and his team of interns as they explore the last great frontier, the human mind, while also grappling with their own relationships and mental health”…

Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard are set to star in the upcoming feature comedy Summer Camp, according to Deadline. The movie follows three childhood friends who spent their childhood summers together at sleepaway camp. After drifting apart they attend a camp reunion, where they’re reminded of how much they need each other. The film is set to begin shooting in April…

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Jon Hamm and his former Mad Men co-star Anna Osceola are reportedly engaged after nearly five years of dating.

“The engagement happened a while back, but they are still on cloud nine,” a source tells Us magazine. “They have so much fun together and already feel married.”

The 51-year-old Top Gun: Maverick star and Osceola, 34, first sparked romance rumors in 2020, after being spotted together “multiple times,” according to the outlet. They made their red carpet debut two years later at an Oscars afterparty.

The couple co-starred in Mad Men‘s final season in 2015 and teamed up once again for 2022’s Confess, Fletch.

Hamm previously dated Kissing Jessica Stein actress Jennifer Westfeldt from 1997 to 2015.

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(NOTE LANGUAGE) While Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania currently has a respectable 83% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie received a nearly record-low Critics Score for a Marvel movie, with 48%.

Its Emmy-winning screenwriter Jeff Loveness tells The Daily Beast he witnessed this disconnect firsthand.

“To be honest, those reviews took me by surprise,” the Rick and Morty vet explains. “I was in a pretty low spot … Those were not good reviews, and I was like, ‘What the … ?'”

He continued, “I’m really proud of what I wrote for Jonathan [Majors, who plays Kang the Conqueror] and Michelle Pfeiffer [Janet van Dyne]. I thought that was good stuff, you know? And so I was just despondent, and I was really sad about it.”

However, Loveness saw the other side of the coin when he saw the movie with actual moviegoers. “The audience was laughing … I’m like, Godd***! No, [the reviews] are wrong! I’m right! MODOK is great!” he said of Corey Stoll‘s big-headed, pretty-out-there baddie, ripped right from the pages of Marvel Comics.

The writer explains, “I’m pretty happy with it overall, and I think I learned how to take a punch this week. And now that I learned that it’s not too bad, I can just get on with making things.”

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While he appears to be on the path to the Oscars podium for his work in The Whale, Brendan Fraser detoured with a stroll down memory lane during an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show Tuesday.

Clarkson asked the actor if it was true he “almost died” on the set of the 1999 blockbuster The Mummy during a scene where his swashbuckling adventurer, Rick O’Connell, was nearly executed by hanging. “Nearly,” Fraser admitted, explaining he was “choked out by accident.”

In the sequence, he’s dropped from the gallows and left to struggle with the noose around his neck while Rachel Weisz‘s Evelyn literally bargains for his life.

Fraser got to his feet and mimed the situation, explaining he was on his toes, with the noose around his neck.

Director Stephen Sommers then said, “‘Hey, it doesn’t really look like you’re choking — can you sell it?'” Fraser recalled. “And I was like, ‘All right, fine.’ So I thought, ‘One more take, man.'”

He adds, “And the camera swooped around and I went up on the toes, and the guy holding the rope above me, he pulled it up a little higher and I was stuck on my toes — I had nowhere to go but down. And so he was pulling up and I was going down.”

Fraser continued, “The next thing I knew, my elbow was in my ear, the world was sideways, there was gravel in my teeth and everyone was really quiet.” The actor said he was slapped backed to consciousness by a cheery British stunt coordinator singing his name. “‘Brendan? Brendan, wake up!'”

He explained the stunt guy noted, “‘Congratulations, you’re in the club — the same thing happened to Mel Gibson on Braveheart!'” Fraser shouted his response: “Thanks, I think?! I wanna go home!”

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On Tuesday, Disney+ released the teaser to Peter Pan & Wendy, a live-action reimagining of the J.M. Barrie novel and the 1953 Disney animated classic.

The teaser introduces Wendy Darling (Ever Anderson), “a young girl afraid to leave her childhood home behind, who meets Peter Pan (Alexander Molony), a boy who refuses to grow up.”

The streaming service continues, “Alongside her brothers and a tiny fairy, Tinker Bell (Grown-ish‘s Yara Shahidi), she travels with Peter to the magical world of Neverland. There, she encounters an evil pirate captain, Captain Hook, and embarks on a thrilling and dangerous adventure that will change her life forever.”

Jude Law plays the crook-mitted madman, leading a cast that also includes Molly Parker from House of Cards, Rogue One‘s Alan Tudyk, and comedian and actor Jim Gaffigan.

The movie debuts on April 28.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Universal’s star-packed animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie is getting bumped up two days. The film, which features the voices of Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi and Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, will now hit theaters in the States on the same day it will debut in more than 60 markets all over the world: April 5.

The Illumination Entertainment, Universal and Nintendo collabo was initially set for a U.S. debut on April 7, with overseas markets, including movie-hungry China, getting a two-day head start.

The movie also stars the voices of Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong.

The rest of the film’s voice cast includes Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike. Charles Martinet, who has voiced Mario since the ’90s, will also be featured in “surprise cameos.”

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Rian Johnson seems to have revived the whodunit genre with his two Knives Out films, most recently with last year’s Glass Onion. He wrote and directed the latest Benoit Blanc mystery and was honored with a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay at this year’s Academy Awards.

As he makes the rounds in the awards circuit, Johnson tells ABC Audio there’s really only one celebrity he has been starstruck by.

“I got to meet James Cameron. Very quickly, very briefly,” Johnson says. “He was so kind, and we had a nice little talk. He’s somebody whose work I’ve just admired, obviously, my entire life and means a lot to me.”

Though their interaction was short, Johnson says he looks forward to the day when he can sit and listen to all the wisdom Cameron would care to share — preferably Luke and Yoda on Dagobah style, à la The Empire Strikes Back.

“If there’s a Yoda that I would love to sit at the feet at for a few hours, I think it’s Cameron,” Johnson says.

And while Johnson says there’s much to love about Cameron’s work, there’s one thing that stands out.

“Cameron’s secret weapon is he knows his story,” Johnson says. “It’s not about the technical element, it’s about the fact that he’s staying on story and telling the story incredibly clearly even through the action scenes in his movies.”

Just in case there happens to be any doubt about how much of a fan he is — yes, Johnson says he did watch Cameron’s recent Masterclass, where the Avatar director teaches filmmaking for over three hours.

“I watched his Masterclass that he just did,” Johnson says. “That’s how big of a fan [I am]. I’m like, ‘I’ll watch that whole thing.’ It’s so good.”

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Twice Oscar-nominated Avengers actor Jeremy Renner is putting in the work, both physically and mentally, following his near-fatal New Year’s Day snowplow accident.

In a series of new Instagram Stories he posted Monday evening, Renner recorded himself on a stationary bike, exercising his left leg, with the help of a brace in his left hand, as his right leg rests on a platform.

“Whatever it takes,” he captioned the video, a callback to a repeated line of dialog in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The next image in the sequence shows the Mayor of Kingstown actor by the fire, reading cancer survivor Mark Nepo‘s self-help tome The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

“Mental recovery, too,” Renner captioned that photo. The book deals with finding peace and beauty within your life one day at a time, even after adversity.

To show support to his Kingstown family, the final video in the sequence he posted was a clip from the latest episode of the Paramount+ show.

Renner suffered serious injuries when he was pulled under his Snowcat plowing vehicle in an accident outside his Nevada home on January 1.

The now-52-year-old star said he broke over 30 broken bones in the incident, which also left him with blunt chest trauma. He underwent emergency surgery after he was airlifted from the scene, and spent weeks in intensive care before he continued his recovery at home.

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Keke Palmer is a mother!

Taking to Instagram the actress, 29, announced she welcomed her first child — a baby boy — with Darius Jackson.

“Hey Son!!!! 1. Only 48hrs of being parents!” she wrote alongside of carousel of photos and videos, chronicling their first moments as parents. “LEODIS ANDRELLTON JACKSON, welcome to the world baby Leo.”

The True Jackson alum also included some adorable snapshots of the newborn. One picture, where the baby’s face was barely visible, Keke jokingly captioned, “‘I’m not hiding the world from my son, I’m hiding my son from the world.’ Hahaha.”

“I’m just playing, my baby face is on this slide,” she captioned a subsequent photo. “6. And this slide
Born during Black History Month, with a name to match.”

In another slide on the post, Keke shared a video of herself singing “Someone by El Debarge to Jackson, and explained that he included the song in some playlists early on in their relationship.

“We became each other’s someone and made a someone, look at God,” she wrote.

Keke first confirmed her pregnancy in early December while hosting Saturday Night Live.

“There’s some rumors going around, people have been in my comments saying, ‘Keke’s having a baby, Keke’s pregnant,’ and I wanna set the record straight — I am!” she said, opening her jacket to reveal a baby bump.

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