Entertainment

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever remains #1 at the box office, with studio estimates saying it earned an additional $67 million in its second week of release.  Its global totals have reached $546 million. The Marvel Studio’s Black Panther sequel opened in North America with an estimated $180 million and set a record for the biggest November opening of all time, beating The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.  Marvel is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

Dining in second place was Searchlight Pictures’ new dark comedy The Menu, which stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult and Ralph Fiennes. The well-reviewed thriller opened with an estimated $9 million across 3,100 theaters.

Shocking in third was The Chosen, which aired its first two episodes across 2,009 theaters and drew in an estimated $8.2 million. The crowdfunded streaming series, distributed by Fathom Events, is about the life of Jesus Christ.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson‘s Black Adam fell to fourth place this week, earning an estimated $4.5 million.

Rounding out the top five was rom-com Ticket to Paradise, which collected an additional $3.2 million in its fifth week of release.

Meanwhile, She Said bombed in its opening week. The movie starred Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as The New York Times’ Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, respectively, who covered the sexual abuse allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who at the time was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. Despite the rave reviews and Oscars buzz, the movie disappointed with an estimated opening of $2.3 million.

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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers fans are mourning the death of Jason David Frank, the original Green Power Ranger.  Frank was 49.

Publicist Justine Hunt confirmed his passing to ABC News. “Please respect the privacy of his family and friends during this horrible time as we come to terms with the loss of such a wonderful human being,” Hunt said in a statement. “He loved his family, friends and fans very much. He will be truly missed.”

Frank played Tommy Oliver on Power Rangers, which debuted on Fox in 1993, and was hailed as one of the series’ most popular characters.

Frank’s character later took on the mantles of the White Power Ranger, Red Zeo Ranger, the Red Turbo Ranger and the Black Dino Ranger.  He made his final franchise appearance in 2018 and also made a cameo alongside original Pink Power Ranger Amy Jo Johnson in the 2017 Power Rangers movie.

Walter Emanuel Jones, the original Black Power Ranger, paid tribute to his late costar on Instagram. “Can’t believe it…. RIP Jason David Frank. My heart is sad to have lost another member of our special family.” he wrote while sharing a group photo of him and Frank, as well as Austin St. John and David Yost, respectively the original Red and Blue Power Rangers.

St. John also honored Frank in a post, writing, “‘Once a ranger, always a ranger’ thoughts and prayers…”

Frank is predeceased by costar Thuy Trang, the original Yellow Power Ranger, who died in a car accident in 2001.

Aside from acting, Frank was a professional mixed martial artist with an eighth degree black belt in karate. He also ran the Rising Sun Karate Academy.

Frank is survived by two sons, Jacob and Hunter, and two daughters, Jenna and Skye.

A cause of death is unconfirmed.

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While a teaser of the forthcoming movie is, so far, nowhere in sight, Lucasfilm has granted Empire magazine the first official pictures of Harrison Ford in the fifth Indiana Jones film.

Ford-as-Indy graces the cover of the magazine. The adventurer is pictured on the deck of a boat, staring intensely off camera.

Nothing is yet known about the plot, but Ford, now 80, promises, “It’s full of adventure, full of laughs, full of real emotion. And it’s complex and it’s sneaky.”

He adds, “The shooting of it was tough and long and arduous, but I’m very happy with the film that we have.”

As for why he tackled one final adventure as Dr. Henry Jones Jr., the legendary actor said, “I just thought it would be nice to see one where Indiana Jones was at the end of his journey.”

The as-yet-untitled fifth Indy adventure also stars Mads Mikkelsen, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Shaunette Renée Wilson and Boyd Holbrook. The film is set for release on June 30, 2023.

Lucasfilm is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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With just three episodes of its second season under its belt, HBO has renewed The White Lotus for a third.

The series, which received 20 Emmy nominations and 10 wins for its freshman season, just saw its second season rank as the number one show on HBO Max, making the decision something of a no-brainer.

HBO’s head of drama and films, Francesca Orsi, praised one of the show’s Emmy winners, creator Mike White, in the announcement. “Reflecting on The White Lotus‘ humble, run-and-gun origin as a contained pandemic production, it’s impossible not to be awestruck by how Mike orchestrated one of the buzziest and most critically acclaimed shows. And yet, he’s only continued to reach new heights in season 2, which is the ultimate testament to Mike’s raw, unparalleled vision.”

She added, “His courage to explore the uncharted waters of the human psyche, paired with his signature irreverent humor and buoyant directing style, have us all dreaming of more vacation days at the resort we’ve come to adore. We couldn’t be more thrilled to get the chance to collaborate on a third season together.”

The second season of the acclaimed show stars Emmy winner Jennifer Coolidge, as well as Aubrey Plaza, Sydney Sweeney, Jake Lacy and Theo James. It wraps up on December 11.

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At 76, there are arguably no actors around who haven’t seen Sylvester Stallone as a bruising brawler in the Rocky films, or taking on commies as John Rambo.

This was certainly the case on the set of Sly’s first foray into TV, the Paramount+ series Tulsa King, which has the movie icon playing a fresh-out-of-jail gangster turned fish out of water after a mob boss exiles him to Oklahoma.

However, Stallone tells ABC Audio he has a secret for putting his co-stars at ease. “Actually, I joke around with them a lot between [takes]. … I don’t go off and mood up, you know … If anything, I’m constantly joking with them. So I talk to everybody … I’m not standoffish at all, and right away they start joking with me and I go, ‘OK, we’re ready to move.'” 

Incidentally, his co-star Andrea Savage admitted she also tried that trick — because she was so nervous working with him for the first time.

The Step Brothers actress recalled, “We’d never met. I don’t know what I’m walking into, and we sort of talk through the scene a little bit. And he does something where … He’s sort of coming up to me like, ‘I don’t know, what do you think?'” she says, imitating Stallone.

Savage continues, “And then I was like, ‘I dunno, what, do you think with your hands? Is that what you do?'” she laughs, aping the actor again. “I kind of made fun of him, and he laughed — thank God! And then we were kind of off to the races, and we hit it off. And so, you know, I … just kind of gave him … a little sass.” 

Tulsa King is now streaming on Paramount+. 

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(Note Language) Just days after it was announced Chris Rock would take the stage for Netflix’s first-ever livestream, the comedian returned to Dolby Theatre, the site of his infamous Oscars slap.

Page Six reports he opened up his comedy show with a few jokes about last year’s Capitol riot before addressing what perhaps was the elephant in the room.

As some may recall, Chris ruffled feathers at the 2022 Academy Awards when he made a G.I. Jane joke referencing Jada Pinkett Smith‘s buzz cut. The joke was offensive to the actress, as she lives with alopecia, as well husband Will Smith, who took the stage to slap Rock before returning to his seat and declaring, “Keep my wife’s name out of your f****** mouth.”

“People were like, ‘Did it hurt?’ You’re goddamn right it hurt,” Chris said when discussing the slap in his show. “Will Smith is significantly bigger than me. I am not the same size, OK? This mother f***** played [Muhammad] Ali! I played Pookie from ‘New Jack City!’”

As for why he didn’t retaliate, he explained, “Because I got parents.” He continued, “Because I was raised, you know? You know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of white people! No, I’m not a victim!”

Will, who later won the Best Actor award for his role in King Richard, apologized numerous times after the incident; he’s banned from attending the awards ceremony for the next 10 years.

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On his Instagram, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson once again thanked fans for keeping Black Adam near the top of the box office. But ever the good sport, the Rock explained he had to “give flowers” to the movie that dropped his movie down to #2, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Rock gushed, “I wanna congratulate my friends at Disney…Congratulations to everybody at Marvel. Congratulations to all the actors. Director Ryan Coogler what an incredible job.”

Noting that both Black Adam and Black Panther were Black heroes, Johnson mused, “It’s pretty cool that [in] the …superhero genre, to have the Number 1 and Number 2 movies in the world be Black Panther and Black Adam.”

Johnson continued of Wakanda Forever, “The biggest November opening in the history of the movie business. I was so happy to hear that news…I’m very happy for you guys, and at the end of the day, what that success means … is that there’s a lot of happy moviegoers around the world…”

One interesting thing to note in all that good will is that Rock seemingly threw a little shade at the Fast and Furious franchise, which he famously left after reported bad blood with star Vin Diesel.

Rock noted that Black Adam is currently outpacing his own 2019 Fast spin-off Hobbs and Shaw and “could possibly beat Fast and Furious 9‘s… domestic run in the U.S.” — significant “because those were two very successful movies.”

Black Adam has currently made more than $152 million Stateside after about a month in theaters; Hobbs & Shaw ended its domestic run with more than $173 million; 2021’s Fast 9 made around the same on these shores.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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The Ed Asner Family Center‘s annual charity reading of It’s A Wonderful Life has added an EGOT winner to this year’s line-up.

Jennifer Hudson will contribute a musical performance at this year’s reading on Sunday, December 11, which has already attracted stars Brendan Fraser, Seth Rogen, Fred Armisen, JK Simmons and Jean Smart.

The event, which kicks off at 8:00 p.m. ET, benefits The Ed Asner Family Center (TEAFC), a charity the late Emmy winner started, which is dedicated to helping people with special needs and their families. Former Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron will once again serve as emcee.

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The smoke hasn’t even cleared on the billion dollar FTX cryptocurrency scandal, yet Hollywood is looking to tell the story.

Deadline is reporting Michael Lewis, who spent a year documenting now-disgraced one-time crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried, was working on a book about the figure. Now, there’s already a bidding war afoot to bring it to the big screen.

While cryptocurrency is a dense topic for your average movie audience, Lewis’ book about the dry matter of baseball statistics was shaped into the Oscar-nominated movie Moneyball; his financial scandal book The Big Short inspired the Oscar-winning script for the movie of the same name, and Lewis’ work The Blind Side ended up netting Sandra Bullock a Best Actress Academy Award for its big screen adaptation.

Bankman-Fried’s story stretches from Washington, D.C. to Hollywood to Ukraine; the supposed wunderkind graced the covers of magazines like Forbes, and he became one of the largest Democratic party donors in the world.

What was once the third-largest crypto exchange has all the ingredients for a ripped-from-the-headlines movie: sex, scandal, celebrity, and money. Stars like Tom Brady and Larry David promoted the cryptocurrency, while Bankman-Fried and his friends reportedly lived like rock stars in the Bahamas. Fast-forward to today, and a billion dollars is gone.

The House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing next month to investigate, with Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters — reportedly one of the recipients of Bankman-Fried’s donations, as were many in DC — saying, “The fall of FTX has posed tremendous harm to over one million users, many of whom were everyday people who invested their hard-earned savings into the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds.”

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Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse has been a globally beloved figure for the past 100 years, but how did this little mouse become an icon? Find out in the new documentary Mickey: The Story of a Mouse, which debuts Friday on Disney+.

Director Jeff Malmberg describes the ins and outs of the beloved character in the project, which he tells ABC Audio would be a good explanation of what’s going on if aliens ever visit Earth.

“I always kind of shared that thing that Shanique Smith says in the film. She and I were joking about it and she says it on camera, is ‘Aliens are going to come down and they’re going to see Mickey on all this stuff and go, What is happening? What happened here?’ So this would be like the decoder ring to that for them.”

Aliens aside, Malmberg says the film is for rabid fans and non-fans alike.

“The more you are a fan of Mickey, the more you might appreciate it. But I hope that anybody can look at it and learn something new and see something new inside of it,” he shares, adding that Mickey is a “phenomenon” that we’ve all agreed represents joy.

Even so, the documentary attempts to cover multiple iterations of Mickey, not just Disney-sanctioned ones.

“I find some of the off-brand Mickey stuff, for instance, the Milton Glaser short, Mickey Mouse in Vietnam, some of those kinds of things to be on equal footing with some of the things that Disney has done,” Malmberg shares.

So why does Malmberg like Mickey?

“It’s like shorthand to joy,” he says. “It’s just so bizarre that this little mouse binds us in this weird, short, brief, almost meaningless, but still somewhat meaningful connection.” (AUDIO IS ABC 1-ON-1)

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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