Entertainment

Michael B. Jordan knows he cannot say much about the upcoming Black Panther sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but that’s not stopping fans from asking if they’ll see him in the movie.

The 34-year-old actor appeared on the Jemele Hill is Unbothered podcast and chatted about the possibility of his character, supervillain Erik Killmonger, appearing in the sequel.

While Killmonger was fatally wounded in the first film, fans have been speculating that the crafty character managed to survive.

While Jordan was unable to provide a concrete answer if his character would appear in future films, he did remark, “If there’s anyone that’s going to figure it out, [Director Ryan Coogler] is going to figure it out.”

The Just Mercy star also revealed how Chadwick Boseman‘s death impacted the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The actor, who played T’Challa aka Black Panther, died at age 43 last year after a silent years-long battle with colon cancer.

“Having a tragedy we are all dealing with, like losing Chadwick, I think Marvel, [Kevin] Fiege, Ryan and everybody over there had to figure out what was next,” said Jordan. “I haven’t gotten the information, one way or another so I’m not sure. But, whatever it is, they’re the right people to figure it out.”

On the subject of grief, Jordan also opened up about his new Amazon movie Without Remorse, where he plays an elite Navy SEAL seeking to avenge the murder of his pregnant wife.

The actor says his co-star Lauren London was mourning rapper Nipsey Hussle, her boyfriend and father of their four-year-old child, when filming started.

Jordan applauded London for channelling her grief into a standout performance.

“It was very emotional,” he said. “She was really transparent… She’s very talented and has so much to give.”

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Winston Duke played M’Baku in Black Panther, and then in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, but he said he was emotional just packing his bags for his latest Marvel movie, the Black Panther sequel Wakanda Forever. 

The 6’5″ actor tells Collider that the very idea of returning to the fictional African nation without its king, the late Chadwick Boseman, gave him pause. “It was very emotional to read the script,” Duke admitted. “It was emotional to pack to go back to set. But we’re all a bit of a family now and we grieve together, and we’re making something really special.”

Written and directed by Panther‘s Ryan Coogler, the film is currently underway in Atlanta. 

Previously, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige noted that Boseman’s role of King T’Challa will not be recast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Last month, at a fan event for Black Widow, Feige said working on the sequel is “clearly very emotional without Chad,” before adding, “We’re going to…make Chad proud.”

Incidentally, Boseman’s final performance in the role — voicing the character for Marvel’s animated What If…? on Disney+ — can be seen on August 11. 

Duke can be seen next in the drama Nine Days.

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Ryan Coogler‘s “inspiring and powerful” documentary Homeroom has released its first trailer.

Directed by Peter Nicks and executive produced by Coogler, the Hulu Original doc will premiere on both Hulu and in select theaters on Thursday, August 12. The film follows an Oakland High School’s class of 2020 as they confront an “unprecedented year” due to anxiety over test scores, college applications, the pandemic, and their attempt to defund the school district’s police force. Homeroom is billed as Nicks’ final chapter in a trilogy of films which include 2012’s The Waiting Room and 2017’s The Force. The three docs examine the relationship between health care, criminal justice, and education in Oakland, CA over the past decade. All three films will be available to stream on Hulu on August 12.

In other news, the Kerry Washington and Larry Wilmore-produced legal drama Reasonable Doubt has been scooped up by Hulu’s Onyx Collection, Variety has learned. The series, which was initially set up to be developed at ABC in 2019, follows Jax Stewart, a brilliant and fearless Los Angeles defense attorney, who has “questionable ethics and wild interpretations of the law.”  According to Variety, the show has opened a writers room with an all-Black staff.

Finally, ViacomCBS has renewed their critically acclaimed original series, The Good Fight, for a sixth season on Paramount+. The first four episodes of the 10-episode Season 5 are currently available to stream, with new installments dropping every Thursday. The series, starring Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald, follows the lives and cases of a Black law firm in Chicago.

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One of the highlights of Marvel Studios’ most recent release, Black Widow, was David Harbour‘s Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian. The Stranger Things veteran steals scenes as the former Soviet Union’s now-past his prime answer to Captain America, and the actor can’t get enough of the character. 

In fact, Harbour said at a recent press conference that he’d love to see the two super soldiers duke it out in a throwback project set years ago. 

“I do think that the classic Cold War thing is a really fun and funny dynamic between these two guys and the fact that they basically came up as nuclear warheads, like in an arms race together.” Harbour added, “I think it’s just a really great concept that could be explored further.”

Alexei isn’t only full of super soldier serum and vodka — he’s pretty full of himself, as well, which makes him less than reliable about his glory days as Mother Russia’s great protector. This tickled the man playing him.  “[H]e has all these stories about his life and about what went on. And [it’s] questionable whether or not they’re real,” Harbour says. “And I like the explanation of like, what is real and what isn’t real, and how hard he had to construct these realities for himself and how durable those realities are.”

Black Widow is now in theaters and streaming via Disney+ Premiere Access.

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Matt Damon reunites with his childhood pal and fellow Good Will Hunting Oscar winner Ben Affleck in the upcoming medieval drama The Last Duel. 

The pair starred in, produced, and co-wrote the 20th Century Studios’ movie with Academy Award nominee Nicole Holofcener for legendary Oscar winning filmmaker Ridley Scott.

In the film, which is based on real events, Damon plays a respected warrior called Jean de Carrouges, who faces off against Adam Driver‘s Jacques Le Gris, who is accused of assaulting de Carrouges’ wife. 

“[S]he refuses to stay silent,” the studio says of Emmy winner Jodie Comer‘s Marguerite. Her publicly accusing her attacker is, “an act of bravery and defiance that puts her life in jeopardy,” and “the ensuing trial by combat, a grueling duel to the death, places the fate of all three in God’s hands.”

The film is based on Eric Jager‘s book The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France. 

Scott, who previously worked with Damon on The Martian, called it an “added bonus” to work with him and Affleck as screenwriters. Scott predicted Comer’s performance as Marguerite “will make her one of the great actresses of her generation.”

The Last Duel will be released nationwide on October 15.

20th Century Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein was extradited Tuesday morning to California, having been extradited to face sex assault charges there. 

Weinstein was taken from New York’s Wende Correctional Facility, where he’s been serving a 23-year prison sentence for rape and sexual assault in Manhattan, and “was handed over to the appropriate officials for transport to the state of California per a court order,” according to a statement from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

Weinstein’s lawyers had argued that the former movie mogul has been suffering from physical ailments that left him in no condition to be extradited, but a judge denied the petition to stay the extradition.  The Los Angeles District Attorney charged Weinstein with rape in January 2020, just as his trial was beginning in New York.

In Los Angeles, Weinstein’s charged with four counts of rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force. The counts involve five women and stem from alleged events in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills that took place from 2004 to 2013.

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Actress Reese Witherspoon is set to reprise her iconic role of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde 3, a movie slated to arrive in theaters next year. 

Despite its 2022 premiere date, not much is known about the upcoming third installment — except that it stars Witherspoon and that she and actress Mindy Kaling are penning the script. 

In a recent interview with E!’s Daily Pop, Kaling kept her lips sealed about the super secretive project, but did divulge one thing… it’s serious work.

“I’m having a great time writing it,” Kaling said. “It is the most corporate gig I’ve ever had so I can’t talk about it at all, but I hope we do a good job.” 

Her reply aligns with recent remarks made by Legally Blonde stars Jennifer Coolidge and Luke Wilson, who both starred in the original movie as Paulette Bonafonté and Emmett Richmond, respectively.  It’s unknown if either will be featured in the third film.

While Coolidge said she heard the movie “is going to be finished soon,” Wilson remarked, “We’ll just have to see what happens.”

Legally Blonde was released in 2001, followed by Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde in 2003. 

In 2018, Witherspoon confirmed a third installment was forthcoming when sharing a post of herself lounging on a pool float with the caption, “It’s true… #LegallyBlonde3.”

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(NOTE LANGUAGE) Lala Kent‘s definition of sober is very different from Demi Lovato‘s.

The Vanderpump Rules star, who has been sober since October 2018, appeared on the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast and — when asked her opinion on Demi’s song “California Sober” — shared that she’s not a fan.

“You know, I don’t like to judge, but I actually think that that’s super offensive,” Lala said of the track, which depicts a lifestyle where hard drugs and alcohol are off the table but marijuana and wine are acceptable. 

“There are people out there who have worked their a** off to never take themselves out of reality and to never place themselves in an altered state,” Lala continued. “When they have a cold, they don’t even take DayQuil or NyQuil. So to say that you’re ‘California sober’ or this type of sober is extremely offensive, I think.”

The 30-year-old reality star added that she doesn’t believe that “California sober” is a real thing. “You’re not sober,” she stated. “If you’re drinking and smoking weed, you’re not sober.”

Demi has been public about their sobriety journey following their near-fatal overdose in 2018. Most recently in their YouTube documentary, Dancing with the Devil, Demi shared that recovery isn’t a “one-size-fits-all solution” and said they work with a recovery manager to determine the best plan for them. 

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Ryan Reynolds thanks his lucky stars for wife Blake Lively, who helped him raise three young daughters through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking on the SmartLess podcast recently, the 44-year-old actor opened up about how lockdown affected his children: six-year-old James, four-year-old Inez, and Betty, who’s one.

“They had a tough time,” said Reynolds, noting how his two older daughters struggled to adjust to going to school over Zoom. 

To try and make it easier for his children, the Deadpool star said he sought out “external help left and right. I was reading books. I was trying some way to steer the ship.”

Reynolds shouted out his wife, saying Lively “was so much better at it than I was because I’m also a child.”

The Canadian actor also revealed how he managed to woo his wife of nearly nine years, or “45 years in Hollywood terms.”

“I met Blake on the darkest crease in the anus of the universe called Green Lantern,” he joked, referencing the 2011 movie they both starred in. “We were friends and buddies and about a year and a half later we went on a double date but we were with separate people.”

“We hung out and kind of, you know, we always kind of kept in touch but sort of casually,” said Reynolds. “And then next thing you know, she was going to Boston. I was going to Boston. So I was like, ‘I’ll ride with you!'”

“We got on the train and rode together and then I was just begging her to sleep with me,” Reynolds joked, but admitted their romance was something “like out of a fairy tale.”

“A week later, I was like, ‘We should buy a house together,’ Reynolds grinned. “And we did!”

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With just seven suitors remaining and hometown dates looming, Monday’s episode of The Bachelorette saw Katie face her toughest rose ceremony yet.

Tensions were already running high in the house as two of the men, Brendan and Mike, were still waiting for a coveted one-on-one date with Katie.  When the date card arrived, it went to Mike, leaving Brendan to question if he still has a chance with the Bachelorette.

Brendan’s worst fears were later confirmed when he confronted Katie, who admitted she didn’t think they could establish a connection in time for hometowns. Brendan, to his disappointment, was sent home.

Katie, who revealed beforehand that she felt something for Mike, hoped their date would lead to a connection — but they weren’t meant to be, either.  After a day with “Cuddle Queen Jean” Franzblau, who guided them through a series cuddling positions aimed at helping them strengthen their bond as a couple, Katie realized her other relationships were stronger and, because of that, she sent Mike home, too.

Elsewhere, Justin, Andrew, Blake and Michael A. joined Katie on an artistic exploration inspired by artist Jacqueline Secor, who tasked the men to create “sensual” or “thought-provoking” art that expressed their feelings for Katie.

However, their thoughts were more focused on the after-party and who would earn the rose and the first hometown date.  That honor went to Michael A.

Greg earned a rose and the next hometown date after a successful second one-on-one date with Katie.  Greg recreated her home state of Washington and the two shared a romantic kiss in the rain. 

Heading into the rose ceremony with just two roses to spare, Katie had to decide between Blake, Justin and Andrew.  Faced with an agonizing choice, she settled on Blake and Justin, but found herself second-guessing her decision.

The next day, Andrew stopped by Katie’s room and shared an emotional goodbye. However, before leaving, he slipped the Bachelorette a note that read, “If you change your mind…I’ll be waiting.”

Upon reading it, Katie sprinted after Andrew and presented him with an offer: “If there’s a way to stay a little longer, would you want to?”

Wanting nothing more than to say yes, Andrew ultimately turned down the offer, explaining that he wanted his future wife to choose him, but Katie had chosen someone else.

Here are the four men whose families Katie will meet:

Blake, 30, a wildlife manager from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Greg, 27, a marketing sales rep from Edison, New Jersey
Justin, 26, an investment sales consultant from Baltimore, Maryland
Michael, 36, a business owner from Akron, Ohio

The Bachelorette returns with a special “Men Tell All” episode on Monday, 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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