Entertainment

The film doesn’t come out until November 11, but prognosticators say Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is already on track to have the second-biggest opening of the year.

According to data from the National Research Group (NRG), the sequel could see a $175 million opening weekend, putting it slightly behind 2022’s biggest debut, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. That film earned more than $184 million, on its way to a more than $955 million global take.

The Black Panther sequel has big shoes to fill, both thematically and financially: The sequel will be the first Panther film without lead Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer in 2020, and 2018’s original earned more than $242 million on its four-day opening weekend, going on to become a $1.34-billion grossing phenomenon.

The biggest opening film of all time is 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which earned more than $347 million in its first days in theaters. In 2021, the Marvel Studios/Sony Pictures collab Spider-Man: No Way Home earned the second-biggest debut slot with a global take of more than $260 million.

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

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On Thursday, Netflix dropped the eagerly anticipated trailer to the fifth season of The Crown. 

Debuting on the streaming service November 9, the latest chapter shows “The Royal Family is in genuine crisis,” according to a TV personality.

Set to Oasis‘ “Bittersweet Symphony,” the trailer shows the marriage of Elizabeth Debicki‘s Princess Diana to Dominic West‘s Prince Charles unraveling before relentless paparazzi coverage. 

While Charles and Di head for a divorce, Imelda Staunton‘s Queen Elizabeth II and others protest. 

Jonny Lee Miller‘s PM John Major advises the Queen and her husband, Jonathan Pryce‘s Prince Phillip, “The House of Windsor should be binding the nation together, building an example of idealized family life…”

Major says the fracturing marriage, “can’t help but affect the stability of the country.”

Meanwhile, Diana is cracking under the pressure. “People will never understand how it’s been for me,” she laments. “I never stood a chance.” 

Another character notes of Di, “They see her as a threat.”

Prince Phillip advises Diana, “Remember the one…rule: You remain loyal to this family,” to which Diana protests, “You mean silent?” 

Phillip replies, “Yes. It’s a system, for better or for worse. We’re all stuck in it.”

While the establishment warns Diana is going to “tear down the temple,” she readies to sit before cameras in her famous 1995 tell-all interview. “I won’t go quietly,” she insists. “I’ll battle to the end.”

The trailer closes with Queen Elizabeth wondering aloud, “How did it come to this?”

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Season 1 of the satanic animated comedy Little Demon comes to an end tonight on FXX, with real life father and daughter Danny and Lucy DeVito playing Satan and Satan’s love child, Chrissy, and Lucy tells ABC Audio there’s a big reveal on tonight’s season finale.

“I could give you a little spoiler, and it’s that Chrissy realizes she has siblings,” she teases, adding, “The devil has gotten around.”

Lucy says her dad makes a great Devil, explaining, “he’s got this very dark side. He’s mischievous. You know, he’s got this sort of like love for the, kind of macabre.”

And Danny’s tapped into that side of his personality a time or two in the past, noting, “There was there was a period of time in there where I think after Batman and War of the Roses and things like that, people were actually calling me The Prince of Darkness, in the press, you know. So it was like, you know, your dad is the prince of darkness, you know?”

However, this Devil isn’t all about darkness, says Lucy.

“He’s also, like, very warm and, you know, like an amazing father,” she explains. “And we wanted to create, like, this interesting Satan, which was not just black or white, you know, someone who has this depth to them. He does want to spend time with his daughter. And I think that’s like kind of an interesting portrayal of the Satan that we see, you know, usually in pop culture who is more just evil.”

(A previous version of this story published on 10/20/22 erroneously identified the show as “Little Devil” in the headline. The headline has been updated to correct the error.)

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Add Dame Judi Dench to the chorus of critics speaking out about how Netflix’s The Crown portrays the British royal family.

In a piece for The Times published Wednesday, the English actress — who’s portrayed two past British queens in three different films — criticized the hit drama, writing, “The closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.”

Noting some of the suggested storylines for the show’s upcoming fifth season — “that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence” — Dench continued, “This is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.”

“No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged,” Dench added. “Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a ‘fictionalized drama’, the program makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.”

“The time has come for Netflix to reconsider — for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve their own reputation in the eyes of their British subscribers,” Dench concluded.

The Crown is based on the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, who died September 8 at age 96 after a U.K.-record 70-year reign. Netflix has received broader criticism for its decision to debut the drama’s fifth season on November 9, coming as it does just two months after the late monarch’s death.

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Deadline reports the Alec Baldwin western Rust will resume production in January, 15 months after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on set, but not in New Mexico.

No final decision has been made on the new location, but producers are reportedly set to scout locations in California, near Palm Springs and the Nevada border.

An insider tells the outlet, “It’s emotionally difficult for the crew and the cast to return to the same place” — that is, where Halyna was mortally wounded by Baldwin when a supposedly safe weapon he was pointing at her discharged a live round.

Halyna was shot on October 21, 2021; Rust‘s director Joel Souza was also injured by the same bullet.

The news comes two weeks after Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, settled his wrongful death lawsuit with Rust producers on October 5. Matthew has also come on board as an executive producer to finish the film, per the agreement.

A criminal investigation into the shooting is still ongoing.

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HBO Max on Wednesday dropped the first trailer for season 2 of The Sex Lives of College Girls, the comedy from Mindy Kaling. The four roommates — Kimberly, Bela, Leighton and Whitney, played respectively by Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur, Renee Rapp and Alyah Chanelle Scott — return for another semester of living out their hormone-fueled lives featuring hot bods, strips shows and, of course, sex. The first two episodes of The Sex Lives of College Girls season 2 drop Thursday, Nov. 17 on HBO Max…(Trailer contains uncensored profanity.)

Natalie Morales, best known for her roles in shows such as Netflix’s Dead to Me and Santa Clarita Diet, has been tapped for a recurring role in season 3 of Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, according to Variety. She’ll play Kate Danton, the best friend from Stanford of Greta Lee‘s Stella. The pair were part of a start-up incubator run by Jon Hamm‘s Paul Marks, according to the streamer. Morales joins a rapidly expanding cast that includes Hamm, Nicole Beharie, Tig Notaro and Stephen Fry, as well as Julianna Marguiles, who will reprise as Laura. The series stars and is executive produced by Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon…

CBS announced on Wednesday that it has extended the orders for three of its rookie series: Fire Country, East New York and So Help Me Todd, following strong ratings by each — ranking #1, #2 and #3 respectively among all new shows on any network, according to Nielsen. The three CBS shows join NBC’s Quantum Leap sequel in earning a full season; the last of which had its run extended by six episodes…

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Season 1 of the satanic animated comedy Little Demon comes to an end tonight on FXX, with real life father and daughter Danny and Lucy DeVito playing Satan and Satan’s love child, Chrissy, and Lucy tells ABC Audio there’s a big reveal on tonight’s season finale.

“I could give you a little spoiler, and it’s that Chrissy realizes she has siblings,” she teases, adding, “The devil has gotten around.”

Lucy says her dad makes a great Devil, explaining, “he’s got this very dark side. He’s mischievous. You know, he’s got this sort of like love for the, kind of macabre.”

And Danny’s tapped into that side of his personality a time or two in the past, noting, “There was there was a period of time in there where I think after Batman and War of the Roses and things like that, people were actually calling me The Prince of Darkness, in the press, you know. So it was like, you know, your dad is the prince of darkness, you know?”

However, this Devil isn’t all about darkness, says Lucy.

“He’s also, like, very warm and, you know, like an amazing father,” she explains. “And we wanted to create, like, this interesting Satan, which was not just black or white, you know, someone who has this depth to them. He does want to spend time with his daughter. And I think that’s like kind of an interesting portrayal of the Satan that we see, you know, usually in pop culture who is more just evil.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Pete Davidson‘s Peacock series Bupkis just got another injection of some big names. Ray Romano will appear on the series, as will his Everybody Hates Raymond sibling, Brad Garrett. 

Pete’s former Saturday Night Live co-star Kenan Thompson is also along for the ride, as is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star and co-creator Charlie Day, Red Rocket actor Simon Rex and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies‘ Chase Sui Wonders. 

So far, the streaming service won’t reveal who the stars will play.

As previously reported, Emmy winner Edie Falco will play Davidson’s mom in the “fictionalized, heightened version of Davidson’s life,” and Oscar winner Joe Pesci plays his grandfather.

Peacock teases, “The series will combine grounded storytelling with absurd elements from the unfiltered and completely original worldview for which Pete is well known.”

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Denzel Washington reunited with his Man on Fire co-star Dakota Fanning in Southern Italy for a photoshoot to commemorate the start of production on The Equalizer 3.

Director Antoine Fuqua was all smiles in the pictures snapped in Atrani, as was series newcomer Gaia Scodellaro.

The plot of the Sony Pictures film is being kept under wraps, but the franchise — spawned from the TV show of the same name that also inspired the reboot starring Queen Latifah — has been a solid performer for the studio.

The 2014 original grossed more than $190 million worldwide, and its 2018 sequel made more than $192 million.

Washington and Fanning first worked together when Fanning was just 10, in the late Tony Scott‘s 2004 thriller Man on Fire.

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Seems that Ye is sort of remorseful about his recent anti-Semitic comments. 

In a short interview clip with British broadcaster Piers Morgan, the rapper reflected on his remarks and offered an apology to those he hurt.  

“I will say, I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the death con — the confusion that I caused,” he said. “I feel like I caused hurt and confusion.”

Ye continued, “And I’m sorry for the families of the people that had nothing to do with the trauma that I had been through. And that I used my platform, where you say ‘hurt people, hurt people’ — and I, I was hurt.”

But Ye says he’s “absolutely not” regretful about making the statement. After Morgan suggested Ye’s comments were racist, the rapper responded, “I fought fire with fire.”

Earlier this month, Ye was restricted on Twitter and Instagram after tweeting that he’s “going death con 3 on Jewish people.” The hateful remarks sparked widespread controversy, both on the internet and across the globe.  

Ye’s interview with Morgan is the latest in a string of recent media appearances for the rapper, during which he’s addressed the anti-Semitic comments. Popular podcast Drink Champs released, then removed, their interview with the rapper, while the HBO show The Shop decided not to air his episode at all. 

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