Entertainment

The entire second season of Disney+’s high school hit Big Shot drops on the streaming service Wednesday.

A “very grateful” John Stamos, who plays girls basketball coach Marvyn Korn, tells ABC Audio he literally couldn’t wait. “I remember talking to them at the end of shooting the first season. I said, ‘Let’s just, let’s take a month off, just roll into season 2.’ They said, ‘Well, let’s see how it does.’ I said, ‘Look, the girls are going to get older. Let’s let’s just take a month off … let’s pick it up [for season 2].'”

Yvette Nicole Brown returns as Westbrook High Principal Sherilyn Thomas. She explained with a laugh, “It’s almost Pavlovian: The first show I did 18 years ago with Kevin Hart was called The Big House, and we got canceled after six episodes. So I always start twitching somewhere around the sixth episode ’cause I’m like, ‘Are we going to make it?’ And then to make it beyond the six episodes, and then to get a second season of anything, is always just a wonderful surprise.”

Brown adds, “And, you know, I love Disney+, I love John. I love the girls, I love [co-star] Jessalyn [Gilsig]. So to get to come back and work with these people that I enjoy working with has been such a gift.”

Stamos teases some big changes for the school. “The first episode, we see … that the school becomes co-ed. And I think that opens up a lot of things. I mean, obviously the girls and boys and all that, but also really we get a chance to highlight the inequality of men’s sports versus women’s sports.”

He adds, “The season just felt right.”

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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In a chat with Variety along with his The Whale director Darren Aronofsky, Brendan Fraser once again addressed the shelving of Batgirl, the film in which he played the pyromaniac heavy, Firefly.

“It’s tragic,” the actor said of Warner Bros. Discovery’s decision to write off the film.

Fraser continued, “It doesn’t engender trust among filmmakers and the studio. Leslie Grace was fantastic [as the titular heroine]. She’s a dynamo, just a spot-on performer. Everything that we shot was real and exciting and just the antithesis of doing a straightforward digital all green screen thing. They ran firetrucks around downtown Glasgow at 3 in the morning, and they had flamethrowers. It was a big-budget movie, but one that was just stripped down to the essentials.”

He lamented that everything directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah shot “felt real and exciting.”

Aronofsky, who helped Natalie Portman win an Oscar for Black Swan, and who most agree put Fraser on the Academy Award track with The Whale, called the Batgirl news “a disappointment for all the fans.”

And he was speaking from experience, as he explained he tried to helm a dark take on the Caped Crusader, only to have the studio pass.

“It was after Batman & Robin, the Joel Schumacher one,” Aronofsky recalled of the notorious 1997 franchise-chilling bomb. “That had been a big hiccup back then at Warner Bros., so I pitched them a rated-R, boiled down origin story of Batman …”

Aronofsky’s draft was based on Frank Miller‘s bruising Batman: Year One comic.

A rated-R superhero movie was, incidentally, ahead of its time back then, the filmmaker mused, considering the successes of Deadpool and Joker, the latter of which became not only a blockbuster, but an Oscar winner, set in the Batman universe.

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Iliza Shlesinger admits at the start of her thought-provoking new book, All Things Aside, she almost stopped writing it because she was concerned someone “with no real agenda” would take her words out of context and cancel her.

All Things Aside arrived Tuesday, coinciding with the release of her sixth Netflix special Hot Forever. Shlesinger spoke to ABC Audio about why cancel culture is harming the arts and offered some advice to her fellow creatives.

Shlesinger took note at how cancel culture is weaponized to intimidate creatives to not try out of fear of being canceled. “People who don’t express themselves and are miserable do want you to just burn. And they think by you going away that they will consume your power,” she expressed. “It doesn’t work that way.”

And, in the instance something is said “from the highest light and someone does take it the wrong way,” she expressed, “People can pluck out any word from any text and it is all about the context. And I think smart people see context.”

Shlesinger is glad she finished her book. While it broaches lighthearted subjects, like capitalizing off millennial nostalgia and how to be a decent person, All Things Aside also speaks to serious, contemporary topics like access to healthcare. Shlesinger opened up about her miscarriage and the poor treatment she received from the industry. 

“I have access to, quote unquote, excellent health care. I’m of a certain tax bracket and I’m white and I still got this. So can you imagine how awful this is in mass for the bulk of women?” she queried. Shlesinger added she hopes that by opening up about the traumatic experience, it’ll help others “know you’re not alone” and spark needed change.

All Things Aside is available to purchase now.

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As a birthday present for his pal, Tony-winning Broadway vet Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds tagged him on an Instagram post showing the trailer to the musical Spirited.

“This year, I’m giving you the gift of being much worse than you at singing and dancing,” Reynolds joked.

The Apple TV+ film is a musical take on A Christmas Carol, with Reynolds playing the Scroogey Clint Briggs and Will Ferrell playing the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Apple TV+ teases, “Each Christmas Eve, the Ghost of Christmas Present selects one dark soul to be reformed by a visit from three spirits. But this season, he picked the wrong Scrooge. Clint Briggs turns the tables on his ghostly host until Present finds himself reexamining his own past, present and future…”

Oscar winner Octavia Spencer also stars, and the trailer teases a magical — and musical — holiday adventure. But fitting of Ferrell and Reynolds, the trailer ends with the pair riffing. “My first save, it was this little sick kid,” Ferrell’s Ghost says, trying to come up with a name. “It was Tiny Tim,” Ryan’s Clint, wearing a Santa coat, replies flatly.

Ghost continues, “No. Little kid. One crutch.”

Clint replies, “Tiny Tim.”

Ghost protests, “No, no. Little Larry. Micro Mike. Super-small Steve.”

Exasperated, Clint says, “Holy Shhhh…”

Spirited drops on Apple TV+ on November 18.

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The Black Adam movie has been years in the making, but for star Dwayne Johnson, it was all worth “really fighting for.”

Playing the titular DC anti-hero, the actor tells Good Morning America the film is “a representation of trying to be resilient….”

Talk of Johnson portraying the character first surfaced 15 years ago, and he eventually confirmed he would be playing the character back in 2014.

He said Adam’s “certainly a departure” from anything he’s done before, but he recalled times in his past where he felt “really constrained” and had people telling him what he could and could not do — like other heroes try with the god-like Adam.

“Many moons ago,” Johnson said he was told he’d have to make changes if he wanted to be like the biggest movie stars at the time: George Clooney, Johnny Depp and Will Smith.

Johnson said he was told he shouldn’t call himself The Rock — his ring name — and that he’d have to go on a diet and not go to the gym in an effort to lose weight because he was “too big.”

He continued, “And I bought into it for a couple of years before I said, ‘This ends right now, and I’m going to be myself and at least if I fail, I’ll fail being me.'”

Johnson said Black Adam means a lot to him, calling it “the movie of my career, the most important movie I’ve ever done — arguably will ever do.”

And while nobody tells Black Adam what to do, the same doesn’t apply to Johnson’s three daughters. He calls being a father to Simone, 21, Jasmine, 6, and Tiana, 4, “my favorite role.”

Black Adam opens in U.S. theaters on Oct. 21.

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Actor and stand-up comedian Eric André, along with another Black comedian, U.K. funnyman Clayton English, have filed suit against Clayton County, Georgia over what they claim were “racial profiling and coercive stops” at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Local ABC News affiliate WSB-TV reports the pair spoke at a press conference detailing their suit, claiming their Fourth and 14th Amendment rights were violated.

English, who lives in Atlanta, claims he was randomly searched on Oct. 30, 2020 when traveling from Atlanta to Los Angeles.

On April 21, 2021, André says he was trying to make the same trip when he was stopped on the jet bridge on the way to the plane.

“I was blocked in a jet bridge by two police officers who interrogated me about drugs,” André said at the press conference. “I didn’t see any other Black people boarding at the time. It’s hard to believe I was selected at ‘random’ for questioning.”

The veteran of The Eric André Show and HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones among other shows called it “a humiliating and degrading experience.”

The attorneys representing the two men are calling for the airport stop program to be terminated.

According to WSB, the lawyers alleged that in the eight months before André’s stop, 56% of the hundreds of passengers stopped by CCPD were recorded as Black. But overall, only 8% of airline passengers in the U.S. are Black.

Barry Friedman, co-founder of the Policing Project at NYU School of Law and the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Professor of Law, commented, “These are cases of flying while Black, plain and simple. Every day in America, people of color are unjustly stopped on the pretense that these encounters are consensual. It is humiliating, it is deeply inappropriate, it is unconstitutional, and it must stop.”

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According to a local Tennessee news report, American Idol runner-up Willie Spence died Tuesday from injuries sustained in a car accident there. The singer was 23.

The “tragic news” from outlet Douglas Now was confirmed by Katherine McPhee, who posted about the contestant with whom she performed in season 19 of the show.

McPhee posted a video to her Instagram Story of her and the “sweet” singer together. “Only 23 years old. Life is so unfair and nothing is ever promised,” she captioned, adding, “God rest your soul Willie. It was a pleasure to sing with you and to know you.”

McPhee also posted the last video Spence shared on social media, which incidentally shows him singing in his car on Tuesday. “He posted this right before the accident,” McPhee wrote, adding a sobbing emoji.

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Khloé Kardashian revealed on Tuesday that she recently had a tumor removed from her face.

“I have seen numerous stories going around about the ever-evolving bandage on my face, with some of you wondering why I’ve been wearing one for the past few weeks,” the reality star, 38, wrote on her Instagram story, sharing a collage of photos of herself wearing the patch.

“After noticing a small bump on my face and assuming it was something as minor as a zit, I decided to get it biopsied 7 months after realizing it was not budging,” she continued, sharing a close-up photo of her face with the spot circled.

Kardashian then wrote that two dermatologists examined the biopsy and both saw something she said they considered “incredibly rare” for someone her age.

“A few days later I was told I need to have an immediate operation to remove a tumor from my face,” she wrote, noting that she called a surgeon who was a family friend and someone she knew would take “incredible care” of her.

Kardashian said she was “grateful to share” that her surgeon “was able to get everything.” She said the tumor’s “margins appear clear” and she is now in the “healing process.”

“So, here we are…you’ll continue to see my bandages and when I’m allowed, you’ll probably see a scar (and an indention in my cheek from the tumor being removed) but until then I hope you enjoy how fabulous I’m making these face bandages look,” she continued.

Kardashian said she told her story as a reminder for her followers to “get checked, and frequently” before explaining how she had melanoma surgically removed from her back when she was 19, despite being someone who “wears sunscreen every single day, religiously […].”

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Idina Menzel, the voice of Disney’s beloved Princess Elsa, will be the subject of an upcoming Disney+ biopic, Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage? The project will focus on the life and career of the Tony winner and culminate in her headlining a concert at Madison Square Garden in her hometown of New York City after a nationwide tour. “We made this documentary to show firsthand how important it is to pursue your passions and lean on those around you in times of hardship,” said Menzel in a statement, adding, “I hope it resonates with my fans and new audiences alike who find themselves balancing motherhood, work and marriage while chasing their own dreams and inspires others to keep pushing forward.” Which Way to the Stage? premieres December 9…

Some of your favorite Outlander cast members will be returning to the popular time-traveling series for its upcoming seventh season, along with five new cast members, Starz announced on Tuesday. They include Graham McTavish reprising his role as Dougal MacKenzie, Nell Hudson as Laoghaire Fraser, Andrew Whipp as Brian Fraser, Layla Burns as Joan MacKimmie and Lotte Verbeek as Geillis Duncan. They’ll be joined by newcomers Gloria Obianyo, Rod Hallett, Chris Fulton, Diarmaid Murtagh and Kristin Atherton. Season seven of Outlander is currently filming in Scotland…

Some good news for Dune fans: the premiere date for the sequel to Denis Villeneuve‘s Oscar-winning 2021 film has been moved up a couple of weeks — from November 17 2023 to November 3, 2023, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Dune: Part Two will star Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Christopher Walken and Javier Bardem. The sequel will cover the second half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, with Chalamet’s Paul Atreides teaming with the Fremen to free the desert planet of Arrakis from House Harkonnen. The first Dune, released during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, grossed upward of $400 million worldwide…

Sydney Sweeney seemed to confirm reports that she’s set to star in a new Barbarella movie. The Euphoria star shared an image of original artwork from the original 1968 film on her Instagram, with the caption, “time to save the universe.” The original 1968 Barbarella, starring Jane Fonda as the titular space-traveling heroine, stiffed at the box office, though it earned cult film status in the decades since…

Saturday Night Live alum Pete Davidson and Crazy Rich Asians‘ Michelle Yeoh have been cast in voice roles for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Director Steven Caple Jr. shared the news via an Instagram post featuring separate videos of Davidson and Yeoh recording their parts. Yeoh voices a character named Airazor, while Davidson voices Mirage. They join Anthony Ramos and Dominque Fishback, who will star in the film in live-action roles. Rise of the Beasts will be set in 1994. While Optimus Prime will remain the hero, the alien robot war will be focused on “prehistoric [robotic] animals that travel through time and space.” It’s set to hit theaters on June 24, 2022…

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Actress Kaley Cuoco is pregnant.

The Big Bang Theory and The Flight Attendant star announced the news Tuesday in an Instagram post featuring photos of herself and boyfriend, Ozark and Iron Fist veteran Tom Pelphrey.

“Baby girl Pelphrey coming 2023,” Cuoco wrote in the caption. “Beyond blessed and over the moon… I [heart emoji] you @tommypelphrey !!!”

The series of photos included images of Cuoco and Pelphrey holding a slice of cake with pink frosting inside, posing with mugs that say “mama bear” and “papa bear,” and an image of Cuoco holding up pregnancy tests.

Pelphrey also shared similar photos of himself and Cuoco on Instagram.

”And then it was even MORE BETTER.” he wrote in the caption. “Love you more than ever @kaleycuoco.”

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