Entertainment

Bob Rafelson, the director, producer and writer best known for helming the 1970 film Five Easy Pieces, “died peacefully, surrounded by his family” Saturday evening at his home in Aspen, Colorado, his former personal assistant of 38 years, Jolene Wolff, tells Variety. He was 89 years old. Rafelson was also known for co-creating the 1960s TV series The Monkees, which followed a fabricated rock group modeled on the Beatles. Rafelson also teamed with Jack Nicholson as either co-writer or director on several films, including 1981’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. Rafelson also directed the music video for Lionel Richie’s 1983 hit “All Night Long (All Night)”…

FX announced during Mayans M.C.’s panel at Comic-Con on Sunday that it has renewed the show for a fifth season. The series stars JD Pardo, Clayton Cardenas, Edward James Olmos, Sarah Bolger, Michael Irby, Carla Baratta, Antonio Jaramillo, Raoul Max Trujillo, Richard Cabral and Danny Pino. The motorcycle-gang crime drama wrapped up its fourth season in June…

Apple TV+ on Sunday dropped a first-look teaser for season three of Mythic Quest, set to launch in the fall. The workplace comedy stars co-creator Rob McElhenney as the fictional company’s creative director, Ian Grimm, who leads the team behind the biggest multiplayer video game of all time. The ensemble cast also includes F. Murray Abraham, Danny Pudi, Imani Hakim, Charlotte Nicdao, Ashly Burch, Jessie Ennis and David Hornsby… (Trailer contains censored profanity.)

One of this fall’s two “Treehouse of Horror” episodes of The Simpsons will be a full-length parody of Stephen King‘s horror film It, The Simpsons exec producer Matt Selman revealed on Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con, according to Variety. “I think the fans are going to be really excited. Certainly the tattoos already exist of Krusty as Pennywise. So we’re just writing towards the tattoos now. You want as many tattoo worthy moments in your episodes as you can,” Selman tells the outlet. The other “Treehouse of Horror” episode will follow the show’s traditional three-vignette format…

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Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige returned to San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend and unveiled the studio’s timeline for Phase 4 and beyond, starting with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, debuting exclusively on Disney+ on August 17.

Phase 4 will end with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, opening November 11.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, kicks off Phase 5 February 17, 2023, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 following on May 5.

Secret Invasion, featuring Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders, reprising their respective rolls as Maria Hill and Nick Fury, and Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, the Skrull, introduced in Captain Marvel, launches in spring of 2023.

Echo, starring Wakanda Forever‘s Riri Williams, and Loki season two with Tom Hiddleston returning as the titular God of Mischief, debut in summer 2023.

Ironheart, the Hawkeye spinoff featuring Alaqua Cox‘s deaf antihero Maya Lopez streams in the fall 2023, while Agatha: Coven of Chaos, the WandaVision spinoff starring Kathryn Hahn as the titular sorceress, starts shooting later this year with an eye toward a winter 2023 debut.

Captain America: New World Order, with Anthony Mackie returning as Sam Wilson, is set to launch in the summer 2024.

The series Daredevil: Born Again, featuring Charlie Cox‘s Matt Murdock, who was reintroduced into the MCU with a cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home, is set for a spring 2024 launch and co-stars Vincent D’Onofrio as Kingpin, who starred in last year’s Hawkeye.

Phase 5 will culminate with Thunderbolts on July 26, 2024.

Looking ahead to Phase 6, Fantastic Four hits theaters on Nov. 8, 2024; Avengers: The Kang Dynasty opens in theaters May 2, 2025; and Avengers: Secret Wars is slated for release on Nov. 7, 2025.

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

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Did the sci-fi/horror flick Nope have what it takes to knock Thor: Love and Thunder out of first place at the box office? The answer was a resounding “Yep.” The film’s estimated $44-million finish gave filmmaker Jordan Peele his third consecutive number-one debut as a director, following Get Out and Us.

Thor: Love and Thunder dropped to second place with an estimated $22.1 million. Its worldwide tally after three weeks now stands at $598 million.

Third place belongs to Minions: Rise of Gru, which grabbed an estimated $17.7 million in its fourth week of release. Globally, the film has collected $640 million.

Where the Crawdads Sing pulled up in fourth place with an estimated $10.3 million haul in its second week in theaters. Its North American total currently stands at $38.3 million.

Top Gun: Maverick rounded out the top five with an estimated $10 million in its ninth week of release.

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Jamie Lee Curtis doubts the Marvel Cinematic Universe will want to add her to their ranks anytime soon.

While promoting her film Everything Everywhere All at Once back in May, the actress poked fun at the other universe-spanning movie that was released around the same time, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

She called out the MCU directly in an Instagram post, writing that her film “out marvels any Marvel movie they put out there.”

“Is this one of those Internet feuds? All I’ll say is we would SLAY in a Family Feud contest with the Doctor Strange strangers,” she continued.

Now, in a recent interview with People magazine, Curtis explains exactly why she poked fun at the Marvel flick, saying, “I have nothing against Marvel as an entity. I’ve seen a lot of Marvel movies.”

“Everything Everywhere All at Once was a little movie that could…we were able to tell a multiverse story that really touched people,” Curtis said. “It doesn’t have to be a Marvel movie in order to be a spectacle and to really move you.”

So, after all has been said and done, would she ever consider acting in a Marvel movie?

“If the role was interesting and if I could bring what I do to it, of course I would,” she said, before clarifying, “But, I would find it hard to imagine that Marvel’s going to figure out something to do with a 64-year-old woman.”

Everything Everywhere All at Once is A24’s highest-grossing film of all time. An extended cut of the film will be re-released in theaters on July 29.

Disney is the parent company of Marvel and ABC News.

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Fans were treated to the extended trailer of the Lord of the Rings prequel series, The Rings of Power, Friday at San Diego Comic-Con.

The trailer was shown at a panel hosted by J. R. R. Tolkien superfan Stephen Colbert, who got the massive ensemble cast and crew to spill details about the long-anticipated new series in front of almost 7,000 fans.

According to Entertainment Tonight, showrunner Patrick McKay said that he plans for the series to follow a “50-hour story,” teasing the potential for at least five seasons of the fantasy epic.

The new saga is a “human story” that poses the question “how far in the darkness would you go to protect the ones you love?” showrunner J. D. Payne shared at the panel.

The three-minute extended trailer shows off that darkness, as well as the cast of new characters, as antagonist Sauron lurks in the shadows.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres September 2 on Prime Video.

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Who could forget the photo Warner Bros. released last month of Ryan Gosling dressed as Ken on the set of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie?

In the picture, the actor rocks a denim vest and a bleached blonde hairstyle as he stands in front of what looks to be Barbie’s pink Dream House.

Gosling appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Thursday night, where he addressed the online conversation the photo caused about his character.

“I was surprised how some people were clutching their pearls at my Ken as though they had ever thought about Ken for a second before this,” Gosling said. “They never played with Ken. Nobody plays with Ken, man.”

He added that Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s Barbie screenplay was the “best script” he has ever read.

Immediately after reading the script for the first time, Gosling said he walked out to his backyard and found what he took to be a sign – a Ken doll.

“You know where I found Ken, Jimmy?” Gosling asked. “Face down in the mud next to a squished lemon.”

He took a photo of the dirty Ken doll, which he promptly sent to Gerwig alongside the message, “I shall be your Ken, for his story must be told.”

Barbie also stars Margot Robbie as the titular doll. It will premiere in theaters on July 21, 2023.

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School is almost back in session.

Quinta Brunson’s Emmy-nominated sitcom, Abbott Elementary, returns to ABC with new episodes on September 21. To celebrate, the cast and crew dropped by San Diego Comic-Con to spill all about their upcoming second season.

“We spent a lot of the first season building up what this show is capable of,” Brunson said during the virtual panel, according to Entertainment Weekly. “Now we just get to have these fun bottle episodes that sometimes teach you a lot about the world and sometimes you don’t learn about the world at all. You’re just having fun with these characters.”

Producer Patrick Schumacker revealed exactly why this is: season two will have “more episodes” than the first season, which had 13.

More episodes mean even more time to spend with the beloved cast of characters, which, according to Brunson, include getting a peek into some of their home lives.

“The most surprising home situation I would think would be Gregory (Tyler James Williams) or Jacob (Chris Perfetti),” she said, noting that “everybody else’s will be what you expect.”

If that isn’t enough, the season two premiere promises to feature a huge cameo.

“It’s one that is the biggest star in the world to me. They are the biggest star we’ve seen thus far at Abbott Elementary,” Brunson said.

Producer Justin Halpern agreed, adding that it was someone “we didn’t think we would get” and that they even had to move their shooting schedule around to accommodate the mysterious celebrity.

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Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are together in the city of love.

The famous couple was seen in Paris on Friday morning cuddling together in a park. “They were like two teens on a park bench – very loving, very attentive,” a source told PEOPLE.

Affleck and Lopez were later spotted walking around the city with their children. According to a source obtained by the publication, they explored the Marais district and Rue des Rosiers and even took a trip from Seine to the Musée d’Orsay.

This vacation comes less than a week after their surprise wedding in Las Vegas, Nevada. The couple walked down the aisle right before midnight on July 16 at the iconic Little White Wedding Chapel, a few months after publicly sharing their engagement.

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Shonka Dukureh, the actress who played Big Mama Thornton in Elvis, was found dead in the bedroom of her Kothe Way apartment in Nashville she shared with her children, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. She was 44. Police say no foul play is evident in her death. The actor also shared the stage at Coachella this year with Doja Cat…

Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum Sarah Michelle Gellar will return to the world of the supernatural with a starring role in Paramount+’s upcoming Teen Wolf spinoff, Wolf Pack, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Gellar will also executive-produce. Based on a series of novels by Edo Van Belkom, adapted by Teen Wolf creator Jeff Davis, Wolf Pack “centers on two teenagers, played by Armani Jackson and Bella Shepard, whose lives are changed when a wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature,” per THR. Gellar will play an arson investigator tasked with finding the person who started the wildfire. Chloe Rose Robertson and Tyler Lawrence Gray also star…

Universal Pictures on Thursday teased Christopher Nolan‘s upcoming movie Oppenheimer, releasing the first poster for the film. Besides Cillian Murphy, who plays J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the creators of the atomic bomb, the movie’s star-studded cast includes, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Josh Hartnett, Dane DeHaan, Benny Safdie, Jack Quaid, Matthew Modine, Alden Ehrenreich, David Krumholtz, Michael Angarano and Kenneth Branagh. A teaser trailer is playing ahead of showings of Jordan Peele’s Nope…

Taurean Blacque, the Emmy-nominated actor best known for his role as Detective Neal Washington on NBC’s 1980s hit police series Hill Street Blues, died Thursday in Atlanta following a brief illness, according to Deadline. He was 82. Blacque also guest-starred on such TV series as Sanford and Son, What’s Happening, Good Times, The Bob Newhart Show and Taxi, among others…

The ABC breakout hit Abbott Elementary scored a rare full-season, 22-episode order for season 2, according to Deadline. The series, which debuted as a midseason replacement, made Emmy history, with creator Quinta Brunson becoming first Black woman to earn three Emmy nominations in the comedy category, including Outstanding Comedy Series, Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and Writing for a Comedy Series…

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Billy Porter makes his directorial debut with the groundbreaking new romantic comedy Anything’s Possible, out Friday on Prime Video.

The film follows confident teen Kelsa, who is a transgender girl, as she navigates her senior year and her crush on her artsy classmate.

Porter says that his film calls back to the coming-of-age classics while also doing something completely new. “When I grew up, I was obsessed with the John Hughes genre,” he tells ABC Audio.

“I had to superimpose myself onto all those white people. When I read this script, I knew instantly that this was a genre that needed to be revisited for the modern era, and that’s what we set out to do,” Porter says.

He wasn’t alone in searching for himself on screen. Actress Eva Reign, who plays Kelsa in the film, recalls the time she spent looking for a movie just like this one.

“I spent so much time scrolling through Tumblr and Instagram trying to find some movie or show, and I just wasn’t seeing myself anywhere,” she says. “This film is literally what me and a lot of my friends talked about wanting to see.”

At the end of the day, even with all that time spent wishing for a movie like this, Porter says he didn’t feel any pressure in making it.

“When you’re simply living inside of your truth and walking that path, the pressure is released. There was more pressure on me when I was trying to be straight,” he says. “There is no pressure now, because all I’ve got to do is show up and be myself.”

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