Entertainment

(NOTE LANGUAGE) Two of some of the only mainstream R-rated superhero movies, Logan and both Deadpool films, are coming to Disney+ July 22.

It’s fitting that both Hugh Jackman‘s final film in the X-Men series, the Oscar-nominated Logan, is joining the streaming service alongside Ryan Reynolds‘ red-suited Merc with the Mouth. Onscreen, Deadpool’s frenemy relationship with Wolverine mirrors that of Reynolds and his pal Jackman’s one-upmanship online.

In fact, the opening of Deadpool 2 shows the character winding up a toy immortalizing Jackman’s death scene from Logan and the first line of dialogue is Deadpool saying, “F*** Wolverine.”

Thanks to some creative editing, the two characters even share an after-credits scene in that movie, when Deadpool goes back in time and executes Ryan Reynolds‘ poorly executed original incarnation of the character, as seen in the widely panned X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

“Big fan,” he tells Jackman’s razor-clawed hero.

The Disney+ pairing didn’t escape Reynolds in real life. He posted to Instagram, “We’re supposed to announce Logan and Deadpool will soon be the first R-rated movies on Disney+. But we all know some Disney movies should already be rated R for irreversible trauma,” noting alternate ratings for arguably troubling scenes in family films including The Lion King and Bambi.

Logan and the Deadpool movies will be made available thanks to parental controls that were installed when Disney+ acquired the mature-rated Netflix hero shows, including Daredevil, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Gwyneth Paltrow has an Oscar and was in one of the biggest movies of all time with Avengers: Endgame, but she says she’s happy she’s all but hung up her acting career.

“I really don’t miss it all,” she tells Sunday Today‘s Willie Geist in a preview clip obtained by People.

“I think I’m so lucky that I got to do it, and I’m sure I still will at some point,” the star explains, noting her “team” would love her to get back in front of the cameras.

However, her life as the founder of the lifestyle brand Goop appears much more diverting. “The team is always trying to get me to do a movie, but I really love what I do and I love how immediate it is and how … we’re able to create product out of thin air that we believe in so much,” Paltrow says.

She calls her efforts as the CEO of her own company “so powerful” for her — so much so that she doesn’t “daydream about the movie business at all.”

That said, the 49-year-old explains there is one acting project on the horizon at some point, thanks to her actress mom, Blythe Danner.

“I did promise my mother at some point before I die, I told her I would go and do a play, so … I’m gonna deliver on that promise at some point,” Gwyneth says.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Ryan Gosling told Good Morning America on Thursday that he has always wanted to make an action film and is checking off that box with his latest movie, The Gray Man, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo.

The Oscar-nominated actor, who is known for his roles in La La Land and The Notebook, explains action films are, “probably what made me fall in love with movies.”

“It took a long time to get there but, you know, it was like finding the right one, finding the right character and obviously the Russo brothers directing this, who have been doing this for a decade at Marvel and killing it, I just knew I could go along for the crazy ride and feel comfortable with them driving,” he continued.

Gosling, who shares two daughters with his partner, actress Eva Mendes, also shared a funny moment involving his family that took place while he was filming in Prague.

He recalled, “…There’s lots of explosions going off…Eva and the kids…were in a hotel nearby.”

“I got a call in the middle of one of the scenes and…it was Eva saying, ‘How long are these explosions going to go on because the girls have a piano zoom class,'” he laughed.

In the movie, Gosling’s character, Sierra Six, is mocked by former CIA Agent Lloyd Hansen — played by Chris Evans — and referred to as “Ken Doll.” Gosling said the line was added into the script of The Gray Man after he was cast in the live-action Barbie film.

“I was the last to recognize the Ken in me but — I see it clearly now,” the actor joked, saying he’s experiencing a “Kenaissance.”

The Gray Man is out in select theaters now and hits Netflix Friday.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Lawyers for Amber Heard made it official on Thursday and filed a motion in a Virginia court to appeal the June verdict in the Johnny Depp defamation case.

A jury had decided Heard “maliciously” defamed the Pirates of the Caribbean star in a Washington Post op-ed in which she claimed to have been a victim of domestic and sexual violence.

While she did not name her ex-husband Depp in the article, the jury decided that the implication was clear and awarded him $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. The latter amount was capped to $350,000 by Virginia law.

Heard, for her part, was awarded just $2 million in her $100 million countersuit and awarded no punitive damages for comments made about her by a former attorney of Depp.

After the appeal was filed, a spokesperson for Heard gave a statement to ABC News that read, “We believe the court made errors that prevented a just and fair verdict consistent with the First Amendment. We are therefore appealing the verdict.”

“While we realize today’s filing will ignite the Twitter bonfires, there are steps we need to take to ensure both fairness and justice,” the statement concluded.

For Depp’s part, a rep for the actor told ABC News in a statement, “The jury listened to the extensive evidence presented during the six-week trial and came to a clear and unanimous verdict that the defendant herself defamed Mr. Depp in multiple instances. We remain confident in our case and that this verdict will stand.”

Earlier this month, the judge in the case, Penny Azcarate, tossed an attempt by Heard’s lawyers to seek a mistrial in the case.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Christina Ricci is bringing her voice to Gotham City. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the star will play none other than Harley Quinn in Harley Quinn & The Joker: Sound Mind.

The character, created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm for Batman: The Animated Series, has become a fan favorite and was portrayed on the big screen by Margot Robbie in both the Suicide Squad movies and the spin-off Birds of Prey.

On the small screen, Kaley Cuoco voices Harley Quinn in her own animated series for HBO Max.

Introduced as criminal psychologist Dr. Harleen Quinzell, Ricci’s Harley, who treats — and eventually falls for — the Clown Prince of Crime, is the focus of the audio series instead of her “Mr. J.”

According to a tease, Dr. Quinzell is in need of money for an operation for her father when she meets “‘Patient J,’ a unique criminal who seems to have a strange power over everyone but her.”

“Harleen makes a fateful decision: to use her relationship with J to get what she needs, leading both of them down a dangerous path that will change their lives forever,” the tease continues.

Ricci’s project is a follow-up to the original Gotham-based audio series, Batman Unburied, which has been a hit on Spotify since its debut in May and will return for a second season.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

There are expected to be many Marvel movie bombshell announcements over the weekend at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, but for Jeff Bridges‘ money, you can’t beat the original: Iron Man. 

Bridges played Obadiah Stane, an apparent confidante who betrays Robert Downey Jr.‘s Tony Stark, in the 2008 film that gave birth to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

In a new chat with Vanity Fair about his career, Bridges maintains it still holds up — in fact, he called it “the best Marvel movie.”

Bridges told ABC Audio much of the same back in 2018, noting, “for my money I think — you know I’m biased, I’m in the thing! But for my money that…that’s the best one.”

He added, “That’s the best superhero movie that I’ve seen, largely due to Jon Favreau our director and Downey. You know Robert Downey Jr.”

As he did in VF’s piece, Bridges told us much of Favreau’s movie ended up being improvised when the script was thrown out the window on the first day. 

“We thought we had it together but, you know, Marvel said, ‘No, that’s no good.’ So I said, ‘What are we going to do?’ So we started to write the scenes every morning at work!”

“That was kind of…stressful for me,” Bridges admitted. “I like to know my lines and figure out you know what people are going to say, how you form your character. And I made a little inner adjustment…by just saying, ‘Come on Jeff, relax. You’re making a 200 million dollar student film, and you got these cool guys to play with you. Have fun!'”

That he did, evidently, calling it a “great experience.”  

The dude abides.

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

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Ethan Hawke is taking a deep dive into the lives of legendary Hollywood power couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in the six-part documentary The Last Movie Stars.

Hawke was tapped to direct the documentary by Newman and Woodward’s daughter Clea Newman, who wanted the story told with an actor’s point of view. In order to achieve that, Hawke enlisted famous actors to read interview transcripts from the couple and the people closest to them, casting George Clooney as Paul and Laura Linney as Joanne, among others.

“The bad news was it was a giant international pandemic. The good news is everybody was bored,” Hawke says. “So I could call up [Sam] Rockwell and say, ‘Hey, you want to play the director of Cool Hand Luke?’ And he’s like, sure, you know, I mean, why not?”

The pandemic also gave Hawke the time he needed to binge-watch the couple’s extensive filmography, including Newman classics The Hustler and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Woodward’s Oscar-winning turn in The Three Faces of Eve, as well as the 16 films they worked on together during their more than 50-year relationship.

But the best part for Hawke was learning that off-screen, Newman and Woodward were exactly the kind of people he thought they were.

“They’re just on the right side of history,” he says, adding, “And then the biggest funny surprise is, I just would have never known that Paul Newman was as insecure as he was. You know, like, it’s kind of a relief to realize that he was sweating through three shirts and a nervous wreck and worried he wasn’t good enough. And you’re like, wow, we’re all like that!”  

The Last Movie Stars premieres Thursday on HBO Max.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Father and son Kurt and Wyatt Russell have been tapped to star in Apple TV+ and Legendary Television’s Godzilla series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The series, part of Legendary’s Monsterverse franchise, is set in the aftermath of the battle between Godzilla and the Titans that decimated San Francisco in 2014’s Godzilla. It follows a family’s journey to uncover its buried secrets, and a legacy linking them to the secret organization known as Monarch. Details on the Russells’ roles are being kept under wraps…

Apple Original Films announced on Tuesday that it has landed the rights to Causeway, a new film produced by and starring Jennifer Lawrence. The movie is described as “an intimate portrait of a soldier struggling to adjust to her life after returning home to New Orleans.” Atlanta and Bullet Train actor Brian Tyree Henry stars alongside Lawrence…

Peacock dropped the full-length trailer for the horror film They/Them. Kevin Bacon leads the cast of the film, which follows a group of LGBTQ+ campers who arrive at a conversion camp run by Owen Whistler — played by Bacon — to “help them find a new sense of freedom.” according to the film’s official logline. “But as the counselors attempt to psychologically break down each of the campers, a mysterious killer starts claiming victims, and they must reclaim their power if they’re going to survive the horrors of the camp.” Carrie Preston, Anna Chlumsky, Theo Germaine, Quei Tann, Anna Lore, Monique Kim, Darwin del Fabro, Cooper Koch and Austin Crute also star…

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Dave Chappelle‘s Minneapolis show was cancelled Wednesday just hours before he was set to perform. 

Chappelle was set to take the stage at the city’s First Avenue venue in front of a sold-out crowd, when organizers pulled the plug due to backlash received about the comedian who was recently criticized for jokes in his Netflix special, The Closer, that were deemed transphobic  

“To staff, artists, and our community, we hear you and we are sorry,” the venue began in a statement shared to Instagram. 

“We know we must hold ourselves to the highest standards, and we know we let you down. We are not just a black box with people in it, and we understand that First Ave is not just a room, but meaningful beyond our walls,” the statement reads. “The First Avenue team and you have worked hard to make our venues the safest spaces in the country, and we will continue with that mission. We believe in diverse voices and the freedom of artistic expression, but in honoring that, we lost sight of the impact this would have.”

The venue invited people who disagree with the decision to send feedback and advised ticket holders that the show would be transferred to Minneapolis’ Varsity Theater. 

Varsity Theater confirmed the news in a tweet, writing, “Attention Dave Chappelle Fans! The show scheduled for tonight at First Ave has now been moved to Varsity Theater. Your tickets from First Ave will be honored.”

Chappelle has two more shows scheduled for Thursday and Friday at Varsity.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Dave Chappelle‘s Minneapolis show was canceled Wednesday just hours before he was set to perform. 

Chappelle was set to take the stage at the city’s First Avenue venue in front of a sold-out crowd, when organizers pulled the plug due to backlash received about the comedian who was recently criticized for jokes in his Netflix special, The Closer, that were deemed transphobic  

“To staff, artists, and our community, we hear you and we are sorry,” the venue began in a statement shared to Instagram. 

“We know we must hold ourselves to the highest standards, and we know we let you down. We are not just a black box with people in it, and we understand that First Ave is not just a room, but meaningful beyond our walls,” the statement reads. “The First Avenue team and you have worked hard to make our venues the safest spaces in the country, and we will continue with that mission. We believe in diverse voices and the freedom of artistic expression, but in honoring that, we lost sight of the impact this would have.”

The venue invited people who disagree with the decision to send feedback and advised ticket holders that the show would be transferred to Minneapolis’ Varsity Theater. 

Varsity Theater confirmed the news in a tweet, writing, “Attention Dave Chappelle Fans! The show scheduled for tonight at First Ave has now been moved to Varsity Theater. Your tickets from First Ave will be honored.”

Chappelle has two more shows scheduled for Thursday and Friday at Varsity.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.