Guy Ritchie is teaming up with ABC News’ parent company Disney once again, this time for a live-action version of the 1997 animated movie Hercules.
Backing Ritchie, Deadline reports, is AGBO, the production shingle started by Joe and Anthony Russo, the sibling directors of four Disney-owned Marvel Studios blockbusters, including Avengers: Endgame.
The last time Ritchie cracked open the Disney vault, as they used to say, it was for 2019’s live-action Aladdin — and it was a billion-dollar hit for the Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels veteran.
The seven-episode binge follows Isabel “Belly” Conklin, played by newcomer Lola Tung, a 16-year-old who finds herself in a love triangle between two boys who just so happen to be brothers.
It’s based on the series of books by To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before creator Jenny Han, who told ABC Audio that throughout the show’s casting process, she just knew Tung had to be Belly.
“I knew Lola was right when I couldn’t stop thinking about her,” Han said. “I really felt like there was something sort of special about her that made me just care about her and want to watch her on-screen.”
Similarly, Tung found there was something special about Belly. “She’s only a couple years younger than I am. I think that her story and her character are such a wonderful portrayal of teenage girlhood and all of the emotions that you’re feeling,” Tung said.
“I related to that a lot,” she continued, “because I’m 19. I’m not too far off from her age, and I remember those feelings. And I still feel most of those feelings.”
Many of Belly’s emotions center around the boys of the love triangle – Conrad (Christopher Briney) and Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). And, as far as the relationship wars go, Tung doesn’t lean one way or the other, but she’s looking forward to seeing the fans’ reactions.
“The beauty of it and the magic of it is that everyone has their own opinion and their own take on it,” she said. “I’m excited to see what people think, but I think there’s special things about both Conrad and Jeremiah.”
HBO Max evidently chose not to run “for your consideration” advertising to snag a possible Emmy for its sitcom The Garcias, but show creator Jeff Valdez wasn’t taking that sitting down.
He and his creative team have branded New York City’s Times Square themselves — up to and including one of the location’s most famous spaces, the backside of the so-called Naked Cowboy.
The guitar-playing fixture at the Crossroads of the World has been affixed with ad space promoting the show, in what publicists are calling a**-vertising, to try to snag the attention of Television Academy voters.
His guitar has been replaced with one reading FYC [for your consideration] featuring a cast photo, while his famous tighty-whities read “FYC Garcias.”
The Naked Cowboy, aka Robert John Burck, has become a one-man tourist attraction since he first wore his six-string, and not much else, in Times Square in 1998.
Donato Sardella/Getty Images for New York & Company — Warner Bros. Pictures
The first look of Ryan Gosling as Ken in the Barbie movie caused a sensation online, and it wasn’t lost on his partner, Eva Mendes.
The actress and entrepreneur retweeted Warner Bros. peek at Ryan’s bleach blonde locks and Barbie doll plastic-tanned eight pack, noting with the hashtag, “#ThatsMyKen.”
Mendes, mom to Gosling’s daughters Esmerelda and Amada, added to her social media followers of the 2023 movie, “So. F. Funny. So. F. Good. So F excited for you to see this…”
Mendes, 48, has had “her Ken,” 41, in her collection for 10 years.
Barbie, which will feature Margot Robbie as the blonde bombshell let loose in the real world, also stars Simu Liu, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, and America Ferrera.
Just shy of his 60th birthday on July 3, Tom Cruise officially has the biggest hit of his career in Top Gun: Maverick.
Riding high on a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score, the film has flown past $800 million worldwide, besting his previous high water mark, 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which made over $791 million.
Maverick made more than $420 million from U.S. theaters to date, making it the highest-grossing film of the year, stateside.
In the new film Jerry and Marge Go Large, out today on Paramount+, Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening play a real life couple who win the lottery — over and over again for about 10 years. They found a loophole in the math, which they exploited, and used the winnings to benefit their town. The adventure also rekindled their relationship, and Cranston tells ABC Audio it’s just a great story.
“It’s romantic and it just makes you feel good. You think back of simpler times, perhaps in your lives,” he explains. “Small towns have a tendency to think the life is simpler and sweeter and more innocent. And it was nice to do something in this very cynical world that we live in to do something a-cynical.”
Bening agrees, noting, “There’s a lot of lottery stories which are very sad and tragic and terrible things happen to people when people come to them and people want to use them because they have money and all of that. But this one is, it’s just a feel good.”
Bening also wants to make it clear the couple did nothing wrong.
“They were playing by the rules,” she insists. “And since the lottery also benefited from it, it went on for ten years. And they weren’t hiding either, which is interesting. They weren’t hiding what they were doing.”
Then how did they do it? Cranston’s character, Jerry Selbee, was a math genius, says Cranston, a trait he admits he doesn’t share.
“Math was not my strong suit, so it was fun to be able to get in the head of someone who sees that in his mind,” Cranston shares. “He sees angles and geometry and algebraic equations in his head.”
HBO Max has renewed its Emmy-winning original comedy series Hacks for a third season, the streamer announced Thursday. The series, which recently wrapped its sophomore season, explores a dark mentorship that forms between legendary Las Vegas comedian Deborah Vance, played by Jean Smart, and an entitled 25-year-old outcast, played by Hannah Einbinder. Christopher McDonald, Kaitlin Olson, Downs, Poppy Liu, Rose Abdoo, Mark Indelicato, Meg Stalter, Angela E. Gibbs, Luenell, Johnny Sibilly, Joe Mande, Ally Maki and Lorenza Izzo also star. Season two also featured guest appearances from Laurie Metcalf, Ming-Na Wen and Margaret Cho, among others…
After a two-year hiatus, HBO dropped the official trailer for season four of Westworld on Thursday. The sci-fi series, starring Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Ed Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Tessa Thompson, Luke Hemsworth, Aaron Paul and Angela Sarafyan, follows an android uprising that started at an adult theme park and has since spilled over into the real world. The fourth season is simply described as “a dark odyssey about the fate of sentient life on Earth.” The eight-episode fourth season kicks off June 26…
Jimmy Kimmel will once again take the summer off from his ABC late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and he’s gathered a slate of guest hosts to carry the ball while he’s away. Anthony Anderson, Nicole Byer, Al Franken, Jeff Goldblum, Chelsea Handler, Simu Liu, Rob McElhenney, Lamorne Morris, Desus Nice, Mark Rober, Kerry Washington and more are set to host throughout the summer session, beginning on Monday with Sean Hayes. Upon his return in the fall, Kimmel will head back to Brooklyn, New York, where he was born and lived until he was 9. It’s his sixth broadcast visit to the borough and first since 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic put such trips on hold…
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton and Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Community writer-producer Andrew Guest are teaming up on a live-action series featuring the longtime Marvel character Wonder Man, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project is still in the early stages, but they hope to get rolling in 2023. Wonder Man was first introduced in 1964, initially a villain. He was re-conceived as a hero and Avenger in the late 1970s…
Nat Geo’s SharkFest will mark its 10th anniversary by bringing in sister Disney brands ABC, ESPN and Hulu to help air its largest programming slate of shows ever across the most platforms it has ever been on, according to Variety. Last year’s six-week SharkFest was limited to Nat Geo, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo, Disney XD and Disney+. This year’s event will feature nearly 30 hours of new content and 60 hours of “enhanced” programming over four weeks starting Monday. Every SharkFest premiere will be available to stream on Disney+ as they make their initial debuts on other platforms. Disney is the parent company of ABC News…
Vince McMahon, the chairman and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment and arguably the face of the brand, has “voluntarily” stepped down in the midst of an investigation into a multi-million dollar hush money probe.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that a special committee of the WWE board is looking into allegations McMahon, 76, paid $3 million to a former employee with whom he’d allegedly had an affair.
The unnamed former employee, 41, was reportedly hired at $100K a year, and allegedly saw her salary doubled when the affair started, according to the sports network.
McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie McMahon, has stepped in as interim CEO, the organization noted.
WWE said in a statement that both Vincent McMahon and John Laurinaitis, WWE’s head of talent relations, are being investigated, and that “effective immediately, McMahon has voluntarily stepped back from his responsibilities as CEO and Chairman of the Board until the conclusion of the investigation.”
McMahon will “retain his role and responsibilities related to WWE’s creative content during this period,” the company stated.
In the announcement, McMahon vowed his “complete cooperation to the investigation,” and “pledged to accept the findings and outcome…whatever they are.”
Game of Thrones alum Kit Harington is attached to a live-action sequel to the blockbuster series centered on his Jon Snow character, currently in development at HBO, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The eighth and final season of GoT, ended with Snow learning his true identity was Aegon Targaryen, a possible heir to the Iron Throne. The series concluded with his exile from Westeros as he rides into the Haunted Forest with Ghost the direwolf and the Wildlings to begin a new life.
Since the spinoff would take place after the events of the final season of GoT, it opens the possibility that other popular Game of Thrones characters — including Snow’s half-siblings Arya Stark and Sansa Stark, played respectively by Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner — could return as well.
The Jon Snow sequel brings the number of in-development GoT-themed projects to seven, including HBO’s upcoming House of the Dragon, prequel, which premieres on August 21. Other spinoffs include Tales of Dunk and Egg, 10,000 Ships, 9 Voyages and Flea Bottom. There are also three animated prequel projects, including The Golden Empire.
Lightyearblasts off into theaters Friday and Chris Evans, who plays the iconic space ranger, teased that fans will see a side of Buzz Lightyear not explored in the Toy Story movies.
Speaking to ABC Audio, Evans compared Buzz to Captain America, whom he brought to life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the two are very different characters, Evans said they have a lot in common.
“I suppose when it comes to their heroism, it’s rooted in a sense of duty and responsibility, morality, dedication, focus, honesty,” said Evans. “A lot of their heroic traits overlap.”
So … is Evans Team Cap or Team Buzz?
“I got to go with Cap,” he declared, noting that, because he’s played the first Avenger since 2011, “That’s where my allegiance lies.”
Although Evans is in “Cap’s corner” right now, he hinted that his feelings toward Buzz could change “if I play this role for another 10 years.” He said that would “be a harder question to answer.”
Evans is excited his next adventure took him off planet Earth and into the cosmos. As it turns out, the 41-year-old actor is a big fan of films set in space and listed off his favorite childhood movies.
“I loved all the Alien movies. I really loved Apollo 13 when I was younger,” he raved. Evans also has a soft spot for Gravity, adding, “They really did a great job of bringing you to space and making you feel the kind of vastness and emptiness of the world.”
Lightyear, also starring Keke Palmer, Taika Waititi, James Brolin and Uzo Aduba, is now in theaters.
