Entertainment

The Lincoln Lawyer is driving on to a TV set near you this weekend –- the Netflix series about a lawyer who works out of the back of his various Lincoln cars is based on the wildly popular book series, which was made into a movie starring Matthew McConaughey in 2011. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo Garcia-Rulfo stars in this latest version, and he tells ABC Audio he plays it different than McConaughey, though he loves him. 

“I remember watching the film, Matthew McConaughey’s film, back in the day, when it came out and loving it, loving what he did. I mean, it’s Matthew McConaughey, he’s amazing,” the actor gushes. “I especially remember the character, because I wasn’t familiar at the time with the books… what a great character.”

Stepping into the lead character’s shoes as a Mexican actor is a dream come true for Garcia-Rulfo, who says, “That’s the great thing about America…it doesn’t matter where you come from, you can make it.”

“I think I was very thankful to be playing not the cartel,” he continues. “It’s such a cool thing to be a lead as a Mexican actor, to be playing that is really, really something.”

“When I when I got [the lead role], I’m like, wait, am I playing the lawyer? You know, like, is this the lead, are you sure?” the actor recalls. “It’s so important. It’s it was such a pleasure. And I’m really thankful for that.“

Although thankful for the role, if Garcia-Rulfo were a lawyer he wouldn’t be working out of the backseat of a moving car like his character does. 

“I get car sick very easy,” he admits. “Like I can’t read, you know? No I couldn’t do it.”

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They’ve toured the world and elsewhere, but apparently David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls — better known as Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer from Spinal Tap — are playing one last show.

That’s the idea behind an apparent sequel to the beloved 1984 mockumentary, from its director, Rob Reiner.

Reiner, who played Scorsese-spoofing filmmaker Martin “Marty” DiBergi in the original, there to document “England’s loudest band,” tells Deadline he’ll be back to direct Spinal Tap II, with a March 19, 2024 release date.

“The plan is to do a sequel that comes out on the 40th anniversary of the original film and I can tell you hardly a day goes by without someone saying, why don’t you do another one?” Reiner explains.

“For so many years, we said, ‘nah.’ It wasn’t until we came up with the right idea how to do this. You don’t want to just do it, to do it. You want to honor the first one and push it a little further with the story.”

According to Reiner, the band is forced to reunite.

“They’ve played Albert Hall, played Wembley Stadium…They haven’t spent any time together recently, and that became the premise,” he explains. “The idea was that Ian Faith, who was their manager, he passed away…Ian’s widow inherited a contract that said Spinal Tap owed them one more concert.”

“She was basically going to sue them if they didn’t,’ Reiner goes on. “All these years and a lot of bad blood we’ll get into and they’re thrown back together and forced to deal with each other and play this concert.”

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In the months before his death from cancer in September of last year, stand-up comic Norm Macdonald recorded a final stand-up performance.

His former SNL co-star, David Spade, revealed as much in an installment of his Fly on the Wall podcast with Dana Carvey.

“We went to a memorial…and it was supposed to be more of a celebration, we never had a funeral for him,” recalled Spade, who noted Netflix cameras were documenting everything for an upcoming project.

“The audience was peppered with SNL people, writers, comedians, Conan O’Brien hosted, Bill Murray from SNL, comedians, [Adam] Sandler…,” Spade told Carvey.

Afterward, Spade and five others were “sequestered” in a private room, and watched the last stand-up set Macdonald ever performed.

“He just said, ‘You know, I keep trying to do my set,’ and he was getting weaker, which we didn’t know,” Spade of Macdonald before his death. “They keep shutting down theaters [for COVID], and they wouldn’t let him go, so then he goes, ‘I’m just gonna run it once, just kind of say it out loud.'”

Spade described the footage, shot by Macdonald’s assistant, with no audience, featured, “classic Norm stuff,” but added some of it was unpolished. “But for what he does, it was perfect. I was excited to be a witness for that,” Spade said.

“I definitely cried,” he admitted. “…You’re watching a guy…he looks a little different, a little gaunt, [but] he was better than my special,” Spade added with a laugh.

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Elizabeth Olsen can currently be seen in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but in a profile in The New York Times, she admits she had some early “frustrations” being a contracted part of the MCU.

“This is me being the most honest,” Olsen said of her commitment to the Marvel Studios series, in which she plays Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch.

“It took me away from the physical ability to do certain jobs that I thought were more aligned with the things I enjoyed as an audience member,” the actress admits. “I started to feel frustrated. I had this job security but I was losing these pieces that I felt were more part of my being.”

“And the further I got away from that, the less I became considered for it,” she said.

Olsen’s since come to love the character, which earned her an Emmy nomination for WandaVision. When asked if she’d do a standalone movie about the powerful magic user, she said, “I think I would. But it really needs to be a good story.”

Olsen also recently defended in the MCU against criticism from those who don’t consider the movies art. She told The Independent, “From an actor’s point of view…I get it; I totally understand…there’s a different kind of performance that’s happening.” But she adds, “I do think throwing Marvel under the bus takes away from the hundreds of very talented crew people. That’s where I get a little feisty about that.”

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

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James Corden is marking his final season as the host of The Late Late Show by returning with a week’s worth of shows staged in his native London.

The four-show stint will be shot at Freemasons’ Hall in Central London, starting Monday, June 27 through Thursday, June 30. It will be the fourth time The Late Late Show will stop in the U.K., and the first time since the pandemic.

When Corden announced last month that he was stepping down from the chat show, he promised to “make the most” of his final season, and the U.K. trip is part of that: CBS hints Corden will “share highlights of his homeland with American viewers, and The Late Late Show‘s signature musical and comedy segments will get a British makeover.”

In the past, Corden’s staged “Crosswalk the Musical” and “Carpool Karaoke” across The Pond.

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Francis Ford Coppola‘s cast for his big-budget, long-gestating film project Megalopolis has been revealed

The Hollywood Reporter reports that the legendary 83-year-old Godfather series filmmaker’s upcoming movie will feature Oscar nominees Adam Driver and Lawrence Fishburne, and Academy Award winners Forrest Whitaker and Jon Voight, along with Fast and Furious series and Game of Thrones alumna Nathalie Emmanuel.

Five-time Oscar winner Coppola is financing the reportedly $120 million film himself. While the exact plot is a secret, it has been described as an “epic story of political ambition, genius, and conflicting interests,” centering on the goal of creating of an ideal society.

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Bridgerton‘s upcoming third season will see a new face playing a familiar character. Deadline is reporting Hannah Dodd will play Francesca Bridgerton in the bodice-ripper series, taking over for Ruby Stokes.

Stokes, who played the dry-witted character for two seasons, left during production of the sophomore frame to star in a new Netflix series called Lockwood & Co., based on the Jonathan Stroud book series.

It’s possible that with the new casting, the third season could focus more on the enigmatic Bridgerton sibling, in the way the second season has turned the attention to Jonathan Bailey‘s Anthony Bridgerton and his conflict between what his heart wants and his familial duty to find a bride.

The official Bridgerton Twitter account acknowledged the casting swap from Stokes to Anatomy of a Scandal vet Dodd with a post responding to Deadline’s headline. It reads, “The only thing the Ton loves more than a scandal is a celebration. Do joyously welcome the newest member to the Bridgerton family.”

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The Flash star Ezra Miller came up with a speedy excuse for a March incident for which he was arrested for disorderly conduct: It was for art.

TMZ has obtained police body cam footage of the actor, who uses they/them pronouns, both before and after their arrest. The incident, the first of Miller’s two recent arrests in Hawaii, occurred at a karaoke Margarita Village in Hilo, Hawaii.

Police said the actor grabbed a mic from a singing woman and lunged at a man playing darts. He was charged disorderly conduct and harassment, but as part of a plea deal, prosecutors later dropped the harassment charge, along with an unrelated traffic charge.

In the footage, Miller can be seen telling the cops, “I film myself when I get assaulted for NFT crypto art,” before screaming repeatedly screaming at the arresting officers, “Tell me your name and your badge number!”

The cops ignore Miller’s demands, who moments later is handcuffed and insists he is the one who was assaulted. Of one of their alleged victims, Miller the Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore star claimed the man “declared himself to be a Nazi,” and “he attacked me.”

They also invoked their “Ninth Amendment rights” to not be “unlawfully persecuted [sic] for a crime of no designation,” as well as their Fourth Amendment rights not to be unlawfully searched.

Miller also claims the officers touched his genitals while searching them, declaring, “I’m transgender and non-binary and I don’t want to be searched by a man.”

Last month, Miller was arrested for second-degree assault for allegedly hitting a woman with a chair at a house party in Hawaii.

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In a world full of reboots, would Zac Efron be down for a High School Musical reunion? Let’s just say you can bet on it.

When asked if he’d be interested in a reboot, the actor, who portrayed Troy Bolton in the original 2006 film and its sequels in 2007 and 2008, told E! News, “Of course.”

“Seriously, having the opportunity in any form to go back and work with that team would be so amazing,” he continued. “My heart’s still there.”

Though the original HSM cast, which also included Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu and others, has yet to reunite for a revival, High School Musical: The Musical, a spinoff starring Olivia Rodrigo currently has two seasons under its belt on Disney+.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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A Simple Favor stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively are set to reprise their roles in an upcoming sequel to the 2018 dark comedy-thriller, with Paul Feig returning to direct as well, sources tell Deadline. A Simple Favor was a global box office hit, earning upward of $97 million. It starred Kendrick as Stephanie, a mommy vlogger who attempts to figure out why and how her best friend Emily — played by Lively — goes missing. In the process, she discovers Emily isn’t exactly who she said she was…

Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions is teaming up with Skydance Television and Concord Originals for a series based on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, with Rachel Shukert, who created The Baby-Sitters Club for Netflix, adapting the musical and serving as showrunner, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Cinderella, the only musical Rogers & Hammerstein created for television, debuted in 1957 starring Julie Andrews. A revival, starring Lesley Ann Warren as Cinderella, aired in 1965, followed by another in 1997 with Brandy Norwood as Cinderella and Whitney Houston as the Fairy Godmother…

(NOTE LANGUAGE) E! announced on Wednesday that it will add six new original scripted rom-com movies to its current pop-culture-centric programming. No further details were given. They join the channels new series slate that includes Celebrity Beef, hosted and executive produced by Joel McHale; Black Pop, executive produced by Stephen Curry; and Raising a F***ing Star, which follows “larger-than-life parents and their budding child stars, who are dancers, actors and models”…

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