With the year about to wrap up, online ticket seller Fandango quizzed more than 5,000 users to see which movies they can’t wait to see in theaters in 2023 — and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, opening May 5, topped the list.
What’s more, one of the Marvel Studios movie’s stars, Chris Pratt, was named the Most Anticipated Hero of 2023.
On the flip side of that, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula in The Little Mermaid live-action film was dubbed the Most Anticipated Villain of 2023.
Coming in second in the anticipated movies poll was Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the follow-up to the Oscar-winning animated original. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ranked third; John Wick: Chapter 4 placed, appropriately, fourth; and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny rounded out the top five.
The poll also revealed 97% say they expect to go to the movie theater more often in 2023 than in 2022, with 84% admitting they plan to see six or more movies on the big screen in the coming year.
Survey questions, methodology and results have not been verified or endorsed by ABC News or The Walt Disney Company.
2023’s Most Anticipated Movies, according to Fandango
1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
3. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
4. John Wick: Chapter 4
5. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
6. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
7. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
8. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes
9. Creed III
10. The Super Mario Bros. Movie
As we reported, Shirley Watts, widow of the late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, passed away December 16, and now Charlie’s bandmate Ronnie Wood is paying tribute to her.
Next to a picture of a young Charlie and Shirley, Ronnie writes that he and his wife, Sally, are “very sad to hear about the death of our friend Shirley Watts. We will miss you so much, but take comfort that you are reunited with your beloved Charlie.”
He adds, “Our thoughts and prayers are with their daughter Seraphina, granddaughter Charlotte, and son-in-law Barry, much love to you all at this very sad time.”
Charlie and Shirley wed in 1964, before the Rolling Stones took off, and were together until the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s death on August 24, 2021.
(TORONTO) — A 73-year-old man wielding a semiautomatic handgun opened fire Sunday at his luxury condo building in a suburb near Toronto, killing five neighbors, including three members of his condo board, police said Monday.
Another victim was injured in the shooting in Vaughan, a city north of Toronto, according to York Regional Police.
At a news conference Monday afternoon, Chief Jim MacSween of the York Regional Police Department identified the alleged gunman as Francesco Villi, a resident of the 16-story Bellaria condominium tower where the shooting rampage occurred.
He said Villi was fatally shot in an “interaction” with police on the third floor of the condo tower.
MacSween said three men and two women were killed in the shooting. He said three victims were members of the building’s condo board.
He said the victims were found in three separate units of the building. He said a 66-year-old woman was shot and seriously injured in the incident.
The names of the victims were not immediately released, and MacSween said a motive for the shooting remains under investigation.
“We are truly shocked and sorry that such an incident took place in our region,” MacSween said. “We will do anything we can to support the loved ones and anyone else impacted by this heartbreaking incident.”
MacSween declined to confirm reports that Villi was engaged in an ongoing dispute with his condo board.
He said part of the investigation will focus on what relationship Villi had to the victims and “what is his relationship to the board.”
The shooting unfolded around 7:20 p.m. Sunday when police received a call of an active shooter at the condo building, MacSween said. An officer who responded to the scene had an “interaction” with the alleged gunman, who was shot and killed, MacSween said.
“The officer in that interaction is a 24-year veteran of the York Regional Police, and he very likely saved lives by his actions last night,” MacSween said.
The Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, which joined the probe because it involved police shooting the suspect, said the victims were found on different floors of the building.
“Residents of the building who had been evacuated are now able to return to their homes,” York police said on Twitter. “We thank you for your patience and understanding while we worked to ensure safety and preserve evidence.”
(WASHINGTON) — As Republicans gear up to retake power in the House next year, incoming chairs of the two top investigative committees in the House of Representatives have rolled out a laundry list of planned investigations – but top Republican investigators appear to have little appetite to use their newfound subpoena power in one area: Jan. 6.
Despite pressure from far-right figures, and even signals from leadership and members inside the Republican caucus, incoming chairs of the House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee told ABC News they are more focused on probes into COVID-19 funding, the border, and President Joe Biden’s family rather than relitigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol or investigating the investigators.
“Right now that’s not anywhere on my list,” Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the incoming chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, told ABC News when asked if he planned to use his power in the upcoming Congress to investigate Jan 6.
Comer’s comments come as some members of the Republican conference continue to call for an investigation of Democrats and the Capitol attack following the more than a year-long House Jan. 6 committee probe that’s set to release its final report on Wednesday.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, D-Ga., who sources have said will likely have a seat on Comer’s Oversight committee in the new year, recently called for investigations into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others and said she expects Republicans to launch probes related to Jan. 6.
“I do believe that’s going to happen,” Greene told former White House adviser and Trump ally Steve Bannon on his internet show when he asked if House Republicans would hold hearings probing into Jan. 6. Greene added she didn’t believe Republicans would do “everything” that Trump allies like Bannon have been calling for, including releasing all the security footage from that day.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has signaled Republicans planned to investigate the Jan. 6 panel’s work, sending a letter to the House select committee investigating the attack to preserve all its documents.
“Although your Committee’s public hearings did not focus on why the Capitol complex was not secure on January 6, 2021, the Republican majority in the 118 Congress will hold hearings that do so,” McCarthy, R-Calif., wrote in a letter to Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
McCarthy has also released a roadmap for the investigations Republicans will pursue, including the border crisis, “big tech,” China, and COVID origins. There was no direct mention of Jan. 6 or the committee, but the more than 2,000-word press release made one reference to probing “security failures and ongoing vulnerabilities in the U.S. Capitol.”
At a news conference last week McCarthy said Republicans do plan to look into the committee’s work, but did not elaborate on what that would look like.
It’s possible the Committee on House Administration could probe matters related to Jan. 6. The committee’s current Ranking Member, Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., has said security issues must be addressed and sent a letter to the Jan. 6 committee right before their first public hearing asking they preserve all records so that Republicans can investigate their work.
But according to Comer, Republican leadership has no interest in relitigating the insurrection.
“No one from leadership has said anything about that to me,” Comer told ABC News when asked about Greene’s comment calling for Jan. 6 probes. “We’ve got a pretty lengthy list of investigations and probes and that’s not on the list.”
The incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said his committee plans to focus “on the politics of DOJ” and that a probe into Jan. 6 could fall into that. But when asked if that would be a part of the committee’s main priorities, Jordan said it wasn’t a “specific” target.
In the weeks since Republicans captured the House, Comer and Jordan have been busy putting their investigative targets on notice. The pair held a news conference the day after Republicans clinched the House laying out their probes into President Biden’s family, including his son Hunter.
Comer’s House Oversight Committee minority has also sent letters re-requesting documentation and declassification of materials from multiple agencies involved in President Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal as well as requesting testimony on COVID origins and funding.
Jordan and Republicans on House Judiciary have signaled how they will ramp up investigations in the majority, issuing letters to White House chief of staff Ron Klain, and multiple top agencies informing them to “anticipate requiring testimony, either in hearings or transcribed interviews” when they regain power in the new Congress.
Comer told ABC News to expect the first two Oversight Committee hearings in the new year to be on the border and COVID-19 funding and fraud.
“We’re gonna bring people in for interviews. We’ve been sending letters out, some of them we’ve made public, and some of them we haven’t. So we expect to start doing transcribed interviews early on,” Comer said.
(NEW YORK) — The Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education has sent an order to all private and government-run universities banning women from attending.
The order says all female students in Afghanistan should be prevented from attending universities until further orders, according to a decision made by the Taliban cabinet and senior leadership of the Islamic emirate.
Human Rights Watch immediately came out with a statement criticizing the decision, writing, “The Taliban have banned women from universities. This is a shameful decision that violates the right to education for women and girls in Afghanistan. The Taliban are making it clear every day that they don’t respect the fundamental rights of Afghans, especially women.”
When the Taliban came back to power in August 2021, it made assurances that women would retain many of the rights they gained in the years following the U.S. invasion that expelled Taliban authority.
In August 2021, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, promised that women in Afghanistan would be allowed to work and study but “within the limits of Islam.”
“Women will be afforded all their rights, whether it is at work or other activities, because women are a key part of society,” Mujahid said. “And we are guaranteeing all their rights within the limits of Islam.”
Many of those rights have been repealed in the year since the Taliban came to power, however.
“It has been a year of increasing disrespect for their right to live free and equal lives, denying them opportunity to livelihoods, access to health care and education and escape from situations of violence,” Sima Bahous, executive director at U.N. Women, said in a report issued this August.
Girls were almost immediately banned from attending secondary school in the wake of the Taliban taking over. Last month, women were banned from going to gyms and parks.
The Taliban has also banned women from traveling alone without a male guardian, which has confined many to their homes, and re-installed the requirement all women cover themselves head to toe in public.
“This suffocating crackdown against Afghanistan’s female population is increasing day by day,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said in a statement earlier this year.
(NEW YORK) — A man and a woman were killed by a New York City subway Tuesday morning in an incident that doesn’t appear to be a crime, according to the mayor.
The fatalities on the L tracks at 6th Avenue don’t appear to be the result of “a push or shove,” said Mayor Eric Adams, who responded to the scene.
“It appears as though it was not a crime,” the mayor said, adding that a “thorough investigation” will “determine exactly what happened.”
Subway riders should expect “significant delays,” according to the MTA.
This comes just hours after a man, possibly wielding a hammer, broke into a Manhattan subway stop’s dispatch room and hit an MTA worker in the head, according to ABC New York station WABC. The suspect hid under a stopped subway train and was later apprehended, WABC reported.
One of the biggest musical cross-genre power couples out there, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, have garnered their fair share of press — both independently and together — since they met on the set of The Voice and started dating in late 2015.
For example, Blake was named People’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2017, a title that he took some light-hearted ribbing for from country peers like Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean.
“We don’t. That’s a good idea,” Gwen says, but adds that their Oklahoma home does include another nod to their popularity in the press.
“When we built our house last year in Oklahoma, [in] one of the bathrooms going out to the pool is every single tabloid cover, made into wallpaper,” she describes. “You go in there and you’re like, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s pretty funny.”
The couple like to keep tabs, no pun intended, on the stories circulating about them. Gwen says they also like to see how fans are using her new makeup line, GXVE Beauty.
“Blake and I will lay in bed and watch the tutorials of people that would take a palette and see what they would create with it,” the singer adds.
The sequel Avatar: The Way of Water just hit theaters Friday, but apparently that was news to one of its stars, Emmy winner Edie Falco.
During an appearance on The View, Falco says she shot her parts of the long-in-development movie a long time ago, so she thought the movie came out and bombed.
“I shot [it] I think four years ago,” the Sopranos vet explained. “And then I’ve been busy doing stuff and somebody mentioned Avatar and I thought, ‘Oh, I guess it came out and didn’t do very well.’ Because I hadn’t heard anything. I thought, ‘Oh, well, it happens!'” Falco says, cracking up the chat show’s co-hosts.
Falco continued, “And then someone recently said, ‘Oh, Avatar is coming out!’ I said, ‘It hasn’t come out yet?!'”
In fact, the movie is doing pretty well: The sequel has made more than $440 million worldwide so far.
Falco, who plays one of the rare human characters in the film, did have a complaint: “I wanted to be blue,” she vented of the movie’s Na’vi aliens. “I wanted to be blue and really tall,” the 5-foot-5-inch actress griped.
Performances by Nile Rodgers & Chic and former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora helped bring in big bucks for charity.
Earlier this month, Rodgers headlined Nordoff Robbins‘ charity carol service, stepping in for The Who after they had to cancel. According to U Discover Music, the event wound up bringing in about $150,000 for the charity, which will be used to fund music therapy for vulnerable people living with life-limiting illness, disabilities or feelings of isolation.
The concert, which took place at St. Luke’s Church in the Chelsea area of London, had Rodgers & Chic performing such classics as “Le Freak,” “We Are Family” and “Good Times,” while Sambora treated the crowd to Bon Jovi hits “Livin’ On A Prayer,” “It’s My Life” and “Wanted Dead Or Alive,” plus a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to make public six years’ worth of information about former President Donald Trump’s tax returns — a move Trump has long fought.
The committee is expected to meet at 3 p.m. to consider whether to release data from Trump’s tax returns from 2015-2020.
The committee obtained the information from the Treasury Department last month, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Trump’s request to block an appears court order that he surrender his tax returns and other financial records to the committee.
It marked the fourth time Trump had lost a high court appeal related to requests for his taxes.
It’s not immediately clear what significant new information might be in the committee’s possession. Prosecutors in New York have already been able to access some of the data, but some of the data the committee has could be more recent.
Tuesday’s expected vote comes a day after the House Jan. 6 committee voted to make criminal referrals about Trump to the Justice Department.
The committee had requested six years’ worth of Trump’s returns as part of what it said was an investigation into IRS audit practices of presidents and vice presidents.
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Trump accused the committee of seeking his taxes under false pretenses.
Any potential release would require a majority vote of the committee. It’s not clear whether the committee would release all the documents it’s obtained pursuant to its original subpoena, or just some of the documents.
In November, it was revealed that Trump reported nearly $1 billion in operating losses over a two-year period about a decade ago when an accountant testified at the criminal trial of the Trump Organization, spilling into public tax information that the former president has tried repeatedly to keep private.
If the Ways and Means Committee votes Tuesday to release the information, it’s not clear when that information would become public, but it comes just two weeks before House Republicans are set to take majority control.
The Supreme Court offered no explanation for its decision and there was no noted dissent or vote breakdown.
“We knew the strength of our case, we stayed the course, followed the advice of counsel, and finally, our case has been affirmed by the highest court in the land,” Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said at the time. “Since the Magna Carta, the principle of oversight has been upheld, and today is no different. This rises above politics, and the Committee will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years.”
While Trump has claimed the subpoena is a politically motivated fishing expedition, the committee said the documents were critical for drafting “legislation on equitable tax administration, including legislation on the President’s tax compliance.”
The top Republican on the committee, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, accused Democrats of making a major mistake in a “rush to target” Trump.
“Ways and Means Democrats are unleashing a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond President Trump, and jeopardizes the privacy of every American,” Brady said in a statement.
“Going forward, partisans in Congress have nearly unlimited power to target political enemies by obtaining and making public their private tax returns to embarrass and destroy them. This is not limited to public officials, but can target private citizens, business and labor leaders, and Supreme Court justices,” he said.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Devin Dwyer and Tal Axelrod contributed to this report.
