At Monday night’s Cinemacon event in Las Vegas, the annual confab for movie theater owners, Sony Pictures announced there will be a fifth Ghostbusters movie, as well as a third Venom film, and — reaction to Mobius be damned — another Spider-Man adjacent spin-off film.
The Ghostbusters movie would be a follow-up to the hit Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which emerged from a pandemic delay to become a beloved addition to the franchise, with a 94% Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes.
A third Venom film is a bit of a no-brainer, considering its predecessor, 2021’s Venom: There Will Be Carnage made a half-billion dollars worldwide.
However, the flip side of the coin was Sony Pictures’ announcement of another obscure Spider-Man spin-off following the stumble with Jared Leto‘s Morbius. El Muerto, about the Marvel Comics luchador superhero, will star Puerto Rican rapper Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio aka Bad Bunny. The star was also there to unveil some footage of Bullet Train, an action pic in which he appears with Brad Pitt.
Bullet Train will also star Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who, as reported, landed the title role of a better-known Spidey foil, Kraven the Hunter. Footage of that movie was shown in a Sony sizzle reel that also included peeks of the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody, the animated sequel Spider-Man: Across the Multiverse, Denzel Washington‘s third Equalizer movie, and Tom Hanks‘ A Man Called Otto.
Wednesday, Michael Bublé starts his mini-residency in Las Vegas, which includes six performances at Resorts World from April 27 to May 7. But if you can’t make it to Sin City, Michael will be coming to you later this year.
The newly announced U.S. Higher tour gets underway in Duluth, Georgia on August 8, and is currently scheduled to wrap up October 11 in Buffalo, NY. Fan club pre-sales start May 3, with tickets on sale to the general public on May 6 at 10 a.m. local time. The tour includes stops at New York’s Madison Square Garden, L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena, Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena and more.
Before the U.S. leg of the tour, Michael will spend most of June and July in the U.K., and after the U.S. leg wraps, he’s heading to South America and Australia.
(NEW YORK) — Melissa Lucio was first sentenced to death in 2008 for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah Alvarez. After nearly 15 years on death row in Texas, Lucio was granted a stay of her scheduled April 27 execution by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday.
Calls for a court to review her case and save Lucio’s life grew this week, garnering bipartisan support and inspiring rallies across the country. Rep. Jeff Leach, chair of the Texas House Criminal Justice Reform, Interim Study Committee, was one of several legislators to speak in support of Lucio’s request for clemency.
“I believe so strongly that the system has failed Melissa Lucio at nearly every turn,” Leach said in the committee’s first hearing on April 12, days after visiting Lucio in solitary confinement at Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas.
“What I want to know more than anything as a citizen of this great state — is that the system can be trusted, that it’s fair, that it’s reliable. And right now, I have, as a policymaker, severe and sincere questions and concerns about whether that’s true,” he said, urging the importance of “pushing the pause button” on Lucio’s execution.
“I thank God for my life,” Lucio said in a statement reacting to the stay. “I am grateful the Court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always. I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren.”
Lucio’s case will now head back to the 138th State District Court in South Texas, where Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz will decide how to retry it. Saenz has the options of taking the case back to trial with a new jury of her peers, offering her a plea deal or dropping the charges. ABC News has reached out to Saenz for comment.
Lucio’s eldest son, John Lucio, addressed the media after an eight-hour visit with his mother on Monday — the longest he’s been allowed since she was incarcerated — saying he would “keep on fighting this fight” until his mother is freed.
“I’ve chosen to fight for my mother because she’s fought for me,” John Lucio told ABC News.
He said the last 15 years have taken a toll on him and his family as they maintain her innocence in a crime that her lawyers said never occurred.
“Medical evidence shows that Mariah’s death was consistent with an accident,” Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project and one of Melissa Lucio’s attorneys, said in a statement after the stay was issued.
“But for the state’s use of false testimony, no juror would have voted to convict Melissa of capital murder because no murder occurred,” Potkin said.
Paramedics arrived at Melissa Lucio’s residence in 2007 to find Mariah unresponsive. Lucio told them Mariah had fallen down a steep staircase two days earlier during the family’s move to a new apartment but did not seem injured at the time. Her story came into question, however, when paramedics assessed the scene.
One responder testified he became suspicious of Melissa after observing her single-story apartment and seemingly distant behavior.
“She didn’t act at all like what I would expect of a mother,” he said according to Lucio’s habeas petition.
“The paramedic looked at these three steps that led to their front door and he testified at trial, but he didn’t believe her story. He found it to be suspicious because how could the child have been injured from these few steps?” Potkin said. “But of course, this was a complete misunderstanding, and Melissa was talking about the staircase at their home that they had just moved from.”
According to a clemency petition filed by her lawyers, Lucio asserted her innocence over 100 times during a five-hour interrogation before telling police, “I guess I did it.”
“She didn’t want to say she murdered my sister and she didn’t. I know she did not … But she was basically forced to say she did,” John Lucio said.
Some jurors who initially voted to convict Lucio have expressed doubts about whether the 53-year-old mother was granted a fair trial.
“I was disheartened to learn that there was additional evidence that was not presented at trial. I believe that Ms. Lucio deserves a new trial and for a new jury to hear this evidence,” jury foreperson Melissa Quintanilla stated in her clemency petition declaration. “Knowing what I know now, I don’t think she should be executed.”
Another juror, Johnny Galvan Jr., said he felt “pressured” to agree with the guilty verdict that resulted in Melissa Lucio’s death sentence.
“We made the wrong decision because they gave us the wrong information,” he told ABC News. “There was evidence withheld that was not presented to the jury.”
None of Lucio’s children were called to testify during her original trial, including one who said he saw Mariah fall down the stairs.
“That would have made Melissa’s case a truthful statement that her baby fell. They left it out. They told us to ignore it,” Galvan Jr. said, adding that the jury “got it wrong.”
“We need to learn that the criminal justice system fails sometimes. And we certainly failed,” he added.
Joe Maher/Disasters Emergency Committee/Getty Images for Livewire Pictures Ltd
As one of the U.K.’s biggest music stars, it’s no surprise that Ed Sheeran has been tapped to perform in the People’s Pageant, a massive spectacle that will mark the finale of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
Britain’s Press Association detailed the June 5 event, which will take place in front of Buckingham Palace and in its the surrounding streets. More than 10,000 people will be involved in the event, which will conclude the four-day holiday celebrating the Queen’s 70 years on the throne.
“I’m proud to be part of the celebration and it’s going to be a great opportunity to bring everyone together,” Ed said in a statement.
The event will be staged in four acts: For Queen and Country, The Time of Our Lives, Let’s Celebrate, and Happy and Glorious; Ed will appear during the final act.
Organizers say a billion people around the globe will watch the Pageant, which, among other things, will feature a fleet of iconic James Bond cars, 200 horses, a huge helium balloon, BMX cyclists, and a 20-foot-tall puppet of the Queen, surrounded by puppet Corgis.
Season two of the talk-variety show is in full swing with returning host Kendall Kyndall.Joining him this season as co-hosts are Reginae Carter, Angela Simmons and Kendra G, who tells ABC Audio how she became a part of the cast.
“So Kendall Kyndall did the first season by [himself] and I was a guest star and our chemistry was good and it was fun, so they called me back,” the 23-year-old explains. “I always like to talk. So when they told me about it, I’m like, ‘OK, this is dope.'”
So far this season, guests like B. Simone, Andrew Caldwell and Pretty Vee have appeared on Social Society. So, who would Reginae like to interview next?
“I would love to have Nicki [Minaj],” she shares. “I would love to interview a couple of young stars, probably like Chloe Bailey, Halle [Bailey].”
Social Society is more than just celebrity interviews, though, which is one of the things Reginae loves about the show.
“Social Society is like a big family. We not only just have guest stars that we’re just interviewing, we have fun… Like, we talk about politics. You can learn from certain things like they teach you certain things, dealing with money,” she says. “We got a whole bunch of other things or a part of the show. That’s why it’s variety talk show and I love that about it.”
Ewan McGregor, star of the Star Wars prequels and of the forthcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series, apparently tied the knot over the weekend with his girlfriend, former Fargo co-star Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
People reports the pair tied the knot at their Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles home.
Just close friends and family were invited to the “intimate” ceremony, where 51-year-old McGregor, and 37-year-old Winstead, who also starred with him in Birds of Prey, made it official.
“It was lovely and joyful,” a source tells the magazine.
The pair met back on FX’s Fargo in 2016, and at the time they were both married. Winstead divorced her husband of seven years, Riley Stearns, while McGregor legally split from wife Eve Mavrakis that year as well.
McGregor and Winstead welcomed a son, Laurie, in June of 2021.
Hulu on Tuesday released the first trailer for Fire Island, a new rom-com starring Saturday Night Live‘s Bowen Yang, Margaret Cho and comedian Joel Kim Booster, who also wrote and produced the feature film based on his own trips to the LBTQ-friendly New York resort. Fire Island, described as “an unapologetic, modern day rom-com inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, follows Yang’s character, who falls for a doctor, bringing him and his group of friends into a whole new social group. The movie premieres June 3 on Hulu… (Trailer contains censored profanity.)
Just 45 days after its theatrical release, during which time it collected $750 million worldwide, Matt Reeves‘ The Batman is putting up huge streaming numbers on HBO Max. Deadline reports the movie, starring Robert Pattinson as the Dark Knight, was watched in 4.1 million households in just the first week alone, topping The Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman 1984, The Matrix Resurrections and Dune, all of which were released the same day on the streaming service as they were in theaters. The Batman‘s first week is also the second best for a theatrical movie on HBO Max after Mortal Kombat, according to the outlet. The Batman also stars Zoe Kravitz, Andy Serkis and Colin Farrell…
Illumination and Universal are pushing back the theatrical release of Super Mario Bros. from December 21, 2022 to April 7, 2023, the companies announced on Monday, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The CGI-animated film, based on the popular video game series, features Chris Pratt as Mario. The voice cast also includes Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, Fred Armisen, Kevin Michael Richardson and Sebastian Maniscalco…
(SAN FRANCISCO) — Twitter announced on Monday that Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, is acquiring the social media giant for approximately $44 billion.
Per the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 for every share they own.
“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing,” said Bret Taylor, Twitter’s independent board chair, in a statement. “The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”
The transaction, which was unanimously approved by Twitter’s board of directors, is expected to be finalized later this year pending the approval of stockholders, regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. Once completed, the social media giant will become a privately held company.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”
“Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” Musk continued.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could have major implications for President Joe Biden’s approach to immigration enforcement at the border, with the justices deciding the legality of a Trump-era policy known as “Remain in Mexico.”
Officially termed the “Migrant Protection Protocols” — or MPP — the policy was created to send unauthorized immigrants, including asylum seekers, back to Mexico while their cases are processed in immigration court. Human rights observers and immigrant advocacy organizations have documented high rates of kidnapping, extortion and violence in the areas migrants were forced to wait.
A University of California San Diego report of more than 600 asylum seekers subjected to the MPP program found about a quarter of them reported receiving violent threats, about half of which resulted in physical violence, beatings and robbery.
After Biden attempted to formally end “Remain in Mexico” last year, a federal court ordered the administration to reinstate it, siding with Texas and Missouri, which sued the government for allegedly violating the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
While the INA says that the Department of Homeland Security “shall” detain unauthorized noncitizens pending immigration proceedings, it also allows for their release on a case-by-case basis. No administration has ever been given enough resources by Congress to detain everyone who has attempted to cross the border without legal documentation.
But Texas and Missouri argue the Biden administration has been indiscriminately releasing migrants without applying the appropriate case-by-case assessment.
As a result, “Remain in Mexico” has continued under court order even though just over 3,000 migrants have been subjected to it since December, according to the DHS.
The number of southwest border encounters recently topped one million since the start of the 2022 budget year — a 20-year record — though that doesn’t mean there is a record number of unauthorized migrants.
The same week the end of Title 42 was announced, administration officials said they were preparing for an influx of migrants at the border that could top a record-breaking 18,000 apprehensions per day. But it’s not clear if those estimations account for repeat offenders.
Under Title 42, migrants are able to make repeat attempts at crossing the border to make a full case for asylum.
The recidivism rate for illegal border crossings continues to remain at an elevated level as it has throughout the implementation of the Title 42 restrictions. Last month, 28% of those who attempted to cross made at least one previous attempt within a year. That means many of those migrants’ attempts were considered multiple “encounters” by Border Patrol.
The year before Title 42 was implemented, the recidivism rate was a fraction of the current trend. Only 7% had attempted to cross more than once.
If the administration drops the use of MPP and Title 42, which it plans to end next month, Republicans and career border enforcement officials say the country will be losing vital tools to deter illegal entries.
Republicans and Biden critics have attributed the attempt to pare down and repeal “Remain in Mexico” to migration surges seen at the border in recent years. However, MPP enrollments dropped significantly at the outset of the global pandemic in early 2020 and its use was essentially superseded by the Trump administration’s implementation of Title 42, which has been used more than 1.8 million times to rapidly return migrants to Mexico.
The Biden administration plans to end the fast-track Title 42 removals on May 23 and instead process all migrants under pre-pandemic rules that allow more access for migrants to file humanitarian protection claims. That move — a return to the same policy employed by the Trump administration prior to the pandemic — is expected to result in more migrants being released into the U.S. with orders to show up at a future court date. GPS ankle monitors and parole-like checkups are often required as conditions for release.
The return to pre-pandemic immigration processing has immigration hard-liners concerned that more migrants will attempt an invalid claim, flooding the administrative adjudication system and stretching federal law enforcement resources beyond capacity.
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — In one week, Ohio voters head to the polls for the Republican Senate midterm primary election that is set to be the first major test of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement power.
The state has voted increasingly Republican in recent elections, and now, as the race to fill the seat being vacated in November by retiring Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman heats up, many GOP hopefuls are angling to out-Trump one another in hopes of appealing to the former president’s robust base in the state.
Trump upended the race with a late-term endorsement earlier this month, throwing his weight behind venture capitalist J.D. Vance, most well-known for his book Hillbilly Elegy. At a campaign rally in Delaware, Ohio, over the weekend, the former president branded Vance as “an America first warrior.”
“He believes so much in making our country great again, and he’s going to do a job on these horrible people that we’re running against,” Trump told the crowd.
The endorsement is a political risk for Trump, who has tried — to varying degrees of success — to position himself as a GOP kingmaker. In various polling, Vance has lagged behind Josh Mandel and Mike Gibbons, who have both run campaigns hawking their own commitments to Trumpian “American First” policies.
Nationally, some of the candidates backed by Trump early in their campaigns have failed to deliver wins for him. Trump went as far as to withdraw his endorsement of Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks after Brooks lagged in the polls and said it was time to stop focusing on Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
A victory for Vance in next week’s primary could show the might of the Trump endorsement. It’s certainly given the candidate a newfound sense of confidence going into the final leg of his primary campaign.
“The endorsement has already given us a ton of momentum,” Vance told ABC News’ Rachel Scott in Ohio on Thursday. “And I think, yeah, it’s my race to lose, but at the end of the day, we still have to do the work. I think we’re in the lead. I think if the election were held tomorrow, we would win.”
Some supporters who lined up to see Vance in Ohio on Saturday said the endorsement from Trump sold them on Vance.
“If Trump supports him, we will too,” Ed Gross said.
“I was kind of between him and another one and when Trump said J.D. Vance, that’s where I’m going,” said Paulette Schwartz, another Trump supporter.
But it’s not clear whether the endorsement will be enough. Some voters who stand with Trump said Trump’s support doesn’t quell concerns they still have about Vance’s previously disparaging comments about the former president, including once calling him “reprehensible” and an “idiot.”
“We didn’t forget that,” said one voter, Justin, who declined to give his full name. Another supporter piled on: “You can’t support Hillary and then turn around and support Trump,” Joby Jeffery said.
Trump tried to get out in front of that criticism during Saturday’s rally.
“He’s a guy that said some bad shit about me,” Trump told the crowd of Vance. “But you know what? Every one of the others did also. In fact, if I went by that standard, I don’t think I would have ever endorsed anybody in the country.”
Zach McNutt, a voter from Mansfield on his way to the rally on Saturday, refused to take a Vance campaign sticker from a volunteer, blasting Trump’s endorsement as a mistake.
“That is absolutely unfortunate. I think that he really needs to check his inner circle,” McNutt said of Trump.
Candidates who fell short of the Trump endorsement in Ohio are now clinging to voters like McNutt, hoping to paint themselves as the candidate best positioned to advance a Trump-style agenda, even if Trump failed to see it.
GOP hopeful Jane Timken spoke to a room of supporters near Cleveland on Friday, hitting on a variety of Trump talking points including school choice, immigration and the economy. Trump had previously endorsed Timken to lead the state’s party but didn’t back her for the Senate race. She called his endorsement of Vance “disappointing”
“We’ve got a lot of show horses in this race, but I’m the real workhorse and I’ve been in the trenches fighting for the America First policy,” Timken told Scott.
Josh Mandel, former Ohio Treasurer, has been running his campaign through churches, pitching religious conservatives on “Judeo-Christian values” he sees as the bedrock of the “America First” movement. At his event, campaign signs branded Mandel as “Pro-God, Pro-Guns, Pro-Trump.”
When ABC News met up with Mandel in Ohio on Thursday at a Cincinnati church he was joined by a surprise guest: Michael Flynn, Trump’s embattled former national security adviser.
“Let me say it very clear: I believe this election was stolen from Donald Trump,” Mandel said in front of a packed church. Cheers erupted. An elderly man jumped up and shouted something about a “cabal” trying to “take the lives of little babies” — a nod to the far-right Qanon conspiracy theory. Mandel didn’t interrupt, nodding and clapping instead.
The race has been contentious. At one point during a debate, Mandel and Gibbons nearly got into a fistfight. Mandel brushed it off, saying he’s a “fighter” for conservative values, and he pushed back when asked about his rhetoric that includes running a Twitter poll asking his followers which “illegals” commit more crimes — “Muslim Terrorists” or “Mexican Gangbangers.”
But 100 miles away from Mandel’s Cincinnati event, in Grove City, some voters think the party needs to refocus.
“I’m not a Trump fan. I’m a Republican, not a Trump fan,” Don Reed said over coffee and eggs at Lilly’s Kitchen Table.
He said his party is at a crossroads.
“It seems to be a faction of the Trump supporters who are the more outspoken, I call the name-callers ‘the bullier.’ Then you’ve got the other faction where they tried to be conservative, try to be small government without those kinds of tactics,” he added.
Only one candidate in the race is ready to move on from some of Trump’s most controversial positions. State Sen. Matt Dolan was the only candidate to raise his hand on a debate stage earlier this month when the participants were asked if it was time for Trump to move on from the 2020 election.
Dolan said his fellow candidates who are focusing on the 2020 election are taking the “wrong approach.” He wasn’t angling for Trump’s endorsement, he said.
“My entire campaign was about Ohio. I wasn’t running an election to get this endorsement,” Dolan said. “What’s ironic in this whole race, though, is I’m the only one in the race who’s actually executed on Trump policies.”
The Republican candidate who wins next Tuesday’s Senate primary will likely go on to face Democratic frontrunner Tim Ryan in the fall.
