While they may change their minds after seeing Robert Pattinson in the cape and cowl in The Batman — if strong preview numbers are any indication — moviegoers say Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton have been the best Batmen so far.
This is according to a poll of 1,000 moviegoers in anticipation of director Matt Reeves‘ film, which debuts today.
Affleck, who portrayed the Caped Crusader in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, and Zack Snyder‘s re-cut of the same, edges out Keaton by a vote of 31% to 30%.
Following close behind, however, is Kevin Conroy, who voiced the hero in the beloved Batman: The Animated Series; 28% chose him over Christian Bale (26%) and Adam West (25%).
And while George Clooney gamely admits to nearly killing the franchise with his much-maligned Batman and Robin, 23% liked him. Twenty-one percent preferred Will Arnett‘s voice portrayal in the LEGO animated films. Oddly, Batman Forever‘s Val Kilmer didn’t rank.
Millennials preferred Affleck’s Batman, Gen Xers were partial to Keaton’s, and Baby Boomers preferred West’s.
As for who was the best Bruce Wayne, however, Conroy topped all comers with 34% of the vote to Affleck’s and Keaton’s 33%, while West edged out Bale, 30% to 29%.
As for The Batman, 58% of respondents think Pattinson is “better-than-average,” with 25% saying he could become the best Bat.
As far as Catwoman’s portrayals to date, there’s a three-way tie at 29% between Michelle Pfeiffer from Batman Returns, Anne Hathaway from The Dark Night Rises, and Adrienne Barbeau, who voiced her for The Animated Series. Halle Berry came in fourth with 28% for 2004’s Catwoman, tied with Julie Newmar, who was replaced by Eartha Kitt in the original 1966 TV series.
Survey questions, methodology and results have not been verified or endorsed by ABC News or The Walt Disney Company.
Beyoncé is celebrating Bobbi Kristina Brown on what would have been her 29th birthday, by posting a baby picture of the late star on her official website.
“Happy Heavenly Birthday Bobbi Kristina Brown,” reads the message on the homepage of Beyonce.com.
Bobbi Kristina, daughter of legendary musicians Bobby Brown and the late Whitney Houston, died an untimely death on July 26, 2015 at age 22, six months after being found unconscious and immersed in water in a bathtub in her Atlanta home, after which she remained in a vegetative state. An autopsy report obtained by ABC News revealed that the aspiring actress and singer died from lobar pneumonia and lack of oxygen, themselves a result of her bathtub accident, as well as drug intoxication.
In a special edition 20/20 interview, Bobby Brown opened up about his daughter’s passing, saying, “We should have been better…We could have been better.”
On the fourth anniversary of her death in 2019, Brown penned a special message to his daughter and announced the newly found Bobbi Kristina Serenity house in her honor.
A Perfect Circle guitarist Billy Howerdel has premiered his first solo single, “Poison Flowers.”
The track, which you listen to now via digital outlets, features Howerdel on vocals and every instrument except drums, which are played by his former APC band mate, Josh Freese. It’s the first preview of Howerdel’s forthcoming debut solo album, title and release date TBA.
“‘Poison Flowers’ began with the bass guitar part and all of the pieces flowed from there,” Howerdel explains. “It’s a rare feeling when the process of writing blocks out all distractions.”
“The upcoming songs reflect back to my earliest influences,” he adds. “‘Poison Flowers’ leads well into the rest of the album.”
The premiere of “Poison Flowers” follows Howerdel’s first live show as a solo artist, which took place in Las Vegas in February. His band for the show included Freese and former Nine Inch Nails touring member Danny Lohner, who also previously played in APC.
Howerdel formed A Perfect Circle alongside Tool‘s Maynard James Keenan in 1999. The band has released four studio albums, the most recent of which being 2018’s Eat the Elephant.
(NEW YORK) — The Donbas region of eastern Ukraine was once known for its coal and steel manufacturing, but thanks to a long-running conflict there fanned by Russia, it has played an important role in the Kremlin’s ongoing invasion.
The Donbas contains two provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk, that touch the Russian border and since 2014 have been controlled by two puppet separatist governments that Moscow armed and helped establish.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, saying he sent Russian troops into Ukraine to keep the peace at the request of rebels in the region.
But experts on the long-running conflict said Moscow largely created the separatist movement and is now using that as grounds for the invasion.
“Those two regions have a lot of people who are not just Russian citizens, but also sympathetic to Russia still, unlike most of the country,” said ABC News contributor Steve Ganyard, a retired U.S. Marine colonel and former deputy assistant secretary of state. “So the reason that the Russians were able to sort of maintain puppet governments there is that they had people who are sympathetic to Russia and to their cause.”
During the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, which toppled the Russian-friendly regime of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia responded by annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and throwing its support behind an insurgency in Donbas.
Russia-backed fighters, led by former Russian intelligence officer Igor Girkin and supported by Russian special forces, seized several administrative buildings in Donbas, setting off the conflict.
‘People’s republics’
In April 2014, the Russian-backed rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk proclaimed the creation of “people’s republics” and months later held a popular and unrecognized referendum to declare independence from Ukraine in an effort to become part of Russia, experts said.
“Russia sent operatives in, both military and political, to create the appearance of separatist movements, and then they sort of brought them to life. These movements would take over city halls in the region, and we’d see pictures of Russian special forces with them,” Matthew Schmidt, a national security and political science professor at the University of New Haven, told ABC News.
Ukraine used its military to try to regain control of the region, and as the Russian-backed insurgency faltered, Moscow sent its regular forces in to prop them up, covertly sending tank regiments and other units into battle.
About 14,000 people have been killed in the eight years of fighting in Donbas, and more than a million residents of the area have been displaced since the fighting broke, according to the Ukrainian government.
Amid the fighting, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing 298 people aboard, most of them from the Netherlands. An international investigation determined the jet was hit by a Russia-supplied missile fired from the rebel-controlled territory in Ukraine. Russia denied any involvement in the incident.
In early 2015, with Russian troops inflicting heavy damage on Ukraine, Kyiv agreed to a peace deal known as the “Minsk agreements.” Although the deal ended large-scale fighting, the conflict continued to smolder with both sides dug in along trenches.
“It turned into sort of like a World War I-kind of Western Front stalemate, and it’s been that way since 2015,” Ganyard said, adding that prior to the invasion, indiscriminate shelling occurred on both sides of the conflict.
Schmidt added, “The most important thing about that area is that it has caused this war, or it is the justification for this war.”
‘Minsk agreements’
The 2015 Minsk agreements called for Ukraine to reintegrate the separatist regions by giving them broad autonomy enshrined in its constitution. The Kremlin hoped that by doing so it would create a permanent pro-Russian lever of influence within Ukraine’s government that would act as a veto on the country joining the European Union or NATO.
Ukraine refused to fulfill that part of the Minsk deal while Russian troops remained on the separatists’ territory, seeing the separatist governments as puppets of the Kremlin. Any possibility of solving the conflict was made far more difficult because the Kremlin refused to even acknowledge its troops were in the separatist areas, falsely claiming the conflict was entirely an internal civil war in Ukraine, the experts said.
Meanwhile, Russia continued to falsely accuse Ukraine of waging a “genocide” against Russian speakers in the separatist areas.
The Kremlin and the separatist proxies have drawn on a conception of the region dating from the 19th century when it was part of an area known as “New Russia.”
“So, that’s where Putin is starting, and he’s saying essentially these people are majority Russian speakers and if you go back to the 19th century they are really part of Russia or should be. And he’s used that term New Russia before,” Schmidt said.
But the Ukrainian government counters that Donetsk and Luhansk have been legally recognized as part of Ukraine dating back to 1917. During a referendum in 1991, a majority of people in the regions voted in favor of Ukrainian independence.
A barrage of fake reports
In the run-up to the current invasion, Russia manufactured a pretext for it by claiming Ukraine was preparing to attack the separatist regions, backing it with a barrage of fake reports and staged videos showing supposed Ukrainian outrages that were quickly debunked by independent researchers.
The separatist authorities also ordered mass evacuations of civilians to create the illusion of a large-scale humanitarian crisis.
After Russia recognized the “republics,” the puppet governments appealed for help from Russia, creating a false pretext for the Kremlin to invade. Putin accused Ukraine of failing to implement the Minsk agreements to justify Russia recognizing the separatist “republics” as independent.
By recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk as independent republics, Putin is saying that “Ukraine is illegitimate in claiming them,” Schmidt said.
“And when he claims them as independent republics, then they are — in his mind and in Russian legal theory at that point — capable of asking a neighboring country to assist,” Schmidt said.
When the fighting stopped in 2015, the separatist “republics” only held around a third of the territory of Donbas that they claim should belong to them. As part of Russia’s invasion, it has launched a full-scale offensive from the separatist areas that it claims is to retake that territory.
Many experts say Russia is using the separatist conflict as a pretext for forcing Ukraine to concede to Russian demands that it never join NATO and remain part of Moscow’s orbit.
The two separatist regions — likely enlarged — could be important in any eventual peace agreement to end the fighting.
Ganyard said that while Donetsk and Luhansk have been key to the start of the Russian invasion, they are also a vital “piece of the puzzle” to ending it.
“It’s one thing to invade a country; it’s another thing to hold it — and it’s particularly difficult if you don’t have the support of the indigenous people,” Ganyard said. “If Ukraine has to give up the Donbas, it’s probably not a deal killer. I think that might be part of the deal just to give Putin something to allow him to save face.”
Machine Gun Kelly has premiered a new song called “Ay!”, which will appear on his upcoming album, Mainstream Sellout.
The track features rapper Lil Wayne, who concludes his verse with the line “I smell like guns and roses,” in reference to the “Welcome to the Jungle” rockers.
“Ay!” is available now via digital outlets. Its accompanying video, which finds Kelly singing along with a paper cut-out of Wayne, is streaming now on YouTube.
Mainstream Sellout, the follow-up to 2020’s Tickets to My Downfall, will be released March 25. It also includes MGK’s WILLOW collaboration, “Emo Girl.”
Justin Timberlake‘s wife Jessica Biel turned the big 4-0 on Thursday, and he posted a sweet birthday message for TheSinner star.
On Instagram, Justin posted a photo of himself and Jessica dressed up in wild outfits and captioned it, “MOOD: 40 AF.”
Then, on his Instagram story, Justin wrote, “”Whether it’s laid up on a couch, kicking my a** at the gym or, dressing up at ridiculous costume parties… you make it all look good. I love you and I celebrate you every day.”
On her own Instagram, Jessica posted pictures of her birthday festivities, including a shot of herself embracing her and Justin’s two sons, Silas and Phineas. There was also a shot of her birthday cake and cards, a picture of herself and Justin enjoying the cake, and a banner which read, “Happy Birthday Mommy Mom!!” signed by the boys.
“Thinking of birthdays past and remembering all the amazing ones Justin and I spent solo,” she wrote. “Now celebrating 40 with [cake] and [balloons] with my other two favorite guys on the planet. Love you family. Thanks for all the birthday love. 40 feels fresh y’all.”
Gabby Barrett was honored at the 2022 Billboard Women in Music ceremony earlier this week, where she also performed her hit single, “I Hope,” from the event stage.
Amid that tribute, Gabby’s still racking up milestones for her 2020 full-length studio debut, Goldmine. The album has officially received RIAA Platinum certification, and two of its single got mentions, too: “I Hope” went six-times Platinum and “The Good Ones” went two-times Platinum.
Gabby was surprised with the plaques on the red carpet ahead of the Billboard Women in Music event, where she also spoke about what she’s learned from being a mom to her baby girl, Baylah, who turned one year old in January.
The singer said she hopes that Baylah will “dream big” and “never be afraid,” explaining that motherhood has taught her even more gratitude for the sacrifices her parents made for her growing up.
“It takes a lot to be a parent. It takes a lot to be a mother trying to balance another job,” she reflected. “…I just appreciate my parents more for what they’ve done for me.”
While his dopey Chad character was tasked with colonizing Mars on a Saturday Night Live sketch last year, it seems Pete Davidson might actually be headed into space.
Unfortunately for Kanye West — the ex-husband of Pete’s current girlfriend Kim Kardashian — it won’t be a long-term trip.
Instead, the New York Post reports a hang with Pete and Kim, and Jeff Bezos and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez at the Amazon creator’s Los Angeles estate, might just have cemented Davidson’s seat on one of Bezos’ Blue Origin space flights.
“Pete is excited,” a source tells the publication. “They haven’t signed a contract yet, but it looks like it’s going to happen.”
The source adds, “He got on really well with Jeff when they met.”
As if you need yet another example of Davidson’s mysterious charm, consider Oscar winner Marisa Tomei‘s new comments to Rolling Stone. The Spider-Man series star claims she got stiffed on her check for playing Davidson’s mom in his well-received indie film The King of Staten Island, but she’s not holding a grudge. Far from it, actually.
“He’s just so f***ing real, and he’s unfiltered, but very sensitive,” Tomei gushed. “So he’s almost an irresistible combination. And he’s good-looking, even though I played… let’s just put the mom thing aside. Let’s, like, never mention that again,” she joked.
(NEW YORK) — Typically used for fun on social media, memes out of Ukraine are serious business amid Russia’s attack.
In fact, history and media experts who spoke with ABC News said the social media posts about Ukraine’s resistance against Russian forces are war tools.
Jennifer Grygiel, an associate professor of communications at Syracuse University who specializes in social media and memes, told ABC News that social media campaigns, undertaken by big governments or grassroots groups, are critical in gaining worldwide support.
“That’s how warfare is conducted in the information space. It’s about narratives and public belief,” Grygiel said.
As social media warfare heats up, Grygiel and other experts say the world needs to be on high alert and prevent spreading false information.
U.S. and European officials also say the Russian government began using social media videos in the last couple of months to plant false flag stories that bolster Putin’s claims that his invasion is legitimate.
In one video posted in February, Russian-backed separatists claimed they were ordering an “immediate evacuation” to Russia because of unrest in Ukraine. But metadata embedded in the video files showed they had been created two days earlier, according to Western intelligence officials.
V.S. Subrahmanian, a faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and cybersecurity expert, told ABC News that these tactics aren’t new.
He said during World War II, Western and Nazi forces would airdrop leaflets onto the battlefield and in towns to promote their respective country and to intimidate the enemy.
“What’s happening today is these leaflets are now tweets, or Facebook posts or posts on TikTok and they are sowing the disinformation campaign long before any invasion tactics, ” Subrahmanian said.
The biggest difference in this tactic, according to Subrahmanian, is that years of Russian government disinformation campaigns have added up and the world is not taking the bait.
And it may have spurred Ukrainians to take back that online narrative.
Since the invasion began, there have been viral posts from social media users in the country that have highlighted the Ukrainians’ resolve. In addition to publishing photos and videos of resistance forces taking down Russian troops and tanks, social media users are also promoting the acts of civilians.
“The most important mission of any warfare is success on the ground,” Daniel Johnson, a Roy H. Park Fellow at UNC Hussman’s School of Journalism and former U.S. Army journalist told ABC News. “Russia is running into the issue where they are fighting battles that they thought it would be winning. So when they put out messages saying they’re winning, people around the world know it’s false.”
Johnson said the U.S. Army and other military units are tasked with putting out the social media from the front lines, but what makes the situation interesting in Ukraine is that the posts are coming from civilians voluntarily. This is their form of nationalistic pride and duty, he said.
“In previous wars, we’d have people help with giving supplies or letters. Now you have a video post,” he said.
Johnson said that the Ukrainian social media posts are keeping the Russian disinformation campaign at bay as Ukrainian victories posted online have been livestreamed and captured by multiple users from different angles.
“It’s hard to lie when I have 150 videos showing that you’re not in Kyiv and you’re not winning,” he said.
Some of the posts are getting more attention.
In one video, a group of Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island in the Black Sea were seen responding to a Russian warship’s threats of a bombing by telling the ship’s crew to “go (expletive) yourself.” In another post, a Ukrainian woman is seen scolding a Russian soldier, telling him to “put sunflower seeds in your pocket so they grow when you die.”
The ongoing stories of the Ukrainian fighter pilot nicknamed “the Ghost of Kyiv,” have also been trending, for their reported successful airstrikes against Russian forces. Military experts haven’t been able to confirm if the “Ghost of Kyiv” is a real person.
Johnson said these figures, real or not, play an important role in boosting the resistance’s spirits and have done so in the past with examples like “Rosie the Riveter.”
“Legends have a morale power,” he said. “It’s what they represent more than anything.”
Grygiel said one of the most important effects of Ukrainian social media and memes is showing the world how devastating Russian attacks are on the populace and cities. For many people around the world, this is their first taste of the atrocities of war in real time, Grygiel said.
“There is something human about seeing who you’re about to harm,” they said.
Grygiel and the other experts said there will be a greater emphasis on media and Internet messaging campaigns during the current conflict and future international wars. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, announced this week that it had shut down accounts that spread misinformation about Ukraine.
Governments and social media companies need to go further and keep an eye on the content that they’re promoting Grygiel said.
“When it comes to propaganda and disinformation there is no limit,” Grygiel said.
Outlander is back for season six on Starz. The time travel romantic drama premieres its new season with a super-sized episode on Sunday.
It’s only fitting that the show — known for its strong female characters time-hopping from the 20th to the 18th century — is debuting right at the start of Women’s History Month. Sophie Skelton, who plays Brianna, the daughter of Jamie and Claire, says she finds the show’s portrayal of women empowering.
“I think having these strong women come from the future…Brianna and Claire are very much modern for the ’60s even, and then to throw them back in this time they just have this beautiful strength in them,” she tells ABC Audio. “It just shows that it’s really OK to be rooted in who you are and just stand up for what you believe in.”
Skelton adds that she loves how Outlander “turns gender stereotypes on its head” — and Richard Rankin, who plays Brianna’s husband Roger, is all for it.
“I don’t think [Roger had] ever seen a woman like that,” Rankin says of Brianna. “And I think he had a lot of admiration for that, a lot of love for that.”
In season six, the characters’ strength will be put to the test as they deal with past traumas and new threats — namely, the looming American Revolution, which threatens to upend the life Jamie and Claire have built at Fraser’s Ridge.
Outlander, starring Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe, airs at 9 p.m. ET/PT this Sunday on Starz.
