Black Panther fans are calling on Marvel to honor the late Chadwick Boseman by continuing his role as King T’Challa in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

As of late Thursday afternoon, nearly 50,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for role to be recast. 

“If Marvel Studios removes T’Challa, it would be at the expense of the audiences (especially Black boys and men) who saw themselves in him. That also includes the millions of fans who were inspired by the character as well,” reads the petition. “By not recasting, it could stifle the opportunity for one of the most popular leading Black superheroes to add on to their legacy.”

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige previously announced that the MCU will “honor the legacy” of Boseman by not recasting T’Challa. Boseman passed away of colon cancer in August 2020.

In other news, Michael B. Jordan has avoided nude scenes in the past, but he briefly bares his behind in his new film, A Journal for Jordan.

“You wanna save those moments of being vulnerable for the right project. To make sure it’s sophisticated, it’s elevated to the right level, when you’re gonna reveal yourself like that. And yeah, this was the one for me,” the NAACP Image Award winner tells Entertainment Weekly. 

Finally, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars in The Matrix Resurrections as Morpheus, a character previously portrayed by Laurence Fishburne in The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. As some fans complained about Fishburne’s absence, Mateen says his goal was to honor Fishburne’s performance.

Abdul-Mateen II tells EW.com that he embraced the “opportunity to learn more about the world and also to pay homage to the performance that Laurence Fishburne presented to us and then to really add onto that in my own way.”

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Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest airs on ABC Friday night, but on Wednesday, two of the stars scheduled to perform in New York’s Times Square — LL Cool J and Chloe — pulled out, LL due to a positive COVID test. Ryan Seacrest, however, says the show must go on.

“In our minds, the show is always going to happen. There’s always going to be a ball that drops, whether there are people there or not. I think we learned that last year!” he tells ABC Audio. 

And while there will only be a quarter of the usual crowd in Times Square, Ryan notes, “Over these years…we’ve faced real challenges and we still turn the page and a new year still starts.”

As for the loss of two marquee performers, Ryan explains, “Over the years, there have been situations where we thought…a performer couldn’t make it in or they weren’t going to be able to get there to perform. So we are trained to know how to react to last-minute changes.”

“We’re going to pivot — we’re going to put Journey” — a previously announced Time Square performer — “in [LL Cool J’s] spot,” Ryan adds. “We have enough performers and enough different moving parts that the show will always fill any gap.”

This year marks the show’s 50th anniversary, and first-time co-host Liza Koshy says the show will “commend the incredibleness that Dick Clark began.”

“There are so many clips that we have that we’re playing back from the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s…it’s been an incredible journey,” she says. And with additional performances in L.A., Puerto Rico and New Orleans, Liza  notes, “People are going to be tuning in to just layers of performance and entertainment the whole night!”

As for why New Year’s Rockin’ Eve is still rockin’ 50 years later, Ryan says, “There’s a mixture of nostalgia and relevance…[It’s] a part of our DNA as kids…and also an extreme relevance when you look at the artists that are performing.”

This year, those artists include Ciara, Billy Porter, Måneskin, Avril Lavigne, AJR, Travis Barker, Polo G, Walker Hayes, Daddy Yankee, OneRepublic and many more.

Those things, he adds, will “hopefully continue to make this the franchise that it is for another 50 years!”

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After Friday co-star Faizon Love recently revealed he didn’t return for the 2000 sequel film Next Friday because of low pay, Twitter erupted, accusing the film’s star and producer, Ice Cube, of underpaying the actors. Now the former N.W.A. member is responding

Love, who played the character Big Worm in Friday in 1995, told Comedy Hype he was paid only $2,500 for his role. “You can’t be,” he responded when asked if he felt “bitter” about his pay. But Love later confirmed that money was the reason he didn’t return for the sequel, Next Friday. “They wanted to give me double scale. So scale was $2,500, right? So double scale was $5,000,” Love commented. “The day after I said ‘No,’ I got a call to do a film for Warner Brothers called [The] Replacements and they paid me $100,000. So I ain’t crazy.”

One person tweeted, “Yo it’s wild how @icecube act like he for the people and whole time been robbing his own people.”

“I didn’t rob no f***in nobody,” Cube responded. “The 1995 Friday movie cost $2.3m to make. Shot it in 20 days. Faizon worked 1 day, maybe 2. All the actors got paid scale to do the movie. They could’ve simple said ‘No’ but they didn’t. ”

Faizon was surprised his comments ignited a controversy, and showed nothing but “love” for Cube.

“I not only consider Ice Cube a comrade but my brother and I’m still a fan,” he tweeted. “I guess it’s a slow news week so let me say what I got paid is a moot point…I have zero regrets. I want to take this time to thank Cube, DJ Pooh, and Felix Gary Grey for letting me be apart of such an iconic picture.”

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Dwayne Johnson says he won’t be returning to the Fast & Furious franchise, despite Vin Diesel’s recent pleas on social media.

Johnson tells CNN that back in June, he told Diesel privately that there was “no chance” he’d return, so he was surprised when Diesel shared an Instagram post in November begging him to come back.

“Vin’s recent public post was an example of his manipulation,” Johnson, who played Luke Hobbs in the series, says. “I didn’t like that he brought up his children in the post, as well as Paul Walker‘s death. Leave them out of it. We had spoken months ago about this and came to a clear understanding.”

Johnson adds that his goal was “to end my amazing journey with this incredible Fast & Furious franchise with gratitude and grace” and says “it’s unfortunate that this public dialogue has muddied the waters.”

Still, Johnson says, he wishes his former co-stars and crew member “the best of luck and success in the next chapter.”

In Diesel’s Instagram post on November 7, he wrote, “My little brother Dwayne… the time has come. The world awaits the finale of Fast 10,” adding, “I say this out of love… but you must show up, do not leave the franchise idle you have a very important role to play.”

 

 

 

 

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Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal makes her directorial debut in The Lost Daughter, one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year that’s racking up award nominations left and right. 

Maggie tells ABC Audio the movie takes a hard look at a little-shown side of the female psyche and features two mothers acting out in different ways after struggling to live up to expectations.  That experience, says Gyllenhaal, is universal but not explored enough in film.

“Many many women have spent a whole long time watching movies where there was no one for us to immediately identify with,” she explained, adding she wanted the audience to think, “This person doesn’t look exactly like me, but I’m going to find a way in to understand their experience and have it be important to my experience.” 

Peter Sarsgaard, Maggie’s husband, who co-stars in the movie, recalled when the audience at the Venice International Film Festival, where the movie premiered globally, praised Maggie’s vision.  “I remember several people who came up to her and they feel that need to say, ‘You did something to me.  I’m thinking.  I’m feeling,'” he said.

Another cast member, Olivia Colman, explained why she jumped at the opportunity to star in the film, saying, “I’ve never seen this woman depicted so honestly before on screen and I wanted to have a crack at it.”

Echoing those remarks was Dakota Johnson, who was interested because the movie explored “an unhappy mother and wife — you’re not supposed to be that.”

“This idea that Nina wanted more for herself and had never really been seen and wasn’t being nourished in her heart and her mind just resonated with me,” she continued. “I found it heartbreaking and so real and so common.” 

The Lost Daughter premieres Friday on Netflix.

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