Sterling K. Brown is headed to Hulu for his next major TV project.
The This Is Us actor will executive-produce and star in Washington Black, a new series based on Esi Edugyan’s best-selling novel of the same name. The story follows the adventures of 11-year-old George Washington “Wash” Black, a young boy living on a Barbados sugar plantation during the 19th century. After learning of a shocking death, Black “flees the plantation and travels the world.” Brown will play Medwin Harris, a “Black refugee who traveled the world after a traumatic childhood” and has Washington Black as his young protégé.
In other news, Regal theaters is offering moviegoers an immersive experience to see some of this year’s most highly-anticipated films. In select theaters, Regal offers fans the option of ScreenX and 4DX auditoriums. On ScreenX, which is the world’s first multi-projection cinema with an immersive 270 degree field of view, movie fans can now watch Venom, No Time to Die and Spider-Man: No Way Home on a panoramic screen. 4DX allows audiences to connect with movies through motion, vibration, water, wind, snow, lightning, scents, and other special effects, fans can watch Dune, Eternals, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, among others. For more information on how to get tickets, go to Regal’s website.
Finally, SIX, the Broadway musical that centers on the six wives of Henry VIII, had a new opening night on Sunday after the pandemic put the show on hiatus for over a year. The original diverse cast of Adrianna Hicks as Catherine of Aragon, Andrea Macasaet as Anne Boleyn, Abby Mueller as Jane Seymour, Brittney Mack as Anna of Cleves, Samantha Pauly as Katherine Howard, and Anna Uzele as Catherine Parr, all returned for a performance. Tickets are now on sale.
Ben Affleck has reason to smile lately, even if Batman rarely does.
Unless you’ve been under a rock, you know that he’s dating Jennifer Lopez again. He’s also got The Last Duel coming out next week, which he co-wrote with his co-star and childhood friend Matt Damon.
But Ben tells Varietythat he recently also had a happy new experience as the Caped Crusader that was worlds away from his time on the controversial Justice League.
Affleck plays the Dark Knight again in the upcoming Flash film with Ezra Miller — which, because it follows the Flashpoint comics, also runs through several timelines, meaning we’ll also see Michael Keaton reprising his Batman role.
Affleck told the trade it was much more fun than last time, noting, “I had a great time.” He then joked, “I’m probably under some gag order that I’m not even aware that I probably just violated, and I’m now going to be sued.”
Ben added, “I love Ezra and I had a chance to see Jason [Momoa], who’s over there making [the] Aquaman [sequel].”
Affleck noted that the Flash film “was a really nice way to revisit [Batman], as the prior experience had been difficult. This was really lovely. Really fun.”
The Flash debuts November 4, 2022.
2017’s Justice League underwent a series of poorly received reshoots from Joss Whedon, after director Zack Snyder dropped out following his daughter’s tragic death by suicide. It also weathered controversy from co-star Ray Fisher, who blamed racism for his on-set treatment — and his scenes mostly being left on the cutting room floor.
The film was later re-edited and released to fan acclaim as Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
Affleck will also be seen in The Tender Bar, directed by George Clooney, which debuts December 17.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Krysten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, is clapping back after she was videotaped and chased into a school bathroom over the weekend by a group of pro-Biden agenda activists, confronting her over her objections holding up Democratic efforts on Capitol Hill.
President Joe Biden has also weighed in on the encounter, when asked on Monday, calling it not appropriate but also “part of the process” for someone without Secret Service protection.
Sinema, in a new statement on Monday, called the display caught on video and posted online “no legitimate protest” and “wholly inappropriate.”
She claimed activists entered Arizona State University, where she was teaching, using “deceptive” and “unlawful” means.
“After deceptively entering a locked, secure building, these individuals filmed and publicly posted videos of my students without their permission — including footage taken of both my students and I using a restroom,” the statement said.
While she wrote she supports the First Amendment, she shunned the protest — by a group she doesn’t name but claims to have met with several times since she was elected to the Senate.
“Yesterday’s behavior was not legitimate protest. It is unacceptable for activist organizations to instruct their members to jeopardize themselves by engaging in unlawful activities such as gaining entry to closed university buildings, disrupting learning environments, and filming students in a restroom,” she wrote.
Video posted to Twitter on Sunday by the organization Living United for Change in Arizona or LUCHA, showed people chanting at and chasing the first-term senator into a bathroom, pressing her to support Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and progressive immigration policy.
ABC News has reached out to LUCHA for comment.
The confrontation comes as the moderate Democratic senator, along with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., continue intra-party negotiations on the topline number for a larger social spending package to accompany the already Senate-passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
“In the 19 years I have been teaching at ASU, I have been committed to creating a safe and intellectually challenging environment for my students. Yesterday, that environment was breached. My students were unfairly and unlawfully victimized. This is wholly inappropriate,” Sinema continued.
Her statement ended by putting the onus also on elected officials to foster a healthy environment for politics.
“It is the duty of elected leaders to avoid fostering an environment in which honestly-held policy disagreements serve as the basis for vitriol — raising the temperature in political rhetoric and creating a permission structure for unacceptable behavior,” she wrote.
Biden was asked about the recent protests facing both Sinema and Manchin in his remarks on Monday about the debt ceiling.
“Joe Manchin had people on kayaks show up to his boat to yell at him. Senator Sinema last night was chased into a restroom. Do you think that those tactics are crossing a line?” a reporter asked.
“I don’t think they’re appropriate tactics, but it happens to everybody,” Biden replied. “The only people it doesn’t happen to are people who have Secret Service standing around them. So it’s part of the process.”
Asked if Sinema has given the White House a topline number for the social package — somewhere between $1.5 trillion and $3.5 trillion — Biden said “I’m not going to negotiate in public.”
As the video went viral on Twitter over the weekend, accumulating more than five million views by Monday, pundits of all parties united in agreement that the behavior crossed a privacy line.
First up, Krieger will participate in virtual book signing at the TalkShopLive social-shopping site’s Rock N Roll Channel on Tuesday, October 5, starting at 7 p.m. ET.
Then, on the memoir’s release date, October 12, Robby will appear in two streaming events. The first, which starts at 2 p.m. ET, will feature Krieger signing copies of his book at LiveSigning.com and also answering questions fans have submitted in advance.
The second is a pre-recorded Q&A that’s part of the Live Talks Los Angeles series, and that’s set to air at 9 p.m. ET.
On October 13, Krieger will take part in a previously reported interactive interview event presented by Rough Trade Records NYC that will be streamed live via Dice.fm. It will feature Robby chatting with respected writer and broadcaster Laura Barton via Zoom, and also answering questions from virtual audience members.
Meanwhile, a video preview featuring Krieger sharing details about his book has been posted at The Doors’ official YouTube channel. In the clip, Robby says, “Hopefully after reading my book, I think people will understand the whole dynamic of The Doors and what it’s really like to be in a band like The Doors.”
Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton is following up his hit Marvel Studios film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings with another comics-inspired project.
However, the director is not staying within the pages of Marvel Comics for the new project, which is an animated Disney+ series featuring an adaptation of the graphic novel American Born Chinese.
The “genre-hopping action-comedy” comic from Gene Luen Yang centers on Jin Wang, “an average teenager juggling his high school social life with his immigrant home life” who, after meeting a new foreign student, “is unwittingly entangled in a battle of Chinese mythological gods.”
Like Shang-Chi before it, the upcoming series represents Asian culture both in front of and behind the scenes. Emmy-winning Bob’s Burgers veteran Kelvin Yu and his Westworld alum vet brother Charles are writing the American Born Chinese series, with Kelvin acting as showrunner. Melvin Mar and Jake Kasdan, two producers on the Asian-centric series Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. on Disney+ and ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat, are executive producing with Gene Luen Yang.
In a statement, Cretton comments, “Reading Kelvin’s riveting adaptation of Gene’s incredible novel had me laughing and crying and jumping out of my chair on every page. I feel deeply connected to the characters in this story and the brilliant team bringing it to life.”
Cretton added, “This show is going to be unlike anything we’ve experienced on TV, and I can’t wait for the world to see what we’re cooking up.”
(WASHINGTON) — As the cry “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” rang out just after 10 a.m. Monday in Washington, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court emerged from behind a 44-foot velvet curtain wall, walking into their vaulted marble chamber for the first time in 18 months.
They entered a world — a courtroom, a docket, an American society — dramatically changed and charged with anticipation since they last convened in-person as major decisions loom on abortion, guns, the death penalty and religious freedom.
A chamber normally packed with hundreds of spectators is now limited to an audience of just five dozen clerks and members of the press — all covid-tested, N95-masked, and seated 6-feet apart. The lectern for attorneys, once 3 feet from the bench, now positioned 10-feet away.
Proceedings that for years were shielded from much of the public in real-time are now livestreamed on the Supreme Court website.
The justices took their seats in a new array for the first time since the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Chief Justice John Roberts, in the middle of the iconic mahogany bench, is now flanked by senior conservative Justice Clarence Thomas and senior liberal Justice Stephen Breyer.
Thomas, 73, who was famously silent for years during oral arguments before the pandemic, asked the first question of the new, in-person term and remained loquacious throughout. A sprightly Breyer, 83, repeatedly whispered to the chief with a smile from his new center-stage spot.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired from the court in 2018, was seated in a front box as special guest — a show of solidarity for the institution at a time when the court faces its lowest public approval rating in decades and a brewing crisis of credibility.
On the wings of the bench, the newest justices: Amy Coney Barrett on the right, appearing in-person for arguments for the first time; on the far left, an empty seat for Brett Kavanaugh, who dialed in by phone from home due to a COVID-19 diagnosis last week. (There were no audible signs of his illness; the court has said he is asymptomatic.)
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only justice to don a face mask. Justice Samuel Alito was seen slumped back in his chair sipping from a stainless-steel thermos; he was the only justice to remain silent for the entire first case.
For nearly two-and-a-half hours, the justices heard arguments in two opening disputes: the first, a suit brought by Mississippi against Tennessee over the pumping of groundwater from a massive aquifer that stretches across eight states. The second case addressed a criminal procedural matter involving the Armed Career Criminal Act.
Free-for-all questioning among the justices, which had been sidelined during virtual sessions, was back in full force but remained civil and polite. Chief Justice Roberts has implemented a new procedure at the conclusion of each round, calling on each justice by name to see if they have any additional questions.
The court was gaveled in and out by newly-sworn Court Marshal Gail Curley, a recently retired Army colonel and judge advocate general officer who joined the court this summer as its 11th marshal in history. She is responsible for court security and operations.
Meanwhile, outside the court building protests raged over abortion. That issue will get its first public hearing of the term next Tuesday Oct. 12, in a procedural case out of Kentucky. The marquee abortion case of the year out of Mississippi — which asks the justices to squarely consider nearly 50 years of precedent since Roe v. Wade — is set for December.
The reports are true: Coldplay and Selena Gomez have indeed teamed up for a song called “Let Somebody Go.”
The track is one of the songs on the band’s upcoming album Music of the Spheres, and you can listen to a snippet of it now on Selena’s Twitter account.
Coldplay has also revealed that in addition to Selena Gomez and BTS, Music of the Spheres will include appearances by Grammy-winning British producer and musician Jacob Collier and We Are KING, the Grammy-nominated R&B duo featuring twin sisters Amber and Paris Strother.
Meanwhile, Coldplay will do a week-long residency on CBS’ The Late Late Show with James Corden starting October 18 and running through October 21. Selena will perform “Let Somebody Go” with the band during that time, while Collier and We are KING will join Coldplay for a song called “Human Heart.”
When Tyrese and his girlfriend, Zelie Timothy, announced Wednesday on Instagram that they had broken up, some fans suspected a scam. They were right.
The couple admitted they faked the split to promote her YouTube channel. The Fast & Furious star made the admission in a nine-minute Instagram video, with Timothy laughing behind him.
“It was my idea,” Tyrese confessed. “We just want to apologize. We broke up for a good three-and-a-half minutes. We did it for the ‘Gram.'”
On Wednesday, Tyrese posted a video of Zelie naked, covered with soap suds in a bathtub. The singer/actor commented, “We had so much potential. We really did. I wish you well, ending on a good note is a good thing….. I will forever love you @zelietimothy cheers to you!!”
She reposted the video on her page and responded, “You can’t force a man to respect you. But you can refuse to not be disrespected. I wish the very best for you I hope you figure it out.”
On the same day, Zelie posted a 24-minute video of their recent vacation in Cancun with Tyrese. She commented, “I’m FINALLY back on Youtube with my first ever Baecation Vlog. My baby Tyrese really made this 6 Day Baycay special and I want you guys to join us. Enjoy.”
When Gibson encouraged his followers to view the video, using Bible quotes, a few suggested that the breakup announcement was a publicity stunt to promote Timothy’s YouTube channel.
One person commented, “People who see through the smoke signals won’t hit the link because why TF are u lying and faking it to make it. Just a simple follow my girl would be sufficient enough. It’s the corny lies and acting then using scriptures smh come on u better than this.”
Bullet for My Valentine has premiered the video for “Rainbow Veins,” a track off the band’s upcoming self-titled album.
In keeping with the song’s name, the visual is certainly colorful, although less in a sunshine-and-rainbows way and more in a Requiem for a Dream hallucination sequence way.
“‘Rainbow Veins’ is out now and we couldn’t be happier for you guys to finally hear it,” Bullet says.” It is one of our favorite tracks from the upcoming album and we’re sure it’ll be one of yours too. Turn it up!”
You can watch the the “Rainbow Veins” video streaming now on YouTube.
Bullet for My Valentine the album is due out November 5. It also includes the previously released songs “Knives,” “Shatter” and “Parasite.”
