In Brief: Kimmel and Mulaney reportedly decline Oscars-hosting gig, and more

July 31, 2024

Scratch Jimmy Kimmel and John Mulaney‘s names off the list of potential Oscars hosts — sources say both have passed on hosting next year’s show, although there’s no official comment from ABC or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Kimmel has hosted four times, including the 2024 Oscars, for which he earned rave reviews. Mulaney earned high marks for his turn as host of the Governor’s Award earlier this year, which many saw as an audition for the Oscars job. While he said no to this year’s show, he left the door open to host a future Oscars telecast, per THR. The 97th Oscars are set to air March 2, 2025 …

Seth Meyers, host of NBC’s Late Night, has a new stand-up comedy special set to air on HBO and Max this fall, the premium cable channel has announced. The Saturday Night Live alum taped the special in front of a live audience at The Vic Theatre in Chicago. “Critics say it’s the special my kids will be talking about in therapy twenty years from now!” Meyers joked in a statement. Meyers’ first comedy special, Lobby Baby, aired on Netflix in 2019. In addition to his Late Night duties, the busy comedian co-hosts two podcasts: Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers and The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast. He also co-headlines a monthly residency with John Oliver at the Beacon Theatre in New York …

Netflix has dropped the first trailer to the animated musical Spellbound. The feature, from Toy Story creator John Lasseter and Shrek director Vicky Jenson, features Rachel Zegler as the voice of Ellian, who must go on a daring quest to save her parents — voiced by Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem — after a mysterious spell transforms them into monsters. John Lithgow, Nathan Lane, Jenifer Lewis and Tituss Burgess round out the voice cast. Spellbound premieres Nov. 22 …

The Morning Show has tapped Logan veteran Boyd Holbrook to play Brodie, “a popular and provocative talk show host,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. He joins Jeremy Irons, William Jackson Harper and Marion Cotillard in the show’s fourth season. The cast of Apple TV+’s workplace drama also includes Reese Witherspoon, Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell, Karen Pittman, Greta Lee, Jon Hamm and Nicole Beharie …

Kendall Jenner’s 818 Tequila tops list of most popular celebrity booze brands

John Lamparski/Getty Images for NYCWFF

If you think you’ve seen lot of stars getting into the liquor business, you’re not wrong. According to the food and wine streaming network SOMM TV, there were less than 40 such celeb-backed booze brands in 2018. But by 2022, that number had ballooned to 350 — a nearly 800% increase.

The reason? Well, money, of course: Unite Hospitality revealed that customers pay an average of 73% more for a celebrity-backed brand — and it seems Kendall Jenner‘s decision to start a tequila brand in 2021 is paying off.

The marketing experts QR Code Generator looked into 150 star-backed brands’ Instagram followers and Google searches from American consumers, and Jenner’s 818 Tequila topped the list. The analysts found it generates more than 76,000 Google searches a month and has more than 1.2 million Instagram followers.

If you follow Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on Instagram, you’ve certainly seen him swigging his fast-selling Teremana Tequila, which placed second. There’s an average of more than 107,000 monthly searches for the stuff, and Teremana has 780,000 Instagram followers.

Third might be a surprise: Former Vampire Diaries siblings Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder‘s Brother’s Bond Bourbon ranked third — it has the highest Insta follower count of its competition with 1.9 million and is searched for more than 25,000 times a month.

George Clooney and Rande Gerber‘s Casamigos Tequila was fourth with 272,000 Instagram followers and an average of 133,975 searches per month in the U.S., while Ryan Reynolds‘ Aviation American Gin placed fifth.

The Deadpool star’s catchy ads — and copious product placement in his and wife Blake Lively‘s films — led to 345,000 Insta followers and more than 26,000 monthly searches nationwide.

Methodology and results have not been verified or endorsed by ABC News or The Walt Disney Company.

Jenna Ortega expresses regret over ‘Wednesday’ script comments

Netflix

In a new profile in Vanity Fair, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star Jenna Ortega is expressing some regrets over comments she made regarding her hit Netflix show Wednesday.

As reported in 2023, Ortega drew fire from writers — particularly during the extended Hollywood strikes — when she told Dax Shepard and Monica Padman‘s Armchair Expert podcast she had to “put [her] foot down” regarding scripts for the show.

“There were times on that set where I even became almost unprofessional in a sense where I just started changing lines,” she said in part. “I had to sit down with the writers, and they’d be like, ‘Wait, what happened to the scene?’ And I’d have to go and explain why I couldn’t go do certain things.”

The words “toxic” and “entitled” were bandied about in tweets and headlines after her comments made the news.

To VF, Jenna looked back, saying, “I probably could have used my words better in describing all of that,” calling herself “a rambler.”

She added, “I think it was hard because I felt like had I represented the situation better, it probably would’ve been received better.”

She added of the flap, “Everything that I said felt so magnified. … It felt almost dystopian to me. I felt like a caricature of myself.”

Jenna confessed, “I got sick of myself last year. My face was everywhere … so it’s like, fair enough, if I were opening my phone and I saw the same girl with some stupid quote or something, I would be over it too.”

Ortega reveals she successfully lobbied for a producer credit on the second season of Wednesday, which debuts on Netflix in 2025, in an effort to secure more “agency” for herself and her character, Wednesday Addams.

‘Bridgerton’ season 4 in production: See first photos of Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha

Netflix/Gavin Bond

The first photos of the Bridgerton season 4 stars are officially out, featuring joint shots with season leads Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha.

Netflix dropped the new images on Monday and also announced that season 4 of the Regency era series “is officially in production.”

In the upcoming season, Ha is slated to play the love interest of Thompson’s character, Benedict Bridgerton.

The streamer called Ha’s character, Sophie Baek, “a victim of tragic circumstances.”

In one of the new photos, Thompson and Ha are seen sitting next to one another on what appears to be a production cart. Thompson is dressed in a gray tweed three-piece suit, a gray tweed overcoat and a white button down, while Ha sports an oxblood leather trench coat, a brown windowpane tweed suit and gold jewelry.

Speaking with Tudum, Netflix’s official site, about the highly anticipated upcoming season, Thompson said season 4 is “striking” because it features “the struggle between a proper old-school fairy tale — the romance of it — and the actual reality of the world.”

“You have to hold both of them — the romance and the reality — in your hand,” he said. “In its best version, ‘true love’ happens in the middle of that.”

He added, “The storyline is a bit of a twist on Cinderella. You remember being told those stories as a child — the magic and the romance of them. It’s really exciting to have that weaved into the world that we know of Bridgerton. … It’s such a great story, but it’s also, I hope, really relatable.”