Category: Entertainment

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse has found its directors. The third film in the popular Sony Animation Spider-Verse trilogy will be directed by Bob Persichetti and Justin K. Thompson, the studio announced Tuesday. Both men worked in pivotal roles on the first two films of the trilogy. While the plot of the film is still being kept under wraps, they promise that they “have crafted what we feel is a very satisfying ending, and we can’t wait for fans to experience it – we’re bringing everything we’ve got!” according to Deadline …

ABC News Studios is putting out the first documentary about Luigi Mangione, the alleged shooter of Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare CEO. The one-hour special Manhunt: Luigi Mangione and the CEO Murder — A Special Edition of 20/20 will air Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on ABC. It will also be available to stream the next day on Hulu. The special features an exclusive voice recording of Mangione, where he discusses his travels through Asia, according to Variety …

Dustin Hoffman, André Holland, Alison Brie and Tom Sturridge are coming together to lead Alex Vlack‘s directorial debut film, The Revisionist. Deadline reports that the drama film, which is currently filming in Louisville, Kentucky, follows a novelist who transforms the people in her life into the characters she needs for her story …

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Stephanie Hsu stars in the new Peacock comedy Laid.

The original series, which premieres Thursday, follows Hsu’s Ruby, a professional party planner whose former lovers are dying in the order she was with them. The unconventional rom-com series was also executive produced by the Everything Everywhere All At Once Oscar nominee, who told ABC Audio it’s rare to read a script you actually think is funny.

Laid was “making me laugh out loud out on my couch,” Hsu said. “It really felt that the infrastructure of this roller coaster was really there for us to get to kind of throw our weight into.”

Zosia Mamet co-stars as Ruby’s best friend and roommate, AJ. She said one of the best parts of making the series was getting to know Hsu.

“We both approach our work in a very, very similar way, and we kind of come to the table ready to play,” Mamet said. “I think it just really felt every day like such a joy because it was pretty effortless working together and getting to explore that dynamic of female friendship … it just felt so incredibly rich and fulfilling.”

Ruby is a complex character, and Hsu said she enjoyed the challenge of creating her.

“People would be like, ‘Ruby’s such a narcissist, Ruby’s so crazy, da-da-da-da-da.’ And I’m like, OK, but I have to be in her shoes for however many weeks, so I have to figure out a way to love her,” Hsu said.

In the end, the answer was to keep returning to the question at the heart of the show.

“I really did want to co-create a story … that kind of asked this question that I feel a lot of my friends ask, which is like, ‘How do you know when you know?'” Hsu said. “What is love, and how do you find it in this day and age?”

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The short lists for the 2025 Oscars are in.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the short lists in 10 award categories on Tuesday: best documentary feature film, best documentary short film, best international feature film, best original score, best original song, best makeup and hairstyling, best visual effects, best animated short film, best live action short film and best sound.

Some of the films on the short lists that may receive nominations at the 97th Academy Awards include Emilia Pérez, Dune: Part Two, Mufasa: The Lion King, Gladiator II and Wicked.

Ahead of the official Oscar nominations announcement on Jan. 17, each short list was determined by members of each corresponding branch, except for international feature film and live action short film lists. For those two categories, Academy members from all branches who have “met a minimum viewing requirement” were invited to participate in the preliminary round of voting.

The 2025 Oscars will take place Sunday, March 2. The ceremony will air live from the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on ABC and, for the first time ever, stream live on Hulu.

See the short lists for best documentary feature, best international feature and best visual effects below:

Best documentary feature film
The Bibi Files
Black Box Diaries
Dahomey
Daughters
Eno
Frida
Hollywoodgate
No Other Land
Porcelain War
Queendom
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Sugarcane
Union
Will & Harper

Best international feature film
Brazil, I’m Still Here
Canada, Universal Language
Czech Republic, Waves
Denmark, The Girl with the Needle
France, Emilia Pérez
Germany, The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Iceland, Touch
Ireland, Kneecap
Italy, Vermiglio
Latvia, Flow
Norway, Armand
Palestine, From Ground Zero
Senegal, Dahomey
Thailand, How to Make Millions before Grandma Dies
United Kingdom, Santosh

Best visual effects
Alien: Romulus
Better Man
Civil War
Deadpool & Wolverine
Dune: Part Two
Gladiator II
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Mufasa: The Lion King
Twisters
Wicked

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A new chapter of Karate Kid has arrived.

After 15 years, the Karate Kid franchise is returning with Karate Kid: Legends, the trailer for which debuted Tuesday, starring Jackie Chan, Ralph Macchio and Ben Wang.

The new film from Sony Pictures, which comes out May 30, focuses on the life of Li Fong, a boy who moves to New York City after a family tragedy and is forced to learn karate to avoid troubling situations, according to the film’s description.The film also stars Joshua Jackson, Sadie Stanley, Shaunette Renée Wilson and Ming-Na Wen.

The trailer introduces Macchio as Daniel LaRusso, the original Karate Kid, all grown up, meeting Jackie Chan, who reprises his role as Mr. Han, a kung fu instructor.

“Li is to me what you meant to Sensei Miyagi,” Mr. Han tells Daniel, referring to Wang’s character and setting up the new trainer and pupil dynamic by referencing Daniel’s past under the tutelage of his old instructor, Mr. Miyagi (played by Pat Morita).

Action shots show Li training alongside Daniel and Mr. Han, as well as fighting on the streets of New York City.

The trailer concludes with glimpses of a rooftop karate tournament, where Li appears locked in on his opponent.

The film is directed by Jonathan Entwistle and written by Rob Lieber, with Macchio and Jenny Hinkey as executive producers. Karen Rosenfelt produced the film.

The massively popular Karate Kid franchise debuted in 1984, telling the story of Daniel, played by a young Macchio, learning karate under Mr. Miyagi. Macchio last appeared in The Karate Kid Part III in 1989, while Chan last appeared in 2010’s The Karate Kid.

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The Library of Congress has announced the 25 films it has selected to join the National Film Registry in 2024.

Its film selections for this year, which were announced on Tuesday, go back almost 130 years and span from the silent film era to a 2010 drama about the creation of Facebook.

Among the titles selected are Dirty Dancing, Beverly Hills Cop, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, My Own Private Idaho, Spy Kids, No Country for Old Men and The Social Network. These 25 new selections bring the total number of films in the registry to 900. They’ll either join the moving image collection items held in the Library of Congress or be preserved in coordination with copyright holders or different film archives.

The public submits nominations to be considered to join the archive. Over 6,700 submissions were made this year, and the Library of Congress chose 25 of them based on “their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to preserve the nation’s film heritage,” according to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

Here are the 25 films selected for the 2024 National Film Registry:
Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895)
KoKo’s Earth Control (1928)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Pride of the Yankees (1942)
Invaders from Mars (1953)
The Miracle Worker (1962)
The Chelsea Girls (1966)
Ganja and Hess (1973)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Uptown Saturday Night (1974)
Zora Lathan Student Films (1975-76)
Up in Smoke (1978)
Will (1981)
Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (1982)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Dirty Dancing (1987)
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989)
Powwow Highway (1989)
My Own Private Idaho (1991)
American Me (1992)
Mi Familia (1995)
Compensation (1999)
Spy Kids (2001)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
The Social Network (2010)

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Kitty Song Covey is bringing on the chaos in the trailer for season 2 of XO, Kitty.

The second season of the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before spinoff show finds Kitty, played by Anna Cathcart, returning for her second semester at the Korean Independent School of Seoul.

All of Kitty’s love interests are also back for another semester, including her ex-boyfriend Dae, social media star Yuri and the privileged, misunderstood Min Ho.

There’s also another familiar face: Noah Centineo will return as Peter Kavinsky, the boyfriend of Kitty’s older sister Lara Jean Song Covey, played by Lana Condor, and star of the To All the Boys film trilogy.

“When I came to K.I.S.S., I’d never felt more like an outsider. Luckily, there’s nothing like a friendly face from home,” Cathcart’s Kitty says as she embraces Centineo’s Peter in the trailer.

The now-single Kitty seems to still have her heart set on finding love.

“I want to try dating girls,” Kitty says in the trailer. “But I’m not over Yuri. Plus, things with Min Ho and I are just complicated.”

Hopefully, some support from Peter Kavinsky can get her through it all.

“You are Kitty Song freaking Covey,” he tells her at the end of the trailer. “Don’t you forget it.”

Jenny Han writes, executive produces and serves as showrunner for XO, Kitty, which returns to Netflix on Jan. 16.

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The first-ever Bluey feature film is in the works.

BBC Studios and The Walt Disney Company announced Tuesday that the beloved animated series is getting the movie treatment; it’s set to hit theaters in 2027 before streaming on Disney+.

Joe Brumm, who created Bluey, is writing and directing the film.

Bluey is a massively popular Australian animated preschool series which premiered in 2018 and now airs worldwide on Disney+. It has won a Peabody, a BAFTA, an Emmy and multiple Logies, the Australian equivalent of the Emmys.

The series follows a young blue heeler pup named Bluey and all her adventures with her family, including her dad, Bandit; her mom, Chilli; and her younger sister, Bingo.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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The Apple TV+ series Silo has been renewed for a third and fourth season, the streamer announced on Monday. Season 4 will also be the series’ last, bringing the Rebecca Ferguson-starring sci-fi series to its conclusion. The second season of the show is currently airing and will drop its final episode on Jan. 17, 2025. Tim Robbins, Common, Steve Zahn and Harriet Walker also star in the show’s second season, which releases new episodes every Friday …

We’re getting even more episodes of A Man on the Inside. The Netflix comedy series, which stars Ted Danson as a retired man who gets a new lease on life when he becomes a mole in a secret investigation, has been renewed for season 2. The new season is set to premiere in 2025. From creator Mike Schur, the show is based on 2021 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary feature The Mole Agent …

Kristen Bell is returning to host the Screen Actors Guild Awards. This marks her second time hosting the ceremony, which will stream live on Netflix on Sunday, Feb. 23. She will host the 31st annual edition of the event, which is returning to a host format after going host-less since Megan Mullally last took on the gig in 2019 …

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Lisa Kudrow is sharing her thoughts on the artificial intelligence that was used in Tom Hanks‘ new film, Here.

While guesting on a recent episode of Dax Shepard‘s podcast Armchair Expert, the actress criticized the Robert Zemeckis-directed movie, which used technology to de-age Hanks and his costar, Robin Wright. The specific technology used was the Metaphysic Live tool from AI company Metaphysic, which edited Hanks and Wright to look younger without any additional VFX work.

“They shot it and they could actually shoot the scene and then look at the playback of them as younger and it’s ready for them to see,” Kudrow said. “All I got from that was, this is an endorsement for AI and oh my God.”

Kudrow went on to say that it’s “not like it’s going to ruin everything,” but also questioned what could come next from using this sort of technology.

“What will there be left for, forget actors, but what about up-and-coming actors? They’ll just be licensing and recycling,” Kudrow said. “What work will there be for human beings?”

Finally, she expressed one last question about AI.

“And then what, so there’ll be some kind of living stipend for people?” Kudrow asked. “How can it possibly be enough?”

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Florence Pugh isn’t letting anything or anyone change who she is.

In an interview with The Times published on Sunday, the actress talked about living life unapologetically and opened up about how “exhausting” it is for women to be in the film industry.

“There are fine lines women have to stay within, otherwise they are called a diva, demanding, problematic,” Pugh said. “And I don’t want to fit into stereotypes made by others.”

When it comes to beauty standards in film and television, Pugh said she recalls the “godawful headlines” about actresses like Keira Knightley and their appearance, despite their talent.

“The only thing people want to talk about is some useless crap about how they look,” she said.

Still, she added, “Look, not everybody has legs that go on for days. I remember watching this industry and feeling that I wasn’t represented.”

The conversations around how women look in the film industry inspired Pugh to not give into the negative comments or change the way she looked to fit in.

“I wanted to challenge how women were perceived, how we are supposed to look,” she said. “Actually I wasn’t trying to challenge. I just wanted to be there, to make space for a version of a person that isn’t all the things they used to have to be.”

In the past, Pugh has called out trolls for criticizing her looks or her fashion choices. In 2022, after wearing a pink, see-through Valentino gown to a fashion show, she took to Instagram and told those commenting on her body to “grow up” and “respect all women.”

Pugh said she’s “proud” that she’s “stuck by myself” over the years “and look the way I look.”

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