Category: Entertainment

It’s Lego, it’s Star Wars, and it’s both combined, and scrambled and mixed up! The new Disney+ series Lego Star Wars: Rebuild The Galaxy debuts Friday, created by Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit.

Hernandez tells ABC Audio the animated series takes place in a kind of upside down Star Wars world.

“Good guys become bad guys, bad guys become good guys. Ships are different. Planets are different, creatures are different. Everything is a little bit different, but still identifiably Star Wars,” he says. “And it is our main character’s quest to try to put the Galaxy back to the way it used to be, but finding that that might be more difficult than he ever could have anticipated.”

Samit says the series is a lot like what would happen if any of us were to take a Legos bin and dump it out on the floor.

“No one plays with their Lego with just, you know, following the stories of the movies in chronological order, following the script. No, you start mixing and matching ships and characters and worlds, and we wanted to recreate that in this.”

Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo, who plays the scruffy nerf herder who has a role in accidentally altering the entire Star Wars galaxy, tells ABC Audio he’s a huge Star Wars fan and had all the toys as a kid, which makes being a part of the Star Wars world a dream come true.

“I will say that I played with more lightsabers than anything. I became kind of a collector in that department. And yeah, I had … the whole nine yards,” he shares. “I remember this one toy that was supposed to, like, make you use The Force, like, with a headset thing and, like, you would just raise a ball and the thing. Never worked. Hurt my feelings.”

Star Wars is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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George Lopez is readying his latest stand-up special, set to air on Prime Video, the streaming service has announced. The special, to be taped at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sept. 27 and Sept. 28 as part of Lopez’s ALLLRIIIIGHHTTT! Comedy tour, will be his ninth stand-up special and first since 2020’s We’ll Do It for Half, which aired on Netflix. A premiere date has yet to be announced …

A release date and an official trailer for Tyler Perry‘s Netflix drama Beauty in Black have been revealed. The plot follows a stripper — played by Taylor Polidore Williams — who becomes involved with “the wealthy family behind a cosmetics dynasty and a devious trafficking scheme.” The series will be released in two parts, with the first eight episodes launching Oct. 24. A release date for the second part has not yet been announced …

Sony Pictures has released the final trailer for Venom: The Last Dance, the final film in the Venom trilogy, starring Tom Hardy. This time out, Eddie and Venom “are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance,” per the studio. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans and Stephen Graham also star. The first two movies have grossed $1.36 billion. Venom: The Last Dance hits theaters Oct. 26 …

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Television salutes television on Sunday night with the 76th annual Emmy Awards. And if it seems like we just had an Emmys telecast, you’re right: due to the Hollywood strikes, the 75th ceremony was held in January this year, which made for an interesting challenge for the production team. 

At a press conference Thursday, production designer Brian Stonestreet spoke about how he had “to very quickly turn, pivot to a brand-new look that felt fresh, energetic, exciting, that kind of followed a similar concept, but definitely one that has evolved.”

The last Emmys leaned heavily into the classics, with recreations of TV show sets and cast reunions.

“One of the things that was very successful about January was the nostalgia, and people really connected with seeing those TV show sets and, you know, people from these shows that they watched,” said executive producer Dionne Harmon. “And so we wanted to take that energy into the show on Sunday.”

She continues, “But instead of focusing on TV shows as a whole, we’re focusing on characters. And so you’re going to see your favorite characters from shows of yesterday, today; you might see your favorite TV moms or TV villains all come together to just celebrate the genre.”

Her fellow executive producer Jeannae Rouzan-Clay adds, “I think it was a lot of fun for us because we got to throw out our favorite television characters into the conversation and get to the point where we are today, where we have these amazing groups that are going to represent these archetypes on television.”

There will reportedly be a reunion of the Happy Days cast, and Saturday Night Live‘s 50th birthday will be celebrated, but the producers tease another “big” reunion that you’ll just have to tune in to see on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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ABC News Studios has announced it will continue its successful true crime collaboration with Hulu with the new three-part docuseries Little Miss Innocent: Passion. Poison. Prison. 

The series follows the story of 31-year-old Kaitlyn Conley, a former receptionist who claims she was wrongly convicted of the poisoning murder of Mary Yoder, her former boss and the mother of her ex-boyfriend Adam. 

According to the series’ producers, Conley’s conviction for the 2015 crime “sent shockwaves” through her small town of Sauquoit, New York, “dividing the town about what and who to believe.”

The series will see Conley speaking out for the first time, “staunchly maintaining her innocence, detailing her toxic relationship with Adam and offering her theories on who killed Mary and why.”

“The docuseries also features never-before-seen police interviews, exclusive audio recordings of the victim on the day she was poisoned, and a never-before-heard audio interview with the victim’s husband, Bill Yoder,” the tease continues.

“With unrivaled access to friends, families, investigators, local press and townsfolk, this docuseries is the first time in seven years the Yoder family has gone public and the first time since their daughter’s conviction that Kaitlyn’s parents have spoken out.”

The series begins streaming on Hulu Sept. 20.

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ABC News’ parent company, Disney, has announced that Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2, now officially the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, is coming to Disney+ on Sept. 25.

The follow-up to the 2015 original set a number of records after its release on June 14, 2024, and became the fastest animated film to reach $1 billion globally. It is currently the eighth-highest-grossing film in global box office history.

The movie stars the original characters of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger — voiced in the sequel by Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Tony Hale, Liza Lapira and Lewis Black — as well as newcomers Maya Hawke, Ayo Edebiri, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Paul Walter Hauser and June Squibb.

The latter respectively play Riley’s new teenage emotions Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, Embarrassment and Nostalgia.

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TV personality Ross Mathews is now a regular on The Drew Barrymore Show, and while on assignment for the hit chat show in a segment that aired Thursday, he had an impromptu reunion with his old boss Jay Leno. 

That’s where Jay also revealed he used to babysit Drew.

Ross got his start on camera as one of Leno’s Tonight Show interns, and while he and Barrymore were on the Universal Studios lot interviewing current interns about breaking into showbiz, Ross was surprised by Leno, rolling up in a golf cart. 

Leno told the interns, “Ross was my favorite intern. We had a lot of them, but he was the most annoying. That was the fun part,” Entertainment Weekly says.

Later, Ross and Drew hopped into the cart and they reminisced. 

During the chat, Jay revealed that once upon a time, he babysat for Barrymore, who is now 49.

“I met Drew when she was 3 years old. I was dating her aunt,” Jay recalled. “She was asked to babysit, and I picked you up and bounced you on my knee,” calling it, “just very funny.”

“How did we never talk about that!?” Drew asked.

He didn’t remember all that much about Drew at the time — “Well, you were a baby! I was the boyfriend of the babysitter. You would come in and sit and you’d make the kid laugh,” he told Drew. 

That said, when he saw E.T. a few years later he immediately recognized Drew as “that little girl” he once minded.

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Nikki Garcia has filed for divorce from Artem Chigvintsev after two years of marriage and two weeks after Artem’s domestic violence arrest.

A rep for the WWE Hall of Famer confirmed the news to Good Morning America and said, “She continues to ask for privacy for her and her family at this time.”

Nikki filed for divorce from Artem at the Napa County Superior Court in California on Wednesday, an online court docket viewed by GMA showed.

Artem was arrested for felony domestic violence on Aug. 29 just before 10 a.m., according to Napa County, California, jail records.

The 42-year-old, who was released on $25,000 bail, was booked on California penal code 273.5(a), which makes it illegal to injure a spouse, cohabitant or fellow parent in an act of domestic violence.

Napa County Sheriff’s Office deputies said Artem did not resist arrest and was booked at the Napa County Jail on suspicion of domestic violence.

Officials did not share details on who the alleged victim was at the time, but told ABC News that they were giving the person “adequate time to deal with what unfolded before making the person talk more to detectives” and that the alleged victim had been forthcoming with initial information to deputies.

Artem has competed on 12 seasons of Dancing with the Stars to date and met Nikki when they competed together on season 25.

The couple married in August 2022 and share a child, 4-year-old son Matteo.

GMA has reached out to reps for Artem for comment.

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Paramount+ with Showtime has dropped a teaser to Dexter: Original Sin, a prequel series based on the hit avenging serial killer series that starred Michael C. Hall. 

À la Young Sheldon — but far darker — Hall will serve as a narrator of the show, which serves as an origin story with Patrick Gibson playing the younger version of Dexter Morgan.

“I’m a killer but I wasn’t born this way; I was made,” Hall intones. “I was made by my history, by the people around me. They say it takes a village to raise a killer.”

Among those are Christian Slater as Dexter’s dad, who helps him adopt “a Code designed to help him find and kill people who deserve to be eliminated from society without getting on law enforcement’s radar.”

The ’90s-set series sees the younger Dexter interning in the forensics department of the Miami Metro Police Department — a gig the adult Dexter kept, which helped keep the police off his trail as he dispatched all manner of bad people over the original show’s eight-season run that ended in 2013.

Dexter: Original Sin also stars Patrick Dempsey, Christina Milian and Sarah Michelle Gellar. It debuts on Dec. 13 for subscribers of Paramount+ with Showtime. 

For Showtime subscribers, the series launches on Dec. 15.

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One of the most recognized names in Hollywood is going after one of the most recognized trades about Hollywood. 

Francis Ford Coppola is suing Variety — and two of its writers specifically — for libel over articles that alleged he made unwanted advances toward female extras on his movie Megalopolis. 

The coverage claimed Coppola hugged, kissed and danced with extras behind the scenes of a party scene in the film.

Incidentally, Lauren Pagone, one of those actresses quoted in an Aug. 2 follow-up article, has sued “the filmmaker and others in Georgia for civil battery, civil assault, and negligent failure to prevent sexual harassment,” according to Deadline. 

Coppola’s motion, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, doesn’t mention that lawsuit. 

However, the trade says his suit claims the original July 26 article contains “false and defamatory statements” meant to “damage” his reputation and cause him “severe emotional distress.” 

Deadline quotes the suit from Coppola’s attorneys: “Some people are creative. Very few people are creative geniuses. In the world of motion pictures, Plaintiff Francis Ford Coppola … is a creative genius. Some people are jealous and resentful of genius. Those people therefore denigrate and tell knowing and reckless falsehoods about those of whom they are jealous.”

Further, it says, “Variety Media, LLC … its writers and editors, hiding behind supposedly anonymous sources, accused Coppola of manifest incompetence as a motion picture director, of unprofessional behavior on the set of his most recent production,” adding, “Each of these accusations was false and knowingly so.”

Coppola is seeking $15 million in damages.

After the original Variety piece broke, Deadline ran an interview with another extra, Rayna Menz, who insisted the director “did nothing to make me or for that matter anyone on set feel uncomfortable.”

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A New York grand jury indicted disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein on Thursday, prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in court.

Weinstein — who is recuperating after emergency heart surgery — was not present, and prosecutors asked the judge to set a date for his arraignment.

Judge Curtis Farber ordered the city corrections department to house Weinstein in the Bellevue Hospital prison ward, if medically necessary.

“Inattention at Rikers carries very real risks. He could find himself again in crisis,” Farber said.

The new indictment remains sealed until arraignment, so the charges are not yet known. As ABC News previously reported, prosecutors presented evidence of three alleged sex assaults from varying time periods that were not part of his previous case.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office previously presented evidence to the grand jury over an alleged sexual assault that occurred sometime in a four-month time period between late 2005 and mid-2006 in a lower Manhattan residential building, according to a transcript of a court hearing.

Prosecutors also indicated they were aware of two other potential offenses: a sexual assault in May 2016 in a hotel in Tribeca and a potential sexual assault that occurred at the Tribeca Grand hotel.

Thursday’s hearing was held days after Weinstein was rushed from Rikers Island, where he is being held, to Bellevue Hospital for emergency heart surgery after experiencing chest pains, his representatives told ABC News.

His trial is tentatively scheduled for this fall.

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