‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ directer Shawn Levy on what to expect — and what not to expect — from the film

July 24, 2024

Disney

First reactions to the highly anticipated Marvel movie Deadpool & Wolverine are out, and they’re glowing. The film had its world premiere Monday in New York, and it’s getting high praise — a lot of it having to do with the fact that even though Deadpool is now under the Disney umbrella, the jokes are just as cutting and raunchy, and the fight scenes are just as bloody as ever.

Deadpool director Shawn Levy (LEE-vee) tells ABC Audio that no one at Disney ever told him no, and that surprised him.

“Every time we turned in a draft of our script or a cut of a scene I expected the pushback, and it never came,” he says. “As [Disney CEO] Bob Iger said after he screened the movie … ‘I knew what I was getting into — in for a penny, in for a pound.'”

“Everyone at Disney and Marvel seemed to know that no one wants a sanitized Deadpool,” he continues. “They want a Deadpool that is as audacious as we all expect and love, and we were able to make a movie that way with their full support.”

Ahead of the movie’s release Friday, Levy shared that he’s most excited for fans “to see these two iconic antiheroes on screen costarring in a movie for the first time ever,” along with some “surprise characters that the internet has not entirely predicted. And the unexpected delight of seeing certain actors/characters appear that might not be anticipated.”

Of course, Levy isn’t giving much away about the film, but he did tell ABC Audio his favorite rumor that the internet sleuths got wrong.

“I think it would be that King Charles is in the movie. I think that the sleuths got it wrong on that front,” he reveals.

Disney is the parent company of Marvel and ABC News.

Richard Simmons, iconic fitness guru, dead at 76

C Flanigan/FilmMagic

Richard Simmons, the exercise guru who became a pop culture icon, has died, his rep confirmed to ABC News. He had just celebrated his 76th birthday on July 12.

LAPD sources tell ABC News that they went to Simmons’ home after a 911 call from his housekeeper. He was found dead, apparently of natural causes. No foul play is suspected, and there’s nothing that would prompt an investigation, sources said.

In March of 2024, Simmons clarified he was “not dying” following a cryptic Facebook post that seemed to intimate the opposite. The reclusive Simmons took to Facebook again a day later to say he’d had a cancerous growth removed from his face.

Simmons, born Milton Teagle Simmons in New Orleans, built a fitness empire after losing more than 100 pounds. He started by opening exercise studios and gyms. After his success in that area led to a TV appearance, he drew media attention and began landing guest roles on multiple shows, including Win, Lose or Draw, Match Game and Hollywood Squares. He also had a recurring role as himself on General Hospital for four years.

With his energetic, flamboyant personality, curly hair and signature wardrobe of super-short shorts and tank top, Simmons soon became a pop culture icon, hosting TV shows, authoring multiple books, hosting fan cruises and making exercise videos and DVDs. These were especially popular, especially the Sweatin’ to the Oldies series.

Simmons continued to appear in multiple TV shows, talk shows and commercials until 2014, when he dropped out of public view. His exercise studio in Beverly Hills closed in 2016.

Simmons’ absence from the public eye inspired the 2017 podcast Missing Richard Simmons, produced by a former friend. In early 2024, Pauly Shore announced that he’d be playing Simmons in an upcoming biopic, which prompted Simmons to write Facebook, “I have never given my permission for this movie. So don’t believe everything you read. I no longer have a manager, and I no longer have a publicist. I just try to live a quiet life and be peaceful.”

Shannen Doherty’s oncologist details the final days of the “incredible warrior”

Doherty in 2019 – Rachel Luna/FilmMagic

Days after her death on Saturday, July 13, from stage 4 breast cancer, Shannen Doherty‘s oncologist-turned-friend Dr. Lawrence D. Piro is telling People about the final days in the life of the “incredible warrior.”

Dr. Piro, with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, became a close friend of the Beverly Hills, 90210 alumna in her yearslong fight with the disease.

“In her mind, she was not wanting to consider any other alternative than ‘we were beating this,” he tells the magazine.

Dr. Piro explains ultimately, “things turned much more difficult in the last couple of weeks,” adding, “We kept going until we couldn’t go any more.”

He expressed, “The last conversation that we had, she was in the process of realizing that things had taken a pretty significant turn … She wanted to continue to take treatment and fight through, even though her physical condition had taken a bit of a downturn. And so we did.”

Piro recalled, “In the last few hours, she was in a place where she was very comfortable and sleeping and transitioning, and she was surrounded by some of her very close friends,” adding her dog Bowie was also with her.

“The room was surrounded by a select group of friends that were giving her a lot of care and support,” he said. “It was somber and sad, but beautiful and loving. The hardest thing about this was that she wasn’t ready to leave because she loved life.”

Dr. Piro said Doherty felt “misunderstood most of her life,” and “would want us to live our lives as strongly as we can, committed to our convictions and to not allow others to label you or to misrepresent you and stop you from living your best life.”

Kim Kardashian reportedly adapting La La Anthony’s book ‘The Love Playbook’

Disney

Kim Kardashian has reportedly lined up her next TV producing gig. The reality TV giant and entrepreneur is reportedly adapting La La Anthony‘s New York Times bestselling The Love Playbook into a TV project.

According to Variety, Kim is teaming up with black-ish veteran Kenya Barris and BET Studios for a show called Group Chat, based on Anthony’s book, as part of Kardashian’s deal with Disney-owned 20th Television.

The trade says the show, if it’s picked up to series, would stream on Hulu, home to The Kardashians and where Kim’s acting work in FX’s American Horror Story: Delicate can be seen.

As reported, Kim’s also developing for Hulu All’s Fair, a legal drama co-produced by her AHS producer Ryan Murphy, and starring Kardashian, Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash, Teyana Taylor and Naomi Watts.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.