Warner Bros. Studio Tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of ‘Friends’ by bringing back Friendsgiving event

Well, it looks like Kathy Bates isn’t retiring after Matlock after all. 

Bates stopped by ABC’s On the Red Carpet show before Sunday night’s 76th Emmy Awards, where she threw cold water on a New York Times story that Madeline Matlock in the forthcoming CBS reboot would be her final role.

As much as she said she was “flattered” that the retirement report “went around the globe,” Bates told ABC’s George Pennacchio that she was “misunderstood.”

“I think it was misunderstood because I … had one foot out the door until I read Jennie [Snyder] Urman‘s script and I was like, ‘OK, now we’re talking. And I want the show [Matlock] to run for years and years,” she said.

The original series of Matlock ran from 1986 to 1995, starring Andy Griffith as a defense lawyer named Benjamin Matlock.

The reboot show will chronicle Bates’ character, who rejoins the law workforce as a senior, scoring legal victories in courtrooms. In the interview with the New York Times to discuss the show, she said she felt like she was called to do the role, especially after experiencing some injustices in the early days of her career.

“Everything I’ve prayed for, worked for, clawed my way up for, I am suddenly able to be asked to use all of it,” she said at the time. “And it’s exhausting.”

Despite her success, when reflecting on her acting career, she only recalled some of the blunders, telling the New York Times, “I never felt dressed right or well.”

“I felt like a misfit,” she said. “It’s that line in Misery when Annie says, ‘I’m not a movie star.’ I’m not.”

Her comments notwithstanding, a source told ABC News on Monday that “it is understood that Bates changed her mind [about retiring] after doing Matlock.”

Matlock will premiere on CBS Sept. 22 and will be available to stream on Paramount+.

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Tom Hanks isn’t Batman — but apparently fans think he is.

The Oscar winner appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, and revealed that despite being one of the most famous actors in Hollywood, fans confuse him for Michael Keaton “all the time.” 

“Yeah, me and him are, you know, some form of odd doppelgänger back from a long time ago,” he explains. “They don’t say ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice‘ to me exactly. But a lot of time, ‘Hey, were you in that?’ You know, I get that.”

The two men do share a similar comedy background, and they came up in the business around the same time. In fact, Keaton revealed back in 2012 that he was up for a starring role in Splash, the 1984 Ron Howard hit that helped catapult Hanks to movie stardom. However, Keaton turned the role down so that he wouldn’t get typecast in comedies after the success of 1983’s Mr. Mom.

Some time ago, there were rumors Hanks was offered the role of the Caped Crusader before Keaton donned the cape and cowl in 1989’s Tim Burton blockbuster Batman, which he recently reprised in The Flash. 

However, Hanks poured cold water on that rumor on the Graham Norton Show, joking the very idea was “comical.” Hanks clarified he was “never” offered the role, adding with a laugh, “Can you imagine me in that suit?”

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Gladiator II, the sequel to Ridley Scott‘s 2000 Oscar winner, doesn’t hit theaters until Nov. 22, but the filmmaker says he’s already looking ahead to a third installment. 

As reported, Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington star in the upcoming sequel, which centers on Mescal’s Lucius, who returns to Rome against his will, but with vengeance on his mind.

While promoting the picture to the French-language publication Premiere, Scott revealed, “I’m already playing with the idea of Gladiator III,” before adding, “No, seriously! I lit the fuse.”

Scott, who will be turning 87 just after the second film debuts, reveals another famous sequel inspired him to push the story further. “The ending of Gladiator II is reminiscent of The Godfather, with Michael Corleone ending up with a job he didn’t want, and wondering, ‘And now, Father, what do I do?’ So, the next [one] will be about a man who doesn’t want to be where he is.”

It’s likely in this case he’s referring to Mescal’s character as the stand-in for Al Pacino‘s Michael. However, Mescal isn’t putting the chariot before the horse: he said Scott only recently clued him in to a third film.

“I’m waiting to see what will happen, but I’m interested, of course,” the actor said. “But we must not hurry anything,” stressing it’s all up to whether a third film would serve the story.  

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