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Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively returning for 'A Simple Favor 2'

Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in 2018's 'A Simple Favor' - Lionsgate

A sequel to the 2018 film A Simple Favor is officially in the works.

Amazon MGM Studios announced Wednesday that director Paul Feig and stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively will reprise their roles for A Simple Favor 2, a co-production with Lionsgate.

Other cast returning for the sequel include Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Joshua Satine, Ian Ho and Kelly McCormack.

The synopsis for the film notes that it's the "return of Stephanie Smothers (Kendrick) and Emily Nelson (Lively) as they head to the beautiful island of Capri, Italy, for Emily's extravagant wedding to a rich Italian businessman."

"Along with the glamorous guests, expect murder and betrayal to RSVP for a wedding with more twists and turns than the road from the Marina Grande to the Capri town square," the synopsis continues.

No release date was announced for the film, though production is set to begin sometime in spring.

The 2018 film was based on Darcey Bell's 2017 novel of the same name. Jessica Sharzer returns as screenwriter, with revisions from Laeta Kalogridis and Feig.

A Simple Favor earned more than $97 million at the worldwide box office, according to Box Office Mojo, and is Certified Fresh on the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

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Steven Spielberg puts 'Dune' franchise director up with filmmaking's greats

Monica Schipper/Getty Images

In the latest installment of the Director's Guild of America's Director's Cut podcast, Steven Spielberg put Dune franchise director Denis Villeneuve up with some of the most famous filmmakers of all time.

Spielberg called it "an honor" to sit and talk with the director and showed that by immediately heaping historic praise on him. "Let me start by saying there are filmmakers who are the builders of worlds. It's not a long list and we know who a lot of them are. Starting with [Georges] Méliès and [Walt] Disney and [Stanley] Kubrick, George Lucas," Spielberg began.

He continued, "Ray Harryhausen I include in that list. [Federico] Fellini built his own worlds. Tim Burton. Obviously, Wes Anderson, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, Guillermo del Toro. The list goes on but it's not that long of a list, and I deeply, fervently believe that you are one of its newest members."

Oscar winner Spielberg, who knows a little something about the genre, with the classics E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, went on to call the second Dune "one of the most brilliant science fiction films I've ever seen."

He also called the scene with Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides riding a massive sandworm in the sequel "one of the greatest things I have ever seen. Ever!"

Later in the conversation, Spielberg asked Villeneuve if he could see any of his Dune cast members directing one day. Denis immediately answered that the "brilliant" Zendaya was "always listening" behind the camera and said he "would not be surprised" if she becomes a director.

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'Power Book III: Raising Kanan' gets season 5 renewal

Starz

Good news for fans of Starz's Power universe: The network announced Wednesday it has given an early fifth season renewal to Power Book III: Raising Kanan. 

The show explores the early life of fan-favorite character Kanan Stark, originally played by 50 Cent in the flagship series.

Season 4 of Raising Kanan is currently in production in New York City.

"We know that our fans can't get enough of Raising Kanan. As the inevitable evolution of this young man into a killer plays out, we knew we had much more backstory to share in this ever-escalating family saga," said Starz's President of Original Programming Kathryn Busby.

She added, "As we continue to expand the storytelling within the Power universe, we're looking forward to how this story may intersect with other Power characters during this prequel era.”

Starz recently announced a fourth spinoff from the Power franchise — the prequel Origins, centering on the early days of fan-favorite characters Ghost and Tommy — was in development. 

Meanwhile, Power Book II: Ghost will debut its two-part final season on June 7, and Power Book IV: Force is currently filming its third season in Chicago.
 

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Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe featured in teaser to Yorgos Lanthimos' 'Kinds of Kindness'

Searchlight Pictures

A teaser debuted Wednesday for Kinds of Kindness, the follow-up to Poor Things from its director, Yorgos Lanthimos, and producer/star Emma Stone.

Their fellow Poor Things alums Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley also star, as do Jesse Plemons, Hunter Schafer, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn and Mamoudou Athie.

The teaser opens on Stone recklessly driving a sports car, followed by shots of the film's star-studded cast.

Kinds of Kindness is described as a "triptych fable" following the pursuits of various characters. Lanthimos had previously explained to The Guardian that it is composed of three stories, with each actor playing "three different parts."

The forthcoming Searchlight Pictures film tracks "a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader," according to the synopsis.

Kinds of Kindness opens in theaters on June 21.

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Glee: Lea Michele expecting baby #2

Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

Lea Michele announced on Instagram Wednesday that she is expecting her second baby with husband Zandy Reich.

"Mommy, Daddy and Ever are overjoyed," the actress and singer captioned a profile photo of her cradling her exposed baby bump; the latter refers to their son, who was born in 2020.

The post got more than 212,000 likes in just an hour after she posted it late Wednesday morning, as well as well-wishes from the likes of fellow celebrity moms Zooey Deschanel, Ashley Tisdale and Katharine McPhee.

Michele and Reich were married in Northern California in March 2019.

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Fourth 'Star Trek' film could finally take off with 'Flight Attendant' co-creator on the script

HBO Max

Engines on a long-in-development fourth Star Trek film with the reboot cast of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban and Zoe Saldaña are warming up again with the co-creator of Max's The Flight Attendant behind the keyboard.

In an extensive feature story on the booming state of the Star Trek universe on both the big and small screens, Variety reports Steve Yockey is writing a follow-up to 2016's Star Trek Beyond, which is meant to be a "final chapter" for the cast that first went "where no one has gone before" in 2009's Star Trek.

The fourth film has seen directors come and go: At one point Quentin Tarantino was toying with directing a Star Trek film -- which Variety revealed had "a 1930s gangster backdrop" -- and WandaVision's Matt Shakman was on board, too, before dropping out to call the shots on Marvel Studios' forthcoming Fantastic Four.

No director has been linked to Yockey's "final chapter" for that cast, however.

 

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Jessica Biel to star in, produce thriller series 'The Good Daughter' for Peacock

Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

On Wednesday, Peacock announced that Jessica Biel will star in and produce the thriller series The Good Daughter for the streaming service. 

Based on Karin Slaughter's book of the same name, Biel will play Charlotte Quinn. She and her sister Samantha "have spent the last twenty-eight years trying to piece together the lives that were fractured by a single night of violence."

The tease continues, "When another attack splinters the small town of Pikeville, Charlotte is the first witness on the scene. Now a lawyer like her father, she's forced to confront her own demons as the case twists through one shocking revelation after another. In the end, both she and Samantha find themselves wondering if the price of being the good daughter was worth it after all."

Slaughter will write all episodes of the show and co-produce alongside Biel, and veterans of Pieces of Her and Big Little Lies Bruna Papandrea, Steve Hutensky and Casey Haver.

Most recently, Biel played infamous ax killer Candy Montgomery in Hulu's true crime limited series Candy. She recently signed onto BATSO, the fact-based mountain climbing drama in which she'll star with Ethan Hawke and Daniel Radcliffe.

 

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'Good Times': J.B. Smoove, Yvette Nicole Brown and more get animated in trailer from Netflix

Netflix

Good Times, the classic Norman Lear sitcom, gets animated in a new trailer from Netflix.

Curb Your Enthusiasm's J.B. Smoove, Community's Yvette Nicole Brown, black-ish alumna Marsai Martin and more lend their voices to the project, which was co-produced by the late TV icon's production company, Steph Curry's Unanimous Media and Seth MacFarlane's Fuzzy Door.

According to Sony Pictures Television, the "animated reboot of the Norman Lear series finds the latest generation of the Evans family, cab driver Reggie (Smoove) and his wife, the ever-aspirational Beverly (Brown), scratching and surviving in one of the last remaining housing projects in Chicago along with their teenage artist son, Junior (Jay Pharoah), activist daughter Grey (Martin), and drug dealing infant son, Dalvin (Gerald "Slink" Johnson)."

Yes, a drug-dealing infant.

The producers continue, "It turns out the more things change the more they stay the same and keeping your head above water in a system with its knee on your neck is as challenging as ever. The only thing tougher than life is love, but in this family, there's more than enough to go around."

Wanda Sykes is also heard in the trailer, playing Junior's teacher, who suggests the flunking student should turn to OnlyFans instead of hoping for a degree.

All 10 episodes will be available on Netflix Friday, April 12.

 

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Jerry Bruckheimer talks next 'Top Gun', reveals next 'Pirates' movie will be a "reboot"

Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

While promoting his next project, Guy Ritchie's action film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer spilled some tea about the next Top Gun and Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

The latter, Bruckheimer tells ComicBook.com, will be a "reboot," which could be perceived as sinking the hopes of fans who were hoping Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow would again take the helm of the $4.5 billion-grossing franchise.

Bruckheimer said there will be a follow-up to the blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, but what's up in the air is when, thanks to its lead, Tom Cruise. "You don't know how they come together. You just don't know," the producer said.

"Because with Top Gun you have an actor who is iconic and brilliant. And how many movies he does before he does Top Gun, I can't tell you."

Bruckheimer added, "But we're gonna reboot Pirates, so that is easier to put together because you don’t have to wait for certain actors."

There was a script for a Margot Robbie-led Pirates movie at one point, but recently it was rumored ABC News' parent company Disney was interested in The Bear Emmy winner Ayo Edebiri leading the project.

Back in 2022, Bruckheimer told The Hollywood Reporter there were two scripts being developed, "the one with Margot Robbie and one with a younger cast," but his most recent "reboot" comment seems to point to the latter option -- particularly after Robbie's runaway success with Barbie.

 

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The Boss & The Bear: Jeremy Allen White frontrunner to play Springsteen on screen

Disney/Randy Holmes

A planned movie about Bruce Springsteen’s effort to make the 1982 solo album Nebraska may have found the man to play The Boss. 

Deadline was the first to report that The Bear star Jeremy Allen White is the frontrunner to play Springsteen in the movie Deliver Me From Nowhere, an adaptation of Warren Zanes' 2023 book about the making of the album. 

Crazy Heart writer/director Scott Cooper is writing the film, with plans to direct, and shooting is expected to begin this fall in New Jersey.

Nebraska, released in September 30, 1982, featured 10 acoustic songs that Springsteen originally recorded as demos on a four-track recorder. Springsteen had planned to rerecord the songs with the E Street Band but instead opted to release it as a solo acoustic record.

Nebraska peaked at #3 on the Billboard chart, with its biggest hit being “Atlantic City,” which reached #10.

Some of the songs on the demo that didn’t make it on Nebraska were later rerecorded with the band and wound up on Springsteen’s multi-Platinum #1 record, Born in the U.S.A.

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In Brief: Julia Roberts signs up for thriller 'After the Hunt', and more

Julia Roberts is teaming up with Call Me by Your Name filmmaker Luca Guadagnino for the Amazon MGM thriller After the Hunt, Variety reports. Roberts, per the studio, stars as a college professor who, "finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star pupil levels an accusation against one of her colleagues," and, "a dark secret from her own past threatens to come to light." Additional cast members will be announced at a later date ...

The Handmaid’s Tale’s Elisabeth Moss and Scandal's Kerry Washington have been tapped to star in a TV adaptation of the Araminta Hall novel Imperfect Women, which has gotten a straight-to-series order from Apple TV+. The psychological thriller is described as. "a mystery complicated by perspective that explores guilt and retribution, love and betrayal, and the compromises we make that alter our lives irrevocably. As the investigation unravels, so does the truth about how even the closest relationships can change over time" ...

Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation have set an August 1, 2025, release date for the sequel to the animated 2022 hit The Bad Guys, according to Deadline. The Bad Guys 2 reteams Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos and Awkwafina as, "the crackerjack criminal crew of animal outlaws who are struggling to find trust and acceptance in their newly minted lives as Good Guys," only to be, "pulled out of retirement and forced to do 'one last job' by an all-female squad of criminals," the outlet reports ...

 

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'Ted Lasso''s Brett Goldstein to guest on his Apple TV+ show 'Shrinking'

Apple TV+

Ted Lasso Emmy winner Brett Goldstein will appear in the second season of Apple TV+'s acclaimed dramedy Shrinking, The Hollywood Reporter says. 

It's not known who he'll be playing, but it probably wasn't a hard gig to get: Goldstein co-created the show with its lead Jason Segel, along with Scrubs veteran Bill Lawrence

The series, which also stars Harrison Ford, follows Segel's character, a therapist named Jimmy, who is trying to balance his practice and his personal relationships while grieving the loss of his wife. 

Unlike Ted Lasso, on which he started as a writer before pitching himself as potty-mouthed footballer and fan favorite Roy Kent, Goldstein previously told the trade he was "very happy" just writing on Shrinking and that it just "didn't occur" to him to get in front of the camera for the series.

The forthcoming guest spot will also be the first time Goldstein has appeared on an Apple TV+ series since the finale of Ted Lasso's third season -- though he did appear in his Lasso costar Hannah Waddingham's Home for Christmas musical special in 2023.

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Drake Bell + other former child stars to appear in fifth episode of 'Quiet on Set' docuseries

Bell in 2019 - Michael Tran/Getty Images

Investigation Discovery has just announced that Drake Bell, Shane Lyons and other former child stars will headline a fifth episode of the docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

The show that shocked some 16 million viewers with revelations about what went on behind the scenes at Nickelodeon in its heyday -- including that Bell had been sexually abused by a former dialog coach -- has become the most-watched docuseries in the history of Max.

Quiet on Set: Breaking the Silence will premiere on the streaming service on April 7 at 8 p.m. ET. It promises to "delve deeper into the toxic and dangerous culture behind some of the most iconic children's television shows of the late 1990s and early 2000s, including allegations of abuse, sexism and racism."

According to Investigation Discovery, the new episode will feature former Nickelodeon child stars from the early 2000s, including Bell. Some reunite for the first time to share their reactions to the docuseries, including former All That cast member Shane Lyons

"Building off the revelations explored in the first four episodes, award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien will lead the conversation in the new episode to discuss where the industry can go from here," Investigation Discovery notes. 

Its producers say adding participants previously featured in Quiet on Set, including All That cast members Giovonnie Samuels and Bryan Hearne, Hearne's mother, Tracey Brown, and new voices including Lyons, "will come together ... for an important discussion about the industry, then and now."

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Timothée Chalamet signs deal to produce films for Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Pictures

After he helped deliver back-to-back blockbusters for the studio with Wonka and Dune: Part Two, Timothée Chalamet is staying in business with Warner Bros.

The Wrap is reporting the studio has signed a first-look deal with the 28-year-old actor; the arrangement allows Chalamet to bring projects to the studio to star in and/or produce.

Since its release on December 6, Wonka has made more than $632 million globally; the Dune sequel was released on March 1 and has generated more than $575 million worldwide to date.

In a statement to the trade, co-chairs and CEOs at Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, said, "Over the last few years, we have admired not only Timothée's commitment to his craft, which is evident in the range and depth of his varied roles, but also his unwavering dedication to give 100% of his time and attention to every project he has made here at Warner Bros. and elsewhere."

The execs continued, "His collaboration on the campaigns for Dune and Wonka is something we all enjoyed immensely, and the results speak for themselves." They said they "are thrilled Timothée has chosen our studio to be his creative home."

 

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Yes, chef! Fox ordering up two more seasons of 'Hell's Kitchen'

Fox

Fox announced Tuesday that it is renewing Hell's Kitchen for two more seasons. 

The hit show's star and producer, hot-tempered chef Gordon Ramsay, commented, "As my very first show on Fox, Hell's Kitchen holds a very special place in my heart." He called it "incredibly gratifying to have it renewed for its 23rd and 24th seasons."

Ramsay adds, "This show just keeps getting better and better, and ... you can expect even bigger challenges, stronger talent and more intense competition in Hell's Kitchen in the years to come."

After nearly two decades in business with Ramsay, Allison Wallach, the head of the network's unscripted programming, called Ramsay and his show "mainstays of American television" that helped make Fox "global television's most powerful cooking brand."

Hell's Kitchen debuted on May 30, 2005. Its most recent premiere, for season 22, became the most-streamed season debut ever, according to the network.

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