‘A Knight’s Tale’ Director Reveals Axed Sequel Ideas and Says ‘Netflix Tested’ One ‘Idea Through Their Algorithms, Which Indicated It Would Not Be Successful’

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Victoria Justice, best known for her starring role on Nickelodeon’s “Victorious,” recently said on SiriusXM’s “Hits 1 LA with Tony Fly and Symon” that her upcoming role in the movie “Depravity” required her to film her first sex scene. The experience was “uncomfortable” but the crew pulled it off with “taste.” “My first day on set I had my first ever sex scene. I’m like, ‘Really, guys? We’re gonna schedule this for the first day? Cool.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Francis Ford Coppola revealed in a preview of “Megalopolis” in Vanity Fair that he rewrote the script around 300 times before self-financing the passion project for $120 million by selling part of his winery estate in Northern California. The epic is set to world premiere in competition at the Cannes FIlm Festival in May. A first look photo from “Megalopolis” has debuted featuring Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel in their leading roles.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo were responsible for some of Marvel’s biggest box office hits, from “Captain America: Civil War” to “Avengers: Endgame,” but they don’t necessarily believe superhero fatigue is to blame for the studio’s recent struggles. Marvel had a tough 2023 with two flops: “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “The Marvels.” Speaking recently to GamesRadar+, the directors said that Marvel’s current issues boil down to the changes in how people absorb media: It’s a Hollywood-wide issue, not just a Marvel one.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Deadpool and Wolverine” is set to be one of the biggest films of the summer, and fan theories are already flying around the internet regarding what Marvel could have in store for what looks like a bonkers trip across a multiverse populated by characters previously owned by 20th Century Fox and now owned by Disney. Whatever goes down in the sequel, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, prior knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will not be a mandatory requirement in order to enjoy it. That’s according to the film’s director, Shawn Levy.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Melanie Lynskey recently told People magazine that her husband and fellow actor Jason Ritter has sacrificed his own career in recent years so that hers could flourish. Lynskey has been on a roll lately with an Emmy-nominated and series regular role on Showtime’s “Yellowjackets,” plus acclaimed supporting turns in “The Last of Us,” “Candy” and more. None of this career success would be possible had Ritter not put his own acting career on pause to help raise their five-year-old daughter while Lynskey took acting gigs.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Aaron Sorkin confirmed during a live recording of “The Town” podcast that he is currently working on some kind of sequel to “The Social Network,” David Fincher’s acclaimed 2010 drama about the creation of Facebook that won Sorkin the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. “Look, yeah, I’ll be writing about this,” Sorkin said about the social media company’s recent years. “I blame Facebook for January 6.” Sorkin would not answer why he blamed Facebook for Trump supporters storming the U.S.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Robert Downey Jr. elated Marvel fans earlier this month when he told Esquire magazine that he would “happily” return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Tony Stark/Iron Man following his Oscar win for best supporting actor in March.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jessica Lange spoke critically of present-day Hollywood during a recent interview with Vulture, saying “there should be a law against it” when the topic came up about Warner Bros. Discovery axing already-shot movies like “Batgirl” and “Coyote vs. Acme” for tax write-off purposes.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Emily Blunt is staunchly opposed to algorithms making any decisions in Hollywood. Ahead of the release of her summer tentpole “The Fall Guy,” the Oscar nominee joined co-star Ryan Gosling for a Vanity Fair Italy cover story in which she expressed frustration over algorithm-driven decision making.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director It’s been well over a year since news first broke that Disney was moving forward with “The Princess Diaries 3.” Anne Hathaway can’t reveal any details, but she did assure fans in a recent V magazine interview that development continues on the long-anticipated sequel, and the intention remains to get it off the ground. “We’re in a good place,” Hathaway said. “That’s all I can say.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Angelina Jolie‘s scrapped “Cleopatra” movie was part romance epic and part “political thriller with assassinations and sex,” according to the movie’s original screenwriter Brian Helgeland. The Oscar-winning actor was set to play the Egyptian queen in a tentpole for Sony Pictures that once courted director David Fincher to helm. It never got off the ground.

“Dune” filmmaker Denis Villeneuve has a lot of options for what he could make next, and one of them could be his long-gestating “Cleopatra” movie based on the Stacy Schiff novel “Cleopatra: A Life” for Sony Pictures (he has a couple of options, one of them being a third “Dune” movie too). Before that, however, some may remember the era when filmmaker David Fincher had a version of the movie set up at Paramount, circa 2012, that would have starred Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie  (long before the competing Gal Gadot incarnation with Patty Jenkins and Kari Skogland).

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sylvester Stallone revealed on the TMZ special “Arnold & Sly: Rivals, Friends, Icons” (via The Daily Mail) that a near career-ending injury in the lead up to “Rocky II” threatened to end the boxing franchise before its first sequel got off the ground. Stallone was training with bodybuilder Franco Columbu about a month and a half before the “Rocky 2” shoot when he ripped his pec muscle right off the bone. “So, I go down, and it’s maybe only 200 [lbs].

For years, streaming had been a great home to canceled series, revivals, and sequels. However, an attempt to get Netflix to bite on a sequel to the late Heath Ledger’s medieval rom-com “A Knight’s Tale” was recently passed on thanks to a clinical computer assessment.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Brian Helgeland’s illustrious Hollywood career includes winning an Oscar for writing “L.A Confidential,” directing Heath Ledger’s beloved 2001 comedy “A Knight’s Tale” and scripting films such as “Man on Fire” and “Mystic River.” It also could’ve included a “Game of Thrones” spinoff series had HBO moved forward on his pitch, which was titled “Ten Thousand Ships” and centered on Queen Nymeria. “It came out great, but I think they felt the period of my show was too far removed from the pillars of the original,” Helgeland recently told Inverse about his spinoff.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Patrick Warburton has voiced Joe Swanson on “Family Guy” since the show’s first season 25 years ago, but the role has never exactly gotten his family’s seal of approval. During a recent PaleyFest LA event celebrating “Family Guy’s” 25th anniversary (via People magazine), Warburton revealed that his parents hate the Seth MacFarlane-created animated comedy and their disdain for the show went so far that Warburton’s mom once tried to get “Family Guy” canceled. “They hate the show even more today than they did 25 years ago,” Warburton said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jerrod Carmichael appeared on a recent episode of “The Breakfast Club” (via Rolling Stone) and said: “I deeply regret saying anything about Dave Chappelle to the press. I want to say that I’m sorry for that.” Carmichael previously gave interviews to Esquire and GQ in which he criticized Chappelle’s legacy of making jokes about transgender people. Carmichael now noted that his frustration with Chappelle had only to do with the comedian repeatedly making jokes about the same topic and not the morality of the jokes themselves.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “The Sopranos” fans got thrown a curveball in 2021 when Edie Falco revealed for the first time on an Atlantic podcast that she once reunited with James Gandolfini to reprise Tony and Carmela Soprano for a bizarre clip set two years after the events of the series finale, which infamously ended with a cut-to-black that left Tony’s fate in the balance. The purpose of the clip was to help the New York Knicks basketball organization lure LeBron James to the team. Gandolfini and Falco shot the “Sopranos” reunion in 2010 as James was becoming a free agent after his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers expired.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Olivia Williams has given acclaimed performances in “Rushmore,” “The Sixth Sense” and “An Education.” She recently appeared as Camilla Parker Bowles in the final two seasons of Netflix’s popular drama series “The Crown.” But for many people, the British actor will always be Felicity from the Season 4 finale of “Friends.” Williams once called guest starring on the NBC sitcom “harrowing,” and she recently opened up to The Independent about the reasons why it wasn’t the best experience in a recent interview. “Gosh. Well, just as an example, I was taken to the studio in a shared car with a wonderful actress whose character, I think, was called ‘Old Woman’,” Williams said, noting this actor was “distinguished” and “very good” but “at one point, a producer – who shall remain nameless – just yelled at her: ‘You’re not funny!’ And she didn’t come back the next day.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Even Stevens” and “Kim Possible” actor Christy Carlson Romano revealed on “Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown” podcast (via Entertainment Weekly) that she is not going to watch the Investigation Discovery documentary series “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” because “it’s extremely triggering” and “I’ve made a choice for several reasons to opt out of watching that imagery.” She also said that she once turned down the network’s request for her to participate in a similar kind of doc. “Quiet on Set” explores misconduct and abuse allegations behind the scenes at Nickelodeon in the late 1990s and early 2000s.