Vatican Showbiz Latest News and Updates

posted to X, the platform previously known as Twitter, by Vatican News shows Stallone, 77, and Francis, 86, shaking hands before he introduces the head of the Catholic Church to his family.Sylvester first introduces his wife, Jennifer Flavin, and then their three daughters, and the couple’s three children — Sophia, 27, Sistine, 25, and Scarlet, 21, as well as their son, Frank Stallone.“Three, so many!” Francis jokes about the many Stallone women. “Thank you very much for taking time from your busy day,” Sylvester added.

Sylvester Stallone and his family had a special encounter with Pope Francis while visiting Vatican City.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Pope Francis is apparently a huge Sylvester Stallone fan. The “Rocky” star visited the Vatican on Sept. 8 and met the Pope alongside his wife, Jennifer, and his three daughters, Sophia, Sistine and Scarlet.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic Now on its ninth feature entry in just a decade, the “Conjuring” franchise has proved something of a powerhouse in the continued growth of horror as one of the most reliably popular (not to mention cost-effective) mainstream film genres. Their mythologies may be garbled and silly, the scares mostly “jump” ones, yet these movies provide a kind of creepy comfort food — familiarly formulaic jolts unlikely to trouble any non-child viewer’s sleep later on — whose satisfactions are amplified by the good actors and superior atmospherics deployed.

Anna Tingley The $2 billion-grossing “Conjuring” universe will grow by one more film this Friday with the release of “The Nun II,” which will see Taissa Farmiga reprise her creepy role as Sister Irene. The original “Nun” movie, which followed Sister Irene as she fended off the possessed demon nun Valek in 1952 Romania, debuted in 2018 and earned $366 million worldwide on the way to becoming the top-grossing in the “Conjuring” franchise to date. If you’re looking to binge the whole “Conjuring” series ahead of the newest installment, you’ll be able to find every film in the franchise on a streaming platform. You can also stream the entire “Conjuring” series for free by signing up for a free trial of Prime Video’s Max add-on.

King Charles has stripped Anthony Bailey of his OBE as his bitter divorce from Princess Marie-Therese von Hohenberg rumbles on. Anthony was awarded the OBE by the late Queen in 2008 for services to inter-religious relations and charity. Over the years, the businessman was branded Mr Fixit and was known by a number of famous faces and Royal Family members.

Gwendlyn Brown is living la dolce vita as a newly married woman! The 21-year-old daughter of Christine Brown and her ex, Kody Brown, took to Instagram over the weekend to share photos from her honeymoon with wife Beatriz Queiroz. The star is enjoying her time in Italy shortly after celebrating her nuptials last month.

Russell Crowe makes a splash in the horror genre in The Pope’s Exorcist.Directed by Julius Avery, the supernatural horror film stars Crowe as real-life figure Father Gabriele Amorth, a Catholic priest who claimed to have performed thousands of exorcisms over his career.A synopsis reads: “The Pope’s Exorcist follows Amorth as he investigates a young boy’s terrifying possession and ends up uncovering a centuries-old conspiracy the Vatican has desperately tried to keep hidden.”Other cast members include Daniel Zovatto, Alex Essoe and Franco Nero.In the film’s final act, Amorth and Father Esquibel (Zovatto) discover the demon possessing young Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) is Asmodeus, the king of hell. The demon’s aim is to possess an exorcist, so that it can release other demons and take down the Church.During the exorcism of Henry, Amorth offers himself to be possessed by Asmodeus – falling in line with the demon’s plan.

Selena Gomez had an epic 31st birthday over the weekend and more photos have come out of the fabulous event. The star-studded party saw three Latina powerhouses come together as Gomez, Christina Aguilera, and Karol G were all in attendance. On Tuesday, the “Hips Don’t Lie singer,” shared photos posing with her fellow Latinas.A post shared by Christina Aguilera (@xtina)Aguilera was all smiles as she hugged the two women.

A new chapter of “The Exorcist” has arrived and it is definitely not for the faint hearted. Ellen Burstyn reprises her role as Chris MacNeil in “The Exorcist: Believer,” a sequel directed by David Gordon Green.

Rosalía is an unstoppable force that has taken the world by storm, but still, she manages to add another jaw-dropping feat to her impressive repertoire — and we don’t mean musically. The Spanish singer got her hands on the keys to the Vatican Museum!After wowing the crowds at the Nyon Festival in Switzerland, the “Tuya” songstress decided it was time for a well-deserved Italian escapade. The star took to Rome and couldn’t resist the allure of the Vatican Museum’s wonders.

reported in Le Parisien and BFM television that Birkin had been found dead at her home in Paris. The actress suffered a mild stroke in 2021, but her cause of death has not yet been revealed. .“Because she embodied freedom, because she sang the most beautiful words of our language, Jane Birkin was a French icon.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic With Jane Birkin’s passing, France loses both an icon and one of its greatest enigmas. To focus on France is not to diminish the fact that Birkin’s death will be mourned around the world. Alongside Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Hardy and Catherine Deneuve, Birkin was one of the last surviving 1960s femmes who sparked global interest in French culture. Except that Birkin wasn’t French. She was born in London and clung to her English accent all her life. Birkin was perfectly fluent, but cultivated a faux-naïf way of speaking her adopted language that reinforced her persona as the eternal child. For the French, it was all part of her singular charm, established decades earlier… and which she sometimes struggled to escape.

pic.twitter.com/aRkuxR2TcmWhile Birkin's cause of death is not yet known, according to multiple reports, the actress had been plagued with health issues in recent years, including a stroke in 2021 and a broken shoulder blade earlier this year, forcing her to cancel a handful of concerts in May.ET has reached out to Birkin's rep for comment.Born in London in December 1946, Birkin found a home in France at the age of 20, after moving to Paris to work on the movie . While on the set of the 1968 film, she met and started a relationship with the film's star, French actor and singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.The pair would go on to collaborate on the actress's most well-known song, «Je T'Aime… Moi Non Plus,» which translates to «I Love You… Me Neither.» The sensual song was considered risqué for its time and was banned by the BBC and condemned by the Vatican.Birkin and Gainsbourg were together for 12 years, welcoming a daughter Charlotte, before splitting in 1981.

Jane Birkin, the famed British singer and actress that transformed French culture, has died at 76 in Paris. Remembered as a style-icon, the iconic Hermès Birkin bag, introduced in 1984, was named after the artist.  The French Culture Ministry tweeted that Birkin had died on Sunday, crediting her as a "timeless Francophone icon." France's Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, shared her grief on social media, writing "Jane B was mischief, impertinent elegance, the never-outdated emblem of an entire era, a murmuring voice that remains our idol," in a tweet translated to English.

has died at 76 following health concerns that forced the musician to cancel a series of concerts in May, per a report from .The British icon—who spent the majority of her time in France and had a major influence on French style and culture—rose to fame as an actor, starring in films such as La Piscine (1969) and Death on the Nile (1978), earning three Cèsar Award nominations throughout her decades-long film career. Birkin was also known for pushing boundaries, with her breathy vocals on Serge Gainsbourg's hit 1969 duet “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus” causing enough controversy that the song was banned from the radio in multiple countries and denounced by the Vatican. “We never thought for a moment that the song would become such a symbol of freedom—all over the world,” Birkin told in 2018.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Pope Francis and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky are sharing the Cinema for Peace Award, an honor recognizing their “contributions to the freedom of Ukraine and humanitarian efforts to protect civilians and children.”

a starry world premiere in Rome on Monday evening, drawing a packed gala screening in the Auditorium della Conciliazione, a stone’s throw from the Vatican. The classy event was held in tandem with the Rome Film Festival’s independently run Alice in the City section, dedicated to films for youth audiences. The film’s local distributor is Eagle Pictures, which has a local distribution partnership with Paramount. A substantial amount of the hotly anticipated action film was shot in the Italian capital. “Dead Reckoning Part One” follows the events of “Fallout,” where Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his crew of secret agents saved the world from a nuclear apocalypse amid a series of double-crosses. The 2018 release was the highest-grossing entry in the franchise yet, earning nearly $800 million at the global box office.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic You might think Shia LaBeouf portraying a 20th-century Italian saint under the direction of perpetual bad-boy expat Abel Ferrara is a pretty strange prospect. But that’s just the iceberg tip of the oddities in “Padre Pio,” which, despite the American star’s casting in the title role, often appears uninterested in its own venerated ostensible subject.  Instead, much of this awkward English-language period piece focuses on peasants’ struggle to overthrow padrone control just after the First World War. Depicting that conflict often feels beyond the modest production’s scale — and, in any case, is never meaningfully connected to the angsty histrionics of LaBeouf, who seems to be in his own separate, indulgent, semi-improvised movie. Though coherent relative to Ferrara’s last narrative feature, the impenetrable espionage tale “Zeroes and Ones,” this eccentric misfire will likely puzzle fans of his past cult favorites, while flummoxing Catholic viewers who expect straightforward religious uplift. Gravitas Ventures is releasing to 50+ U.S. markets. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Marco Bellocchio’s drama “Kidnapped” that reconstructs the true tale of a Jewish boy who was kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th century Rome, has opened strongly in Italy following its Cannes launch. The revered Italian auteur’s film about Edgardo Mortara, who in 1858 was taken away from his family in Bologna to live in the Vatican – after it surfaced that the boy secretly been baptized a Christian – has also sparked debate and prompted the Vatican to comment the abduction for which Pope Pius IX has been held responsible. “Kidnapped” over the weekend bowed in third place at the Italian box office, placing itself after “The Little Mermaid” and “Fast X” and pulling a handsome more than €550,000 ($587,000) intake to date from roughly 300 screens.

Martin Scorsese has announced the next movie he will soon begin working on!

Martin Scorsese is making another film inspired by religion.

Move aside Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro – Pope Francis is famed director Martin Scorsese’s latest collaborator. On a European tour to promote his films, Scorsese announced his intention to make another movie about Jesus while at the Vatican. "I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus," "Scorsese said per reports confirmed by his representative.

Martin Scorsese has announced that he’s making a new film about Jesus after meeting Pope Francis in Italy.The director, who identifies as Catholic, shared the news on Saturday (May 27) during a conference at the Vatican.“I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus,” Scorsese said (via Variety), adding: “And I’m about to start making it.”Scorsese was in Rome with his wife, Helen Morris, to attend a conference titled The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination, where he briefly met Pope Francis.The director previously tackled the life of Jesus Christ in his 1988 religious epic The Last Temptation Of Christ, where Willem Dafoe played the lead character.

the Cannes premiere of his film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorses met with Pope Francis in Rome, which inspired the acclaimed director to announce plans to make a new feature film about Jesus Christ. “I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: By imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus, and I’m about to start making it,” Scorsese told reporters at a Vatican press conference, according to The Guardian.If he follows through on these plans, it would be Scorsese’s first film about Jesus since his famously controversial 1988 film “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which starred Willem Dafoe as the son of God as during his ministry and crucifixion, when he’s tempted with a vision of the life he could have had instead of dying for the world’s sins.Along with meeting the Pope, Scorsese was in Rome with his wife, Helen Morris, to attend a conference called “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination.” The conference was co-organized by Antonio Spadoro, editor of Jesuit publication La Civiltà Cattolica, who posted pictures of the 80-year-old director’s meeting with the pontiff on Twitter.

Fresh from his standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival for his latest film Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese has taken a tour of Italy, including a meeting with Pope Frances in the Vatican, where the Oscar winner also announced his plans to make a film about Jesus. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Martin Scorsese is on a post-Cannes tour of Italy where over the weekend the director, known for having a religious bent, met with Pope Francis and announced that he will make a film about Jesus. “I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus,” Scorsese announced on Saturday during a Rome conference at the Vatican, according to multiple reports. “And I’m about to start making it,” the director added, suggesting that this could be his next film. Also on Saturday, before attending the conference – titled “The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination” – Scorsese and his wife Helen Morris met Pope Francis during a brief private audience at the Vatican.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Revered Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio is returning to Cannes with “Kidnapped,” a drama that reconstructs the true tale of Edgardo Mortara, a young Jewish boy who was kidnapped and forcibly raised as a Christian in 19th century Italy. It’s a story that Steven Spielberg had his eye on, having announced in 2016 that he would make a drama about Mortara for which he began scouting locations in Italy. Last year, Bellocchio was in Cannes with another kidnapping drama, the limited TV series “Exterior Night,” about the abduction and assassination of former Italian premier Aldo Moro by Red Brigades terrorists. The veteran auteur’s first foray in TV has had the rare distinction of playing well in Italian cinemas — in two installments — before airing on RAI and selling globally. Earlier this month it also scored a slew of statuettes, including best director, at Italy’s David Awards, the country’s top film prizes.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for “Fast X” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”, which are now playing in theaters. Louis Leterrier’s “Fast X” drives into movie theaters this weekend, delivering plenty of action and a few surprise cameos. As previously revealed, the film’s credit scenes mark the return of Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs and Gal Gadot’s Gisele. The third cameo is none other than Pete Davidson, who plays Bowie. Davidson’s cameo comes after the “Fast” fam — Dom (Vin Diesel), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Han (Sung Kang), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) — head to Rome on a mission led by Roman (Tyrese Gibson). Turns out, they’ve been lured into a trap set by Jason Momoa’s badass Dante, who wants revenge on the crew and threatens to get it by blowing up the Vatican.

As well as bagging four Oscars and nine BAFTAs, Edward Berger’s WW1 drama All Quiet on the Western Front cemented its place in pop-culture history by becoming an internet meme. Under ‘how it started’, the meme shows the film’s protagonist, Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer), as a laughing, idealistic new recruit. But then, under ‘how it’s going’, we see the same young soldier, now hollowed out, filthy, and traumatized by the carnage he’s seen.

Elizabeth Taylor’s middle-aged married woman after she has full-body plastic surgery. In Joseph Losey’s The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) he was Glenda Jackson’s paramour, while in Tinto Brass’s X-rated “erotic-war-drama” Salon Kitty (1976), he played a Nazi SS commandant who recruits a group of female SS auxiliaries in order to plant them as prostitutes in a high-class brothel to collect intelligence on patrons of the establishment. After Visconti’s death, Berger’s acting career dwindled to mainly small roles.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor If anyone knows the musical world of the “Fast and Furious” franchise, it’s composer Brian Tyler. Over the years, he’s created themes and cues for Dom (Vin Diesel), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Cipher (Charlize Theron), and with “Fast X” he gets to dabble with Jason Momoa’s brilliant baddie, Dante. “Instead of creating a dark energy theme, I went for alluring,” Tyler says. In the film, Dante seeks to avenge his father’s death, Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) from 2011’s “Fast Five.” Dante lures the Fast Family to Rome, which leads to an action-packed chase through the cobbled streets of the Eternal City as Dom, Letty and their crew attempt to stop Dante from blowing up the Vatican. “Dante is charming and he makes you laugh. So, I used high strings such as the harp, and then we get into bass music with modern instruments,” says Tyler. “It gives you this feeling that you can’t look away. There’s a sense [in his music] of empathizing with him, and why he becomes this villain.”

Måneskin bassist Victoria De Angelis has explained that her home country of Italy is still “very conservative” when it comes to homosexuality, and recalled how she was made to feel “uncomfortable” for dating women.The 23-year-old was speaking in a new interview when she explained how traditional attitudes are still rife within society, and how it impacted her as an openly queer musician.Born in Vatican City, Rome, De Angelis said that her sexuality drew some unwanted attention in her home country, and that residents there would make her feel “uncomfortable” regarding the relationships she had.“I remember when I first started dating girls, I felt people really staring,” she admitted to The Big Issue (via Music-News). “These things can really make you uncomfortable, even if it’s not such a big deal compared to what other people deal with.

(who played the hot douchebag in ) and , the latest pair to provide the grist for the romance rumor mill. The two have been filming a new rom-com, Anyone But You, in Australia and dared to look smiley and relaxed in each other’s company, hence the internet (and myriad mainstream media outlets) have naturally concluded that the pair must be sleeping together.Of course, there’s no way for us to know whether they’re actually romantically involved or not, but that hasn’t stopped people from speculating that this is the reason why Powell has (reportedly) , Gigi Paris, or losing their minds over the fact that Sweeney was (briefly) seen without .

Sailing off to their happily ever after! Below Deck‘s Ben Robinson is engaged to girlfriend Kiara Cabral after more than three years of dating, Us Weekly can exclusively reveal.

Fast X has been released and reveals more about Jason Momoa’s new villainous character, Dante.The trailer kicks off with Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew in Vatican City as they attempt to disarm a rolling bomb set loose in the city by Dante. Flashbacks reveal how Dante got caught up with Toretto, dating back to Fast Five.Dante turns out to be the son of Herman Reyes, the lead antagonist of Fast Five. During the events of Fast Five, Toretto masterminded a heist in Rio De Janeiro to steal from Reyes, killing him.