Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Stopped Watching ‘House of the Dragon’ After the Opening Credits: ‘It Was Strange Because It Was the Same Music’

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “The Flash” director Andy Muschietti recently told IGN that Michael Keaton was overcome with emotions on set when he first stepped into the Batcave, which the production design team created in full on the studio lot. The moment marked Keaton’s first time in the Batcave in nearly 30 years, as “The Flash” is his first time playing Batman/Bruce Wayne since 1992’s “Batman Returns.” “When [Keaton] arrived to the set, the Batcave was already finished and it was lit and everything,” Muschietti said. “He stayed like this [eyes wide] for a while. I didn’t want to interrupt him. I just wanted for him to take it in. Who knows what was going on there? But something was going on there.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Michael Shannon revealed on the “Bingeworthy” podcast that he was hesitant to reprise the role of his “Man of Steel” villain General Zod in “The Flash” due to Zack Snyder’s contentious exit from Warner Bros. Snyder directed Shannon as Zod in the 2013 Superman movie, which launched Snyder’s DC Universe. The director expanded his universe with “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Justice League,” but the latter was overtaken by the studio once Snyder left in post-production because of a family tragedy. Joss Whedon was brought in for reshoots and overhauled Snyder’s darker tone. “I was hesitant [to come back] because I wasn’t really happy about what happened to Zack Snyder in that whole deal,” Shannon said. “And I really love Zack. The fact that Zack asked me to play that part to begin with – that’s probably the biggest surprise of my career. It almost felt like a practical joke. I was like, ‘You’re kidding me, right?’”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Steven Spielberg has seen “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the fifth installment in the long-running adventure franchise and, notably, the first entry not to be directed by Spielberg himself. “The Wolverine” and “Ford v Ferrari” director James Mangold took over filmmaking duties on “Dial of Destiny.” Anyone worried a Spielberg-less “Indiana Jones” movie might not deliver the goods can now rest easy, as Spielberg himself loved the latest sequel. “I just had that experience two nights ago,” Spielberg said at the Time 100 Summit when asked what it’s like watching an “Indiana Jones” movie he didn’t direct. “Bob Iger had a screening for a lot of the Disney executives and I came to the screening along with the director James Mangold. Everybody loved the movie. It’s really, really a good Indiana Jones film. I’m really proud of what Jim has done with it.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” director James Mangold confirmed in a new interview with Total Film magazine that Harrison Ford spends approximately 25 minutes of the sequel de-aged to appear around the age he was in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The “Dial of Destiny” team previously disclosed that new VFX technology was created for the film in order to de-age Ford, but now fans know it was for an extended act of the movie and not just a simple flashback scene. Mangold called Ford “incredibly gifted and agile,” which made it easy for the actor to “pretend that he was 35” when filming the scenes. “But the technology involved is a whole other thing,” Mangold said. “We had hundreds of hours of footage of him in close-ups, in mediums, in wides, in every kind of lighting, night and day. I could shoot Harrison on a Monday as, you know, a 79-year-old playing a 35-year-old, and I could see dailies by Wednesday with his head already replaced,”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet earned their acting breakthroughs together as the leads of Peter Jackson’s 1994 drama “Heavenly Creatures,” but the two actors grew apart in the years afterward as Winslet’s star power exploded with “Titanic.” On a new episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast (via Entertainment Weekly), Lynskey said losing her close friendship with Winslet was “painful.” “When I lost touch with Kate, it was more heartbreaking than some breakups that I’ve had,” Lynskey said. “It was so painful and it wasn’t like anything happened, it’s just she became a gigantic, international movie star and she didn’t have a lot of time and then, suddenly, she’d be in Los Angeles and not have time.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is heading toward $1 billion at the worldwide box office, which is a far cry from the disastrous fate that met the first attempt to bring the Nintendo video game franchise to life. The live-action “Super Mario Bros.” movie in 1993 crashed and burned at the box office, grossing less than $40 million worldwide. Many Mario fans found the film too dark and adult-oriented, but Luigi actor John Leguizamo recently told GQ magazine in a video interview that what they shot was far darker than what was released. “[The directors] had this dark, dark vision that Disney was not okay with so there was all this butt-heading that was incredible,” Leguizamo said. “That party scene? Those were all strippers from North Carolina that they put on the set and they had them in the most revealing clothes and costumes.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Whenever Elizabeth Olsen returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she’ll surely be hoping a permanent stunt double comes along with her. Speaking to Stephen Colbert during a recent visit to “The Late Show,” Olsen said it’s “ridiculous” that she’s done a majority of her own Marvel stunts as Scarlet Witch. “Your stomach leaves you. It’s like, I guess, the joy people get on roller coasters, which I don’t get, but people love that feeling,” Olsen said about doing her own stunts. “I’ve definitely recovered from my giddiness. Sometimes I’m just like, ‘Okay, how many more of these do you want? I can do this all day’ kind of thing. But sometimes I get a little freaked out.” 

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Justin Bieber came to the defense of Frank Ocean in an Instagram post in which the “Peaches” singer praised Ocean’s controversial Coachella performance. Ocean headlined Coachella 2023 along with Bad Bunny and Blackpink, but his April 16 set proved to be a massive disappointment for fans after he started an hour late, skipped over many fan-favorite songs, performed mostly sitting down and with his back to the crowd and lip-synched to several tracks. He also ran past the Coachella curfew and abruptly ended his set after less than 90 minutes. While Ocean has received pans for his performance, Bieber had nothing but raves for his fellow musician. Bieber, who memorably surprised Coachella in 2019 by joining Ariana Granda’s headlining set, praised Ocean’s artistry and voice in a heartfelt note on social media.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director In a rare new interview while promoting his performance in Zach Braff’s “A Good Person,” Morgan Freeman told The Sunday Times that he’s insulted by Black History Month and the term “African-American.” “Two things I can say publicly that I do not like,” Freeman said. “Black History Month is an insult. You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” “Also ‘African-American’ is an insult,” he added. “I don’t subscribe to that title. Black people have had different titles all the way back to the n-word and I do not know how these things get such a grip, but everyone uses ‘African-American’. What does it really mean? Most black people in this part of the world are mongrels. And you say Africa as if it’s a country when it’s a continent, like Europe.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Madison De La Garza, who gained television fame as a child star thanks to her role on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” opened up to journalist and former “20/20” anchor Elizabeth Vargas on the “Heart of the Matter” podcast about battling cyberbullying and an eating disorder following her run on the show (via Entertainment Weekly). De La Garza appeared on four seasons of “Desperate Housewives” as Juanita Solis, the daughter of Eva Longoria’s character, Gabrielle Solis. De La Garza took over the role of Gabrielle’s daughter in Season 5, when the show jumped ahead five years from the previous season. She was only six years old at the time. The actor stayed in the role through the final season of “Desperate Housewives,” which ended in May 2012.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Quentin Tarantino has been making the international press rounds in support of his “Cinema Speculation” book tour, recently speaking to Spain’s Diari ARA about how one of his only box office bombs shook his confidence as a film director. That bomb would be “Death Proof,” Tarantino’s 2017 stuntman action-thriller starring Kurt Russell that was released domestically as one half of the movie “Grindhouse.” The other half was Eli Roth’s “Planet Terror.” The “Grindhouse” release earned $25 million, while “Death Proof” picked up only $30 million overseas in its standalone release. “I have been lucky enough to write stories that have connected with many people, and this has allowed me to practice my art without the restrictions that most filmmakers have,” Tarantino told the publication. “Now, a funny thing happened: for a while I was getting a lot of project proposals, until the studios ended up assuming that I do my stories and it wasn’t worth the effort. But after ‘Death Proof,’ which didn’t do well at the box office and was a bit of a shock to my confidence, I started getting proposals again.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson announced in March they will be reuniting onscreen after “EDtv” and “True Detective” in a new Apple TV+ comedy from creator David West Read. The 10-episode series will star the actors as fictionalized versions of themselves as they bring their families under the same roof on a Texas ranch. McConaughey recently announced on Kelly Ripa’s “Let’s Talk Off Camera” podcast that the series is titled “Brother From Another Mother.” While the series’ title evokes McConaughey and Harrelson’s real-life friendship over decades, McConaughey let it slip to Ripa that he’s actually questioning whether Harrelson is actually related to him. It all stems from the revelation that McConaughey’s mother knew Harrelson’s father, perhaps intimately.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Brooke Shields revealed on “The Drew Barrymore Show” that she received a phone call from “The Blue Lagoon” director Randal Kleiser following the release of her new Hulu documentary “Pretty Baby.” In the documentary, the supermodel and actor called out “The Blue Lagoon” for exploiting her sexual awakening when she was just 14 years old. “They wanted to make it a reality show,” Shields says in the documentary about “The Blue Lagoon” and other films she made as a teen actor. “They wanted to sell my actual sexual awakening. The irony was, I wasn’t in touch with any of my own sexuality.” “The Blue Lagoon” stars Shields opposite Christopher Atkins. The two actors play teens stranded on a tropical island who experience puberty together and fall in love. The film is one of many that Shields calls out in the documentary for exploiting her at such a young age. Other titles include Louis Malle’s “Pretty Baby” and Franco Zeffirelli’s “Endless Love.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jeremy Renner revealed on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” that his Marvel Cinematic Universe co-star Paul Rudd made a fake Cameo video to wish him a speedy recovery following his January snow plot accident. The “Hawkeye” actor was hospitalized for blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries and broke over 30 bones in his body after his snow plow ran him over. “I talked to Chris Evans. I talked to a lot of friends and their reaction is what made me feel like, ‘Oh, I think I really hurt myself, I might not pull out of this,'” Renner said when asked about how his Marvel co-stars reacted to his accident. “They’re terrible actors, they couldn’t hide the fact that I looked awful.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director One of the biggest announcements to emerge out of Star Wars Celebration was the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey in a new movie that will follow the events of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” which concluded the most recent Skywalker trilogy in 2019. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (“Ms. Marvel”) is directing the still-untitled Rey movie from a script by Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”). Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said at the fan convention that Ridley’s new “Star Wars” movie will follow Rey as she builds a new Jedi Order, but the executive teased a bit more about the plot in an interview with IGN: “Star Wars” fans will pick up with Rey well over a decade after “The Rise of Skywalker.”

“Games of Thrones” alum continue to find it challenging to watch HBO’s prequel series “House of Dragons”.

It’s too soon.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sophia Bush revealed on a new episode of Penn Badgley’s “Podcrushed” podcast (via IndieWire) that an aggressive fan once berated her and called her a “TV prostitute” when she confronted him for filming her without consent. Bush has been acting for over two decades and is best known for roles in “One Tree Hill” and “Chicago P.D.” “I had a beer and there was a guy at the table next to me and all my friends, who walked right up to me and stuck his camera right in my face to take a picture, almost hit me right in the face, with his phone,” Bush said. “He keeps going and he’s getting rowdy and I can hear him swearing.” Bush continued, “I say, ‘Hi, I’m a person. I’d like to shake your hand. My name is Sophia. You’re making me really uncomfortable, man. I’ve asked you to stop. I’m a girl in a bar. You are a man I do not know. I don’t wanna be videoed on your phone. And my friends don’t either. Can you please stop?’”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Emily Ratajkowski announced in a new interview with the Los Angeles Times that she has basically quit acting because Hollywood is so “fucked up.” The supermodel started her acting career in a major way with a supporting role opposite Ben Affleck in David Fincher’s “Gone Girl.” Ratajkowski played Andie Fitzgerald, a student of Nick Dunne’s (Affleck) who is also having an affair with him. She went on to star in films such as “We Are Your Friends” and “I Feel Pretty,” but she hasn’t acted in a movie since 2019’s “Lying and Stealing.” “I didn’t feel like, ‘Oh, I’m an artist performing and this is my outlet,’” Ratajkowski said about quitting her acting career. “I felt like a piece of meat who people were judging, saying, ‘Does she have anything else other than her [breasts]?’”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “The Little Mermaid” director Rob Marshall confirmed in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly that he met with pop superstar Harry Styles to play the role of Prince Eric opposite Halle Bailey’s Ariel in Disney’s upcoming live-action remake. Reports surfaced during the film’s casting process that Styles was being courted to play Prince Eric, but this is the first time Marshall has confirmed that discussions with the Grammy winner took place. Why did Styles turn down Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” remake? According to Marshall, the reason was twofold: He wanted to take on darker films and didn’t want to be in a musical as he made the jump from pop star to actor.