Zack Sharf Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” introduced Jonathan Majors into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Kang the Conquerer, the franchise’s new Thanos-sized villain. While the actor received glowing reviews for his quietly menacing Kang, “Quantumania” itself was widely panned. The film is one of the worst-reviewed Marvel films in history with a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes, which nearly matches the record-low “Eternals” score of 47%. The film’s Metacritic score also stands at a paltry 48. Majors joined IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast this week and confronted “Quantumania’s” low critic scores. “It doesn’t change how I see myself, period. It’s all data,” Majors said about bad reviews. “I’m a performance within a story. One thing I will say to my team as we’re leaving a premiere if they’re reading reviews, I’ll say, ‘How’s the movie doing?’ I try to clean my plate and take care of my part. The response is: ‘You’re straight. You’re good. They like you.’ And they tell me about the movie. Sometimes the movie is also on that level, and sometimes [it’s not].”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jeremy Renner’s recovery rom his January snow plow accident appears to be progressing, as the actor is seen walking for the first time in his latest update on social media. The “Hawkeye” star posted a video to his Instagram story in which he walks with the assistance of an anti-gravity treadmill. Renner confirms in the video that he is doing all of “the walking motion” himself, with the anti-gravity treadmill taking off a percentage of his body weight as his legs slowly recover. The actor captioned the post: “Now is the time for my body to rest and recover from my will.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Almost a week after “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” opened in theaters and bombed at the box office, Zachary Levi took to Instagram to weigh in on a whole lot of drama surrounding the DC comic book tentpole. In a video, the actor confirmed that plans for the “Fury of the Gods” post-credits scene — in which Shazam is recruited to join the Justice Society — were “thwarted,” although he did not say by who. A report from The Wrap published after “Fury of the God’s” opening weekend claimed that Dwayne Johnson sabotaged the “Shazam” post-credits scene by blocking “Black Adam” characters Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) and Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) from appearing in it. Johnson headlined “Black Adam” and aimed to start a new thread of the DC Universe built around his character facing off against Henry Cavill’s Superman. “Black Adam” also underperformed at the box office, and both Johnson and Cavill are not included in the new DC Universe being spearheaded by DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Keanu Reeves revealed in a new interview with ComicBook.com that he once split open a man’s head during a stunt scene gone wrong while making one of the “John Wick” movies. Reeves has four “John Wick” movies under his belt, and the action franchise has required him to do insane stunts involving speeding cars, nunchucks, swords and more. “Well I mean everyone is pretty tired – but it’s the best kind of tired,” Reeves said when asked about what kind of accidents have taken place on the action-heavy “John Wick” sets. “It’s like you climbed a mountain now you’re resting; like you finished the game and you won.” “So in terms of accidents: I made a mistake once – I cut a gentleman’s head open,” Reeves continued. “So that really fucking sucked – excuse my language. But other than that…oh, one guy got hit by a car. He was in the car, so he had to go to the hospital, but he was okay. All of this to say that you do have to take care. But it’s great that everyone [on set] is watching out for each other.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” seemingly confused a lot of moviegoers with its surprise cameo featuring the return of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. The character appears as a deus ex machina toward the end of the film, as Wonder Woman arrives on the scene to resurrect Billy Batson/Shazam from death as she is the only person left with godly powers to do so. Some shaky VFX work led to rumors that Gadot’s face was put on another actor’s body using deepfake technology, but “Shazam” director David F. Sandberg says otherwise. “A certain cameo in ‘Shazam! Fury Of the Gods’ had to be shot in England, but I couldn’t go because of a visa issue so I directed remotely,” Sandberg wrote on Twitter while sharing a video of himself remotely directing Gadot’s cameo scene. “It wasn’t a deepfake as some believe.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Did Millie Bobby Brown turn down a multi-million dollar deal to reprise Eleven in a “Stranger Things” spinoff series? The Sun and The Daily Mail reported as much this week, with sources claiming that Brown was offered $12 million (£10 million) for a potential Eleven spinoff but rejected it because she wants to “branch out” into other roles. The official “Stranger Things” writers room took to Twitter to reject the report. “Yeah, there’s nothing in this article that is true,” the “Stranger Things” writers said while sharing The Daily Mail article. “Don’t know why we have to keep debunking this rumor but get those clicks you guys!!”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are longtime friends who have collaborated together and won an Oscar together, so perhaps it’s not surprising to learn they even shared a bank account as young actors. The duo appeared on a recent episode of “The Bill Simmons Podcast” (via CNBC) and revealed they had one bank account between them starting in the late 1980s in order to fund auditions and start their acting careers. “It was unusual, but we needed the money for auditions,” Damon said, calling it “a weird thing in retrospect.” “We were going to help each other and be there for each other,” Affleck said. “It was like, ‘You’re not going to be alone. I’m not going to be alone. Let’s go out there and do this together.’”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Brian Cox’s hatred of Method acting has gone so viral in recent weeks that he parodied himself during a recent visit to “The Tonight Show” to promote the upcoming fourth and final season of HBO’s “Succession.” Host Jimmy Fallon asked Cox about all the media attention surrounding his hatred of Method acting, to which the actor responded, “Well you know, Jimmy, I’ve been a little harsh.” “I’ve been a little harsh on it,” Cox continued. “I’m sorry about that… in fact, I’ve been trying to set the record straight in a MasterClass series of acting that I’ve been doing. Well actually, I brought a clip. I think this more eloquently explains my feelings about acting. Can we show it?”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Becoming princess Ariel for Disney’s live action “The Little Mermaid” required Halle Bailey to be in the water for 13 hours straight on set during some days of filming, the actor revealed in a new Edition magazine profile. The film, directed by “Chicago” and “Into the Woods” helmer Rob Marshall, used practical water tanks and visual effects to create extensive underwater sequences for the movie. “I pushed myself as far as I’ve ever pushed myself in life,” Bailey told the publication about spending some days on set in the water for 13 hours. “And I feel like the message from [Ariel] was to know that you’ve always had it in you.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Rick and Morty” creator Justin Roiland has been cleared of domestic violence charges, Variety confirms. Kimberly Edds, spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney’s office, said in a statement: “We dismissed the charges today as a result of having insufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.” Roiland took to social media to respond to the dropped charges, writing in a statement that he is “thankful the case has been dismissed. He added, “I’m still deeply shaken by the horrible lies that were reported about me during this process.” Roiland appeared in court in January for a pre-trial hearing after he was charged with one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury and one felony count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud and/or deceit. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in 2020.  A second pre-trial hearing was scheduled for April 27.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director The glass slippers still fit Brandy. The singer’s long-awaited return as Cinderella in a new Disney television movie has been given an official first look, courtesy of footage from the set of “Descendants: Rise of Red.” Brandy is reprising the role of Cinderella 26 years after becoming the princess opposite Whitney Houston’s Fairy Godmother in the 1997 television movie “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella.” The set footage also confirmed that “Descendants: Rise of Red” will feature the return of Paolo Montalban, who played Brandy’s Prince Charming in the 1997 movie. Charming is now king, and Cinderella is queen. Variety confirmed last November that Brandy boarded the “Descendants” movie as Cinderella. At the time, the movie musical had the working title of “The Pocketwatch.” The film centers on the relationship between Red (Kylie Cantrall), the rebellious teenage daughter of the Queen of Hearts, and Chloe (Mia Baker), the cheerful but naive daughter of Cinderella and Prince Charming. The two must travel back in time to prevent the destruction of their home, the kingdom of Auradon.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Ahead of the Broadway opening of his new “Camelot” musical adaptation, Aaron Sorkin revealed to the New York Times that he suffered a stroke last November. The medical emergency occurred two months before “Camelot” rehearsals were set to begin and resulted in his blood pressure being so high that “you’re supposed to be dead,” Sorkin said. As reported by The Times: “For about a month afterward, [Sorkin] was slurring words. He had trouble typing; he was discouraged from flying for a few weeks; and until recently, he couldn’t sign his name (he has just discovered, thanks to ‘Camelot’ autograph seekers, that that’s improving). Those issues are now behind him, and the main lingering effect is that he still can’t really taste food.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Wendi McLendon-Covey said during a recent interview with Andy Cohen for SiriusXM that Jeff Garlin’s exit from “The Goldbergs” was “a long time coming.” The two comedians headlined the ABC sitcom from its 2013 debut until December 2021, when Garlin was fired from the show after a series of HR investigations into his alleged misconduct on set. “That was a long time coming,” McLendon-Covey said. “That it finally happened, it was like, ‘Ok, finally someone is listening to us. But that was kind of hard though because we had lost George Segal in real life. To have to go through another loss on a sitcom…you can’t keep asking your audience to mourn people. That’s not why they tune in.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director At 169 minutes, “John Wick: Chapter 4” is a whole lot of movie. The two-hour-and-50-minute action extravaganza is powered by nonstop set pieces that are so frenetic and visceral that you’ll hardly realize you’ve been sitting in a movie theater for nearly three hours. Such breezy pacing did not exist in the film’s first cut, which director Chad Stahelski and editor Nathan Orloff told IndieWire clocked in at a whopping three hours and 45 minutes. “To be really honest with you, zero was planned out,” Stahelski said about the movie’s runtime. “Our first cut was three hours and 45 minutes, and it felt like three hours and 45 minutes. We were like, ‘Oh, we’re so screwed.'”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jackie Chan announced at the Red Sea International Film Festival last December that “Rush Hour 4” is officially in development. “We’re talking about Rush Hour 4 right now,” the acting icon said, adding that he would be meeting with the film’s director later that night to work on the script. No official “Rush Hour 4” details exist outside of Chan’s tease, but considering his co-star Chris Tucker more than eager to return to the franchise. Tucker recently spoke to  Audacy’s V-103 while making the press rounds for his role in Ben Affleck’s “Air,” and he included “Rush Hour 4” on his roster of projects coming up next. “You’re going to see a lot of good stuff coming, but it’s going to be on a whole other level,” Tucker said. “That’s what I like…I’m excited about that. It’s not going to be what you’ve normally seen…’Rush Hour 4,’ that’s something I definitely will probably drop in there because I love working with Jackie, but I’ve got some new stuff that I think you’re really gonna like. I’m excited about it.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Zachary Levi is the latest member of the “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” family to weigh in on the film bombing at the box office. The DC tentpole earned just $30 million in its domestic box office debut, well below the $53 million the original “Shazam!” opened with in 2019 and a huge financial loss considering “Fury of the Gods” cost north of $110 million to make and another $100 million to market. Levi heads the franchise as the eponymous superhero. While Levi is not blaming Zack Snyder fans for “Fury of the Gods'” box office miss, he did acknowledge on Twitter after the film’s opening that many Snyder fans wanted the sequel to fail as a kind of revenge against Warner Bros. for dropping Snyder’s DC Universe. James Gunn and Peter Safran are now in charge of the DC Universe and are rebooting it with films such as “Superman: Legacy,” which will not feature Snyder’s Superman actor Henry Cavill.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Zach Braff was the toast of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, where he emerged as an indie film wunderkind thanks to “Garden State.” The coming-of-age dramedy sold to Fox Searchlight for $5 million, double its production budget, and became a poster child for hip indies of the early aughts thanks to its Grammy-winning soundtrack and quirky characters. Flash forward to 2015, and Vice was celebrating the film’s anniversary with the following headline: “It’s the 10-Year Anniversary of Realizing ‘Garden State’ Sucked.” Time has not been kind to “Garden State.” It’s the kind of film that now elicits groans and eye-rolls since its arty blocking (that wallpaper!) and alt-rock soundtrack have become worn out indie film cliches. Natalie Portman’s character, Sam, is often cited as one of the worst offenders of the “manic pixie dream girl” stereotype, which describes a quirky female character whose main narrative purpose is to save their male counterpart and teach him about the meaning of love and life. Nearly 20 years after the film’s debut, Braff confronted the backlash head on in a new interview with The Independent.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Oscar nominee Ciarán Hinds is well known among “Game of Thrones” fans for playing Mance Rayder, the king beyond the wall and leader of the wildlings. Hinds appeared in five episodes of the Emmy-winning HBO fantasy series across three seasons. In a recent interview with The Independent, Hinds got honest about not exactly loving all the sex in “Game of Thrones.” “I was rather put off by the amount of sexuality that was going on in it, because it was taking away from the actual political storytelling,” Hinds said. “But that’s business, I guess, from their perspective.” Hinds also spoke to The Independent about the increase of intimacy coordinators on sets in recent years. Hinds’ daughter, Aoife, is also an actor and worked closely with intimacy coordinators while starring opposite Paul Mescal in Hulu’s “Normal People.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Stranger Things” star Gaten Matarazzo told Jimmy Fallon during a recent interview on “The Tonight Show” that he’s living in “deep fear” of “Stranger Things” ending after its five-season run on Netflix. The cast will shoot the fifth and final season this year. Matarazzo and his character, Dustin, have been a “Stranger Things” lead since the pilot episode. “It’s interesting to constantly just be reminded how much people have resonated with it,” Matarazzo said. when asked about the series coming to an end. “I mean, it’s something that’s so important to all of us and has just been essential to the growth that I’ve had over all of my teenage years into my 20s. It’s the defining aspect of the past 10 years of my life, practically the past decade.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Willem Dafoe is not ruling out a third appearance as the iconic Spider-Man villain Norman Osborne/Green Goblin. The actor’s beloved role in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” remains his most recognizable performance, and he reprised Green Goblin to rave reviews in 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Dafoe told Inverse in a recent interview to promote his new thriller, “Inside,” that a third go-around with the Spider-Man villain is not out of the question. “If everything was right, sure,” Dafoe said. “I mean, that’s a great role. I liked the fact that it’s a double role both times. Twenty years ago, and fairly recently, both times [were] very different experiences, but I had a good time on both.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sam Neill revealed in an interview with The Guardian that he is being treated for stage-three blood cancer. Neill, best known for playing Alan Grant in the “Jurassic Park” franchise, first “experienced swollen glands during publicity for ‘Jurassic World Dominion’ in March last year and was soon diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma,” the publication reports. “I can’t pretend that the last year hasn’t had its dark moments,” Neill said in an interview touting his upcoming memoir, in which he writes frankly about his cancer diagnosis. “But those dark moments throw the light into sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for every day and immensely grateful for all my friends. Just pleased to be alive.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Djimon Hounsou’s acting career spans 33 years and includes two Academy Award nominations (“In America” and “Blood Diamond”), action blockbusters like “Furious 7,” superhero movies such as “Shazam!” and collaborations with Steven Spielberg (“Amistad”) and Ridley Scott (“Gladiator”), yet he told The Guardian that he still feels “tremendously cheated” when it comes to Hollywood pay. “I’m still struggling to try to make a dollar!” Hounsou said. “I’ve come up in the business with some people who are absolutely well off and have very little of my accolades. So I feel cheated, tremendously cheated, in terms of finances and in terms of the workload as well.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Elizabeth Olsen has no idea when she will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, but she’s hoping her character finds humor and redemption whenever that time comes. Scarlet Witch was the villain of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” which ended with the character being crushed under a collapsing building after she sacrificed herself to destroy the Darkhold, the evil book of sorcery that had corrupted her. “We can do anything with her now!” Olsen recently told ScreenRant about Scarlet Witch’s next appearance. “I feel like we’ve done so much. Now, we can really have fun; I feel like there’s a lot more humor to be had with her. She’s often the emotion of a story, and I’m curious to see what we can explore. And hopefully [we can] give her some redemption.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director David Letterman visited “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and had a burning question for the host, who recently earned great reviews for his stint hosting the 2023 Oscars. “Here’s something that’s a little sensitive: Tom Cruise,” Letterman said. “Where was Tom Cruise?” Despite “Top Gun: Maverick” earning six Academy Award nominations and Cruise being a nominee for best picture as one of the film’s producers, the A-list star skipped the 2023 ceremony. Reports surfaced ahead of the show that Cruise was too busy shooting the “Mission: Impossible” sequel in Italy to attend, but the actor popped up in London two days after the Oscars to attend Michael Caine’s 90th birthday party. Cruise also showed up at the Oscars Nominees Luncheon in February.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Lucy Liu is making her comic book movie debut in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” playing the villainous Kalypso alongside Helen Mirren and “West Side Story” breakout Rachel Zegler. The three actors play the daughters of Atlas, who come to our planet to reclaim the magic that fuels Zachary Levi’s Shazam. Liu was recently asked by The Cut about starring in a superhero movie for the first time at 54 years old. “If it had happened earlier, it would have been miraculous,” Liu said. “It would have been a different story; my career would have been easier. There would have been more opportunity.” Sizable comic book movie roles for Asian-Americans simply did not exist when Liu was coming up in the industry. She had her action breakthrough playing Alex Munday opposite Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore in 2000’s “Charlie’s Angels” and its 2003 sequel, “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Christina Ricci revealed on a recent episode of “The View” (via Entertainment Weekly) that she once got threatened over refusing to perform a sex scene in a certain way. The “Yellowjackets” star was asked by the talk show’s hosts how film and television sets have changed over the years for young woman, to which she said they’re heard more clearly when they state their boundaries. “It’s really great,” Ricci said. “Us older ladies talk about it all the time. It’s amazing to see that they don’t necessarily have to go through the things we had to go through. They’re able to say, ‘I don’t want to do this sex scene,’ ‘I’m not going to be naked.’ They can set boundaries for themselves that we were never allowed to do.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jeremy Renner shared to Instagram a heartfelt note that his young nephew sent him sometime following the actor’s Jan. 1 snow plow accident. Renner was hospitalized for blunt chest trauma and orthopedic injuries after his snow plow ran him over. The “Hawkeye” star was driving a Sno-Cat, an extremely large piece of snow removal equipment that weights at least 14,330 pounds. “I am very lucky because my uncle is Hawkeye (which is one of the Avengers),” Renner’s nephew wrote to him in a handwritten letter. “I am also very lucky that my uncle is alive from his accident.” Renner wrote the following caption in reaction to his nephew’s letter: “Love my little man. Love you, Auggie.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Brooke Shields’ new documentary “Pretty Baby” made headlines at the Sundance Film Festival due to her revelation that she was sexually assaulted in her 20s. In a new interview with People magazine, Shields revealed it was a powerful Hollywood executive who assaulted her over 30 years ago. “It’s taken me a long time to process it,” Shields said. “I’m more angry now than I was able to be then. If you’re afraid, you’re rightfully so. They are scary situations. They don’t have to be violent to be scary.” Shields said she never went public with the sexual assault until the documentary because she thought “no one is going to believe me,” adding, “People weren’t believing those stories back then. I thought I would never work again.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Freddie Prinze Jr. marked the launch of his new horror movie podcast “That Was Pretty Scary” by talking to TooFab about one of his own seminal horror films, the 1997 teen slasher classic “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Prinze Jr. said making the movie was a miserable experience because of director Jim Gillespie, who the actor said was “such an asshole” to him on set. Alleged tension between the two started because Gillespie wanted to cast Jeremy Sisto in the role of Ray Bronson but the studio and screenwriter Kevin Williamson wanted Prinze Jr. instead. “I’ll give the man this, I think his name is Jim, he made no bones about it,” Prinze Jr. said of the director. “There was no passive aggressiveness — which I hate — he was very direct in the fact that, ‘I don’t want you in this movie.’ So when that’s your first job and you hear those words, it just wrecks you, man. It just wrecks you.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jenna Ortega keeps it brutally honest when it comes to discussing “Wednesday,” her smash hit Netflix series that ranks behind only “Stranger Things 4” as Netflix’s most-watched English-language series of all time. In a recent interview with The Times U.K., Ortega revealed she did not desperately want the role of Wednesday Addams. She even turned down multiple offers to star in what would become a breakthrough role. “I got the email, passed on it,” Ortega said. “I had done so much TV in my life. All I’ve ever wanted to do is film…You have to prove yourself. It’s only in the last three or four years that I’ve been able to start going up for film. I was scared that by signing on to another television show it could prevent me from doing other jobs I really wanted and cared about.”

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jamie Lee Curtis won the Oscar for best supporting actress thanks to her role in “Everywhere Everything All at Once,” and she’s referring to her brand new golden statuette using they/them pronouns. Curtis appeared on “Today” following her Oscars victory and was asked by anchor Savannah Guthrie if “she named her,” referring to the Oscars statue. “I’m in support of my daughter Ruby. I’m having them be a they/them,” a teary-eyed Curtis responded. “I’m going to just call them ‘them.’ They/them, and they are doing great, they’re settling in, and I just, in my life, I never saw it in a million years that I’d have this couple days, and I’m very moved by the whole thing.”