Zack Sharf Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Colman Domingo is having a banner year thanks to acclaimed performances in “Rustin” and “The Color Purple,” the latter of which opened to a triumphant $18 million on Christmas Day. But things were considerably different for the actor back in 2014. Despite being a Tony nominee for “The Scottsboro Boys,” Domingo couldn’t get his screen acting career off the ground.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Casey Kramer, the daughter of film director Stanley Kramer who acted on stage and screen, has died at 67 years old, her family announced. She passed away at her home in Chicago, Illinois on December 24.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Zack Snyder is currently leading the Netflix charts with his space opera “Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire,” and he recently got a huge sign of support from none other than Christopher Nolan. In a profile published by The Atlantic, Nolan said Snyder’s influence on cinema is so dominant that part of his touch can be felt in any “superhero science-fiction film coming out these days.” Nolan served as a producer on Snyder’s “Man of Steel” (2013), which was based on a story Nolan cracked with his “Dark Knight” trilogy co-writer David S. Goyer.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Taraji P. Henson revealed during a recent SAG-AFTRA conversation moderated by Variety’s Angelique Jackson that she fired members of her team after her career hit a wall despite the global success of “Empire,” the Fox musical drama series that she starred on for six seasons from 2015 to 2020. Henson played the outspoken and ferocious Cookie Lyon, which won her a Golden Globe and earned her two Emmy nominations.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director A burning question surrounding the 1990 Christmas classic “Home Alone” has finally been answered by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Just how rich is the McCallister family? It’s a question The New York Times now has an answer to as the Federal Reserves has determined Kevin MCallister’s family is in the one percent of Chicago residents based on the value of their home.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sydney Sweeney’s starring role in the Rolling Stones‘ music video for “Angry,” the lead single off their most recent album “Hackney Diamonds,” led to some claims that she was sexualized during the nearly four-minute clip. The video features Sweeney wearing black studded chaps and dancing in the back seat of a convertible as it speeds down Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. The street is lined with animated billboards showing the history of the Rolling Stones.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jason Momoa cast doubt on his future as Aquaman in a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, and now DC Studios boss Peter Safran has weighed in by telling The Independent: “If it’s the end of the journey, fine. If it goes on, that’s also fine.” Both Momoa and Safran are waiting to see how big of an audience “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” pulls in before definitively calling it the actor’s swan song as the superhero. The original “Aquaman” movie grossed $1 billion to become the highest grossing DCEU film.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” star Leah Jeffries recently spoke to Essence magazine about how her casting as Annabeth Chase in the new Disney+ series initially generated backlash from some toxic fans. Racist trolls were upset that a Black actor was cast as a character described in the books as a blonde white girl. “The White Lotus” actor Alexandra Daddario played Annabeth in Fox’s “Percy Jackson” film adaptations.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jennifer Love Hewitt appeared on the “Inside of You” podcast and revealed she once had to pull a filmmaker aside on set because he was telling her she had to be sexier. As an actor in her early twenties, Hewitt had no idea what such a request even meant. She said that she never felt like she was “in her body” as a young actor as she was constantly sexualized from a young age.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Quentin Tarantino fans were sent into a frenzy in late 2017 after it was announced that Paramount and “Star Trek” producer J.J. Abrams had accepted Tarantino’s pitch for a new “Star Trek” movie and were working with “The Revenant” screenwriter Mark L. Smith to iron out the script.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Cameron Diaz appeared on a recent episode of the “Lipstick on the Rim” podcast and pushed back against rumors that Jamie Foxx was “crazy” on the set of their Netflix movie “Back in Action” (via People). Foxx was in the midst of production when he was hospitalized for a medical emergency. Diaz said reports surfaced afterwards saying Foxx was “making everyone miserable and that I was never gonna make another movie again because of him.” “I really hate all of the things that were being said about our set at the time,” Diaz continued.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Avatar: The Last Airbender” creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino spent two years developing a live-action adaptation of the animated classic for Netflix before they shocked fans by announcing their exit from the project due to creative differences. The decision left Albert Kim, best known as a writer on “Pantheon” and an executive producer on “Sleepy Hollow,” as the live-action series’ showrunner without the support of the franchise’s original visionaries.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director As 2023 draws to a close, Christopher Nolan is feeling pretty good about the state of the movie business. That shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise considering “Oppenheimer” pulled in a remarkable $954 million at the box office this year, beating every superhero movie and several major Hollywood tentpoles, like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” Audiences turning out in droves for a three-hour, R-rated and incredibly dense biographical drama as if it were a major action movie blockbuster has Nolan quite optimistic about the future. “I’ve just made a three-hour film about Robert Oppenheimer which is R-rated and half in black-and-white – and it made a billion dollars.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Logan Lerman was the first actor to bring Percy Jackson to life on screen with his role in Fox’s short-lived film franchise, which kicked off in 2010 with “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” and continued in 2013 with “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.” Now rising star Walker Scobell is taking over the role in Disney+’s television series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” Lerman recently surprised Scobell and the rest of the new cast by sending over his blessing during a live recording of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “The show looks amazing,” Lerman told the cast in a note. “I can’t wait to see you all crush it in your roles.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Charlie Hunnam revealed to Entertainment Tonight while promoting his new film “Rebel Moon” that he was heavily considered to play Anakin Skywalker in George Lucas’ “Star Wars” prequel trilogy. While child actor Jake Lloyd played Anakin in 1999’s “The Phantom Menace,” a time jump for 2002’s “Attack of the Clones” and 2005’s “Revenge of the Sith” required Lucas to cast an older actor as Anakin. Hayden Christiansen won the part, but Hunnam said he also met Lucas in person to discuss the role.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director George Clooney turned up as Bruce Wayne in the final moments of “The Flash,” but in no way does that mean he’s interested in playing Batman again. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight while promoting his latest directorial effort “The Boys in the Boat,” Clooney said the chances of him playing Batman again are less than slim to none. “I do not think there’s enough drugs in the world for me to go back,” Clooney said bluntly.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer are shutting down at least one fan theory about the upcoming ending to their blockbuster Netflix series. On the red carpet for the new “Stranger Things” play in London, the duo went on record to Metro saying the series will not end with a reveal that all the events in the Upside Down were just a dream. One fan theory about the “Stranger Things” ending alleges all the events on screen during the show’s run were actually just the main characters playing an elaborate and very long game of Dungeons and Dragons, a favorite among the characters since the show’s first season.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jason Momoa is no longer feeling too optimistic about playing Aquaman in the future. The actor is reprising his superhero role in Warner Bros.’ upcoming “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” which might be Momoa’s swan song as the character on the big screen. Momoa was cast as Aquaman in the DC Universe, playing the character in “Justice League” and “Aquaman,” but the property is now being rebooted by new DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director With “Barbie” now available to stream on Max, director and co-writer Greta Gerwig hit the late night press circuit and revealed on “The Late Show” one of the wildest ideas Ryan Gosling wanted to execute in the film as Ken. One of the character’s most memorable looks in the blockbuster comedy is a white mink coat. According to Gerwig, Gosling pitched her on having Ken dance with and fight the mink coat during the “I’m Just Ken” dream ballet.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Timothée Chalamet was supposed to cameo in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” movie alongside their “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” star Saoirse Ronan, but he never found out what the director had planned for her former collaborators. Scheduling conflicts prevented Ronan and Chalamet from appearing in “Barbie,” which became Warner Bros.’ top-grossing film in history and the biggest movie of 2023 with $1.4 billion in box office sales. “There was an idea for Saoirse Ronan and I to do a cameo in it,” Chalamet said during a recent interview on “The Tonight Show.” “I don’t know what the cameo would’ve been.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Andre Braugher‘s cause of death has been revealed to be lung cancer, the actor’s publicist confirmed to Variety. Braugher died December 11 at 61 years old.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Timothée Chalamet was quoted in a recent interview with People magazine saying that his upcoming musical “Wonka” is his mother’s favorite Timothée Chalamet movie. It turns out that’s not the case. Appearing on “Good Morning America,” the Oscar-nominated actor revealed his mom, Nicole Flender, actually called him after the People interview ran in order to correct him.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Anne Hathaway appeared on the latest “Happy Sad Confused” podcast and called it “lucky” that her iteration of the “Barbie” movie never got off the ground considering the phenomenon that Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” became over the summer. Back in July 2017, Hathaway was announced as the star of Sony’s “Barbie” movie. Comedian Amy Schumer was originally cast, but Hathaway took over the role after Schumer departed.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director It’s impossible to imagine “The Devil Wears Prada” without Meryl Streep‘s icy, Oscar-nominated performance as Miranda Priestly, but it turns out there was initial resistance to casting the acting icon in the 2006 classic. During a recent appearance on the “Hollywood Gold” podcast, producer Wendy Finerman revealed Streep was almost passed over for the role because some people thought “she has never been funny a day in her life.” “Meryl, people thought we were crazy,” Finerman said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Julia Roberts is an icon of the romantic-comedy genre, but there’s one famous rom-com the Oscar-winner happened to turn down: Nora Ephron’s 1998 classic “You’ve Got Mail.” Roberts revealed the scoop during a recent appearance on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live.” Ephron’s film memorably paired Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in the story of business rivals unaware they are falling in love with each other online. “You’ve Got Mail” marked the third Hanks-Ryan romantic comedy after “Joe Versus the Volcano” (1990) and “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993), the latter title also being directed by Ephron.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director James Cameron revealed last month that he’s currently knee deep in the “very hectic” post-production of “Avatar 3.” Neither the director nor Disney is ready to unveil the title for “Avatar 3,” but it sounds like it won’t be “The Seed Bearer” as Cameron once considered. The titles for Cameron’s “Avatar” sequels have become social media fodder ever since November 2018 when the BBC reported the four movies would have the following names: “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Avatar: The Seed Bearer,” “Avatar: The Tulkun Rider,” and “Avatar: The Quest for Eywa.” Cameron told Entertainment Tonight in 2019: “I can neither confirm nor deny — alright, here’s what I’ll tell ya: Those titles are among titles that are in consideration.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Timothée Chalamet admitted to GamesRadar+ that he originally worried “Wonka” might be a “cynical money grab” given Hollywood studios’ recent trend of rebooting every bit of IP it possibly can. Chalamet was offered the chance to lead the film, which is a musical prequel that tells the story of how Willy Wonka became a world famous chocolatier. “Like many people, when there are remakes, I feel very protective over the original character and versions you love,” Chalamet said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Mahershala Ali recently told Entertainment Weekly that he is feeling optimistic about his upcoming Marvel movie “Blade,” in which he will star as the comic book vampire hunter. The film, which won’t begin production until next year, has had a dramatic development period, to say the least. Marvel first announced the project at Comic-Con 2019.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Casey Wilson said on a recent episode of her “Bitch Sesh” podcast that working with Tim Allen on an episode of his Disney+ series “The Santa Clauses” was “the truly single worst experience I’ve ever had with a co-star ever.” Wilson, best known for her roles on “Saturday Night Live” and “Happy Endings,” guest starred in the show’s pilot episode, which debuted in November 2022. “The Santa Clauses,” which recently finished airing its second season on Disney+, serves as a sequel to Allen’s three movies “The Santa Clause” (1994), “The Santa Clause 2” (2002) and “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause” (2006). “Tim Allen was such a bitch.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Adam Driver is earning praise on social media for how he sensitively handled a divisive interview question during a recent appearance on “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” The host told Driver directly that he does not look like a typical movie star and asked if his physical appearance was a “hindrance” in his career. Wallace has been widely criticized on social media platforms such as X for his “gross” and “rude” question.