Franchise Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Whelp, this is a big surprise! Despite Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson vowing to never return to the Fast and Furious franchise due to his years-long feud with Vin Diesel, it turns out the 51-year-old actor has a small part in the upcoming film!

“Fast X,” out next Friday (May 19), TheWrap has exclusively learned.What makes his return so shocking is how adamant Johnson was about not returning to the series. In November 2021, “Fast and Furious” franchise star and producer Vin Diesel took to Instagram, essentially to beg Johnson to return to the mainline franchise. In 2019, Johnson starred in “Hobbs & Shaw,” a spin-off with Jason Statham.

Elle Fanning is opening up about just how cutthroat Hollywood is — and how social media obsessed they’ve gotten!

EXCLUSIVE: Cinedigm and producer Tony DeRosa-Grund (The Conjuring) have partnered to develop a new paranormal horror franchise titled The Haunted.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s a splashy European project to end the week: Gerard Butler’s Has Fallen film franchise is getting the television treatment, with filming set to get underway at the end of the month.

Elle Fanning has had many great roles in many movies, but there was one in particular that she lost all because of her social media follower count.

When it comes to acting, talent counts. But as Elle Fanning told Josh Horowitz on his “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, there’s another factor that sometimes counts even more.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Elle Fanning has some experience starring in a major studio franchise thanks to her role as Aurora in Disney’s two “Maleficent” movies, but the 25-year-old star has yet to join franchise behemoths like “Star Wars” and Marvel. During a recent interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Fanning was asked if there is pressure on her career to join big studio franchises in order to stay “relevant” as an actor. “I don’t feel that [pressure]. I don’t,” Fanning said, while also acknowledging that joining the likes of Marvel, “Star Wars” or DC “does something” for other actors’ careers. “But you also don’t know if they’re going to work sometimes, which is scary,” she added.

Two family-focused media companies are joining forces, with Sony-owned subscription streaming outlet Pure Flix set to merge with cable and FAST programmer Great American Media.

There are a few important renewal and cancellation updates at AMC.

The trailer for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 just debuted online!

In today’s episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo gets hypnotized by Robert Rodriguez (“Desperado,” “Sin City,” “The Book of Boba Fett”). The prolific writer/producer/director is currently promoting his latest film, “Hypnotic,” which follows a detective (Ben Affleck) who relentlessly pursues a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program.

Jordan Moreau The Guardians of the Galaxy are blasting off at the box office one final time, earning $17.5 million in previews for director James Gunn’s “Vol. 3” finale. The newest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will take the box office crown after Universal and Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” topped the charts for the last four weeks. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is expected to bring in between $110 million and $120 million in its opening weekend, which is in between the grosses of the previous two films, also directed by Gunn. The first “Guardians of the Galaxy” had $11.2 million in Thursday previews on its way to opening with $94 million back in 2014. Its sequel, 2017’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” reached $17 million in Thursday previews and landed a $146 million opening weekend.

The “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise is set to end with its third and final movie, but the cast’s group text isn’t going anywhere.

The late Carrie Fisher had a love/hate relationship with the franchise that defined her career, "Star Wars." Fisher – who died in 2016 at age 60 from a heart attack – will be honored with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 4, or "Star Wars Day." Fisher played Princess Leia in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, from 1977 to 1983, before reprising the role for its sequel trilogy in 2015 and again in 2017. She was outspoken prior to her death about her struggle with simultaneously loving the iconic film franchise and also wishing she had turned down the offer. Here is a snapshot of some of Fisher's most memorable comments about "Star Wars." Having regrets Fisher was known to be an open book.

Skydance Sports, NFL Films and the Jerry Jones family are collaborating on what they call a “defining” docuseries about the Dallas Cowboys and the arc of Jones as the owner and builder of the franchise over 30-plus years.

Amazon’s Freevee has renewed Judy Justice for two additional seasons and will expand the franchise with the docudrama, Justice on Trial.

Harrison Ford will no longer be part of the Indiana Jones franchise, after playing the iconic character for 42 years.

Hallmark Channel has a lot of brand new movies coming in the next few months!

there was an Iron Man.But after more than thirty films and TV shows, that universe no longer feels like our own. It’shard to tell a story that feels relevant to the audience’s actual experience when even thebackground extras in these movies are playing people who died for five years and suddenlycame back to life.There’s no status quo to uproot anymore, no baseline normal to turn upside down.

Zendaya has played Michelle “MJ” Jones in three “Spider-Man” movies, but her association with the web-slinging superhero actually goes further back than that.

EXCLUSIVE: Ioan Gruffudd (San Andreas) has closed a deal to join Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys 4, the newest installment in the hit series of buddy cop action comedies from Sony Pictures.

Steven Spielberg was originally set to direct Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Before violent games like “Mortal Kombat” created panic among parents there was “Street Fighter II.” The second installment of that storied franchise became a global success thanks to its arcade incarnation before a home release helped launch the 2D fighting genre in the 1990s. And then there’s the 1994 “Street Fighter” film, but let’s not talk about hat.

Sony Pictures Entertainment saw operating income dip by nearly $1BN for the fiscal year to March 31, 2023, as a lack of tentpole franchise launches bit.

Lionsgate’s brief CinemCon presentation, since they have allotted 90 minutes out of two hours for a screening of “Joy Ride,” was highlighted by the first look at “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songburds and Snakes.” The trailer, which will debut in theaters with “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” next week, introduces viewers to the tenth annual Hunger Games competition, telling a story of how the future President Snow (played in the four “Hunger Games” movies by Donald Sutherland) mentored a promising 12th district competitor and, well, if you’ve seen the movies or read the books you can presume it doesn’t end well for the good guys.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent AC Independent and The Veterans have teamed up on the film adaptation of William Sleator’s cult 1974 science fiction novel “House of Stairs.” The elevated genre movie will star Jacob Tremblay (“Room,” “Good Boys”) and will be directed by Wi Ding Ho, whose 2018 movie “Cities of Last Things” won a prize at Toronto in the competitive Platform section. “House of Stairs”‘s film adaptation is penned by Matthew McInerney-Lacombe (“ICBM”).  Set in a dystopian America in the near future, the high-concept film follows five 16-year-old orphans who wake up to find themselves in a strange building with no walls, no ceiling, and no floor: nothing but endless flights of stairs leading in every direction, seemingly infinite. To find an exit, the five teenagers must learn to deal with the others’ disparate personalities, the lack of privacy and comfort, their clear helplessness, and a machine that only feeds them under increasingly ominous situations.