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Michael B. Jordan plays a sexy Alexa in Amazon's hilarious Super Bowl commercial

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George Pimentel/WireImage(LOS ANGELES) — Looks like the Amazon Echo is getting an upgrade and to flaunt the device’s sleek new look, Amazon claims in its new Super Bowl commercial that the only way they can improve Alexa’s “body” is if it was built into this year’s People‘s Sexiest Man Alive — Michael B. Jordan.

The hilarious commercial takes place at Amazon’s headquarters, where several employees are admiring the new sphere-like Amazon Echo.

One female employee applauds her team, calling Alexa’s bold new look “flawless.”  But as she walks away while saying she “literally couldn’t imagine a more beautiful vessel for Alexa to be… inside,” the employee locks eyes with a Michael B. Jordan advertisement and gets swept up in a steamy fantasy.

The female employee is transported to her kitchen and asks her Alexa — now the Black Panther star — how many tablespoons are in a cup.

Jordan’s eyes momentarily flash blue as he responds to the request, replying seductively, “There are 16 tablespoons in a cup.”

Hilariously, her husband walks into the scene and is taken aback by the new Amazon device.

The requests grow more suggestive in nature and her husband grows increasingly flustered. 

After the woman asks Jordan to turn on the sprinklers, the camera pans to the soaked Creed actor standing in the lawn and staring up at her — all while her husband remarks “Things are getting way too wet around here!”

When she asks Jordan to dim the lights, the actor removes his shirt and places it on the light — to which the husband runs into the room and screams, “Lights up, Alexa!  Light’s up!”

The commercial ends with the woman soaking in a tub with Jordan, who is dictating a rather spicy audiobook.  

The Super Bowl airs Sunday, February 7 at 6:30 p.m. ET.

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Matthew McConaughey falls a little flat in his Super Bowl Doritos commercial

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Frito-Lay(LOS ANGELES) — Major brands like Budweiser and Coke sitting out the Big Game this year in terms of commercials, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see some celebrities during the breaks in the action between the Bucs and the Chiefs. 

Matthew McConaughey is one of those stars, but you might say his performance in an ad for Doritos 3D snacks is a little flat — two-dimensional, in fact. 

The ad has the Oscar-winner going through his life as nothing more substantial than a walking, talking, movie-promoting cardboard stand-up of himself. As Queen’s “I Want to Break Free” plays, he even appears as a guest on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as a stunned Mindy Kaling tries not to stare.

“There’s gotta be a way to get back,” the two-dimensional Matt frets.  He then spots a vending machine with Doritos 3D snacks, which, as their name suggests, are puffy instead of flat like regular chips. After slipping himself into the machine, he tries some, and is magically puffed back up to his 3D self. Unfortunately, he’s now trapped himself behind the glass. 

McConaughey’s isn’t the only celebrity commercial that will pop up on Sunday, either. Mike Myers and Dana Carvey will reprise their respective roles as Wayne and Garth in a Wayne’s World spot for Uber Eats — which is just one of the companies that’s flush with advertising bucks amid the pandemic lockdowns.

Another food delivery service, DoorDash, will run a spot with Hamilton and Snowpiercer star Daveed Diggs along with The Muppets. Schitt’s Creek scene-stealer Emily Hampshire will tout a canned-cocktail brand called Cutwater Spirits, which is running its first Super Bowl ad.

Brands will reportedly pay nearly $5.5 million for 30 seconds of airtime during the Super Bowl this year.

By Stephen Iervolino and Kelly McCarthy
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

'Crazy Rich Asians' helmer Jon M. Chu to direct movie version of Broadway's 'Wicked'

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John Shearer/Getty Images for People Magazine(LOS ANGELES) — Jon M. Chu will direct Universal Pictures’ film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, Wicked.

After Deadline shared the announcement on Tuesday, Chu, who also directed 2018 smash-hit Crazy Rich Asians, as well as the upcoming adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights, took to Twitter to confirm the news and share how meaningful the project is to him.

“Most of my life I have felt out of place, weird and different,” he wrote. “I hid behind my camera because people liked to be filmed and I could disappear. I used my short films to wow people so I could feel valued. I felt GREEN in all the ways.”

“But when I saw Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman‘s WICKED over 15 years ago as it was being workshopped in San Francisco I couldn’t unsee it,” Chu said.

“So to think that I have been invited to bring this timeless story to the biggest screens all around the world for people to experience with their family, best friends and total strangers…of all walks of life, ages, shapes and colors is like I’ve been invited to Oz by the Wizard himself.”

Book writer Winnie Holzman and composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, who adapted Gregory Maguire‘s bestselling novel into the three-time, Tony Award-winning musical, will also work on the screenplay for Universal’s film adaptation.

Oscar-nominated producer Marc Platt will produce the film adaptation, Universal Pictures confirmed.

“Children alone knew about the magic of Oz through the original novels published from 1900 on,” Maguire told Good Morning America in 2019. “When the famous MGM film, The Wizard of Oz, was made in 1939, the grownup world got in on the love affair. In 2021, Wicked’s story and its message will belong to the world in a new way.”

By Hayley FitzPatrick
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner explains 'The Resident''s time jump away from COVID-19

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FOX/Guy D’Alema(NEW YORK) — Fox’s medical drama The Resident found an interesting way to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Its recent season premiere showed both the danger and the toll the pandemic is still taking on the medical front line workers and their families as the country continues to grapple with the disease, but did so in flashbacks. In the first episode, series regular Denitra Isler’s Nurse Hundley nearly dies from the coronavirus, while Manish Dayal’s Dr. Pravesh loses his father to the disease.

But the show then jumped forward a year, imagining the virus threat has passed both us and the staff of the show’s Chastain Memorial Hospital, though they still grapple with its aftermath.

The producers’ choice to make The Resident post-pandemic was an interesting one, star Malcolm-Jamal Warner tells ABC Audio. He explains that, even as the show’s cast and crew has to deal with strict on-set COVID-19 safety protocols, it would be difficult to do a TV show where every storyline followed the disease.

“I mean, do we deal with, you know, how it really is and everybody has a mask?” asks Warner, who plays star surgeon A.J. Austin. “But then it’s like, well, no one’s going to want to watch a TV show when everybody has masks on in every single scene.”

Warner also said making the action post-pandemic provides some much-needed escape for the show’s viewers. “So I think that was a big consideration that they did think about,” he says of the show’s creative team.  

The Resident airs tonight at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.

By Stephen Iervolino
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Michelle Pfeiffer says turning down 'Silence of the Lambs' is one of her biggest regrets

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Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic(LOS ANGELES) — Michelle Pfeiffer is known for choosing her roles carefully, but she admits there is one part that she still kicks herself for not taking.  The acclaimed actress opened up in a candid new interview about one of her biggest regrets — passing down the chance to star in Silence of the Lambs.

“With Silence of the Lambs, I was trepidatious. There was such evil in that film,” Pfeiffer told The New Yorker in a Monday chat. “It was that evil won in the end, that at the end of that film evil ruled out.”

The actress said the reason she initially decided against starring as FBI agent Clarice Starling in the 1991 film was because “I was uncomfortable with that ending. I didn’t want to put that out into the world.”

Silence of the Lambs, which starred Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster as Clarice, raked in an impressive $272 million during its box office run and went onto snag seven Academy Award nominations — winning five of them.  It also took home a Golden Globe and a bevy of other honors, cementing its status of one of the greatest films of all time.

However, Pfeiffer admits she doesn’t regret turning down the acclaimed movie because of its success. “The thing I most regret is missing the opportunity to do another film with Jonathan [Demme],” the 62-year-old confessed.

Pfeiffer says before the late director tapped her to star in his 1988 flick Married to the Mob, she was typically typecast in movies as the “arm candy.” 

“I’m forever grateful to Jonathan Demme. He had no reason to believe I could do that,” she recalled.  “It’s so sad to me that he’s no longer with us.”

Demme died in 2017 at the age of 73.

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.