Krasinski directing “A Quiet Place Part II”/Paramount Pictures(NEW YORK) — On the show’s Twitter feed, Saturday Night Live just announced the hosts and musical guests for the first three shows of the 2021 season.
John Krasinski will host the January 30th installment, with Machine Gun Kelly as the musical guest; Schitt’s Creek Emmy winner Dan Levy headlines the February 6 show, which features Phoebe Bridgers playing Studio 8H; and on February 13, Oscar and Emmy winner Regina King toplines the show, with Nathaniel Rateliff as the musical guest.
Krasinski’s appearance is a do-over. He was in New York City and supposed to guest host last spring, before the release of his sequel A Quiet Place Part II, however the film’s debut — and indeed Saturday Night Live — became early victims of the COVID-19 shutdowns.
On his Twitter, the Office star-turned director just noted, “Aaaaaand cue the pinching myself.”
“The King’s Man” – 20th Century Films(LOS ANGELES) — Disney has followed Sony’s suit, and on Friday steered a slew of big releases away from theaters, many of which are still shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The titles, from Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight, include the thrice-bumped Kingsman prequel The King’s Man; that film, due out last year and delayed to try to avoid the pandemic, will now move from March 12 to August 20, Variety notes.
A big-screen bow of Fox’s hit animated show Bob’s Burgers was to open April 9, but now has been removed entirely from the 2021 schedule.
Other titles include the animated Ron’s Gone Wrong, which went from April 23 to October 22, the thriller Antlers, and the Jessica Chastain-led biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye; the former title will now open October 29, while the latter is set for September 24.
The elephant in the room, however wasn’t mentioned: Marvel’s Black Widow. The standalone adventure of Scarlett Johansson’s titular Avenger and super-spy was to open May 1, 2020, before it was bumped to November of last year, and then into 2021; so far, its latest release date is still slated for May 7, 2021.
Other big Disney releases that haven’t yet changed include other 2020 refugees like Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds on May 21; Cruella with Emma Stone on May 28; Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on July 9, and Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt’s Jungle Cruise on July 30.
Marvel Studios(LOS ANGELES) — It had been recently reported that Chris Evans had agreed to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe years after he capped his Captain America career with Avengers: Endgame.
However, even as that report was met with a Tesseract-size grain of salt, with Evans himself responding on Twitter “News to me,” and a shrugging emoji, his former partner seems to be OK with the possibility.
Anthony Mackie, who played Sam Wilson/Falcon in the Marvel films — to whom a time-traveled Steve Rogers passed his Captain America shield and mantle at the end of Endgame — was asked about the possibility on the podcast Happy Sad Confused.
“You know, I’ve heard that,” the affable actor says about the Evans story. “Look, Chris is my boy, so if they’re getting the band back together, I’ll be very happy with that.”
For now, Mackie can be seen in the sci-fi thriller Outside The Wire on Netflix.
He’ll next play Wilson, as the newly-crowned Cap, in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which debuts March 19 on Disney+.
John Parra/Getty Images for Goldbelly(LOS ANGELES) — Neil Patrick Harris broke his silence on the debate over straight actors playing gay characters. The A Series of Unfortunate Events star, who came out as gay in 2006, says he doesn’t see an issue.
In a Thursday interview with The Sunday Times, Harris weighed in on the comments made by screenwriter Russel T. Davies, who said he is against straight actors playing gay roles.
“I’m not one to jump onto labeling. As an actor, you certainly hope you can be a visible option for all kinds of different roles,” the 47-year-old Emmy nominee expressed, using the character he played on How I Met Your Mother — serial womanizer Barney Stinson — to illustrate his point.
“I played a character for nine years that was nothing like me,” said Harris before referencing Davies’ series Queer as Folk, which starred three straight actors as gay men.
“It was one of the real true turning points for me as examples of sexy guys behaving as leads in something of import, not as comic sidekicks,” the father of two elaborated. “There’s something something sexy about casting a straight actor to play a gay role, if they’re willing to invest in it.”
Harris also added that mentality may force actors and actresses in uncomfortable situations and also limit their opportunities, explaining, “In our world that we live in, you can’t really as a director demand that… Who’s to determine how gay someone is?”
Davies, in a previous interview, expressed, “You wouldn’t cast someone able-bodied and put them in a wheelchair. You wouldn’t Black someone up. Authenticity is leading us to joyous places.”
When asked about Davies’ comments directly, Harris understood where the Welsh television producer was coming from, saying he was “speaking more about the joyfulness of being able to be authentic.”
Furlan in “Lost” – Mario Perez/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — Mira Furlan, the Yugoslavian actress who appeared as the alien Delenn on the sci-fi series Babylon 5 and Danielle Rousseau on Lost, has died at 65.
Although no cause of death was given, it apparently was not a surprise, as the actress left a message to fans that was posted after her passing. “I look at the stars. It’s a clear night and the milky way seemed so near,” the message reads. “That’s where I’ll be going soon. ‘We’re all star stuff,’ I suddenly remembered Delenn’s line from Joe’s script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid.”
The actress was memorialized by Babylon 5 writer and executive producer, J. Michael Straczynski as “fearless.” He recalled her telling him when they first met that she was part of a theater group that put on productions even as her native Yugoslavia was being torn apart by a civil war, and both sides targeted the performers with death threats.
Straczynski remembered her in a lengthy post about her life and declining health, tweeting with “great sadness,” that, “our friend and comrade had gone down the road where we cannot reach her.”
He added, “But as with all things, we will catch up with her in time, and I believe she will have many stories to tell us, and many new roles to share with the universe.”
Krasinski directing “A Quiet Place Part II”/Paramount Pictures(NEW YORK) — On the show’s Twitter feed, Saturday Night Live just announced the hosts and musical guests for the first three shows of the 2021 season. 
