November 17, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for CORE Gala(LOS ANGELES) — Conan O’Brien is making some moves within the WarnerMedia company. His nightly TBS chat show, Conan, will end in June of 2021, but the former Late Night and Tonight Show host will move to a weekly show format for HBO Max, which shares TBS’ parent company. 

Airing weeknights at 11 p.m., Conan debuted on TBS in 2010. The cable show was created after O’Brien moved to the West Coast for a brief tenure as host of The Tonight Show, which saw him both succeed, and then shortly thereafter be replaced by, Jay Leno.

O’Brien will also continue his acclaimed Conan Without Borders travelogue show for TBS, the network announced. “In 1993, Johnny Carson gave me the best advice of my career: ‘As soon as possible, get to a streaming platform,’ O’Brien joked in a statement from the company. “I’m thrilled that I get to continue doing whatever the hell it is I do on HBO Max, and I look forward to a free subscription.”

“Conan’s unique brand of energetic, relatable, and at times, absurdist, comedy has charmed late-night audiences for nearly three decades, said Casey Bloys, chief content officer for HBO and HBO Max. “We can’t wait to see what he and the rest of Team Coco will dream up for this brand-new, variety format each week.”

By Stephen Iervolino
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 17, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Matteo Chinellato/Corbis via Getty Images(LONDON) — Hard to believe it’s been 19 years since the world first met Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and the rest of the beloved cast of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when it premiered in theaters. 

The former child actors (sans Watson), who are mostly now in their 30s, gathered together over the weekend for a virtual reunion to pay homage to the movies that launched their careers.

Tom Felton, who played the sinister Draco Malfoy, organized the virtual reunion by inviting his former costars to crash his live event on Veeps. 

Accepting the invite was Radcliffe (Harry), Grint (Ron), James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George), Bonnie Wright (Ginny), Chris Rankin (Percy), Alfred Enoch (Dean Thomas), Josh Herdman (Goyle), Louis Cordice (Blaise Zabini),  Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood), Jason Isaacs (Lucius Malfoy), Mark Williams (Arthur Weasley), and director Chris Columbus.

Despite missing a member, the cast easily reminisced about making one of the most popular movie franchises of all time.

The most hilarious story came from Grint, who cheekily admitted that he caused trouble when filming serious scenes because he couldn’t keep a straight face.

“I remember on Potter it would always be the most inappropriate scenes, like Dumbledore’s funeral was a particularly bad one,” he confessed. “I had a particularly bad reputation, they used to call me ‘Go Again Grint’ because I could never do anything without doing it like 20 times.”

He also stole the show by flashing pictures of his newborn daughter Wednesday.

Felton also shut down rumors that Watson and Rupert had an on-set romance by devilishly laughing, “The chemistry was between Rupert and I…There was a fire between us as bright as his hair!”

Radcliffe then teased next year’s reunion, calling Saturday’s reunion “a mere preview” of Harry Potter‘s 20th anniversary celebration.

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 17, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Courtesy of STXfilms(NEW YORK) — Songbird, Michael Bay’s pandemic thriller, will skip theaters and head straight to premium video-on-demand, according to Variety.

Audiences can rent the film for $19.99 for a 48-hour period beginning December 11.  Following its home entertainment run, The film will land on a yet-to-be-announced streaming service.

Songbird stars KJ Apa as Nico, a delivery man with a rare immunity to the virus who’s able to continue his job as an essential worker.  He falls in love with Sara, played by Sofia Carson, even though the two have never met in person due to the strict lockdown.  When he finds out Sara might be infected, he goes on a mission to save her.

The film went into production in July, becoming the first movie to shoot in Los Angeles following the COVID-19 shutdown.

Songbird also stars Demi Moore, Bradley Whitford, Paul Walter Hauser, Craig Robinson, Peter Stormare and Alexandra Daddario.

By George Costantino
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 17, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Creator Justin Simien, Ashley Blaine Featherson, on set/Beth Dubber/Netflix(LOS ANGELES) — The Netflix comedy Dear White People has become the latest casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Deadline reports that production on the series, which has been filming its fourth and final season in Los Angeles, has paused for two weeks after several crew members tested positive for the virus. 

The infected people, “are currently under quarantine, and other staff members have been notified,” a spokesperson for Lionsgate, the series’ producer, tells the entertainment website. “We are following the extensive health and safety protocols we have in place, and the series will not be shooting for the next two weeks while quarantine measures are observed”.

The fourth and final season of Dear White People will premiere sometime this year on Netflix.

By George Costantino
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 17, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Disney+(SPACE) — The Child, the tiny, Force sensitive critter lovingly dubbed “Baby Yoda” by fans of The Mandalorian, is now in space, for real.

When Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched four NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday, they stashed a stowaway aboard their Crew Dragon spacecraft Resilience: a toy version of the character, which the crew used as their cheeky “zero G indicator” — a totem meant to show the travelers that the crew have left gravity’s grip.

With their trip to the International Space Station successful, the Resilience crew — NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, as well as JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi, along with their little green friend — successfully docked with the ISS Monday night, and early this morning, they opened the hatch and joined the space station’s crew. 

Footage posted on NASA’s Twitter feed shows the historic moment, with the little stuffed Baby Yoda floating in. The new residents will stay aboard for six months. 

Let’s hope they keep him away from the controls — if the Disney+ hit taught the astronauts anything, they should know Baby Yoda is fond of pushing buttons, sometimes with dangerous results. 

Not only is this the time SpaceX shuttled a full NASA crew to the ISS, the mission represents another historic first: Glover, Resilience‘s pilot and second-in-command, will be the first African-American to stay aboard the station.

By Stephen Iervolino
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.