August 4, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Liu Yifei as Mulan/© 2019 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.(LOS ANGELES) — One of the most bumped-about big budget movie releases is coming home, to Disney+. 

Mulan, the live-action re-imagining of the 1998 animated classic, saw its release date moved repeatedly throughout the summer, as the COVID-19 pandemic refused to release its grip on the country. 

The film starring Yifei Liu, which was initially supposed to hit theaters in March of 2020, will be made available on Disney+ on September 4 for an added fee of $29.99. The movie will be released theatrically in some overseas markets, including Asia, where theaters are reopening.

The announcement was made Tuesday by Disney CEO Bob Chapek on an investor earnings call, which revealed the company took a COVID-related drubbing to its bottom line; because of theme park closures worldwide alone, the company took a $3.5 billion operating income hit, and an overall loss of $2 billion.

The one bright spot for the House of Mouse, incidentally, was Disney+. Aside from the Mulan news, Chapek noted that the streaming service saw a boom in subscribers thanks to Hamilton and Beyonce’s Black Is King. The exec says Disney+ now has 60.5 million paid subscribers globally. 

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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

August 4, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Kevin Winter/Getty Images(LOS ANGLES) — Sean Penn, 60, is now the son-in-law of actor Vincent D’Onofrio, 61, after Penn married D’Onofrio’s 28-year-old daughter, Leila George. 

Penn confirmed the nuptials, and showed off his wedding band, during a video interview with Late Night with Seth Meyers.

The Mystic River Oscar-winner said, “We did a COVID wedding. By that I mean it was a county commissioner on Zoom and we were at the house, my two children and her brother. And we did it that way.”

Penn joked that the pandemic afforded him some “socially liberating factors” regarding the stress-free event.

Penn shares two kids, 29-year-old Dylan Frances and 28-year-old-son Jack, with ex-wife Robin Wright. He was also famously married to Madonna from 1985 to 1989.

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

August 4, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Johnny Nunez/WireImage(LOS ANGELES) — Tiffany Haddish and Common are officially dating.

The actress and comedian confirmed their relationship status during a recent episode on “Steve-O’s Wild Ride!” podcast. “I am in a relationship,” she told Steve-O showing off her freshly shaved head to match Common’s bald dome.

“We’re twins now,” she said sharing his reaction to her new hairdo. “He’s like, ‘Wow, you did it, man. You’ve got a lot of courage. You look so beautiful. I love it. And I’m like, ‘Ah, put your head on my head.'”

According to Tiffany, the couple met when Common played her love interest in her 2019 film The Kitchen and bonded over a few occasional spades games. The comedian previously mentioned she had been quarantining with the rapper and John Wick 2 star. But it appears things have progressed since their virtual date on Bumble earlier this year to raise money for frontline workers and children.

She said so far this is “hands down the best relationship” she’s ever been in, and adds that Common is her her first celebrity boyfriend.

“I’ve lost 20 pounds since I’ve been in this relationship. I feel more confident in me, and it’s not him that’s doing it,” Tiffany shared. “I’m just way happier, and it’s, like, knowing I got somebody that cares about me, that really has my back. It seems like he does anyway, and I love it. I love him.”

Congratulations to the couple on their budding romance! 

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

August 4, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Jackson Lee/GC Images(NEW YORK) — (NOTE LANGUAGE) During a new interview with the business website FastCompany, actor and entrepreneur Ryan Reynolds talked about his undeniable love and talent for marketing — but things took a more serious turn when he apologized again to fans for the location of his 2012 marriage to Blake Lively. 

The pair were wed in South Carolina at Boone Hall, a former slave plantation just outside of Charleston. “It’s something we’ll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for,” Reynolds says. “It’s impossible to reconcile. What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy.”

Reynolds says, “Years ago we got married again at home — but shame works in weird ways. A giant fking mistake like that can either cause you to shut down or it can reframe things and move you into action. It doesn’t mean you won’t fk up again. But repatterning and challenging lifelong social conditioning is a job that doesn’t end.”

As far as moving to action, the pair have put their money where their mouths are, with millions in donations to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, and other causes. Recently, Reynolds announced he’s launching the Group Effort Initiative, a program through which he’ll use part of his next salary for a new Netflix film to train 20 people of color and other underrepresented groups on the set, as well as fly and house them there, so they can pursue a career in the film industry.

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

August 4, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Frederic REGLAIN/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — The upcoming Whitney Houston biopic has landed a studio, and a tentative release date.

According to Deadline, Sony’s TriStar Pictures has won the bidding for I Wanna Dance with Somebody and is laying claim to a Thanksgiving, 2022 release date. Sony reportedly beat out around six streaming companies and studios to score the project.

Music producer and Whitney’s mentor Clive Davis is producing the film, which has the blessing of the Whitney Houston Estate. Stella Meghie, whose most recent film is The Photograph, is on board to direct, with Bohemian Rhapsody scribe Anthony McCarten writing the script and co-producing.

The producers previously described the movie as a “joyous, emotional and heart-breaking celebration,” while still being “very frank about the price that super-stardom exacted” from Whitney.

Whitney passed away in 2012 at the age of 48.

By Andrea Tuccillo
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.