March 1, 2021 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Anthony Mandler(LOS ANGELES) — While Nick Jonas is very busy these days, there’s one particular iron he doesn’t have in the fire anymore.

Nick was set to star in the action thriller The Blacksmith, which would have featured him as a Jason Bourne-meets-MacGyver character: A weapons expert for intelligence agencies who must go on the run with only his “unique set of skills” to protect him.   However, according to the Hollywood Reporter, he’s now dropped out of the project due to scheduling problems.

Because the start of shooting has been delayed, Nick couldn’t fit the movie into his schedule, the head of the movie studio producing the film told The Hollywood Reporter.

“Nick, as you can imagine, has a lot of other commitments, with his acting and his music,” explained CEO Stuart Ford. “Under normal circumstances, he could fly in and out, go to do things over the weekend, and come back to set Monday. But in a COVID environment, that doesn’t work.”

Ford notes that Nick would “have to stay in the same place for three months,” adding, “With a star like Nick Jonas, it became borderline impossible to make the schedule work.” The part will now be re-cast.

In other Nick Jonas news, he’s releasing another new song, “This Is Heaven,” on March 4, following its debut on Saturday Night Live.  His solo album Spaceman is due March 12.  Meanwhile, his new sci-fi movie Chaos Walking is out Friday.

By Andrea Dresdale
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

March 1, 2021 • No Comments • Entertainment News

ABC/Rick Rowell(LOS ANGELES) — Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot is pregnant with her third child, the Israeli-born actress announced Monday.

“Here we go again,” she wrote on social media alongside a photo of her family — including husband Yaron Varsano and daughters Alma, 9, and Maya, who turns 4 later this month — with their hands resting on her stomach.

Gadot, who married Varsano in 2008, previously welcomed Alma in Nov. 2011 and Maya in March 2017, just months before the first Wonder Woman film was released.

While promoting its sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, this past December, the Justice League star, 35, opened up about her daughters visiting her on the set.

“It was great. It was really, really great. First of all, it was a very familiar environment for them. They know the cast, they know Patty, they know Patty’s family,” she told Good Morning America at the time. “It felt like a second home for all of us. But at the end of the day, they come and they see me work, you know?”

In the same interview, Gadot recalled Maya’s priceless reaction to seeing the trailer for the Wonder Woman sequel for the first time.

“She said, ‘Oh my god, [mother in Hebrew], you can fly?!’ Then you have to explain it’s not for real,” she said with a laugh. “But they’re very excited and they’re very proud.”

By Carson Blackwelder
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

March 1, 2021 • No Comments • Entertainment News

ABC/Mike Rosenthal(LOS ANGELES) — Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo is flirting with a future without the long-running medical drama in her life.

The 51-year-old actress appeared on CBS Sunday Morning where the conversation gravitated toward her starring role as Doctor Meredith Grey and her future with the series.  The show’s pilot aired on March 27, 2005 on ABC, which makes it television’s longest-running medical drama.

It is currently unknown if the show will continue beyond its 17th season or if it is getting ready to hang up the scrubs and say goodbye to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital once and for all.

When pressed for answers, the acclaimed actress insisted, “I can’t say. Can’t say.”

“We honestly have not decided. We’re really trying to figure it out right now,” added Pompeo, who insisted that the show has to end on a high note — which is an extremely daunting task given its 16-year run. “To end a show this iconic, how do we do it? I just want to make sure we do this character and this show and the fans — I want to make sure we do it right.”

Pompeo, who is one of television’s highest paid actors, also admitted that she’s been kept in the dark about her character’s fate.

When asked if Meredith is alive or dead after being infected with COVID-19, the actress attested, “We don’t know.”

Despite not knowing how her story ends on Grey’s Anatomy, Pompeo isn’t sweating about what happens after the show wraps for good.

“Well, I can do anything I want. Or not do anything at all,” she laughed.

Grey’s Anatomy returns Thursday, March 11 at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

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

March 1, 2021 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Apple TV+(LOS ANGELES) — Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame was the highest-grossing movie of all time, making more than $2.79 billion at the global box office.  The 2019 film was such a hit that even recordings of packed theater reactions to the movie’s scenes went viral.  However, that was the “before times.” 

Now, with the pandemic, more than half of movie houses in the U.S. are still shuttered, yet millions of movie fans are hungry to experience something like that again. YouTube comments show fans are re-watching the reaction videos now, just to remember what it was like.

Two lifelong movie fans who can’t wait to get back to theaters are Joe and Anthony Russo. The siblings directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War, of course, Avengers: Infinity War and the climactic Endgame.

“I do think that it’s going to swing back hard,” Joe tells ABC Audio. “I mean, any time something is withheld and then you get an opportunity to do it, you’re going to do it a lot. And you look at the Chinese box office [where theaters are open]: from a week and a half ago, [it] broke all their records.”  

Looking back on the in-theater reactions to their films, Joe says, “We never been in a theater…with that much energy…[even at] the movies that we loved as children. It became, he says, “a global communal event.”

He added, “[E]veryone wanted to vocalize and participate…and cheer and gasp and jump up and down: We’d never seen anything like that.”

“And I hope we get to experience that again in another film that…we haven’t directed,” Joe notes. “That we can just be fans of and sit and enjoy with everyone else.”  

Joe and Anthony Russo’s new film, the drama Cherry, debuts on Apple TV+ on March 12.

Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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

March 1, 2021 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures & © DC Comics(LOS ANGELES) — Rumors are swirling that Amber Heard has been fired from Aquaman 2, but the situation is something like an underwater mission in the Hudson River: murky. 

The 34-year-old actress stars as Mera, the protagonist’s main love interest.

Australian entertainment site SausageRoll was first to report that Heard was quietly dismissed from the movie and that her exit was fueled by health concerns and not by her ongoing legal battles against ex-husband Johnny Depp.

For their part, fans of Depp have been burning up Twitter, with the hashtag #FireAmberHeard trending occasionally since it was revealed in court that she allegedly abused Depp.

The court case, which alleged abuse on both sides of the rocky marriage, led Depp to step away from Warner Bros. Fantastic Beasts threequel. Hannibal and Doctor Strange actor Mads Mikkelsen eventually replaced him.

The abuse allegations against Heard also sparked a petition demanding her removal, of which over 1.8 million people have signed. 

In Heard’s stead, it was reported that Emilia Clarke would take over the role and reunite with her Game of Thrones co-star Jason Momoa, who stars as the King of Atlantis.

However, a journalist for The Hollywood Reporter journalist cast doubt on the report and tweeted out Sunday, “Told by a reliable source that reports of Amber Heard being fired off ‘Aquaman 2’ are inaccurate.”

Aquaman 2 is expected to hit theaters by Christmas 2022.

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