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For months, one surefire hit after another has underperformed. One good reason for that? We’re still in the midst of a once-in-a-century public health crisis. But finally — and just in time for the onset of what’s looking like another brutal wave thanks to the Omicron variant — we have a bona fide blockbuster: On its opening day, Spider-Man: No Way Home is already breaking not only pandemic records but all-time records as well — this despite its complete aversion to hanky panky.

When it opened on Friday, the threequel in the Tom Holland iteration of Marvel’s web-slinger grossed a massive $121.5 million. (A princely $50 million of that was from Thursday night previews alone.) Only one other movie has grossed more on its opening day, and it happened to also feature Holland’s Spidey: Avengers: Endgame, back in 2019. On the way to its number two spot, it knocked Star Wars: The Force Awakens down to third.

Right now, No Way Home is on track to gross somewhere around $240 million, more than doubling the previous pandemic opening weekend haul: Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which amassed some $90 million back in October.

It’s an impressive feat, and, again, it happened just as COVID cases starting soaring across parts of the country, leading to cancellations and postponements for in-person events in places like New York City.

What got butts back in seats that were reluctant to show up to other movies? Probably because, unlike Shang-Chi (which did extremely well) and Eternals (which dramatically underperformed and got low ratings but didn’t bomb), Holland’s Spidey is a known commodity. Throw in a number of returning Spider-Man franchise vets, some madcap multiverse action, and a character with massive appeal among young viewers, who are less prone to get serious infection, and it’s no wonder people were excited to come back in droves.

(Via EW)

Louis C.K.’s comeback is going better than most would have expected. (Or maybe not.) The comic and former TV god, who admitted to multiple accusations of sexual misconduct over four years ago, has seen his stand-up shows sell out. He even got a Grammy nomination, which caused some to wonder if “cancel culture” is even a real thing. Now he’s taking yet another step back to normalcy: He’s hawking a new stand-up special.

It’s called SORRY and it captures his appearance at Madison Square Garden on August 14 of this year. No audio or video has been made public about his more recent batch of shows, but reports have described him as — title be damned — “unapologetic.” Here’s how The Daily Beast described the very show that was immortalized and is now for sale:

“The comedian’s new material is not for the faint of heart. It has everything. “Child f*cker” jokes that include a very involved journey about being in possession of a little girl’s underwear, more pedophilia jokes with an emphasis on the Boy Scouts of America, COVID-19 jokes, jokes about staring into the human asshole, 9/11 jokes, gay jokes, Jew jokes, cancer jokes, a heavy helping of transgender jokes, and a sprinkling of additional race jokes. And tons of sex.”

He also discussed his “favorite sex position,” pantomimed gay sex, and suggested society implement child sex dolls so as to curb the actions of pedophiles.”

You can watch a clip below, in which he talks at some length about the 1997 motion picture Good Will Hunting.

In a press release, C.K. himself wrote, “I am very proud of this show and I feel confident that you will laugh fourteen or more times during it. It is, so far, my favorite show that I have personally generated.”

He’s selling the special for $10, but for $15 you can get both SORRY and a special he released last year, (Sincerely). For $25, you can get those plus five more: Live at the Comedy Store, Oh My God, Live at the Beacon Theater, Hilarious, and Chewed Up, all released before numerous skeletons came tumbling out of his closet.

There is a long history of celebrity boxing exhibitions, but few have turned that into a more legitimate business than Jake Paul, who has taken a Floyd Mayweather-esque approach to selling fights, begging people to tune in to the PPV event on the chance he gets knocked out. To this point, Paul has dodged that fate and cashed in on his way to being one of the sports biggest PPV draws, to the chagrin of some.

It’s a tried and true formula, playing the heel in a sport that provides a true chance at comeuppance in the form of a knockout, by either being more talented than anyone (such as Floyd) or stacking the deck by fighting “real fighters” whose are not boxers first, in the case of Paul. He knocked out Ben Askren and then grinded out a decision win over Tyron Woodley through activity rather than domination. When Tommy Fury had to back out a month ago, Woodley got his desire for a rematch and insists things will be different this time around. Whether that’s anything more than talk to sell PPVs for Showtime remains to be seen, but we spoke with Woodley on his satellite media tour on Thursday about why, despite a recent announcement, this wasn’t a short camp for him and how he promises to learn from the last fight to be more aggressive early now knowing he can push through Paul’s power.

This was a short camp for you. What was your process in getting prepared coming in as a replacement and get this opportunity at a rematch?

You know, it wasn’t really a short camp for me. People say that because of the time that it was announced to you guys. For me, I was already thinking about fighting Jake Paul. I was already making adjustments from the last fight to fight Jake Paul. I was already training, and most of my training was fixing the things I could’ve did better. That’s where we started at. That was my base. Why would I not use that for the actual fight? By time the fight got to me that they needed me to fill in, all it was for me was some extra cardio and some extra sparring at that point in time. So I was already sparring. I fought 12 rounds a week and a half before I even knew about the fight. So for me, it was like, of course. I’m in shape. I’m ready. I mentally want this win against this kid. I want redemption. I want revenge. So it wasn’t really a short camp, you know? I think this was destiny. I told my coaches in September — go to my Instagram page, October 7, you’re gonna see a post. It’s gonna say team stay ready. You got to see my coach John Tucker in St. Louis, Missouri, flying in from Miami, Florida. You can see me train with my strength conditioning coach. What would I do any different in a training camp? I was doing exactly what I would have been doing had I been in this training camp — running, sparring, boxing, strength and conditioning. So it wasn’t a last minute notice fight for me. It was just last minute notice to you guys and you guys are gonna get me whoopin his ass on Saturday on late notice.

What are some of the specific things that you think we’re gonna see from you that’s going to look different this time around?

Be first and expect him to come back. We expect them to fire back and then when you do so, make him miss and make him pay.

One of the differences for the judges last time was him just being the more active fighter. How do you make sure, especially in those early rounds, that you’re matching that activity and making sure you don’t go don’t go down on any cards this time?

Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy.

You’ve said you’re gonna finish him this time. What do you take from last time that makes you feel like you can? Do you feel like because you felt his power and you know that you can go through, and is that part of why you’re as confident coming in this time?

Of course, I mean, you got to take that confidence. He knows that too, he can say what he wants to say. Getting hit with a shot in boxing, you’re going to get punched that does not mean a damn thing. I sign up to acknowledge that. It’s very few boxing fights or boxers who can go out there and the entire fight they don’t get punched one time. In MMA yeah, I’ve had that. I didn’t get touched one time against Darren Till. I didn’t get punched one time against Robbie Lawler. Those were world championship fights. That’s not really the case in boxing. Boxing, you’re going to get hit. And I’ve shown that when he hit me, it actually kind of pissed me off a little bit. He hit me, I went forward. I didn’t back up, when I hit him he backed up. So the takeaways are pretty clear. When you watch the fight, the only person that did damage it made it look like, oh my god, this could end. It was me. It was never him. It was never a time of like, Oh my god, Tyron may go down. You didn’t see that. And you won’t see that on Saturday.

Batman/Bruce Wayne has had more iterations than perhaps any other comic book superhero, from campy (Adam West) to brooding (Christian Bale) to somewhere in between (the Joel Schumacher diptych). When we see the latest iteration, played by Robert Pattinson, in next year’s The Batman — which we already know will be super emotional — he’ll definitely be brooding. But, it seems, he’ll perhaps be the broodiest of them all.

In an interview with Empire, The Batman director Matt Reeves discussed how his take on Wayne/Batman was heavily influenced by a major rock star of the ‘90s.

“When I write, I listen to music, and as I was writing the first act, I put on Nirvana’s ‘Something In The Way’,” Reeves told Empire. “That’s when it came to me that, rather than make Bruce Wayne the playboy version we’ve seen before, there’s another version who had gone through a great tragedy and become a recluse. So I started making this connection to Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, and the idea of this fictionalized version of Kurt Cobain being in this kind of decaying manor.” (Last Days, which came out in 2005, stars Michael Pitt as a Cobain-esque musician.)

There was another major inspiration, and it happened to be another film starring Pattison: 2017’s indie thriller Good Time. “In that movie you could really feel his vulnerability and desperation, but you could also feel his power,” Reeves said. “I thought that was a great mix. He’s also got that Kurt Cobain thing, where he looks like a rock star, but you also feel like he could be a recluse.”

Pattinson himself also described to Empire how Wayne really isn’t a party guy, even if only to throw people off the scent that he’s a latex-suited crime fighter. “Bruce has been hiding away,” Pattinson said. “He’s not really a socialite at all. He’s building all these little contraptions and things, just with Alfred. And even Alfred thinks he’s gone insane!”

The Batman is scheduled to be released in theaters on March 4, 2022. You can watch the latest trailer here. Meanwhile, another former Caped Crusader is about re-don his outfit for another, presumably less emotional comic book movie.

(Via Empire)

On Friday, it was announced that Kyrie Irving had begun his return to the Nets, as the team decided to allow him to be a part-time player, joining them for road games and practices while sitting out home games as he continues to refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine as mandated by New York City.

Less than 24 hours later, Irving became the ninth member of the Brooklyn Nets to enter the league’s COVID protocols, as the team announced he would join Kevin Durant, who was put into protocols earlier in the day. For Irving, being unvaccinated means he needs to return five consecutive days of negative tests in order to join the team now, rather than the two asked of vaccinated players.

There was a little confusion over whether this was part of a return to play protocol or the result of a positive test, and that was cleared up by Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News, who confirmed with the team it was indeed a positive or inconclusive test from Irving that put him in COVID protocols.

It isn’t a huge surprise that Irving would find himself in protocols considering the massive spike in COVID-19 cases around the country — New York City posted its highest case count of the entire pandemic on Friday with over 27,000 positive cases — as the highly transmissible Omicron variant has begun wreaking havoc during the holiday season. It does put a wrench in the Nets plans of getting Irving back on the court any time soon to help with their shorthanded status, and the league is going to have to seriously consider postponements as they did for the Bulls with this Nets team that is rapidly approaching the same number of COVID absences at 9 as Chicago had with 10 when the league pushed two of its games.

While the NBA has made clear it wants to avoid postponements, it seems to be wishful thinking that they can continue without disruption to the schedule at this point.

Big Sean recently made an appearance on N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN’s podcast Drink Champs not long after comments that Ye made on the show. Ye said signing Big Sean was the “worst thing I’ve ever done,” and in response, Sean called the remark “some b*tch-ass sh*t,” adding, “I’ve traveled around the world for this man, every time he’s called. And I’ve done this and not asked for publishing a lot of the times.” Sean continued to speak about Ye, including something that occurred during studio sessions for Ye’s 2011 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

According to Sean, he was forced to fire a friend that he brought to one of the sessions after they posted a “sneak picture” of Ye, Jay-Z, and Beyonce working on songs. “He was gonna help hold me down,” Sean said about the friend. “It’s good to just have a support system, it’s good to have one of your homies there when you tryna contribute.” However, after the picture was posted and it made its way around the internet, Ye and Jay-Z confronted him about it and expressed their frustrations with him.

“They came at me and they thought it was me,” said. “It didn’t even make sense because I wasn’t even on at that time and it was like Kanye, JAY-Z, Beyoncé, Big Sean… People were like, ‘Who the f*ck is Big Sean?’ It looked like I planted this shit.” Ye told Sean to fire his friend because it made him look “thirsty.” “I explained to him who it was and he was like, ‘You gotta fu*kin’ fire him.’ He was like, ‘We’ve all done this. We’ve hired the people that we love,’” Sean recalled.

In the end, Sean was forced to have a tough conversation with his friend. “I’m sorry, bro, we gotta figure out something else,” Sean said to that friend. However, according to him, everything eventually turned out for the best. “It ended up being a blessing in disguise,” Sean said. “He ended up transforming his life and being probably way more successful than he would have been just in the position he was in.”

You can listen to Sean recall this moment around the 40:00 mark in the video above.

Two weeks ago, Chris Cuomo was fired by CNN following reports that he’d been a lot more involved in his brother Andrew’s sexual harassment defense than he’d claimed. The revelations emerged months after the former New York governor resigned in disgrace, leading to his suspension and later dismissal, which left him “livid.” Now we’re getting some insight into how the news affected his colleagues.

Anderson Cooper went on The Late Show Thursday, and host Stephen Colbert made sure to ask him about his former co-worker and whether letting him go was “the right thing to do.”

“I don’t want anything bad to happen to somebody who’s a colleague and somebody who is a friend of mine, and I feel terrible for him and for his family,” Cooper replied. “That being said, look, journalists have strict ethics and strict rules that we are to abide by, and if you don’t abide by them, there are repercussions. And I wish Chris the best, and I’m sorry for how all of this played out, and I hate this for his family. But this is — it’s a business with very big responsibilities, and there are repercussions.”

Colbert also asked Cooper if he knew about the firing before it was made public. “No, no. Of course not,” Cooper said. “They would have a staff meeting and say like, ‘Oh we’re going to do this thing, but don’t tell anybody’?”

Cooper was also asked if he’d spoken about Cuomo’s termination with other CNN folks, such as Don Lemon. He said he hadn’t talked to Lemon, but he did talk to someone else.

“You know, the first call after I got the news was from Andy Cohen, who was like, ‘Do you think I could get that show?’ I was like, ‘Andy, you’ve got enough real estate in television,’” Cooper said. “Andy believes he is fully qualified to host a presidential debate because he hosts the Housewives reunion.”

You can watch Cooper’s Late Show appearance in the video above.

(Via THR)

Doja Cat rarely fails to rise to the occasion. Whether it’s through her own work and performances or guest features with other artists, the rapper seems to come through every time. However, there was one moment when she couldn’t get into the zone. During a profile with Rolling Stone, Doja revealed that she almost appeared on Billie’s 2017 track “Bellyache.” The song eventually arrived as a solo effort and the second single for Billie’s 2017 EP, Don’t Smile At Me. During the interview, Doja explained why she’s not on it.

“I remember thinking it was so cute. I loved it. I just couldn’t think of anything to write,” Doja said. “It was one of my writer’s-block moments.” Despite this, Doja wasn’t upset with herself for missing out. “I remember seeing that song blow up and thinking, ‘Good for her. That’s awesome,’” she added. “I don’t think the song was for me, though. It was quite hard to write to.”

Doja also addressed criticisms for past work with producer Dr. Luke, who was accused of sexual assault by singer and protégé Kesha back in 2014. “The point is he’s gotten some credit for sh*t,” she said. “And, you know, it’s whatever. I don’t think I need to work with him again. I don’t think I need to work with him in the future. I know that.”

You can read Doja’s Rolling Stone interview here and revisit “Bellyache” in the video above.

The Brooklyn Nets have been hammered by the NBA’s health and safety protocols in the last few days. As of Friday evening, the list of players who entered the protocols looked like much of the team’s rotation once the playoffs roll around, as LaMarcus Aldridge, DeAndre’ Bembry, Bruce Brown, Jevon Carter, James Harden, James Johnson, and Paul Millsap all were sidelined. Partly in response to this, Brooklyn decided to reverse its stance on Kyrie Irving being a part-time player.

On Saturday, the team announced that its best player will join that laundry list of guys. Kevin Durant, who tested positive for COVID in March of 2020 and had a run-in with the protocols last season, will be the latest player to miss time for a reason related to the virus. This time around, it is unclear if he had a positive test or was a close contact with someone who caught it.

The news of Durant’s protocol stint comes right before the team is slated to play a back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday, with the Orlando Magic and the Denver Nuggets, respectively, coming to town. The team also has a home game on Tuesday against the Washington Wizards before embarking on a three-game west coast road trip. Should Durant fail to register two consecutive negative tests in a 24-hour period, he’d end up missing at least 10 days, which would include all of those games. Most notably, Durant would be able to play on Christmas Day, when the Nets travel to Los Angeles to take on the Lakers.

It is unclear if the league will consider postponing and rescheduling any of the team’s upcoming games.

The Capitol siege of Jan. 6 attracted a lot of interesting people. There was the QAnon Shaman, of course. There was the “influencer” who bragged that she wouldn’t go to jail because she’s “blonde” and has “white skin.” (She was recently sentenced to two months.) There’s the guy who was arrested by the feds while in a touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar. There was also one major shock: Shortly after that fateful day, as feds and plebeians alike scoured over images of the perpetrators, some people thought one of them looked an awful lot like actor Jay Johnston.

Johnston has long been a comedy staple. He was a regular on Mr. Show with Bob and David. He was in Anchorman and on Arrested Development. Perhaps most famously, he’s long been the voice of Jimmy Pesto Sr., our hero’s biggest rival on Bob’s Burgers. While Johnston’s possible involvement in the Jan. 6 riot is still not confirmed, it has cost him his gig on one of Fox’s most enduring animated comedies.

Two sources involved with Bob’s Burgers told The Daily Beast that Johnston will no longer be allowed to voice the beloved, belligerent character, which he’s done since 2011, across 43 episodes. One source described it as a “ban.” Another said the show was not trying to make a big deal out of it. Johnston’s last appearance on the show was on the May 2, 2021 episode “The Bridge Over Troubled Rudy.” He has been noticeably absent over during Season 12.

No one has confirmed whether or not Johnston was indeed in D.C. on Jan. 6. His name began floating around in connection with the failed insurrection in early March, when the FBI posted a photo of a perpetrator whom many thought looked just like the actor and comedian.

Some colleagues, including Tim Heidecker, speculated that it was indeed Johnston. Some deleted those tweets, later saying their messages shouldn’t be used as official confirmation. Some described him as a “Trump supporter” and in 2015, he appeared on a show hosted by then-future Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes.

(Via The Daily Beast)