Top Entertainment Headlines

Sunday, April 26

Good afternoon Wypierdalaj,

Below are the latest entertainment news stories.

“Michael,” the big-budget Michael Jackson spectacle, shrugged off bad reviews and a troubled production to launch with $97 million in U.S. and Canada theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday, shattering a record debut for music biopics.

A highly authorized portrayal of the King of Pop, co-produced by the Jackson estate, Lionsgate’s “Michael” far surpassed previous biopic top performers like “Straight Outta Compton” (a $60.2 million debut in 2015) and “Bohemian Rhapsody” ($51 million in 2018).

International sales were also strong. “Michael” collected $120.4 million overseas, to give it a $217.4 million global opening — a new high for a music biopic. Universal picked up distribution in most international markets.

McDonald’s is turning “Stranger Things” fans’ worlds upside down with its latest themed Happy Meal.

The fast-food chain has teamed up with Netflix to release a limited-edition Happy Meal, just in time for the premiere of Netflix’s new animated series, “Stranger Things: Tales From ’85.”

The new show follows everyone’s favorite characters (voiced by different actors this time around) — Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas and Max — as they return to their normal lives in 1985 after closing the gate to the Upside Down. Soon enough, they encounter another mystery to solve and need to save their town once again.

Following the leak of audio from the taping of the much anticipated reunion of Bravo’s “Summer House,” the network announced on Friday that it’s launching an investigation and reunion host Andy Cohen denounced the leak as “disgusting and illegal.”

The Season 10 reunion of the reality TV smash was recorded in New York City on Thursday and was expected to deal with the “Scamanda” scandal that roiled the Bravoverse last month, with the finished episodes set to air in May. Shortly after production wrapped, however, a portion of the audio was leaked online.

The leaked audio features an exchange between the central players in the scandal, Ciara Miller, West Wilson and Amanda Batula, according to Deadline.

Jake Reiner — whose parents, prolific filmmaker Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, were killed late last year, and whose younger brother has since been charged with their murders — spoke out Friday about the “living nightmare” he has endured since learning what happened to them.

Reiner, 34, wrote on Substack that on Dec. 14 he was attending a celebration of life for a friend who had died in October when his sister, Romy, called to tell him their father was dead. Minutes later, she called again: their mother was gone, too.

“My world, as I knew it, had collapsed. I was in a trance,” Reiner wrote. The only thing I could focus on was that I needed to get to my childhood home. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to figure out what the hell just happened.”

“Survivor 50” star Christian Hubicki got to share his thoughts about being voted out with the man who had a big hand in making it happen from thousands of miles away: Jimmy Fallon.

On the April 22 episode of “Survivor 50,” Hubicki went on a journey and was challenged with completing a jigsaw puzzle, but he couldn’t finish it in time. After his loss, he had to take a note from Fallon, who helped devise the challenge, back to camp and read it aloud. That note revealed he had to vote for himself at Tribal Council, becoming the first player in show history to do so. He was then voted out by the other castaways.

Hubicki, who was livid during the vote and said he looked forward to Fallon’s apology, stopped by “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on April 23.

An $81 billion Warner-Paramount mega merger has received shareholders’ stamp of approval, propelling a deal that could vastly reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape closer to the finish line.

Per a preliminary vote count on Thursday, the overwhelming majority of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted in support of selling the entire business to Paramount for $31 a share, the company said. Including debt, the deal is valued at nearly $111 billion.

Skydance-owned Paramount wants to buy all of Warner. That means HBO Max, cult-favorite titles like “Harry Potter” and even CNN could soon find themselves under the same roof with CBS, “Top Gun” and the Paramount+ streaming service. A greenlight from company shareholders increases the likelihood of that becoming a reality.