Free Republic

UPDATED, 10:47AM: Industry estimates this morning are pegging around $33M today for Disney’s Solo: A Star Wars Story with a $80M-$90M three-day and $105M-$115M play over four days. That’s a very early read on opening figures, which do not come from Disney. We could see a different picture by tonight. We hear that exit polls showed a four-out-five stars and that there should be a promising turnout by boys tomorrow.

The hunt is on. James Mangold is writing and will direct a Star Wars stand-alone movie centered on Boba Fett, the feared bounty hunter and fan-favorite character, The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned. The reveal comes as Disney and Disney-owned Lucasfilm prepare for the release of the latest Star Wars stand-alone film, Solo: A Star Wars Story. Solo, which opens Friday, is the second movie to be spun from the main Star Wars line — Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was the first — but it is the first to focus on a particular character. Lucasfilm is developing movies...

The New Atheists were never a particularly funny bunch. They were either, like Richard Dawkins, chippy materialists with a quasi-religious faith that science can offer a complete answer to any mystery worth contemplating. Or they were, like Christopher Hitchens, swaggering verbal stylists whose cleverness put a charming gloss on sentiments about believers that would otherwise sound like hate speech. But there is another gang of hyper-confident male atheists for whom knee-slapping humour is front and centre in their atheist proselytizing, far more than science or intellectual debate. These are the Comic Atheists, people like TV host Bill Maher, Family Guy...

After a record-breaking Season 12, summer phenomenon "America's Got Talent" is back on Tuesday, May 29 with Creator and Judge Simon Cowell returning alongside Mel B, Heidi Klum and Howie Mandel. Supermodel, entrepreneur and business CEO Tyra Banks joined the team last summer as host and melded effortlessly with the judges, bringing her unmistakable personal flair and verve to the show. excerpt

Disney and Pixar's The Incredibles 2 is tracking for a huge box-office debut of $140 million-plus in North America. If so, that would make the best domestic start ever for an animated movie, exceeding the $135 million launch of fellow Pixar film Finding Dory. The film opens in theaters on June 15, nearly 14 years after The Incredibles hit the big screen and turned into an instant classic. Incredibles 2 was directed by Brad Bird, who also wrote and helmed the first film. Along with Bird, Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Samuel L. Jackson and John Ratzenberger reprise...

(CNN)A young production assistant thought she had landed the job of her dreams when, in the summer of 2015, she started work on "Going In Style," a bank heist comedy starring Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin. But the job quickly devolved into several months of harassment, she told CNN. She alleges that Freeman subjected her to unwanted touching and comments about her figure and clothing on a near-daily basis. Freeman would rest his hand on her lower back or rub her lower back, she said. In one incident, she said, Freeman "kept trying to lift up my skirt...

If all goes well, a young Han Solo and his band of outcasts will take out Captain Jack Sparrow and set a new Memorial Day weekend record at the box office. Disney and Lucasfilm's spinoff Solo: A Star Wars Story is tracking to open to $130 million to $150 million over the long holiday weekend, with $130 million being on the low end of expectations. To date, the Memorial Day weekend record-holder for the top domestic launch is 2007's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End with $139.8 million, not adjusted for inflation.

Everybody is with Tomi Lahren, a truly outstanding and respected young woman! @foxandfriends 7:22 AM · May 23, 2018

In the final episode of NCIS season 15, which was broadcast on 22 May 2018, Gibbs visits the grave of his wife and daughter. The gravestone also has his name with date of birth 1954. Thus, he is 64 years old.

Michelle Williams has been set by Amazon Studios to star in and produce This Is Jane, the true story of a Chicago woman who founded and ran the underground abortion service Jane. Kimberly Peirce is directing, and John Lesher, Williams and Peter Heller are producing. The drama is based on Laura Kaplan’s nonfiction book The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service. Jane was run by a group of women who taught themselves how to perform abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade. From 1968-73, they helped more than 11,000 women by providing safe – albeit illegal...

This week marks the release of a new Star Wars movie, focusing on arguably the most loved character in the history of the franchise – swashbuckling cosmic bad-boy Han Solo. Everything about Solo: A Star Wars Story suggests it should be steaming into cinemas on the back of a roaring hype train, but that’s not so. Compared with the rabid fan anticipation that preceded The Force Awakens in 2015 and last year’s divisive The Last Jedi, the publicity build-up to Solo is muted, like Chewbacca with a sore throat.

TCM is excited to announce our new online class in partnership with Ball State University: TCM Presents: MAD ABOUT MUSICALS! A free online course dedicated to the history of the Hollywood Musical. Running from June 3-30, this FREE interactive experience will give you an entertaining deep-dive into the Hollywood musical, from the 1930s to the 1970s, with addictive multimedia course materials, digital games, ongoing interactions with your fellow film fans on the TCM message boards, and more! We invite movie lovers and online learners from around the world to join us for this fun, flexible online learning opportunity, TCM Presents:...

Charlize Theron has been set to play Megyn Kelly in Annapurna Pictures’ untitled movie that will focus on the women of Fox News Channel who worked there during the tenure of Roger Ailes, the chairman and network architect who resigned in 2016 amid a sexual and workplace harassment scandal. Jay Roach is directing the pic written by The Big Short scribe Charles Randolph in a project that has been in the works since before Ailes’ death a year ago. It will feature an ensemble cast with characters portraying Ailes and those at FNC during the scandal, which began when ex–host...

Hotel Artemis star Jodie Foster explained that she loves to act but will continue directing as well at Saturday's premiere of the new action film at the Regency Bruin Theater in Los Angeles. “I said it and I’ll keep saying it — I want to direct,” Foster explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “And I will direct more than I acted.” The actress/filmmaker was not shy to share her thoughts about the rise of female directors, as that faction of the film industry has been the “last area” that needs to see a change. She also made a point to mention...

SJW Star Wars - Solo Writer Mocks Fans, Admits Identity Politics Agenda

Walt Disney’s Avengers: Infinity War earned another $28.7 million (-53%) on its fourth weekend, bringing its 24-day domestic total to $595m. The MCU epic should cross the $600m domestic milestone sometime this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday. That would be its 27th day of release, still right between The Force Awakens (12 days) and Black Panther (31 days). Speaking of which, its fourth weekend was just barely above Black Panther’s $26m fifth weekend. So, yes, Avengers: Infinity War’s domestic total will eventually start trailing Black Panther’s. At this juncture, it’s still looking like Infinity War will end its domestic...

Down at the beach, every other trash can is wrapped in what suddenly seems an unnerving image, given the recent school shootings, including last week’s in Texas. There’s baby-faced Alden Ehrenreich, as Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story from Lucsfilm and Disney, aiming squarely at the viewer with an outsized handgun (and it is exactly that, whatever fantasy blast it is presumed to emit in the latest installment of the sci-fi epic). Just below, a smiling Emilia Clark, as Qi’ra, clutches a double-barreled pistol. They are flanked by Joonas Suotamo, Chewbacca, who totes the space equivalent of an...

Patricia Morison, the glamorous star who originated the role of the shrewish actress diva in the delightful 1948 Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate, has died. She was 103. Morison, who also appeared on stage opposite Yul Brynner in The King and I in such films as The Song of Bernadette (1943), died Sunday at her home in Los Angeles of natural causes. With a mane of exuberant, dark hair that reached her hips, Morison often was cast as a villainess or “the other woman” on the big screen.

Well, today was the big day for Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, so it seems appropriate to offer a few Royal romances as our Saturday movie date. The most directly relevant movie, Royal Wedding, made in 1947, was set in London against the background of Prince Harry's grandparents' nuptials and starred Fred Astaire and an actress whose dad was an actual guest at the actual real-life wedding - Sarah Churchill, daughter of Winston. But I'll say a few words about that tomorrow night in our Song of the Week department, and today cast our net a...