Free Republic

Actor Billy Eichner has spent years smearing conservatives and Republicans, attacking Christianity, and lashing out at just about anybody who disagrees with him politically. The star of Disney’s The Lion King just watched his $22 million LGBTQ romantic comedy make an abysmal $4 million in its Box Office debut over the weekend. In response to the film’s poor performance, an angry Eichner appears to blame (at least) two things: homophobia and “straight people in a certain parts of the country.” The film, trumpeted as Hollywood’s first major gay romcom, initially received enthusiastic acclaim from critics but has been largely ignored...

Saturday AM Update: While it’s clear that The Lion King is bound to be the king of July, overtaking Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($169.1M), the pic, after clocking an estimated $78.5M yesterday, is now headed to $192M-$200M for the weekend, which, for the second half of the calendar year, is the third-best opening after Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($247.9M) and Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($220M). For director Jon Favreau, Lion King is easily the best opening of his career, leaping far beyond the debut of Iron Man 2 ($128M.1). How much front-loading will occur...

More than 50,000 people have signed a petition accusing Disney of “colonialism and robbery” after it trademarked the Swahili phrase “hakuna matata”. The expression means “no problem” in Swahili, which is spoken across east Africa and is a national language of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The petition, which calls on Disney to drop its trademark, precedes the release of the company’s motion capture remake of The Lion King next summer, which will be voiced by Beyoncé, Donald Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The phrase was popularised in 1982 by the Kenyan band Them Mushrooms, whose...

Emmy Award-winning actor Robert Guillaume, best known as the title character in the TV sitcom “Benson,” died Tuesday. He was 89. His wife Donna Brown Guillaume told the Associated Press he died at their Los Angeles home of complications of prostate cancer. Guillaume often played acerbic, dry-witted, but ultimately lovable characters like the butler Benson Du Bois, which he created on the 1977 series “Soap,” before his character was spun off in 1979. Guillaume won Emmys both for “Soap” (as supporting actor) and “Benson” (as lead actor). He was also known as the the voice of Rafiki in “The Lion...