Entertainment Daypop Archives

22 years after “Mission: Impossible” first hit the big screen, the franchise’s sixth installment, “Fallout,” has made $23 million from 4,386 screens, to put the film on course for a $60 million opening weekend. “Fallout” is the highest raw opening in franchise history, passing that of “Mission: Impossible II” back in 2000. The film could set a new opening weekend record for leading man Tom Cruise, topping the $64.8 million launch for the 2005 adaptation of “War of the Worlds.”  “Fallout” is also the most critically successful film in the “M:I” series, becoming the first to earn an A from CinemaScore audience polls and also has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of the franchise with a “Certified Fresh” 98 percent rating from critics.

Disney has announced the cast for “Star Wars: Episode IX” and it will include the late Carrie Fisher. Fisher will reprise her role as Princess Leia Organa, using “previously unreleased footage shot for ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens,'” director J.J. Abrams announced Friday. Abrams added that with “the support and blessing” from Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, the film found a way “to honor Carrie’s legacy and role as Leia in ‘Episode IX’ by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII.” Fisher died in 2016 after suffering a cardiac event on a flight from London to Los Angeles. She was 60. Following her death, Disney said that it had “no plans to digitally recreate Fisher’s performance. “Star Wars: Episode IX” is set to premiere on December 20th, 2019.

Demi Lovato will seek drug abuse treatment following her hospitalization for an overdose, according to a source close to Lovato. The singer and actress has been surrounded by family and friends at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles since she was rushed to the hospital on Tuesday afternoon, and should be released from the hospital “soon.”  This will not be the first time Lovato has sought professional help for substance abuse. She previously entered rehab in 2010. Lovato has been open about her struggles with an addiction to cocaine and alcohol, as well as mental health issues and an eating disorder. In the hours after news of her hospitalization broke, fans of the singer took to social media with the hashtag, #HowDemiHasHelpedMe to talk about how she and her music have helped them with their own struggles. Lovato has been touring and promoting her music in recent months. She last performed July 22 at the California Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles, California.

Oscar-nominated actor Michelle Williams dropped some big news in a new Vanity Fair profile — the 37-year-old married musician Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie in a “secret ceremony in the Adirondacks.” The two met through a mutual friend, the profile revealed. Both Williams and Elverum have young daughters. Williams was in a relationship with actor Heath Ledger from 2004 to 2007 and the two had a daughter together, named Matilda. Ledger died in 2008 of an accidental overdose. Elverum, a singer-songwriter who performs under the name Mount Eerie, has been married before, to Geneviève Castrée. Castrée was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in 2015, just months after the birth of the couple’s daughter; she died shortly after. Elverum moved to Brooklyn, New York, to live with Williams and each of their daughters in July. “I never gave up on love,” Williams told Vanity Fair.  Williams said that she wanted to share her story in the hopes that it could help or inspire other women who have “struggled as much as I struggled.”

On Tuesday, Emmy-winning writer Lena Waithe signed a first-look deal with Showtime. Waithe will be developing comedy and drama projects for the premium cable network in which she will both write and produce. Showtime’s President of Programming Gary Levine said in a statement: “Lena is a creative force of nature and we are delighted that the force will be with us as she makes Showtime her creative home.” Waithe has written for such shows as M.O. Diaries, Hello Cupid, and Bones before her winning the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Master Of None. She went on to create The Chi and has also worked in front of the camera in projects like The Comeback, Transparent, This Is Us, Dear White People and this year’s Steven Spielberg-directed Pop Culture epic Ready Player One. Waithe’s latest script, Queen & Slim, starring Daniel Kaluuya, will be going into production this January at Universal.