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Fox News Flash top entertainment headlines 5/24

Fox News Flash top entertainment and celebrity headlines are here. Check out what clicked this week in entertainment.

“Top Gun” star Tom Skerritt is sharing his thoughts on the movie’s sequel and reflecting on the original 1986 film. 

Skerritt, who starred as Commander Mike “Viper” Metcalf in the original, opened up about what made “Top Gun” iconic during a recent interview with Fox News Digital.

“The music had a lot to do with it by the way,” he said. “But the screenplay itself, which I’ve always honored as being the whole reason for a good show, and you just write the work … and do the job you have good material for the rest of us to work with. And I really believed in that screenplay.”

Skerritt starred in the film alongside a young Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and others such as Kelly McGillis.

Tom Skerritt starred in the original “Top Gun” as Cdr. Mike “Viper” Metcalf.
(Photo by CBS)

Tom Cruise as Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, Anthony Edwards as Lt. Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, Michael Ironside as Lt. Cdr. Dick “Jester” Wetherly and Tom Skerritt as Cdr. Mike “Viper” Metcalf in the film “Top Gun.”
(Photo by CBS)

‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’: MEG RYAN AND KELLY MCGILLIS WEREN’T ASKED TO RETURN, DIRECTOR CONFIRMS

“Everybody was having a good time on this. We all knew, or maybe I just sensed it, that this was going to be a very successful film.”

As for working with the 25-year-old Cruise, Skerritt told Fox News Digital that he met the actor while still in talks with Tony Scott, the director, and the producers.

“He was clearly a nice young man, 25, aware that he was going to rise with this film. He didn’t say that, but I assumed that by discussion we had. He knew he was going to rise with “Top Gun.”

“Everybody was having a good time on this. We all knew, or maybe I just sensed it, that this was going to be a very successful film.”

— Tom Skerritt on filming 1986’s ‘Top Gun’

When it comes to the sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick,” Skerritt explained to Fox News Digital: “I think it’s going to be a lot of aeronautical engineering on display, a lot of going shooting straight up into the sky and going as high as you can go.”

“I think we’re going to just watch some guys do some crazy flying, and … they’re going to have a lot of fun, but it’s not going to have the storyline the original had. You can’t revive something that’s already been done.”

The film was released in theaters on May 27 after a two-year delay due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Skerritt weighed in on “Top Gun: Maverick” during an interview with Fox News Digital. 
(Photo by Mat Hayward)

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Before starring in the ’80s action-drama film, Skerritt spent time in the United States Air Force. The actor admitted he joined the United States Air Force with the intention of learning to fly a plane, but didn’t ever get to.

“Military’s military, whatever the service you’re in,” he told Fox News Digital. “One is a little rougher than others. That would be the Marines. But I never got to fly, which was something I thought would be a dream for me to do. I had an older brother who was a P-51 pilot in World War II, and I loved him and I loved him for what he did.”

“He was clearly a nice young man, 25, aware that he was going to rise with this film.”

— Tom Skerritt on Tom Cruise

“At 17, I enlisted right out of high school,” he continued. “I thought maybe I can sneak in and become a pilot, which was not possible. I had no math skills whatsoever, and I had a good four years of learning how to behave myself.”

As Memorial Day quickly approaches, the actor-turned-producer explained what the day means to him.

Memorial Day means a lot to Skerritt, who served in the military himself and runs a program for veterans.
(Photo by George Pimentel/WireImage)

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“It’s quite a bit because I have my own experience in the military,” Skerritt said. “I had my brother in the military.”

Skerritt also co-founded the Red Badge Project alongside former Army Captain Evan Bailey in 2012. The program helps veterans “discover greater self-acceptance and efficacy as they find their voice, and produce stories inspired by their life experiences,” according to the Red Badge Project’s website.

Skerritt further explained: “I also have a school here called Red Badge where we teach post-traumatic stress vets how to tell a story because there’s wonderful therapy about being able to write a story, whether it’s true or whether it’s recovering from some very bad moments that they had. And that’s what the day is for me.”

Fox News’ Larry Fink contributed to this report.

Lauryn Overhultz is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital.

I continue to play Framed every day, a browser quiz in which you attempt to guess a movie based on an image from the film. Get it wrong and it shows you another image, and so on.

The terribly named Moviedle does something different. The aim, again, is to identify a movie, but instead of a single frame, it squeezes the entire movie into a single second. Get it wrong and you get a two-second version, and so on.

Baz Luhrmann was never going to make a biopic. His film about Elvis Presley, the highest-selling recording artist of all time, was always going to be about so much more than the man himself. It is a million-mile-a-minute show, a performance of greed and ambition and loneliness and despair and grief and bravery. Elvis is a film about performing, which is what all of Baz Luhrmann’s films have always been about. It wasn’t going to start getting easy now.

Instead of diving deep into the mind of the man who had the talent to write and sing all the records that got him – and us – to where we are today, Elvis says more about the man who manipulated that talent as if his life depended on it. For Luhrmann, hopelessly devoted to the tragic romance of an omniscient narrator, it makes sense to have Tom Hanks’ wildly unreliable Colonel Tom Parker (not actually a colonel, nor a Tom, or even a Parker) hold our hand here – but that doesn’t mean it works.

It is, of course, a good thing that the man playing Elvis is unquestionably good at playing Elvis. But he’s gasping for air in between Hank’s Dutch riff on Jim Broadbent’s Moulin Rouge! ringmaster – somewhat studying his source material but getting lost in his director’s ever-increasingly camp worlds that will always take greater care of the spectacle than the people, be they puppets or their puppeteers.

Yet there is still a strange amount to love in this beast of a film – as despite a bloated runtime of two hours and 40 minutes there still remains so much undiscovered about Elvis (his film career is touched on in sentences, his marriage only punctuated by one Kacey Musgraves cover and a forlorn epilogue to send us off) in this dizzying distillation of his life and work. It can feel like the very best and worst live music experiences, waiting for the chatty interludes to pass before getting back to the hits as much as you then yawn at every overindulgent live solo or audience interaction wasting time. It’s all too much, but you miss it the second it ends.

Although, the details Luhrmann does zero in on – and ends up blowing up until they blind you – are fascinating. In the early days of Presley’s career, much is made of his “wiggle”, with his compulsion to move his hips quickly becoming an essential part of his work as a musician. Today it’s a bit of fun, back then it was a crime. Crash zooms onto Butler’s crotch thrill onscreen teens and painfully echo the seasick filmmaking style of Bohemian Rhapsody (the similarities end with both films’ love of extremes), geeing the film up to become the story of something much more frenetic than the life of a man who, beneath all that shaking, was in a lot of pain.

Again, it’s not a biopic, and so Luhrmann brushes over Presley’s struggle with alcohol and pills (Hanks as Parker growls just one line of narration – so let’s say six seconds out of approximately 9000) to allow more time each time to return to the superstar’s gruelling five-year residency in Las Vegas (knowing, at least, to sour the tone of ‘Viva Las Vegas’ for just a minute.) It is much more about mood than the specific moments that made up Presley, finding curious and compelling parallels in his music and the striking emotional beats of his life.

Of course, ‘If I Can Dream’ tells its own story, Presley’s version performed just two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King (which the film heavily leans into) but then megahits like ‘Suspicious Minds’ colour the screen retelling with its own tension that adds even greater depth to the song. It seems, thank god, that the compilation album Luhrmann boasted – featuring the likes of Eminem, Tame Impala, Maneskin, Diplo and Kacey Musgraves – is mostly relegated to the charts and “Inspired By” shelves as opposed to dubbing Presley’s back catalogue in the film. Plus, that would be a criminal act when Butler sings the king’s songs so well.

The young actor was raised by the House of Mouse and popped up in sugar-sweet teen stories like Sex and the City prequel series The Carrie Diaries and before that Nickelodeon’s Zoey 101. There’s never been much questioning his talent, with a more recent foray into arthouse territory with two prior Cannes titles in Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die and Once Upon A Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino, but he’s never had the chance to take to the stage like this. Talking, singing, wiggling, walking, Butler is Presley and Presley is Butler.

But at the end of it all, it will always be just another Baz Luhrmann film. It is his show, his obsession with spectacle, tragedy, opulence and romance. The story of a boy nobody believed in who gave the world the best night of their life. A celebration of everything the filmmaker’s ever done, a middle finger to those who never believed in the king. A legacy to cherish forever.

Elvis will be released in cinemas on June 24

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paramount Pictures just dropped enough news to fill a whole year’s worth of Hall H Comic-Con panels. Transformers, Star Trek, Sonic, Ninja Turtles, Halo, Quiet Place, and more all had significant news revealed during a company investors’ call Tuesday and here’s how it broke down.

Obviously, we know there’s a lot of Star Trek on paramount+. But the state of the theatrical film has been up in the air for a while. Well, no more. Deadline broke the news, and J.J. Abrams confirmed, that a new Star Trek film is likely to film starting later this year featuring the original cast. No, not that original cast—Abrams’ original cast, including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Zoe Saldana. Matt Shakman is directing.

That alone would be massive news but it’s just the start. We already knew that Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was coming in 2023. But now we know that it’ll be “the first of three new installments” in the franchise. A CG animated movie is also coming in 2024 and a new Transformers animated show will be on Nickelodeon in the fall. It’s called Transformers: Earthspark. And here’s a look.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is coming to theaters April 8, but that’s just the beginning. A third film in the feature film franchise is already in the works and a TV spinoff starring Knuckles is on the way to paramount+. And yes, Knuckles will still be voiced by Idris Elba.

We’ll keep going. The new Halo show doesn’t debut until March 24 but a second season has already been greenlit. “Halo is an expansive, world-building opportunity for paramount+, and we’re thrilled to give fans a second season to look forward to before we launch the series next month,” said Tanya Giles, chief programming officer of paramount+. “Halo will deliver a thrill-ride for fans of the game and non-gamers alike, as it ties together stunning visuals with a deeper look at the personal stories behind these iconic characters, all set within an epic battle for the future of humanity.”

Anything else? Yes. A new Quiet Place movie will be released next year from director Michael Sarnoski followed by a A Quiet Place Part III in 2025. Teen Wolf (the TV show based the 1980s movie) is coming back as its own movie that’ll act as a set up for a paramount+ series called Wolf Pack.

Anything happening under the sea? Of course. Three new SpongeBob “character-driven movies” are being made exclusively for paramount+, with “a big theatrical tentpole” in the works as well. Sticking with animation, 2023 will see the theatrical release of a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film from producer Seth Rogen as well as “a series of villain-driven” Turtles films exclusively for the streaming service.

What about for the kids? A Blue’s Clues movie called Blue’s Big City Adventure, is coming this year, with a full-length Baby Shark also in development next year (and now that song is stuck in your head). There’s a new Dora the Explorer animated series on the way too as well as a live-action series inspired by the recent theatrical movie.

So yeah, a pretty big day for paramount news. Especially when you realize there’s also South Park, Beavis and Butthead Monster High, and Paw Patrol news too. Head over to paramount’s Twitter to read it all.

Wondering where our RSS feed went? You can pick the new up one here.

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Fox News Flash top entertainment headlines May 24

Fox News Flash top entertainment and celebrity headlines are here. Check out what clicked this week in entertainment.

Tom Cruise earned the biggest movie launch of his career with “Top Gun: Maverick,” bringing in a projected $151 million at the box office during Memorial Day weekend.

The paramount film, which was delayed multiple times due to the coronavirus pandemic, now holds the record for the second-best Memorial Day opening of all time behind Johnny Depp’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” which earned $153 million when it was released in 2007.

Global totals were also expected to exceed $275 million despite not playing in either China or Russia, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Top Gun” was off to a staggering $51.8 million start on Friday with more than $19 million in previews from 4,700 theaters in North America.

‘TOP GUN’ STAR TOM SKERITT EXPLAINS WHY THE ORIGINAL MOVIE WAS ICONIC, DETAILS FILMING WITH TOM CRUISE

Tom Cruise attends the Japan premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick” on May 24, 2022, in Yokohama.
(Ken Ishii)

Ticket buyers gave the Jerry Bruckheimer film an A+ on CinemaScore, with more than 70% of the audience over the age of 25 and 55% of viewers over the age of 35.

Despite being one of Hollywood’s heaviest hitters, Cruise had never had a bigger opening since 2005’s “War of the Worlds” with Dakota Fanning. 

The science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg grossed $64.9 million during the three-day weekend. 

Comscore also noted “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” earned $61.2 million in 2018, but Cruise’s films have all opened to less than $60 million.

Cruise said “Top Gun” would “never” make its theatrical debut on a streaming network despite years of setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cruise and the “Top Gun” team touched down at the Cannes Film Festival last week for the European premiere, a spectacle that included eight fighter jets flying high above the Palais with red and blue smoke streaming behind to match the colors of the French flag.

Tom Cruise at the “Top Gun: Maverick” premiere during the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival.
(Lionel Hahn)

TOM CRUISE TAKES JAMES CORDEN ON ‘TERRIFYING’ FLIGHTS AHEAD OF ‘TOP GUN: MAVERICK’ RELEASE 

Festival President Pierre Lescure also announced Cruise as the recipient of a surprise Palme d’Or award – about 15 honorary Palmes have been given before – on stage with an audience that gave a standing ovation just before the sequel’s screening began.

The 59-year-old actor returned to Cannes for the first time in three decades and walked alongside his “Top Gun” co-stars, including Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm and Glen Powell. The last time he attended the star-studded event was in 1992 with ex-wife Nicole Kidman for their “Far and Away” flick directed by Ron Howard.

“Maverick” was initially supposed to be released in July 2019 through paramount Pictures but was postponed in August 2018 “to allow the production to work out all the complex flight sequences,” according to Deadline.

When asked if he felt pressure to release the film in any capacity on a streaming network, Cruise assured the audience it would “never” happen.

Director Joseph Kosinski, Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell, Jay Ellis, Greg Tarzan Davis, Lewis Pullman and Jon Hamm attend the screening of “Top Gun: Maverick” at the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival, May 18, 2022.
(Dominique Charriau)

“That was not going to happen ever,” Cruise said while laughing in excerpts published on The Hollywood Reporter. “That was never going to happen.”

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Cruise recalled picking up his phone and dialing each cast member every time the movie’s release date was pushed back just to reassure everyone to remain calm and focused on what they created. 

Cruise remembered telling his co-stars: “Don’t worry, this is going to happen.”

Days before the worldwide shutdown in March 2020, paramount moved the film up two days early for a release on June 24, 2020, but that was subsequently pushed back to Dec. 23. In July 2020, the film received another new schedule change by one year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Cruise’s schedule, and “Mulan” and “Tenet” being scheduled for release on the same days.

Tom Cruise worked with Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Tim Robbins and Anthony Edwards in the original 1986 film “Top Gun.”
(paramount Pictures)

The studio’s scheduling woes continued when the film was pushed back again in April 2021 for a November release and again in September 2021, when executives finally landed on the May 27, 2022, launch date.

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Cruise first starred as Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a young naval aviator aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, in 1986. He worked with Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Tim Robbins and Anthony Edwards.

“Maverick’s” first world premiere was where “Top Gun” all began nearly 40 years ago in San Diego, California.

Tracy Wright is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. 

By Frank Pallotta, CNN Business

Updated 12:47 PM ET, Mon June 27, 2022

She said, “When you’re a kid, you’re fearless, but starting at 26 years old, I had a lot of fear.”