Latest Hollywood News Today Transcript at 7:30 PM on 26 May 2023

Let’s begin with our top story. A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Alison Mackenzie on Thursday, May 25th, said she will dismiss a lawsuit that the stars of 1968′s Romeo and Juliet filed over the film’s nude scene, finding that their depiction could not be considered child pornography and they filed their claim too late. She ruled in favour of a motion from defendant Paramount Pictures to dismiss the lawsuit. Mackenzie determined the scene was protected by the First Amendment, and also found that the suit didn’t fall within the bounds of a California law that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse and that a February re-release of the film did not change that.

Next up. Actor Freida Pinto recently took to Instagram to share a clip from a recent podcast where she talked about dealing with anxiety after the birth of her son Rumi-Ray in November 2021. The actor tied the knot with photographer Cory Tran in 2020. In the clip, Freida Pinto said, “I remember crying so much and feeling so alone and my parents had just about left to fly back to India and my husband was like you need to start seeing a therapist. The things you were saying and the things you are doing it is also feeling very self-sabotaging. You need the sleep but you are sitting up trying to fix things and plan things.”

Priyanka Chopra was recently a guest on the She Pivots podcast, hosted by Emily Tisch Sussman, where she spoke about returning to India as a 16-year-old and finding other girls in her Army school looked up to her because of this. She said that she felt ‘almost like a pirate’. The kids at her school in Bareilly were so impressed by her they even asked for her autograph. Asked if this attention encouraged her to pursue beauty pageants, Priyanka said. “You’re so right. In my vain, teenage mind, I was so popular in my small town because of the fact that I had come back from the States, and I would behave like I’m 22, even though I was 16.”

In some tragic news, Tina Turner, the American-born singer who became one of the top recording artists of all time, died Tuesday, May 23rd, after a long illness, according to her manager. With admirers ranging from Mick Jagger to Beyoncé to Mariah Carey, the ‘Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ was one of the world’s most popular entertainers, known for a core of pop, rock, and rhythm and blues favourite. Her trademarks included a growling contralto that might smoulder or explode, her bold smile and strong cheekbones, her palette of wigs, and the muscular, quick-stepping legs she did not shy from showing off.

Tina Turner was all set to play Shakti in a film to be directed by Ismail Merchant and visited Varanasi and Kerala for an exploratory trip. But the film, announced in the early 2000s, was not to be. Tina spoke eloquently about the project, The Goddess, in an interview in 2004 with Eastern Eye. She said, “The cosmic energy of Shakti attracted me to this film and the film to me. It signifies new energy, new abilities, and new beginnings. I fed the desire in me which wanted me to feel the energy of thousands of people in a stadium.” But the film could not lift off with Ismail Merchant’s sudden death in May 2005 after surgery.

In other news, the final trailer of The Flash has been unveiled by Warner Bros ahead of the film’s release on June 16. Starring Ezra Miller as Barry Allen, the movie has him travelling back in time in an attempt to alter his past and save his parents as he tries to “fix things”. Ben Affleck’s Batman warns him that he could “destroy everything”. In the flashback, he finds Michael Keaton’s Batman and coaxes him out of retirement. Barry’s motive to travel back in time is to save his mother, but as he attempts to do that, he meets a younger version of himself and sets a new timeline in motion.

Halle Bailey, who plays Ariel in the new The Little Mermaid movie, says she has been moved by videos of Black children and parents delighted by her history-making role. And then there was the video that hit closer to home, sent by her mother, of her grandparents viewing the film’s trailer and her grandfather crying as he watched it on repeat. Bailey told Reuters, “Special moments like that make me feel like I’m in the right place because they have been through so much. My grandmother remembers seeing her family members in the cotton fields.”

Lastly, based on the animated 1989 film and the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale of the same name, the new movie directed by Rob Marshall follows the mermaid Ariel, who makes a deal with a cruel sea witch, Ursula, in which Ariel trades her voice to become human and reunite with Prince Eric after rescuing him from a shipwreck. The cast includes Jonah Hauer-King as Eric, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, and Javier Bardem as King Triton. Among the voice actors, Daveed Diggs plays the crab Sebastian, Awkwafina is the diving bird Scuttle, and Jacob Tremblay is the fish Flounder. The movie was released today.

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