Seth Rogen Did Not Want ‘TMNT’ Animators Overworked and Suffering, Told Director That Work Should Not ‘Become Their Entire Lives’

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Shazam!” star Zachary Levi railed against Hollywood “garbage” during an appearance at Chicago Fan Expo (via Entertainment Weekly). The actor urged attendees at the event to “actively not choose” to seek out garbage movies. Levi’s own 2023 release, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” is one of the biggest studio flops of the year.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director With the long “Elvis” awards season behind him, Austin Butler is gearing up for two major upcoming releases: Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part 2” and the Apple TV+ miniseries “Masters of the Air.” The latter comes from executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and serves as the third installment in their long-running World War II saga that also includes the acclaimed “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.” In a recent interview with The Times of London, Butler revealed that he nabbed a starring role in “Masters of the Air” after Hanks grew concerned about his mental health on “Elvis.” According to Butler, Hanks told him: “You have immersed yourself so deeply in ‘Elvis’ that, for your mental health, it would be wise to go straight into something else. If you just jump off the train, you might have emotional whiplash… and, you know, I’ve got this thing I’m producing.'” Butler said “Elvis” forced him “to go to the very edge of what is possible, and not every experience will be like that.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Aaron Taylor-Johnson revealed to Esquire magazine that he turned down “big, huge franchises” after he started making a name for himself in Hollywood with roles in blockbusters such as “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Godzilla.” Those back-to-back releases made Taylor-Johnson one of the hottest young actors in Hollywood, but he actively rejected more franchises to spend time with his family. “There was ‘Kick-Ass’ and then there was ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Avengers,’ and all those things lined up for me,” Taylor-Johnson said. “But I didn’t really care for them…[I was up for movies] that nobody knows about—big, huge franchises that were in play.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Candyman” filmmaker Nia DaCosta is making her superhero directorial debut with Marvel’s upcoming “The Marvels,” a sequel to “Captain Marvel” that teams Brie Larson’s eponymous superhero with Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau from “WandaVision” and Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan from “Ms. Marvel.” It’s been a shaky year for comic book tentpoles, with Marvel’s own “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and other films like “The Flash” and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” flopping at the box office. Marvel is surely hoping “The Marvels” pans out more like “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Full House” alum Jodie Sweetin expressed disappointment to People magazine over her new film, “Craft Me a Romance,” being sold to the Great American Family (GAF) network, which counts her former co-star Candace Cameron Bure as its chief creative officer. Bure ignited controversy last fall after she told The Wall Street Journal that GAF would be keeping “traditional marriage at the core” of its output, meaning it would be highly unlikely for GAF shows and films to include LGBTQ+ couples. “Sometimes, we, as actors, don’t have control over which network buys the projects we are in, nor are we a part of the process in which they get sold,” Sweetin said in a statement.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Rob Lowe said on a recent episode of the “Podcrushed” podcast (via Entertainment Weekly) that exiting “The West Thing” after four seasons was “the best thing” he ever did since his run on the show was “super unhealthy.” Lowe starred as White House communications director Sam Seaborn in Aaron Sorkin’s acclaimed NBC drama. He was written out of the show in Season 4 amid rumors of behind-the-scenes salary disputes. He said on the podcast that he felt “undervalued” during his time on the series.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director David Harbour is back in theaters this month opposite Orlando Bloom in Sony’s “Gran Turismo,” but he’s well aware the public will continue to recognize him for his role as Hopper on Netflix’s blockbuster series “Stranger Things.” With the fifth and final season of the show still left to film once the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are resolved, Harbour told Insider that he’s fully planning on acting in films exclusively once “Stranger Things” wrapped. Harbour had a strong run as a character actor in films such as “Brokeback Mountain” and “Revolutionary Road” before his star profile exploded with the success of “Stranger Things.” His first attempt to parlay the success of “Stranger Things” into a movie career failed thanks to the box office bomb that was “Hellboy,” but he got things back on track with Marvel’s “Black Widow” and Universal’s “Violent Night,” a modestly-budgeted original action comedy that turned a profit.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Steven Soderbergh recently spoke to Rolling Stone while promoting his new series “Command Z” about the origins of his friendship with fellow filmmaker Christopher Nolan. According to the “Traffic” and “Ocean’s Eleven” director, a Warner Bros. executive refused to meet with Nolan about a potential directing gig for the studio’s thriller “Insomnia.” The exec allegedly disliked Nolan’s “Memento,” which counted Soderbergh as one of its biggest fans.

The animators of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem were taken care of by not being overworked. Director Jeff Rowe and producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg made sure the staff could work on the animated movie while continuing to maintain a good work-life balance.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Sex and the City” star Chris Noth spoke on the record for the first time to USA Today about the multiple sexual assault allegations made against him in 2021. The actor denied wrongdoing, but he admitted to cheating on his wife. “I strayed on my wife, and it’s devastating to her and not a very pretty picture,” he said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Now that “Barbie” has officially crossed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, speculation about a potential sequel has intensified tenfold. Greta Gerwig, who directed “Barbie” in addition to co-writing its script with Noah Baumbach, told The New York Times she has no ideas yet for a “Barbie 2.” However, she also told People magazine before the film joined the $1 billion club that she hoped her movie “is the launch of a world and a bunch of different Barbie movies.” “There’s a tone and a humor and a joy, and obviously the world is so beautiful,” Gerwig told the publication. “I want to go back to Barbie Land.” Margot Robbie was less assertive when asked about a “Barbie” sequel in pre-release interviews.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director David Ayer is keeping hope alive for his “Suicide Squad” director’s cut, dubbed the “Ayer Cut” on social media. In a recent post on X, the director informed his fans that new DC Studios boss James Gunn told him that the Ayer Cut “would have its time to be shared.” Ayer provided no further information. Warner Bros.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Adam Devine appeared on Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast during his press tour for Netflix’s “The Out-Laws” and shared his theory that Marvel movies and other superhero films killed the traditional Hollywood comedy. The “Workaholics” and “Pitch Perfect” alum noted that because Marvel movies rely so much on humor (see the “Ant-Man” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchises, for instance), they ended up becoming Hollywood’s new de facto comedy films. “You watch comedies nowadays and you’re like, this is not a fucking comedy,” Devine said.

While “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is one of the most acclaimed films of the year, seemingly on track to land a second Best Animated Feature Oscar for the franchise, the film did have a bit of controversy after its release. You see, there were reports from folks who worked on the film that said the filmmakers involved treated animators poorly and overworked them.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Will Smith told Kevin Hart on a new episode of Peacock’s “Hart to Heart” talk show that he “went too far” as an actor while portraying a slave in the Apple drama “Emancipation.” The film, Smith’s first release after the notorious Oscars slap, centered on the true story of a runaway slave named Peter, a photograph of whom became a rallying call for the abolition of slavery as it depicted his mutilated back scars from several whippings. “I went too far in ‘Emancipation,’” Smith said. “Just bringing it up, I start to get teary.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Greta Gerwig celebrated her 40th birthday just as “Barbie” was getting ready to cross the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. The feat has made “Barbie” the first movie solo directed by a female filmmaker to cross the box office milestone.

according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo.The Margot Robbie-led flick is expected to hit the billion-dollar mark globally before Monday, which would make its director Greta Gerwig the first solo female director to achieve that goal, CNBC reported.“Meg 2: The Trench,” the sequel to the 2018 original, landed in second, with $12 million in sales.The sci-fi action flick starring Jason Statham, which the Hollywood Reporter said brings “his rugged charm and tough-guy self-irony to sparkling dialogue,” is based on a 1999 novel.In third place was “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” which was released on Wednesday and took home $9.3 million on Friday.The Post called the reboot the Turtles “finest hour,” and said its directors Jeff Rowe and Kyler Spears “bet big on the title and shrewdly explore what it would be like to live as a hormonal, teenage, mutant, ninja turtle.”“Oppenheimer,” which was in second place last Friday, slipped to fourth, with an $8.3 million take. The Christopher Nolan biopic has already earned $500 million globally and is expected to hit over $551 million through Sunday, according to Deadline.Disney’s “Haunted Mansion,” which was in the No.

J. Kim Murphy The summer box office season may have reached the dog days of August, but it’s hardly looked stronger over the past few months.

Promoting their new flick “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”, Seth Rogen and Ice Cube sat down to devour some snacks on the rapper’s new series, “Snacked”.

, but this time there's one major difference — the titular turtles are actually played by teenagers!«They're often middle-aged men doing Teenage-Voiced Mutant Ninja Turtles,» joked Seth Rogen when he sat down with ET's Will Marfuggi to talk about how a life-long love of the titular turtles led to writing and producing the latest installment in the long-running franchise.«I was really the target audience for the first iteration of all this stuff,» he explained, noting that he watched the cartoons and movies as a kid and was «obsessed» with the toys. «My dad bought like, a big box of used toys at a garage sale when I was a kid, and so I had those and I played with them so much.»However, Rogen admitted, «I always thought that the 'Teenage' part of it was weirdly under-explored, you know?»For his movie, the star added in more details about the turtles' desire to be just regular teens, and wanted the cast to be made up of voice actors that were closer in age to their characters than past iterations.star Brady Noon, 17, is Raphael, the bravest and strongest — but also most impulsive — of his brothers, who wears a red mask and fights with two pronged sai weapons.

One of this summer’s biggest surprises is the pure entertainment to be found scene-by-scene in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” an inspired take on a once-blockbuster property that had previously been collecting dust in the IP toy box.