Entertainment

Who's the smartest celebrity? We'll get an answer, kind of, with Thursday night's Celebrity Jeopardy! finale.

Host Mayim Bialik tells ABC Audio that finalists Wil Wheaton, Ike Barinholtz, and Patton Oswalt are "three very, very, very smart people and three very funny people and three very competitive people who are taking this very seriously" -- for the most part, anyway.

"When you're at this level, it's definitely, it's competitive as it feels like when we do syndicated Jeopardy!. It honestly didn't really feel that different," she says, except that she "got to laugh a lot more" and had to work harder to keep them in line, because "sometimes they kind of go off on riffs and they played off each other in ways that even funny Jeopardy! contestants who are not celebrities don't necessarily like keep the jokes going."

"...It kind of feels like you get to know them, you know, in a different way," she adds. "I guess that's why people feel like they know celebrities because here I am feeling like I know all of these people."

While she's settled quite nicely into her role as Jeopardy! host, Bialik -- who has a Ph.D. in neuroscience -- was never a Celebrity Jeopardy! contestant and doesn't think she'd have been good anyway.

"I do absolutely have a general knowledge, you know, particularly in science and Jewish history, you know, Bible, like those are things that I feel comfortable with, but I'm a very nervous performer in general and very nervous even at kind of like being myself," she shares. "I did Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, for example, for charity, and I cried just before anything started happening, just from anticipation. So I'm not like your best contestant." 

Celebrity Jeopardy! airs Thursday, February 2 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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On Wednesday, Lucasfilm released "Phenomenon," a sizzle reel of scenes and interview clips promoting its Emmy-winning, well, phenomenon known as The Mandalorian.

The celebration of the show features interview clips with creator Jon Favreau and fellow executive producer Dave Filoni, as well as snippets from its stars, including Pedro Pascal and Carl Weathers, who not only racked up a director credit on the show, but also plays Greef Karga on the series. "Everywhere I've gone, people want to talk about The Mandalorian," the Rocky veteran says.

Naturally, there's plenty of footage of the show's "breakout star," Baby Yoda aka Grogu.

The Mandalorian's third season comes to Disney+ March 1.

Lucasfilm, like ABC News, is a subsidiary of parent company Disney.

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Amazon Studios' hit The Terminal List is growing, times two. Variety reports that not only did the Chris Pratt-starring and producing vehicle get a second season from the streamer, Amazon has also given the go-ahead to a prequel series centering on Taylor Kitsch's character from the original.

Adapted from former Navy SEAL Jack Carr's novel of the same name, The Terminal List debuted July 1 and starred Pratt as James Reece, a SEAL who unravels a deadly conspiracy after his team of special operators is decimated in an ambush.

Kitsch played Ben Edwards, Reece's former battle buddy who helps him along thanks to his connections with his new employer, the CIA.

Variety says the Kitsch prequel series will follow his early years with the agency and will be produced by Terminal List vet David DiGilio, Pratt, Carr and Antoine Fuqua.

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It might be hard to fathom, but The Fast and the Furious made its pop culture debut way back in 2001. And to rev fans up about the release of the penultimate film in the franchise that has grossed billions of dollars, Universal is shifting into reverse.

The studio just dropped what it calls The Fast and the Furious - Legacy Trailer, a coming attraction to the movie that started it all.

So if you've forgotten that the franchise that saw its characters launching a car into space in Fast 9 actually started as a niche street racing film, with a heist of DVD players from a truck considered a major action set piece, now's your chance to look back at Vin Diesel, the late Paul Walker and the rest of the family in their first adventure.

The new/old trailer also teases, "In 9 days, the end of the road begins," referring to Fast X, the 10th of a planned 11-film series.

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After the HBO series The Last of Us used Linda Ronstadt's 1970 hit "Long, Long Time" in its third episode Sunday night, streams of the track jumped by 4,900%. While Ronstadt hasn't seen the episode, she's happy about the renewed interest in the song — even though she won't make any money from it.

That's because, as Billboard notes, "Long, Long Time" was written by Gary White and in 2021, Linda sold the rights to the royalties from her master recordings to legendary music manager Irving Azoff's Iconic Artists Group. Consequently, they'll get the money, not Linda.

"I still love the song and I’m very glad that Gary will get a windfall," she tells Billboard via email. In fact, she only found out that the song was in the episode when her manager told her, and he only knew about it because a friend told him about it. “I don’t follow social media or streaming services very closely,” Ronstadt notes.

Linda's manager, John Boylan, tells Billboard that she's not "unhappy" about missing out on the cash, noting that it'll help draw attention to the singer's upcoming projects, including a biopic. Linda doesn't perform anymore due to a brain disorder that resembles Parkinson's disease.

She tells Billboard that she first heard "Long, Long Time" in 1969, when White performed it for her after a show in New York City. "I immediately wanted to record it,” she says. “It wasn’t a country song, wasn’t a folk song, or a rock song, but I thought it was a really good song.”

In The Last of Us, the song is used several times, both the original and a version performed by the episode's characters. No spoilers, but let's just say you should have a box of Kleenex handy when you watch it.

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One of the biggest hits of 2022, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, is now streaming on Disney+. The movie recently earned five Academy Award nominations, including a Best Actress honor for Angela Bassett, who became Marvel Studio's first actor to be nominated.

The cast and co-writer/director Ryan Coogler had to grapple with the loss of Chadwick Boseman, who, unbeknownst to them, was already ill with the cancer that would eventually take his life in 2020 when they made the original blockbuster.

Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o's character, Nakia, was the love interest to Boseman's T'Challa, but when we meet her in Wakanda Forever, she's made peace with her loss — and one of her reasons is revealed in an after-credits scene.

The actress says she was raw and "wanted to express it" after losing Boseman, the way Letitia Wright's Shuri does on-screen as T'Challa's grieving sister. But Lupita says she's eternally grateful to Coogler for letting her learn from her character. "As much as I was frustrated with Ryan that we're doing that with Nakia, actually playing her was very therapeutic for me, you know? Because I had to look beyond my frustrations with losing Chadwick and learn from her, learn from that wisdom that she seems to possess."

She expresses, "In the first film, Ryan described her as T'Challa's oasis, and that really, really resonated with me. And so when I was reading this script and thinking about where she is, I realized that what she was to T'Challa she now has the opportunity to offer Shuri."

Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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James Spader's antihero Raymond Reddington is finally facing a challenge even he won't escape: NBC has announced The Blacklist will end with the upcoming 10th season.

The series has Spader playing the U.S. Naval Intelligence officer-turned criminal-turned FBI informant who helps the Feds hunt down the world's worst criminals in exchange for his freedom.

The 10th season debut will air on February 26 at 10 p.m. ET, with the hit series' landmark 200th episode slated for March 19. The network started its send-off with a teaser of the upcoming season. "There's an end waiting for all of us," Spader's fan favorite character appropriately says in the snippet.

In a statement, showrunner and executive producer John Eisendrath expressed, "After 10 years, hundreds of Blacklist cases and more than 200 episodes produced, we're honored to reach our conclusion."

He noted, "It's been incredibly fun to create the strange, devious and delightful Blacklisters to challenge Raymond Reddington and our FBI Task Force each week." He thanked the network, producers, writers and crew, adding, "We appreciate our dedicated fanbase who came along for this wonderful ride and are excited to share this final season with them."

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While James Gunn and Peter Safran made headlines with their reveal on Tuesday of their big- and small-screen plans for the DC Universe, one comment wasn't as widely covered: Warner Bros. Discovery's support of embattled actor Ezra Miller.

The fate of his forthcoming movie The Flash had been questioned by both fans and industry insiders following a string of arrests, including for assault and burglary. In August, Miller, who uses they/them pronouns, announced they were seeking treatment for "complex mental health issues" and wanted "to apologize to everyone that I have alarmed and upset with my past behavior."

On Tuesday, Variety quoted Gunn's DC Studios co-chair Safran as saying, "Ezra is completely committed to their recovery. And we are fully supportive of that journey that they're on right now."

He added, "When the time is right, when they feel like they're ready to have the discussion, we'll all figure out what the best path forward is. But right now, they are completely focused on their recovery. And in our conversations with them over the last couple of months, it feels like they're making enormous progress."

For his part, Gunn praised Miller's upcoming movie, which was directed by It's Andrés Muschietti and is expected to hit theaters June 16. "I will say here that Flash is probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made," said the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise vet.

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The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences CEO says that To Leslie star Andrea Riseborough's best actress Oscar nomination will not be rescinded after many questioned the way she earned the recognition.

In a statement from Academy CEO Bill Kramer addressing the controversy and the film's grassroots campaigning tactics, Kramer said, "The activity in question does not rise to the level that the film’s nomination should be rescinded."

Kramer did, however, say that the academy found "social media and outreach campaigning tactics that caused concern" and that the tactics "are being addressed with the responsible parties directly."

The nomination led many to question how the Michael Morris-directed film, about a single mom struggling to survive after she wins the lottery, had gone largely unmentioned by previous award shows and critics groups, yet still earned a best actress nod.

Leading up to her nomination, stars including Gwyneth Paltrow, Amy Adams and Minnie Driver expressed their support for Riseborough on social media or by hosting screenings of To Leslie to urge academy members to vote for her.

In one Instagram post from Paltrow, the Academy Award winner shared a photo of herself with Riseborough and Morris and called the little-seen film a masterpiece. She also added, "...Andrea should win every award there is and all the ones that haven't been invented yet."

The academy has a set of rules when it comes to campaigning for a film to ensure fairness. In a statement released Friday, it said it is conducting a review of the campaign procedures around this year's nominees, explaining "guidelines may be needed in a new era of social media and digital communication."

In his statement Tuesday, Kramer promised that "changes will be made after this awards cycle and will be shared with our membership."

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Variety reports Dr. Phil McGraw will be ending his long-running daytime talk show after 21 seasons. The 72-year-old TV psychologist -- who got his start as a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the late 1990s, before launching his own series in the fall of 2002 -- made the decision to stop producing new episodes at the end of the current 2022-23 season. Distributor CBS Media Ventures hopes to keep the syndicated Dr. Phil on the air with a package of repeats through at least the 2023-24 season. Dr. Phil is averaging about two million viewers per episode, making it the highest-rated daytime talk show behind Disney's Live With Kelly and Ryan...

NBC has renewed La Brea for a third season, the network announced Tuesday, The early renewal came hours before the show returned for the second half of its sophomore season. The series centers on what ensues after "a massive sinkhole opens in the middle of Los Angeles, pulling hundreds of people and buildings into its depths." La Brea, starring Natalie Zea, Eoin Macken, Jon Seda, Nicholas Gonzalez, Chiké Okonkwo, Zyra Gorecki, Jack Martin, Veronica St. Clair, Rohan Mirchandaney, Lily Santiago, Josh McKenzie, Tonantzin Carmelo and Michelle Vergara Moore, airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET...

The Night of the Living Dead franchise is about to expand with a scripted podcast series, The Dead, consisting of 24 episodes featuring all new stories, according to Deadline. The Dead will be set in the same world as George A. Romero's original 1968 film about seven people trapped in a farmhouse in western Pennsylvania and are under assault from zombies. The classic horror film spawned five sequels and a number of spinoffs...

Netflix reports You People, the comedy directed by black-ish writer Kenya Barris and starring Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy, became the streamer's #1 English-language movie during the Jan. 23-29 viewing window with 55.65 million hours viewed following its January 27 premiere. The movie follows a couple as they confront generational expectations and culture clashes amongst their families. The star-studded cast also includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Elliot Gould, Rhea Perlman, Molly Gordon and Andrea Savage...

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