‘Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania’ Swelling To Franchise Best $280M Global Opening – Box Office Preview

Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest are gearing up for an emotional departure as they mark the end of their time together as co-hosts on Live with Kelly and Ryan.As was announced earlier, Ryan will end his tenure on the show on April 14, stating on the air that he would be moving back to Los Angeles after his six season run, more of which you can see in the video below.WATCH: Ryan Seacrest confirms exit from Live With Kelly and RyanHowever, taking over for him is another very familiar face for Kelly, that being her husband Mark Consuelos, after which the show will be renamed Live with Kelly and Mark.But prior to the big change, there's a bit of a switch-up in Kelly and Mark's personal life as well, as the two are having to spend some time apart before they begin co-hosting.MORE: Kelly Ripa shocks herself with Hollywood transformation in bold new selfieMORE: How David Muir's net worth compares to BF Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos' $160 million fortuneOn the latest episode of Live!, while joking with Ryan about how he'd like to conclude his final day, she mentioned that Mark was already knee-deep in work."Mark's in Vancouver," she offhandedly mentioned as she suggested to Ryan that maybe he could end his day with a massage from Mark.A post shared by LIVE with Kelly and Ryan (@livekellyandryan)Mark will be replacing Ryan on Live!The actor and dad-of-three is presumably in Vancouver working on Riverdale, which is set to premiere its final season on March 29, bringing its seven-installment run to a close.Mark was on hand to attend the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles with his wife and Ryan, though, as they hosted their final iteration of Live!'s post-Oscars show together at the Dolby Theater.MORE: Kelly Ripa's husband

Charna Flam City Year Los Angeles announced board member and Oscar winner Octavia Spencer will be honored at the organization’s 12th annual Spring Break: Destination Education event on May 6. Spencer’s “The Help” co-star Viola Davis will present her with the award at the fundraiser, which is taking place at Sony Picture Studios in Culver City. In addition to Spencer, Kevin Demoff, COO of the L.A. Rams and City Year board member, will also be honored. For years, Spencer has participated in the City Year mentorship program, which aids thousands of children across Los Angeles public schools through tutoring programs and social opportunities. Spencer has been advocating for education throughout her career, all in an effort to ensure more students have access to the tools they need to succeed.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Non-Londoners might think of the U.K. capital as a single city, the perceived interchangeability of its regions and locations evident in many a notionally London-set but geographically manic film where characters stroll from Chelsea Bridge to the heart of Soho in a matter of minutes. Residents know that its quadrants are so disparate as to be whole separate ecosystems, with the Thames River that separates north from south London a virtual equator running through the city. Those who have toured the Big Smoke via the movies — in particular, the idealized, exportable London of Working Title trifles and “Paddington” pictures — are largely familiar with the most leafy, genteel streets of the north and west, with the increasingly bourgeois east lately getting a look-in. But the diverse, dynamic neighborhoods of the south have received less than their due on screen, which is where Raine Allen-Miller’s delightful romantic comedy “Rye Lane” aims to set things right.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Karamo Brown’s syndicated talk show “Karamo” has been renewed for Season 2. The news was announced Thursday morning by NBCUniversal Syndication Studios & E! News executive vice president Tracie Wilson.     To date, “Karamo,” which replaced Maury Povich’s talker, is sold in 85% of the country and appears on leading station groups across the country including Nexstar, Weigel, Tegna, Sunbeam, Hearst, Sinclair, Capitol, Block, CW Plus, Mission Broadcasting and more. “Karamo” is executive produced by Kerry Shannon and co-executive produced by Gloria Harrison-Hall.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. Hispanic has partnered with GroupM and Cocina Media on “El Toque de Aarón.” The all-new original seriesfollows celebrity chef Aarón Sánchez and his team as they help Latino restaurants in the Los Angeles area reach new heights. Kimberly Clark’s VivaÒ Paper Towels Brand will be an integrated sponsor, with other GroupM clients featured throughout the series. Sánchez will also act as an executive producer. The six-part series unfolds in Latino restaurants with great potential, ready to seize the opportunity to optimize their business – from devising a more exciting menu to improving the overall aesthetics to streamlining their execution and raising their public profile. Sánchez will help reimagine these restaurants to bring out their true soul, with a revamped menu and a refreshed space. In each 30-minute episode, the culinary wizard will put his personal touch on each menu item, while mentoring each restaurant’s chef and sharing tips and tricks of the trade along the way. Helping to round out the renewals with much-needed renovations are designer Cris Mercado (“HGTV Star; Remodelaciones con Celebridades“) and project manager Ángel Riveros (“Hogar Star”). Complicating matters is the fact that they have only four days to achieve this mission. The clock is ticking.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “The Penguin” series at HBO Max has added Michael Zegen, James Madio, and Scott Cohen to its cast in recurring roles, Variety has learned exclusively. The three join a cast that includes series lead Colin Farrell, who will reprise the role of Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot from “The Batman, as well as Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O’Connell, and Clancy Brown. HBO Max is not releasing character details for three new additions, but sources say that Zegen is set to play Alberto Falcone. Alberto is the son of Gotham City crime boss Carmine Falcone, who was played by John Turturro in “The Batman,” and the brother of Sofia Falcone, who will be played by Milioti in “The Penguin.” In the comics, Alberto takes credit for being the serial killer known as The Holiday Killer, who targets Gotham gangsters on a holiday each month.

The Other Two is back!

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Lucy Liu is making her comic book movie debut in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” playing the villainous Kalypso alongside Helen Mirren and “West Side Story” breakout Rachel Zegler. The three actors play the daughters of Atlas, who come to our planet to reclaim the magic that fuels Zachary Levi’s Shazam. Liu was recently asked by The Cut about starring in a superhero movie for the first time at 54 years old. “If it had happened earlier, it would have been miraculous,” Liu said. “It would have been a different story; my career would have been easier. There would have been more opportunity.” Sizable comic book movie roles for Asian-Americans simply did not exist when Liu was coming up in the industry. She had her action breakthrough playing Alex Munday opposite Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore in 2000’s “Charlie’s Angels” and its 2003 sequel, “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.”

Police are hunting a flasher who exposed himself in a Paisley park in broad daylight.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Hams Fekri, a 29-year-old Saudi wedding singer from Jeddah, has been crowned the winner of the first season of “Saudi Idol” during a moving live finale from The Boulevard Riyadh City recreational complex. The golden-throated Fekri was exultant after battling it out in front of a live studio audience and panel of judges for 13 weeks. She emerged victorious out of three finalists to win most audience votes for the night. Fekri’s mother — who achieved success as a pop singer during the 1980s, but subsequently faded into obscurity — hugged her daughter on stage.  In addition to being named the very first “Saudi Idol,” Fekri also won a recording contract with MBC Group’s Platinum Records label which involves the release of a full studio album in the coming months.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The trio behind Mediawan, the French company which recently acquired a majority stake in Brad Pitt’s Plan B, have made an offer to buy CGR Cinema, France’s second biggest multiplex chain, Variety has confirmed. The bid has been made by Pierre-Antoine Capton and French telecom tycoon Xavier Niel, the co-founders of Mediawan. Capton and Niel are being backed by a consortium which includes Matthieu Pigasse, a big-time financier who is the third co-founder of Mediawan, among others. The offer values CGR Cinemas below €500 million ($300 million), according to a source closed to discussions. The British fund Aermont Capital has also made an offer, according to the French news site “L’informé.”

Todd Gilchrist editor When Lee Unkrich was 12, he saw “The Shining” for the first time. He remembers less from the screening than what happened shortly afterward, which set in motion a lifelong obsession with Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece of horror. On his way to summer camp, Unkrich bought the movie tie-in edition of Stephen King’s novel.

BreAnna Bell ABC’s “The Bachelor” has earned a victory with its latest season. With a 2.39 rating, the January Season 27 premiere measures as the series’ highest-rated multiplatform telecast in 1 year among the adults 18-49 key demo. That’s its highest rating since Jan. 24, 2022 according to data from Nielsen. Additionally, “The Bachelor” premiere outperformed the show’s prior season average by 3% among the demographic. After 35 days of viewing across linear and digital platforms, Season 27’s opening episode showed a 268% increase among adults 18-49 over its initial Live+Same Day rating of 0.65 rating, marking the show’s biggest-ever delayed-viewing increase. The season premiere also managed to rake in an additional 3.6 million total viewers after 35 days of multiplatform viewing taking the original number from 3.0 million to 6.6 million.

Showtime has unveiled an April 14th premiere date for their documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only, on New York Dolls frontman David Johansen, also debuting a trailer for the pic directed by Academy Award winner Martin Scorsese (The Last Waltz) and Emmy nom David Tedeschi (The 50 Year Argument), which you can view above.

EXCLUSIVE: Illumination/Universal/Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros Movie just landed on tracking this morning ahead of its Easter weekend release, and the animated film is shaping up to make at least $85M-$90M+ over its Wednesday through Sunday launch and that’s on the conservative side.

EXCLUSIVE: The true-crime docuseries are coming thick and fast for ABC News Studios.

RLJE Films has snapped up rights to the psychological thriller Sympathy for the Devil, starring Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage (Mandy) and Joel Kinnaman (Suicide Squad films), for North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Bringing the film to the AMC Networks business unit was Christian Mercuri’s Capstone Global, which is handling global sales. It’s set for release on July 28.

EXCLUSIVE: 3Pas Studios, the entertainment company co-founded by Eugenio Derbez and his business partner, Ben Odell, signed a multi-year production deal with Audible. Through their overall exclusive audio deal, 3Pas Studios will produce scripted and unscripted audio content for Audible in both English and Spanish.

There’s a new Peacock TV update.

Princess Diana‘s brother is going viral today over his sentiments towards Donald Trump.

Love Island's Olivia Hawkins and Maxwell Samuda sparked split fears just days after the show final, after Max was spotted attending the Big Weekend launch party in London on Wednesday, but Olivia was nowhere to be seen. Instead, 27 year old Liv posted a video as she watched a football match in Brighton, after going home to see family following the celebrity-packed Love Island finale party in London on Monday.

Model and influencer Sasha Attwood knows the importance of a good skincare routine, and she’s always happy to share the secrets behind her glowing complexion with her 169000 Instagram followers. With no end to the cold weather in sight, it’s important to keep your skin hydrated and protected from the elements.

Marvel Universe is expanding!With “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” the interlocking series of superhero movies enters Phase 5, a new era of potentially confusing continuity and even more material that you’ll have to consume to appreciate the full story. But if you don’t have all the time in the world to revisit every Marvel Studios superhero entry since the movies began, in earnest, in 2008, what can you skim to get you ready for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?”Consider this the Cliff’s Notes version of MCU history that you can cram in the days leading up to “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” an adventure that sees Ant-Man (once again played by Paul Rudd) and the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) get sucked into the Quantum Realm – a pocket universe where the Wasp’s mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) was trapped for decades.

EXCLUSIVE: We’re hearing from box office sources that Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania zoomed to a $17M-$18M last night in previews from showtimes that started at 3PM. That figure, which could be higher or lower once Disney officially reports later this morning, is where Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2‘s Thursday night was back in 2017, at $17M.

The stars of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania are taking over London!

Fans checking out Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in theaters this weekend might be surprised to see that franchise star Michael Pena is not in the movie.

It’s a wonder that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (★★★☆☆) should work as well as it does, or feel half as transporting as it does, when, by the looks of it, the actors were planted inside a studio for the majority of the action, and it shows. For the size-shifting superhero’s third solo MCU outing, director Peyton Reed — also at the helm for Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp — filmed much of this journey to the sub-atomic fantasia known as the Quantum Realm using technology that surrounds the actors in an immersive digital environment. Rather than emoting towards blank green and blue screens, Paul Rudd, as thief-turned-Avenger Ant-Man a.k.a. Scott Lang, can gaze across a virtual Quantum Realm and perform face-to-face opposite whatever outlandish creatures the filmmakers might imagine.

Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost is not a character that appears in, director Peyton Reed couldn't be more excited that he'll get to see her in the MCU again soon.The character, whose real name is Ava Starr, was introduced as the antagonist of 2018's, which Reed also directed. Ultimately, it was revealed near the end of the film that she wasn't really a villain at all -- Ava had a painful condition that made her molecularly unstable and her battles with Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) were merely just her efforts to stay alive.John-Kamen is set to reprise the character in Marvel's upcoming, which will team her up with Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as John Walker/U.S. Agent and Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster. «I love it,» Reed said of the casting.

Evangeline Lilly stole the spotlight at the U.K. premiere of On Thursday, the 43-year-old actress was all smiles as she hit the red carpet at BFI IMAX Waterloo in London, England, wearing a fun silver sequin gown with plenty of tassels. The look was a perfect match for her gray hair and new buzz cut.At the premiere, Lilly twirled her tassel-adorned dress for photographers and posed with her  co-stars -- including Paul Rudd, Jonathan Majors, Michael Douglas and Kathryn Newton -- as well as the film's director, Peyton Reed. Lilly seemed to first show off her new buzz cut earlier this week on Instagram.

2022 was sort of a mixed bag for the MCU. On the one hand, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” were two of the year’s biggest box office hits.

Jonathan Majors has been winning rave reviews for his portrayal of Kang the Conqueror in new Marvel sequel “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”.

Gotta admit, but Josh Brolin’s big baddie Thanos does cast a big shadow in the older Marvel movies.

Peyton Reed’s “Ant-Man” films have generally served as a kind of palate cleanser to the world-ending stakes of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang is just an ordinary dude, or so they keep telling us, who still can’t really believe that he’s part of the Avengers at all. He gets to be the wide-eyed middle-aged fanboy of the group in those films. In his own films, he’s just living a blue-sky life in San Francisco as an affable single dad and ex-con who was once fired from Baskin Robbins and who has occasional enemies to defeat.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic “Ant-Man,” released eight years ago, was a comic-book movie that almost inadvertently used its hyper-miniaturized cowboy-on-ant-back superhero as a metaphor for what a tiny place the film itself occupied in the MCU. “Ant-Man and the Wasp” (2018) was a bit less small. The director, Peyton Reed, who had a background in human comedy (“Down with Love,” “Bring It On”), expanded the sequel into a puckish fantasy of scale, with characters and objects popping back and forth in size, though the result was still more amusing than momentous. Paul Rudd’s nice-guy divorced dad turned badass metallic bug Scott Lang may have been an official Avenger, but that still didn’t give him more than a flyweight significance.

red-hot Majors has gravitas as he snarls about the injustices the world has done to him. Whenever he’s onscreen, we are transfixed.Running time: 125 minutes. Rated PG-13 (violence/action, and language.) In theaters Feb.

Filmmaker Peyton Reed badly wants to make a “Star Wars” film. We know this because he’s already spent a lot of time directing Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars” spin-off series “The Mandalorian,” and because his new ‘Ant-Man & The Wasp’ film, ‘Quantumania,’ is essentially a big-budget “Star Wars” movie.