Kimmel vs. Rodgers, Steamboat Willie is free, and more of the week's top entertainment news

Perhaps sparing himself from headlines recapping the underwhelming box office of yet another Marvel film, Steven Yeun has exited , . . At the time, mere days after the release of , a canary in the coal mine for 2023’s extended bout with superhero fatigue, Yeun was an exciting get for the MCU. Now, it seems he’s avoiding having his name dragged by the Monday morning studio execs at The A.V. Club. His loss!

Honestly, they had us at “Mandy Patinkin is doing a riff on Poirot”: That’s one of the big takeaways, after all, from the trailer released today for Hulu’s new series , which premieres on the streaming service on January 16. All the hallmarks of a classic Agatha Christie murder mystery are on display in the promo for the new show: A big boat full of very suspicious murder suspects; a loathsome victim just begging for a quick, mysterious impalin’; and, of course, Patinkin as world-renowned detective Rufus Coteworth, playing mentor to Violett Beane’s apprentice/suspect Imogene.

With the benefit of hindsight, it feels like 2022's was at least a mild turning point for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film did great at the box office (especially by the standards of the franchise’s output over the last few years) and checked plenty of boxes—big name director in Sam Raimi, follow-up to the massively successful WandaVision, building on a well-liked original movie. And yet there was a sense of exhaustion that hung over the whole thing. Nowhere more than in the movie’s big, flashy cameo sequence that makes up a big chunk of its middle act, with Benedict Cumberbatch’s Strange confronted by a number of tantalizing Marvel What If…?s—including the first appearance of Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier in the MCU. In the role (his first time as Xavier since the character died in the future-set ), Stewart shows up in his wheelchair, does a bit of pontificating—and then abruptly dies.

When we think of the Oscars’ Best Adapted Screenplay award, our minds typically drift to the world of books. With a few exceptions—short films, plays, the occasional magazine article—Best Adapted Screenplays have largely been culled from the world of novels, memoirs, and the occasional non-fiction piece; the adaptation in question almost always coming from one act of writing into the world of another, i.e., cinematic screenplays.

Pat McAfee gets it. Not everyone will love having their name sharing space with a plane called “The Lolita Express,” especially when they’re a talk show host on your sister network. Yesterday was a nightmare scenario for McAfee, the host of ESPN’s The Pat McAfee sports talk show. As is his wont, McAfee invited famed conspiracy theorist and Super Bowl champion Aaron Rodgers onto his show for a “freewheeling” conversation about the recently deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein, a guy everyone loves to be associated with these days. would be listed on the flight logs from Epstein’s private jet. After the clip hit the internet, Kimmel threatened to sue Rodgers. SLIDE #6New legal action directed at Netflix and production company Delirium threatens to topple the reality television house of cards. The dating show has already been the subject of numerous by contestants, and previous participant alleging sexual assault, false imprisonment, and negligence. Now, Renee Poche has also taken legal action against the show after Delirium initiated a multi-million dollar arbitration against her for violating her nondisclosure agreement after she made “some limited public remarks about her distressing time on the Program, including the terrifying experiences she had” with fellow contestant Carter Wall (via ).

Aaron Rodgers, the and occasional professional football player, has once again said something very dumb. Now, we understand that’s not news. Anyone who publicly , is going to say dumb things. This is just the first time Jimmy Kimmel has threatened to sue him over it.

Steamboat Willie, the earliest version of Mickey Mouse, entered the public domain on January 1, 2024, and on January 1, 2024, the Steamboat Willie parodies began to roll in. As one might expect from previous examples (see ), the biggest projects to take advantage of the expired copyright are horror-based, because nothing’s scarier than a kid’s cartoon committing senseless murder. Enter Mickey’s Mouse Trap, the latest low-budget slasher to cash in on such a concept.