AP National Entertainment News

By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer Get ready for more chicken jockey. “A Minecraft Movie” is getting a sequel. Warner Bros. Pictures on Thursday announced that it was planning to release the film in July 2027. Jared Hess is returning to direct and co-write the still untitled film, which counts Jason Momoa among its producers.

By JONATHAN LANDRUM Jr. AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — When rapper-actor Common was a kid, he carried towels and sneakers as a Chicago Bulls ball boy who was close enough to hear the squeak of shoes and the roar inside the arena. Decades later, Common is helping set a different kind of tone

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The new Apple TV+. series “The Last Frontier” begins with a plane crash in remote Alaska and a scramble for survivors. We learn the plane was carrying a nasty bunch of federal inmates. Then we find out that the nastiest of them is part of

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) — Kiss rock star Gene Simmons is recovering after he fainted while driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu and crashed his SUV into a parked car, authorities said. Simmons, a co-founder and bassist for the legendary band, was evaluated at a hospital Tuesday before being released. He posted on social

By KOSTYA MANENKOV, JILL LAWLESS and MIKE CORDER Associated Press STOCKHOLM (AP) — Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose surreal and anarchic novels combine a bleak world view with mordant humor, won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for work the judges said upholds the power of art in the midst of “apocalyptic terror.” The Nobel

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A novel about identity and a missing youth, a history of the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and a picture book celebrating the underappreciated belly button are this year’s winners of the Kirkus Prize, which includes a $50,000 cash award for each of the

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny’s music catalog has seen a jump in streams since his 2026 Super Bowl halftime performance was announced. According to Luminate, an industry data and analytics company, Latin music is primarily consumed via streaming. They found that Bad Bunny saw a

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Dolly Parton “ain’t dead yet,” the country superstar said on social media Wednesday following public speculation about her health. “There are just a lot of rumors flying around. But I figured if you heard it from me, you’d know that I was okay,” the 79-year-old

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City judge has dismissed a civil summons against Alex O’Keefe, a former writer for FX’s hit show “The Bear” who was removed from a commuter train in handcuffs last month following a seating dispute. O’Keefe, who is Black, has accused transit officers of

By MATT SEDENSKY AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Bari Weiss has made a name for herself as an unflinching critic of mainstream news outlets. Now, she’s set to run one. The announcement this week of Weiss as the new editor-in-chief of CBS News has been met with a response the 41-year-old has grown

By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer VENICE, Italy (AP) — Kathryn Bigelow is exceedingly calm when she talks about nuclear annihilation. That’s not to say she’s nonchalant about the topic— much the opposite. The Oscar-winning filmmaker discusses it with grave, matter-of-fact seriousness. But she also doesn’t need to dress up the threat in hyperbole, whether

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A glittering list of music figures will help present awards at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony this year, including Elton John, Olivia Rodrigo, Doja Cat, Questlove, Twenty One Pilots, Missy Elliott and Raye. The induction ceremony will include Bad Company, Chubby

By The Associated Press Documentaries on comedian John Candy and pop artist-turned-fashion designer Victoria Beckham as well as a “Family Guy” Halloween special are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Swift says she did not turn down the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, which will be headlined by Bad Bunny. “The Life of a Showgirl” singer paid a visit to “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on Monday and dispelled a few rumors. Most

By RONALD BLUM Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Tenor Rolando Villazón was singing the title role in Massenet’s “Werther” in 2006 at Nice, France, when he started thinking about how he would direct the opera. “I said, ‘oh, this last act is very difficult. He shot himself and keeps singing for 40 minutes.’ And

By THOMAS ADAMSON AP Fashion Writer PARIS (AP) — The spring fashion season ended with silhouettes you could spot from a block away. As Paris Fashion Week wrapped up this week after myriad debuts and shake-ups, three trends took hold. Shoulders were broadened and jackets snapped to attention. Skin showed on the wearer’s terms. And

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer TORONTO (AP) — The lengths writer-director Derek Cianfrance goes to create immersive environments for his actors has grown into a kind of legend. After making the much-improvised doomed romance of “Blue Valentine” (2010), Michelle Williams said she would have to remind herself that she was never, actually, married to

By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer VENICE, Italy (AP) — Andrew Garfield would like everyone to know about his gesticulating. Not in his performance as a Yale philosophy professor accused of sexual misconduct in “After the Hunt,” but while discussing an actor’s responsibility to comment on the work they’re putting out in the world. It’s

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Fiction by Rabih Alameddine, Megha Majumdar and Karen Russell and a memoir of family tragedy by Yiyun Li are among this year’s finalists for the National Book Award. On Tuesday, the National Book Foundation a nnounced five nominees in each of five competitive categories, narrowing

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Thirty paintings created by the bushy-haired, soft-spoken Bob Ross will soon be up for auction to defray the costs of programming for public television stations suffering from cuts in federal funding. Ross, a public television stalwart in the 1980s and ’90s, “dedicated his life to making art accessible to everyone,” said

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs’ lawyers want the hip-hop mogul sent to a low-security federal prison in New Jersey to serve his four-year, two-month prison sentence, telling a judge Monday that the facility’s drug treatment program will help him stay clean. In a letter,

By THOMAS ADAMSON AP Fashion Writer PARIS (AP) — Showmanship returned to Chanel on Monday. At Paris Fashion Week, its new designer Matthieu Blazy opened the season’s most anticipated debut beneath colossal celestial bodies — Saturn with its rings, a full solar system suspended above a jet-black and a mirror-bright runway — staking a claim

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer The Associated Press is objecting to Donald Trump’s false claims about its ongoing legal dispute over access after the president incorrectly characterized the case in a public forum — a situation that goes back to the news service’s decision last winter not to follow the president’s executive order to

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — Lenny Kravitz will give “Sunday Night Basketball” the kind of opening that Carrie Underwood delivers to “Sunday Night Football.” The four-time Grammy Award winner will star in the opening segment for NBC’s Sunday night coverage of the NBA, the network announced Monday. The show opening will debut on Feb. 1 before

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Five years after their influential drummer and lyricist Neil Peart died of glioblastoma, the Canadian band Rush have announced a reunion tour. On Monday, Rush co-founders Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson revealed a 12-date, seven city tour is scheduled for summer 2026, kicking off in

By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer BRANTFORD, Ontario (AP) — Wearing protective gloves and earplugs, a worker feeds lengths of wood into a machine that makes an earsplitting whine as it automatically cuts a groove into the end of each piece. Nearby, stacks of wooden wedges wait to be slotted into those grooves to form

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer NEW YORK (AP) — It’s the life of a saleswoman. Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” sold 2.7 million copies in traditional album sales — which include physical and digital formats — in its first day in the U.S. That’s according to Luminate, an industry

By THOMAS ADAMSON AP Fashion Writer PARIS (AP) — As France’s government unraveled in another episode of political instability Monday, the cogs of the luxury industry kept turning. At the Iéna Palace in Paris’ 16th arrondissement, Miuccia Prada’s Miu Miu offered its own brand of reassurance: business as usual, chic as ever at Paris Fashion