Deadpool’s star has called the race: Joker is the top-grossing R-rated movie of all time, a title Ryan Reynolds conceded with an R-rated tweet on Friday.
The Hollywood Reporter reports that Joker had pulled $788.1 million globally headed into today, and most expect the supervillain biopic to cross $800 million by the end of the weekend. Deadpool took in $783 million in 2016, a surprise showing for both a superhero flick and an R-rated feature.
Deadpool went on to earn two Golden Globe nominations, setting up Reynolds’ labor of love for Oscar consideration at the time (though the film was not nominated). Joker picked up a Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival, which portends good things for the movie heading into awards season.
The runners-up in the R-rated race are 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded, at $783.6 million, It from 2017 at $697 million, and 2003’s The Passion of the Christ with $622.3 million. Reynolds’ vulgar poster also name-checks Logan, The Hangover, Fifty Shades of Grey and Ted as the biggest moneymakers with an ask-your-mom rating.
Joker sprinted out to a $96.2 million opening weekend at the beginning of the month, setting a debut record for October premieres but still short of Deadpool’s $132 million for best R-rated opening of all time.
The best Halloween party in Hollywood went down Friday night in Bev Hills ... a party that has become a frightening tradition!
George Clooney and Rande Gerber hosted the Casamigos bash at the home of Mike Meldman, a developer and, of course, tequila tycoon.
The theme was psychedelic ... check out the neon and graffiti decorations.
As for the celebs who showed up ... David Arquette, Chuck Liddell, Gerard Butler, Cindy Crawford, Dave Grohl, Jessica Biel, Justin Timberlake, Kaitlynn Carter, Maria Menounos, Larsa Pippen, Laverne Cox, Lisa Rinna, Molly Sims, Jeff Probst, Steve Tisch, Nina Dobrev, Paris Hilton, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Pia Miller, Patrick Whitesell, Ryan Phillippe, and tons more.
TMZ.com
Cindy Crawford came dressed in a disco costume and Rande Gerber went as a hippy. Paris Hilton dressed as a fancy-looking bunny with large feather ears and satin lingerie. Lisa Rinna paid homage to J Lo's famed Versace dress with her teal and green costume.
Jessica Biel dressed as 90s JT, with the signature tight-blonde curly hair and large diamond stud earring. And, Justin Timberlake dressed as a microphone.
Nina Debrov dressed as Billie Eilish -- rocking lime-green roots and black tears running down her face. Kaitlynn Carter dressed in a 70s costume, wearing a silver chain dress and go-go boots. Gerard Butler came dressed in a miss-matched psychedelic outfit and no shirt.
Larsa Pippen dressed as a dark angel with a black mini-dress and black feather wings. Patrick Schwarzenegger went as Austin Powers and his girlfriend, Abby Champion, went as a fembot.
Casamigos stocked the open bar with hundreds of bottles of Casamigos tequila. Looks pretty awesome.
We’re always hearing about celebrities and their crazy diets. A ton of celebs are on plant based diets. Some overdo it on protein. Others only snack on fruit. That’s why it’s refreshing to hear about Kim and Kanye West’s relationship with fast food.
Both of them are notorious fast food lovers. Their love and dedication to cheap, quick eats is unparalleled, as far as we know. They’ve even gifted each other fast-food restaurants.
Kanye West bought Kim Kardashian some Burger Kings
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West | ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images
Specifically, 10 Burger Kings, or at least the rights to open them. The restaurants never materialized, but it’s the thought that counts. West bought the rights to open the franchises across Europe, as a kind of wedding gift for Kardashian.
That may not seem like a romantic wedding gift, but when you love fast food as much as Kardashian and West, it may be just what you’re craving.
The whole West family has a strange obsession with fast food. Kanye West’s father started a quick-service restaurant himself.
Burger King is not the only fast food restaurant they love
When it comes to fast food, Kardashian and West don’t seem to discriminate. West wrote a poem to accompany a Frank Ocean album dedicated to a fast-food chain.
The poem, called “McDonald’s Man,” was all about McDonald’s, specifically how amazing their fries are.
It’s a literary masterpiece, with lines like “Even the McRib was jealous of the fries/I see it through his artificial meat eyes.”
That’s not the only time West has included fast food in his art. He mentioned Chipotle in a verse he recorded for a Schoolboy Q song, and it ended up being a major marketing win for the chain.
They didn’t pay Weste for the name drop; he apparently did it because of their delicious burritos. He’s mentioned other chain restaurants in his lyrics, too, and he owns the rights to open 10 Fatburger chains in the Chicago metro area.
West isn’t the only person in the West family to have a close relationship with fast food. Kardashian has received gifts from McDonald’s as thanks for her mentioning her favorite fast food items online before. Specifically, they sent her a gift card in a Givenchy wallet.
Where do the Burger Kings rate on their list of excessive gifts?
All celebrity couples give each other crazy presents. West giving Kardashian 10 Burger Kings is kind of weird, but as far as celebrity gifts go, it might not be too outlandish.
Apparently, West has a history of very original gifts. For Valentine’s Day, he hired Kenny G to play saxophone in the couple’s living room, while surrounded by single roses in clear glass vases.
Kardashian loved it. She thought it was the most thoughtful gift any woman has ever received. It wasn’t her favorite present from her husband, though.
According to Kardashian, the best gift she ever got from West was a box containing Adidas socks, Apple headphones, and a Mickey Mouse toy.
The items were really just symbols. West bought Kardashian stock in all three companies and found a cute way to tell her about it.
Sometimes he goes for more traditional presents. One Christmas he purchased a $14 million dollar Miami Beach condo for Kardashian.
Just this month, West donated $1 million to charities Kardashian supports for her birthday. He put the donations in the names of their children, Psalm, North, Saint, and Chicago. Kardashian was definitely pleased with the gift, and fans are too.
These two are using their money and influence for good, and we couldn’t be happier.
Kanye West performs during his "Jesus Is King" album and film experience in Los Angeles. Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for ABA
We tend to think of our favorite music as unchanging, but streaming's rise to become our dominant form of consumption could begin to erode that norm.
Why it matters: Music's move to the cloud means that changes — sparked by creative, legal or other issues — can now easily be pushed out around the globe in a matter of seconds in a way that was impossible when the industry relied on CDs and vinyl records.
Despite West's self-imposed midnight deadline, the album was finally finished at 4 a.m. ET so it could make its way online by noon, per West's associate Consequence.
These changes occurred despite the fact that West has released an IMAX movie based on the album and held listening parties in New York, D.C. and Los Angeles over the last month for thousands of people.
The state of play: This isn't the first time that West has felt zero-hour pressure over his art. He's gone so far as to edit his work significantly after it has already been released, calling his 2016 album "The Life of Pablo" a "living breathing changing creative expression."
Many of West's changes were purely creative, but vary in scope. Some of the tracks on "Pablo" only saw minor changes — like added background vocals — while others were granted entirely revamped production and new lyrics. (XXL has a full list.)
But some of his changes have occurred as a result of legal threats, like an unlicensed sample that was removed from his 2018 album "ye" five months after its release. Of course, that album also received a "cleaned up" mix, according to its engineer.
The big picture: While West is certainly the biggest offender when it comes to editing his music after the fact, Taylor Swift also got into the game this year. Her comeback single "ME!" featured a spoken line ("Hey kids, spelling is fun!") that was widely mocked online — and it mysteriously disappeared from the track's album version.
Creators tinkering with their art post-release isn't an issue relegated solely to the world of music. Fans of "Star Wars" have been clamoring for decades to see the original film's 1977 theatrical cut, despite George Lucas' belief that his 1997 "Special Edition" — with altered scenes and added CGI — is the canonical version.
The bottom line: The ability to instantaneously edit music after its release could be used in ways we can't expect in the future — perhaps by scrubbing a controversial lyric or deleting an estranged band member's contributions.
Because the original versions are wiped away from streaming services, an acceleration of this trend could force a reckoning with fans — who may either come to demand perfection or simply want the music they know and love back.
Just one day after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized Republicans for requesting to be arrested for entering a closed-door Trump impeachment inquiry deposition this week, the far-left New York Democrat retweeted a video showing Hollywood stars Jane Fonda and Ted Danson being arrested at a climate protest Friday.
Ocasio-Cortez said Republicans were “mountains of entitlement and privilege” in "asking" to be arrested, something, she said, members of her community wouldn’t understand.
But with her retweet Friday, it appeared Ocasio-Cortez -- co-author of the Green New Deal proposal in Congress -- was supporting Fonda and Danson for taking a stand on climate change. Later, Fonda and Danson were seen smiling as they walk through a cheering crowd, their wrists having been zip-tied by police.
It was reportedly the third arrest for Fonda since the 81-year-old actress arrived in Washington for "Fire Drill Fridays" earlier this month. Before the move, Fonda told the Los Angeles Times she planned to participate in demonstrations supporting policies to address climate change -- and expected to get arrested in the process.
Fonda was inspired this week by demands to "protect and restore our oceans," according to the campaign's official Twitter account.
After introducing himself as Fonda’s “new trainee,” Danson told the crowd at the protest that being arrested “sharpens the mind,” according to the Washington Post.
“Come on down and get arrested,” he told the crowd.
Where once he rapped plenty about sex, West now says he's a born-again Christian on a different path.
His latest projects reflect that.
His "Jesus Is King" album and IMAX film were announced as dropping Friday, though the midnight deadline for the album came and went.
In an interview with Zane Lowe for Beats 1 which ran Thursday, West talked about how his life has changed.
"Now that I'm in service to Christ, my job is to spread the Gospel, to let people know what Jesus has done for me," West said. "I've spread a lot of things. There was a time I let you know what high fashion had done for me, I was letting you know what the Hennessy had done for me... now I'm letting you know what Jesus has done for me."
He also talked about being a "Christian innovator" and his Sunday services, which blend music and spirituality in a nontraditional way.
"God doesn't exist only in four walls," West said. "God is everything and everywhere."
But one of his biggest revelations, which he knew would cause a stir, is what he sometimes asked of his collaborators.
"There's times where I was asking people to not have premarital sex while they were working on the album," West said. "There were times when I went to people who were working on other projects and said 'Could you please just work and focus on this.' "
West said he wanted everyone to be in one accord.
"It's known when people pray together, families that pray together stay together," he said. "When people pray together and fast together the power is increased."
West said his conversion happened in April after Coachella. He said God helped him beat his addictions to pornography and sex.
"Playboy was my gateway into full-on pornography addiction," he said. "My dad had a Playboy left out at age 5, and it's affected almost every choice I made for the rest of my life from age 5 to now, having to kick the habit."
It's not the first time West has discussed his transformation.
On "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," he and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, clashed over her formfitting outfit for the Met Ball.
He said the outfit was too sexy and it affected his soul and spirit when she dressed provocatively.
Kardashian West told her husband he encouraged her to dress that way in the past and, "Just because you're on a journey and you're in a transformation doesn't mean I'm in the same spot with you."
Kelly Bachman was one of several performers at Manhattan's Downtime Bar in a variety show sponsored by Actor's Hour Wednesday night where, she told CNN, she spotted the former Hollywood producer. She used her time onstage to call Weinstein "Freddy Krueger" and call out rape allegations against him.
Weinstein currently faces criminal charges of predatory sexual assault, criminal sexual act, first-degree rape and third-degree rape, to which he has pleaded not guilty. He maintains that all sexual encounters he's been involved in have been consensual.
The trial is expected to begin in January.
Someone in the audience joined in the confrontation, demanding Weinstein be asked to leave. Instead, the audience member was asked to leave the bar, and Bachman left with her, the comic said.
"Harvey Weinstein was out with friends enjoying the music and trying to find some solace in his life that has been turned upside down. This scene was uncalled for, downright rude and an example of how due process today is being squashed by the public, trying to take it away in the courtroom too," said a spokesperson for Weinstein.
'The elephant in the room'
Bachman said she did a triple take when she walked into the venue. Weinstein was seated with friends at a reserved table, and the environment seemed welcoming, she said.
With none of the performers before her commenting on his presence, Bachman said she decided to give some of the time in her set to say something.
"I'm a comic, and it's my job to name the elephant in the room. Anyone know what that is?" Bachman said in a video of the performance, adding that Freddy Krueger was in the room.
"I have been raped, surprisingly by no one in this room, but I've never gotten to confront those guys," she said. "So, just a general f*** you."
Some women's voice could be heard cheering, at other points there were boos. Bachman said onstage she didn't register the responses because she was in such a state of trauma from her own experiences -- her breath short and heart racing as she spoke.
She went back to her set, she said, both feeling like she hadn't said enough and determined to not let the topic of Weinstein take up more of her performance time.
"I was just beating myself up like 'you didn't do enough, you didn't say enough,'" she told CNN. "I had the same feelings about every time I've been sexually assaulted."
'Nobody's going to say anything?'
During the show's intermission, a member of the audience demanded that Weinstein be asked to leave, Bachman said.
"Nobody's going to say anything?" Zoe Stuckless shouted in a video posted to Facebook.
Stuckless was asked to leave in the video. Bachman said Weinstein being allowed to stay and Stuckless being ushered out felt like the Twilight Zone.
"I really felt she was the bravest person in the room," Bachman said.
Bachman joined Stuckless and was also asked to leave. Bachman said she wanted to go; she had already been looking for an excuse to leave, but the only way out was through a door Weinstein was seated near. Stuckless, Bachman and her friend all left the venue together.
The spokesperson for Weinstein said no one from his group had asked the women to leave, that it was instead the venue's personnel.
CNN has reached out to the Downtime Bar, but no one answered the phone. The venue did post a statement on Facebook addressing the incident.
"Please know that our goal at Downtime is to create an environment where everyone feels welcome. We respect the privacy of our patrons and event partners, and want to ensure that all guests are treated equally, with the same service and respect," the bar said in the statement. "In keeping with this goal, we made a decision that would allow the evening to continue as planned."
Bachman said she received a mix of responses, from cheers to booing to criticism that her comments were more uncomfortable than funny.
"No one has a responsibility to be funny in that moment," she said. "It was the right thing to do, to let the moment be uncomfortable."
But despite initial blowback, Bachman said by the morning she began to received a wave of love and support.
CNN's Nicole Chavez and Elizabeth Joseph contributed to this report.
