Catching you up on today’s top entertainment headlines: James Cameron defends the length of the Avatar sequel, a live-action production of "Beauty and the Beast" is set to air on ABC, and "Stranger Things: Season 4 "views continue to rise.

Between Bells

In Entertainment: Avatar 2 May Need a Bathroom Break, ABC Celebrates 30 Years of Beauty and the Beast, Stranger Things Hits a Billion Views

First friends. Let's get you caught up on your top entertainment headlines. We're following for you today. Big News in Avatar land James Cameron's first Avatar movie in 2009. Clocked in at nearly two hours, 40 minutes. And it sounds like the sequel gonna be longer than that. The latest cut of avatar, the way of the water curly comes in at a whopping three hours long and according to Empire magazine and the Oscar winning director doesn't even care what you say about it. Cameron telling the magazine quote, I don't want anybody whining about the length When they sit and Binge watch television for eight hours. I've watched my kids sit and do 51 hour episodes in a row. So here's the big social paradigm shift that has to happen. It's okay to get up and pee and quote, if it's anything like the first film, Cameron has nothing to worry about. Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time. It scored nine Oscar nominations and it won three of them. The long awaited sequel opens in theaters nationwide December 15. So nothing against James. Cameron who is a highly decorated director. This is a wrong comparison. This is like an apples to oranges because you can watch five straight shows on netflix that are get up pause but also your mind knows I can pause this and pick this up tomorrow. You can't do this when you buy a ticket to go to the theater because for three hours you are sitting there. But it also brings up the larger question, which is, what is it about Hollywood, especially with films now that they're making films longer last year I had to look this up going to statistical last year, the average length of the top 10 highest grossing films in the U. S. And Canada were two hours and 10 minutes. That is 17% higher than the number. Just in 1990 when it was one hour and 51 minutes. Now, I haven't been able to do the tabulations of the films this last year. But it would probably be about that if not even higher because look at batman, look at marvel, look at all these films are three hours long also. So if anything, James Cameron's doing this based on what everybody else is doing. So what is it about Hollywood right now? That makes you want to make these three hours, maybe that's less time that you're at home at netflix by the way. This is the first time I heard a director say like, hey, well you know usually they want you, usually they want you to just stay and wait there miserable. Being like, can I go to the back, I remember that during titanic. I mean this is what we expect. That was like five hours. Yes, but this is what I expect with James Cameron movies, they're always gonna be long. You're right. I think people are still gonna flock in this movie. The other thing that's interesting. This is there's four more avatars coming now. James Cameron said in an interview, he's they've already recorded one of the second one after this one already has already done in films and there's no there's no word though if he's going to do the last one. So who knows if that's that's gonna be? I feel like he has to, if he do if he does four, but not the last one. That just seems weird and avatar. The Way of water isn't the only thing coming out on december 15th. A live action special of Beauty and the Beast will also air that day. The animated classic is getting the live treatment at abc to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its Historic Academy Award nomination. This is all according to the Hollywood reporter, The 1991 film became the first animated feature to earn an Oscar nomination for best picture. Beauty and the Beast went on to win Oscars for its score, an original song, Crazy Rich Asians And In the Heights. Director Jon M chu will reportedly executive produced this two hour special. The president of Hulu Originals and abc Entertainment saying it's going to be a quote, unforgettable night of Disney Magic. The exact going on to say quote stacked with unforgettable performances. This will be a must see special event for fans of the original and for the new generation being introduced to this cherished Tale. The Beauty and the Beast special will feature never before seen musical performances, even costumes, it will be available to stream december 16th on Disney Plus how many reiterations can we were showing the one with Emma Watson when they did the live action of it as well. Disney loves these these remakes of this one, like they did the Little Mermaid one in 2019. That was with Shaggy. Queen Latifah was in it as well. Queen Latifah played Ursula in that 1 30 years. Also for Beauty and the Beast. Doesn't that make you feel so old? Because I remember seeing Beauty and the Beast when I was a kid in the movie theaters and now it's like a live action adaptation. So the larger question then becomes, would you rather watch Beauty and the Beast on Disney Plus or go see avatar? Guess which one is going to be shorter? No no no no no no, I'm all all about Beauty and the Beast. Meanwhile, Stranger Things speaking long season four has joined netflix's billion hours Club. It now has 1.11 point +15 billion hours of viewing and that's over its 1st 28 days of release and that includes both parts of the newest season, Stranger Things past the billion hour mark in viewing worldwide following the release of the last two episodes of the season on july 1st that according to netflix, the milestone means it's the first english english language series and just the second in any language to be watched for that many minutes among all netflix originals in their 1st 28 days only squid game has been watched by more people, 1.65 billion hours. This isn't the only record season four has broken. It's also claimed the biggest debut weekend for a netflix series as well. But unlike James Cameron, the Duffer brothers, as we mentioned yesterday, said on a podcast they don't expect, except maybe the series finale to be anywhere close to the link that these last two episodes have been. They've already essentially said the next season will go back to sort of the normal sort of style that they've had within Stranger Things. I haven't seen the last two episodes yet, but everyone who has seen it, which is obviously people out there. Yes, everybody, they say it doesn't seem like it, it was still very enjoyable. Well of course, because they pack so much action and so much stuff into it. But essentially that also shows like how long it takes to create a show like this because essentially you're making like 10 movies a season as a result of that. Yeah, absolutely. And I love this story because you love this song, I love this song Still, it's Harry Styles World. We're all just living in it as it was the lead single from his third studio album, Harry's House returns to the number one spot Yet again, the one, top 100. The track is back on top for the eighth total week. Jack Harlow is first class and lizzo. It's about damn time. Round out the top three spots on the top 100 by the way, talk about summer jams. Beyonce's Break. My soul is new to the top 10 coming in at number seven as it was ties the all time record for most separate trips to the top, it stands alongside. This is interesting, Mariah Carey's. All I want for christmas is you and doors mood and drakes nice for what I know there are people like, I'm sick of this song. I still love it. I don't care, puts me in a good mood. So let's not Beyonce here for a second because you mentioned Beyonce surged in the billboard hot 100. Number 15 to number seven. That's significant because that now makes her 20 times. She's had 20 number one songs in the top 10, which is incredible. 20 sorry, 20 songs that have made the top 10, which is huge for a solo artist. Not very many people have done that. So that's incredible for Beyonce