USA TODAY - L awrence J ournal -W orld TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2016
LIFELINE
SPORTS LIFE AUTOS TRAVEL
7B
TELEVISION
IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY WHO’S CELEBRATING TODAY?
GETTY IMAGES; FILMMAGIC; WIREIMAGE
Clint Eastwood is 86. Brooke Shields is 51. Colin Farrell is 40.
America’s got Simon Cowell back
CAUGHT IN THE ACT Johnny Depp’s messy personal problems didn’t keep him from performing over the weekend. After Amber Heard filed for divorce and was granted a temporary restraining order against the actor last week, Depp took the stage Sunday in Germany with his band, Hollywood Vampires.
DEPP AND JOE PERRY BY GETTY IMAGES
STYLE STAR
PHOTOS BY TRAE PATTON, NBC
‘Idol’ firebrand returns to TV as a ‘Talent’ judge MICHAEL HICKEY, GETTY IMAGES
Lady Gaga looked chic in racing attire when she appeared at the Indianapolis 500 Sunday. The singer stepped in to ride with Mario Andretti as part of the prerace festivities. She was a last-minute sub for Keith Urban, who had to pull out of the event because he injured his back. TWEET TALK STARS TWEET ABOUT MEMORIAL DAY Mia Farrow: Flags & soaring words today. But more useful to commit to making the VA what vets deserve & work to find peaceful resolutions to conflicts Lin-Manuel Miranda: Remembering those we’ve lost. Praying for those who serve. Grateful. See you tomorrow.
AMERICA’S GOT TALENT NBC, TUESDAYS, 8 ET/PT
Sandra Bernhard: remember it’s not a day to just shriek & drink rose it’s memorial day so save a thought for those who have fallen in the name of liberty! Chris Young: Even though words aren’t enough, here’s a thank you to all the brave men and women who have given their lives for our freedom #memorialday Josh Gad: On this #MemorialDay I pay my respects to all of our servicemen & women who have made and continue to make sacrifices 2 protect us. Thank u Dwayne Johnson: Happy Memorial Day.. enjoy your families. Have some fun and be grateful. Compiled by Carly Mallenbaum
USA SNAPSHOTS©
Jumping on welcome wagon 3 in 4 feel it’s important to welcome a new neighbor into the ’hood, but only
46% have done so.
Note Those 70 and older are most likely to greet new neighbors. Source State Farm online poll of 6,051 U.S. adults TERRY BYRNE AND JANET LOEHRKE, USA TODAY
Simon Cowell, America’s Got Talent’s executive producer, is the show’s newest judge as the series moves back to California.
Bill Keveney @billkev USA TODAY
BEVERLY HILLS , CALIF. After a 21⁄2-year absence from American TV, Simon Cowell got an appropriate welcome when he returned for his first taping as an America’s Got Talent judge. “The first audition was an 83year-old woman standing on her head singing the national anthem. I thought, ‘OK, I’m back,’ ” he says. “It was a thrill, a buzz that first day.” Cowell, 56, who helped lead a talent-competition renaissance as the arch arbiter of monster hit American Idol, rejoins the U.S. reality TV landscape for Season 11 of NBC summer hit Talent, a show he created and produces. It’s not as if he’s out of practice offering opinions: Since the U.S. version of The X Factor, a threeseason offering that didn’t come close to Idol’s heights but produced Fifth Harmony, Cowell has judged on Britain’s Got Talent and the United Kingdom X Factor while continuing to assess talent as a recording executive. “Before we were judging on TV, we were always auditioning people. My whole life has become a bloody audition,” says Cowell, who will join returning panelists Heidi Klum, Mel B and Howie Mandel and host Nick Cannon as Talent goes back to its first home, Los Angeles, after four seasons in New York with now-departed judge Howard Stern. Talent goes far beyond the focus of Idol, X Factor and The Voice, its format designed to stand out in a sea of music competitions. “Every time you turned on the TV, somebody would be singing out of tune. It started to drive me mad,” he says. “This girl was singing some awful song, and I thought, ‘I actually would prefer to watch a dancing dog.’ It was
Talent features a wider variety of acts than the typical singing shows, such as Jose and Carrie, one of the acts auditioning for Season 11.
the genesis of the idea.” While Talent features comics, acrobats, ventriloquists and hardto-define acts, Cowell says more singers applied this season, and he hopes to generate stars along the lines of Fifth Harmony, One Direction (assembled on the U.K.’s X Factor) and Susan Boyle (Britain’s Got Talent). His experience will help, he says, adding that one reason TV competitions are producing fewer stars is that performers, not executives, are the judges. “Would you hire an artist to run your record label? I wouldn’t,” he says. Mandel vouches for his expertise. “Somebody would be on stage doing something and he would go, ‘Stop!’ Like they weren’t ner-
vous enough. He would say, ‘The choice you’re making is wrong. Try something else.’ They would do it, terrified, but it made them better,” he says. “He is a producer, a star-maker.” He’s also a father to two-yearold Eric, a happy addition since his last U.S. TV stint. Whether fatherhood will influence his on-air personality remains to be seen, but Cowell appears serene taking on a new, if familiar, role. Talent is “a funny, optimistic show. The panel reflects that. I think I’m pretty much the same. If I like someone, I really like them; and if I don’t like someone, I don’t like them,” he says, explaining that many kinder moments on past series were cut. “I wasn’t always rude.”
MOVIES
‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ rules, ‘Alice’ struggles Bryan Alexander @BryAlexand USA TODAY
X-Men: Apocalypse opened with $80 million for the long Memorial Day weekend, destroying competition that included Alice Through the Looking Glass, which disappointed with $34.2 million over four days. The Bryan Singer-directed X-Men filled the multiplexes with a cast of mutants that included newcomers Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan, along with franchise marquee names such as Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender. But the ninth film in the franchise underperformed against expectations and its own standards,
coming in far below Singer’s 2014 Memorial Day outing X-Men: Days of Future Past, which made $110.6 million over the same span, according to comScore. Apocalypse was hurt by harsh reviews, scoring a paltry 48% positive critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com, while audiences graded it an A- at CinemaScore. “There’s no reason to complain about an $80 million four-day weekend,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. “But certainly other films in the franchise have had better reviews and seen better box office.” Alice Through the Looking Glass had its own issues, even as it brought back much of the same cast from Tim Burton’s quirky 2010 film version of Alice in Won-
20TH CENTURY FOX
Jennifer Lawrence is Mystique in X-Men: Apocalypse.
derland, which starred Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska and Anne Hathaway and opened with $116 million. Looking Glass, directed by James Bobin, was stung by critics, with just 30% liking it on Rotten Tomatoes; audiences were kinder, grading it an A- on
CinemaScore. The Angry Birds Movie flew into third place with $24.6 million for the holiday weekend. The animated film based on the popular game app has earned $72.3 million in two weeks. Captain America: Civil War landed in fourth with $19.7 million over four days. In its fourth weekend, the Marvel superhero adventure passed Deadpool ($362.8 million) to become the year’s biggest film to date domestically with $377.2 million. Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising rounded out the top five, taking $11.5 million over the long holiday. The R-rated comedy has earned $40.7 million after two weekends in theaters. Final numbers are expected Tuesday.