The box office this weekend… Live action update… Jennifer Aniston is clearing up some rumors… Amber Heard allegedly gets a book deal… and ‘Wendy Williams Show’ airs final episode

Listen to “Showbiz – June 20, 2022” on Spreaker.

Industry analysts expected the new “Lightyear” movie to earn at LEAST $70M in its opening weekend. They were way off. “Lightyear” earned only $51M, putting it in second place behind “Jurassic World Dominion,” which earned another $58.6M. This is really, REALLY bad. Disney and Pixar spent about $200M making “Lightyear” and tens of millions more promoting it. Internationally, “Lightyear” earned $34.6M in 43 markets. But the movie was banned in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and China because of a brief same-sex kiss between two women. Losing China’s box office is a HUGE blow. Disney and Pixar are hoping positive word of mouth will get more people to see it. CinemaScore polled audience members and they gave it an A-, and it currently stands at 76% on Rotten Tomatoes.

To infinity and beyond? Not exactly. #Lightyear fell short of projections in its box office debut, collecting a lackluster $51 million. Heading into the weekend, the Disney film was expected to generate at least $70 million. https://t.co/MNDd335IAL pic.twitter.com/6Jp9l4kIDp
— Variety (@Variety) June 19, 2022

We were disappointed Harry Styles turned down playing Prince Eric. Lizzo was disappointed Melissa McCarthy was chosen to play Ursula and not her. Will we be disappointed in the final result? We have to wait until next Memorial Day weekend because it was just announced that’s when we’ll get the live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” starring Halle Bailey as Ariel. In other live-action remake news, “Snow White” is currently in production with Rachel Zegler as the “Snow White” and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. And Guy Ritchie has been hired to direct the upcoming live-action remake of Disney’s 1997 feature “Hercules.” Guy also directed Disney’s 2019 live-action remake of “Aladdin.” The man who wrote Marvel’s “Shang-Chi” has already written the first draft of the script, but no word yet on who is playing Hercules.

Disney’s ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ live-action remake is expected to begin production Spring 2022 in the U.K.

Starring Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot and Andrew Burnap. pic.twitter.com/5pwmFdNGWA
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) January 12, 2022

You may have seen the “Jennifer Aniston Salad” recipe go viral on TikTok recently. Somebody revisited a 2010 interview with Courtney Cox who told the “LA Times” that Jennifer ate the same “doctored-up cobb salad” every single day while filming “Friends.” Thousands of Tik-Tokers began recreating this HUGE salad, which consisted of bulgur, diced cucumbers, parsley, mint, red onion, chickpeas, crumbled feta cheese, and chopped pistachios. And Jennifer hates to spoil the fun, but she says that’s not the salad she ate every day. First of all, she has no idea where that recipe came from, but Jennifer told “Elle” magazine, she “would never have that much chickpea in a salad…not good for the digestive tract.” Her salad was made up of shredded lettuce, chicken, egg whites, a couple of garbanzo beans, bacon and a basic vinaigrette.

Jennifer Aniston is clearing up some rumors about a meal she allegedly ate on the set of #Friends during its 10-year run. https://t.co/SJN30LpfVT
— Us Weekly (@usweekly) June 15, 2022

Even though she’ll most likely be hit with another defamation lawsuit, a source told “OK! Magazine” that Amber Heard is in talks to release a revenge tell-all book. Their source said, “Amber considers her career in Hollywood over. She’s already in talks and is excited about it. At this point, she has nothing to lose and wants to tell all.” The source adds that Amber is broke and “in no position to turn down money.”

Can we expect an #AmberHeard tell-all book in the near future?https://t.co/FJTra7TGou
— OK! Magazine USA (@OKMagazine) June 17, 2022

After 13 seasons, “The Wendy Williams Show” went out with a whimper on Friday. Wendy hasn’t been on the show since October, but fans were hoping she’d pop in one last time to say goodbye. Instead, Sherri Shepherd gave a beautiful speech about how Wendy changed the face of daytime TV and that was that. Sherri will be taking over Wendy’s time slot this fall. As far as the set, sources told “The Sun” that a lot of stuff will be thrown out, including Wendy’s famous chair and her wig collection. Page Six reached out to a rep for the show and so far, no comment. As far as her future plans, Wendy told Billy Bush that she wants to start a podcast. A source told “The Sun,” “She sees Joe Rogan has a $100M podcast deal, and now she wants that kind of money.”