Hollywood: Jason Momoa
By Tony Rizzo
HOLLYWOOD -- Tom Cruise does Fred Astaire? With "Mission: Impossible 8" in the can and the $1.8 billion grosses for "Top Gun: Maverick," at 60 years old, Cruise is taking on singing and dancing next in an as-yet-untitled musical. Cruise sang in "Rock of Ages," with Julianne Hough and Russell Brand (but it didn't even gross its $75 million cost). Fear not -- he'll most likely get serious again later on with a top-secret action film that'll evolve into his next franchise. His third film will shoot in outer space, with NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX. The plan is to dock with Axiom, the world's first commercial space station.
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Jason Momoa's riding high with the $1.148 billion grosses from "Aquaman," and even though he has Netflix's "Slumberland," "Fast X" (scheduled to release May 2023), "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" (due June 2023), "Fast & Furious 11" and "The Last Manhunt" coming soon, he can't quite get over his turn as "Conan the Barbarian" in 2011, which cost $90 million and tanked with only a $63.5 million gross. Momoa admitted, "It was one of the best experiences I had, and it was taken over and turned into a pile of ..." -- let's just say, he wasn't exactly happy with the end result. Funny how he was thrilled to be Conan, until Aquaman got him into the swim of things!
Jason Momoa in "Aquaman" PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of HBO Max
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Do major players like John Goodman, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vergara and Jane Seymour not fully understand that the downloadable, "free" phone app games they represent are traps for kids and people who love games?
These so-called "free" games can get people addicted to gambling. The games are developed by the Israel-based company Playtika, who advertises that Slotomania is free, but in order to keep spinning or playing after the initial free coins, you must spend real money to continue playing.
Not only are these games not actually free, but the money you spend buying coins for spins doesn't keep you in the game for very long.
The only winner in this scam is Playtika: You can put your money into the game, but you can't take money out, because all winnings are "virtual." A 2018 Washington state class-action lawsuit accused Playtika of violating anti-gambling laws in their state. Did the stars hawking these games know what they're representing, or are they blinded by the big money they're making from it?
John Goodman's face on the front of a big finger is something that's hard to get out of your mind!
(c) 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.