Early box office numbers forecast a successful first weekend for The Predator, the latest installment of the sci-fi franchise that premiered in previews Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter wrote.

The film debut raked in $2.5 million on Thursday alone, while The Nun earned $2.2 million. The demonic Nun film dominated last weekend's box office, taking in a scary-good $53.8 million, but it's expected to cool down in the coming days with an industry-typical 65 percent drop in its second weekend, to about $20 million, reports Deadline.

The Predator will likely take over in the top spot with an expected $25 million domestic haul over the next three days. Read more box office predictions at Deadline, and more about The Predator's underappreciated charms here at The Week. Summer Meza

A majority of American voters, 67 percent, say NFL players have the right to take a knee in protest during the national anthem, a recent Quinnipiac University poll found.

That doesn't mean everyone thinks it should happen — 47 percent said they approve of the protests, while 47 percent disapproved. NFL players have kneeled or sat during pre-game anthem ceremonies as a way to protest racial inequality and police brutality.

White voters and men were two demographic groups that disapproved of the protests, while other groups approved or were split. Republican voters are the only group that largely said, 60-39 percent, that players do not have the right to protest this way, and 89 percent said they disapproved of the kneeling.

The poll was conducted between Sept. 6-9, surveying 1,038 voters by phone. The margin of error is 3.7 percentage points. See more poll results at Quinnipiac University. Summer Meza

One of the most famous and highest-grossing actresses in China hasn't been seen in months, and nobody knows what happened to her.

The New York Times reports that Fan Bingbing, a wildly popular actress in China who has also starred in some American films like Iron Man 3 and X-Men: Days of Future Past, has mysteriously vanished. BBC reports that her last public appearance was in early July. Her disappearance may be related to the fact that she was accused of tax evasion in June, per The Hollywood Reporter, leading to speculation that she has been detained by authorities.

But The New York Times reports that she hasn't actually been charged with a crime, and Chinese authorities will not confirm whether she is being investigated at all, although a general investigation into tax evasion in the industry launched in June and resulted in new restrictions on actors' salaries. The Times notes that those close to Fan doubt that her unexplained disappearance only has to do with taxes, though, and there are rumors that she may have fled the country. Her social media pages have not been updated in four months.

In addition to being missing, Fan has also suddenly become a pariah in China, with brands she used to represent completely cutting ties with her and studios scrubbing her from movie posters. In one case, Fan was reportedly removed from a film entirely. One report from August suggested she had been banned from acting for three years, per Variety, but neither this — nor nearly anything else about this strange saga — has been confirmed. Brendan Morrow

A woman who knew Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when he was in high school has alleged that Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her in the early 1980s, a report from The New Yorker found Friday.

The woman, who has asked to remain anonymous, came forward when President Trump nominated Kavanaugh back in July, providing Democratic lawmakers with information that led to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) referring the matter to the FBI on Thursday. The allegation describes an incident during a party; the woman accuses Kavanaugh of holding her down and attempting to force himself on her. She says that he, along with a classmate of his, had been drinking, and turned up music to muffle her protests before she escaped the room.

"I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation," Kavanaugh told The New Yorker in a statement. "I did not do this back in high school or at any time." Kavanaugh's former classmate said, "I have no recollection of that."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released a letter Friday signed by 65 women who knew Kavanaugh when he attended Georgetown Prep, an all-boys school in Maryland. The women signed to support a statement that says Kavanaugh "has always treated women with decency and respect."

A White House representative called the allegations an "11th hour attempt to delay" Kavanaugh's confirmation, while critics raised the question of how the GOP gathered 65 signatures from Kavanaugh's distant acquaintances so quickly without prior knowledge of the allegations. The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Kavanaugh's nomination next week. Read more at The New Yorker. Summer Meza

Paul Manafort's chances of a presidential pardon likely flew out the window Friday when he agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. Not that a pardon would've mattered anyway, journalist Marcy Wheeler suggests.

Even after being convicted of financial crimes last month, Manafort "refused to ... make up stories in order to get a 'deal,'" President Trump tweeted at the time. The president was even considering pardoning his former campaign chair, though Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he suggested Trump should wait until Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation had ended.

But on Friday, Manafort reached a plea deal with prosecutors — including a 17-page cooperation agreement with Mueller's investigation. And even if Manafort was still in Trump's good graces, a pardon would still probably be useless, Wheeler points out on her site Empty Wheel:

Wheeler also surmised that, after the plea deal news broke, it was obvious that Manafort would cooperate because no reporters immediately confirmed he wouldn't. Keeping the cooperation secret for nearly two hours was apparently part of Mueller's strategy, as it would "prevent a last-minute pardon from Trump undercutting" the deal, Wheeler writes.

As part of the plea deal, Manafort also pleaded guilty to two federal conspiracy charges ahead of what was supposed to be his second trial regarding his political work with Ukraine. Read more of Wheeler's analysis at Empty Wheel. Kathryn Krawczyk

The former chairman of President Trump's campaign has pleaded guilty to two federal crimes and is reportedly cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The White House says this doesn't have anything to do with the president whatsoever.

Paul Manafort, who worked on the Trump campaign from March to August 2016, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, The Washington Post reports. He is accused of avoiding $15 million in taxes by storing his money in offshore accounts, as well as witness-tampering and working as an unregistered lobbyist on behalf of Ukraine before his time with the Trump campaign.

In a statement Friday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the Manafort plea "had absolutely nothing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign. It is totally unrelated." Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, also weighed in with the same basic message, telling reporters that Friday's events are unrelated to Trump. Giuliani added that "the president did nothing wrong."

Manafort reportedly plans to cooperate with Mueller's investigation, giving interviews and handing over documents, per NBC News' Kelly O'Donnell, which is significant considering he was a key part of the Trump campaign for about five months. The Trump team has sought to downplay Manafort's influence on the campaign ever since his legal troubles began to mount, but in August 2016, Trump confidant Newt Gingrich told Fox News that "nobody should underestimate how much Paul Manafort did to really help get this [Trump] campaign to where it is right now." Brendan Morrow