The daily gossip: Sigourney Weaver is playing a teenager in the Avatar sequel, Stranger Things finale wasn't finished until the last minute, and more

1. Sigourney Weaver is playing a teenager in the 'Avatar' sequel

How will James Cameron weave Sigourney Weaver back into Avatar after killing her character? In the weirdest way possible, it turns out. The Alien star is returning for Cameron's Avatar sequel The Way of Water despite dying in the first film, and Empire has now revealed how: she'll actually be portraying an entirely new character, a Na'vi ... who's also the adoptive teenage daughter of Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana's characters, Jake and Neytiri. That's right: the 72-year-old actress will be playing a teenager. "I think we all pretty much remember what we were feeling as adolescents," Weaver said, and her research process involved "workshopping with a group of teenage girls," according to Empire. Cameron noted she's been given a "big" acting challenge, seeing as she's being asked to play a character "[decades younger than] her actual biological age." Will she be getting acting tips from Ben Platt, then?

Empire

2. The 'Stranger Things' finale wasn't finished until the last minute

The creators of Stranger Things are bringing some real "writing your term paper the night before it's due" energy to one of the summer's most anticipated releases. Netflix dropped the second volume of Stranger Things' fourth season on Friday, and it seems part of the reason for splitting the season in half was just to give the creators time to actually finish it. Indeed, Collider's Steven Weintraub reported shortly before the episodes dropped that creators Matt and Ross Duffer actually just finished the final visual effects shots on the finale "this morning," rushing to upload them to Netflix's servers. In fact, the finale was finished so close to release that "if you watch the episode at 2am tonight you might not see the final shots" because it "takes 24 hours after upload to populate in the Netflix system," Weintraub noted. Finally, non-gamers can experience the joys of a day one patch.

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Collider

3. Miles Teller should be the next James Bond, according to Miles Teller's grandmother

Tell-er, grandma! As the producers of the James Bond franchise search for the next 007, Miles Teller's grandmother has a humble suggestion: Miles Teller. Leona Flowers, who identifies herself in her Twitter bio as "Miles teller's Gramma," has launched a social media campaign for her grandson to succeed Daniel Craig as Bond, tweeting that he "has proven that he has everything they're looking for — talent, looks, strength, worldwide appeal & oh, so cool. He can be that guy!!" She's been pretty active on Twitter replying to people this week making her case, declaring "our English friends would welcome him as 007." Wait a second, you might be thinking, isn't Miles Teller American? He sure is, but Flowers assured skeptics, "He studied acting which includes accents. He'd be great." Hmm, does Idris Elba's aunt have anything to say about this?

People

4. Peacock says nevermind on that 'Field of Dreams' show

If you build it, they will come? Maybe not. A Field of Dreams TV series that was in the works at Peacock has been dropped by the streamer, according to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Peacock ordered the show straight-to-series last summer, and it was set to be a "reimagining" of the classic baseball film starring Kevin Costner. Michael Schur, known for his work on shows like Parks and Recreation and The Good Place, was tapped to write and produce. But Peacock apparently got cold feet for reasons that haven't been fully explained, though with the A League of Their Own series happening at Amazon, maybe they were worried there just wasn't enough room for two streaming shows based on classic baseball films? Either way, Universal Television is reportedly shopping the project around to other potential buyers, so we'll have to see whether the dream is truly dead or if someone else is interested in playing ball.

The Hollywood Reporter Variety

5. Another report claims Taylor Swift is secretly engaged

How many times are we going to do this? Another report is claiming Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn have secretly gotten engaged. This time, it comes from The Sun, which cites a source who insists the two have been engaged for a few months now but have "only told their inner-inner circle — basically immediate family, and trusted, very old friends." The source added, "Everyone has been sworn to secrecy, too." Well, sounds like whoever told this person blew it, then! Back in February, Life&Style also reported that Swift and Alwyn had gotten engaged, though mysteriously, no other outlets were able to corroborate it, and they certainly have never confirmed it themselves. "If the answer was yes, I wouldn't say, and if the answer was no, I wouldn't say," Alwyn told The Wall Street Journal. So is it a love story? Baby, just say ... maybe?

The Sun