The daily gossip: October 17, 2019

(Image credit: Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

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1. Paul Dano will play the Riddler in the new Batman movie
2. HBO Max is turning Grease into a TV series
3. Scarlett Johansson dishes on how Colin Jost proposed to her
4. Stranger Things Season 3 was Netflix's biggest show ever
5. Jennifer Lawrence's wedding menu looks pretty delicious

published 17 October 2019

1. Paul Dano will play the Riddler in the new Batman movie

With the Robert Pattinson-led reboot The Batman not bound for theaters until 2021, the biggest villain the movie has faced so far is its inability to find somebody to play the villain. At long last, Paul Dano has been cast to play the Riddler — a villain previously played, both memorably and divisively, by Jim Carrey in 1995's Batman Forever. Previous reports indicate that producers were interested in Jonah Hill or Seth Rogen for the villain role, because apparently their initial casting strategy was, "What about a Batman/Superbad crossover?"

Dust off your leather jacket and tune up your hot rod, because upcoming streaming service HBO Max is hopelessly devoted to launching a Grease spinoff. The series, called Rydell High, will follow the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds through a series of musical adventures, providing a whole new generation the chance to watch Grease with their kids and realize these lyrics are way, way more explicit than they remembered.

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On the promotional circuit for her upcoming movie Marriage Story, Scarlett Johansson has repeatedly been asked about her own, uh, marriage story. And while she's understandably reluctant to dish out all the details, she did spill a little about how her fiancé, Saturday Night Live's Colin Jost, proposed. "He killed it," Johansson said. "It was a very James Bond situation." So: tuxedos, martinis, and a scary dude with a razor-tipped bowler hat.

People binge-watching a Netflix show? Stranger Things have happened. In a quarterly earnings report, the streaming company revealed that the third season of the buzzy sci-fi/horror hit was its biggest show ever, with 64 million subscribers checking out at least some of the most recent season. Stranger Things is already slated to return for a fourth season, which is likely to debut sometime next year — so the show's creative team should have plenty of time to figure out which Steven Spielberg movie they can borrow from this time around.

Check your mailbox and make sure you didn't miss an invite to Jennifer Lawrence and Cooke Maroney's wedding in Rhode Island this weekend, because it sounds like anyone who attends will enjoy quite a feast. The dinner menu will include Brussels sprouts with cured egg yolk, smoked pork belly with pickled apple, and a five-week-aged leg of beef with forager's sauce — basically, the opposite of the Hunger Games.

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Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.