The daily gossip: February 26, 2020

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1. Prince Harry declares we can just call him Harry
2. Apple apparently doesn't allow movie villains to use iPhones
3. The FCC received 1,312 complaints about J-Lo and Shakira's halftime show
4. Hilary Duff hints at more trouble for the Lizzie McGuire revival
5. No Time to Die could potentially be the longest Bond movie ever

published 26 February 2020

1. Prince Harry declares we can just call him Harry

Drop the "prince." Just "Harry." It's cleaner. On Wednesday, the Duke of Sussex "made it clear that we are all just to call him Harry," according to Ayesha Hazarika, the host of a sustainable tourism conference in Scotland who was tasked with introducing the prince at the event. The decision to lose the title comes as Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, prepare to step back from their royal duties beginning March 31. Dropping the formality of "prince," though, could cause confusion for people still seeking to address Harry with respect — chiefly because no one seems to quite know what his last name is. (It's Mountbatten-Windsor. Probably.)

In the good old days, you could tell who the bad guy was in a movie was by their black cowboy hat or their sinister mustache. These days, the giveaway is more likely to be their preference for Android phones. Speaking with Vanity Fair, Knives Out director Rian Johnson revealed that "Apple, they let you use iPhones in movies, but — and this is very pivotal if you're ever watching a mystery movie — bad guys cannot have iPhones on camera." Johnson seemed to immediately regret giving away the intel, joking that "every single filmmaker that has a bad guy in their movie that's supposed to be a secret wants to murder me right now." Which, on second thought, would be a great plot for Knives Out 2.

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In today's edition of this is why we can't have nice things, the Federal Communications Commission reported Wednesday that it received a whopping 1,312 complaints over Jennifer Lopez and Shakira's halftime show at the Super Bowl earlier this month. The performance — which paid homage to the women's Latina roots — was described as "completely inappropriate," "obscene," and a "strip club act" by irate viewers, with objections arriving from every state except Vermont. The most baffling news of all, though, was that somehow only around 50 people filed complains when Maroon 5's frontman, Adam Levine, performed topless at Super Bowl LIII in 2019 and subjected all of us to his unfortunate tattoo collection.

Sometimes we make it, sometimes we fake it ... and sometimes even picture perfect plans go awry. Things hadn't been looking good for the Lizzie McGuire revival ever since the original show's creator, Terri Minsky, stepped down from the reboot in January, and a cryptic Instagram story from lead actress Hilary Duff might further signal that fans could be waiting a long time to see her reunited on screen with Gordo. On Tuesday, Duff posted a screenshot of an article about the TV show Love, Simon being pulled from Disney+ for failing to be "family friendly," circling the text and adding "sounds familiar..." The worst part? If it's true the show has been sidelined, we might not get that Lizzo/Lizzie crossover we all deserve.

No Time to Die should have been called No Time for a Bathroom Break, because rumor has it the film is going to be the longest James Bond movie ever made. According to unofficial run times posted on AMC and Regal Cinemas' websites, Daniel Craig's fifth and final installment in the 007 franchise will take 163 minutes, or nearly three hours, to watch. If that turns out to be the case, it would make No Time to Die an entire quarter of an hour longer than the next-longest Bond movie, Spectre, and almost a full hour longer than the shortest (but still also somehow the longest?) Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.