Names and faces
J.J. Abrams is returning to Star Wars, replacing Colin Trevorrow as writer and director of Episode IX. On Tuesday, Disney announced Abrams’ return a week after news broke of Trevorrow’s departure. After several high-profile exits by previous Star Wars directors, Lucasfilm is turning to the filmmaker who helped resurrect the franchise in the first place. Abrams will co-write the film with screenwriter Chris Terrio, who won an Oscar for adapting Argo and also co-wrote Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. As the director of The Force Awakens, Abrams rebooted Star Wars to largely glowing reviews from fans and more than $2 billion in box office receipts. Abrams had said that would be his only film for the franchise, but he’s now been pulled back in. Production on Episode IX was supposed to begin early next year. It’s unclear at this point whether the shift will affect that or the release date. Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy said Abrams “delivered everything we could have possibly hoped for” on The Force Awakens and added, “I am so excited that he is coming back to close out this trilogy.” This move also means Abrams will be the only director aside from Star Wars creator George Lucas to direct more than one Star Wars film. Star Wars: Episode IX is expected to hit theaters in December of 2019.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who woke up Tuesday to find his name trending on Twitter, said an aide was responsible for the “like” that caused a pornographic post to briefly appear on his Twitter feed overnight. The Texas Republican and 2016 presidential candidate said Tuesday that several aides have access to the account and that one inadvertently posted the pornography, a two-minute clip to a video from the Milf Hunter series. Around midnight Eastern time, someone signed into the senator’s official Twitter account and clicked a little heart below the video, resulting in a tedcruz “like” to porn. Cruz told reporters that “it was a staffing issue, and it was inadvertent. It was a mistake. It was not a deliberate action.” “Liking” — which only people with access to a Twitter account are able to do — causes it to appear on one’s feed. Cruz sought to make light of the episode, which gained widespread notice on the popular social media site. “This is not how I envisioned waking up this morning,” Cruz said. “Although I will say that if I had known that this would trend so quickly, perhaps we should have posted something like this back during the Indiana primary.” Cruz would not say whether he’ll fire the staff aide or deny the aide access to his social media accounts, though he noted that the aide did not act maliciously.