This Week in Gossip #42

Chuck’s gone Trumper, Megalopolis flops, and celebrity charities continue to be suspect.

Zachary Levi’s a Trump Supporter Now

Today in, “nobody is surprised by this” news, Zachary Levi threw his weight behind Donald Trump’s campaign for president. After spending many months bigging up Robert F. “can I have that raccoon corpse in your yard?” Kennedy Jr., he’s committed fully to the train of orange fascism. I’m not gonna repeat all the stuff he said at this rally because who has time for that? It’s the same old, “I’m a nice guy with good American values so of course I’m going with the insurrectionist ghoul” rhetoric. None of it was surprising. It was just tedious.

Several of Levi’s former co-stars reportedly unfollowed him on social media following the news. In a now-deleted post, Yvette Nicole Brown lamented the loss of her friend. Whoopi Goldberg read him to filth. The usual suspects claimed he was being ostracised by Hollyweird liberals and all that crap, but the overall vibe from this has been, “huh, him? Okay. Ew. Whatever.”

I’ve seen some people wonder if Levi was radicalized during lockdown, or if he’s decided to go full grifter since the flops of the second Shazam movie and Harold & the Purple Crayon have effectively ended his leading man blockbuster career. I think he’s leaning into the latter but honestly, this was always who Zachary Levi was going to become. He’s been sticking his foot in his mouth for years with questionable comments, as well as endorsing Jordan Peterson. He had that Chris Pratt vibe going on, and him endorsing RFK Jr. felt like he was dipping a toe into the possibility of a mask-off reveal.

He could have done better. He is a charming actor in his specific niche, and he’s got real musical theatre chops (he’s a Tony nominee!) He was pulling in that Disney money and could have coasted off convention appearances with Chuck lovers. There’s always room for a conventionally attractive white dude who can sing and dance and be a believable dork. And, to put it bluntly, I don’t think Levi is the kind of guy who will appeal to the average RFK Jr/.Joe Rogan bro. I’m sure they’d call him a beta cuck or whatever the tedious terminology is these days. Watching him give that endorsement, it’s almost quaint how little reception he gets for mentioning Shazam.

Hollywood is not a progressive paradise and never has been, as the Red Scare, Ronald Reagan, and Charlton Heston can attest to. It never has been I highly recommend the book Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics by Steven J. Ross for a deep dive into this exact topic. Right-wingers can and do get work, even in major projects. Jon Voight is a good example, even as he has become so toxic that even Variety couldn’t give him the puff piece treatment once he started his racist rants mid-interview. I don’t think Zachary Levi will stop working, but he’s also not an essential power player who anyone is going to miss. If I was him, I’d start looking into TV guest roles and ride that safe space for a while. He’s not gonna get Shazam 3. He might get called back for Tangled-related stuff. But endorsing Trump in 2024 is a tough thing to walk back, and there are hundreds of cheaper, nicer, vaccinated Zachary Levis out there waiting to replace him. You can’t be the “nice guy” when you’ve so thoroughly aligned yourself with that man. You could have just shut up, dude.

Of Course Megalopolis Flopped

(No seriously, how much does Nathalie Emmanuel look like Meghan Markle?!)

Over the weekend, the biggest new film at the box office was The Wild Robot, DreamWorks Animation’s latest work that has seen the company receive some of its strongest reviews. The next highest-grossing new release was Devara Part One, an Indian action movie that's inspired some raucous screenings. And then it was Megalopolis. That one debuted at number six with just over $4 million from 1,854 theatres. It has a reported budget of $120 million.

Ouch.