In 2011, Natalie Portman took home the Oscar for best actress for her role in "Black Swan."

But the 33-year-old actress, who currently lives in Paris with her husband three-year-old son, doesn't have her statue displayed in the family's home. In fact, she's not even exactly sure where it is.

In a revealing new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Portman explains why she thinks her Oscar statue is insignificant:

"I don’t know where it is. I think it’s in the safe or something. I don’t know. I haven’t seen it in a while. I mean, Darren [Aronofsky, director of "Black Swan"] actually said to me something when we were in that whole thing that resonated so deeply. I was reading the story of Abraham to my child and talking about, like, not worshipping false idols. And this is literally like gold men. This is literally worshipping gold idols — if you worship it. That’s why it’s not displayed on the wall. It’s a false idol."

Portman is currently promoting her feature directorial debut, "A Tale of Love and Darkness." An adaptation of Israeli author Amos Oz's memoir, the actress also stars in and wrote the screenplay for the film.

SEE ALSO: Reese Witherspoon is the latest celebrity to launch a lifestyle site and it's completely polarizing

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NOW WATCH: Amy Schumer gives a brutally honest interview about her sex life

One of the best parts of "Avengers: Age of Ultron," hands down, is the big reveal of a new superhero, Vision.

We won't spoil much about the character if you haven't seen the film, but the droid, masterfully played by Marvel veteran Paul Bettany, steals just about every scene in which he appears.

You couldn't imagine anyone else in the role. 

So it's incredible to imagine that moments before the 43-year-old actor was offered the role, a producer told him he'd never get another gig in Hollywood.

During an interview with Business Insider, Bettany broke down how he first found out about playing Vision, and how the news couldn't have come at a better moment.

"I’d actually just had a meeting with a producer who had told me I was never going to work again and I stepped out into Hollywood and I sat on the sidewalk with my feet in the gutter and I thought ‘F--- me,'" Bettany told Business Insider.

What happened next was unexpected.

"My phone rang and it was Joss Whedon and he said, ‘Do you want to play the Vision in the next ‘Avengers’ movie?’" Bettany continued. "And, I said yes. And I sort of looked up to heaven and thought karma’s very quick these days ... and [I] flipped the building behind me the finger.”

"It happened just like that. I sat down and my phone rang. Very funny. But you know if I had a dollar for every time somebody told me my career was over, my career could be over," he chuckled.

The English actor said he wasn't familiar with the character when offered the role.

"No, not at all," he said. "It was a very different world in the ‘70s when I grew up. I guess they [Avengers] were around, but we really had our own comics and stuff like the Eagle with Dan Dare and the Mekon and stuff like that. Really, what we knew was from TV shows ... We knew Batman, and we knew Spider-Man, and we knew Superman."

Bettany did end up getting a bunch of comics on the character to read up on Vision. This is the second role Bettany has played in a Marvel film after a recurring role since 2008 as Tony Stark's A.I. J.A.R.V.I.S.

"Everybody I would talk to knows the characters and read comics as kids, and we just didn’t," Bettany said. "But also you’re working with sort of the professors of the Marvel world so if you ever have a question ... [Marvel president] Kevin Feige and [executive producer] Jeremy Latcham, [director] Joss Whedon ... they’re like encyclopedias."

SEE ALSO: Marvel broke its own movie rule to let Paul Bettany play a new superhero in "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

AND: 9 characters who have been able to lift Thor's hammer

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NOW WATCH: Here's Why Stan Lee Says You Should Never Do Something Just For Money

If you aren't caught up on "Game of Thrones," there are some spoilers ahead.

Near the end of Sunday's "Game of Thrones" we finally met the long-hinted at stone men, men afflicted with greyscale. The highly contagious and deadly disease nearly claimed Stannis Baratheon's daughter Shireen as a newborn.

Anyone who comes down with greyscale is usually exiled to a faraway city in ruin as their skin slowly turns stone-like. That's not only because of the disease's ability to spread like wildfire, but also because it can affect the brain and turn the recipient mad. 

In Sunday's episode, Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and Jorah (Iain Glen) get ambushed by a flock of stone men while sailing through Valyria. 

We don't get a really good look at the scaley, hardened creatures, but a feature released by HBO Sunday evening shows exactly how the stuntmen prepped to get into character.

We saw the stone men like this Sunday night:

Here's how they look in the light.

They blend in with the rocks in the background.

It takes an enormous amount of work to get them to look that way.

Prosthtics supervisor Barry Gower says it was about a four-hour process to transform just the head and neck of various stuntmen into the stone men of Valyria.

Here, one of the stunt men sit down in the makeup chair. Take note of the changing clock in the background. It's about 3:45 (it looks like a.m. from the changing light in the video).

4:45: Hair is covered up and the chest and neck are painted.

A little after 5:05: A prosthetic is being placed onto the face.

Around 6:36: Small details are being painted onto the face. Gower explains that different textures including elephant skin and cracked river beds served as inspiration for the stone people's look.

It's nearly 8, just a little over four hours later, and the stunt man is finally looking like a stone man.

Here's how the transformation looks from beginning to end:

Outside the trailer, even more details are put in place with the thinnest of brushes.

Stuntman Calvin Heasman compares the process to wearing a wetsuit, but on your face. 

"Quite uncomfortable, not gonna lie," Heasman explained.

You can watch the full feature showing the making of the stone men scene via HBO below:

SEE ALSO: This scene between Stannis and his daughter on "Game of Thrones" was much more important than you thought

More "Game of Thrones": GoT brings one of the most iconic scenes from the books to life

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NOW WATCH: Here's what 'Game of Thrones' stars look like in real life

Warning: Spoilers ahead if you're not caught up with "Game of Thrones"

Murderous dragons, creepy Boltons, and riled up Night’s Watch brothers made Sunday’s “Game of Thrones” one of the most entertaining yet this season. The best was saved for last, when Tyrion and Jorah voyaged into Valyria and scuffled with the Stone Men.

The scene opened with the two men stiffly at odds, which makes sense considering that Tyrion is currently Jorah’s prisoner. Tyrion notices that they’re entering Valyria, the once-great city that is now in ruins and largely avoided.

Jorah has opted for this route to Meeren because there is less risk of pirate attacking, but clearly he wasn’t prepared for other dangers.

As they make their way down a narrow channel, Tyrion and Jorah are astounded at the sight of Drogon flying over them. They probably should have been paying closer attention to the suspiciously humanoid shaped rocks that were on virtually every wall in sight.

But the duo are too distracted by Drogon to notice, and soon they are under attack. Jorah recognizes the Stone Men immediately, and warns Tyrion not to touch them. They narrowly escape, but not before teasing viewers with what looked like a doomed Tyrion being dragged underwater by a Stone Man.

Thankfully Jorah intervened in time, and it appears that having your boot grabbed by a Stone Man doesn’t qualify as “touching” — Tyrion is unharmed.

Jorah tells Tyrion that he, too, was untouched by the contagious attackers. But apparently Jorah is precisely the type of person you wouldn’t want infected when the zombie apocalypse happens, because he was actually hiding a deadly secret.

Jorah contracted greyscale. 

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of this mysterious leprosy-like affliction. Remember, the Stone Men are those who contracted greyscale and have been exiled to Valyria. Stannis mentioned them in episode four while he told his daughter, Shireen, about her miraculous recovery from greyscale. 

This bit of exposition could have been placed there to establish a precedent for a cure to greyscale, but it’s unlikely. For one thing, Shireen was very young, and had the resources of a highborn family to bring healers from around the world. Jorah, currently exiled and in a foreign land, probably isn’t scraping together a miracle cure anytime soon.

Also, we’ve had other explanatory scenes this season about greyscale that tell a much more gruesome tale. Gilly, while speaking to Shireen, told a story about her two sisters. They contracted the disease, and were driven mad by it until their father eventually put them out of their misery.

As George R.R. Martin explains in this HBO behind-the-scenes video, greyscale is essentially a slow death sentence. When it affects the brain, slowly turning it to stone, it also brings with it an insanity. This absolutely cannot be good for Jorah, but he seems determined to stay the course and make sure he gets back to Daenerys.

There’s a likely reason why the show writers have decided to focus on greyscale so much this season. In the book series, Jorah kidnaps Tyrion with the same intention of bringing him to Daenerys. But they are both captured by pirates and sold into slavery, and never go near Valyria. 

The showrunners seem to have opted out of this plot (and added in a quip from Jorah about pirates being afraid of Valyria as an aside for the book fans who noticed the change).

Instead, Jorah has briefly adopted the narrative of a book-only character named Jon Connington. Connington accompanies Tyrion on an earlier part of his journey through Essos (also cut from the show) and saves Tyrion from the Stone Men in the precise way we saw Jorah do it. There’s a water rescue, and the savior winds up contracting greyscale.

In the book series, a horrific plague breaks out in Meeren and the surrounding cities, causing a threat to Daenerys’ already fragile queendom. It’s called the Pale Mare, and involves a lot of gruesome bowel movements. Our guess is HBO has wisely chosen to substitute a greyscale outbreak instead of the feces-focused Pale Mare. That’s just better television. It would explain why there’s been a reference to greyscale in nearly every episode so far this season.

We’ll see how Jorah plays a part in the coming Meeren plot, but it’s bound to be a harrowing journey, no matter the outcome.

SEE ALSO: It took nearly four hours to transform stuntmen into stone men for Sunday's "Game of Thrones"

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NOW WATCH: How a legendary rock band ended up influencing the 'Game of Thrones' books

"American Idol" is about to sing its swan song.

Fox is canceling the long-running singing competition after its coming 15th season.

"It was not an easy decision," Fox's co-chairman and co-CEO, Gary Newman, said on a press call Monday morning. "'American Idol' has been such a vital part of Fox for its run. We spent a lot of time talking to producers about the future of 'American Idol,' and collectively we all arrived at the conclusion that it was time to bring the show to an end."

"Idol" will return in January for its 15th and final season. Host Ryan Seacrest and judges Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban, and Harry Connick Jr. will return for the final season, which the network promises will be a suitable send-off for the groundbreaking competition.

"We really wanted to do it in a way that felt special and celebratory and treated the show the way it deserved to be treated," Newman said. "Next year is going to be a true season-long celebration. We're already talking about surprises we can have for the fans to make it feel special and to send it off in a way that's significant as the run it's had on our network."

What kinds of surprises? Fox is still in discussions, but co-chairman and co-CEO Dana Walden said former show judges had already expressed interest in making appearances during the final season. Season-one cohost Brian Dunkleman was suggested by a reporter on the call, to which Walden responded, "Yes! Where's Brian nowadays?"

Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, Ellen DeGeneres, Mariah Carey, Kara Dioguardi, and Steven Tyler are among those who filled the judges' seats over the past 14 seasons.

The decision arrives after several years of dwindling ratings. The audience for the current season alone has shrunk from 11.2 million people for the premiere to just 6.9 for Wednesday's episode, according to Nielsen.

Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, Fantasia Barrino, and Jennifer Hudson are among the show's most successful alums.

Though Fox is ending "Idol" and previously canceled Cowell's "The X Factor" after just three seasons, the network is developing its reality slate under new vice president of alternative entertainment, Corie Henson. Newman said he would never say the network is out of the singing-competition business.

SEE ALSO: 17 TV shows that have just been canceled

MORE: 'American Idol' Winner Phillip Phillips Wants Out Of His 'Oppressive' Contract

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NOW WATCH: New HBO documentary reveals what controversial singer Kurt Cobain was really like

Warning: Spoilers ahead

Like most of the comedy featured on HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” actual technology was the inspiration for one hilarious moment on Sunday night's show.

It entailed an armless monkey, a bionic arm, and primal instincts.

But let’s back up.

In Sunday’s episode, “Big Head” (Josh Brener) is suddenly promoted to run Hooli’s new “moonshot” initiative, Hooli [XYZ]. He’s partnered with Davis Bannerchek (Patrick Fischler), a pioneer in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence.

For those who watch the show it will come to no surprise that Big Head does little to no work as head of [XYZ]. In fact, his contribution to [XYZ] is attempting to build a giant potato cannon, which doesn’t even work.

But Bannerchek is making major strides.

He shows off to Hooli head Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) a usable, bionic-like prosthetic arm powered through the use of magnets that his team has provided to a small monkey named Kiko, whose arms were severed following a land mine explosion in Nicaragua.

What follows after the arm is put on the monkey is the crude humor we've come to love from the show.

“Silicon Valley” co-creator, Mike Judge, and one of the show’s executive producer’s, Alec Berg, told Business Insider that the joke originated from a visit to the set from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). 

“The guy brought this giant, scary looking laptop that had a lot of different things to show us on what they were working on,” said Berg. “One of the things was this new kind of prosthetic where basically you put a magnet at the end of someone’s severed limb and magnetically attach [the prosthesis] and it connects electronically through the magnets.”

But Berg and Judge's heads really started spinning when they were shown a video of a prototype of the prosthesis used on a monkey.

It was instant comedy gold.

“You spend millions of dollars developing this incredibly complicated technology and you put it on a monkey and what is the monkey going to do with it expect masturbate and throw its own feces,” Berg thought after watching the monkey video. “That just seemed really funny.”

In the "Silicon Valley" scene, something similar occurs.

Bannerchek shows Belson the bionic arm his team has created for the adorable Kiko. After the monkey realizes it suddenly has an arm, it immediately begins to pleasure itself — and later throws its own feces — to the horror of Bannerchek and Belson.

Berg wants it to be clear that DARPA was not involved in this joke and had no knowledge what the show would do with the information it provided to the producers.

Judge, who directed Sunday’s episode, said that once they figured out the joke there were numerous intense production meetings that followed to plan how to shoot it.

“People were like, ‘It’s going to be a closed set and nobody talk to the monkey! Only three people allowed by it! Don't make any sudden moves!’ I thought, s--t, this monkey’s going to go crazy!” Judge recalled.

But after all the planning and concern over not making the monkey skittish, it turned out to be a very casual shoot.

“I think people got a little too over-prepared,” said Judge. “When we were done [shooting] people were like, ‘Hey, take your picture with the monkey!’ The monkey was on people’s heads, it was just holding court on set.”

Judge even had the monkey come back a few days later to shoot it in front of a green screen to get a few shots they missed.

“A lot of [the monkey's actions] were just accidental,” said Judge. “It would look down at its crotch once because it dropped something and we were like, okay, we’ll use that.”

Judge said that the monkey used, a white-faced capuchin, did have arms. They were digitally painted out. The bionic arm attached to it in the scene was also done with computer graphics.

The trick to the joke working, Judge and Berg learned, was to not have the camera on the monkey.

“In the initial cut there was a lot more of the monkey doing its business,” said Berg. “What ended up being funnier was watching the character’s faces [watching the monkey]. Once you know what’s going on and how absurd it is, the less you see the monkey the funnier it becomes.”

Looking back on shooting the joke, Judge feels the monkey was more mature about it than the humans.

“To be fair to the monkey, it did everything on command,” he said. “It was very much a professional actor.”

SEE ALSO: HBO's 'Silicon Valley' really built a 'Bro app' based off the Yo app

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NOW WATCH: 70 people were injured while filming this movie with 100 untamed lions

Matthew Weiner is one of the best in the business when it comes to obscuring spoilers for "Mad Men."

Try as he might, though, he can't control social media.

Common knowledge holds that Facebook and Twitter will be the most spoiler-heavy, and that hitting refresh on either of those timelines is foolish if you want the plot to remain a secret.

Instagram, however, is usually considered to be a safe space.

But last night, when the penultimate episode of "Mad Men" aired on AMC, spoilers came in the form of Instagram comments under a photo posted by one of the show's stars.

(Please don't read on if you don't want to encounter a spoiler yourself.)

January Jones posted a photo of herself in character as Betty Draper.

For anyone who hadn't seen the episode yet, the post in and of itself was not a spoiler, as it didn't have a caption.

But then Jones's followers filled in the blanks by writing comments like these:

It was clear to anyone who hadn't yet seen the episode: something really, really bad had happened to Betty Draper this week.

Fans were apparently not amused by this and other Instagram spoilers:

Tumblr users weren't safe, either, although that shouldn't be surprising due to the medium's propensity for drama:

Jones wouldn't be the first to spoil a plot point on Instagram — intentional or otherwise. "Game of Thrones" actress Lena Headey has come under fire for the same.

SEE ALSO: Here's how much each 'Mad Men' character's dwelling cost then and now

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NOW WATCH: How the stars of AMC's blockbuster 'Mad Men' have changed over the years

When you think of the Avengers, you most likely think of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. 

After all, that's how the group has been depicted on screen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, if you've been a longtime fan of the group, you know the it has consisted of over 80 rotating members since the inaugural Avengers issue in 1963.

The group we see on screen isn't even the most well-known one to lead the team. Falcon, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Hank Pym, and Vision have all been prominent members, too.

Pop Chart Lab has an incredible break down of every Avengers group across 583 issues which has been shared with Business Insider.

Check it out below, and click the image to see the full version where you can zoom in and out:

SEE ALSO: Which movie studios own which Marvel characters all in one infographic

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NOW WATCH: This Was Marvel Legend Stan Lee's One Big Mistake

The HBO documentary "Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop" will make you chuckle, it will make you feel uncomfortable, and then it will make you want to delete your Google search history.

In yet another of many recent attempts to reevaluate a major crime story (as "Serial" and "The Jinx" do with different cases), director Erin Lee Carr takes on the case of Gilberto Valle, better known as the "Cannibal Cop."

The film, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and debuts on HBO on Monday, follows Valle, a former NYPD police officer who allegedly cooked up a scheme in an online chat room to kidnap, rape, and eat dozens of women.

Valle was convicted in 2013 for charges on kidnapping conspiracy, but, after he had served one year of jail time, his case was eventually overturned. Some believe he really wanted to do all of this. He says it was a sick fantasy that he never planned to actually carry out.

Viewers can spend all the time they want deciding whether he belongs behind bars. But this is not a film that is searching for a guilty or innocent verdict. Valle's story is used to present a bigger, more pressing problem about internet culture in general.

"Thought Crimes" evokes the terrifying dystopian ideas of "1984," "Fahrenheit 451," and "Minority Report" and suggests we may be living in one of those worlds — where our thoughts can be policed just as easily as our actions. Throughout the film, excerpts from Valle's many chats about cannibalism pop up on screen. Many of these conversations occurred on a cannibal role-playing fantasy site.

Valle's conversations were so vivid and so twisted that it seemed less like the thoughts of a troubled man and more like a legitimate murder plot. The person Valle spent much of his time chatting with made it abundantly clear that everything the two of them were discussing was very real to him. Plus, Valle's use of a police database for information on women he planned on cannibalizing clearly crosses the line.

This all gives a good sense of the worldview the film presents, in which our thoughts can be used against us; we now have the ability to broadcast our worst ideas anywhere, but every chat session feels more private than it actually is. In this future, there is no line between "thought" and "action." Valle is a great antihero for this case study because his case, and his personality, are clouded in ambiguity. By the end, it is impossible to know whether he really wanted to actually pull off any of the crimes he described.

The film itself presents incredibly dark subject matter in a surprisingly humorous way. It might be partially because the alleged Cannibal Cop seems to have a good sense of humor about seeing his life destroyed. After all, the world had a field day with this story, most likely without realizing that his actions ruined his life and tore his family apart.

While there is nothing funny about what put Valle in prison in the first place, the film's best moments come from bits of comedy that materialize through the editing process, masterfully executed by Andrew Coffman. For instance, Valle's explanations about why he isn't a cannibal are interspersed with shots of him cooking meals, including bacon as well as pasta with meat sauce.

Unlike previous true-crime documentaries, "Thought Crimes" leaves you with nobody to fully blame.

Instead the viewer is left to think about how people are now much more willing to post personal, incriminating information about themselves for the whole world to see. Overall, HBO's latest documentary makes a good case that people should be a lot more cautious about what they search for online.

"Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop" premieres on HBO on Monday at 9 p.m. ET.

SEE ALSO: This brilliant sci-fi film is one of the best movies you'll see all year

SEE ALSO: Why you should be watching Fox’s excellent ‘The Last Man on Earth’

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NOW WATCH: Watch this documentary short about a tragic crime featured on the hit podcast 'Serial'

In the time of year when movies with big explosions and little else trumps all, director George Miller’s latest film in the Mad Max franchise, “Mad Max: Fury Road,” epitomizes the summer movie blockbuster.

And we are not complaining.

Decades in the making, “Fury Road” is basically Miller’s 1981 “Mad Max” sequel, “The Road Warrior,” pumped with supercharged 3D visuals to provide a fun two-hour escapism experience.

The plot is extremely thin, but if you need one …

Tom Hardy plays Max — the original Mad Max, Mel Gibson, left the project in the early 2000s due to his legal trouble— the one-time cop who is now a desperado roaming the post-apocalyptic desert wasteland. He’s captured by the “War Boys” of a near-by tribe and after a failed, yet thrilling, attempt to escape, is used as a blood transfusion for one of the “Boys,” Nux (Nicholas Hoult), who is on the mend from battle.

While this goes on, the tribe’s leader, Immorten Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), an aging tyrant who breaths out of a sinister, teeth-designed oxygen tube, has sent off his War Rig driven by Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) to get the latest shipment of gasoline from the far away refinery. But on the drive there, she suddenly goes rouge and attempts to escape the tribe. Joe sees what she’s doing and unleashes the War Boys, including Nux and Max in tow.

The rest of the film is basically a chase for the War Rig, with Max and Nux soon becoming allies with Furiosa.

Very similar to the incredible chase we see in “The Road Warrior,” this one is extended to span most of the movie.

And again, there’s nothing wrong with that. The cars created for "Fury Road" are visual marvels and the stunts pulled off with them can only be described as thrilling moves you only thought possible back when you played with your Tonka trucks as a kid in the backyard.

And instead of gasoline being what the bad guys want this time the precious cargo are the beautiful five wives (Riley Keough and Zoë Kravitz, among them) of Immorten Joe, who are also trying to escape.

If you’re familiar with the three previous "Mad Max" films ("Mad Max," "The Road Warrior," "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome"), "Fury Road" is incredible fun that is close to two-hours of non-stop action. And this is only elevated by the fact that at the helm of this reboot is Miller, the brainchild of all the movies in the franchise.

But this is also a summer movie for those who don’t get a rush from the countless superhero adaptations thrust upon us this time of year.

Rated R (and a hard R at that, with loads of violence and gore), "Fury Road" is perfect counter-programming. There are no witty one-liners from the stars (in fact, Hardy doesn’t talk much at all), and no mission to save the universe.

Our "hero," Max, is a troubled soul who’s gone through a lot and just trying to survive. Hardy does play him with a bit more sentimentality than Gibson did, but Miller is good at keeping those moments brief.

With the "Mad Max" films Miller always seeps in a bigger meaning. Often it’s the world killing itself (like his commentary on our addiction to gasoline in "The Road Warrior"). In "Fury Road," water is what motivates the characters, as Immorten Joe holds it from his tribe, releasing it sparingly only to keep them in line (perhaps playing on our world's decrease in water supply). But Miller also explores family. Immorten Joe is determined to get his wives back so he can contine to create his pale War Boys, while Max can’t get the memory of his dead child out of his head.

And then, perhaps what trumps all, are the striking visuals from longtime cinematographer John Seale ("The English Patient," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "Harry Potter and the Scorcerer’s Stone"). If possible, find a huge screen to watch this. The wide shots of the desert, the explosive action sequences and the evening scenes with its cool blue glow, are done with an incredibly talented eye.

This is definitely going to be the most beautful-looking film you'll see this summer.

SEE ALSO: South Africa is quickly becoming a go-to destination for Hollywood movies and TV shows

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NOW WATCH: This Lego version of the 'Batman v. Superman' trailer is absolute gold

How can Fox build on the momentum of TV's biggest hit in years? The network executives spoke for the first time on Monday about its plan for "Empire's" return and how it hopes to grow the show's already huge viewership.

Despite reports that "Empire" wouldn't return until the midseason, Fox isn't letting that much time pass before capitalizing on its success. The drama from creator Lee Daniels ("The Butler") and Danny Strong ("The Hunger Games") will return this fall. It will also air in the very same time slot it held during the spring.

"Fans made 'Empire' an appointment on Wednesday nights all season long. We'd be crazy to move it and we want to thank and reward our fans by keeping it in that time period," Fox's co-CEO and co-chairman Gary Newman said on a press call Monday.

It will also expand to 18 episodes, split into fall and spring seasons with no repeats. Season 1 had just 12 episodes. 

"The stories we've heard for Season 2 already is just going to blow away the audience," Newman promised.

Of course, many shows have breakout first seasons and then lost their audiences during the wait for their return. Fox knows this all too well with Kevin Bacon drama "The Following," which it just canceled.

That's one reason Fox executives admitted that they started working on "a bridge plan" while the first season was still airing and it saw the audience grow, but knew there could be a long gap between seasons.

"The requests for this cast are so numerous, we're trying to make it so that they can be out there and still get a little bit of rest prior to an enormous production season with all new music," co-CEO and co-chairman Dana Walden said. 

So, how is Fox trying to keep "Empire" thriving during the wait for Season 2?

1. All 12 episodes available On-Demand, Hulu and other platforms, so that new audiences can "catch up." Fox chief operating office Joe Earley said they're already seeing record numbers for viewing on these platforms, but the network is not planning to air repeats.

2. The cast is making appearances. The show's young stars Jussie Smollett and Bryshere Y. Gray, who play Jamal and Hakeem respectively, have been touring and performing music from the show. Breakout star Taraji P. Henson, who plays mother Cookie, hosted "Saturday Night Live" in April and will appear with co-star Terrence Howard, who plays patriarch Lucious, on Spike TV hit "Lip Sync Battle."

3. Season 2 has "amazing guest stars" who Fox hopes will help to bring in new viewers. Season 1 guest stars included Jennifer Hudson, Rita Ora, Patti LaBelle, Raven Symone, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Estelle.

4. Fox hopes Rapper Ne-Yo, who has joined the next season as a music producer on Timbaland's team, will bring in new viewers. Ne-Yo will write new original music for the series. 

At the same time, Fox is not looking a gift horse in the mouth. "Empire" is the only show in TV's recent history to improve on its ratings each week. The first season averaged a 5.09 with Adults aged 18-49, the demographic advertisers most covet, and 13 million viewers.

"We don't want to be greedy," Walden added. "If we came back with the audience that we left off with, we would be thrilled. Based on the creative that we saw from producers the week before last, I don’t think that's going to be a problem."

SEE ALSO: Fox to cancel 'American Idol' after one more season

MORE: Why everyone is watching Fox's new hit show 'Empire'

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NOW WATCH: Guys, Here's How You Can Avoid Looking Like A Hot Mess On Television

Ten years ago on May 11th, 2005, a video was uploaded on a gaming forum depicting a "World of Warcraft" video game raid gone wrong.  

A lone team member threw caution to the wind and charged headlong into battle, bellowing his character's name. That video, now famously referred to as simply "Leeroy Jenkins," is the stuff of gaming legend. 

More than 43 million people have watched as "World of Warcraft" player Ben Schulz sabotaged his guild's careful planning by rushing into the fight early, giving no warning save for screaming "All right, time's up let's do this: Leeeeroy Jeeenkins!"

In the video, the rest of Schulz's guild stares dumbfounded for a few seconds as their teammate charges alone into the toughest boss fight in the game.

Then,  the video devolves into a chaotic fight as his team rushes to his aid, shouting at each other before they're slowly picked off one by one.

When the dust settles and the full extent of the massacre is realized, Schulz's guild turns on him and his character Leeroy Jenkins, to which he replies meekly "At least I have chicken."

Since its debut, the Leeroy Jenkins video has evolved from self-sabotage video to internet meme, and 10 years later you'll find numerous mentions in pop culture and references to Jenkins in "World of Warcraft."

When "World of Warcraft" creator Blizzard debuted its card battling game "Hearthstone," Leeroy Jenkins was immortalized with his own card that even screamed his catchphrases.

Today, some have questioned whether the video was staged by Schulz and his guild, but any conclusive evidence has yet to be revealed.

Staged or not, Leeroy Jenkins still stands up as one of the funniest gaming videos online, striking that balance between late-night hilarity and terrible group planning that can often come from teaming up in online games.

The audio has been garbled in the original video— you can't hear the famous scream for some reason — but you can watch a re-uploaded version of the video below (Warning: there's some strong language).

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Warning: BIG spoiler ahead

With only two episode left of AMC’s “Mad Men,” many were expecting something substantial to happen on Sunday night’s episode to get us ready for the show’s finale next week, and fans weren’t disappointed.

One of the storylines on the show last night was that Betty Draper has been diagnosed with lung cancer. We hear the news while the doctor talks to Betty’s husband, Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley), that it is terminal and that she has less than a year to live, unless she begins treatment which may extend her life for another year.

Back to school taking psychology classes, Betty was walking up the stairs in one of the buildings on campus, looking a little tired, when she lost her footing and embarrassingly slipped and fell on the stairs. At the doctor’s office, she learned she has a broken rib, but they also found a tumor spreading rapidly.

Not letting the moment get to her, Betty puts on a brave face as she divulges to Henry that she will not be undergoing the treatment needed to extend her life that the doctor recommends.

Henry goes to Sally (Kiernan Shipka) at her school to tell her the news — though Betty asked him not to tell the kids — and bring her home in hopes she will convince Betty to reconsider her decision.

But Betty doesn’t concede. Telling Sally that she saw her mother die in a similar way and won’t allow Sally and the other kids see her go through that. Also stating that, “she is not a quitter.”

She gives Sally an envelope that holds all the necessary arrangements following her death.

While Sally reads it we hear its contents told in a voiceover of Betty. The letter entails where she wants to be laid to rest, for Sally to remind the funeral home how she likes to wear her hair, the dress she wants to be buried in. 

The news about Betty sent shockwaves through the Internet.

Fans of actress January Jones were especially moved Sunday night, and they began sending their condolences to her Instagram account in which Jones posted a picture of Betty in last night’s episode. 

Needless to say, some folks who didn’t watch yet were not happy receiving the spoiler. 

SEE ALSO: A shocking development happened to one of the main characters on 'Mad Men' last night

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Fox has revealed its plans for its limited series revival of "The X-Files."

It will premiere with a two-night event starting Sunday, Jan. 24 at 10 p.m. following the NFC Championship Game and then continue on Monday, Jan. 24 at 10 p.m. After that, it will air on Mondays through the sixth and final episode.

Starting production in June, "The X-Files" revival reunites creator Chris Carter and stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in the roles of FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, respectively.

"We're very excited about this," Fox's co-CEO and co-chairman Dana Walden said on a press call Monday. "It's going to be a huge reward for fans of this legendary show. It's taken us a very long time to get these three back together."

Walden laid out the format for the upcoming episodes and promised that longtime fans of the series won't be disappointed, although she admitted that she has been somewhat kept in the dark by the show's creator, as well.

"Have you ever met Chris Carter? Because he doesn't tell us a lot," Walden joked. "I think you will see a combination of episodes that if you were a loyal fan and became familiar with the process of mixing standalone and deeper mythology episodes. Everyone will be happy with what he's got planned."

One reporter asked why Fox decided to use the slot after the football game on "The X-Files" and airing it on two days rather than using that Sunday slot on a show that didn't come with its own fanbase.

"We thought a lot about how to event-ize bringing this show back from a scheduling perspective," she said. "We've got a lot going on midseason on our schedule and it felt like the best way to capitalize on all the opportunities with something like 'The X-Files,' which is so timely and anticipated that fans have been literally clamoring for a decade."

The decision came down to a desire to maximize opportunities to watch "The X-Files," as well as use it on Mondays to launch its upcoming DC Comics-inspired drama "Lucifer," which stars Tom Ellis as the original fallen angel who grows bored and unhappy in Hell and takes refuge in Los Angeles, where he uses his gift of persuasion to punish bad guys.

"It felt like a win any way you looked at it," Walden said.

“The X-Files” originally aired from 1993-2002 on Fox, spanning nine seasons and 202 episodes. It also lived on in two feature films in 1998 and 2008.

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Sofia Vergara is starring in a new reality series premiering on Snapchat this summer, Variety reports.

The series is being co-produced by Fusion and Vergara's own talent management company, Latin World Entertainment.

The "Modern Family" star's new six-episode series will be "a tongue-in-cheek look at the [thespian's] career through the perspective of her son, Manolo González Vergara," according to Variety.

“Manolo finally graduated, and I am very happy for his alliance with Fusion to create such an innovative series,” Sofia Vergara said in a statement.

Besides Vergara's series, Fusion already has a Snapchat presence: the news and entertainment outlet is one of Snapchat's Discover content partners, and broadcasts news updates in a number of languages on the platform.

"Vergaraland" won't be the first original series to debut on Snapchat. 

In February, a series called "Literally Can't Even" premiered on Snapchat's Discover feature. Discover allows Snapchat users to view pieces of news in the form of Snapchat Stories. After 24 hours, the stories self-destruct and new content replaces them. Snapchat's partners for Discovery include media companies like CNN, Vice, Comedy Central, National Geographic, and ESPN.

Written by Sasha Spielberg — the daughter of Steven Spielberg — and Emily Goldwyn, the daughter of film producer John Goldwyn, "Literally Can't Even" stars the friends and writing partners as comedic versions of themselves — Spielberg recently single after a long relationship and Goldwyn embarking on a six-month cleanse — and follows them on a series of misadventures in Los Angeles," according to the Hollywood Reporter.

New episodes of the series get published every Saturday, but each episode self-destructs after 24 hours, much like Snapchat Stories or the content available in the Discover feature. Presumably, Vergara's new series will be featured on Discover in a similar way.

Click here for Variety's report on "Vergaraland."

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"Saturday Night Live" aired a sketch this weekend that initially received tons of praise.

Titled "Draw Muhammad," the bit was a riff on "Pictionary" or "Win, Lose or Draw," in which contestants must sketch a word or phrase.

In the "SNL" sketch, Bobby Moynihan's character receives the "Trend Setters" category and is given the phrase, "The Prophet Muhammad."

After two gunmen opened fire on an anti-Muslim "Draw Muhammad" cartoon contest art show in Texas last week, Moynihan's character is especially reluctant to draw the controversial figure.

After Moynihan's character says "I can't draw it," Reese Witherspoon, who hosted this weekend's show and played Moynihan's wife, guesses the correct answer — "The Prophet Muhammad." The couple walk away with a $1 million prize.

The bit was praised on social media.

Salon wrote that the show "brilliantly tackled the fear of drawing Muhammad." Comedian and former "SNL" staffer Dean Obeidallah called the bit "a great comedy sketch that raises an important issue about freedom for expression and the fear some Americans have about drawing the Prophet Mohammed."

But by Monday, the Internet was quick to call out SNL's "Draw Muhammad" sketch — a bit that originated on Canadian comedy show, "This Hour Has 22 Minutes."

The Canadian sketch, which first aired in January, has an identical premise to the "SNL" bit. 

Both contestants have $1 million at stake, both refuse to draw Muhammad, and then both wives guess the correct answer after their husbands refuse to draw Muhammad.

"22 Minutes" comedian Shaun Majumder, who is featured in the original sketch, tweeted about the copy cat bit.

"Wow if only we could steal some of their budget," tweeted the 43-year-old comedian, with the hashtag "GreatMindsThinkAlike."

"I think both pieces are important satirical comedy with two different audiences," he continued.

Watch the original "Draw Muhammad" sketch below:

Now watch this weekend's "Saturday Night Live" version and judge for yourself:

This isn't the first time "Saturday Night Live" has been accused of plagiarism. 

In October, NBC's long-running comedy show blatantly took a bit from The Groundlings comedy troupe in which female cast members impersonate Tina Turner on a riverboat casino.

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"Daredevil" is the best superhero adaptation on screen since "The Dark Knight."

It's true.

I just finished watching the entire Netflix series, "Daredevil," and it was quite a ride. I am by no means a comic book aficionado. Before seeing the show I hadn't read any of the comics, and I hadn't even seen Ben Affleck's often-ridiculed film version. I came into "Daredevil" with an open mind, but plenty of doubts.

We know Netflix has a track record of producing good programming with hits like "House of Cards," and "Orange Is The New Black," but adapting a superhero comic for the small screen? That seemed ambitious.

It was, and they absolutely crushed it.

The series, created by Drew Goddard ("The Cabin in the Woods"), follows the story of a man named Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) who suffered a horrible accident as a kid which blinded him. It also gave him extra powers, boosting his remaining senses to a superhuman level. Murdock is a lawyer at a newly formed two-person practice with his best friend, Foggy (Elden Henson). By day, they fight the good legal fight against the baddies of Hell's Kitchen. By night, Murdock puts on a mask, and fights a similar fight, in a much more violent manner.

Incredible grit

What sets "Daredevil" apart from other superhero screen reboots of the past decade is the incredible amount of grit and realism Goddard has built into the fabric of the show, and how successfully it works.

Ever since Christopher Nolan created his now legendary Batman trilogy, darkness has been a superhero hotspot. Nolan's movies were infused with a sort of hyper realism that made Gotham City feel like one gigantic dungeon playground. That darkness was fueled by the deeply investigated psychology of the characters. Nolan went out of his way to provide a lot of backstory and dialogue to create a full story about the deep and dark psychological motivations of each of his characters.

Goddard is clearly standing on Nolan's shoulders with the general tone here. His Hell's Kitchen (the setting for "Daredevil," a neighborhood of New York City) reminds us a lot of Nolan's corrupt, unhinged Gotham City.

But, for the most part, that's where the comparisons end.

Goddard's "Daredevil," is much grittier and realistic, no doubt a nod to the equally dark — both in tone and look — comic series which Frank Miller (yes, the Miller eventually responsible for some of the most iconic Batman series ever told) helped establish.

Our hero doesn't wear his shiny red Kevlar suit until the very final episode in season 1. The many fight sequences are beautiful but sloppy in a way that gives them a hint of gruesome realism rather than stylization. The blood and the pain are rendered with incredible, stomach-turning verisimilitude.

Some of these fight scenes and fight recovery scenes (i.e. patch up a bloodied Matt Murdock scenes) were hard for me to watch. And that's part of their dark charm. I often had to turn away cringing (as I often do during "Game Of Thrones"). It's a visceral show, you feel it, it rocks you a little bit.

It's a visceral show, you feel it, it rocks you a little bit.

The cast is incredible

Goddard really couldn't have done much better with casting his lead than with the choice of Charlie Cox. Cox is both charming and believable as Matt Murdock / Daredevil / The Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

Matt Murdock is not your average superhero alter-ego. He's blind. So any actor who plays him has a very difficult task right from the start. Also, Daredevil's super powers are not the kind of thing you can easily portray with special effects or CGI.

He can't fly, and he doesn't shoot laser beams out of his eyes. He senses things, deeply, everywhere, in every way. The responsibility mostly falls on the actor to make us believe this character is feeling these things at all times and managing it. The superpower is clearly a burden, there's so much noise to sift through that it's clear Murdock has had to spend years and years making his powers a gift and not a curse. Cox does a great job with this.

He's perfect for the part. Strong, serious, but with a zest for life. His Matt Murdock is a good guy with a rough past. It's the story of a man who put his life back together with duct tape after a past that tore him to pieces. He's cracked, imperfect, makes some poor decisions, and often acts before thinking. But the intentions are always pure. This all comes off without a hitch in Cox's portrayal.

Perhaps more impressive is Kingpin, or Wilson Fisk as he's known in the series, portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio. D'Onofrio has created one of my all-time favorite villain characters in a superhero screen adaptation.

This, to me, is creator Drew Goddard's master stroke. He took the time, throughout the series, to show us the true character of Wilson Fisk. What he wants, why he is who he is, and why he does what he does. We see his childhood, we see his private moments, and we see his public ones.

Wilson Fisk is, in many ways, a little boy in a man's body who is just trying to protect mom. Quite literally this is true in a gruesome scene from Fisk's childhood. As a man, that entity he is trying to protect becomes the city he lives in (actually, Hell's Kitchen, which is how the setting is always described in the show, rarely is "New York" uttered). Fisk will stop at nothing to make his horrific, beat up city new and pristine again (What his ideal is, however, remains elusive). Over and over, through murder, corruption, and destruction, he pleads that it's all for the greater good. And the triumph here is — you believe him.

The supporting cast is also quite good. Henson is a solid, if not a little too campy Foggy (Murdock's best friend). And Deborah Ann Woll ("True Blood") takes a fun turn as Karen Page, the woman who comes to work in Matt and Foggy's law offices as well as get sucked into the larger story.

There are many other great supporting performances as well.

One of the best origin story reveals

It occurs to me, since I've seen it done badly so many times, that one of the hardest writing questions to answer when you're tackling a superhero movie adaption of a comic is how to deal with the origin story.

What's great about "Daredevil" is it's not a movie. 

What's great about "Daredevil" is it's not a movie. 

So Goddard and co. made the decision to not spill it all at once.

And what a decision that is.

The entire first season is a meditation on these characters. We're constantly getting non-linear flashbacks and dialogue that reveal both expositional plot information and psychological character development. It's not all thrust at us in episode 1. We get to know these characters deeply over time, and that makes us care about them. As learn more about them, the major arc in the present becomes infused with stronger meaning.

That's a real achievement.

I'm also grateful that the entire season is unabashedly about one story. This is far from always a given. Just look at the most recent season of "Doctor Who," which resets after every episode.

In "Daredevil," Fisk is working towards something big to change Hell's kitchen, and he doggedly pursues that each and every moment of the show. Matt Murdock, on the other hand, finds out Fisk is behind all that badness, and doggedly pursues stopping him at every moment of the show.

Every moment builds off the next. It's one, clear arc with plenty of cliffhangers and crazy twists.

You could probably argue the plot of this arc could, with a few omissions, be done in one hour-long show. This could be just one of Daredevil's stories. But instead, Goddard and his team gave us the time to really dig into the plot over all those episodes, as well as to examine each character thoroughly enough to make us care.

It's just different

It's clear that the details infused into the series that make it stand above it's contemporaries in quality.

For example, a long and intense single-shot fight scene in episode 2, that pits Murdock against loads of Russian bad guys. Decisions to add nuances like a single shot, delicately choreographed and performed scene are the epitome of details that allow "Daredevil" to rise above. Truth be told, there are a number of cinematographic gems throughout the series.

The show also made the nuanced choice to steer away from camp and surrealism, and dive into realism — an unpopular choice in Hollywood these days when it comes to superheroes.

Even the fact that this is a Netflix series is a meaningful departure.

I've racked my brain looking for ways the show could have been improved and I'm coming up empty. I have a hard time finding something I had a negative reaction to, or think was a poor choice under the circumstances. It's difficult.

When all is said and done, this is my favorite bit of Marvel on-screen adaptation for a long time, maybe ever. There will always be a fun place for adaptations like Joss Whedon's "The Avengers," infused with snappy dialogue, a little camp, and tons of CGI. 

"Daredevil" has carved its own little place in my heart — a psychologically-rich superhero story packed with so much careful detail and ambitious realism, that I can't turn away.

SEE ALSO: Stunt coordinator for Netflix's 'Daredevil' describes how he made that mind-blowing single shot fight scene

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NOW WATCH: Netflix's new 'Daredevil' show looks way better than Ben Affleck's version of the superhero

You may not have seen the last of Jack Bauer.

Fox is apparently working on a new adventure for the indestructible spy played by Kiefer Sutherland.

"We have been developing another version of '24' but it's still fairly early in the development process," Fox's co-CEO and co-chairman Gary Newman told reporters on a call Monday. "There's really nothing we can tell you at this time other than we are working on something."

It's unclear whether the network is planning another run of episodes or a TV movie, such as the one that aired between the sixth and seventh seasons of the show in 2008.

The last installment of "24" aired over 12 episodes during Spring 2014 on Fox. Considered the show's ninth season, "Live Another Day" took place four years after Season 8. We met Jack Bauer as he was tracking the activities of Counter Terrorist Unit analyst Chloe O'Brian's (Mary Lynn Rajskub) group while living in exile. Jack resurfaces when he hears of an imminent attempt on now President James Heller's (William Devane) life.

"Live Another Day" did moderately well for Fox, earning an average 1.8 rating with Adults aged 18-49, the demographic most sought after by advertisers, and 6.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

New chapter or not, "24" was already acknowledged as the longest-running espionage-themed TV series ever after its eighth season, surpassing "Mission Impossible," "The Avengers" and "Alias."

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There's a new documentary about Carroll Spinney, the puppeteer who played Big Bird ever since the character debuted on "Sesame Street" in 1969. The film, entitled "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story," chronicles the origin and evolution of the character through vintage footage and interviews. 

It is now playing in select cities and is also available on demand.

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"A LEGO® BRICKUMENTARY," by Oscar-winning Director Daniel Junge and Oscar Nominated Director Kief Davidson, delves into the cultural impact of the Lego brick and the innovative uses of the toy that have sprung up all over the world. 

Video courtesy of RADiUS-TWC

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