Ben Affleck took his star power to Washington D.C. Thursday to testify about the importance of foreign aid in Africa, but even then Hollywood wasn’t far from his mind.

“I would be remiss not to recognize my co-star in ‘Batman,'” Affleck joked, when he spotted Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who had a cameo in “The Dark Knight Rises.”

“Your role was marginally smaller than mine, but I understand you are quite good,” added the “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” actor.

The Oscar winner was on Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittee, and was joined by fellow philanthropist Bill Gates. Affleck’s wife Jennifer Garner and nine-year-old daughter Violet were in the audience as well.

The focus of Affleck’s visit was to promote U.S. foreign assistance investments to drive economic development programs and make a lasting impact in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an area that has long been close to his heart.

A short time later, Affleck took to his Instagram page to write about his charity work in the Congo.

“I made my first trip to Congo seven years ago after reading about the two decades of conflict the Congolese people had endured. I expected to find hopelessness, but the people I encountered, like these former child soldiers, were among the most courageous and resilient I could imagine. #EasternCongo #DRC,” the politically-active actor posted.

Affleck last testified before Congress in February 2014 in front of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

He is the founder of the Eastern Congo Initiative, which envisions an Eastern Congo vibrant with abundant opportunities for economic and social development, where a robust civil society can flourish.

SEE ALSO: Here’s the first photo of Jesse Eisenberg as Superman’s arch nemesis in the 'Batman V Superman’ movie

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In the wake of HBO’s explosive Scientology documentary “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” which premiered Sunday on HBO, director Alex Gibney said former church members featured in the film have been threatened by the institution.

“Most of the real vitriol is for the people who were in the film,” Gibney told TheWrap in an interview this week. “They’ve received threats of physical harm, threats of having their homes taken away, threats of being forced into bankruptcy. They’re being followed by private eyes and surveilled.”

Prominent ex-congregates including Marty Rathbun, publicist Sylvia “Spanky” Taylor, Tom De Voct and director Paul Haggis were all interviewed for the film, which is critical of the religion’s practices. Since the documentary premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, Gibney said some of the film’s subjects have become targets.

The documentary made headlines earlier this year thanks to its investigation of two of Scientology’s most visible members, actors John Travolta and Tom Cruise, who joined the church in 1975 and the late 1908s respectively. The documentary essentially outs Travolta as gay, according to an in-depth report from Buzzfeed.

It also dusts up the previously reported dissolution of Tom Cruise’s marriage to Nicole Kidman, allegedly spearheaded by the church as Kidman was viewed as an “oppressive person,” which Gibney addressed in New York Magazine.

TheWrap’s Sundance review of  “Going Clear” noted slave labor conditions for former members performing service and carrying out tasks handed down by leadership, on top of heavy financial obligations and cutting ties to those outside of the religion founded by author L. Ron Hubbard.

Rathburn’s wife Monique received pornography at her workplace “so that co-workers would think she’s some sort of wild, reckless individual,” Gibney said.

Veteran Hollywood publicist Spanky Taylor, who runs an agency that screens fan mail for A-List clients such as Johnny Depp and Edward Norton, shares a particularly harrowing story in the film about escaping a church building in Los Angeles while clutching her infant child. She claimed the organization wouldn’t let her leave of her own free will.

“I will tell you that the threats that have been visited on her have been particularly brutal,” Gibney said of the response to Taylor’s claim.

“A major thing the church got by on for many years was intimidating people into silence, based on their threats of litigation and brutish psychological games,” Gibney said.

A spokesperson for the Church of Scientology responded to Gibney’s remarks to TheWrap. Here is the statement in its entirety:

Alex Gibney is proving to be exactly like the sources in his film–no accusation is too irresponsible to make. It doesn’t matter if he lacks corroboration and proof, it’s all about promoting his movie. 

Each and every one of the allegations in your questions is absolutely false and rejected. Alex Gibney is getting desperate and is now resorting to ludicrous, made-up claims. The Wrap should ask him for his proof. 

First, there has not been one physical or financial threat of harm from the Church to anyone. These are more lies from the same admitted liars who Gibney glorifies in his film. 

Second, I have in my hands court records where Monique Rathbun stated under oath that she has no idea who sent those items to her at her office. She also conceded she had no evidence and had made the allegations against the Church without specific or direct evidence. In other words, court records contradict the accusation Alex Gibneymade, which is exactly what he did during the entire making of this film – ignore facts and court records. There are countless more examples if you are interested. 

Finally, as for Spanky Taylor the Church has not made one threat against her. Again that is made-up garbage.What the Church has done is issued the truth on these individuals to counter-act their lies. You can see them here: 

http://www.freedommag.org/hbo/videos/spanky-taylor.html

http://www.freedommag.org/hbo/videos/marty-rathbun.html

http://www.freedommag.org/hbo/videos/mike-rinder.html 

Because Alex Gibney ran from any facts that got in the way of his preconceived story line and ignored all our efforts to communicate (over 40 letters and 25 people who requested to meet with Mr. Gibney), we have compiled the unvarnished truth in the form of video footage, court documents, publicly available records and testimonials by pertinent individuals and parishioners worldwide who do represent Scientology, and were intentionally ignored by Mr. Gibney and HBO. All of it 100% accurate. Alex Gibneyspins this as “smears.” We call it the truth he ignored. These you can see at 

http://www.freedommag.org/hbo/

You also should definitely provide readers with this link and you are welcome to use any of the material. I particularly call your attention to: 

http://www.freedommag.org/hbo/videos/exterminating-gibneys-propaganda.html 

Rather than print the usual “denies the allegation” you should circle back with Gibney and ask him for proof. And ask him to explain why he would make such an accusation when Monique Rathbun’s testimony contradicts it. 

If you ever want to know about Scientology, look at our website at www.Scientology.org. The information is right there. We are busy trying to help people. We spend every waking minute working to get people off drugs and assist them to lead healthier, happier more productive lives.

TheWrap shared the Church of Scientology’s statement with Gibney on Sunday and he responded: “The church claims it is innocent of all misdeeds. How credible does that sound?”

Though the church has been vocal about its objections to the documentary, Gibney said he’s felt an outpouring of support from blogs and social media users on the Internet, who have have joined his criticism of the Church of Scientology.

“The church would attack the film in its kind of ham-fisted way and people all across the Internet were rising up to say, ‘Bullshit…’ Whether it be Uproxx chronicling the church’s propaganda videos and ranking them in order of comedic content or what have you, what it shows is that the days of everybody running in fear from Scientology are over,” said Gibney.

The Church of Scientology currently has about 50,000 members, according to the film.

“Going Clear” is available on HBO Go and On Demand. 

SEE ALSO: How a filmmaker finally infiltrated Scientology for HBO's explosive documentary

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NOW WATCH: 6 Crazy Things Revealed In HBO's Explosive New Scientology Documentary 'Going Clear'

HBO’s Sunday airing of documentary film “Going Clear” has reignited interest in the tax-exempt status afforded the Church of Scientology by its classification as a nonprofit.

In fact, actress Mia Farrow tweeted damning words about the organization and shared a petition to revoke its tax-exempt status to her more than 640,000 followers on Monday. 

It isn’t so far-fetched an idea, either. The Nonprofit Risk Management Center reports that more than 100 501(c)(3) organizations are stripped of their tax-exempt status each year. The reasons can vary, covering the violation of laws that govern private benefits, lobbying, political campaign activity, unrelated business income, the obligation to report annually and maintaining operation in accord with stated exempt purpose.

In “Going Clear,” director Alex Gibney provides research, footage and interviews with former Scientologists that may shed new light on the organization, its billion-dollar nest egg and a shady deal with the IRS wherein after several years of unsuccessfully applying for tax-exempt status, the Church was finally granted the designation in 1993.

According to the film, Church of Scientology Chairman David Miscavige ordered the organization’s members to file individual lawsuits against the IRS for its failure to recognize it as a church. Overwhelmed by 2,400 individual suits and the prospect of defending itself against all of them, the IRS agreed to grant Scientology tax-exempt status in exchange for the withdrawal of the cases.

A 2011 tax filing reveals that the three organizations comprising Scientology claim a combined value of $1.5 billion, a sum that has allegedly been built on the backs of members who pay thousands of dollars to rise within the organization, are paid 40 cents an hour for labor and have been tortured for dissent, combined with the organization’s vast international property portfolio.

“This issue is not about whether Scientology is a religion,” Gibney told TheWrap. “The issue is whether or not Scientology is pursuing policies that are not in the public interest.”

The government simply needs to determine whether there’s a “fundamental overriding interest” in declassifying an organization involved in the above activities as exempt from taxation.

 According to the IRS website, to be tax-exempt, an “organization’s purposes and activities may not be illegal or violate fundamental public policy.”

An IRS representative told TheWrap he’s unable to comment on whether there’s currently an investigation into any organizations or individual cases.

A Church of Scientology representative pointed TheWrap to letters to HBO Counsel from their tax and corporate counsel that calls the film’s depiction of a deal between Scientology and the IRS “factually wrong.”

Read them here and here.

SEE ALSO: Why Tom Cruise and John Travolta can't leave Scientology, according to the HBO documentary 'Going Clear'

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NOW WATCH: This Scientology documentary made HBO hire 160 lawyers — here's the trailer

“House of Cards” will return to Netflix for its fourth season along with stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, the streaming TV service announced on Thursday.

Production on the new season will begin in summer with a 2016 premiere.

Other details about the upcoming chapters are sparse, but viewers can expect to see Frank Underwood’s presidential campaign in full swing. No word on whether Claire will be along for the ride.

“House of Cards” is executive produced by David Fincher, Beau Willimon, Joshua Donen, Eric Roth, Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunettialong with Andrew Davies and Michael Dobbs from the eponymous BBC miniseries and novel.

The Netflix original drama is produced by Donen/Fincher/Roth and Trigger Street Productions, Inc. in association with Media Rights Capital for Netflix.

Season three premiered on Feb. 27 to great acclaim, as did the previous installments. “House of Cards” was the first streamed series to be nominated for primetime Emmy awards in 2013, and Spacey took home a Golden Globe in January for his portrayal of scheming politician Frank Underwood.

SEE ALSO: Watch President Obama do a terrible impression of Frank Underwood

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NOW WATCH: This Sports Illustrated swimsuit rookie could become the next Kate Upton

Universal Pictures’ marketing of “Furious 7” after the death of Paul Walker received high marks from several analysts and advertising executives on Sunday.

The weekend’s box-office opening numbers — $143 million domestically and $240 overseas for the action sequel – speak for themselves.

But the studio was forced to walk a fine line with the film’s promotion after Walker died in a car crash in November 2013.

“Restrained but effective” was how the campaign was characterized by one industry marketing executive, who like most of the people interviewed for this story chose to remain anonymous.

“They didn’t lean on it, but they touched on it,” said another industry insider.

Universal executives had declined to address the subject before the film came out, but on Sunday at least one spoke for the first time.

“I can tell you personally that I’m very proud of the way the studio and marketing department walked us through what otherwise would have been a very tricky situation,” Universal’s president of domestic distribution Nick Carpou told TheWrap.

“They handled everything that had to do with Paul respectfully and positively, and what emerged is more respect and a celebration of Paul and the franchise to the world. For the production team, Vin (Diesel) and the rest of the cast this was a matter of personal importance and that shows through.”

The challenge was to serve the star’s fans without seeming exploitative or disrespectful.

Mission accomplished, said Rentrak senior analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

“I think from the very moment of Walker’s tragic passing, Universal did a masterful job of honoring his memory and respecting his legacy, while at the same time going about the business of marketing one of the biggest movies on their slate,” he said. “Furious 7” was shifted from its original August 2014 release date in the wake of his death.

“It takes a tremendous amount of sensitivity and diplomacy to walk the perfect public relations tightrope whenever something unexpectedly tragic like this happens," Dergarabedian said.

“There was clearly a lot of thought that went into the handling of this and how Walker is portrayed not only in the the trailers and imagery for the film, but also how he is represented in a very poignant and respectful way within the film itself,” he said.

Walker died with about half of his scenes shots. His brothers Caleb and Cody stood in for him in some, and others were reconstructed using computer-generated images.

The “Fast & Furious” fan base likes to think of itself as a family, and nothing put that to the test like Walker’s death. In that spirit, many of the followers of the franchise first fought through the tragedy, then embraced Walker’s legacy and celebrated it, framing their attendance at “Furious 7” as a tribute to the fallen star.

Walker’s friend and costar Diesel and other cast members set the tone in person and on social media, repeatedly citing their “brother,” and making sure that his contributions weren’t forgotten. They rarely passed on tough questions about their loss, and did their best to spin it forward into an homage to his memory.

At the film’s premiere in Hollywood, Diesel gave a tearful speech, saying “This movie is more than a movie … I’m going to tell you, last year it was really tough to come back to work.”

The film’s “One Last Ride” catchphrase can be taken as a tribute to Walker, particularly with the somber and and almost stark black-and-white imagery used in the promo art.

“Furious 7” concludes with a clip montage tribute to Walker, showcasing scenes from earlier films in the series, that had many moviegoers leaving the theater in tears.

SEE ALSO: Fans are uploading the emotional ending to 'Furious 7' online

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NOW WATCH: Cars fall from the sky in the new 'Furious 7' movie

At Facebook’s recent developers conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke enthusiastically about a virtual reality-filled future. Last year, the company paid $2 billion for VR pioneer Oculus.

While photos are the most frequently shared content on Facebook, Zuckerberg sees Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality content taking the lead down the road.

“When you think about virtual reality, a lot of people first think about gaming. But I actually think video is going to be more engaging in a lot of ways,” Zuckerberg said during his keynote address.

Mike Vorhaus, president of consulting firm Magid Advisors agreed: “I have no doubt this is a killer market. People who play games, watch sports and television in general are all excited about it.”

NBCUniversal’s Michael Scogin was in the audience during  Zuckerberg’s keynote. Scogin, VP of Late Night at NBC Entertainment Digital, has been helping to lead a VR charge at NBC.

For the 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, SNL teamed up with filmmaker Chris Milk to capture the event, using custom built VR cameras.

Milk also recently teamed up with Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures to create a VR unit at the film production company.

“So many people watched that show on television,” Scogin said. “We wanted to capture that moment in history in a way that hasn’t been done before. I feel like this is a record of that night that fans of the show will have for years and years to come.”

NBC is not alone. Other content creators are busy experimenting with VR, as tech giants roll out all sorts of hardware offerings. Along with Facebook’s Oculus, companies like Sony, Samsung, Microsoft and Google are all angling for a piece of the nascent market.

On the gaming front, Facebook highlighted “EVE: Valkyrie” during its developers conference. The multiplayer shooter game is meant to make you feel like you’re piloting a spaceship and is being marketed as a featured game for both Facebook’s ‘Oculus Rift’ and Sony’s ‘Project Morpheus’ headset for its PS4 consoles.

How big will the overall market get? This week, advisory firm Digi-Capital forecast VR/AR market could generate a whopping $150 billion in revenue by the year 2020, with much of the VR-related revenue coming from gaming and 3D films.  Industry consultant Mike Vorhaus sees that estimate as being low.

Ultimately, NBCUniversal’s Scogin thinks content will be the key driver of VR hardware sales.  How similar that content ends up being to what we currently see on television and in film is up for debate.

“Now is the time to experiment and figure out what works, what doesn’t, what’s the right format,” Scogin said.

SEE ALSO: See How Strange And Trippy Virtual Reality Was 20 Years Before The Oculus Rift

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NOW WATCH: The Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset Will Blow Your Mind

Nicolas Sparks heartthrob … Oscar-nominated character actor … the face that launched a thousand memes. Ryan Gosling can do it all — as long as it’s in front of the camera.

Twenty-two years after his screen debut as a Mouseketeer, though, the “Hey Girl” guy is finally floundering in a role: as the new Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish auteur who directed Gosling in the stylish but empty “Drive” and the stupid and execrable “Only God Forgives.”

Gosling’s first turn behind the camera owes a mammoth debt to Refn (and a smaller one to David Lynch).

Starring Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Matt Smith, Iain De Caestecker and Gosling’s partner Eva Mendes (all wasted here), “Lost River” is little more than Detroit-based ruin porn, an aesthetic exploitation of poverty and hardship punctuated by splashes of neon and blood.

Which isn’t to say that those couldn’t be the ingredients for a great movie. Swap out the neon for patterned silk, give the actors something to do, and you’ve got last year’s luminous “Only Lovers Alive,” one of the best films of Jim Jarmusch’s long and celebrated career. Where Gosling goes wrong is in the priggish bombast.

Instead of Refn and Lynch’s self-contained worlds, he attempts Serious Commentary about the American Dream. But the actor shows no understanding of how poverty works, nor enough interest in his characters to explain how they’ve fallen so far behind or how they feel about where they’ve ended up.

The plot, such as it is, finds Bones (De Caestecker, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) pursued by one psychopath while his mother Billy (Hendricks) attempts to evade another.

We never learn why neither character has gainful employment, how mother and son support themselves and Billy’s infant son, or who the father(s) of the two boys are, because the only character detail that matters is that they’re poor.

Bones strips copper wire from abandoned houses and sells it to a local junkyard to make a few bucks here and there, a trespass that makes him the target of a local gangster. Bully (Smith) has a penchant for cutting off the lips of his enemies (and even a friend) with scissors, leaving his victims with nothing to cover their teeth or stop their perpetual drooling. (It’s gross.)

And yet Bones hardly thinks to get the hell out of Dodge, even when Bully starts stalking his best friend Rat (Ronan).

Billy, meanwhile, is pressured into taking a job at her bank lender’s (Ben Mendelsohn) nightclub, a ghoulish haunt where the performers are fake-slaughtered on stage, to save her house from foreclosure.

I’m not sure why Refn (in “Drive”) and Gosling here are so enamored with the idea of mutilating Hendricks’ gorgeous face on screen, but there’s a macabre and hard-to-watch scene in which Billy carves up her own face and peels away the skin. (It’s really gross.) The real money, though, is downstairs, implies club favorite Cat (Mendes), where things get even creepier.

Gosling, who also wrote the screenplay, manages to drum up a sustained mood of dread and suspense throughout the film’s third act through tight editing, a coolly menacing score (by Johnny Jewel, who scored Refn’s “Bronson”), and the already established hyper-violence of the villains. The first-time filmmaker also shows a gift for provocative images, though the symbolism rarely gets subtler than a house on fire or a baby covered in blood.

But the artificial “Lost River” feels like the directorial version of the phony-baloney tough-guy accent Gosling affects from time to time.

The actor has proved he can be just as creatively sadistic as his hero Refn; if Gosling attempts a follow-up, I’d like to see some brains — and not just brain matter — behind the bluster.

SEE ALSO: Ryan Gosling Turned Down The Chance To Be A Backstreet Boy

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A woman in Kuwait claims that the story for Disney’s animated mega-hit “Frozen” was lifted from her book, and she’s not about to let it go.

Author Muneefa Abdullah has filed a copyright infringement suit against Disney and “Frozen” screenwriter Jennifer Lee, claiming that the plot of the film was pinched from “The Snow Princess,” a story included in her book “New Fairy Tales.”

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Michigan on Monday, says that Muneefa “has never licensed or otherwise authorized Defendants to copy, distribute or publicly disseminate ‘New Fairy Tales’ or ‘The Snow Princess,’ or make derivative works based upon them.”

Abdullah alleges that “the key plot elements, characters, themes, events, setting, mood, pace and dialogue in ‘Frozen’ demonstrate substantial similarities to ‘The Snow Princess,’ and that such similarities are of a sort that indicate copying rather than independent creation or coincidence.”

According to the suit, “The Snow Princess” revolves around “a princess who possesses magical ice powers that give her the ability to turn people and objects into ice.” The princess went into hiding after inadvertently awakening an evil dangerous witch with her powers.

“Frozen’s” Princess Elsa, the lawsuit notes, “also has the magical ability to turn people and objects into ice” and accidentally injured her sister with her powers, isolated herself from others as a result.

The suit goes on to cite other alleged similarities, including “a kingdom made of ice and surrounded by mountains, a sibling in search and rescue of the sibling possessing the magical ice powers, a journey up the mountain, snowy guards guarding an icy castle on the mountaintop, the idea that only love is capable of defeating evil, and the selfless sacrifice of oneself for the purpose of saving another from being struck by a sword.”

A spokesperson for Disney has not yet responded to TheWrap‘s request for comment.Alleging four counts of copyright infringement, Abdullah is seeking unspecified damages.

Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.

SEE ALSO: Forget Apple and Google, Disney has already mastered wearable tech

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NOW WATCH: HBO's 'Game of Thrones' got the Iron Throne all wrong

In light of WikiLeaks shocking publication of over 170,000 internal Sony Pictures emails on Tuesday, the studio faces new embarrassment from conversations between Michael Lynton, Amy Pascal, and Scott Rudin over top acting talent, high-stakes financial deals, creative disagreements and executive ties to political and military groups.

The data, which has been indexed as a fully searchable archive onWikiLeaks, was sourced from the devastating cyberattack on the studio in November 2014. The site’s founder, Julian Assange, qualified the publication of the material as showing “the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation. It is newsworthy and at the center of a geo-political conflict … It belongs in the public domain.”

Sony blasted WikiLeaks position, saying they “vehemently disagree with WikiLeaks’ assertion that this material belongs in the public domain and will continue to fight for the safety, security and privacy of our company.”

Here some of the initial findings from WikiLeaks’ Sony Hack archive:

1. RAND Corp. advised Sony on North Korea and “The Interview.”

In June 2014, long before the Sony hack would rock the studio, a North Korean spokesman called “The Interview’ a “wanton act of terror.” The movie’s star Seth Rogen responded to the comments with a tweet, prompting an email from Sony PR chief Charlie Sipkins, saying he “was told not to engage.”

Also Read:WikiLeaks Exposes Bromance Between Sony TV Chief Steve Mosko, Jay Penske: ‘You’re a 10 In My Book!!’

2. Red, White, and Green: Amy Pascal's $66,000 trip to DC.

In October 2014, former cochairman Pascal jetted to Washington for the premiere of David Ayer's “Fury,” starring Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf. The two-day excursion totaled out $66,350 for car services, air travel, and suite at the swanky St. Regis hotel.

3. Rooney Mara asks Amy Pascal, is ‘Dragon Tattoo’ sequel ever coming?

Even Rooney Mara is tired of Sony’s maybe, maybe not stance on putting on sequels to their “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” adaptations. “Logic tells me they are not ever happening — as it’s been almost 3 years since it came out,” she acknowledges in an e-mail to Pascal in October 2014. “But I had still been holding out a little bit of hope.”

4. Drew Goddard vs. Daredevil vs. Spider-Man.

Before the May 24, 2014, announcement that show-runner Drew Goddard was dropping out of Netflix’s “Daredevil,” things got difficult and litigious for Marvel, Sony, and Goddard’s team. “It looks like they are giving us no choice but to litigate this matter,” Marvel TV EVP Jeph Loeb wrote in an e-mail in April. In a followup e-mail, Marvel’s Ike Perlmutter forwards the Loeb e-mail to Pascal and adds even more panic: “Since we spoke on Wednesday, the problem we are having with Drew Goddard is getting even worse … We should both be very concerned about this situation.”

Also Read:Netflix Responds to ‘Daredevil’ Backlash With Special Audio Feature for Blind Fans

5. Sony’s wish list of replacements for fired PR chief Charlie Sipkins.

After the studio’s top communications exec exited the company in September, Sony went on the hunt for the next spokesman of their company. High on their wishlist: top executives from rival film companies, Disney’s Paul Roeder (No. 1), Kori Bernards from Universal (No. 5), and WME’s Christian Muirhead (No. 3).

6. David O. Russell abuse and Lynton’s brother-in-law.

In a September 2014 email, journalist and Lynton brother-in-law Jonathan Alter notes to Lynton that “American Hustle” director David O. Russell was abusive on set to the point that Christian Bale needed to intervene. “He grabbed one guy by the collar, cursed out people repeatedly in front of others and … abused Amy Adams,” said Alter. “Just figured you might not always get the Intell (sic) you need if you were considering signing him for another film.”

7. Scott Rudin on Angelina Jolie’s "Cleopatra" preparation: "Kill Me Please."

In December, leaks revealed producer Scott Rudin having harsh words about Angelina Jolie. New e-mails uncovered have reiterated his distaste for the actress turned director. “Kill me please. Immediately,” he said in an e-mail to Pascal in June 2014 when he learned she was studying films of potential directors for a “Cleopatra” film in development.

8. Tom Rothman vs. Harvey Weinstein: festival smackdown.

A May 2014 email shows Tristar chairman Tom Rothman sizing up competitor Harvey Weinstein — in this case over buying the ill-fated “Grace of Monaco.”

“As we battle Harvey and his volume/buy everything strategy, it is worth noting this example for what it really is—a straight re-neg,” Rothman said. “The deal was 5, he will pay 3 [because] he himself tarnished the goods and he knows no one else will take it now. One of the many risks sellers take when they deal with him.”

9. David Fincher thinks Sony has a leak problem.

In an e-mail with the subject line “Well it ain’t ME,” the almost-“Jobs” director puts the blame of the many leaks on the negotiations for that film on the studio. “I had 15 meetings with Rosamund Pike and her DEAL CLOSED before Variety OR The Reporter ever ran a single blurb,” he said. “This is a CONTINUAL PROBLEM WITH SONY.”

Also Read:‘Gone Girl’s’ David Fincher, Ben Affleck, Gillian Flynn Rebooting ‘Strangers on a Train’

10. Amy’s in love with “Aloha”

It’s not all bad news in the data dump. Cameron Crowe’s upcoming “Aloha” is under pressure to perform financially and connect with audiences the way his classics have. Pascal responded strongly to an initial screening, praising Bradley Cooper and demanding a “movie star” edit for Emma Stone.

SEE ALSO: WikiLeaks just published 30,000 documents from the Sony hack

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NOW WATCH: HBO's 'Game of Thrones' got the Iron Throne all wrong

“Star Wars” creator George Lucas faced bitter opposition from neighbors when he tried to expand his Skywalker Ranch studio three years ago.

Now it seems he is striking back.

Lucas plans to build an affordable housing project comprised of 224 homes on his property in Marin County’s picturesque — and pricey — Lucas Valley in Northern California, CBS San Francisco reported Wednesday, making it one of the largest affordable housing projects in the Bay Area.

“We’ve got enough millionaires here. What we need is some houses for regular working people,” Lucas said through his lawyer Gary Giacomini.

The iconic filmmaker will be paying for the project in the community, which is near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

While it is known for expensive houses and rich residents, more than 21,000 people live below the federal poverty level in Marin County. The overall poverty rate checks in at 8.4 percent, but the rate is 12.8 percent for children in Marin under age six.

In 2012 prior to the sale to Disney, Lucasfilm abandoned long-running plans for a state-of-the-art studio on the ranch after locals complained about noise and traffic, calling the studio “an evil empire.”

“George Lucas said, ‘if I’m not going to do what I wanted to do there, what can I do that would be really beneficial to this community?’” Marin County Supervisor Steve Kinsey told CBS.

SEE ALSO: An explanation for everything you see in the latest 'Star Wars' trailer

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NOW WATCH: The original design of the Millennium Falcon in 'Star Wars' was completely different

Actor Matt Damon has denied reporter Sharon Waxman's claims that he tried to kill her New York Times story about Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual misconduct in 2004. 

"I would never, ever, ever try to kill a story like that. I just wouldn’t do that. It’s not something I would do, for anybody," Damon told Deadline regarding Waxman's claims.

Waxman claimed that Damon and actor Russell Crowe spoke to her right before her article detailing allegations against Weinstein and the head of Miramax Italy at the time (Fabrizio Lombardo), was about to publish — and that shortly after their call her article was "gutted."

Damon said Weinstein told him that Waxman was "writing a story about Fabrizio and it’s really negative," and asked him to call Waxman and share what his experiences with Lombardo had been like. The actor said that he "had perfectly professional experiences with Fabrizio," and that he "didn’t mind telling her that." 

Lombardo was in charge of "Weinstein’s women needs," according to an article Waxman wrote for The Wrap about her Times story. Waxman said she even had people on record saying he had organized gatherings with "Russian escorts." 

Damon insisted he didn't know anything about Lombardo's alleged behavior, and that he only ever knew him in a professional capacity. The actor also said he had no knowledge that Weinstein ever sexually harassed anyone, and that he was completely unaware of any allegations against him until now.

"If there was ever an event that I was at and Harvey was doing this kind of thing and I didn’t see it, then I am so deeply sorry, because I would have stopped it. And I will peel my eyes back now, father than I ever have, to look for this type of behavior," Damon said. 

SEE ALSO: 12 famous actors who have publicly praised and thanked Harvey Weinstein, and what they are saying now

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