Cumberbatch Answers Elliott; Zoë Kravitz Calls Out Dark Knight Rises; Pam Anderson on Broadway

Benedict Cumberbatch has frankly had enough of Sam Elliott and his “odd” disses against The Power of the Dog; Zoë Kravitz says The Dark Knight Rises dismissed her as “too urban”; Pamela Anderson is about to hit Broadway. All in today’s Movie News Rundown.

Pamela Anderson Is Having Her Moment: Pamela Anderson has opted not to comment at all on Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, which recounts how she and then-husband Tommy Lee had a private sex tape stolen and exploited. But living well is the best revenge: Deadline reports that she will make her Broadway debut playing Roxie Hart in Chicago from April 12 through June 5.

‘Too Urban’: New Catwoman Zoë Kravitz told The Guardian that she was turned away from auditioning for 2012’s Dark Knight Rises because she was too “urban.” She phrased things carefully to avoid implicating the film’s director: “I don’t know if it came directly from Chris Nolan,” Zoë Kravitz said, adding, “I think it was probably a casting director of some kind, or a casting director’s assistant… Being a woman of colour and being an actor and being told at that time that I wasn’t able to read because of the colour of my skin, and the word urban being thrown around like that, that was what was really hard about that moment.”

Update: Kravitz has since clarified what she meant by that statement, noting that she did not intend to “make anyone seem racist,” including Nolan. She also tried to clear up any speculation that she had sought to play Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, a role that went to Anne Hathaway, in a post on her Instagram story Tuesday. Read our full story here.

In Other Batman News: John Turturro, who plays Carmine Falcone in the new Batman, apparently has an interesting opinion on the movie’s big twist. I have not seen Batman yet (I know, I know, I’m going soon), and The Hollywood Reporter has kindly warned me that the story contains spoilers, so I’m not going to click… but if you have seen it and you’d like to know Turturro’s theory, here’s the story.

Get Thee to a Theater: Do it for the Laemmles! It’s the least you can do, considering how hard that family has worked to keep their beloved, independent-film-supporting local Los Angeles theater chain alive for the past, oh, I don’t know… 84 years. I interviewed Laemmle Theaters president Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge, director of a new documentary called Only In Theaters, about the hard couple of years the chain has faced and the forces that have threatened to close it down.

Spoiler Warning: The next two items include spoilers about The Power of the Dog.

Cumberbatch Responds: Benedict Cumberbatch has a smart and measured reply to Sam Elliott, who criticized The Power of the Dog last week. “That’s what all these fucking cowboys in that movie looked like,” Sam Elliott said on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. “They’re running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions of homosexuality throughout the movie.” Sam Elliott also called the movie “a piece of shit” and criticized director Jane Campion, asking, “What the fuck does this woman from down there [New Zealand] know about the American West?”

‘Not a History Lesson’: Here’s how Cumberbatch, who stars in the movie as a very closeted cowboy, responded in a BAFTA interview: “I’m trying very hard not to say anything about a very odd reaction that happened the other day on a radio podcast over here. Someone really took offense to — I haven’t heard it so it’s unfair for me to comment in detail on it — to the West being portrayed in this way. … Beyond that reaction, that sort of denial that anybody could have any other than a heteronormative existence because of what they do for a living or where they’re born, there’s also a massive intolerance within the world at large towards homosexuality still and toward an acceptance of the other and anything kind of different… No more so than in this prism of conformity of what’s expected of a man in the Western archetype mold of masculinity. To deconstruct that through Phil, it’s not a history lesson.”

Twihards Return: Twilight fans are coming out of the woodwork to cheer on our boy R Patts for his performance in Batman. Honestly, I find it so wholesome. Just look at this tweet:

Once Edward Cullen, Always Edward Cullen: At least in certain people’s hearts. I myself am Team Edward, and although I missed the crucial window to read Twilight in the 5th grade and was subsequently shunned from certain recess discussions, I did read the entire series in high school and enjoyed it very much. I will also renew my opinion, which I’m sure I have previously expressed in this newsletter, that the first Twilight movie is a modern classic. I celebrate it as such with a yearly viewing, and honestly, I find something new to appreciate about it every year. 2008 nostalgia, anyone? Okay, just me?

I’ll Leave You With This: My all-time favorite Bad Lip Reading.

Main Image: Benedict Cumberbatch in The Power of the Dog.