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Writer Richard Curtis on why Julia Roberts rejected a 'Notting Hill' sequel: 'A very poor idea'

Notting Hill
Julia Roberts in the classic romantic comedy.

Universal Pictures

  • Richard Curtis's idea for a second "Notting Hill" film was apparently shelved because of Julia Roberts.
  • Roberts is said to have disliked his idea for a follow-up film with a divorce plot.
  • "Julia thought that was a very poor idea," the "Love Actually" director told IndieWire.

The screenwriter behind the rom-com "Notting Hill" has opened up on why the classic movie has never got a sequel.

In an interview with IndieWire, Richard Curtis said that Julia Roberts was not a fan of his idea for a follow-up in which Roberts' and costar Hugh Grant's characters split up.

Asked if he would like to do any follow-ups to his past films, he said: "I tried doing one with 'Notting Hill' where they were going to get divorced, and Julia thought that was a very poor idea."

"I actually did four Red Nose Days and Comic Relief. We did those mini sequels to 'Love Actually,' and those satisfied me," he added.

A representative for Roberts did not respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider.

In the 1999 film, Roberts plays a famous movie actor named Anna Scott.

Scott falls in love with William Thacker (played by Grant), the owner of a bookstore in the picturesque area of London from which the film takes its name.

notting hill
Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in "Notting Hill."

Universal Pictures

While the paparazzi's fascination with Anna initially complicates their relationship, the film ends with the pair happily together and expecting a child.

When it was released in theaters over Memorial Day weekend in 1999, "Notting Hill" grossed around $21.8 million over three days, and $27.7 million over the long weekend, making it the biggest opening for a romantic comedy film at the time.

The movie, directed by the late Roger Michell, was nominated for best film in the comedy or musical genre at the Golden Globes, with Grant and Roberts also receiving individual nominations.

Curtis, whose new animated film "That Christmas" premieres on Netflix on December 4, suggested that even if Roberts was on board with a "Notting Hill" sequel, his focus was currently on branching out into new kinds of projects.

"I think oddly enough I'm keen at this stage in my career of doing new things as much as I can," he told IndieWire. "That's why it was great doing an animated film. I've made, I think, 17 films. It's quite hard for the 18th to be as different as this one is."

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While recovering from surgeries and a bike accident, the Christian pop star…

While recovering from surgeries and a bike accident, the Christian pop star depended on her husband's care to get her through: "Vince is just steady"

Trump's vow to use US troops for mass deportations could face intense resistance — starting from within the military

Donald Trump salutes in front of signage touting his mass deportation platform at a campaign rally.
President-elect Donald Trump wants the US military to assist in mass deportations of migrants, but his approach is likely to face legal challenges and resistance from state governors.

Alex Brandon/AP

  • President-elect Trump confirmed his intent to use the US military for mass deportations in the US.
  • Laws sharply limit the roles that federal troops can fill in US law enforcement.
  • Trump could rely on state-led National Guard personnel or attempt to bypass a long-standing law.

President-elect Donald Trump said this week that his incoming administration plans to follow through on his campaign promise of using the US military to execute his mass deportation plan.

This puts his incoming administration on a potential collision course with long-standing laws and practices that sharply limit the use of US troops in law enforcement.

Trump's border czar has said US troops could assist immigration dragnets through non-enforcement roles that involve building structures, gathering intelligence, or flying migrants to the countries they fled. National Guard troops that report to state governors can support law enforcement, but the Posse Comitatus Act bars active-duty and federalized Guardsmen from acting as law enforcement.

Trump could rely on state-led National Guardsmen, however, or attempt to sidestep Posse Comitatus altogether through the Insurrection Act of 1807. But this would be an extreme move that's sure to trigger fierce opposition from state governors, lawsuits, and military officials.

"If the president were looking to use the Instruction Act to enforce immigration as a federal law, that would be a pretty extraordinary use, and that would be way out of custom," Mark Nevitt, who served as a judge advocate general in the US Navy, told Business Insider. "Arguably, there is an authority to do that, but again, it would be way out of the norms of its historic use."

When asked how the incoming administration would confront these limitations, Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump's transition team, said the president-elect "will marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation" in US history.

"The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, like deporting migrant criminals and restoring our economic greatness," Leavitt told Business Insider in an emailed statement. "He will deliver."

What happens if Trump orders the US military to assist?

Each military branch has a civilian general counsel, who would likely be among the first officials to review whether a presidential order complies with the Posse Comitatus Act, said Gary Solis, a former Marine JAG. He described two potential scenarios:

  1. The Army's general counsel concludes it is lawful, allowing US armed forces to move forward with Trump's order. This scenario would likely trigger a slew of lawsuits attempting to block its enforcement, Solis said.
  2. The general counsel rejects the order, giving lower-level commanders the grounds to refuse it.

"But no law can interpret a presidential order in advance," Solis said. "Some orders would be obviously unlawful, but any order issued from Trump's office would be very carefully worded in an effort to make its execution by the military bulletproof."

Donald Trump shows a chart titled "Illegal Immigration Into the US" at the RNC.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

Nevitt, an associate law professor at Emory University, said the PCA provision is "really, really nuanced" and doesn't explicitly "prohibit the National Guard from enforcing immigration laws."

The president can legally deploy the National Guard for domestic law enforcement through cooperation with state governors, provided that the military force is operating under state control and not federalized through the Insurrection Act and thus subjected to PCA restrictions.

"You can imagine that some governors will be more excited about this mission than others," Nevitt told BI. "You can fill in the blank on who those might be, but probably more Republican governors that are more friendly to President Trump. Those who are less friendly to President Trump would maybe not be as interested in taking on this mission."

"If President Trump tried to use this authority from a red state like Wyoming or Texas and put those National Guard troops in a blue state that is unwilling to accept them, that would be quite a crisis," he continued. "I think the state that did not want to accept these outside National Guard troops could say this is a violation of their own sovereignty, and they'd have a pretty powerful case that they could find a way to a lawsuit."

What roles can the US military fill?

On his social media platform, Truth Social, the former president this week commented "TRUE!!!" on a post about his plans to "declare a national emergency" and "use military assets" to carry out sweeping raids to deport millions of migrants a year.

Declaring a national emergency can provide the president with a broader set of powers to respond to crises, but it doesn't authorize the military to act as domestic law enforcers. The Trump administration may not attempt to use them as such to avoid triggering a backlash.

Agencies like US Immigration and Customs Enforcement lead efforts to locate and arrest migrants. A more robust immigration crackdown could require building bigger detention centers, where migrants are held through the deportation process. That's where Defense Department funding and personnel could come in.

Trump's "border czar," Thomas Homan, said using military funds would be a "force multiplier" in an immigration crackdown; Trump's first administration redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to build sections of the wall on the US-Mexico border.

But Homan, who formerly led ICE, specified that military personnel would be assigned "non-enforcement duties, such as transportation, whether it's on ground or air, infrastructure, building, [and] intelligence."

"We're hoping DoD will help us with air flights because there's a limited number of planes ICE has contracts with, so DoD can certainly help with air flights all across the globe," Homan said in a Tuesday interview on Fox Business Network.

Donald Trump and Tom Homan sit next to each other in a White House meeting.
Thomas Homan has said that US military personnel would be assigned "non-enforcement duties" in efforts to deport migrants.

The Washington Post via Getty Images

Will troops want to become police?

Aside from the many legal challenges, Nevitt said he thinks that the troops might be reluctant to participate on the stance they signed up to be warfighters β€” not policemen.

"The military has, historically, not wanted this mission," Nevitt, who served in the Navy for two decades, said. "The federal military forces want to fight and win our nation's wars; they want to secure the nation's national security; they want to do operational deployments."

"In asking federal military forces to enforce immigration laws, there is going to be a strong cultural allergic reaction that's well grounded in civil-military norms," he added.

Nevitt said he thought federal troops carrying out domestic law enforcement would tarnish the "special trust" the American public holds in the military.

"As a veteran, the military is seen as protecting this country, keeping our country safe," he said. "There's going to be a lot of static if President Trump asks the military to do something that is beyond what they have historically been asked to do."

Read the original article on Business Insider

OpenAI is funding research into β€˜AI morality’

OpenAI is funding academic research into algorithms that can predict humans’ moral judgements. In a filing with the IRS, OpenAI Inc., OpenAI’s nonprofit org, disclosed that it awarded a grant to Duke University researchers for a project titled β€œResearch AI Morality.” Contacted for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson pointed to a press release indicating the award […]

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