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Source: Bernard Smalls / @PhotosByBeanz
50 Cent’s next Hollywood endeavor will pair him back up with Eminem. He confirms a television adaption of 8 Mile is on the way.
As spotted on Deadline the Queens, New York native is penning a love letter to the 90’s Detroit Rap scene for his next on screen production. During his last visit to Big Boy TV he revealed that he is bringing Slim’s come up to a scripted series format. “I’m going [to] bring his 8 Mile to television. We’re in motion,” he explained. “It’s going to be big. I ain’t got no duds. I’m batting a hundred, I’m batting a hundred.” Fif went on to give further context on his reasoning why the culture needs this version. “I think it should be there for his legacy because it’s important to me that they understand it.”
The original 2002 film contains autobiographical elements from Eminem’s life, follows white rapper Jimmy Smith Jr. aka B-Rabbit (Eminem) and his attempt to launch a career in Hip-Hop. The title is derived from 8 Mile Road, the highway between the predominantly African-American city of Detroit and the largely white suburban communities to the north that Eminem originally lived in.
The film garnered numerous award nominations and wins, including an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “Lose Yourself” win for Eminem, Luis Resto and Jeff Bass at the 75th Academy Awards. 8 Mile was named one of the best films of 2002 by several publications. 8 Mile opened with $51,240,555 in its opening weekend. The soundtrack also debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with over 702,000 copies sold in the 1st week and 510,000 copies sold in the 2nd week also finishing the year as the 5th best-selling album of 2002 with US sales of over 3.4 million.
Photo: Bernard Smalls
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Source: AMC Networks / 61st Street
Watching television continues to be a complicated mess because a show you invest in can quickly end up on the chopping block. 61st Street is one of those shows.
Spotted on Deadline via Variety, AMC Networks announced it would not renew Michael B. Jordan’s and Peter Moffat’s drama 61st Street, starring Courtney B. Vance, Aunjanue Ellis, and Tosin Cole, along with Invitation to a Bonfire.
Both shows have become the latest victims of Hollywood’s mission to cut costs. 61st Street’s cancellation hurts because it will leave its fans hanging the most.
Per Deadline:
AMC Networks has scrapped both shows after revealing that it would take around $400M of content write downs. They form part of the company’s one-time write-off last year.
The second season of 61st Street, which stars Courtney B. Vance and comes from Peter Moffat and Michael B. Jordan, had been filmed. It was originally ordered as part of a two-season pick up.
The report also notes that in a recent 8K, one of those shows could find renewed life on another network. It would be a safe bet to assume that 61st Street could be that show because it was only supposed to be two seasons long, and all of the remaining episodes were shot.
Welp.
We’re going to hold onto hope. 61st Street deserves to reach its conclusion. It’s a tense legal drama that follows Moses Johnson (Cole), a promising young athlete who unfortunately gets swept up in Chicago’s criminal justice system after he is mistaken to be a gang member following an arrest where a police officer dies during a drug bust gone wrong.
Vance, who also serves as an executive producer on the show, plays Johnson’s attorney Franklin Roberts.
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Photo: AMC Networks / 61st Street
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Source: Netflix / Netflix
Comedian Chris Rock will be making comedy history as his next special with Netflix will be streamed live to a global audience.
According to a press release from the streaming platform, the new special, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, will air on March 4th, 2023. The new stand-up special will take place in Baltimore, Maryland, airing at 10 P.M. ET/ 7 P.M. PT. It will also be the first comedy event to be streamed live across the globe to Netflix viewers. The venue for the special has not been announced, and there is no word on when tickets for the show will be available.
“Chris Rock is one of the most iconic and important comedic voices of our generation,” said Robbie Praw, Netflix Vice President of Stand-up and Comedy Formats in a statement issued last month. “We’re thrilled the entire world will be able to experience a live Chris Rock comedy event and be a part of Netflix history. This will be an unforgettable moment and we’re so honored that Chris is carrying this torch.” The special follows up Netflix’s ambitious path to being at the forefront of live comedy. Their Netflix is a Joke: The Festival was a massive event that featured over 330 comedians performing at 35 venues across Los Angeles, California in the spring of 2022. This also included the first-ever stand-up comedy show done at Dodger Stadium.
For Rock, whose first stand-up special Tambourine premiered on Netflix in 2018, it marks a return to Baltimore almost a year after appearing in the city in April 2022. The 57-year-old has been active on the road in the wake of the infamous moment at the Oscars earlier this year where he was slapped onstage by actor Will Smith. The situation occurred after Rock had made a joke about the hair of Jada Pinkett-Smith, the actor’s wife during a segment before presenting an award. It was later reiterated to the press that Pinkett-Smith suffers from alopecia, a disease that inflicts hair loss. Smith has apologized for his actions.
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Oscar, Grammy and Emmy winner Cher visited The Kelly Clarkson Show earlier this month, but NBC saved a few clips from Cher’s chat with Kelly Clarkson for a post-holiday treat that they shared online the day after Christmas (Dec. 26).
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In one clip, Cher is talking about her fragrance line with Scent Beauty entitled “Decades,” a four-part collection with each scent representing her take on a particular decade.
“I was shocked the ‘70s didn’t smell like marijuana,” Clarkson told Cher of her “Me” Decade-themed scent. “I was like, oh, this one will obviously smell like Willie Nelson’s bus.”
“Oh my God, I’ve been on Willie Nelson’s bus, it smells exactly like marijuana,” Cher responded. Clarkson, no stranger to the world of country music herself, concurred. “I went on Wille Nelson’s bus and I got a contact high,” the American Idol champ and daytime TV juggernaut shared.
“It was a terrible old bus,” Cher recalled. “But he was great. And just… drugs everywhere,” she added, laughing.
“When you walked out you were definitely hungry,” Clarkson quipped.
Clarkson also brought up the first time she met Cher, which was at the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, where Cher was feted alongside Philip Glass, Reba McEntire and Wayne Shorter. Clarkson was there to honor McEntire with a performance of the country icon’s hit version of “Fancy,” but admitted she was a bit nervous to meet Cher at the 2018 event. Using that as a jumping off point, Clarkson asked Cher is she’s ever been starstruck by a celebrity.
“Meryl Streep when I first met her,” Cher admitted. Streep was her co-star in 1983’s Silkwood, the Mike Nichols-directed film about real-life nuclear safety whistleblower Karen Silkwood who died under what numerous associates regarded as suspicious circumstances. Unlike the tragic biopic, however, Cher’s future with fellow Oscar winner Streep was far brighter: “We became friends and we’ve been friends ever since.”
It’s not a surprise that Homeward Bound: Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon, which aired on CBS on Wednesday Dec. 21, was so satisfying.
Paul Simon has long been regarded as one of our top songwriters. He won the 1970 Grammy for song of the year for “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and was nominated in that category for “Mrs. Robinson” and “Graceland.” He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1982 and received that organization’s highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award, in 1998. In 2007, he became the inaugural recipient of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
Many of the participants on the two-hour special spoke warmly about Simon’s songs. Elton John recalled early days when he and Bernie Taupin would sit on the floor listening to Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends through headphones and marvel at the songs and the sounds. Garth Brooks sai,d “When your stuff was playing, our house was a sweet place to be in.” Dustin Hoffman said, “The Graduate would not be The Graduate” without Simon’s songs. Sting, Herbie Hancock, Oprah Winfrey and actor Woody Harrelson also paid tribute to the master songwriter.
Ken Ehrlich, who was the producer or executive producer of the annual Grammy telecast for four decades from 1980-2020, executive produced this special (and co-wrote it with David Wild). Ehrlich’s talent, taste and connections are a big reason the show was so compelling.
Here are nine of the most memorable performances from the special, which is available to stream on demand on Paramount+.
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Mary J. Blige is taking the airwaves by storm as she’s poised to have her own talk show on BET next year thanks to a recent partnership deal.
According to reports, the star R&B singer has signed a deal with BET to produce scripted and unscripted content through her company, Blue Butterfly Productions. The first project from this deal coming into fruition is a new talk show called The Wine Down. The synopsis of the unscripted talk show has Blige as the host connecting with various guests from the worlds of entertainment, politics, sports and social media over a good bottle of wine.
“Throughout her legendary career, Mary has blazed trails to become a global superstar. With Blue Butterfly, Mary develops awe-inspiring stories of the Black experience while uniquely using music to set the foundation. Mary has been a vital part of the BET family and we are eager to see our partnership flourish through this partnership,” said Connie Orlando, BET’s executive vice president of specials, music planning, and strategy in a statement.
As part of the deal, BET will have first looks at unscripted projects through Blue Butterfly and second looks at scripted works. The Wine Down will have actress Taraji P. Henson and Yung Miami of the City Girls among its initial guests, with more to be announced at a later date. “BET has been one of my biggest supporters throughout my career,” said Blige in a statement. “Being able to now create together, for them to be so supportive of my vision for the type of content I will create, is something I am grateful and excited for. We already have multiple projects in the works and there is much more to come.”
Mary J. Blige has been steady at work on the small screen, thanks to her role as Cha-Cha in Netflix’s hit series The Umbrella Academy and her current role as the street-hardened matriarch Monet Tejada on the Starz series Power Book II: Ghost. A date for the premiere of The Wine Down hasn’t been announced.
Jessica Chastain says a scene was altered in George & Tammy with the help of co-star Michael Shannon to give country icon Tammy Wynette more agency in the Showtime limited series.
In the first episode of the series, based on Wynette’s personal and professional relationship with fellow musician George Jones, the duo is confronted with their future while Wynette is still married to her soon-to-be ex-husband Don Chapel.
In an interview with Marie Claire, the actress and producer on the Golden Globe-nominated show shared that, in an early outline of the scene, Jones gets Wynette alone by distracting Don with an escort. For Chastain, the sequence around this moment was upsetting.
“I read it, and I was deeply disturbed,” Chastain recalled. “[Tammy] was just kind of sitting there. People were creating stuff so she could be caught rather than her making decisions.”
Giving the country music icon and voice behind hit “Stand By Your Man” agency in her narrative was incredibly important to Chastain. “The song isn’t about being a doormat,” she said of Wynette’s famed single. “And the reality is Tammy Wynette was married five times.”
Ultimately, the subplot was nixed and during filming, Shannon would make a tweak of his own, changing a line that implied George didn’t acknowledge Wynette’s agency in their physical relationship into one that underscored it.
“[Michael] changed the line from, ‘Yes, I’m going to f— her’ — excuse the language — to ‘I sure would like to,’” Chastain remembered. “The second he said, ‘I sure would like to,’ it was like, ‘Oh, yes, this is happening.’ Because he sees her as someone who gets to make the decision. And that’s working with an actor who’s very aware he doesn’t own me.”
Shannon, who worked with Chastain on 2011’s Take Shelter and celebrated their shared collaborator Guillermo del Toro during his recent MoMA career tribute, said the line switch was a byproduct of them being “so in tune with one another.”
“The notion of sitting in front of another man and looking at a woman and proclaiming that you’re going to f— her seems a little neanderthal to me,” he said. “I mean, if I was the woman in question, I wouldn’t enjoy that so much.”
The scene is ultimately just one way Chastain saw to not just assert Wynette’s choices and humanity in the limited series about her life and relationship — “she made decisions in her life,” the actress noted — but ensuring she was equally respected within the storytelling.
“To be a producer, and to have a production company, means you get to police that in the writing,” she said. “You get to say, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. We need to honor women as human beings. And they make their own choices — just like men do.’”
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Austin Butler brought his “casual” version of Elvis to Saturday Night Live, and SNL cast member Sarah Sherman graced the stage as “Jewish Elvis.”
Sherman’s “Jewish Elvis” was the star of Butler, Cecily Strong, and Ego Nwodim’s retirement home in a sketch Saturday night. Butler dressed like a grandma and appeared to be the performer’s biggest fan in the theater — even revealing a T-shirt under her blouse with her catch phrase, “This is a zizzaster!”
“The first night of Hanukkah, they really kick things off with a bang,” Strong says in the clip below.
“Oh my god, I’m so horny I’m gonna friggin’ explode,” exclaims Butler, who was the host of SNL for the night in an episode that featured Lizzo as musical guest.
“Oh! I’m like Niagara Falls over here,” adds Butler later in the sketch. “My chair is gonna friggin’ drown. Ruin me, Jewish Elvis!”
Butler at one point throws a pair of underwear on stage, and at another jumps on stage to kiss Sherman’s Elvis. (The actor starred as Elvis Presley himself in Baz Luhrmann’s film released this year.)
Watch the “Jewish Elvis” sketch to see how the retirement home performance ends.
Cecily Strong is the latest cast member to depart NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
Strong’s final show will be Saturday night’s (Dec. 17) edition. The news was announced Saturday on SNL’s social media accounts (see below).
She joined the sketch show, executive produced by Lorne Michaels, in 2012, its 38th season. Over the years, she created such characters as “The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party” and impersonated such celebrities as Kendall Jenner, Megyn Kelly and Liz Cheney.
It’s understood that the plan had been for Strong to return for only the first half of the current season. Fans had noticed her absence from the opening credits of the season premiere in October, but at the time she was appearing in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and thus was unable to tape SNL in New York.
Strong next stars in the second season of AppleTV+ Schmigadoon!, which is also executive produced by Michaels. She also took a hiatus from SNL while filming that series.
Strong follows on the heels of other cast members who have recently left SNL, including Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Pete Davidson.
Saturday night’s SNL features host Austin Butler and musical guest Lizzo.
Austin Butler tried to make a quick visit with Jimmy Fallon to get some advice before his SNL hosting gig this weekend. Instead of finding Fallon, he found an Elvis on the Shelvis in a skit for The Tonight Show.
“Who is this?” Butler — who starred in a biopic about rock ‘n’ roll icon Elvis Presley — asks in the skit, picking up the doll off the mantle.
Elvis on the Shelvis, played by Fallon, then comes to life for a musical performance.
“Well, I move around the house when I’m a-home alone/ You did what you did/ You done what you done/ Elvis on the Shelvis never tell no one,” Fallon’s Elvis sings.
“You’re going on the top of my tree,” Butler says after the Elvis on the Shelvis show.
Butler’s SNL episode with musical guest Lizzo airs Saturday (Dec. 17) on NBC.
Watch his clip with Fallon below.