State Champ Radio TV/Film
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All aboard to Emerald City! With the Jon M. Chu-directed adaptation of Wicked just months away from release, a new teaser arrived on Wednesday (Aug. 7). Grande, who topped the Billboard 200 this year with her Eternal Sunshine LP, is set to star as Glinda the Good Witch, with Erivo, a two-time Academy Award nominee, taking on the iconic […]
Busta Rhymes visited Tom Hardy on a movie set Tuesday (Aug. 6) and teased a potentail collaboration with the actor. Posting a picture with the actor and a video of them embracing on his Instagram, Rhymes wrote about how grateful he was to meet Hardy. “I keep telling y’all that blessings don’t, so we won’t […]
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Summer this year has proven to be a extra warm one thanks to a heatwave that has impacted most of the […]
In spite of a few assurances to the contrary, rumors that Taylor Swift would appear in the latest Deadpool movie have persisted for years — all the way up until the new film premiered last month, revealing that she wasn’t involved after all. But in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly published Monday (Aug. 5), director Shawn Levy revealed that there was never any chance of the pop star joining the franchise to begin with, no matter how much fans may have hoped for it.
“It was so very loud,” Levy told the outlet of the internet buzz from Swifties hoping for a cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine, which hit theaters July 26. “I definitely had moments where I was worried I would disappoint people when they realized Taylor as Dazzler was not in the movie, but there’s no controlling the internet and rumors spread like wildfire.”
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Many of the rumors stemmed from the 14-time Grammy winner’s close friendships with the movie’s star, Ryan Reynolds, and his wife, actress Blake Lively. Levy is also pals with Swift, having appeared in her “All Too Well” short film in 2021, but according to him, “it was never a conversation” that the “Anti-Hero” singer might pop up in the Marvel film.
“It was never even a seed of a discussion,” he added. “Obviously, Ryan and Blake, and myself — to a far lesser extent — have our own relationships in real life with Taylor. But yeah, those rumors were loud and slightly baffling, but nothing I said or did was going to make them quiet down until this movie came out.”
Before their hopes were shot, fans had been wanting to see Swift in a Deadpool film since as far back as 2016, when the star borrowed Reynolds’ actual superhero suit for her Halloween costume. Rumors that the crossover might actually happen only continued to fester when the Free Guy star sported a T-shirt with Swift’s cats, Meredith and Olivia, printed on it in 2018’s Deadpool 2, and again when he appeared to re-create the Evermore album in costume earlier this year.
Reynolds, however, shut down the rumors — or attempted to, at least — in a July appearance on The Tonight Show. “I wish,” he said when host Jimmy Fallon asked him point-blank whether Swift was in Deadpool & Wolverine.
“If I ever stop, she’d make a good Deadpool,” he added at the time. “She’s funny, funny, funny!”
Teyana Taylor, Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash and Naomi Watts have joined Kim Kardashian and Glenn Close in the cast of Ryan Murphy’s Hulu legal drama All’s Fair. Kardashian, who recently starred in Murphy’s American Horror Story: Delicate, will play a Los Angeles divorce lawyer in an all-female law firm, which is headed by Close’s character. […]
Dennis Quaid appeared on the PBD Podcast and talked about the time he starred opposite 2Pac, James Belushi and James Earl Jones in the 1997 movie Gang Related.
“That was so great,” the actor said of working with the rapper. “I was kinda familiar with 2Pac when we did that movie. We both loved Chinese food, it turns out. So, he and I would be in the trailer, like, every day. We had Chinese food five days in a row.”
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“At the time, I really didn’t know much about who he was,” Quaid continued. “I knew who he was, but it’s like we got in there and we talked about acting, we talked about growing up, we talked about our mothers. He had such a great heart. He was such a talented actor too and he had a thirst to learn.”
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“I didn’t know he was a poet, really, because that’s what he was. He told the story of how they tried to kill him before in New York, and it was hysterical the way he told it, but it was, like, for real. Then six months later he got killed,” he shared as his emotions started to get the best of him. “That one really hit me hard. It really did.”
Quaid then highlighted how vulnerable Pac was, and how much he could’ve given to the world: “He had so much to give the world, he really did. He would’ve wound up being such a uniter of people.”
The actor later added, “He was just a human being. He was a kid and he was a vulnerable person. He wasn’t like this ‘gangster,’ this, or that, or the other. He had a poet’s heart … It was his vulnerability and he had this curiosity about other people, including me. You never put the two of us together, eating Chinese food in a trailer. But there we were.”
Gang Related was one of several movies released posthumously after 2Pac’s September 1996 death; Gridlock’d, in which he starred alongside Tim Roth, arrived in January 1997.
Watch Quaid discuss the late rapper on the PBD Podcast below:
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Timothée Chalamet‘s anticipated turn as a young Bob Dylan in the upcoming biopic A Complete Unknown is getting an A-list release date. Searchlight Pictures announced on Tuesday (August 6) that the anticipated film from director James Mangold (Logan) will hit theaters on December 25. That Christmas release date falls in the heart of what is […]
Celebrity Family Feud is taking family to a whole new level this week, as Clay Aiken’s family takes on David Foster and Katharine McPhee Foster’s crew — and there’s even a link between the two. In a clip shared exclusively with Billboard on Tuesday (Aug. 6), the American Idol season 2 star introduces his 15-year-old […]
Producer Janet Yang was re-elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by the organization’s board of governors, the Academy announced on Thursday (Aug. 1).
Yang is beginning her third term as president and her sixth year as a governor-at-large, a position for which she was nominated by sitting Academy president David Rubin in 2019 and elected by the board of governors in 2022.
Yang is the fourth woman to serve as president of the Academy. Oscar-winning actress Bette Davis was the first in 1941, though she resigned after just two months in the post. Oscar-nominated screenwriter Fay Kanin served from 1979-83; Film marketing and PR executive Cheryl Boone Isaacs served from 2013-17.
A member of the Academy’s producers branch since 2002, Yang previously served on the board as vp and chair of the membership committee and, prior to that, the membership and governance committee.
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Yang’s film producing credits include South Central, The Joy Luck Club, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Zero Effect, Savior, The Weight of Water, High Crimes and the Oscar-nominated animated feature Over the Moon. She won a Primetime Emmy in 1995 for the HBO film Indictment: The McMartin Trial, which was voted outstanding made for television movie.
In other news, film composer Lesley Barber, one of three members of the board of governors representing the music branch, was elected to an officer position for the first time. She is a vp and chair of the membership committee.
Barber is best known for her score for Kenneth Lonergan’s Oscar-winning Manchester by the Sea. Her other credits include Late Night, Mansfield Park, Irreplaceable You, How to Change the World and You Can Count on Me.
Here is a list of the other four people who were elected to officer positions by the board:
DeVon Franklin, vp (chair, equity and inclusion committee)
Donna Gigliotti, vp/treasurer (chair, finance committee)
Lynette Howell Taylor, vp (chair, awards committee)
Howard A. Rodman, vp/secretary (chair, governance committee)
Franklin, Howell Taylor and Rodman were re-elected as officers. Gigliotti previously served as an officer.
“I am thrilled to have Janet return as Academy president for a third term to continue our great work of the past two years,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer said in a statement. “I also am so pleased to welcome this year’s incredible slate of dedicated board officers.”
The 55-member board of governors includes three members who represent the music branch: Barber, Charles Fox (“I Got a Name,” “Ready to Take a Chance Again”) and Richard Gibbs (Say Anything, Dr. Dolittle).
Board members may serve up to two three-year terms (consecutive or non-consecutive), followed by a two-year hiatus, after which eligibility renews for up to two additional three-year terms for a lifetime maximum of 12 years. Officers serve one-year terms, with a maximum of four consecutive years in any one office.
For a complete listing of the Academy’s 2024-25 board of governors, click here.
RIIZE are heading to the big screen. The K-pop boy band’s RIIZING Day concert, which is taking place in Seoul, South Korea, on September 13, will be broadcasting live in cinemas worldwide for fans to enjoy, according to distributors Trafalgar Releasing and CJ 4DPlex and reported by NME. Fans will be able to watch the […]
