Netflix has signed “The Upshaws” creator Regina Hicks to a multi-year overall deal that will include a new comedy series that Hicks will develop with Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions.
The untitled comedy series in development will focus on the lives of four middle-aged Black women from Houston, Texas and explore how they navigate a world of affluence while also balancing the everyday scenarios of women of a certain age.
Hicks will create, write and showrun the series. Tonia Davis and Ada Chiaghana will oversee for Higher Ground.
“I am thrilled to continue my creative journey with Tracey, Andy, and the wonderful team at Netflix and to find a home here at the place with so many of my favorite shows,” Hicks said. “And I absolutely love that I now get to work with the folks at Higher Ground. Putting the voices of Black women on the screen is so important to me and I can’t think of a better team to do it with.”
“Regina’s shows always feel authentic and relatable,” Netflix head of comedy Tracey Pakosta said. “She’s an amazing writer and producer who’s given audiences laugh-out-loud moments mixed with a lot of heart and humanity for years. I can’t wait for her to expand on her work at Netflix, and I’m especially looking forward to this first project with Higher Ground.”
“The Upshaws” stars Wanda Sykes, Mike Epps, Kim Fields, Page Kennedy, Diamond Lyons, Khali Spraggins, Jermelle Simon, Gabrielle Dennis and Journey Christine. It was previously renewed for a second season.
Source: The Wrap
We just discovered the news that The Wendy Williams Show will be back with brand new episodes in January, but without Williams, who’s continuing to recover from complications of Graves disease.
according to sources, the guest hosts for the month will include Fat Joe and Remy Ma, Michael Rapaport, comedic duo Kym Whitley and Finesse Mitchell (who will host together), and Sherri Shepherd who has been able to gain in the ratings in Williams absence.
More on this as it develops.
Kenan Thompson has formalized his plans to move into production and talent management.
The Saturday Night Live star has launched Artists For Artists with John Ryan Jr., exec producer of Bill & Ted Face The Music, has formed a joint venture with management firm McKeon/Myones Entertainment, and set the company’s first project with boxing champion Mike Tyson.
It comes after the Kenan star revealed earlier this summer that he would like to move further into production during a conversation with his old SNL pal Seth Meyers.
Artists For Artists is a full-service artist incubator for content creation, production, commerce and management venture. The company is designed to help talent create and produce their own content and will help stars and creatives build their own content brands while partnering with distributors.
Thompson is set as co-founder with Ryan Jr., who was former COO of FilmEngine, producer of Bill & Ted Face The Music and who brought Mike Tyson out of retirement to fight Roy Jones Jr. in a major pay-per-view event, will serve as co-founder and CEO.
Tyson is involved in the company’s first project. The boxer, his wife Kiki Tyson and his brother-in-law and co-owner of Tyson’s Legends Only League Azim Spicer, will produce Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth Part 2, a live stage tour, written by Kiki Tyson that is a follow up to his 2013 one-man show and HBO special.
Artists for Artists will produce across film, series, podcasts and live events and will also have a celebrity commerce division. It is backed by investors including SOL Global, Ambria Capital, Green Tech, k2, and High Torque Investments.
The company has also formed a joint venture with McKeon/Myones Entertainment, the management firm operated by partners Mel McKeon and Laura Myones Ruf, which will be rebranded as AFA Prime Talent. The management arm represents talents including Yvonne Strahovski, Sarah Shahi, Shioli Kutsuna, Christina Vidal, Luiz Roberto Guzman, Leyna Bloom and Chella Man.
Thompson, who is hosting the 2021 People’s Choice Awards, said, “Any artists looking to build a company, come see us. John and I are excited to develop companies with talent that are owned and operated by the talent. We’ve all been part of projects we as artists wish we owned a bigger piece of, so we knew it was time to start a company that reflected that.”
John Ryan Jr. added, “In my 20 plus years working in Hollywood, it has always shocked me how rarely talent has ownership per project. Kenan and I have been friends for almost two decades, and it was time to create the change we wanted to see in the industry. Artists for Artists was built to partner and co-own the company with the talent, rather than licensing their brand. We believe talent and brands should be controlled by the talent and brand itself. With AFA, our artists in film, television and live entertainment have the creative freedom of owning their own content and commerce to release to the marketplace.”
Artists For Artists is represented by Paradigm. Kenan Thompson is represented by UTA and Del, Shaw, Moonves, Tanaka, Finkelstein & Lezcano. John Ryan Jr. is represented by Paradigm.
Source: Deadline
If the idea of Kevin Hart as Arnold Jackson — the 8-year-old played by Gary Coleman on “Diff’rent Strokes’ — sounds perfect on paper, wait until you see tonight’s “Live in Front of a Studio Audience.” When the 5’4” Hart stands next to the 6’4” John Lithgow — who fills Conrad Bain’s role as Arnold’s adoptive father, Mr. Drummond — the casting is about as spot-on as anything “Live” has done in the past.
And then, when Hart leaps into Lithgow’s lap at one point, expect the live studio audience to erupt. At least, they did on Monday night during a dress rehearsal of “Live in Front of a Studio Audience.” Variety was there to witness the staging of early-series episodes of “The Facts of Life,” which aired on NBC from 1979 to 1988, and “Diff’rent Strokes,” which aired from 1978-1986.
Both shows come from the stable of Norman Lear, the legendary creator who was also a major TV mogul by the late 1970s. His Tandem/T.A.T. Communications was behind “Diff’rent Strokes,” which also yielded “Facts of Life” as a spinoff, and although Lear wasn’t credited as an executive producer on those shows, his imprint was still there. Lear was instrumental in casting Coleman in the show, for example: “It was so clear that he belonged at the center of the show, that was he had a rare talent,” Lear recalled.
Lear and Jimmy Kimmel are back to host the third “Live,” and Lear — even sporting a hip pandemic ponytail as he prepares to celebrate his 100th birthday next year — lavishes praise on Kimmel for originating the idea of taking classic scripts from his library with modern superstars.
This edition’s cast boasts plenty of them — including Hart and Lithgow, as well as Damon Wayans as Willis on the “Diff’rent Strokes” portion, which airs during the second half of the 90-minute special. The night kicks off with “The Facts of Life,” featuring Jennifer Aniston as Blair, Kathryn Hahn as Jo, Gabrielle Union as Tootie and Allison Tolman as Natalie.
But the real MVP of the evening has to be Ann Dowd, who plays Mrs. Edna Garrett in both “Facts” and “Strokes.” An almost perfect channeling of Charlotte Rae’s vocal inflections as the wise but often exasperated Mrs. Garrett, Dowd nails it. As do the hair, makeup and wardrobe teams — who found the perfect wig for Dowd. Close your eyes, and you’ll swear you’re watching the original series whenever Dowd opens her mouth.
A consummate pro, Dowd didn’t drop character even during commercial breaks, as she continued to keep busy, as Mrs. Garrett would, even during a pause in the action.
This edition of “Life in Front of a Studio Audience” is also bursting at the seams with major roles played by celebrities that the producers and ABC have asked us not to reveal. Ditto who performs the theme songs for both “The Facts of Life” and “Diff’rent Strokes.” But fans of the original “Facts” will be especially thrilled at the start of the show when they hear who breaks into “You take the good, you take the bad.”
The idea for doing “Diff’rent Strokes,” and ergo, “The Facts of Life,” had been in the works for years and hinged on one thing: Hart’s availability. “Jimmy had tried, almost three or four years ago, he wanted to approach Kevin Hart about this, because he just thought he would make the perfect Gary Coleman,” said executive producer Brent Miller, who runs Lear’s Act III production company. “And we had been talking to his team for the past couple years about when Kevin would have a break. So we waited until we got his schedule, and then we built from there.”
The pandemic, of course, also put a halt to plans to produce the third installment of “Live” in 2020, as originally planned. And once it was time to go, the producers decided to step away from the conceit of the first two editions — which took episodes from “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “Good Times” that tackled social issues of the time that are still relevant today. This time, “we were looking for lighthearted and funny. And not the world’s problems In this case,” Lear said.
These aren’t Christmas episodes, but beyond that, Lear, Miller and ABC have asked attendees to keep the specifics of each episode a secret. But we can confirm that these are memorable, but lightweight, episodes from both shows’ runs (in other words, these aren’t “very special episodes,” a genre that shows like “Diff’rent Strokes’ and ‘The Facts of Life’ helped popularize in the early 1980s).
Added Miller: “As Norman said, we’ve just come off two tough years. And rather than focusing on episodes that were relevant, issue wise, to some of the times we’re living, we really just wanted to make them relevant to a good time. Where we’d have fun and the audience could have fun.”
As usual, audiences will likely marvel at the perfect re-creations of Mr. Drummond’s Park Avenue penthouse, as well as the Eastland School cafeteria. “They’re identical to what we remember from that time,” Miller said. “And when you walk on the stage to see them, especially if you grew up with them like I did, it’s a moment.”
Kimmel also told the crowd that it felt good to be back in production on “Live” after a long break. “We’re all in a room together again,” he marveled. The celebratory atmosphere on set included a DJ spinning late 1970s and early 1980s tunes during the commercial breaks — at one point, Aniston, Hahn and Union were spotted dancing to Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Let’s Groove” between acts.
Nine cameras are employed to capture the live telecast from every angle (a bit more than the four normally used on a multi-camera taping). And at least during the dress rehearsal, the stars seemed to remember most of their lines — or at least hid any flubs well. Expect some ad-libbing, especially during “Diff’rent Strokes.” (And yes, the stars have found a way to humorously and subtly point out the fact that these are adults — Hart has a full beard, after all — playing kids.)
Viewers should be advised not to fast forward through ad breaks, as there are special comedic spots for real products — in some cases, parodying 1980s ad campaigns — sprinkled throughout the evening. But again, details of those commercials remain heavily embargoed until after the telecast.
“Live from a Studio Audience” won Emmys for its first two installments, and Kimmel attributes the specials’ success as a tribute to the television we all grew up on.
“It’s funny, there are friends I’ve had since I was in junior high school whose kids’ names I can’t remember, and yet I know it’s Mr. Drummond, Mrs. Garrett, Arnold, Willis,” Kimmel said. “I know it’s Tootie. It’s Jo. It’s Blair. It’s Natalie. It’s just funny how important these characters are, how much brain space they take. If it’s a show that is iconic and when I say iconic, I mean a show that is unique, it’s beloved and it’s funny. That’s the sort of show we look for.”
Source: Deadline
The Power universe continues on Starz.
The network has renewed spinoff Power Book II: Ghost for a third season. It comes after the second season launched on November 21.
Former Empire showrunner Brett Mahoney will take over from Courtney A. Kemp as showrunner for the third season.
The move comes after the season two premiere eclipsed the ratings of the first season premiere with the show ranking as the number one cable telecast among Black households, according to Starz.
Power Book II: Ghost, which is the first series in the expanded Power franchise from executive producers Kemp and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.
The series picks up shortly after the Power finale and follows Tariq St. Patrick, the son of he son of James “Ghost” St. Patrick and Tasha Green-St. Patrick played by Michael Rainey Jr., as he navigates his new life.
The second season also stars Mary J. Blige, Shane Johnson, Gianni Paolo, Daniel Bellomy, Paige Hurd, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, Larenz Tate, Melanie Liburd, Daniel Sunjata, Berto Colon, Woody McClain, Lovell Adams-Gray, LaToya Tonodeo, Alix Lapri and Paton Ashbrook.
The Power series are executive produced by Courtney A. Kemp through her production company End of Episode, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson through G-Unit Film and Television, and Mark Canton through Atmosphere Entertainment MM.
The third season will be executive produced by Kemp, Jackson, Mahoney, Canton and Chris Selak with Geary McLeod serving as supervising producer and directing the season three premiere episode. Lionsgate Television produces the series.
“The continued success and cultural resonance of the Power universe is unprecedented, and fans are clearly still hungry for more Power Book II: Ghost,” said Jeffrey Hirsch, President and CEO at Starz. “We’re excited for the third season of the star-studded series to get into production early next year just ahead of the debut Power Book IV: Force, the fourth installment in the rapidly expanding franchise.”
Source: Deadline
Tim Story (Tom and Jerry, Universal’s Ride Along films) has wrapped principal photography on The Blackening, a horror-comedy he directed for MRC Film, which stars Dewayne Perkins (The Upshaws), Grace Byers (Amazon’s Harlem), Jermaine Fowler (Coming 2 America), Melvin Gregg (Nine Perfect Strangers), Jay Pharoah (SNL), Yvonne Orji (Insecure), Antoinette Robertson (Dear White People), X Mayo (The Farewell) and Sinqua Walls (Resort to Love).
The film centers on seven Black friends who go away for the weekend, only to find themselves trapped in a cabin with a killer. It’s based on a 2018 Comedy Central digital short written by Perkins for the Chicago improv group 3-PEAT, of which he was a member, and expands on its basic premise: “The Black cast member is always the first to die in a horror movie, but what happens when everyone is Black?”
Perkins penned the feature film adaptation with Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip). Story is producing via his The Story Company banner alongside Oliver’s Tracy Yvonne Productions, E. Brian Dobbins of Artists First, and Jason Clark and Marcei Brown for Catchlight Studios.
Story has directed ten studio features, seeing eight of them claim the number one slot at the box office during their opening weekend. His films have grossed more than $1 billion in total, making him the first Black director ever to have crossed this box office milestone. Story most recently helmed Warner Bros.’ animated pic Tom and Jerry, which hit theaters and HBO Max in February. Additional credits include Ride Along and Ride Along 2, starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, the Screen Gems comedies Think Like a Man and Think Like a Man Too, Fantastic Four and its sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Barbershop. Story currently serves, on the television side, as a director and exec producer of ABC’S Queens.
MRC Film is an independent studio which has netted more than $6 billion worldwide with its films, along with 12 Oscar nominations, 11 Golden Globe noms and other accolades. Other upcoming projects from the company include Matt Charman’s Netflix sci-fi pic The Mothership, starring Halle Berry; Carrie Cracknell’s Netflix adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, starring Dakota Johnson; and David Frankel’s Paramount+ pic Jerry and Marge Go Large, starring Oscar nominees Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening.
Story is represented by UTA and attorney Matt Johnson; Oliver by Artists First, ICM Partners and Myman Greenspan Fox; Perkins by Artists First, APA, and Schreck Rose Dapello; Byers by Gersh, Principal Entertainment LA and attorney Erik Hyman; Fowler by UTA, Management 360 and Yorn, Barnes, Levine; Gregg by CAA, 3 Arts Entertainment and Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum; Pharoah by ICM Partners, manager Shaina Farrow and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller; Orji by UTA, Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment and Del, Shaw, Moonves; Robertson by Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson; Mayo by UTA and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz; and Walls by Paradigm and Artists First.
Source: Deadline
Universal’s comedy Strays has found its barks.
Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx and Will Forte will voice star in the movie, which is a live-action-CGI hybrid adult-skewing comedy being directed by Josh Greenbaum and is the filmmaker’s follow-up to his feature breakout, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.
Dan Perrault (American Vandal) wrote the script, which follows an abandoned dog who teams up with other strays to get revenge on his former owner.
Ferrell is the abandoned dog while Foxx is one of the pooches who befriends him. Forte is the nasty human owner.
The movie shot in the fall and now heads into post-production. The canine characters are being created via visual effects.
The project has a kennel’s worth of producers. Erik Feig’s Picturestart initially developed it then approached Greenbaum and Louis Leterrier as well as Phil Lord and Chris Miller. All are now acting as producers as well as Lord Miller president of film, Aditya Sood.
Universal picked up Strays from Picturestart and Lord Miller in a preemptive situation earlier this year. The project falls under Lord Miller’s first-look with Universal.
Jessica Switch is executive producing and Julia Hammer is co-producing for Picturestart. Nikki Baida will executive produce for Lord Miller.
Senior vp of production development Jeyun Munford and director of development Tony Ducret will oversee for the studio.
Ferrell is now starring in The Shrink Next Door, an Apple TV mini-series that adapts the true-crime psychological drama podcast. The triple threat, who via his company Gloria Sanchez Productions produced Barb and Star, next star in Apple’s upcoming Christmas-themed musical film Spirited opposite Ryan Reynolds.
Foxx, who voiced the lead in Pixar’s Oscar-winning Soul, will next be seen in Spider-Man: No Way Home. He has two projects in the can: They Cloned Tyrone, with John Boyega, as well as Day Shift. opposite Dave Franco, both of which will hit Netflix next year. His memoir, Act Like You Got Some Sense, was released in October.
Forte was most recently seen in the streaming series Flipped, and was heard as the voice of characters in Scoob! and The Willoughbys. He lent his voice to Lord and Miller’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie (the latter also featuring the voicework of Ferrell as well). He is developing MacGruber as a series, which would also reunite original castmates Kristin Wiig and Ryan Philippe, as a series for Peacock.
Ferrell is repped by UTA, Mosaic and Jackoway Austen. Foxx is repped by CAA, LBI Entertainment and Ziffren Brittenham. Forte is repped by UTA, Rise, Kovert Creative and Hansen, Jacobson.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Netflix is launching an 11-day stand-up comedy mega-festival in Los Angeles featuring 130 comics – including Dave Chappelle, whose recent special The Closer was hugely controversial for the streamer.
Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival will take place across 25 venues, including iconic locations such as The Greek Theater and The Hollywood Bowl. The lineup features Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, who will make history as the first stand-up comedian to ever perform at Dodger Stadium, and Kevin Hart, who will headline the Crypto.com Arena (formerly the STAPLES Center). There’s also an LGBTQ+ Celebration event that includes Margaret Cho, Tig Notaro, Wanda Sykes, Eddie Izzard, Sandra Bernhard and others.
If the festival sounds familiar, it’s probably because it was originally scheduled for last spring but was postponed due to the pandemic. If the festival sounds familiar, it’s because an earlier iteration of this was originally scheduled for last spring but was postponed due to the pandemic.
The move helps Netflix expand into the potentially lucrative events space at a time when its subscriber growth has slowed a bit, while at the same time generating a diverse mountain of on-air content. Netflix will record many of the shows to air as new stand-up specials.
More confirmed talent for the festival: Ali Wong, Amy Poehler, Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari, Bert Kreischer, Bill Burr, Chelsea Handler, Chris Rock, Conan O’Brien, Cristela Alonzo, David Letterman, Deon Cole, Ellen DeGeneres, Felipe Esparza, Fortune Feimster, Hasan Minhaj and Ronny Chieng, Iliza Shlesinger, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, Jerry Seinfeld, John Mulaney, Jonathan Van Ness, Ken Jeong, Kevin Hart, Kevin Smith, Larry David, Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum, Michael McIntyre, Mike Birbiglia, Mike Myers and David O. Russell, Nick Kroll, Nicole Byer, Patton Oswalt, Pete Davidson, Ray Romano, Seth Rogen, Theo Von, Tig Notaro, Tim Robinson and Tina Fey.
Burr and Mulaney headline events at The Forum, while Fey and Poehler will have a freewheeling conversation at the YouTube Theater.
“It’s absolutely thrilling for Netflix to be hosting a comedy festival of this magnitude in Los Angeles, ” said Netflix’s director of stand-up and comedy formats, Robbie Praw, said. “We were so disappointed to postpone the event last spring and our line-up of comedians can’t wait to bring much needed laughs to audiences in LA and around the world on Netflix. Netflix Is A Joke Festival is going to give comedy fans the opportunity to see the greats and discover new faces in one of the greatest cities in the world.”
Chappelle will headline The Hollywood Bowl. The comic’s The Closer, released in October, was arguably the most divisive stand-up special in recent memory. The Closer was billed as the last of a six-special package of Chappelle content for the streamer and until now it wasn’t clear if Netflix was going to do more business with the comic after the controversy.
The special was widely blasted as transphobic, and Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos was criticized for his defense of the special, later admitting “I screwed up” by not being more sensitive to Netflix employees’ feelings about the content, while still defending the program as “consistent with our comedy offering, it’s consistent with Dave Chappelle’s comedy brand and this is … one of those times when there’s something on Netflix that you’re not going to like.”
The festival will run April 28 to May 8. Presales will be available Dec. 7th and tickets for all events will go on sale Dec. 10 at www.NetflixIsAJokeFest.com.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
According to several sources, we have heard that comedian Darryl ‘D’Militant has passed away overnight from his many complications with cancer.
Littleton was an amazing person with whom I recently co-wrote a book titled This Day In Comedy- The Ethnic Encyclopedia Of Laughter.
Littleton was an Emmy-nominated writer and former producer of BET’s Comic View who also appeared on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam, ABC’s America’s Funniest People (which he won), and was an actor in which he appeared in such shows as Parent ‘Hood.
Littleton released two comedy CDs, was an NPR commentator for his first book Black Comedians on Black Comedy (which was adapted for a Showtime documentary), and most recently released a virtual calendar This Day In Comedy.
On a personal note, Little was an amazing mentor and great friend to me and to many comedians and writers. Having known that he was battling cancer for a few years he fought a very valiant fight.
I want to send out condolences to his family, his comedy family, his friends, and everyone he touched.
We will love and miss you bro.
According to TMZ and several other news reports, it seems that comedian George Lopez was performing on stage and a health crisis started to happen while he was on stage.
Lopez was performing Friday night at the Majestic Theater in San Antonio, when at one point during his set a man started falling into distress in the upper balcony area, to the point that the house lights had to be turned on. As you will notice in the video, it had to be difficult for Lopez to even know what was going on because of the distance between him and the stage.
Check out this video obtained by TMZ as it shows what we’re told were a few minutes after this gentleman, who’s described as mid-aged, fell unconscious with people around him — including what appears to be folks in his own party — attending to him. Meanwhile, Lopez kept on with the show.
Eventually, people flagged down the staff of the MJ Theater, and the fan was carried out and taken to an ambulance. San Antonio Fire confirms he regained consciousness and was stable at the hospital.