Shakira Ja’nai Paye, Andrew Santino and Bill Bellamy have joined the cast of New Line’s re-imagining of House Party, the 1990 cult classic comedy.
The trio join Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Tosin Cole, Karen Obilom and DC Young Fly, among others, on the roll call for the remake which is intended to stream on HBO Max.
Music video director Calmatic is making his feature directing debut with Party, which is being produced by The SpringHill Company, the banner run by LeBron James and Maverick Carter.
The original movie focused on two best friends and their efforts to throw the party of the year and their hijinks involving bullies, parents, girls and police.
The new, 21st century take, penned by Atlanta writing duo Stephen Glover and Jamal Olori, is being kept on the downlow.
Reginald Hudlin, who wrote and directed the original, is exec producing with Warrington Hudlin. Spencer Beighley and Jamal Henderson of SpringHill are also exec producing.
Executives Richard Brener, Josh Mack and Victoria Palmeri are overseeing for the studio.
Paye can be seen starring opposite Ashton Sanders and Jeffrey Wright in the Netflix feature All Day and a Night. Additionally, she is a member of Obama’s Other Daughters, an all-Black women improv and sketch comedy troupe.
Stand-up comedian and actor Santino currently appears in FX’s acclaimed comedy Dave. He also starred in the Jim Carrey-exec produced Showtime series I’m Dying Up Here and appeared in the 2020 comedy Friendsgiving.
Bellamy is the stand-up comedian who made his name on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam and is credited as the person who coined the term “booty call.” One of the first MTV VJs, Bellamy recently appeared in HBO’s Insecure and with Selma Blair in indie thriller A Dark Foe.
Paye is repped by UTA and manager Bryan Brucks. Santino is repped by UTA and Ziffren Brittenham. Belamy is repped by Innovative and Main Title Entertainment.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
NEW YORK (AP) — During the pandemic, Steven Soderbergh has shot two feature films, released a pair of movies, written a sequel to his first film (1989′s “Sex, Lies and Videotape”), re-edited some of his older movies (mostly for fun) and co-produced the Academy Awards.
It’s an amount of accomplishment that really puts to shame the 1,000-piece puzzle some of us are still proud of assembling last May.
Yet at a time when much of Hollywood is going through profound change, Soderbergh has, like few others, seized an uncertain moment.
“I think it’s fair to say that I’m the cockroach of this industry,” he said smiling on a recent interview by Zoom. “I can find a way to survive in any version that I’m confronted with.”
Soderbergh has averaged a film every one of his 35 years in movies, amassing a nimble, frenetic body of work spanning experimental iPhone indies (“High Flying Bird,” “Unsane”) to commercial crowd-pleasers (“Ocean’s Eleven,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Magic Mike”). His latest, “No Sudden Move,” nearly didn’t happen. It was initially scheduled to begin shooting in April 2020. The pandemic scuttled those plans but by early fall, after he helped create return-to-set safety protocols, Soderbergh remounted it — albeit without one star, George Clooney, who withdrew out of health concerns for his asthmatic son.
Still, “No Sudden Move,” which debuts July 1 on HBO Max, doesn’t lack for stars. And while Clooney’s presence would have reinforced a spirit of get-the-band-back-together, “No Sudden Move” remains a cousin to one of Soderbergh’s most celebrated movies: 1998′s “Out of Sight,” the slinky, sublime caper adapted from Elmore Leonard.
That film opened in Miami sunshine but descended into wintery Detroit. Twenty-three years later, “No Sudden Move” returns Soderbergh to the Motor City with Don Cheadle, who memorably played Maurice “Snoop” Miller in “Out of Sight.” Since then, Cheadle has co-starred in four more films with Soderbergh (“Traffic,” the “Ocean’s” movies). But he’s front-and-center this time.
“This was designed as vehicle for Don, whether he wanted it or not,” Soderbergh says. “Literally: I wanted to see this guy walking, walking, walking — and we parachute into this story.”
“No Sudden Move” opens with Cheadle, as Curt Goynes, strolling through 1950s Detroit. Soderbergh and screenwriter Ed Solomon conceived of the film from the start as a heist movie with a trio of thieves brought together not unlike those in Robert Wise’s electric 1959 noir “Odds Against Tomorrow.” (That was one inspiration. The classic ’70s crime film “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” was another.)
But while working on the script, Solomon came upon the history of the automotive industry’s efforts to avoid emissions controls. “No Sudden Move” begins with three hired guns (Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Kieran Culkin), but in a multiplying series of double-crosses, expands in scope to encapsulate some of Detroit’s original sins, a little like how “Chinatown” does for Los Angeles. The rest of the cast includes Bill Duke, Jon Hamm, David Harbour, Julia Fox, Brendan Frazier, Matt Damon and Ray Liotta.(Claudette Barius/Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP)
“We were able to talk about redlining and community and the devastation of Detroit and the greed of the car manufacturers without proselytizing or hitting it on the head,” says Cheadle. “It was all part of the narrative intrigue. It felt in a lot of ways like ‘Out of Sight 2.0’ or 1.0, 30 years beforehand — revisiting that kind of energy.”
Cheadle wasn’t necessarily eager to return to a film set at the time. But he also realized that if he didn’t, a-stuck-at-home Soderbergh would probably keep writing and sending him scripts. The director managed the shoot without incident by frequent testing in two mobile COVID-19 testing units that were personally paid for. The central cast and crew members were kept in a quarantine bubble.
“I know that I put Steven through some version of hell in my uncertainty about coming back,” Cheadle says. “I lost family members to COVID. I was really gun shy about even leaving my house.”
Cheadle smiles. “I also blame him for ‘Contagion,’” referring to Soderbergh’s prophetic pandemic drama from 2011. “I think he’s Patient Zero.”
In April, Soderbergh led an effort to mount an in-person Oscars despite COVID-19 protocols. The telecast was handsomely shot, opening with a fluid tracking shot of Regina King, and it made an often impersonal ceremony warmly intimate. But it was also talky, with lengthy introductions and speeches, and one gambit to rearrange the final awards ended awkwardly.Don Cheadle, right, and Benicio Del Toro in a scene from “No Sudden Move.” (Claudette Barius/Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP)
Overall, Soderbergh is pleased with the show. The broadcast did what it set out to do: pull off an in-person Oscars safely while experimenting with an often inflexible format.
“As far as I know, we’re the first show in a long time where nobody ever got played off, and I’m proud of that. This is what happens when you hire the director of a movie called ‘Let Them All Talk,’” he jokes, referring to his 2020 film for HBO Max, with Meryl Streep, shot largely on an ocean liner crossing.
But Soderbergh did walk away from the experience — a satisfying and unique one, he says — with a gnawing sense of a larger existential crisis for movies. Ratings, like they have for most pandemic award shows, plummeted.
“I just look at it as a larger issue than the specifics of what our show looked like, and that is: How do we make people care about the movies the way they used to?” Soderbergh says. “To me, this is the real question that needs to be confronted.”
But the conditions, and the opportunities of streaming, are also ripe for a protean, fast-working filmmaker like Soderbergh. He recently shot his third film for HBO Max, “KIMI,” a pandemic-set thriller with Zoë Kravitz. “No Sudden Move,” a period crime film for adults, is very much the kind of movie that before the streaming flood gates opened would have been unlikely to get made.
“It’s a really good time for somebody who makes things. I honestly would not like to be running these companies. Nobody knows what’s coming. Nobody knows what’s a cyclical thing as opposed to a real secular change,” says Soderbergh. “I have a long history with Warner. We both seem to be in sync with the purpose of my deal which is for me to be really busy.”Don Cheadle, left, and Benicio Del Toro, right, on the set of “No Sudden Move.” (Claudette Barius/Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP)
Other things never change. “No Sudden Move” is Soderbergh’s sixth heist film, a cycle begun with “Out of Sight” that includes the three “Ocean’s” films and “Logan Lucky,” a self-financed meta-heist movie in that it sought to pull one over on Hollywood, too. The genre, the director says, encourages a filmmaker to bring something to the table — to “style it up.” “It’s just made for the movies,” he says.
As time wound down before Soderbergh and Cheadle had to leave for the Tribeca Festival premiere of “No Sudden Move,” he wondered if returning to the scene of his first crime movie was pushing his luck.
“I’ve had two really good experiences in Detroit and gotten out of there with two movies I’m really happy with,” said Soderbergh. “The question is: Should I just let that go?”
Cheadle didn’t hesitate. “Tee it up! Go to the well!” he encouraged. “Spin the wheel!”
With its release coming up later this summer, Universal has dropped the second official trailer for Candyman.
The film Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Colman Domingo, Nathan Stewart-Jarret and Vanessa A. Williams. It is set in “the now-gentrified section of Chicago where the Cabrini-Green housing projects once stood.” Abdul-Matteen portrays Anthony McCoy, a man who becomes obsessed with the bloody legend and Parris will play his girlfriend, Brianna Cartwright, who is an art dealer.
The official description reads: For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Mateen) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Parris), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials. With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer (Domingo) exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.
At an event for the first trailer back in February 2020 that was attended by Shadow and Act, DaCosta explained the film’s themes.
“Gentrification in our film is what helped us to reimagine the story, because Cabrini-Green is gone,” said DaCosta. “The movie in the ’90s has a vision of Cabrini-Green where its on its way to being knocked down. So going back there and seeing what’s happened around there…there is an ArcLight close to where Cabrini-Green used to be. There is a lot of development in that area [because] Cabrini-Green has been torn down, but Cabrini-Green itself has kind of been left untouched. What we do in our film is talk about the ghosts that are left behind…and that’s how we find our way into our reimagining of Candyman.”
Candyman is in theaters August 27.
We have learned that Netflix has renewed the critically-acclaimed sitcom The Upshaws for a second season. The new season will feature 16 half-hour episodes, an increase from 10 in the first season.
The series is from Regina Hicks and Wanda Sykes, who are both showrunners on the series. It stars Mike Epps, Sykes, Kim Fields, Page Kennedy, Diamond Lyons, Khali Daniya-Renee Spraggins, Jermelle Simon, Gabrielle Dennis and Journey Christine.
The description: Bennie Upshaw (Mike Epps), the head of a Black working class family in Indianapolis, is a charming, well-intentioned mechanic and lifelong mess just trying his best to step up and care for his family — wife Regina (Kim Fields), their two young daughters (Khali Daniya-Renee Spraggins, Journey Christine) and firstborn son (Jermelle Simon), the teenage son (Diamond Lyons) he fathered with another woman (Gabrielle Dennis) — and tolerate his sardonic sister-in-law (Wanda Sykes), all without a blueprint for success. But the Upshaws are determined to make it work, and make it to the next level, together.
“We are so excited we get to bring this amazing show back for a second season,” said Regina Hicks, The Upshaws co-creator and co-showrunner. And thankful that Netflix saw and felt all the love we got for this wonderful family. Looking forward to bringing more Upshaws’ joy to all who fell in love with them.”
“Wanda and Regina have created a fresh entry in the tradition of Black sitcoms that’s real, relatable, full of heart and incredibly funny,” said Tracey Pakosta, Netflix’s Head of Comedy. We’re thrilled to see where they, along with their talented cast, take the Upshaws in the second season.”
The series premiered on May 12, 2021 and is currently streaming worldwide on Netflix.
WHAT: With summer in full-swing, the popular flavored malt beverage brand, Seagram’s Escapes, in partnership with Rolling Out, is hosting a virtual discussion with Black women influencers in comedy and entertainment with the fourth installment of their 2021 Empowerment Tour. During the discussion, the featured ladies will share how they climbed the ladder of success in the entertainment industry, personal branding tips and how they conquered challenges. The panel is free to attend and will also include a few laughs, gossip, and “tea-spilling” to complement the conversation. The content will create the perfect combination of information and entertainment for viewers to watch during a summer get-together with friends or while relaxing alone at home.
WHO: The June panel features esteemed African-American women entertainers – including comediennes, reality TV stars, radio hosts and actresses who cover aspects of entertainment from a variety of spectrums. The panelists include:
WHY: As part of the tour, Seagram’s Escapes is presenting this virtual panel to highlight Black women entrepreneurs who have overcome obstacles they faced on their road of becoming innovators in their fields. Seagram’s Escapes launched the virtual conversation to elevate Black women and provide resources along with tools to propel them forward as they pursue their passions. The series of virtual tours provides a space for honest conversations where a variety of trailblazers share their stories candidly with others in similar spaces to inspire, encourage and share the knowledge needed to accelerate their entrepreneurial tracks.
REGISTRATION LINK: https://www.seagramsescapes.com/cocktails-conversations/
COST: FREE
WHEN: Saturday, June 26, 2021 7 p.m. EST
CONTACT: Vanessa Abron, (312) 480-9050, vabron@burrell.com
Welcome to the “House Party,” Karen Obilom.
The “Doom Patrol” and “Games People Play” star is the latest to join the cast of New Line’s “House Party” reboot, produced by the SpringHill Company for HBO Max.
Obilom has signed on to play the female lead in the project, joining Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Tosin Cole and DC Young Fly for the reimagining of the hit comedy, which starred Christopher “Kid” Reid and Christopher “Play” Martin of hip hop group Kid ‘n Play.
The 1990 movie, written and directed by Reginald Hudlin, was a major financial success for New Line, earning $26.4 million at the box office and cult status with fans. The movie also features Tisha Martin-Campbell, Martin Lawrence, A.J. Johnson, Daryl “Chill” Mitchell and Full Force (Paul Anthony, Bowlegged Lou and B-Fine).
LeBron James and Maverick Carter will produce the new movie for their SpringHill Company, which is set to be directed by award-winning music video helmer Calmatic, in his feature directorial debut. The movie’s script comes from Emmy-winning “Atlanta” duo Stephen Glover and Jamal Olori.
The brains behind the original movie, Reginald and Warrington Hudlin, return as executive producers, alongside SpringHill’s Spencer Beighley and Jamal Henderson.
New Line executives Richard Brener, Josh Mack and Victoria Palmeri are overseeing the project for the studio.
Obilom currently stars as Roni Evers in the DC Universe series “Doom Patrol” on HBO Max, as well as the BET drama series “Games People Play.” The Nigerian American up-and-comer has also appeared on HBO’s “Insecure,” Netflix’s “Medal of Honor” and CBS’ “NCIS: New Orleans.”
Next month, Obilom will be seen in the Netflix romantic comedy “Resort to Love” alongside Christina Milian and Jay Pharoah. The new movie, produced by Alicia Keys, debuts globally on July 29.
She is repped by ATN Entertainment, A3 Artists Agency, TMP Artists and Heliotype Creative.
Source: Variety
SHOWTIME has renewed the critically acclaimed late-night variety sketch series ZIWE, starring and executive produced by Ziwe (DESUS & MERO®), for a second season of 12 episodes to be split into two installments. The inaugural season of ZIWE included interviews with Phoebe Bridgers, Fran Lebowitz, Andrew Yang, Eboni K. Williams, Gloria Steinem and Stacey Abrams, along with musical performances by Ziwe, sketches and more – including unscripted and unpredictable interactions with everyday people. “This show has exceeded my wildest imagination thanks to my brilliant cast, crew and iconic guests,” said Ziwe. “I am famously delighted to continue my collaboration with Showtime and A24.”
Previously, Ziwe wrote for DESUS & MERO,OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT and Dickinsonand rose to viral popularity with her ground-breaking and provocative Instagram Live series questioning cultural figures on race. She has also voiced Kamala Harris and other roles for OUR CARTOON PRESIDENT, as well as Tooning Out the News, and appears in her own Pop Show, which she created and performs at Brooklyn’s Union Hall with original pop songs off her album Generation Ziwe. ZIWE is produced by A24 for SHOWTIME. In addition to Ziwe, Jamund Washington and Hunter Speese serve as executive producers.
Netflix has opted not to proceed with a second season of Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!, a father-daughter comedy starring and executive produced by Oscar winner Jamie Foxx. The series, inspired by Foxx’s relationship with his daughter, Corinne Foxx, who produced alongside Alex Avant, debuted its eight-episode first season on April 14th.
Kyla-Drew played Foxx’s daughter, with David Alan Grier also starring on the multi-camera comedy, alongside Porscha Coleman and Jonathan Kite.
Foxx, who was reportedly involved in the decision to end the series, co-created Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! with sitcom veteran Jim Patterson who stepped down as showrunner ahead of start of production and was replaced by Bentley Kyle Evans. Ken Whittingham directed the first six episodes. Evans directed the last two.
Netflix and Foxx have a long-standing creative partnership, which includes two upcoming films, They Cloned Tyrone and Day Shift.
Following the breakout success of Fuller House and The Ranch, also co-created by Patterson, Netflix, which does not do pilots, going straight-to-series on all of its shows, has faced challenges launching a hit multi-camera family comedy series, with most sitcoms not going beyond one season. Family Reunion has been a solid performer, with The Upshaws showing promise.
Source: Deadline
Will Smith is set to host and star in a new one-hour comedy variety special at Netflix, according to sources.
The special will include comedy sketches, musical performances, surprise celebrity guests, and noteworthy conversations among other things. It is set to launch on Netflix globally later this year.
Westbrook Studios will produce the special for Netflix. Smith will serve as an executive producer in addition to starring and hosting. Westbrook Studios’ Terence Carter, Miguel Melendez, Sahara Bushue, and David Boorstein will also executive produce.
Smith is a multi-talented performer who is no stranger to working across all facets of entertainment one could expect to see in a variety special. He is of course now best known for his blockbuster film career, having starred in smash hits like the “Bad Boys” and “Men in Black” franchises, and critically-acclaimed dramas like “Ali” and “The Pursuit of Happyness.” The latter two films earned him Academy Award nominations.
Smith first broke out, however, as a rapper, performing under the name The Fresh Prince. He parlayed that success into the beloved sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which ran six seasons and nearly 150 episodes on NBC.
In addition to his acting work, Smith and Westbrook are at work producing a number of projects across film, television, and digital platforms. Among those is “Bel-Air,” a reimagining of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” that has received a two-season order at Peacock. The show is based on Morgan Cooper’s viral video that reimagined the NBC comedy series as a drama.
Smith is repped by CAA, Three Six Zero Entertainment, Hertz Lichtenstein & Young, LLP, and The Lede Company.
Source: Variety
Dave Chappelle has just served up another block party—sort of.
According toVariety, Chappelle brought out Q-Tip, Fat Joe, De La Soul, A$AP Ferg, Talib Kweli, Ghostface Killah and more for a 30-minute concert at Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall to close out the 2021 Tribeca Festival on Sunday night (June 20). Because there were no cameras or phones allowed in the screening, it’s unclear which songs were performed at the event.
Chappelle pulled up to this year’s Tribeca Festival in support of This Time This Place, a new Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar-directed documentary chronicling of his carefully planned series of socially distanced comedy concerts he threw in Yellow Springs, Ohio amid the COVID-19 pandemic last summer. The concerts took place in a five-acre cornfield owned by one of Chappelle’s friends. COVID-19 tests were administered at each of the 50 concerts, and Chappelle’s comedian friends Chris Rock, Jon Stewart, Kevin Hart, Michelle Wolf and Tiffany Haddish appeared for some of the shows, too. Reichert and Bognar happen to be Chappelle’s neighbors, and in order to suggest a collaboration, he approached them in neighborly fashion.
“I literally just knocked on their door the same way Black people do when they’re having barbecues,” Chappelle joked to audience members. “‘Hey, I’m having a barbecue. Can I borrow some hotdogs, neighbor?’”
Variety says that, in addition to the logistics of hosting these comedy shows near the peak of the pandemic, This Time This Place puts a spotlight onto the way Yellow Springs responded to the Black Lives Matter movement and the death of George Floyd.
This news arrives nearly 17 years after Chappelle took over Brooklyn to host a surprise concert featuring Kanye West, The Roots, Black Star and more. Chappelle had a documentary titled Dave Chappelle’s Block Party made for the event, and it was released in March 2006. Chappelle delivered a quasi block party concert for Barack Obama as he prepared to exit the White House in November 2016. That one featured performances from Usher, Common, Jill Scott and more.
Source: Revolt