After showing support for Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, Dave Chappelle was filmed phone banking for Yang.
Fox is bringing back interactive music game show Beat Shazam for a fourth season. Jamie Foxx will return as host and executive producer, along with EPs Mark Burnett, Jeff Apploff, Barry Poznick and Lauren Zalaznick. Foxx’s daughter Corinne Foxx, also will return as deejay.
Beat Shazam has been solid ratings-wise. The show averaged 3.2 million multi-platform viewers in its third season and ranked among summer’s Top 25 broadcast programs among adults 18-49. Also strong on social media, Beat Shazam has garnered 3 million total engagements across all social channels.
The game show pits three teams of two against the clock and one another as they attempt to identify the biggest hit songs of all time. In the end, the team with the most money banked will outlast the competition and go against Shazam, the popular song-identification app, for the chance to win $1 million. The series has featured numerous celebrity guest stars, including Mariah Carey, Shaquille O’Neal, TLC, Snoop Dogg, Odell Beckham Jr., Michael Bolton, Smokey Robinson and more. Over the course of its three seasons, Beat Shazam has awarded contestants more than $9 million.
Shazam, one of the world’s most popular music apps, lets users identify songs simply by listening to the music playing around them. The app has been downloaded more than 1.5 billion times around the world and counts 25 million-plus Shazams each day.
Foxx also will appear as a guest panelist in the Season 3 premiere episode of The Masked Singer, airing live to all time zones Sunday after Super Bowl LIV on Fox.
Beat Shazam was created by Jeff Apploff and Wes Kauble and is produced by Apploff Entertainment and MGM Television in association with Shazam. Jeff Apploff, Mark Burnett, Jamie Foxx, Barry Poznick and Lauren Zalaznick serve as executive producers.
Source: Deadline
In one call, Dave asked a woman named Melissa on the other line if how she would rate how much she liked Yang on a scale of 1 to “Trump,” and the woman replied by telling him to put her down for “1.” Dave went on to tell Melissa who was on the other line, adding, “I’m a world-famous comedian,” which led to laughs from people watching Dave in the background. You can check out the full conversation above.
The series, from Lionsgate TV, stars Amber Stevens West, Andrea Bordeaux, Bresha Webb and Corbin Reid as four vibrant, fiercely loyal best friends who work, live and play in Harlem as they strive for world domination. Stephen Bishop also stars. The show is an unapologetically female series about enviable friendship and not just surviving, but thriving together.
Starz has ordered eight episodes; a premiere date hasn’t been set.
“Run the World is exactly the kind of bold, authentic, inclusive storytelling that Starz is committed to delivering to our global audience,” said Starz president and CEO Jeffrey Hirsch. “We feel as though we have captured lightning in a bottle with the energy and chemistry of this cast and their portrayal of these distinct characters in this modern-day view of four female friends in New York City and we look forward to bringing the series to the platform.”
Starz and parent company Lionsgate, where Bowser has an overall deal, put Run the World into development in June 2019. Bowser, who created Living Single and UPN’s For Your Love, will serve as showrunner and executive produce with Davenport (BET’s Boomerang). Millicent Shelton (Black-ish, 30 Rock) directed the pilot, and the series will be overseen by a creative team of women of color.
Run the World joins a Starz lineup that includes Vida, Outlander, American Gods and Dublin Murders. Flagship series Power airs its series finale Feb. 9, but spinoff Power Book II: Ghost will follow it. Starz also has new dramas P-Valley, Hightown, Becoming Elizabeth and Dangerous Liaisons and a third season of The Girlfriend Experience in the wings, and is developing a sequel to Weeds, produced by Lionsgate.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
The project is a reteaming of sorts as the two actors briefly shared some scenes in 2019’s Hobbs & Shaw, in which Hart cameoed.
Patrick Hughes, who directed the 2017 Ryan Reynolds-Samuel L. Jackson action-comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard, is on board to helm Man From Toronto, which the studio has slotted for a Nov. 20 release. It will be a tight turnaround as the project is eyeing a March production start.
The story uses a case of a mistaken identity as its jumping-off point after the world’s deadliest assassin, known as the Man from Toronto, and a New York City screw-up run into each other at an Airbnb. A clash of personalities, and a clash with deadly killers, ensues. (The new project is in no way related to 1933’s The Man From Toronto, a romantic comedy.)
Robbie Fox wrote the script from a story by Fox and Jason Blumenthal. Blumenthal is producing along with Todd Black and Steve Tisch, his partners at Escape Artists. Escape Artists produced the 2019 sleeper hit The Upside, which starred Hart.
Sony hopes to capture the vibe, and the box office returns, of the actors’ previous individual hits Central Intelligence and Hobbs & Shaw.
Hughes, who hails from Australia, made his feature helming debut with the 2010 police thriller Red Hill and made his Stateside debut with 2014’s The Expendables 3. His sequel to The Hitman’s Bodyguard, titled The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, is in postproduction with an eye toward a late August release.
Hart is currently on screens with Jumanji: The Next Level, which has grossed over $737.2 million worldwide. He is also starring in the comedic drama Fatherhood for Sony.
Statham and Dwayne Johnson toplined Hobbs & Shaw, which grossed over $760 million worldwide. Statham previously worked with Hughes on The Expendables 3.
Hart is repped by UTA, 3 Arts Entertainment and Schreck Rose; Statham is with WME and Goodman Schenkman and Hughes is repped by WME and Felker Toczek.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Priyanka Chopra Jonas is taking the red pill.
The actress and international beauty icon is in final talks to join the cast of the untitled fourth film in the Matrix saga, the Wachowskis’ game-changing action franchise, insiders close to negotiations said.
The Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow film is being directed by series co-creator Lana Wachowski. She’ll join the previously announced Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Neil Patrick Harris. Details about her prospective character are currently under wraps.
The “Matrix 4” cast has been in fight training for weeks for production start, which will begin imminently in Northern California.
Chopra Jonas is a National Film Award winner with more than 60 films to her credit. Her U.S. television debut was on the ABC drama “Quantico,” which ran for three seasons. Chopra Jonas made history as the first Indian-born actor to star as the lead of a primetime network series and won a People’s Choice award for this role in 2016. She was featured on the cover of TIME magazine’s coveted TIME 100 issue in 2016, named as one of the “Most Influential People” in the world, and recognized as one of Forbes Most Powerful Women.
Chopra Jonas recently starred in and co-produced “The Sky is Pink,” an indie in the official selection at the Toronto International Film Festival. She’ll next be seen in Netflix’s “We Can Be Heroes,” from by Robert Rodriguez, and an adaptation of the Man Booker Prize winning novel ‘”The White Tiger,” which she is also executive producing. She’s also developing an Indian wedding comedy with Mindy Kaling and Dan Goor for Universal, in which she is set to star and co-produce. She’ll film “Matrix 4” concurrently in tandem with “Citadel,” an Amazon series with Richard Madden from The Russo Brothers.
Chopra runs her own production company, Purple Pebble Pictures, which is headquartered in Mumbai and Los Angeles. She is repped by manager Anjula Acharia, UTA’s Chris Hart and Jason Heyman, and Grubman Shire.
Source: Variety
The Maze Runner star Dexter Darden has been tapped to star in Peacock’s Saved By The Bell reboot.
According to Deadline, Darden will join Josie Totah as one of the members of the new cast. Returning cast members Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkley are also set to star.
His role hasn’t been divulged, but this show won’t be the only thing Darden will be seen in the near future. He has Hulu’s The Binge coming up as well as the Spike Lee-executive produced Son of the South.
30 Rock writer-producer Tracey Wigfield is set to executive produce the Saved by the Bell reboot. While it’s not known if the series will debut at the same time as Peacock’s launch, but the streaming service itself will debut in April for Comcast subscribers for being available to everyone by January.
Source: Shadow & Act
Casting for the second season of Jordan Peele’s rendition of the famed anthology series The Twilight Zone has been rounded out. Some heavy hitters and Emmy winners are joining the CBS All Access show.
The new additions include If Beale Street Could Talk actor Colman Domingo, Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor Billy Porter and Tony Award-nominated actor Daniel Sunjata.
Last year, Porter made history when he became the first openly gay Black man to be nominated and win in a lead acting category at the Primetime Emmys for his portrayal of Pray Tell on the FX drama Pose. Porter took home the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series.
Prominent actors featured on The Twilight Zone’s first season include Sanaa Lathan, Damson Idris, Jessica Williams, DeWanda Wise and Tracy Morgan.
The first season of Peele’s reboot of The Twilight Zone and the original series are available to stream on CBS All Access.
Source: Shadow & Act
Dave Chappelle won the best comedy album award for the third year in a row at the 2020 Grammys on Sunday.
Tanya Tucker and Brandi Carlile, who presented the honor, accepted on Chappelle’s behalf as he wasn’t present at the ceremony, which was held at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The comedian’s reign over the category began in 2017, when he won for the album version of his two Netflix comeback specials, The Age of Spin and Deep in the Heart of Texas. Last year’s winning album, Equanimity & The Bird Revelation, along with this year’s, Sticks & Stones, were also distributed by Netflix.
His latest effort covers everything from gun control to the opioid crisis, though much of the focus is on Chappelle’s views of “cancel culture.” He examines what he describes as “celebrity hunting season” through the lens of the accusations and controversies surrounding Michael Jackson, R. Kelly and Kevin Hart.
Chappelle beat out Ellen DeGeneres’ Relatable, Aziz Ansari’s Right Now, Trevor Noah’s Son of Patricia and Jim Gaffigan’s Quality Time in the category.
DeGeneres’ nomination prevented the category from completely shutting out women, as it has done many times before. But even the women who do receive noms rarely win, as it has only happened five times in the category’s 60-year history.
Alicia Keys hosted the 62nd annual Grammy Awards, which aired on CBS from Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Fresh off of last night’s buzzed-about season premiere, “grown-ish” has been picked up for a fourth season on Freeform. Starring Yara Shahidi, Trevor Jackson, Francia Raisa, Emily Arlook, Jordan Buhat, Chloe Bailey, Halle Bailey, Luka Sabbat and Diggy Simmons, the series is a contemporary take on the issues that students face in the world of higher education.
Currently airing on THURSDAYS at 8 p.m. EST/PST on Freeform, the gang returns as confident, eager and seasoned upper-classmen, with Zoey and her girls (… and Vivek) moving into an off-campus home, ready to take on the school year. They quickly realize that they have been mistaken about the disillusionment of adulthood, with real-life problems coming for them, including student loans, work/life balance and, of course, messy breakups.
Freeform’s “grown-ish” is produced by ABC Signature Studios, a part of Disney Television Studios, and executive produced by Kenya Barris, Julie Bean, Jenifer Rice-Genzuk Henry, Craig Doyle, Anthony Anderson, Laurence Fishburne, Helen Sugland and E. Brian Dobbins.
Season two of “grown-ish” ranked as last year’s No. 1 live-action comedy on cable among Women 18-34 and Females 12-34.