Yahya Abdul-Mateen Lands Lead Role In ‘The Matrix 4’
Yahya Abdul-Mateen has landed a lead role in The Matrix 4. He’ll star in the film with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, who will be reprising their roles.
Variety, who broke Abdul-Mateen’s casting, says that “Director Lana Wachowski had been meeting with actors for the secret role over the last week and in recent days, Abdul-Mateen emerged as the frontrunner.”
And while character details aren’t known for certain, The Hollywood Reporter says sources speculate that Abdul-Mateen could be a young Morpheus. Laurence Fishburne portrayed the character originally.
After rumors persisted for years that Michael B. Jordan would lead an entirely new Matrix franchise, Warner Bros. announced a fourth film in the current franchise with Reeves and Moss returning, as well as Wachowski to write and direct.
The film is produced and will be distributed by Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow.
Also written by Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell, the film is expected to begin production next year.
Source: Shadow & Act
Daveed Diggs In Talks To Join Halle Bailey In Disney’s Live-Action ‘The Little Mermaid’
Daveed Diggs is in talks to join Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid.
According to reports, he’d join Halle Bailey, who is portraying Ariel, as well as Melissa McCarthy, Awkwafina and Jacob Tremblay. Javier Bardem is in talks to join as King Triton.
The original 1989 film, based on the fairytale, is considered one of the most iconic animated films of all-time. It follows a mermaid princess who dreams of becoming human after she falls in love with a human prince.
The film will be produced by Rob Marshall as well as John DeLuca, Marc Platt and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The film will go into production in early 2020.
Diggs, most known for his role on Broadway in Hamilton, has been expanding to television and film in recent years. After starring in and writing the critically-acclaimed indie, Blindspotting, his upcoming projects include starring in Showtime’s The Good Lord Bird series.
Source: Shadow& Act
‘Desus & Mero’ Returns To Showtime Oct. 14th!
DESUS & MERO will return from its summer hiatus with all-new episodes airing every Monday and Thursdayat 11:00 p.m. ET/PT, starting on Monday, October 14. DESUS & MERO features the duo chatting with guests at the intersection of pop culture, sports, music, politics and more, as well as giving their take on the day’s hot topics in their signature style in front of a small live studio audience from New York City. Upcoming guests include DaBaby (on October 14), Taraji P. Henson, Forest Whitaker and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Longtime acquaintances Desus Nice (Daniel Baker) and The Kid Mero (Joel Martinez) reconnected online in the early days of Twitter, where they unleashed their potent personalities and found themselves kindred spirits. That led to stints on Complex and MTV, the Bodega Boys podcast, and a daily late-night show on Viceland, developing a feverish following. The quick-witted duobrings a distinct voice to late night, delivering smart and comedic commentary on any and all topics, that keeps audiences buzzing.
Desus and Mero continue to host their Bodega Boys podcast. Produced for SHOWTIME by JAX Media, DESUS & MERO is executive produced by Desus Nice, The Kid Mero, Lilly Burns, Tony Hernandez and Victor Lopez.
Wanda Sykes To Host The 28th Annual Bounce Trumpet Awards!
EMMY® Award-winning comedian, actress and writer Wanda Sykes will host the 28th Annual Bounce Trumpet Awards, an exciting night of inspiration, history and crowd-rousing performances celebrating African-American achievements and contributions.
For the first time in its history, the Bounce Trumpet Awards will be held in Hollywood, taking place at the Dolby Theatre. It will tape Dec. 4, 2019 and will world premiere nationwide on Bounce on Sun. Feb. 23 at 9:00 p.m. ET for Black History Month. Bounce, the fastest-growing African-American network on television, exclusively owns, produces and telecasts the event.
“Relocating the Bounce Trumpet Awards to Hollywood gives us an opportunity to build upon the show’s enormous entertainment value by tapping into Hollywood’s talent resources,” said Bounce’s Executive Vice President of Original Programming David Hudson. “Wanda Sykes is the perfect person to helm this year’s Trumpets. Not only is she hilarious and brilliant, she has broken many barriers in her career from being the first African-American woman to host the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to conceiving and starring in her own prime-time sitcom. She truly personifies the spirit of the Trumpet Awards – an inspirational celebration of Black excellence.”
Sykes has been called “one of the funniest stand-up comics” by her peers and ranks among Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Funniest People in America. Her smart-witted stand-up has sent her career in many different directions. She can be seen in her first Netflix comedy special Wanda Sykes: Not Normal which was nominated for two Primetime EMMY® Awards. She also was seen in the EMMY®-winning reboot of Norman Lear’s The Jeffersons. She is currently in production for two shows she is producing and writing through her Push It Productions banner.
Hudson will serve as Executive Producer of the 2020 Bounce Trumpet Awards, along with Rikki Hughes, CEO of Magic Lemonade Productions. Hughes is an EMMY® and GRAMMY®-winning producer of award shows, comedy specials and independent features. Her credits include four comedy specials with Dave Chappelle for Netflix, HBO’s upcoming comedy special All Def Comedy, The BET 25th Anniversary Special, The BET Comedy Awards and more.
The Bounce Trumpet Awards were conceived to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of African Americans and those who have succeeded against great odds and inspired success in others. Founded in 1992 by American Civil Rights leader Xernona Clayton, The Trumpet Awards were acquired by Bounce in 2016. The list of prestigious honorees includes Muhammad Ali, Beyoncé, Jamie Foxx, Halle Berry, Stevie Wonder, The African-American Women of the United States Congress, Steve Harvey, Martin Luther King, III, Janelle Monáe and Spike Lee.
Damon Williams To Premiere New Show On Urbanflix Titled ‘Laugh Tonight with Damon Williams’
We just discovered the news that comedian and host Damon Williams will be hosting a new show, titled Laugh Tonight with Damon Williams.
The show is set to be will be twelve 1 hour episodes that will feature three comedians and a celebrity interview in each episode. We hear that the scheduled comedians will perform for at least 10 minutes and a three-minute interview. There are also celebrity comedians attached such as Cedric The Entertainer, Deon Cole, Michael Blackson, DeRay Davis, JB Smoove and more.
As you might expect, those comedians mentioned above who have existing Netflix deals can’t contractually perform, but they have agreed to at least do some interviews on the show.
The show is scheduled to be produced and filmed on Oct 29,30,31 at the Riddles Comedy Club, in a small intimate traditional club setting.
The show will premiere on the new OTT platform known as Urbanflix in about three months after being filmed.
More details soon!
Ticket Giveaway For ‘Black And Blue’ Screening Starring Tyrese Gibson And Naomie Harris!
The Humor Mill is participating in a special screening of the new film starring Tyrese Gibson/Naomie Harris titled Black and Blue, and if you are interested in attending a special screening all you have to do is sign up and the tickets are yours!
PLEASE NOTE-Its FIRST COME FIRST SERVE! If you show up late you might not get in!
The screening will be at AMC Loews Boston Common on 10/9 at 7 PM! You can bring a friend too! Click the link below to sign up, and you are in!
The Bad Boys Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are back together for one last ride in the highly anticipated new film Bad Boys for Life. The film is set to debut January 17, 2020.
Check out the new poster below
Check out the latest trailer;
‘Dear White People’ Renewed For Fourth And Final Season On Netflix
Netflix’s college comedy Dear White People is on track to graduate in four years.
The streaming giant has renewed the series, based on Justin Simien’s feature film of the same title, for a fourth and final season. Like the previous three, it will run for 10 episodes; a premiere date has yet to be determined.
“I’m so grateful my little indie-that-could has made it to four seasons at Netflix,” said Simien. “This show, along with the many talented storytellers it has brought into my orbit, has changed my life, and I can’t wait to create a celebratory final volume befitting such a transformative experience.”
The pickup and announcement of the show’s ending comes two months after the premiere of season three, which introduced a number of changes to the show, from making the previously unseen narrator voiced by Giancarlo Esposito an onscreen character to Sam (Logan Browning) turning over her campus radio show to Joelle (Ashley Blaine Featherson).
Regulars Browning, Featherson, Brandon P. Bell, Antoinette Robertson, DeRon Horton, John Patrick Amedori and Marque Richardson are all set to return for the final season. Simien and Yvette Lee Bowser will serve as co-showrunners and executive producers for season four. Lionsgate TV, where Simien and Bowser both have overall deals, produces the show.
Reviews for season three of Dear White People were a bit more mixed than past years, with The Hollywood Reporter chief critic Daniel Fienberg calling it “a good season of TV. It’s just that the previous seasons had me expecting greatness.”
Dear White People is one of several series that Netflix will bring to a close in the near future. It joins the likes of GLOW and 13 Reasons Why, both of which are also ending after four seasons; Grace and Frankie, which is ending with its seventh season; and BoJack Horseman, which will end with season six.
Watch the final season announcement below.
Damon Wayans To Star In ABC’s New Sitcom ‘Let’s Stay Together’ And Going Back On Tour This Fall
Damon Wayans is returning to multi-camera comedy with a new project at ABC, where he headlined and co-created hit family sitcom My Wife and Kids. Wayans is reteaming with My Wife and Kids co-creator Don Reo on the new family comedy, Let’s Stay Together (working title), which we hear has received a script commitment plus penalty from ABC. The project, now in development, will be produced by ABC Studios, a division of Disney TV Studios.
According to sources, Let’s Stay Together is being pitched as a family comedy for a new kind of family. It will star Wayans as a single father who finds out it’s hard to get rid of millennial kids, and their kids. The sitcom reportedly features a story line that mirrors Wayans’ own life.
Wayans and Reo are writing and executive producing. The duo’s previous collaboration, the 2001 sitcom My Wife and Kids, ran on ABC for five seasons and is one of ABC Studios’ most successful comedy series.
Wayans is coming off a turbulent three-season stint on Fox’s Lethal Weapon, a series adaptation of the hit movie franchise. Wayans was strictly an actor-for-hire, playing detective Roger Murtaugh, on the hourlong drama, whose long filming hours took a toll on his health and whose behind-the-scenes drama included a co-lead recasting. Wayans is said to be more comfortable with a show that gives him a greater creative role, something that he had with My Wife and Kids, and the multi-camera comedy production schedule certainly is appealing as it is far less punishing than a network drama.
Wayans also is going back on the road, planning to return to the stand-up comedy stage this fall as his pilot percolates. Long considered one of the pre-eminent stage comics, Wayans for a while thought that his edgy stand-up humor might not be welcome at this PC moment. But seeing how Dave Chappelle turned that notion on its ear with his recent Netflix special changed Wayans’ mind.
Wayans is repped by attorney David Feldman and Paradigm.
Reo is coming off another successful multi-camera comedy series. He most recently co-created and executive produced Netflix’s The Ranch, which is in the midst of its fourth and final season. He is repped by Ziffren Brittenham.
‘Claws’ To End With Season 4 On TNT
TNT is retracting its Claws.
The WarnerMedia-owned cable network has renewed the drama starring Niecy Nash for a fourth and final season. The news comes after the third season of the series wrapped in August.
“For the past three seasons, Claws has handled delicate and culturally relevant themes like race, class, gender, age and sexual orientation with grace and humor via superb storytelling,” Brett Weitz, general manager of TNT, TBS and TruTV, said Tuesday in a statement. “Fans cherish the over-the-top Clawsian moments that have defined its run, and we will do them justice as we wrap up the tale of Desna [Nash] and her crew.”
Claws stars Nash as the owner of a nail salon in Bradenton, Florida, who along with her staff begin laundering money for an organized-crime outfit and eventually work their way up to controlling their own empire. The show also stars Carrie Preston, Judy Reyes, Karrueche Tran, Jenn Lyon, Kevin Rankin and Jason Antoon, with Harold Perrineau and Dean Norris.
Claws has been a very steady and solid performer for TNT, but the decision to end with season four was a mutual one between the network and the creative team. Season three of the series, which was simulcast on TNT and TBS, averaged about 1.25 million viewers for initial airings, about even with the previous two seasons (1.29 million and 1.28 million). Delayed and multiplatform viewing pushed that figure substantially higher.
Claws is executive produced by Rashida Jones, Will McCormack, Janine Sherman Barrois, creator Eliot Laurence and showrunners Sharon Lee Watson and Emily Silver. The show comes from Jones and McCormack’s Le Train Train in association with Warner Horizon Scripted Television.
The end of Claws will leave TNT with just two current scripted series in Animal Kingdom, which has been picked up for a fifth season, and The Alienist follow-up The Angel of Darkness. The long-in-development Snowpiercer has moved to TBS for a 2020 premiere. The network also has the Ridley Scott sci-fi series Raised by Wolves and the thriller Tell Me Your Secrets on tap, along with the unscripted show Chasing the Cure and All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite, which is set to premiere Wednesday.
