Fresh off last week’s announcement that Eddie Murphy would be returning to Saturday Night Live for the first time in 35 years, the comedian revealed Thursday (Sept. 5) that he plans to hit the road in 2020.
In an interview on Netflix podcast Present Company with Krista Smith, Murphy told Smith, “Next year I am going to tour, do some standup.”
The comedian did not go into further details about the upcoming trek, but earlier this year TMZ reported that Murphy was in talks for a multi-million deal with Netflix for standup specials.
During Murphy’s appearance on Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, the Coming to America star stated his return to standup was imminent.
“I’m going to do it again,” Murphy said while with Seinfeld. “Everything just has to be right. You have to get up there and start working it out.”
Murphy will also appear on Netflix for his upcoming Rudy Ray Moore biopic Dolemite Is My Name, which hits select theaters and the streaming site this fall.
Next summer, Murphy will also return to the big screen to reprise his role as Prince Akeem in a sequel to Coming to America. Murphy will be joined in the follow-up feature by Wesley Snipes and Arsenio Hall.
NBA player Nick Young tries stand-up for the first time by having Spade and Jeff Ross feeding him material in his ear. This marks the third “Build A Comic” segment on Lights Out having previously featured Vanderpump Rules star Stassi Schroeder and Spade’s driver Matt Stonerock. Comedy Central’s Lights Out with David Spade is hosted by iconic comedian David Spade and follows The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Monday through Thursday each week. The late night series, which debuted on July 29, 2019, features Spade’s signature take on the pop culture news of the day and includes a rotating group of his comedian and celebrity friends, while also incorporating sketches and field segments.
Watch the clip below;
Wood Harris, Mario, Meta Golding, and Katlynn Simone have all been bumped up from recurring roles to series regulars during the sixth and final season of Empire.
Viewers will recall that both Harris and Mario portrayed the respective roles of Damon and Devon in the Fox drama’s fifth season.
Not far from Mario’s real-life persona, the character of Devon was an emerging R&B singer supporting his ailing sister. Harris will return as Damon, an international money launderer who has his eyes set romantically on Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson).
Golding plays Teri, the love interest to the eldest Lyon son, Andre (Trai Byers), and the mother of Quincy (Skylan Brooks), who was wrongly incarcerated at the same facility as Andre. Golding recurred in 13 episodes last season. Simone portrays recording artist Treasure.
The sixth and final season of Empire will premiere on Fox on September 24.
Hulu has acquired the Pete Davidson film Big Time Adolescence in a deal we hear is worth $4 million.
The coming-of-age pic, based on Jason Orley’s Black List script, reps Orley’s directorial debut and follows a teenage boy (Griffin Gluck) in his dull suburban town under the destructive guidance of his best friend, a charismatic college dropout (Davidson). Sydney Sweeney (The Handmaid’s Tale), Colson Baker aka Machine Gun Kelly (The Dirt), Thomas Barbusca (The Mick), Emily Arlook (Grown-ish), Oona Laurence (A Bad Moms Christmas) and Jon Cryer (Two and a Half Men) also star.
The pic made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January and clocked an immediate 90% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with Davidson earning high praise for his strong performance in his first leading role.
Big Time Adolescence is the fourth feature from American High, a newly formed partnership between Jeremy Garelick and Mickey Liddell’s LD Entertainment. We understand Neon remains in talks for theatrical distribution on the pic.
Producers are Liddell (Ben Is Back, The Zookeeper’s Wife, Jackie), Garelick (The Break-Up, The Wedding Ringer, Best. Worst. Weekend. Ever.), Mason Novick (Juno, 500 Days of Summer, Tully), Will Phelps (Holly Slept Over, Banana Split), Pete Shilaimon (Risen, Anthropoid, Megan Leavey) and Glen Trotiner (Holly Slept Over, Banana Split). Big Time Adolescence was also co-produced by Amy Breuer (Holly Slept Over) with executive producers Ryan Bennett (Holly Slept Over, Banana Split), Michael Glassman (Dog Days, Fast Color), and Michelle Knudsen (Queen & Slim, When We First Met).
UTA Independent Film Group is repping worldwide sales.
Source: Deadline
Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish will star in and produce the independent comedy “Here Today,” with Crystal directing from a screenplay he co-wrote with Alan Zweibel.
“Here Today” is based on Zweibel’s short story “The Prize.” Crystal will portray a veteran comedy writer who is slowly but surely losing his grip on reality and befriends a talented young New York street singer, played by Haddish. Together, they form an unlikely friendship that kicks the generation gap aside and redefines the meaning of love and trust.
Rocket Science is handling international sales at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival, while CAA will handle U.S. rights. Principal photography starts in New York in October.
Astute Films’ president Fred Bernstein made the announcement about the film Wednesday. Besides Crystal and Haddish, producers are Bernstein, Zweibel and Dominique Telson. Rick Jackson, Claudine Marrotte and Samantha Sprecher will serve as executive producers. “Here Today” is a co-production between Astute Films, Crystal’s Face Prods. and Big Head Prods.
“I’m so grateful to get the chance to bring this charming and beautiful story to life,” said Crystal. “To write this with Alan was a joy, and to have Tiffany as my co-star is fantastic. The generational differences in our comedy will be great to play with. She’s explosively funny and genuinely human at the same time. Excited to explore all our possibilities together.”
“Here Today” will mark the second collaboration between Crystal and Zweibel, following the Tony Award-winning “Billy Crystal: 700 Sundays” in 2014.
Crystal is repped by CAA, David Steinberg Entertainment and Sol Rosenthal. Haddish is repped by UTA, Artists First, and Ziffren.
Michael B. Jordan prepares for an epic legal battle in the heartfelt first trailer for drama “Just Mercy,” also starring Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson.
“Just Mercy” is based on the case of Walter McMillan, an African-American death-row prisoner who was exonerated in 1993 after being convicted five years earlier for a 1986 murder in Alabama. Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, took on McMillan’s cause in 1988 in his first case as an attorney.
Jordan stars as Stevenson while Foxx portrays McMillan in the Warner Bros. film. Foxx warns Jordan in his first prison visit that he believes the task is futile: “You don’t know what you’re into in Alabama, when you’re guilty from the day you’re born.”
Larson plays legal advocate Eva Ansley, who outlines the hopelessness she’s witnessed, saying, “It was like looking at a river of drowning people and not having any way of helping them.”
The cast includes Tim Blake Nelson, Rafe Spall, Rob Morgan and O’Shea Jackson, Jr. Destin Daniel Cretton directed from his adaptation of Stevenson’s memoir.
“Just Mercy” will have its world premiere on Sept. 6 at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival and open in limited release on Dec. 25. Warner Bros moved the release date forward three weeks to qualify “Just Mercy” for awards season.
Watch the trailer below;
“One last time?” “One last time.”
It’s been 16 years since Will Smith and Martin Lawrence hit the streets in Bad Boys II — and nearly a quarter-century since the original Bad Boys, but now we finally have the first trailer for the ever-gestating Bad Boys for Life. Check it out above.
Inspirational line: “You want your legacy to be muscle shirts and body counts?”
This time, Detectives Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence), along with Miami PD’s elite AMMO team, attempt to take down Armando Armas (Jacob Scipio), head of a ruthless drug cartel.
They’ve got people to roust, bullets to discharge, Porsches to buff out and bosses to keep on the brink of angina — note their captain’s (Joe Pantoliano) very NSFW verbal reaction in one Pepto Bismol-worthy scene.
Vanessa Hudgens Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Paola Nunez. Kate Del Castillo and Nicky Jam also star in the threequel directed by Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah. Joe Carnahan and Chris Bremner wrote the script from a story they penned with Peter Craig. Smith and Jerry Bruckheimer are the producers, with Doug Belgrad, Barry Waldman, Chad Oman and Mike Stenson serving as executive producers.
Sony will release the Columbia Pictures action-comedy on January 17.
Hulu is making a foray into multi-camera comedy with The Ms. Pat Show, a pilot headlined by comedian Ms. Pat. J. Bernard Calloway (City On A Hill) is set as the male lead opposite her in the pilot from the Empire duo of co-creator/executive Lee Daniels and executive producer Brian Grazer, Imagine Television and Fox 21 Studios, a division of Disney TV Studios.
The project, which had been set up at Fox with a different writer during the 2016-17 season, where it had a put pilot commitment, had quietly found a new home at Hulu where it was recently greenlighted to pilot. Debbie Allen is directing from a script by Jordan E. Cooper, who was a writer on Daniels’ Fox drama Star.
The Ms. Pat Show, from Imagine TV, Lee Daniels Entertainment and Fox 21 TV Studios, is based on Ms. Pat’s stand-up comedy and memoir. It tells the story of a former convicted felon turned suburban mom (Ms. Pat), whose hustle and resilient spirit were forged on the streets of Atlanta. To much reserve, she now finds herself in conservative middle America alongside her penny-pinching husband (Calloway), a struggle of a sister, and two distinct sets of kids raised under very different circumstances.
Cooper and Patricia “Ms. Pat” Williams executive produce with Daniels, Marc Velez and Pam Williams for Lee Daniels Entertainment and Imagine’s Grazer, executive-turned-producer Francie Calfo and Imagine TV head Samie Kim Falvey. Jon Radler and Jahil Fisher are producers.
Born to a single mother of 5, living on welfare in a tough West end neighborhood of Atlanta, Ms. Pat (real name Patricia Williams) had her first child at 14 and her second child at 15, She became a drug dealer, was shot twice and arrested numerous times during her teen years. At 19, with two toddlers and a new husband, she was handed the 4 young children of her sister who was struggling with drug addiction. Ms. Pat would go on to raise all 6 children. (watch below a video of her standup that touches upon her backstory.)
While Netflix has embraced multi-camera comedy with such series as Fuller House and The Ranch, Hulu and Amazon had remained focused on single-camera comedy. This is believed to be Hulu’s first major foray into multi-cam sitcoms; Amazon did a multi-camera pilot, Making Friends, two years ago. It did not go to series.
The Ms. Pat Show marks a reunion for Allen with Daniels and Imagine after she directing an episode of Empire.
At Hulu, Imagine TV has the upcoming drama series Wu-Tang: An American Saga, which premieres today.
Calloway was most recently seen recurring in Showtime’s City On A Hill. His other recent TV credits include The Breaks, Luke Cage and Elementary. Calloway is repped by Buchwald and Vamnation Entertainment. Ms. Pat is repped by APA, Reg Tigerman at Levity Live, and Bradley Garrett At Cohen Gardner.
Source: Deadline
Wendy Williams has partnered with 50 Central producer Back Roads Entertainment on a stand-up comedy special.
Fresh off her own live stand up tour, the talkshow host is launching Wendy Williams & Friends Presents: For The Record. The special is being pitched to premium networks and streaming platforms next week.
The 90-minute special will feature The Wendy Williams Show host’s take on a raft of topics, including her own life and the tabloid headlines that it’s drawn. It comes after she took the show on the road earlier this year. The special also features other stand ups including Royale Watkins, Carmen Barton, Mark Viera and newcomer Kristen Sivills.
The special will be produced by Back Roads Entertainment, which is behind BET’s 50 Cent show 50 Central as well as MTV’s Joking Off and Cooking Channel’s Big Bad BBQ Brawl, and Courtney Parker’s LostNThought Productions. Executive producers include Williams, Bernie Young, Parker, Royale Watkins and Colby Gaines and Jonathan Cane for Back Roads Entertainment.
Williams said, “Listen, people are talking about me and my life, but they have no idea. And since comedy has always been the best source of therapy for me, I’m using this special to tell some really good stories and have my comedian friends do some great comedy we can all relate to.”
“Wendy’s ability to be transparent in deflating the rumors and addressing the unbelievable headlines of her own life is not only brave, it’s brilliant,” said Parker. “And by creating a platform that zeros in on new voices in comedy that can assist in that, is trailblazing.”
“Wendy is everyone’s big sister and viewers trust her to approach any deeply personal topic from a fun and positive place,” added Gaines. “This special gives her the opportunity to infuse her one of a kind energy and humor into the stand-up environment, and also allows her the opportunity to address her own personal headlines and rumors once and for all.”
Source: Deadline