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.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Trevor Noah To Star In And Produce New Series For Quibi
Daily Show host Trevor Noah is going on the road — and taking Quibi along for the ride.
Noah is set to star in and executive produce an untitled series for the shortform streaming platform that will chronicle a tour he takes to the far corners of the country and beyond. The project comes from Noah’s Day Zero Productions — which is backed by Comedy Central parent ViacomCBS — and Comedy Central Productions.
The show, part comedy and part travelogue, will give viewers a look at the candid interactions Noah has with the people he meets and the places he visits along the way. It also will show how those moments influence both his point of view and his stand-up comedy.
Noah is the latest A-lister to bring a project to Quibi. The mobile-only streaming platform founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg has also greenlit series from Guillermo del Toro, Jennifer Lopez, Lena Waithe, Lorne Michaels, Darren Criss, Tyra Banks and Idris Elba, among others.
The service is slated to launch in the spring and deliver its series — there are more than 40 scripted and unscripted projects in the works — to users in “chapters” of eight to 10 minutes each. Quibi will cost $5 per month for a version with ads and $8 monthly for one without.
Bob Bain Productions and Mainstay Entertainment join Day Zero and Comedy Central Productions in producing the Noah series. Executive producers are Noah, Day Zero’s Haroon Saleem, Bob Bain and Mainstay Entertainment’s Norman Aladjem, Derek Van Pelt and Sanaz Yamin.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Jordan Peele Inks Exclusive 5-Year Deal With Universal For Upcoming Comedy & Horror Films
Universal Pictures has entered into a five-year exclusive production partnership with Oscar winner Jordan Peele and his Monkeypaw Productions, who were behind the studio’s combined half-billion-grossing successes Get Out and Us.
The commitment continues to speak to the studio’s emphasis on a diverse film slate, not just branded IP like the Fast & Furious and Jurassic World franchises but also original, auteur-driven genre movies such as the titles for Peele has quickly established a track record. Under the new exclusive deal, Universal is developing Peele’s next two films which he will direct, write and produce. Peele and Monkeypaw, headed by president Win Rosenfeld, will also produce original films under their banner, championing filmmakers with a focus on high-level content that transcends genre.
Monkeypaw produced Spike Lee’s feature BlacKkKlansman last year which received six Oscar noms, with Lee winning his first-ever Oscar (for Adapted Screenplay) and earning Peele his fourth nomination in two years. Monkeypaw is currently in production on Candyman, written by Peele and Rosenfeld and directed by rising filmmaker Nia DaCosta (Little Woods). Universal is releasing Candyman globally, with the North American release date scheduled for June 12, 2020.
“Jordan has established himself as a premier voice and original storyteller with global appeal. He is leading a new generation of filmmakers that have found a way to tap into the cultural zeitgeist with groundbreaking content that resonates with audiences of all backgrounds,” Universal Filmed Entertainment Group chairman Donna Langley said Tuesday. “We also share an important goal with Monkeypaw when it comes to increasing representation on-screen in the characters that are portrayed, the stories that are told, and the people who tell them.”
Peele’s feature directorial debut Get Out was made for under $5 million and reaped more than $255M worldwide with an estimated profit after all ancillaries near $125M. The pic went on to receive four Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Director, with Peele winning for his original screenplay.
Peele’s sophomore film Us opened to $71.1M back in March, repping the highest-grossing opening ever for an original horror film and the highest-grossing opening for a live-action original since 2009’s Avatar.
Peele was the co-star and co-creator of the Emmy-winning Key & Peele. The hit series garnered more than 1 billion online hits and won a Peabody Award, an American Comedy Award and earned 12 Emmy nominations during its five-season run.
Peele and Monkeypaw Productions are represented by CAA, Artists First and Jared Levine.
Source: Deadline
Bounce’s Original Series ‘Family Time’ Returns For Season 7 On Wed. Oct. 9th
Family Time, Bounce’s popular original comedy series, returns for an all-new season of laughs on an all-new night – Wednesday – this fall starting with two new episodes back-to-back on Weds. Oct. 9 at 9:00 p.m. (ET).
New episodes will also be available on Thursdays on Brown Sugar, Bounce’s subscription video-on-demand service, along with complete seasons one through six.
Family Time follows the lives of the Stallworth family who relocated to the suburbs after hitting the lottery. High school sweethearts Anthony and Lisa and their children are a tight-knit family living the middle-class American dream who make up their own rules for love, marriage and family along the way. Season seven finds Anthony (Omar Gooding) and Lisa Stallworth (Angell Conwell) grappling with becoming empty nesters while their children, Devin (Bentley Kyle Evans, Jr) and Ebony (Jayla Calhoun), spread their wings as young adults. Their lives may be going in different directions, but it’s the family time that keeps them bonded.
Cast members include Paula Jai Parker (Lori), Tanjareen Thomas (Rachel), Erica Shaffer (Vivian), Clayton Thomas (Donnie), and Shanti Lowry (Cheryl). Among the special guests this season are Stokley Williams (Mint Condition), Denise Boutte (Meet the Browns), KiKi Haynes (For Better or Worse) and Rodney Perry (Madea’s Big Happy Family). Family Time was created by producer, director and writer Bentley Kyle Evans (Martin, The Jamie Foxx Show).
https://youtu.be/-yTJxDDW-AU
Billy Porter Set To Make TV Directorial Debut With ‘Pose’ Season 3
Newly-minted Emmy winner Billy Porter can soon add another accomplishment to his resume: television director.
Porter is set to direct an episode of FX’s “Pose” during its third season, Variety has learned. No word yet on which episode Porter will be helming or when the episode will head into production.
Porter broke the news this week to Variety over a brief phone interview, which marked his first time speaking to the press after his historical Emmy win on Sunday night.
“I’ve been directing for 20 years in the theater, and I’m directing an episode of Season 3 myself,” Billy revealed to Variety. “I’m trying to be the head b-tch in charge, hunny!”
This past weekend at the 71st annual Emmy Awards, Porter won the Emmy for lead actor in a drama for his work on “Pose,” becoming the first-ever openly gay black man to win in the category. The trophy joins his already-impressive collection of accolades earned throughout a nearly three-decade career across Broadway, television and film, which has awarded him the Tony for best actor in a musical for “Kinky Boots” in 2013, and a Grammy for best musical theater album for “Kinky Boots” in 2014.
Porter had teased his plans to direct an episode of Pose,” during a 92Y discussion with “Pose” creator Ryan Murphy this past August, but the news had not officially been confirmed. “Billy is going to be directing, right?” Porter playfully asked Murphy during their conversation. “Yes, you are,” Murphy said, to which Porter quipped, “This is me reminding,” with Murphy responding, “You don’t have to remind me, Billy. I feel you.” Production sources have since confirmed that Porter is locked to direct an episode this coming season.
The critically-acclaimed show, which was honored with a Peabody award, is centered in New York City’s underground ballroom scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s, shining a light on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The series features the largest cast ever in television history of transgender actors in series regular roles ever, as well as the largest recurring cast of LGBTQ actors ever for a scripted series.
Porter joins a diverse roster of directors on “Pose,” including Janet Mock — who serves as a writer, director and producer on the series, and recently signed a groundbreaking overall deal at Netflix, which made her the first out transgender woman to have a sweeping creative deal at a major content company.
“Pose” was renewed for a third season earlier this summer, in the midst of its second season. No premiere date has been set for Season 3.
‘In Contempt’ Canceled At BET
The evolution of BET continues.
The Viacom-owned cable network has canceled In Contempt after one season. The series, which starred Erica Ash and was created by Terri Kopp (Law & Order), wrapped its 10-episode first season more than a year ago. Sources say BET had been waiting to see how the rest of its 2019 programming fared as it evaluated the future of the legal drama.
“At this time, BET Networks will not be moving forward with a second season of In Contempt. We are grateful to the incredible cast and producers. We would especially like to thank and recognize the acclaimed executive producers Terri Kopp, who created the series, Lance Samuels and Daniel Iron. We look forward to finding ways to continue in partnership,” a BET spokesperson said in a statement. “We are also excited to continue our relationship with the star of In Contempt, Erica Ash as she is set to star along Paula Patton in the film Sacrifice premiering this fall on BET+.”
Legal thriller Sacrifice is being produced as a two-hour film that also doubles as a backdoor pilot. Patton stars as an entertainment lawyer navigating the lives of her famous clients. Ash co-stars as a powerful D.A. and sorority sister of Patton’s character.
In Contempt was picked up straight to series in October 2017 as BET was ramping up its scripted footprint as part of corporate parent Viacom’s efforts to reinvigorate its linear cable brands. Six months later, new BET president Scott Mills told The Hollywood Reporter that he was looking to greenlight five new originals, with either Hit the Floor or In Contempt doing well enough to bring back for six scripted shows in 2019. Hit the Floor was canceled in December.
BET’s current scripted roster includes American Soul and Boomerang — both of which debuted this year and were renewed for additional seasons — as well asLena Waithe’s Twenties and a pair (so far) of shows from Tyler Perry (The Oval and Sistas).
The linear cable network is also expected to be a home for BET+ originals including TV Land/Paramount Network import First Wives Club, Will Packer’s Bigger and Sacrifice as the recently launched $9.99/month streaming service has now become a key priority for parent company Viacom.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Will Smith Set To Play Ex-Crime Boss Nicky Barnes In New Netflix Film
According to Deadline, Will Smith is set to star in the upcoming Netflix film The Council as the New York crime boss Nicky Barnes. This project will reunite Smith with Peter Landesman whom he worked with on the film Concussion. Landesman wrote the screenplay for The Council and will executive produce the project.
The film will tell the story of the all-Black, Harlem-based crime syndicate headed by seven men, most prominently Nicky Barnes. The Council’s dream of a self-sufficient, self-policed Black city-state that would use funds through revolutionizing the drug game is at the center of Landesman narrative. In addition, Landesman’s script tracks the rise of Barnes’ public persona, which is most famously captured by the 1977 New York Times cover where he was dubbed “Mr. Untouchable.”
