Apple TV+ today unveiled a first-look at the third season of its NAACP Image Award-winning drama “Truth Be Told,” starring Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer and new addition, award-winning actress Gabrielle Union. Hailing from acclaimed writer, showrunner and executive producer Nichelle Tramble Spellman, the 10-episode third season sees Spencer reprise her role as investigative reporter turned true crime podcaster, ‘Poppy Scoville,’ to take on a new case. “Truth Be Told” season three will make its global debut with the first episode on Friday, January 20, 2023, followed by one new episode weekly every Friday through March 24, 2023, on Apple TV+
Based on the novel “While You Were Sleeping” by Kathleen Barber, “Truth Be Told” offers a unique glimpse into America’s obsession with true crime podcasts and challenges its viewers to consider the consequences when the pursuit of justice is placed on a public stage. In season three, Poppy (Spencer), frustrated by the lack of media attention for several young missing Black girls, teams with an unorthodox principal (Union) to keep the victims’ names in the public eye while chasing down leads to a suspected sex trafficking ring that may have ensnared them. In addition to Union, returning cast members include series regulars Mekhi Phifer, David Lyons, Ron Cephas Jones, Merle Dandridge, Tracie Thoms, Haneefah Wood, Mychala Faith Lee and Tami Roman.
“Truth Be Told” is created and executive produced by Nichelle Tramble Spellman. Maisha Closson serves as showrunner for season three. Executive producers include Closson, Spencer, Mikkel Nørgaard, Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter for Hello Sunshine, Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping for Chernin Entertainment, and Brian Clisham for Orit Entertainment. “Truth Be Told” is produced for Apple by Hello Sunshine, Chernin Entertainment, Orit Entertainment and Fifth Season.
Apple TV+ offers premium, compelling drama and comedy series, feature films, groundbreaking documentaries, and kids and family entertainment, and is available to watch across all your favorite screens. After its launch on November 1, 2019, Apple TV+ became the first all-original streaming service to launch around the world, and has premiered more original hits and received more award recognitions faster than any other streaming service in its debut. To date, Apple Original films, documentaries, and series have been honored with 293 wins and 1,256 award nominations and counting, including multi-Emmy Award-winning comedy “Ted Lasso” and this year’s Oscar Best Picture winner “CODA.”
| New York, NY – December 6, 2022 – Comedy Central announced today that comedy greats and all-star correspondents will kick off the next chapter as guest hosts starting Tuesday, January 17th. Al Franken, Chelsea Handler, D. L. Hughley, Leslie Jones, John Leguizamo, Hasan Minhaj, Kal Penn, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes and Marlon Wayans along with TDS correspondents and contributors are set to host with additional details to be announced. The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11:00 p.m. ET/PT on Comedy Central and is available the following morning on Paramount+.”As we enter Trevor’s final week, we want to thank him for his many contributions,” said Chris McCarthy, President/CEO Paramount Media Networks. “Trevor redefined the show, as did Jon Stewart before him, and as we look to the future, we are excited to reimagine it yet again with the help of this incredible list of talent and correspondents along with the immensely talented Daily Show team.” With a diverse and comedic news team including Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta, Desi Lydic, Dulcé Sloan, Roy Wood Jr., Lewis Black and Jordan Klepper, the Emmy and Peabody Award winning franchise engages its expansive linear and social platforms to unpack urgent issues in a compelling way, helping audiences make sense of the world around them. The show has an audience of over 44M across social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube channel, Instagram, TikTok Snapchat and @DailyShowDogs. Jen Flanz is Showrunner, Writer and Executive Producer of The Daily Show, with Jill Katz as Executive Producer. Justin Melkmann is Co-Executive Producer. Ian Berger, Max Browning, Pam DePace, Ramin Hedayati, David Kibuuka, David Paul Meyer, Zhubin Parang and Elise Terrell are Supervising Producers; and Jocelyn Conn, Jeff Gussow, Brittany Radocha, Shawna Shepherd and Beth Shorr are Producers. Dan Amira is Head Writer and Producer, with Lauren Sarver Means and Daniel Radosh as Senior Writers. The series is directed by David Paul Meyer. Ari Pearce and Matthew Parillo serve as Executives in Charge of Production for Comedy Central. |
The first two seasons are available to watch on the EPIX app, anywhere you access EPIX and on HULU
Godfather of Harlem tells a story inspired by infamous crime boss Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker) who in the early 1960s returned from 11 years in prison to find the neighborhood he once ruled in shambles.
Season Three will find Bumpy Johnson continuing to battle for control of Harlem, with other aspirants to the throne, namely the Cuban Mafia from neighboring Spanish Harlem. Taking on the Cuban mob will put Bumpy, his loved ones, and his community in the crosshairs of not only the rival Italians, but ruthless Latin assassins and, ultimately, the CIA. Godfather of Harlem is a collision of the criminal underworld and the civil rights movement during one of the most tumultuous times in American history.
In addition to Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) as star and executive producer, Season Three cast members include: Vincent D’Onofrio (Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Daredevil), Ilfenesh Hadera (She’s Gotta Have It, Baywatch), Lucy Fry (Bright, Vampire Academy), Antoinette Crowe-Legacy (Geechee, Passing), Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad, The Mandalorian) and Whoopi Goldberg (Sister Act, The Color Purple) as Miss Willa.
Additional new cast members include Michael Raymond-James (Sweet Girl, Law & Order) as Joe Colombo and Jason Alan Carvell (NCIS: New Orleans, The Baker and the Beauty) as Malcom X.
Produced by ABC Signature, the series is executive produced by Chris Brancato, Paul Eckstein, Forest Whitaker, Nina Yang Bongiovi, James Acheson, Markuann Smith and Joe Chappelle. Swizz Beatz is executive music producer.
Godfather of Harlem’s second season was EPIX’s best performing season of all time, and the series broke records for any single title streams in a single day across EPIX’s digital platforms. The season two finale was EPIX’s best performing finale episode to date.
Watch the official trailer below:
CULVER CITY, California – December 7, 2022 – Today, first-look images from Season Two of the hit comedy series Harlem were revealed. The highly anticipated new season will return February 3 exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories around the world.
From writer Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip), in Season Two, after blowing up her career and disrupting her love life, Camille (Meagan Good) has to figure out how to put the pieces back together; Tye (Jerrie Johnson) considers her future; Quinn (Grace Byers) goes on a journey of self-discovery; and Angie’s (Shoniqua Shandai) career takes a promising turn.
Harlem Season Two is produced by Amazon Studios and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Paper Kite Productions. In addition to creator, writer, and executive producer Tracy Oliver, Paper Kite’s Amy Poehler (Russian Doll) and Kim Lessing (Moxie) serve as executive producers, alongside 3 Arts’ Dave Becky (True Story), Britt Matt (First Wives Club), Linda Mendoza (Survival of the Thickest), and 13-time Grammy Award winner Pharrell Williams (Hidden Figures) and Mimi Valdés (Roxanne Roxanne) from i am OTHER.
In this episode of the Box Seats Sports Comedy Talk Show, we discuss the news of Aaron Judge resigning with the New York Yankees, and how it happened, plus we discuss the news of the hottest topics in sports!
Watch the latest episode below:
Detailing eerily familiar alleged modus operandi on the part of the man once known as “America’s Dad,” two former The Cosby Show actresses and three other women on Tuesday sued Bill Cosby and NBCUniversal for sexual assault and battery in New York state court.
“Plaintiffs were all sexually battered, assaulted, and abused by Bill Cosby as a part of the same conduct, occurrence, plan, or scheme that was perpetrated, conducted, organized, and/or performed in New York and other states by Bill Cosby and his associates and enablers,” claims the complaint from Lili Bernard and Eden Tirl, Jewel Gittens, Jennifer Thompson and Cindra Ladd, citing the once-incarcerated comedian repeatedly using his “enormous power in such a nefarious, horrific way.”
Adds the 34-page filing by attorneys Jordan Merson and Jordan Rutsky in the Empire State’s Supreme Court: “Over the course of several decades, Bill Cosby engaged in the serial sexual assault of dozens of women for his sexual gratification while the co-defendants enabled and aided these sexual assaults to benefit financially by their association with Bill Cosby.” (Read the complaint here.)
Naming the Comcast-owned media giant, plus Kaufman Astoria Studios and The Carsey-Werner Company as co-defendants for “negligence,” the suit seeks a variety of unspecified damages.
“Defendants NBCUniversal Media, LLC, Kaufman Astoria Studios, Inc., and The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC are also culpable and liable because they knew and/or should have known that Bill Cosby was sexually abusing, assaulting, and/or battering women, including on their premises, but did nothing to stop it,” the document says of the companies involved in the production of The Cosby Show, which ran from 1984-1992.
Reps for NBCU said the company does not comment on legal matters. Commenting or not, all of the corporate defendants will likely move fairly quickly to try to get themselves out of this sordid matter.
More than 60 women have claimed that Cosby drugged and assaulted them over the decades with a similar combo of pills and alcohol; the same is alleged by Bernard, Tirl, and the other plaintiffs in this latest matter.
Being that the alleged assaults — some of which have been made public before against the much-accused Cosby — occurred decades ago, today’s action comes as a result of New York’s recently enacted Adult Survivors Act. Inked into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul in May and in effect as of November 24, the law suspends the statute of limitations on certain sex crime and permits plaintiffs a one-year window to file claims – as has recently happened in a rape case against Donald Trump.
“This is an important step toward holding Bill Cosby and his enablers accountable for their actions and finding some measure of justice for the women they have harmed,” Rutsky told Deadline in a statement today. “We are thankful for the plaintiffs in this lawsuit and other similarly situated women for their bravery in facing their abusers.”
As expected, Cosby’s longtime spokesman rejected the matter.
“As we have always stated, and now America can see, this isn’t about justice for victims of alleged sexual assault, it’s all about money,” said Andrew Wyatt. “We believe that the courts, as well as the court of public opinion, will follow the rules of law and relieve Mr. Cosby of these alleged accusations. Mr. Cosby continues to vehemently deny all allegation waged against him and looks forward to defending himself in court.”
Sentenced to up to 10 years behind bars by a Pennsylvania judge in 2018 after a second trial for the rape of onetime Temple University employee Andrea Constand, the now 85-year-old Cosby saw his conviction tossed out in June 2021. After a series of failed appeals and legal loophole maneuvers by the comedian and his ever-changing legal team, a majority of the Keystone State’s Supreme Court’s seven justices ruled last year that then-Montgomery County D.A. Bruce Castor’s decision not to prosecute Cosby in 2005 after investigating Constand’s original claim carried a binding legal weight.
Immediately losing his sex predator label and sprung from prison, Cosby cannot be retried on the same charges. On March 7 this year, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to review the case, as had been petitioned by now Montgomery D.A Kevin Steele. That SCOTUS move effectively ended the Constand case baring any new and remarkable circumstances.
In September, Cosby lost his bid for a retrial over Judy Huth’s accusation that the comedian sexually assaulted her at the Playboy Mansion when the plaintiff was a minor in the 1970s. A Santa Monica jury brought back a verdict for Huth in the long simmering civil case on June 21. The 12-person panel awarded Huth $500,000 in damages – money Cosby has refused to pay, as of yet.
Source: Deadline
In this episode of the Box Seats Sports Comedy Talk Show, we discuss the game on Monday Night Football between the Tampa Bay Bucs and the New Orleans Saints as Tom Brady leads the Bucs to another victory, plus we finish the Deion Sanders debate, and we discuss the other hottest topics in sports!
Ice Cube wants full control of the “Friday” film franchise, but he says Warner Bros. is standing in his way. Appearing on the most recent episode of Mike Tyson’s “Hotboxin’” podcast, Cube urged the studio to give him the rights to the franchise and rejected the possibility of buying the rights from the studio himself. Cube starred in and wrote three “Friday” movies, all of which were produced and distributed by New Line Cinema. Warner Bros. now owns New Line, so Cube can’t move forward on a fourth “Friday” movie without the studios’ blessing.
“I don’t know. Warner Brothers is weird right now,” Cube said when asked about the fourth “Friday” movie, which is to be titled “Last Friday.” “I don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know what they’re doing. We’d love to have it back. I think it’s going be close to a time when we get it back. So, we’ll either wait for that time, or we’ll keep trying to convince them that they need to let us control the movie. It’s my movie, but they have distribution control.”
When Tyson asked Cube if he would just pay to have the rights back in his control, Cube responded, “I ain’t putting shit up for it. Fuck no. They need to give it to me, and they’re going to make money. I’m not about to pay for my own stuff, that’s stupid. They need to do the right thing, get it to us, let us turn it into more money, and make the fans happy…We can do a lot with it.”
Variety has reached out to Warner Bros. for further comment.
Cube revealed earlier this year he has written two more “Friday” movies. He said Warner Bros. rejected both scripts. Cube told Tyson he is currently working outside of the Hollywood studio system due to his decision not to get the COVID vaccination shot. Cube confirmed in November that his refusal to get the shot cost him a $9 million movie role.
“I turned down a movie because I didn’t want to get the motherfucking jab,” Cube said. “I turned down $9 million. I didn’t want get the jab. Fuck that jab. Fuck ya’ll for trying to make me get it. I don’t know how Hollywood feels about me right now.”
Listen to Cube’s full appearance on Tyson’s podcast in the video below.
Source: Variety
In this episode of Box Seats Sports Comedy Talk Show, we discuss the news that Deion Sanders has decided to leave Jackson State University and lots of folks are upset, plus we talk about all of the news coming from NFL Weekend! We also talk about the hottest topics in sports!
Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy are bringing the laughs in “You People”.
Netflix released the trailer for its new comedy starring the two actors on Monday. Hill stars as a young man hoping to marry his girlfriend, played by Lauren London, but first, he must seek the approval of her judgmental parents played by Eddie Murphy and Nia Long.
“So do you hang out in the hood all the time, or do you just come here for our food and women?” asks Murphy in the trailer.
The official synopsis for the film reads:
“A new couple and their families find themselves examining modern love and family dynamics amidst clashing cultures, societal expectations and generational differences in this comedy from Kenya Barris.”
The cast includes David Duchovny, Sam Jay, Elliott Gould, Travis Bennett, Molly Gordon, Rhea Perlman, Deon Cole, Andrea Savage, Mike Epps, Emily Arlook, Alani La La Anthony, Bryan Greenberg, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Hill is co-writer for the script, alongside director Kenya Barris.
“You People” hits Netflix on Jan. 23.