Donald Trump is sitting in a courtroom at 100 Centre Street, where a jury is being selected for his hush money case.
Not far away on Wall Street, Trump’s financial outlook is on trial, too. His Trump Media stock went off a cliff this morning.
The current stock price is $27.64, down 15% since the opening bell. The stock opened last month at $78, fell to $57, and has been careening downhill every day.
Look at this graph. If that were a human heart beat, the patient would be dead.
Keep refreshing…
Whoever’s running the control room at CBS should be fired.
The network cut off Billy Joel’s two hour concert special tonight right at the end, as Billy was singing “Piano Man,” his most famous song.
Just as Billy was launching into the finale of the two hour show — the last verse of “Piano Man” with all of Madison Square Garden singing along — the screen went black.
When it recovered, it wasn’t Joel taking a bow with his band for what had been a remarkable, Emmy worthy special. No, it was the local news anchor (and not Dana Tyler).
CBS paid a fortune to put this show on two weeks ago the Garden, and this was how it ended.
Fans are demanding the whole show be rerun immediately on CBS, not just Paramount Plus. But this episode should be a lesson to CBS — their share of viewers is already diminished severely. They don’t need a boycott.
One reason this might have happened is because the Joel special was hitting the half hour mark at 11:30 and had already run 30 minutes past its allotted time. But that’s because the whole schedule was pushed because of golf. “60 Minutes” started late, followed by “Tracker,” so the Billy Joel show was tardy as well.
A real blot on the Tiffany network.
“Saturday Night Live” will reap big ratings, I’m sure, from last night’s adventure.
Ryan Gosling — plugging NBC Universal’s “The Fall Guy” quite vividly — hosted the NBC late night show for the third time, but mostly couldn’t keep a straight face in any of the sketches. In a Beavis and Butthead set up, in a doctors duet with Bowen Yang, and a few others, Gosling didn’t even try to hold it together. He caused the other cast members to crack up, too.
Gosling’s best bit, I thought, was a sketch in which a prospective groom reveals to his dinner host that he can’t go through with his pending wedding. He’s bolting, but when the fiance returns from the kitchen he’s all lovey dovey and blames the host for causing doubts.
“SNL” once again supplied guest stars with Kate McKinnon in the cold open, and Emily Blunt in the monologue. With the latter, it was a full on promotion for the movie, “The Fall Guy,” to the point where it was really a product placement. There was an actual “Fall Guy” commercial at the top of the show, and Gosling wore a “Fall Guy” jacket at the conclusion, with the logo shown in all its glory. NBC Universal is releasing “Fall Guy” and this show was on NBC, so you get the picture.
Did “The Fall Guy” need this much blatant promotion? It seems like it will be a hit regardless. I’m surprised the show went for this so openly.
McKinnon was genius, as usual. She reprised Colleen Rafferty, who despite being a cigarette smoking, foul mouthed character is a welcome visitor on space ships. She lights up the stage, and showed how much she is missed on “SNL.”
Lucky for A24, “Civil War” started with a bang.
The Thursday-Friday $10 mil opening propelled the Alex Garland film to a $25.7 million weekend.
Saturday fell off to $8 million and today the studio sees $6.5 million coming in at the box office.
“Civil War” may have started strong but will peter out quickly, however. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score is just 77% and the Cinemascore is B minus.
The initial push may not have “legs.” We’ll see how it does during the week.
There’s very little going on elsewhere at the box office. “Sasquatch Sunset” made $93,000 at nine theaters. Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keogh star in what is sure to be a shortlived exercise. A documentary about the Indigo Girls took in $14,150.
The next big release doesn’t come until May 3rd. “Fall Guy” with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt should be a fairly big deal after a box office drought. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” comes May 10th, and then “Mad Max: Furiosa” is the only significant release for Memorial Day weekend.
Why would celebrities — including Oscar winners — shlep to Pittsburgh?
Answer: to make money signing autographs and giving photo ops to fans.
This weekend the entire surviving cast of “Beverly Hills 90210” went to Steel City Con, which has become the mecca for this short of thing. Even Shannen Doherty went, and she’s got Stage 4 cancer. (She looks pretty good.)
Jason Priestly, Jennie Garth, Brian Austin Green, Gabrielle Carteris, Ian Ziering, and notorious Tori Spelling all made the scene, too. They’re there right now! Did they eat meals together? Did they speak to each other after all the slagging in various tabloids? (Let me know at showbiz411@gmail.com)
But Doherty and Ziering charged a little more than others for signing and posing. The former got $80/$100. The latter took $60/$100. The others charged $60/$85.
But they weren’t the top chargers. Oscar winners Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis wanted $100/$120 each. And “Escape from New York” director John Carpenter asked for $125 for each item.
Fan events have been around forever. But recently we’ve been seeing more A listers willing to hit the hinterlands and sit for hours chatting with the hoi polloi.
But what a way to rake in a few shekels!
Alex Garland’s “Civil War” will not be causing riots in the streets, or theaters.
Last night, the overwrought film about America in turmoil made $8 million. Combined with Thursday, they’ve banked almost $11 million.
The weekend projection is $26 million. But “Civil War” is not a crowdpleaser. It has a B minus Cinemascore and a 79% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This means customers who exit the theaters are not excited to come back or tell friends.
“Civil War” is a mess. Rather than being incendiary, it’s flaccid. Just shooting characters in the head without warning doesn’t make compelling drama. I think audiences must have had the same issues as critics: who’s fighting for what? And why?
Meantime, “Godzilla x Kong” is still outselling “Ghostbusters Frozen Empire” three-to-1. Even if “Ghostbusters” does well this weekend it still won’t hit $100 million by Sunday night. That probably won’t happen until the end of next week.
Beyonce has finished her second week at number 1 with “Cowboy Carter.”
It wasn’t easy. The album fell 69% from the debut week, selling 131,020 copies according to hitsdailydouble.com.
The number 2 album from J. Cole followed with 118,000 copies. So it was close.
For paid downloads and CDs, Beyonce was trounced by K Poppers Tomorrow x Together. Whoever they are, they sold 102,000 hard copies of their album. There wasn’t much streaming. As always with K Pop, all numbers are questionable.
The Black Keys sold 22,960 CDs and downloads of their “Ohio Players” album. This is a weird title since it has nothing to do with the actual famous funk group, The Ohio Players. I don’t know what that’s all about.
Taylor Swift still has SEVEN Albums in the top 50. Next Thursday night she has a new album which will arrive at number 1. This will never end!
Thursday night–
“Grey’s Anatomy” was recently renewed for a 21st season. But so far this season has been a ratings flop.
Last night, “Greys” was crushed as usual by “Law & Order SVU.” The former show is stuck around 3.2 million viewers and falling. Next season should be the last unless Patrick Dempsey’s twin brother arrives in town.
The big Thursday hit now is CBS’s “So Help Me Todd.” This is one of those unchallenging CBS shows that could run for years if it’s handled right. No one you know will watch it. Who cares? The star is Marcia Gay Harden, an Oscar winner who brings prestige to the network. I can watch her with the sound off.
The big loser last night was Chris Meloni’s “Organized Crime.” The story of Elliot Stabler is over. Move him to guest shots on “SVU.” Meloni’s show has under 3 million viewers. I wish I knew what happened here. It’s never had a reason for being. But it has one for being canceled — no one watches it.
I told you a month ago or more that CBS was going to cancel “The Talk.”
And so they have, in December 2024 “The Talk” will wrap. In January, if it’s ready, the black soap opera “The Gates” will replace it.
“The Talk” was created by former CBS chief Les Moonves for his wife, Julie Chen. The original hosts included Leah Remini and Holly Peete Robinson, as well as SHaron Osbourne.
But infighting killed that group, with Chen blamed for a lot of the turmoil. She was forced out when Moonves was ousted from CBS, leaving a constant Ferris wheel of hosts. It’s only recently CBS settled Jerry O’Connell and Natalie Morales as the leaders of a rag tag gang.
In creating “The Talk,” Moonves junked two 50 year old soap operas, “As he World Turns” and “Guiding Light.” Fans were enraged. “The Talk” never equaled the soaps in ratings. And now it’s being replaced by a…soap! LOL.
The really ironic twist would be Holly Robinson Peete landed a role on “The Gates.”