Isn’t F7 delete on the keyboard?
Well, “F9” has now been deleted until next year. Universal has cancelled plans to release “Fast and Furious 9” until next spring, April 2, 2021. It was supposed to open on May 22nd.
This is just the latest in a series of movie cancellations for this spring. “F9” would have been a blockbuster, but not if no one can go in the theaters.
Vin Diesel and crew will have to roll elsewhere for the time being.
Cher’s current tour has been cancelled. Nile Rodgers, whose band was the opening act, just Tweeted the news. The tour had just played the same venue where Utah Jazz basketball player Rudy Gobert tested positive, in Oklahoma City. More tours will fall like dominoes now. Cher also Tweeted, as you can see below.
Our @Cher tour has been cancelled for now. We’re all positive and upbeat. #life is not a straight line. pic.twitter.com/QIkfBntTbj
— Nile Rodgers (@nilerodgers) March 12, 2020
update 12:33pm Paramount has also postponed indefinitely “Lovebirds,” with Tiffany Haddish and Kumail Nanjiani. Their press junket was going to be this weekend for a March 27th opening.
THIS is trouble.
Paramount has postponed “A Quiet Place, Part 2” indefinitely because of the virus panic. The sequel to the hit horror film was supposed to open on March 20th. I’ve seen it, it’s terrific, at least as good as the first one. The premiere audience this past Sunday went crazy for it.
But fear — which is the subject of the movie — has sent people running out of movie theaters. With this one gone, and the James Bond movie — there is no spring box office. Unlike James Bond, which was rescheduled for the fall, “A Quiet Place, Part 2” has not been rescheduled. Paramount has been waiting for this film, they’ve had no hits and really need it. And all the money has been spent on promotion.
A bigger problem for Paramount is that their parent company, ViacomCBS, is in trouble. Viacom is fueled by Sumner Redstone’s National Amusements. (Yes, he’s still alive, will turn 97 in May.) Their stock price has crashed in the last month. They recently announced they were going to stupidly sell publisher Simon & Schuster after decades. This news won’t help.
#AQuietPlacePart2…Take2 pic.twitter.com/YrCXLLpxjh
— John Krasinski (@johnkrasinski) March 12, 2020
Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? We all should be, as it turns out.
An usher who worked at that Broadway show from March 3rd to the 7th has tested positive for the virus, according to the New York Times. The Booth Theater has been deep cleaned subsequently.
But overnight tonight, the Brooks Atkinson Theater is also getting emergency treatment. That’s because the same usher also worked there, and tomorrow night is the opening of the British hit, “Six.” I’m going, even if I have to wear bubble wrap.
The Broadway motto is “The show must go on!” Broadway producers have been determined to keep going despite the virus and panic spreading, Shutting down would cost millions upon millions, and deeply affect New York’s economy. Some shows might close and not re-open. That would be a disaster.
The answers are not simple. Spring, leading into Tony season, is Broadway’s bread and butter. After a bleak winter, this business is counted on. But it seems like some changes will be coming soon.
The NBA has cancelled all games after Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert tested positive for the virus. This is upsetting but it can only be good for the Knicks.
Now you know we’re in trouble. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have tested positive for the corona virus. This isn’t a joke. They are in Australia, where Tom is shooting Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley movie. Tom is playing Colonel Parker, Elvis’s manager. It’s a Warner Bros. film. British actor Rufus Sewell is among their co stars. Austin Butler plays Elvis. It seems pretty likely production will be suspended.
If they can get it, anyone can. So let’s all be more careful. Life is like a box of chocolates, not a first aid kit.
“Hello, folks. Rita and I are down here in Australia. We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive.
Well, now. What to do next? The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed. We Hanks’ will be tested observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?
We’ll keep the world posted and updated.
Take care of yourselves!” – Tom Hanks
Really: how long has this been going on?
Answer: Forty five or forty six years.
Thanks to an Amazon commercial, Paul Carrack’s 1975 hit, “How Long (Has this Been Going On)?” has jumped onto the iTunes pop singles chart. Right now it’s at number 28.
Carrack’s buttery voice and the pulsating bass guitar and drums from the band, Ace, are a hit all over again. Last week, “How Long?” sold 3,900 copies. This week, through Monday, it’s already sold 3,500 copies. All of it comes from streaming.
Carrack, known for that voice, puttered around with different groups through the 70s. But his big success came as a temporary member of Squeeze, singing lead on their very best song and big hit, “Tempted,” in 1982. He followed that up as the lead singer of Mike and the Mechanics, who had two hits with “Silent Running” and “The Living Years.”
Also in the early 80s, Carrack recorded a terrific solo album called “Suburban Voodoo,” which featured a song that should have been a hit, called “From Now On.” Nick Lowe produced it.
Paul Carrack remains one of the most sought after vocalists in the UK and US. In 2006, he even recorded a duet with Sam Moore called “Ain’t No Love.”
The Met Ball Gala will not cancel its May 4th date. It’s going on because basically, COVID-19 is afraid of Anna Wintour and wants to come but is waiting for an invitation.
If COVID-19 doesn’t get an invite, it may come in disguise, as part of someone’s costume. Right now it’s talking to Meryl Streep and Rihanna, but has a better chance sneaking in on Lady Gaga.
Nancy Chilton, the chief external relations officer of the Costume Institute, told The Cut: “We will of course continue to keep a close eye on the situation.”
The theme of the Ball this year is “About Time: Fashion and Duration,” sponsored by Louis Vuitton. It will be interesting to see who shows up dressed as an hourglass, with the sand running out.
Will celebrities want to come to the Ball? As I said yesterday, the Kardashians will come even if they’re the only guests. They think Anna likes them.
Still waiting to hear about a variety of events. The Auto Show at the Javits Center has postponed until August. Full Frame Documentary festival has cancelled. So has the NAB TV Syndication convention in Las Vegas. Waiting for word on CinemaCon, also in Las Vegas; the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Chaplin Awards, and the Tribeca Film Festival.
Strange news from Beatles-land.
They’ve sold their Peter Jackson documentary, “Get Back,” to Disney. And it will be released to theaters on September 4th, the Friday of Labor Day weekend.
This is generally considered a dump date for movies. For one thing, no one is around for the last two weeks of August. It’s very hard to do promotion or publicity.
Also, this means that Disney is skipping all the festivals — Telluride, Venice, Toronto — where “Get Back” would generate excitement. I’m surprised the Beatles hierarchy went along with this release.
It does mean that “Get Back” will likely have a very short theater window before it moves to Disney Plus streaming service. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
The press release for this news notes that the original “Let it Be” movie will be shown in a restored state sometime in the future. No date is given. I did tell you that recently that no work is planned on the remixing and remastering of the film’s soundtrack and the original “Let it Be” album until this summer. Even though the 50th anniversary of “Let it Be” is May 8th, we won’t see that second project until the late fall, if at all.
The idea of the Jackson documentary is that it takes Michael Lindsay Hogg’s footage from the shooting of “Let it Be” and repurposes it into a new film. The original film, long out of print, became a harsh look at the group that really no one has wanted to revisit in all these years. The “new” film, “Get Back,” will lighten and brighten it all up. There’s over 55 hours of unseen footage, filmed by Lindsay-Hogg in 1969, and 140 hours of mostly unheard audio recordings from the “Let It Be” album sessions.
All of this has to be handled carefully because after “Let it Be,” that’s it. There are no more 50th anniversaries. The re-issue party is over. It’s unclear where Apple — the real Apple, the Beatles’ Apple– goes from there.
Former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was sentenced today to 23 years in prison for attacks on 2 women.
Judge James Burke sentenced Weinstein to 20 years in prison for first-degree criminal sexual act, plus five years of supervised release. On the other convicted charge of third-degree rape, he was given three years in prison. The judge made the sentences consecutive, rather than concurrent.
Weinstein will appeal, but it does seem that the judge’s objective was to see him die in prison. At 68 years old, Weinstein will never leave the New York state prison system except to stand trial in Los Angeles. There’s a possibility that he could face charges abroad, as well.
Weinstein spoke for the first time in court, in front of the six women who testified against him. He asked for mercy but didn’t seem to understand the gravity of what’s happened. Except for possibly one friend, no one wrote letters to Judge Burke on behalf of Weinstein. My understanding was that anyone who might have supported him was too scared of the cancel culture and the #Metoo movement to come to Weinstein’s defense.
One person whose name has turned up in emails that surfaced in the case is Bob Weinstein, Harvey’s brother. In October 2017, after the New York Times and the New Yorker exposed many of Harvey’s crimes, his brother sent him scathing emails denouncing him. I have to laugh at this: there are few people in the world as duplicitous and underhanded as Bob Weinstein. He may not have physically raped anyone, but the damage he did to artists was severe. There’s no sympathy for him.
In another group of emails that surfaced there was an exchange concerning former Page Six gossip writer A.J. Benza. In a meeting in the fall of 2017 he suggested to Harvey that Weinstein might have been abused as a child. Weinstein’s ultimate response was that something might have happened, to be discussed at a later date. This was the most telling and most ignored bit of information in this story so far. It will be surely be explored further.
This is a tragic and stunning fall from power and position, maybe the worst ever or at least worst ever including the public denouncement of Bill Cosby. History cannot be unwritten. Weinstein may have been a horror to women, but he operated as a Jekyll and Hyde. His enormous contribution to movie history stands regardless. The disconnect between the two sides of his personality is stunning. Again, further to be explored.