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“Black Panther” Director Ryan Coogler Posts a Thank You Note to Facebook: “I am struggling to find the words to express my gratitude”

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“Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler, 31, is overwhelmed by the worldwide reaction to his movie. He broke records today and will continue to for days to come as “Black Panther” heads toward a billion dollars at the box office.

Here’s what he posted:

 

I am struggling to find the words to express my gratitude at this moment, but I will try.

Filmmaking is a team sport. And our team was made up [of] amazing people from all over the world who believed in this story. Deep down we all hoped that people would come to see a film about a fictional country on the continent of Africa, made up of a cast of people of African descent.

For the people who bought out theaters, who posted on social about how lit the film would be, bragged about our awesome cast, picked out outfits to wear, and who stood in line in theaters all over the world– all before seeing the film…

To the press who wrote about the film for folks who hadn’t yet seen it, and encouraged audiences to come out…

And to the young ones, who came out with their parents, with their mentors, and with their friends…

Thank you for giving our team of filmmakers the greatest gift: The opportunity to share this film, that we poured our hearts and souls into, with you.

Sincerely,

Ryan Coogler

P.S. Wakanda Forever 

George Clooney’s $500K Donation to Teens’ Gun Control March Becomes All-Star $2 Million with Oprah, Spielberg, Katzenberg

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This morning I reported first that George and Amal Clooney had donated $500,000 to the March for Our Lives, the gun control march set for March 24th in Washington DC. It’s being organized by teens– a youth movement.

Next, Oprah Winfrey announced she’d kick in another $500,000 and match the Clooneys.

By the end of the day came pledges of $500,000 apiece from Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, and Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg.

March for Our Lives now has $2 million more than it did last night.

Can David Geffen be far behind?

Stay tuned. The question is, who gets the movie rights?

UPDATE: Oprah Winfrey Will Match George Clooney $500,000 Donation to March for Our Lives

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Oprah Winfrey now joins George and Amal Clooney. She’s tweeted:

“George and Amal, I couldn’t agree with you more. I am joining forces with you and will match your $500,000 donation to ‘March For Our Lives.’ These inspiring young people remind me of the Freedom Riders of the 60s who also said we’ve had ENOUGH and our voices will be heard.”

Now look for more celebrities with lots of dough to come forward, I hope. I won’t say who they should be, but they know their names.

Great News: Sade is Back! “Smooth Operator” Singer Has Recorded New Song for “A Wrinkle in Time”

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Director Ava Duvernay says Sade has recorded a new song for the soundtrack of “A Wrinkle in Time.” Yay!

Duvernay posted to Twitter: “I never thought she’d say yes, but asked anyway. She was kind + giving. A goddess. We began a journey together that I’ll never forget. Proud to announce that Sade has created an original song for WRINKLE IN TIME. It’s entitled “Flower of the Universe.” And it’s a dream come true.”

Best known for “Smooth Operator,” Nigerian born Helen Folasade Adu keeps a low profile life and doesn’t record that much these says. She remains wildly popular however. Sade has many hits including the very successful “Paradise.”

What a coup for Duvernay. Her “A Wrinkle in Time,” coming next month, stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Oprah Winfrey, Chris Pine, Reese Witherspoon, and more stars. Sade is the topping on the dessert!

Black Panther Box Office Surprise: Beat All Time Monday Record, Edges Out “Jedi” for Best 4 Day Open

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“Black Panther” surprised everyone with Monday’s box office results. The Ryan Coogler hit did $7 mil more than expected and beat “The Force Awakens” for all time Monday box office champ.

With that extra $7 million, “Panther” established itself as the second highest four day weekend champ, beating “The Last Jedi” and finishing only behind “The Force Awakens.”

That brings “Black Panther to $242 million in just four days– and now we’ve got four more days to finish out the week. A $300 million first week doesn’t sound bad, does it?

I remember when Coogler told me he had to seek out Forest Whitaker’s help at school so he could get “Fruitvale Station” made (a Weinstein company movie, by the way). Whitaker makes an extended cameo in “Black Panther,” which is nice. He should be in all of Ryan’s movies!

Black Panther Cast Star Lupita Nyong’o Copycats Chadwick Boseman’s Sexy Magazine Cover on Instagram

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Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o is having fun with Black Panther co-star Chadwick Boseman’s recent racy magazine cover. See what she posted on Instagram. Hilarious. She writes:

“I admire your quiet, confident, regal nature. You brought the wealth of all your knowledge, wisdom and physicality to T’Challa. You led us into the land of Wakanda without ego, without pretense, without fear. We reap the benefits now squarely because of your courage, your fierce dedication, your intense passion, and your grueling workout regimen. And I will never get enough of the way you say the word “because.” We celebrate BREAKING BOX OFFICE RECORDS with @blackpanther for many reasons, but chief among them is because we had you as our king. Enkosi Kumkani!! And congratulations on your @rollingstone cover. From someone who loves you.”

Imitation is the best form of flattery: @chadwickboseman I admire your quiet, confident, regal nature. You brought the wealth of all your knowledge, wisdom and physicality to T'Challa. You led us into the land of Wakanda without ego, without pretense, without fear. We reap the benefits now squarely because of your courage, your fierce dedication, your intense passion, and your grueling workout regimen. And I will never get enough of the way you say the word "because." We celebrate BREAKING BOX OFFICE RECORDS with @blackpanther for many reasons, but chief among them is because we had you as our king. Enkosi Kumkani!! And congratulations on your @rollingstone cover. From someone who loves you. #CoverCosplay My 📷 by @vernonfrancois Chadwick's by Norman Jean Roy #BlackPanther #WakandaForever

A post shared by Lupita Nyong'o (@lupitanyongo) on

George Clooney Signaling Political Move– He and Wife Amal Donating $500,000 to March for Our Lives And Will Be There: “Our Children’s Lives Depend On It”

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read all today’s headlines from Showbiz411 click here

George Clooney continues his charitable giving– now half a million dollars to the March for Our Lives. He and wife Amal will make an appearance at the gun control rally. Clooney is an ardent supporter of civil rights in places like Sudan with the still-going Not On Our Watch (They are still giving hundreds of thousands of dollars there to protect the South Sudan). But this may signal a new political move by him by actual going to Washington DC on March 24th.

Oprah Winfrey has just tweeted that she will join the Clooneys in their donation.

Clooney– thanks to the sale of his Casamigas Tequila company for $1 billion– now has the money to put behind causes he and Amal believe in. So this is a big deal but not uncommon for an actor who is passionate about the right causes.They gave $1 million last year to the Southern Poverty Law Center. And they’ve said that in total they will donate $21 million to various causes.

George and Amal’s appearance at March for Our Lives will be key to this movement. He won’t be speaking, however: his rep says only “kids” will be speaking at this event, no adults.

Will Clooney run for president? Last fall when he was promoting “Suburbicon,” Clooney said this: “Would I like to be the next president? Oh, that sounds like fun. Can I just say that I’d like anybody to be the next president of the United States. Right away, please,” he joked.

Clooney, by the way, took in an Iraqi refugee last September in Kentucky. The refugee is now a student at the University of Chicago. Clooney said at the time: “He was on this bus to Mosul, and ISIS shot the two bus drivers and said, ‘Anybody who wants to go to college, we will shoot them,’ ” says Clooney. “He survived and came to America. He got through all the checks, and once he got through those, it was like, ‘Listen, we got your back. You want to get an education? You want to move your life forward? This is something that we can do.’ ”

Here’s the mission statement: March For Our Lives is created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings that has become all too familiar. In the tragic wake of the seventeen lives brutally cut short in Florida, politicians are telling us that now is not the time to talk about guns. March For Our Lives believes the time is now. 

The March For Our Lives statement from George Clooney

“Amal and I are so inspired by the courage and eloquence of these young men and women from Stoneman Douglas High School.

Our family will be there on March 24 to stand side by side with this incredible generation of young people from all over the country, and in the name of our children Ella and Alexander, we’re donating 500,000 dollars to help pay for this groundbreaking event.

Our children’s lives depend on it.”

Fox News to Spin Off Secret FoxNation Website into Ultra Right Streaming News Service

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Going back at least 10 years or more, Foxnews.com has always had a secret sister website not edited by the main website’s editors. It’s called FoxNation.com. Regular people have not heard of it. It’s for the real right wing crazy people who are more fringe than even regular Fox News fans.

Now Fox News has announced they will launch a streaming service for their ‘super-fans’– meaning nutcases– called Fox Nation. They want these superfans– extreme racists, etc– to pay for this service. It will provide a different level of coverage than Fox News.

You can only imagine what that would be since today– while every other news service was covering the Florida students, the 17 deaths, and Russian interference with the 2016 election– Fox News was ignoring all that.

Fox is already the home of Fake News. They feed their uneducated, blissfully ignorant readers with a lot of non nutritional garbage so that they never know that their president was golfing today while there were funerals of teenagers in Florida, or that special investigator Mueller is working his way toward Trump through his former campaign managers, one of whom is now pleading guilty and rolling on Trump.

So Fox Nation will double down on crap like ‘we can say Merry Christmas now’ and ‘The Media’s Olympic-Level North Korea Fawning Is a Disgrace’.

Is Roger Ailes dead? Not really. Are Rupert Murdoch and his sons as craven as ever? Yes.

Roseanne’s Return to TV: Barr, A Trump Fan, Follows Twitter Site That Trolls Gay Olympic Skater Adam Rippon

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I can’t watch the reboot of “Roseanne” on ABC. It was bad enough that Roseanne has declared her love for Donald Trump over and over. But then today came this retweet from a Twitter account that Roseanne follows. How do I know she follows it? Her name comes up first above it– as in “Roseanne follows…”

I don’t know what happened to Roseanne, but this is not something I want to support. Frankly she was the only one of the cast that needed a comeback. John Goodman works all year in theater, film and TV. Laurie Metcalf won the Tony last year, is nominated for an Oscar. Johnny Galecki has been the star of “The Big Bang Theory” for a decade. Sarah Gilbert created “The Talk” on CBS where she appears daily. So this is all about Roseanne, whose success, frankly, I don’t care about.

Here’s the Tweet that showed up on my feed:

See Robert DeNiro in Make Up from Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” Thanks to French Artist-Filmmaker JR

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I love “Faces/Places” the movie made by 89 year old legend Agnes Varda and 33 year old French artist JR. It’s nominated for the Oscar, and I’d be thrilled if it won.

Anyway, JR dropped by Martin Scorsese’s set for “The Irishman” and brought his cardboard cut out of Varda– it makes it easier for travel purposes. JR posted this video of Scorsese and Robert DeNiro– obviously in makeup for his role of labor organizer Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran in the movie. It’s pretty funny. And inadvertently we get to see DeNiro made up as a younger Sheeran, who is likely to have killed Jimmy Hoffa. (Apparently, Scorsese is also using CGI to de-age DeNiro.)

Below JR’s post- see Sheeran’s video: