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The next season of “The White Lotus” will film in Paris and the Lutetia Hotel in the 6th arrondissement.
Until just a short time ago, The Lutetia was a down at its heels property. I used to stay there. I’m LOL, as they say. The Nazis used it as their headquarters during the Occupation. In recent years it was renovated for $234 million to make it for the very wealthy (thanks, now I can’t go there). Mandarin Oriental is the new owner.
In the south of France, “White Lotus” will film at a five star location probably owned by the Four Seasons. I don’t know if the Hotel du Cap in Antibes would let them in, but that would be the place of places.
Anyway c’est bon. Will they ask Catherine Deneuve to be in the cast? Will she say yes? (I bet she would.) No word on the cast yet or if anyone from past seasons will be part of the story. Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya is dead, which I never understood. Coolidge should have been the running character through the whole series. She’s creator Mike White’s friend.
Who knows?
Variety is bannering the news of the locales as a scoop, so let them have it.
Two time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is coming to off Broadway this week.
Performances begin tomorrow night for his play, “This World of Tomorrow,” co-starring Kelli O’Hara and Ruben Santiago Hudson.
Tom wrote the play and stars in it, based on his own short stories.
Already the first two shows are sold out, thanks to The Shed’s membership program.
Initially sales for the run were slow, but I see things are picking up as the opening date approaches.
The Shed has also been a little more aggressive on social media, letting people know “This World of Tomorrow” exists.
Plus, in a stroke of PR genius, Hanks took the subway to the theater last week and got randomly photographed. I don’t know if he has his senior citizen OMNY card, but I do, and it changes your life!
Plenty of seats are still available, but once reviews hit, they will be gone.
Daniel Radcliffe already has a Tony Award for “Merrily We Roll Along.”
Apparently he wants another one. He’s coming to Broadway this winter in a limited run of a one man show.
“Every Brilliant Thing” is a British play in which a man looks back at his life. In the UK it was played by Jonny Donahoe, a large looking man best described as looking a little James Corden. (See the video below.)
Radcliffe is the exact opposite, but a fine actor who will draw big audiences. He’s also a movie star — see “Harry Potter” — with a lot of fans.
Will tickets cost seven hundred dollars? If they do, as with Denzel Washington and George Clooney, there won’t be any Tony Awards. I hope producers have learned that lesson. (Of course under Mayor Mamdani all tickets will be free.)
Tickets go on sale November 14th, and performances begin in February. Closing date is set for May 26th unless there are indeed Tony nominations, and then I expect they’ll extend.
There’s also a reference in the trailer to Trump’s latest medical exam. His “rectoplasm” is all “filet-o-fish.” This is all abut Trump’s second medical exam in a year, and the unexplained MRI he was given. MRI’s are only recommended if doctors suspect something is wrong with you. It does not include personality disorder, it’s physical.
After three weeks, Swift has allowed iTunes to start selling downloads of individual tracks from “The Life of a Showgirl.”
Previously, the album was only available in whole, which drove that initial sale of 4 million albums.
But now that weekly sales have dropped significantly — under 200,000 a week — Swift’s people have realized it’s time to give in.
The result is 7 singles from “Showgirl” have landed in the top 100 today including “The Fate of Ophelia,” which is number 1, and “Opalite” at number 3.
Most of the others are sampled from other songs, like “Father Figure” from George Michael’s original song.
Fans don’t seem to mind that. I don’t know what the original composers think, unless they’ve been quietly paid off.
Meantime, Swift singles take up most of the top spots on Spotify. There are estimates that she’s made $135 million so far off of this album. So she has plenty to pay people like the Jonas Brothers, whose song, “Cool,” she ‘borrowed.’
It’s going to be a very different Kennedy Center Honors.
The show, set for Sunday, December 5th, is getting a first time ever producer of the fabled evening.
As I reported the other day, and can now confirm, Robert is taking the reins from White Cherry Entertainment’s Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner. Not only did they decline, but also Done & Dusted, the other major producer of awards shows.
Deaton is well known as producer of the Country Music Awards and other country music shows. He’s got his hands full with the CMAs only a couple of weeks before the Kennedy Center. Also, he’s got to deal with Donald Trump as host of the show. Tylenol will be in much use.
The White House has also slotted in a concert by Andrea Bocelli in the middle of all this, totally separate from the Kennedy Center Honors. That is unless they get Bocelli to sing a KISS or “I Will Survive” for Gloria Gayner.
The fifth and best season of “Only Murders in the Building” wraps up toda on Hulu.
Who killed Lester the Doorman? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.
Does it even matter? The fun of Steve Martin-Martin Short-Selena Gomez’s show is getting to the end, not the actual end. The reveals are really just a way to give John Hoffman more time to conceive and write the next season.
A lot of people are arrested and carted away at the end of the final episode. And a new victim is revealed. I won’t tell you who it is, but she’s from inside the “Murders” family although we didn’t see her this season.
That means this person will be seen a lot in flashbacks in season 6, which will take the gang to London only if briefly. I’m looking forward to it.
Hoffman was very smart this season. He learned a lesson, pared back the cast to focus on the main trio more.zani The casting was also much better, with Dianne Wiest an absolute gem as Lester’ wife, Bobby Cannavale and Tea Leoni as a convincing mob couple, Beanie Feldstein as a fun new neighbor, and so on.
Plus, I loved the actress who played the grandmother in the wheelchair. And the new doorman, Randall, played by Jermaine Fowler. Richard Kind added a much needed zaniness. And David Patrick Kelly, as a custodian who lives in the basement, was genius.
Meryl Streep was back this season as Loretta, now Martin Short — er Oliver’s — wife. Of course she was good. But they used a device of having Loretta speak in a lot of accents — sending up Streep’s legendary talent for voices — and it couldn’t have been better.
On to London!
PS note to producers: Please bring Amy Ryan back as Jan
Mariah Carey is resilient, you’ve got to give her that.
Her new album, “Here for It All,” was a bomb. It barely lasted on any chart, and sold a paltry 75,000 copies including half of them from streaming.
So what to do next? Mariah is returning to her annual Christmas onslaught to promote her holiday records and merchandise. She’s doing it with her usual ebullience. And believe me, she doesn’t have to. She’s loaded.
But here it comes! All we need for Christmas is her!
Suzanne de Passe is a name we don’t see often enough in success stories.
Suzanne literally ran Motown and was Berry Gordy’s head of state for a long, long time. She’s much younger than the 95 year old legend, trust me!
Suzanne has 2 Emmy Awards, 30 Emmy Nominations, 1 Golden Globe, an Oscar nomination, 3 Peabody Awards for Excellence in Television, 5 NAACP Image Awards, and was a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee in 2024.
Now she’s gone into business with heavy finance partners and scored $1 billion in credit for a new company called Immortal. They are backed by a landmark strategic alliance with Vobile and Yangbin Wang, Chairman and CEO of Vobile. She’ll be guiding it with Madison Jones, who already works with at DePasse Jones Entertainment, and leading entertainment attorney Corey Martin, Esq., Managing Partner of Granderson Des Rochers law firm.
Immortal Studio enters the market with a bold strategic mandate: to fully finance the development of complete seasons of premium television, streamlining the path from story conception to global screen. The studio combines financial firepower with traditional storytelling expertise and cutting-edge technology to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving entertainment industry.
The main story is Suzanne, who can do anything — and again, doesn’t get enough credit for being the top female executive in movies, TV, and music. We’re going to see big things from Immortal — like maybe the real Marvin Gaye movie — one that shows his genius. Only she can do it!
PS One day Suzanne will write her book and we’ll find out everything — probably more than we can take — about Diana, Michael, Smokey, Stevie, and Berry. I’m ready to read it now!
It’s hard to know why Matt Damon hasn’t done more work in theater.
Last night, he absolutely killed it as the lead of an all star cast in a reading to raise money to save a NYC Landmark.
Damon, Alec Baldwin, J Smith Cameron, Gretchen Mol, Lucas Hedges, and Peter Friedman stood at microphones in a drafty Upper West Side church and performed Kenneth Lonergan’s “Hold On to Me Darling” as if it was going to Broadway.
Neil Pepe directed the group after his original off Broadway production with Adam Driver earlier this year.
The reason for all this was to raise money for the campaign to save another NYC landmark, a former church on Amsterdam Ave and West 86th St. now known as the Center at West Park.
The Center’s removal for a big glass tower of expensive condos is the latest insult to a neighborhood trying to hold on its history and architecture. But of course, developers are bearing down on local committees and the Landmarks Commission to level the building for reason other than greed.
Just a short time ago, the group trying to preserve the Center at West Park held a staged reading of “All the President’s Men” at Guild Hall in East Hampton. They have another one, of “All About Eve,” coming up with Scarlett Johansson and J Smith-Cameron, in November.
This team of actors last night, including Charles Everett reading stage instructions, was sensational. Of course, Lonergan’s writing sang through the room as the almost three hour play about a country singer returning to his hometown to bury his mother unfolds.
Most of the people in the room had never read or heard this play, so it fell to Damon to guide them through it, and he did it with aplomb. Damon captured the singer, Strings McCrane, as if he’d played him for years. Indeed the actors just had a short rehearsal time. Each one of them helped convey Strings’ saga decisively. By the time they were done, you really felt like you’d spent time in Tennessee dealing with the funeral of a difficult woman.
I was particularly happy to see Gretchen Mol, a fine actress who was once touted for A list stardom she never asked for. She should be leading a peak TV show on Netflix or Apple. My favorite moment of the night was when Peter Friedman, from “Succession,” took the stage at the end. Cameron, his “Succcession” cast mate, was just beaming with pride from her seat.
And how nice to see Lucas Hedges again. He should be working more.
And someone find a play for Matt Damon to do on Broadway — fast. He should have won an Oscar for “The Martian.” He could easily win a Tony Award with the right material. (Maybe bring “Darling” to Broadway with him in it!)
