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Tina Fey’s musical version of her 2004 movie hits $50 million today after 10 days in theaters.
The original comedy came out in 2004. On its 10th day, the first film was at $42 million. So the new one is ahead by 17%.
On the other hand, that $42 million would be worth $68 million today. So let’s say the new movie is slightly ahead. At least, there’s a lot of enthusiasm for it.
The new movie also based on Fey’s Broadway musical, which was a solid hit for almost two years, from 2018-2020.
That’s a lot better than a new release called “I.S.S.” from Bleecker Street. I had no idea until last night this title existed. It made just $3 million over the weekend. Even if it only cost $13 million, the future is very cloudy for whatever this movie is. Bleecker Street has had a lot of trouble recently. This is the third movie in a row they’ve released into the abyss including Meg Ryan’s comedy, “What Happens Later.”
But cheers to Tina Fey, who does seem to be on the fast track to be Lorne Michaels’ successor as producer of “Saturday Night Live.” That would be so meta, since she produced and wrote “30 Rock,” which was a parody of “SNL.” If she does get the job, she should put Amy Poehler on every week, and Kate McKinnon on once a month.
PS The star of “Mean Girls” — Renee Rapp — was featured on “SNL” last night as musical guest.
Barry Manilow’s musical, “Harmony,” opened on November 13th at the Barrymore Theater on Broadway. Previews began October 18th.
Now the show is closing on February 4th. So on Tuesday, talk show host Drew Barrymore will finally air a piece promoting the show. It features Drew looking around the theater named for her great grand uncle and aunt, John and Ethel Barrymore.
Couldn’t this have happened back in November, when the show needed help? Now it’s pretty much “thanks for nothing.” At this point, why even bother?
Speaking of Drew’s family, her mother Jaid’s old friends are wondering what’s happened to her. In the four seasons of the Drew Barrymore Show, Jaid has vanished from the scene. Jaid and Drew famously feuded for years after Drew self emancipated at age 14.
Last Sunday’s premiere of “True Detective: Night Country” was a ratings disappointment.
Linear numbers for the show, starring Jodie Foster, were down 83% from the previous iteration of the series in 2019. The total was 565,000. HBO said “Night Country” scored 2 million views when you include HBO Max and delayed viewing.
But the hardcore number on HBO, Sunday at 9pm, was down 77% in the total demo number as well.
This series has excellent reviews on Rotten Tomatoes — 93%. Foster plays a small town sheriff in Alaska hunting the disappearance of eight scientists. It’s interesting, but it’s not sexy, which may be why viewers aren’t pouring in.
The numbers are similar, however, to the just concluded and much ballyhooed season of another omnibus series, “Fargo,” which starred Jon Hamm, Juno Temple, and Joe Keery from “Stranger Things.” That was on FX and is running on Hulu and also got solid reviews. But maybe the audience for small town sheriffs uncovering mysteries has exhausted itself for the moment.
“True Detective: North Country” returns tomorrow, Sunday, at 9pm.
Justin Timberlake performed his new song, called “Selfish,” last night in Memphis at the Orpheum Theater.
It’s a little confusing because JT already had a song called “Selfish,” with NSync back in the day. This is a different song. I’m trying to imagine Paul McCartney releasing a new song called “Hey Jude.” Hmmm…
The song is from his new album, apparently called “Everything I Thought It Was,” which would be a reference to being home and having a family — which is very McCartneyesque when you think about it. The song will debut this week either on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon — where Timberlake is a guest on Thursday — or on “SNL,” where he’s musical guest this week.
The original “Selfish” was co-written by NSync’s JC Chasez, by the way.
I’m not in Sundance. Netflix kindly sent me a link to Bao Nguyen’s “The Greatest Night in Pop” which is — I am sure — getting a huge, loud standing ovation right now at its premiere. The documentary of how the song “We Are the World” was made 39 years this coming week is incredibly entertaining and will leave you in tears. For people my age approximately, who saw this come together, you realize we have already reached the pinnacle of popular music in our time.
Even if you think you know this story, Nguyen and the producers have unearthed a lot of rare, unseen archival footage including Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson writing the song together.
So this is the story of how Lionel Richie’s manager, the late Ken Kragen– inspired by Bob Geldof — came up with the idea of creating a superstar single to shed light on the massive famine in Ethopia and other parts of the world. The year was 1985, which some might argue was the high water mark for the soundtrack of our lives. As Richie recalls in the film, they immediately called Stevie Wonder to help write the song. He was unreachable, so Richie and Quincy Jones, who’d just made three titanic albums with Michael Jackson,. went to the King of Pop to co-write the song. Jackson was then still clear, cogent, unmarked by too much eccentricity despite having a menagerie at his parents’ home including Bubbles the chimp and a hissing snake. Jackson fans will absolutely revel in their star’s appearance and magnificent vocals in this film.
The idea was to corral as many huge stars for a one night only recording session in Hollywood after the American Music Awards — which Richie was hosting. So Lionel was co-writing the song, helping Quincy and Michael organize the recording, and working all that night on stage. This was a time when the AMAs were important enough that A listers all showed up. So bringing them over to A&M Studios seemed like the best idea. No assistants or publicists were allowed, just a film crew. And around 46 superstars.
In the film — produced by Harriet Sternberg (who provides necessary history on screen) and Larry Klein, among others — Ngyuen builds a dramatic story that many people will remember, but does it in such a way that that feels like a cliffhanger. Stevie shows up at last and becomes sort of an underboss in the process, guiding icons like Bob Dylan and Paul Simon through the process. At one point someone remembers that he walked Ray Charles to the bathroom. “It was literally the blind leading the blind.” We do get to see the famous moment when Cyndi Lauper’s’ jewelry was found to be clanging while she sang, which gave everyone a good laugh.
Stevie also wants to include some kind of indigenous language in the song. He suggests Swahili, which sends country star Waylon Jennings out the door, never to return. But the rest of the gang persists even they’re dog tired. Famously, Quincy posted a sign that read “Check Your Egos at the Door,” and that’s what everyone did — even gifted drummer Sheila E., who says in the film she was happy to be there but felt like they were using her to lure Prince to the studio. (He never showed up.)
Kragen formed a charity called USA for Africa, which went on to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to Ethiopia. Many similar groups and songs followed including Live Aid and Farm Aid. There were so many charity singles with singing stars that eventually “Saturday Night Live” did their own parodies. In 2010, I attended the 25th anniversary recording, that featured Barbra Streisand, Gladys Knight, Adam Levine, Rob Thomas and many others. It was a very moving experience. But nothing compares to this original historic moment.
Much will be made of the stars — Tina Turner, Huey Lewis, Dionne Warwick, Bruce Springsteen, Al Jarreau, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, etc — each at the peak of their vocal powers. But it’s up to Lionel Richie — who has survived Kragen and Jackson — to tell the story. And Quincy Jones, who one player praises not only for orchestrating the whole thing but also “being a psychiatrist.” It’s Quincy who weaves this spellbinding night into a piece of lasting art.
“The Greatest Night in Pop” premieres on Netflix on January 29th. Younger audiences will learn a lot about what the music industry was in its glory. For a people of a certain age, who remember a lot of this, seeing everyone so young will make this experience ever so much more bittersweet.
Donald Trump is in severe cognitive decline. In a speech in New Hampshire tonight he confused Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi. He blamed Haley, his rival in the NH primary, for the events of January 6th. (PS Pelosi wasn’t to blame either.)
A deeply confused Trump confuses Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley multiple times: Nikki Haley was in charge on January 6. They don’t want to talk about that pic.twitter.com/f3lhWgAzUw
The last post to the SI Twitter feed was at 12 Noon Eastern.
Jamie Salter is the CEO of Authentic Brands Group, which bought SI from Meredith Corporation after they bought it from what used to be the Time Life company. Almost every bit of the legendary Time Life organization has been destroyed, which is totally shocking to journalists over the age of 40. They were the gold standard for journalism and media.
Alec Baldwin has been charged for a second time in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Baldwin has been charged again with counts of involuntary manslaughter. Previously he’d been charged but then those charges were dropped.
Hutchins was shot in October 2021 by a prop gun in Baldwin’s hand on the Santa Fe, New Mexico set of a low budget film called “Rust.” The gun also shot director Joel Souza but the wound in his arm was not fatal.
“The above named defendant did cause the death of Halyna Hutchins by an act committed with the total disregard of indifference for the safety of others,” the indictment says.
If convicted Baldwin could face 18 months in prison. A trial for Hannah Guitierrez, who worked on the set and took care of the guns, is already set for A trial is scheduled to start Feb. 21, 2024 in Santa Fe.
The NBC Thursday “Law & Order” return was a big hit.
Last night, classic “L&O,” “SVU,” and “Organized Crime” returned for the first time since last spring.
NBC won the whole night with an average of 4.8 million viewers. The number would have been higher but “Organized Crime” fell off and pulled the other two shows down.
Classic “L&O” pulled in 5.1 million fans at 8pm with a controversial episode ripped from the headlines about Palestinians and Jews in New York.
“SVU” followed at 9pm with 5.5 million in the first of a two parter for their 25th anniversary. The cliffhanger will conclude next week. Kelli Giddish returned as Det. Amanda Rollins as a guest star but not to full time status. I gave the show some press because I thought she was back after her being laid off last year. I wonder if the high number came from fans hoping she was back, too. We’ll see how the season proceeds.
“Organized Crime” is the problem. Their 10pm number dropped to 4 million, and then to 3.6 million at 10:30pm. NBC only ordered a half season, so that’s what we’ll see. But after that? This may be the end for this spin off.
NBC benefited from the other networks still being in reruns, but that will change soon.
