Open Thread

CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Variety reports: “Candyman” was summoned to the top of domestic box office charts, collecting an impressive $22.37 million from 3,569 theaters in its first three days of release. The R-rated slasher film, written by Jordan Peele and directed by “Captain Marvel 2” filmmaker Nia DaCosta, surpassed industry expectations despite fears the delta variant would keep people from going to the …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Deadline Hollywood reports: Charlie Watts may be gone, but he’s far from forgotten by the bandmates with whom he built an international music juggernaut. The band released a tribute video late on Friday to its social media accounts, declaring that his drum set is closed for business. Watts died earlier this week of unknown causes. He had dropped out of …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

The BBC reports: Pop group Abba have teased a major announcement for next week, as fans await their first new music in 39 years. The Swedish band launched a new website on Thursday morning titled “Abba Voyage”, asking fans to register interest in a new project. It is expected to be a long-gestating “hologram tour” that Abba initially announced in …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Variety reports: Kristen Stewart channels Princess Diana with aplomb in the first trailer for “Spencer,” an upcoming biographical drama about the beloved royal. The movie, directed by “Jackie” filmmaker Pablo Larrain, is set in 1991 and takes place over the Christmas holiday as Diana (born Diana Frances Spencer) grapples with the decision to end her marriage to Prince Charles. English …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Deadline Hollywood reports: Spike Lee is back in the editing room to look at the final episode of NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½, his docuseries about the obstacles faced by New York City over the past two decades. It debuted last week on HBO. The fourth episode, focusing on the 9/11 terror attacks, is timed to premiere on September 11, the 20th …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Deadline Hollywood reports: Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) and Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) are heading to the kitchen. They’ve been tapped as hosts of Baking It, Peacock’s six-episode holiday baking competition series, from the creators of Amy Poehler’s Making It crafting competition series. In Baking It, eight teams of two talented home bakers join Maya and Andy’s winter cabin for …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Deadline Hollywood reports: Netflix has dated its fall schedule of film releases, narrative and documentary. The service that promised a new movie each week has a whopping 43 films coming in the final four months of 2021. That is twice the volume of releases most film studios would dream of releasing in a busy calendar year. Can a studio generate …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Deadline Hollywood reports: A quarter century after the passing of HIV-AIDS activist Connie Norman, she’s being remembered for her relentless battle to curtail the disease and to combat homophobia and transphobia. The outspoken figure in ACT UP/LA is the subject of the new documentary AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman, which made its Los Angeles premiere Saturday at the …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Deadline reports: Tom T. Hall, a Country Music Hall of Famer who wrote “Harper Valley P.T.A.” and was known for such songs as “I LIke Beer,” died today at home in Franklin, TN, according to his son. He was 85. No cause of death was given. A consummate country songwriter, Hall is known for the such classics as “That’s How …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Deadline reports: Broadcaster Nexstar Media said Friday it’s buying The Hill, a leading purveyor of Beltway news, for $130 million as it expands in digital content. The Hill had 48 million average monthly users and 2.2 billion total pageviews in 2020 according to Comscore and attracted more than 4 million followers and 914 million video views on Twitter. It has …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Deadline Hollywood reports: The Television Academy said Thursday that attendees at next month’s Primetime Emmys Awards and Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be required to provide a negative Covid test in addition to being fully vaccinated. This year’s ceremonies are being limited to nominees and a guest with the rise of the Delta variant this summer hampering the return to …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Deadline Hollywood reports: Johnny Depp is complaining that Hollywood is boycotting him, but a Virginia judge just handed the Minamata star a big win in his $50 million defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard. Already pursuing $100 million counterclaim, the Aquaman star attempted a Hail Mary move in April to have Fairfax County Chief Judge Penney Azcarate dismiss the two-year old …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Variety reports: Netflix has released the first look of Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana and Dominic West as Prince Charles in “The Crown.” Season 5, which started production in the U.K. last month, features Debicki as the princess through the early 1990s and West as her estranged husband. Debicki takes over from Emma Corrin, who played Diana in season 4 …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Gothamist reports: Spike Lee’s new four-part “documentary essay,” called NYC EPICENTERS 9/11 ➔ 2021½, brings viewers through the past twenty years using a New York City lens. Set to hit HBO on August 22nd, the docuseries begins in 2020, recounting the pandemic, the demonstrations in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, and “the civil unrest and police brutality that …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Variety reports: Despite concerns the delta variant would keep moviegoers at home, Ryan Reynolds’ sci-fi action comedy “Free Guy” had a better-than-expected start at the domestic box office. The movie, from Disney and 20th Century Studios, collected $26 million from 4,165 North American theaters. Given its production budget above $100 million, those ticket sales wouldn’t be much to celebrate in …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Variety reports: Broadway’s revival of “West Side Story” will not be returning to the Great White Way when theaters reopen later in the year. “It is with great regret that we are announcing today that the 2020 Broadway revival of ‘West Side Story’ will not reopen,” producer Kate Horton said in a statement. Broadway has been dark since March 2020, …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

NPR reports: All the rumors are true: Lizzo has returned with a bop. “Rumors” works a familiar formula into a groovy, deep-bass synth and triumphant horns as Lizzo clears haters with a smile: “If you thought that I was ratchet with my ass hangin’ out / Just wait until the summer when they let me out the house, bitch.” Fresh …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Variety reports: Britney Spears’ father, Jamie Spears, has agreed to step down from his daughter’s conservatorship. The turn of events is a massive win for the international pop star, who has been under a conservatorship for 13 years, ever since Spears placed his famous daughter under the court-ordered arrangement in 2008 when she suffered a very public breakdown. But, in …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Variety reports: Tituss Burgess is stacking the aces and loading the dice to get to Easy Street as Rooster in NBC’s production of “Annie Live!” In “Annie Live!,” Burgess will portray the sleazy Rooster, younger brother of main villain Miss Hannigan (played by Taraji P. Henson), in this live holiday production of the classic musical. Rooster escapes from jail and …

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CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Billboard Magazine reports: The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” adds another honor to its already historic Billboard Hot 100 run, spending a record-tying 87th week on the chart (dated Aug. 14). It equals the run of Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive,” which logged its time on the tally in 2012-14. “Blinding Lights,” released on XO/Republic Records, bowed on the Hot 100 dated Dec. 14, …

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