Turtle and E spill the beans about Entourage
Have you been jonesing for the entourage from Entourage? Do you need a little Ari Gold to get your blood flowing? Well, new shows aren’t coming back until September (thanks to the writers’ strike), but HBO is giving fans a chance to enjoy the most recent shows starting tomorrow, July 4th. Every Friday at 10 p.m. (ET) on, HBO will replay season 3: part 2, and season 4.
That’s good to know — especially in these dog days of summer TV — but if you want to know what’s going to happen next, read on. Both Jerry Ferarra and Kevin Connolly, Turtle and E, got a little chatty with OK! magazine’s Oliver Coleman.
If you don’t want to know how things are going to unfold in season five, don’t read after the jump.
Jerry was very enthusiastic about Entourage’s new season, so much so that he spilled the beans about some crucial plot points. For starters, Vince’s big film project, the biography of Colombian drug czar Medellin — the one in which he invested his own money — is not the blockbuster hit the guys were counting on. In fact, as Ferarra said, “The movie…was kind of a bomb at the Cannes Film Festival and it pretty much picks up this year with the aftermath of that.”
How bad does it get for Vince and Johnny and Turtle and Eric? Really bad. “The guys are very much in trouble financially, it’s not like the old Entourage where they had everything at their finger tips. I mean they do still have their normal connections, but it’s a little bit of a struggle.” Turtle actually has to go out and get a job, which knowing Turtle, that could be dealing weed. Does Weeds’ Nancy Botwin need a distributor?
After OK! got Jerry to blab, the reporter was intrepid and caught up with Kevin Connolly who figured that since the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, he’d give away a few more plot lines from Entourage’s upcoming shows. Even as he acknowledged that he was probably going to tick off the folks at HBO, KC revealed, “The film doesn’t do well and [Vince’s] career is at a low, and in the immortal words of Ari Gold, he’s in ’movie jail. So it’s all about getting his career back on track.”
I love it, movie jail. Could this mean that Vinny will have to deign to do — dare I say it — a TV series? Wouldn’t that be terrific, Vincent Chase on a CSI-type forensics show, CSI: Seattle? Or maybe he could become the next McHotty on a Grey’s Anatomy-like medical drama?
Any thoughts from the peanut gallery on the right show for Vincent Chase?
[via TVTattle.com]
Mandy Moore Goes Aussie
Mandy Moore Goes Aussie
The latest in the long line of celebrities living it up in Australia is none other than Mandy Moore. And something tells us the Aussies are having a great time with the “Candy” singer.
Mandy was busy performing at the Beautiful Girls Ladies Fashion lunch at the Victorian Racing Club in Melbourne earlier today (they’re 16 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time). And she’s been keeping her fans up-to-date on her activities via her MySpace page.
Her latest post reads, “Greetings from Dan Undah! Once again, I have to say this country blows me away in EVERY way. We just got to Adelaide after spending three full days in Perth. Amazing. We played two shows with Ben Lee opening for him before he took the stage in front of a 65-piece orchestra. Words can’t explain how brilliant he is and how genius the arrangements were of his songs. He had the crowds in the palm of his hands.”
“It was a bit awkward to step on stage here for the first time here in years - especially with my own music and (and no dancers that I’m sure a bulk of the audience might have been expecting!) We are touring barebones-style with just Loren on piano and Chaves on guitar. It’s actually really great sometimes to not have the pressure of the full band but I can’t wait to get back down here with the set-up we toured with in the States.”
“For the next week, we’ll be doing a short intimate set opening for Kelly Clarkson down here and then off to Manila to play one show there on the 12th.”
“Happy to come home after this trip and really dig into some film projects I’ve had my eyes on now that everything is back up in motion. I am so ready to get back to work in terms of writing my next record, recording some demos and hopefully locking in a compelling and challenging film project.”
Marley Biopic: No Music No Cry?
Is this love? From the looks of it, maybe not.
The late Bob Marley's heirs are jamming the Weinstein Company from licensing the music of the reggae icon for an upcoming movie about his life and career that his widow, Rita Marley, is executive producing.
The reason for the snub, per the Hollywood Reporter: The clan's Tuff Gong Pictures is backing another projecta documentary by Martin Scorsese about Marley.
The family had already agreed to license the musician's hit-laden catalog for the Scorcese filmthe first time the estate has granted such blanket rightsand is concerned that the Weinstein's biopic, set to unspool in late 2009, would conflict with the documentary's release in February 2010 around Marley's birthday.
"Martin Scorsese doesn't want to go out with a competing project, and [producer] Steven Bing has made deals with companies [that are now compromised]," Blue Mountain Music head Chris Blackwell told the Reporter. "The Weinstein project has put the documentary into jeopardy."
Blackwell founded Island Records, the label responsible for bringing Bob Marley and the Wailers as well as reggae in general to the masses, and now runs Blue Mountain Music, the "Stir It Up" singer's music publisher.
Marley's son, Ziggy, an executive producer on the untitled Scorsese expose, added that he and other family members' main priority is protecting his father's legacy.
"All our efforts and support are currently directed toward the documentary," Ziggy, a reggae star in his own right, told the trade. "We believe that this project is the best way to represent our father's life from his perspective, and any other film project pertaining to our father will be empty without his music to support it."
The problem for moguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein is that they apparently were willing to get up, stand up for the story, but failed to get music rights.
"When I sold the film rights to my book [to the Weinsteins], the contract did not include any rights to use my husband's music," said Rita Marley.
Neither a rep for Tuff Gong Pictures nor the London-based Blackwell was available for comment.
Marley family attorney Terri Dipalo told the Reporter the clan categorically rejects any suggestions that they were holding back the tunes to get a better deal out of the Weinsteins. At the same time, she didn't rule out his songs from eventually being licensed for the drama, noting "anything's possible."
Weinstein Company spokesman Matthew Frankel indicated that the brothers believe everything will work out in the end.
"We have great respect for the Marley family and Chris Blackwell and are in discussions to look at ways to mutually benefit both projects," he said.
Blackwell, who's reportedly pushing for the company to postpone the biopic until at least 2015, had a phone conversation with Harvey Weinstein earlier this month in which the two discussed the potential conflict, but so far had not settled the issue. One idea the former is bandying about is possibly having the Weinsteins receive a stake in the Scorsese doc in exchange for delaying the Rita Marley-produced flick.
A source close to that project however insisted to Online that the 2009 date for the biopic was never set in stone in the first place because the film does not even have a script yet and remains in development so all the talk regarding a possible collision is premature.
Or good PR.
More Sex and the City movies? Believe it
Just as the Sex and the City movie is surging to the top of the box office charts — beating out week two of Indiana Jones — Michael Patrick King is cashing in on the success. DreamWorks has offered the writer/director/producer of Sex and the City a first-look deal for future film project. And one of those future films could be sequel to the new Sex and the City movie. This may seem unimaginable, but — come on — this is Hollywood. If this film does boffo box office, which seems likely based on a $26 million Friday, why wouldn’t Warner Bros. and New Line cash in with another episode from the lives of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte?
According to King, he wasn’t thinking of launching the ladies into a film series, especially since they had such a good run on HBO and are still doing well on cable. “I wrote that movie with a beginning, middle and end because I didn’t want to leave the audience unfulfilled. The actresses are great, and if the gods smile and people are still interested, why not?”
That must be music to the ears of Warner Brothers and New Line executives. By tonight, Sex and the City’s box office should be at $75 million in the U.S. alone. It’s well on the way to making back its cost and will be a legitimate hit.
Dreamworks wants the gods to smile on whatever King can cook up for them motion picture-wise. In this era where it’s getting harder and harder to appeal to female movie-goers, where romantic comedies have been getting Judd Apatow-ed so that the guy is the driving force in the story, not the gal, King may be just what women need.
Stacey Snider, CEO of Dreamworks thinks so. “King writes for audiences that are hungry for real characters and human stories.”
And if that doesn’t sound like women’s pictures to you, listen to King. “I want to write bigger stories about love and what it all means.”