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Deadline has confirmed that  Girls Trip  director Malcolm D. Lee is in talks to direct a remake of the 1974 Bill Cosby-Sidney Poitier film  Uptown Saturday Night . The original pic follows two buddies who enter an illegal high class club and have their wallets stolen, one of them containing a lottery ticket. Overbrook Entertainment partners Will Smith and James Lassiter are producing. Black-ish  creator Kenya Barris is writing the latest draft of the project which is set up at… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2O0z4NR

Eva Dickerman has joined Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment as a literary manager. Dickerman joins fellow managers Brooke Pobjoy and Tiffany Schloesser, as well as partners Naomi Odenkirk and Marc Provissiero. Dickerman learned the ropes of the TV lit representation business at Verve Talent & Literary Agency where she most recently worked as an assistant in the TV lit department. Before that, Dickerman, who attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School, practiced… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2LWIYTk

Jordan Peele’s upcoming “social thriller”  Us is finally rounding out its cast. Five new actors have been added to the  Us cast, joining the already-cast  Lupita Nyong’o, Elisabeth Moss, Winston Duke  as the Universal feature begins production. Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Madison Curry, Cali Sheldon, and Noelle Sheldon  have all joined the  Us  cast,  Variety  reports. The five new cast members have all been cast in undisclosed roles in what has been advertised as a “new nightmare” from Peele.  Us is Peele’s highly anticipated follow-up to his Oscar-winning debut,  Get Out , which grew from a sleeper hit into a pop culture phenomenon last year.  Get Out is a truly brilliant genre-bending horror flick from Peele, who was previously known as a comedian who co-created the Comedy Central sketch show  Key and Peele . And now after his splashy directorial debut, he is helming  Us , which stars Nyong’o, Moss, Duke,  Tim Heidecker, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Anna Diop . Littl

The frightmasters at Blumhouse have come up with their most terrifying idea yet! They’re developing…*checks notes*…a  Fantasy Island movie! Yes, that’s right – a film based on the 1970s Aaron Spelling series about an island where all your dreams can come true…for a price.  Jeff Wadlow , who directed Blumhouse’s  Truth or Dare , will helm the TV-to-film adaptation. Even if you’ve never seen a single episode of  Fantasy Island , I’m betting you’re familiar with it. It was a brightly-lit ’70s-’80s TV show that featured Ricardo Montalbán as a mysterious man in a white suit, and Hervé Villechaize as his sidekick who was famous for yelling, “The plane! The plane!” Here are the rather whimsical opening credits. Fantasy Island According to Deadline , the folks at Blumhouse took one look at this and said, “We’re making that a movie.”  Truth or Dare director Jeff Wadlow will be behind the camera, and he’ll also co-write the film with his  Truth or Dare writers  Chris Roach and Jillian

Director Gareth Evans is back with his first film since  The Raid 2 , and it sounds amazing.  Apostle is described as an “occult fable” and stars Dan Stevens as a man attempting to rescue his kidnapped sister from sinister religious cult. See the  Apostle poster, and scope the full synopsis, below. Here you have the first poster for  Apostle , the new Netflix film from Gareth Evans. It’s stylish, it’s artistic, it’s vaguely menacing. Flames shooting out of a church? Check. Upside-down cross in the title, signifying  evil ? Check. A dude (possibly Dan Stevens) with no face, and tree branches speared with dead bodies shooting out of his back? Check. Creepy claw-like hands reaching up from the bowls of hell? Check. What more do you need? How about a synopsis! London, 1905. Prodigal son Thomas Richardson (Dan Stevens) has returned home, only to learn that his sister is being held for ransom by a religious cult. Determined to get her back at any cost, Thomas travels to the idyllic

Miss Universe is heading to Bangkok, Thailand for the 2018 competition with Steve Harvey returning as host. The 2018 Miss Universe competition will air live in the U.S. Sunday, Dec. 16 (7:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on Fox. This will be Harvey’s fourth time hosting the pageant, following his infamous snafu in the 2015 pageant in the Phillipines, in which he announced the wrong winner. He returned as host in 2016, telling the Miss Universe Organization that he… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2O0KzVA

Rejoice,  Timeless fans. After the show was cancelled (for a second time), many worried there would be no closure for the time-traveling TV series. But NBC has decided to throw  Timeless one last bone, giving the go-ahead to a two-part series finale. The  Timeless series finale will arrive in time for the holiday season. Last month, NBC pulled the plug on  Timeless . Again. The series had originally been cancelled once before, but fan outcry was so enthusiastic that NBC decided to give the series another shot. But alas, time eventually ran out for  Timeless . NBC cancelled it once again, and this time it seemed like fan outcry wouldn’t be enough to save the day. This was no doubt frustrating to the fans, not just because the show they loved was leaving the air, but also because  Timeless ended its most recent season on a cliffhanger. At the time of the show’s cancellation, rumor had it that NBC and producer Sony Pictures TV were mulling over a two-hour  Timeless movie to wrap

Nashville’s Chris Carmack is returning to ABC . In his first acting gig since his six-season run on the country music drama series, Carmack has been tapped for a recurring role on the upcoming 15th season of ABC’s venerablemedical drama Grey’s Anatomy. Carmack will play an orthopedic surgeon who comes to work at Grey Sloan Memorial and is known as an “Ortho God.” Carmack portrayed country crooner Will Lexington on Nashville , which last week wrapped its six-season run… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2LF1Zuv

Apple is closing in on a $1 trillion market cap following a strong third quarter earnings report that beat projections for earnings. The company reported per-share earnings of $2.34 for the quarter, up 40% from the same time last year and handily beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.18. Revenue reached $53.3 billion, an increase of 17% from a year ago and exceeding Wall Street’s projections of $52.34 billion. Investors reacted enthusiastically, driving the stock up… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2AsymY9

Peter Jackson delivered one of the best motion picture trilogies of all time with his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved fantasy book series The Lord of the Rings . Unfortunately, he followed it up with the overlong, over-indulgent prequel trilogy based on The Hobbit , a single book that was significantly shorter than any of the single installments of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but somehow inexplicably expanded into an entire film trilogy. However, That ’70s Show star Topher Grace , who will soon be seen playing Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke in Spike Lee’s latest movie Black KkKlansman , wasn’t content to just let The Hobbit exist as a trilogy that overstayed its welcome. Instead, just as he once cut down the seven hours of the Star Wars prequel trilogy into a single 85-minute movie , he took the 462 minutes of The Hobbit trilogy (or 532 minutes if we’re talking about the extended cuts) and assembled a two-hour version of the movie. Back in 2012, our own Peter Sc

(Welcome to  Not Dead Yet , a feature dedicated to new Blu-ray releases and what special features you should be excited about. Because yes, some of us still like to own physical copies of our movies.) This week’s physical media round-up brings you Steven Spielberg ‘s latest, a John Carpenter horror classic, Dwayne Johnson battling CGI monsters,  Gabrielle Union  kicking ass, an indie horror film worth your attention, and Jim Carrey ‘s return to acting. Here are the new Blu-ray releases and their special features you should check out this week and beyond. Ready Player One In my theatrical review , I called  Ready Player One the worst film of Steven Spielberg ‘s career. Based on the comments section, that opinion didn’t go over so well! So did I get it wrong? Is  Ready Player One a secret masterpiece that just went over my head? I don’t think so. But maybe I was a little  too hard on the film. Maybe. To be clear: Spielberg is making the best of a bad situation. I know peopl

"He's a danger to us all." Wildcard Distribution has debuted an official UK trailer for the upcoming release of the film Black 47 , a gritty thriller set during the Great Irish Famine. This premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, but it got horrible reviews by most critics. Set in 1847, the film follows a hardened Irish Ranger fighting for the British Army who returns to his home, only to discover the famine has destroyed his country and left the people even more vile and ruthless than ever. With little else to live for, he sets a destructive path to avenge his family. James Frencheville (from Animal Kingdom , The Stanford Prison Experiment ) stars, along with Hugo Weaving , Jim Broadbent , Stephen Rea , Freddie Fox , Barry Keoghan , Moe Dunford , Ciaran Grace , and Sarah Greene . I really did not like this film. It has one good action scene, the rest is so dull and boring and excessively violent for no reason. But that's just my opinion. Check it out. Here's t

Atlas Artists , a subsidiary of Charles Roven's Atlas Entertainment, has hired veteran manager/producer Jeff Morrone who is joining the management company led by Dave Fleming, effective immediately. Morrone most recently was at Primary Wave Entertainment. "Jeff is one of the most respected and experienced managers in town. His keen eye for talent and entrepreneurial vision for his clients make him a natural fit for Atlas Artists,” said Fleming. Added Morrone, "I'm honored… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2mVK2J8

Timeless stars Matt Lanter , Abigail Spencer, Malcolm Barrett, Sakina Jaffrey and Claudia Doumit, series co-creator Eric Kripke and the show’s writers are sharing their reactions and thanking fans following the news today that there will be a two-part series finale of the Sony Pictures TV-produced time-travel series to air during the holidays. Spencer and Barrett got into character in videos posted on social media, both vowing to “get Rufus back”, in a nod to the Season 2… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2OvX5h3

Considering what goes down between Thanos and Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War (I’ll be vague to protect the 1% of you who still haven’t seen the movie), you’d be forgiven if you wanted another scene of the two of them together to make that surprising event feel truly earned. But the theatrical cut of the movie is already 2 hours and 29 minutes, so it’s no surprise that plenty of scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. With the film out now on Digital HD and about to hit 4K and Blu-ray, another Infinity War deleted scene has hit the internet, and this one attempts to flesh out the Thanos/Gamora relationship in a scene called “A Father’s Choice.” USA Today has the exclusive clip below, which is one of only four deleted scenes that will be available when the physical version of the movie goes on sale. While the Thanos digital model is unfinished in this footage, we do get a look at a teenaged version of Gamora, rocking some battle armor that looks like it was inspired straight f

The success of Snapchat inspired a whole range of ephemeral, now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t apps for consumers who’re concerned about their protecting their privacy. These self-destructing messaging apps — Frankly, Blink, Wickr and Confide — are less well known than Snapchat, but offer features such as encrypted messages, disappearing photos and the like. TigerText falls into this broad category of secure messaging apps, which allows users to share encrypted messages that… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2AqyUxF

EXCLUSIVE : The long running ABC series Fantasy Island is being reconstituted as a feature film by Blumhouse and Sony Pictures , the latter of which controls the rights to the Aaron Spelling series which ran from 1977-84. Jeff Wadlow is directing. He just teamed with Blumhouse on Truth Or Dare , the genre film that grossed $100 million worldwide on a $5 million budget. Wadlow is writing with Truth or Dare co-scribes Chris Roach and Jillian Jacobs and Jason Blum is producing… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2KaPZLy

EXCLUSIVE: The California State Bar has suspended the license of entertainment attorney Benjamin Lawson Adams , a former director of business and legal affairs at The Weinstein Company, in the wake of his no-contest plea to one count of lewd or lascivious conduct with a 14-year-old boy. The suspension of his license to practice law in the state was effective Monday. Adams was an attorney for MGM at the time of his arrest in May 2016 and later sued the studio, claiming he… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2mYBSzH

Actress Genie Francis and her survived-it-all soap character Laura Spencer is heading back to General Hospital . Francis, who has come and gone on the daytime series numerous times over the years since starting in 1977, has been off the show since January, and reportedly will begin taping new episodes in September. Francis told the TV Insider website today, "I'm headed to Maine for the next month and then, after that, I'm back at General Hospital . I'm looking forward to… from Deadline https://ift.tt/2LE40H2

“Blindness is an illness, but it’s also a metaphor,” explains the actress Mabel ( Jess Weixler) in an interview with a skeptical journalist. She’s talking about her role as a blind woman in a sordid arthouse horror film set in a hospital for the disfigured and genetically abnormal. As she, a sight-seeing woman, defends her choice to play a blind woman amid much controversy, she squirms a little. She knows she’s bullshitting. How do you play a metaphor when you have no experience of that which is symbolized? Do we impose metaphors on that which makes us uncomfortable, functioning as a coping mechanism? These are the questions Chained for Life tackles directly.. Hollywood doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to representing disability and disfigurement. That’s a given. It’s long been fascinated with the spectacle of deformity, and marvels at those beautiful women that fall in love with “monsters,” despite (or because of?) their disfigurement. From Freaks to  The   Elep