Weight Reduction Comedy From Chris ODowd & Port/Wiseman Lands At NBC With Penalty

EXCLUSIVE: Following a extended four-way putting in a bid war among ABC, NBC, Fox and CBS, Large Males, a comedy from Irish actor-comedian (and Bridesmaids standout) Chris O’Dowd and author-producers Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, has arrived at NBC having a script commitment plus significant penalty. Setting the only-camera project in the network from the Greatest Loser appears appropriate because it involves several males who meet at an appetite suppressant clinic. O’Dowd will write the script according to his idea, with Port and Wiseman aboard as showrunners. The 3 will executive produce with 3 Arts’ Dork Becky and Nick Frenkel for twentieth century Fox TV. O’Dowd have been taking pleasure in a good acting career within the U.K., including starring around the popular series The IT Crowd. His career moved into high gear this summer time together with his breakout performance within the runaway hit Bridesmaids. This marks O’Dowd’s American writing debut. In Great Britan, he lately produced and co-authored Moone Boy, a comedy series for Sky TV inspired by his childhood, that is now filming. Younger crowd is penning a comedy feature funded through the Irish Film Board. UTA-repped Port and Wiseman, who're under a general deal at 20th TV, function as co-executive produces around the red-colored-hot new comedy series New Girl. Last season, they produced the Fox comedy pilot Family Album. Coincidentally, additionally they authored the U.S. version from the IT Crowd, which visited pilot at NBC. O’Dowd is by using UTA and United kingdom agent Donna French. Scripted shows about individuals with unhealthy weight have grown to be extremely popular in the systems previously few years with projects such as the CBS comedy series Mike & Molly along with a&E’s pilot Large Mike.

In Honor of Anonymous, 5 Reimaginings of Shakespearean Classics with Today's Auteurs

This week’s new feature Anonymous is alluring for two reasons: It explores the possibility that Shakespeare didn’t write his masterworks, and it looks unintentionally hilarious. If I could dress up for Halloween as Vanessa Redgrave’s line-reading of “None of your plays will ever carry your name,” I would. In tribute to this dubious drama, let’s explore what the Bard’s plays would sound like if they were written or retooled by current auteurs. Ready for Why Did I Get Jealous Too? Judd Apatow’s Richard III A pathetically self-deprecating, but cunning man (Russell Brand) walks with a limp and seems pretty hopeless as a lame L.A. romantic. But after a few of his detractors die, Richard catches the eye of a snappy newsmagazine correspondent (Leslie Mann), who helps assist him in his rise to prominence. As he gains recognition and takes hold over the entertainment industry, he becomes increasingly self-conscious about his decrepit state and adopts the name McLimpin’. It’s about a half hour too long. Tyler Perry’s Othello AKA Why Did I Get Jealous Too?. Tyler Perry’s version of the Venetian moor’s plight removes most of the paranoia and fear from Shakespeare’s tale and replaces them with pesky marital woes. Othello (Perry) and Dez (Taraji P. Henson) have a functional marriage, but their flippant next door neighbor Iago (Whoopi Goldberg, crossdressing and doublecrossing!) finds a way to interject mistrust into their relationship using rhyming slams, vaudevillian mockery of their weaknesses, and a “green-eyed monster” (her disruptive terrier who jumps on the furniture). Will Othello and Dez survive? Or will they smother each other with comic exasperation? Next: Tyler Perry’s Euripides’s Medea. Quentin Tarantino’s The Tempest Forget Julie Taymor: Quentin Tarantino’s version of The Tempest takes the island of weirdos and throws them in a kickass retelling of Pearl Harbor. This time, the magical Prospero uses his spells to thwart Japan’s attack, and the monster Caliban is a legendary, hairy surf champion who doesn’t mind beating up some terrorists if the timing’s right. Prospero’s daughter Miranda will not participate in her father’s tricks until she walks out of this throwback cabana with a hula trophy. Nancy Meyers’s Twelfth Night It’s a case of mistaken identity as a wealthy Los Angeles yoga instructor named Viola (Diane Keaton — in traditionally androgynous attire) decides to become an apprentice to a wealthy L.A. architect named Orsino (Steve Martin). She falls for Orsino, but he’s in love with a wealthy cartoonist named Olivia (Meryl Streep). He sends the smitten Viola over to Olivia as an emissary, but Olivia immediately falls for Viola’s winsome and gallant appeal. That hat! That vest! Those magician tails! It’s just about complicated. Darren Aronofsky’s Macbeth An unwitting protagonist descends into a dizzying, phantasmagorical vortex of power and visibility dotted with mysterious deaths and paranormal events. Actually, Macbeth should just be called Requiem for a Black Swan.

Either Way (A annan veg)

A Mystery Island, Flickbook Films production with support from the Icelandic Film Center. Produced by Arni Filippusson, David Oskar Olafsson, Hreinn Beck, Tobias Munthe, Theo Youngstein, Sindri Pall Kjartansson. Directed by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson. Screenplay, Sigurdsson, Svein Olafur Gunnarsson.With: Hilmar Gudjonsson, Svein Olafur Gunnarsson, Thorsteinn Bachmann. (Icelandic, German dialogue)Two highway maintenance men in the barren wilderness of 1980s Iceland find themselves at a figurative crossroads in the small but beguiling character-driven dramedy "Either Way." Wisely employing the harshly beautiful landscape as the third principal character, tyro helmer Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson highlights human vulnerability and the struggle to create something meaningful and lasting. Boasting gorgeous visuals that belie its low budget, genial pic is accumulating mileage on the fest circuit, and marks Sigurdsson as a talent to watch. Repping two different types of manhood, Finnbogi (co-writer Svein Olafur Gunnarsson) and callow, hot-to-trot Alfred (Hilmar Gudjonsson) gall each other as they perform their hard labor far from other human contact. Ultimately, their barely civil tolerance evolves into real friendship as they support each other through romantic travails, but not before a drunken comic interlude that makes the slender material feel padded. Smooth Red One lensing by Arni Filippusson favors long takes, wide frames and moving shots that allow the thesping to carry the story. The Icelandic title translates as "Another Way," playing with the fact that matters turn out differently than expected and functioning as an older synonym for "road."Camera (color, DV, widescreen), Arni Filippusson; editor, Kristjan Lodmfjord; production designer, Halfdan Pedersen; costume designer, Margret Eindarsdottir. Reviewed on DVD, Chicago, October 23, 2012. (In San Sebastian, Reykjavik, Thessaloniki, Turin film festivals.) Running time: 81 MIN. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Attorney: Judge Finalizes Christina Milian Divorce Using The-Dream

First Released: October 24, 2011 6:21 PM EDT Credit: Getty Premium ATLANTA, Ga. -- Caption Christina Milian gets to this years American Music Honours held at Nokia Theatre L.A. Reside in La on November 21, 2010A judge has completed singer Christina Milians divorce from singer-songwriter-producer The-Dream. Milians attorney Randy Kessler stated Monday the judge in Atlanta signed the ultimate documents this month. Milian and also the-Dream, whose real title is Terius Nash, were married last year and separated in This summer 2010. The 2 come with an infant daughter together. Kessler stated the divorce was resolved by mutual agreement. Milian is better noted for tunes for example Dip it Low. The-Dream, whose hits include Shawty is really a 10, has created for artists including Mariah Carey, Beyonce and Britney Warrior spears he won two Grammys for his focus on Beyonces Single Ladies (Put A Diamond Ring onto it). Copyright 2011 through the Connected Press. All privileges reserved. These components might not be released, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Audra McDonald Sings Through 'Porgy and Bess' Mess

NY (AP) As deliberate as Audra McDonald is about picking songs for her concerts, what she says in between singing them is anything but considered."I just talk, which sometimes is good and sometimes is not good at all," she says, laughing. "I find that keeps me at my most honest, which then keeps me in the right frame of mind for each song."The four-time Tony Award winner has even surprised herself by suddenly talking about shoes or what she ate for lunch. "For some people it's like, 'Oh, dear. I didn't know all that about you, and I didn't want to hear all that about you. I just wanted to hear your voice.'"That voice is currently in the middle of her first concert tour in four years, which lands in NY's Carnegie Hall on Saturday and then takes McDonald to Michigan, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Pennsylvania by the end of November.After that, McDonald will be heading to Catfish Row to help restart a new production of "Porgy and Bess" on Broadway. The reworked opera, now called "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess," had a controversial out-of-town tryout this fall in Boston.Directed by the American Repertory Theater's Diane Paulus and adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks and Deidre L. Murray, the show generated headlines when Stephen Sondheim complained that an American masterpiece was being violated.McDonald, who will play Bess opposite Norm Lewis as Porgy and David Alan Grier as Sporting Life, has taken the controversy in stride. While surprised to see NY critics showing up in Boston to review a musical that is still being worked on, she understands."People have such passionate feelings about this piece," she says. "It's been part of our cultural language forever and it's just one of those things that everybody feels a bit of ownership in their own way. And God bless them all, as far as I'm concerned. Seriously."Paulus says McDonald has thrown herself into the role of Bess with every fiber of her being. "Audra is the kind of actress who investigates every moment she is living on stage and she is relentless in her search for truth on stage," Paulus says.The controversy has found itself in McDonald's song selections for her concert, which usually include show tunes, classic songs from movies and pieces written expressly for her. But she won't be singing hits from "Porgy and Bess" such as "Summertime" and "It Ain't Necessarily So" because most of Bess' songs are duets.One song that McDonald, 41, has picked is "Go Back Home" from "The Scottsboro Boys," a musical that closed abruptly in December after playing just 49 performances following protests from people who never saw it.The John Kander and Fred Ebb musical frames the 1930s-era story of nine black teenagers wrongfully put on death row as a minstrel show but then immediately subverts it by having an all-black cast. Some performances of the show drew protesters who refused to see it and claimed the musical was actually embracing the minstrel convention."I think about people reacting to 'Porgy and Bess' because of what they've heard without necessarily seeing the show, and what happened to 'Scottsboro Boys,'" she says. "Walk into the theater and see it. Then if you've got issues, yes, then by all means, march out of there and protest."She also plans to sing a Sondheim song, "Moments in the Woods" from "Into the Woods" after discussing it with the composer, a sign that their relationship hasn't been destroyed over "Porgy and Bess.""I know how passionate he is about that particular piece. That's no surprise to anybody," she says, then adds diplomatically about the musical: "We disagree in certain areas."The creative team, she says, has condensed the four-hour opera into a two-and-one-half-hour musical, eliminated a lot of the repetitiveness and tried to deepen the characters. "We're just trying to focus it more on the characters and the story," she says. "For me in the end, if people are talking about theater, that's a great thing."The opera-turned-musical tells the story of Porgy, a beggar from the slums, who tries to rescue Bess from her violent lover, Crown, and a drug dealer, Sporting Life.To play Bess, McDonald has researched drug addiction and the life of women during the 1930s in South Carolina, where the writers based their work. She and Paulus have talked a lot about Bess' past, what gives her joy and why she falls in love with Porgy. Two books also have helped: Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God," which follows the fortunes of a black woman living in a small Florida town; and the DuBose Heyward's novel from which the opera is based and which McDonald often consults."I carry that thing around like a bible. Mine looks like some college student's textbook. It's highlighted within an inch of its life," she says. "I read a passage from it every night before I go on stage."When she hits the Carnegie Hall stage, it will mark her 17th appearance there but she still remembers her first. It was the season's opening night concert in 1998 and she sang selections from the "Porgy and Bess" opera with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. "It was thrilling. It was scary. I had never sung that high in public before," she says. "I had a ball and I loved it."Raised in Fresno, Calif., and trained at The Juilliard School, McDonald is the older of two daughters and is one of those performers who earns raves for whatever she touches. She won three Tony Awards before the age of 30 for "Carousel," ''Master Class" and "Ragtime" and a fourth in 2004 for "A Raisin in the Sun."She has two Grammy Awards, four albums and thinking of a fifth, two Emmy Award nominations and has just finished four seasons on TV playing Dr. Naomi Bennett in ABC's series "Private Practice." She also appears in the new Woody Harrelson film "Rampart," playing a bar fly with a thing for cops who has a steamy love scene with Harrelson."It was fun to step out of my comfort zone," she says.Her decision to join a TV show was done for the same reason. "I've always been afraid of the camera really afraid. I thought, 'Well, a TV show is certainly a way to learn how to get over that fear,'" she says. "I wanted to be as comfortable in front of a camera as I am on stage, even though they're completely different muscles."McDonald's Emmy nominations were earned in the HBO version of "Wit" in 2001 and for reprising her Broadway role in "A Raisin in the Sun" in a 2008 made-for-TV adaptation. She was also in the series "Kidnapped" and "The Bedford Diaries."The commute from NY to the set of "Private Practice" in Los Angeles was punishing and McDonald estimates that she spent 720,000 miles flying back and forth. "The airlines miss me," she says. She was at airports so much that she befriended TSA agents.Ultimately, the long days away from her 10-year-old daughter, Zoe Madeline named after McDonald's "Master Class" co-star Zoe Caldwell and actress Madeline Kahn became too much. The death of McDonald's father in a 2007 plane crash has also put her in a reflective mood."I have noticed that a lot of the songs that I've picked this time have been about being in the present and really holding onto to what's important in life," she says. "It forces you to take stock and learn what's most precious. I think I've learned that lesson the hard way losing my dad."McDonald is an outspoken proponent for marriage equality her Twitter handle is AudraEqualityMc and she sits on the advisory board of the gay-rights advocacy organization Broadway Impact.She may discuss her stance in between songs on her concert tour, even if it upsets her audience. "Sometimes I get quiet reactions and tepid applause. And sometimes I get raucous response to that," she says. "That's also part of who I am. I'm not going to hide that."Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Katherine LaNasa Snags Roles Opposite Will Ferrell, John Cusack

Katherine LaNasa, which has spent the higher part of the past decade making various television looks, has reserved roles opposite major stars inside a couple of high-profile movies.LaNasa has nabbed the role of Will Ferrell's wife in "Dog Fight," the Warner Bros. political comedy which stars Zack Galifianakis. She'll also play John Cusack's wife in "The Frozen Ground," a serial killer thriller which stars Nicolas Cage.Jay Roach is pointing "Dog Fight," once known to as "Southern Rivals," with Gary Sanchez Prods. and Everyman Pictures creating. The comedy notifies the storyplot of two rival people in politics inside a small congressional district in Sc. Sarah Baker, another actress which has extended labored in television, was cast as Galifianakis' wife this year's week."Frozen Ground" particulars the actual story in the capture of serial killer Robert Hansen in Alaska. Cage is certainly an Alaska condition trooper monitoring Hansen, carried out by Cusack. Randall Emmett and Mark Ordesky are coming up with the indie, which starts shooting now in Alaska. LaNasa, repped by IFA Talent, has came out on shows for instance "two and a half Males," "Large Love"and "Knowing Amy," but her recently found warmth may be due to be employed in "Jayne Mansfield's Vehicle" for author-director Billy Bob Thornton LaNasa snagged that role if the was restricted to Robin Wright. The Hollywood Reporter

Police: NY Burglars Took Tips From Ben Afflecks The Town

First Published: October 19, 2011 1:35 PM EDT Credit: FilmMagic / Getty Images NY, N.Y. -- Caption Ben Affleck and Rebecca Hall hit the set of The Town, Boston, Mass. October 1, 2009 Police say a prolific burglary crew in NY City has taken cues from the bank heist drama The Town, splashing bleach on ATMs and cash drawers to try to destroy DNAevidence. A NY Police Department spokesman said Tuesday several burglary suspects told detectives theyd watched the bad guys in the Ben Affleck-directed film do the same thing. The suspects were arrested over the weekend. The 2010 movie stars Affleck as leader of a crew responsible for a string of Boston bank and armored-truck holdups. Jon Hamm portrays an FBI agent pursuing them. The real bandits are suspected in 62 burglaries at delis, discount stores and pizzerias in Brooklyn and Queens. Police say they made off with $217,000. Four suspects are awaiting arraignment. A fifth is already behind bars on an unrelated weapons charge. Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.