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Will Smith has been picked to host the 2012 Kids’ Choice Awards, which will air on Nickelodeon on March 31 at 8 PM ET/PT live from the Galen Center at USC. It’s the 25th edition of the event; last year, the show hosted by Jack Black drew 7.3 million viewers, ranking as that week’s top telecast all of TV in kids and tween demos. Smith, a two-time Oscar nominee, has Columbia’s Men In Black 3 opening May 25 and this year will produce One Thousand A.E. co-starring his son Jaden. “How better to celebrate 25 years of Kids’ Choice Awards than with the biggest movie star in the world?” said Marjorie Cohn, President, Original Programming and Development, Nickelodeon Group and an executive producer of the show. “Will has enough KCA Blimps at home to fill a room, having long been one of kids’ favorites. He’s a larger than life presence who knows how to play big, and we’re excited he’ll be taking the stage for the biggest, loudest, messiest spectacle in the show’s 25-year history.”
Will Smith To Host Kids’ Choice Awards
Hot Trailer: ‘Men In Black 3′
Here’s the first-look trailer Sony Pictures announced it is launching all over the planet today — at least this planet. The sci-fi tentpole reunites Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and director Barry Sonnenfeld, who teamed on the first two films in the franchise — the previous movie in the … Read More »
WME Signs Director M. Night Shyamalan
EXCLUSIVE: The agency signing wars had been quiet, but they just heated up. WME has signed M. Night Shyamalan. The writer, director and producer has been developing as his next film the Sony Pictures tent pole A.E. which has Will … Read More »
Queen Latifah To Host Daytime Talk Show Eyed For 2013 From Sony TV & Overbrook
With a slew of daytime syndicated talk show projects jockeying for a fall 2012 berth, a big one is entering the fray for fall 2013. Queen Latifah is set to host a new daytime talk show that Flavor Unit, her company with Shakim Compere, will co-produce with Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television. Compere and Overbrook’s Miguel Melendez, who were instrumental in getting the project together, will serve as executive producers with Queen Latifah and Overbrook’s Lassiter, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.
Queen Latifah and Smith have a lot in common — both started in hip-hop before segueing into acting and then 
producing and both have earned Oscar nominations. In fact, Latifah’s first role was an arc on NBC’s The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, which starred Smith, also in his first acting gig. “We’ve had a long and successful history both personally and professionally with Overbrook’s Miguel, JL, Jada and Will,” Compere said. “We share a common vision and have been wanting to collaborate for quite some time.” In addition to Queen Latifah’s work with Smith on Fresh Prince, she starred opposite his wife, Pinkett Smith, in the 1996 movie Set It Off. “We are excited to join forces with Latifah and as well as Sony Pictures TV on this new venture,” Melendez said. “This forum is the perfect place to showcase Latifah’s tremendous range of talents and unique ability to connect and inspire people.” Sony TV’s relationship with Pinkett Smith and Overbrook stems from their recent collaboration on the TNT series Hawthorne, which starred Pinkett Smith and was produced by Sony and Overbrook. Additionally, Overbrook has had a long relationship with Sony on the film side, most recently producing together the hit Karate Kid remake.
Sony could’ve fast-tracked the talk show for a fall 2012 launch but opted to give it time to develop the way the studio did with The Dr. Oz Show, which has been the No. 1 syndicated daytime talk show in women 25-54 for the past three weeks. Sony TV does not have a contender for fall 2012 as the studio has been very selective with daytime projects, taking its time to find one that it feels it can throw its full support behind. Besides, the 2012 field is overcrowded already with talk shows hosted by Katie Couric and Steve Harvey already cleared for launch, Maury spin-off Trisha Goddard close to a go after getting picked up by Sinclair a week ago, and several other shows — including Twentieth’s Ricki Lake, Warner Bros’ Bethenny Frankel and CBS TV Distribution’s Jeff Probst — looking for station clearances. Read More »
Obama’s High-Priced Hollywood Fundraisers Attract Major Stars & Celebrities & Money
2ND UPDATE, 12:25 AM: First there was the $35,800-per-person fundraising dinner tonight with Will Smith hosted by his Overbrook Entertainment producing partner and manager James Lassiter. Then President Obama headed over to the home of Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith for a somewhat lower-key event aimed at Latino supporters. He was introduced by Eva Longoria who said Obama “knows he’s the president of all Americans” and that “we thank you for everything you’re doing.” Obama leaves town after Tuesday’s Jay Leno taping.
UPDATE (correcting misidentification), 8:01 p.m.: This evening’s Los Angeles traffic snarl at rush hour was just that much worse because President Barack Obama arrived at LAX on board Air Force One at 4:30 PM. He’s attending two Hollywood political fundraisers for the Democratic Party tonight, first at producer James Lassiter’s mansion and then Melanie Griffith’s and Antonio Banderas’ home. Potus will be making a Tonight Show appearance with Jay Leno tomorrow before jetting out of town. 
According to the White House pool report, Obama first helicoptered to a landing zone in Brentwood and the motorcade made an “off-the-record” visit to Roscoe’s chicken and waffle house. The president ordered at the counter for himself (and nearby aides) the No. 9 “Country Boy” – 3 wings with choice of waffle, potato salad or French fries ($8.90). He then started chatting with diners. I say who cares if you like Obama’s politics or not: he’s got good taste when it comes to LA’s favorite eats.
Then the motorcade traveled to Hancock Park for the first fundraiser hosted by Lassiter, who is Will Smith’s production partner in Overbrook Entertainment which manages the entire Pinkett-Smith family. Here is the pool report written by the Los Angeles Times‘ Peter Nicholas: Read More »
Hot Scribe Dante Harper Takes On Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ For Sony And Roland Emmerich
EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has hired Dante Harper to adapt Foundation, the groundbreaking Isaac Asimov science fiction trilogy which Roland Emmerich is developing to direct. Emmerich has been attached since the studio acquired the property in early 2009 when he and … Read More »
20th Century Fox Sets Isaac Asimov’s ‘The Caves Of Steel,’ Henry Hobson To Direct
EXCLUSIVE: 20th Century Fox, which tapped into Isaac Asimov’s futuristic robot science fiction for I, Robot, is now working on a live-action adaptation of Asimov’s The Caves of Steel. The studio has set Henry Hobson to direct and John Scott 3 … Read More »
Survey: Old Is Gold For Endorsements
If you want to sell a product, don’t kid around. That’s the clear message if you buy the results of a survey just released by global market research firm Ipsos. The hottest huckster: 89-year-old Betty White. She is America’s … Read More »
Universal Drops ‘Clue’; Gore Verbinski Moves Forward With Hasbro Cash And New Writers
EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures has quietly dropped out of Clue, one of the seven Hasbro games properties the studio contracted to make into movies in a ground-breaking six-year exclusive deal signed in 2008. Clue becomes the third project out of seven to be dropped by Universal (Monopoly and Magic, The Gathering were also kicked to the curb), but none of those projects are dead. In the case of the murder mystery board game Clue, Hasbro is funding the development and producing the film with Gore Verbinski’s Blind Wink. Verbinski, director of the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, Rango and the upcoming Lone Ranger, still plans to direct Clue, and he and Blind Wink’s John Krauss are producing with Hasbro’s Brian Goldner and Bennett Schneir.
They’ve just hired Flash Gordon scribes Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama to write the Clue script. The writers will draft a take that Verbinski and his fellow producers came up with that retains the murder mystery spirit of the board game, but broadens the setting to a global stage. Beyond scripting Flash Gordon for Sony Pictures, Sharpless and Sazama are redrafting Dracula Year Zero. That project’s still hanging on at Universal, after being halted just short of the start line because of a high budget, when Alex Proyas was directing and Sam Worthington was going to star. ICM reps the writers.
Is all this a clue that Universal no longer wants to roll the dice on board game movies? Insiders say no. Rather, they tell me that Universal and Hasbro gradually narrowed their focus to the four films that most made sense for the studio: Battleship, the Peter Berg-directed summer 2012 action movie that stars Taylor Kitsch and Liam Neeson, with Universal just releasing its first trailer (below); Stretch Armstrong, which has Rob Letterman directing and Twilight Saga’s Taylor Lautner attached to play the rubbery title character; Candy Land, which is being written by Kung Fu Panda 2 co-writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, who’ve described the film as Lord of the Rings, with edibles; and Ouija, which has McG attached to direct and Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form producing with Ian Bryce and Hasbro’s Goldner and Schneir. Read More »
Leonardo DiCaprio In Early Talks For Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’
EXCLUSIVE: Talks are about to get underway for Leonardo DiCaprio to play the role of villainous ranch owner Calvin Candie in Django Unchained, the Sergio Leone-style spaghetti Western that Quentin Tarantino wrote and will direct as his next film. DiCaprio … Read More »
Emanuel Nunez, Key Architect Of Reliance DreamWorks Deal, Has Left CAA
Emanuel Nunez has exited CAA. Nunez is the financing wiz who helped put bring offshore companies into Hollywood, particularly at a time in 2008 when those companies decided to bet on specific talent. He was a key point person on … Read More »
Foreign For Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ Goes To Will Smith’s Home Studio Sony (Though Universal Tried Hard)
EXCLUSIVE: Sources tell me that international on Quentin Tarantino’s new Spaghetti Western Django Unchained is going to Sony to co-finance production later this year and distribute sometime in 2012. This after the filmmakers met with every major studio except Warner Bros. Of … Read More »
Will Smith Joins Son Jaden On Sci-Fi Space Film With M. Night Shyamalan
EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Entertainment has signed Will Smith and son Jaden Smith to star in an untitled futuristic science fiction adventure film that will be directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Shymalan wrote the script with Gary Whitta, and Overbrook’s James … Read More »
‘Glee’s Ryan Murphy No Go For ‘Annie’
Glee’s Ryan Murphy, who was Sony Pictures and Will Smith’s choice to direct Willow Smith in the re-imagining of the Broadway musical Annie, has dropped out of contention. Talks broke off and he’s not doing the film, I’m told. The project was recently set at Sony Pictures … Read More »
Jada Pinkett Smith Says U.S. TV Shows Aren’t Given Chance To Succeed
Pinkett Smith, in London on Monday promoting the launch of Sony Entertainment Television, the studio’s first branded UK channel, says the economy has made the U.S. TV marketplace even more brutal. “Shows are not being given enough time to find their feet,” says the star and executive producer of TNT’s Sony TV-produced Hawthorne. “The economy has hit the TV industry very hard; lots of people have lost their jobs.”
Pinkett Smith admits she finds both starring in and producing Hawthorne a strain. But she wanted to earn her producer chops quickly, which is why she was attracted to doing a weekly TV show. On a big movie like Karate Kid — which she also produced — everything moves slowly by comparison. “I felt that I wasn’t acquiring the skills that I wanted to,” she says. “Moving to TV, my skills got tight very quickly. On a television show you’ve got seven days to make it happen. We’re making a movie every single week.” Read More »
‘Men In Black III’ Brings Back David Koepp
Sony Pictures has brought in David Koepp to do several weeks of work on the script of Men in Black III, the film that took a production hiatus and starts up again March 28. The picture still has to shoot … Read More »
Alice Eve Joins ‘Men In Black III’ As Young Emma Thompson
When Men in Black III re-starts production next month, Alice Eve will play the younger version of Men in Black Agency head Emma Thompson in the time travel storyline. The British actress plays Olivia, hired as secretary for the Agency … Read More »
‘Glee’s Ryan Murphy Courted To Direct ‘Annie’ With Willow Smith
EXCLUSIVE: Glee creator Ryan Murphy is Sony Pictures’ top choice to direct a re-imagining of the Broadway musical Annie, with Willow Smith playing the lovable orphan. The project was recently set at Sony Pictures by Overbrook Entertainment partners James … Read More »
Will Smith’s Overbrook, Jay-Z Form Film Deal, Look To Remake ‘Annie’
Los Angeles, Calif., January 26, 2011 – Overbrook Entertainment partners James Lassiter, Ken Stovitz, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith have formed a joint venture with Shawn “JAY-Z” Carter to develop and produce major motion pictures. One of the projects being discussed is the re-imagination of the classic Broadway
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