Shaka King on How the ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ Team Earned the Trust of the Black Panthers & Chairman Fred Hampton’s Family

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentWhile Netflix has been praised for being the first and only global streamer so far to have signed a windowing deal with French film orgs, a comeback at the Cannes Film Festival — in or out of competition — just isn’t in the cards for 2022.A Netflix rep confirmed to Variety that the streamer isn’t planning to world premiere its films at the festival’s 75th edition, meaning movies such as Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde,” a Marilyn Monroe biopic starring Ana de Armas, will likely be skipping the French Riviera.Dominik recently told journalists at the Berlinale that he hoped his film would play on the Croisette, but it appears that discussions with Netflix have stalled due to Cannes’ rule, which dictates that every competing movie must have a theatrical release in France. Netflix, meanwhile, has certainly been open to having select festival movies open in European theaters.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterReese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine has acquired lifestyle brand The Home Edit, the company announced on Wednesday.Founded by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin, The Home Edit offers “full service organizing” in Washington, D.C., Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, NYC, Nashville, Orange County, Salt Lake City and San Francisco, as well as “travel and DIY services” globally. Shearer and Teplin are the authors of New York Times bestseller “The Home Edit Life” and the creators of multiple product lines, including a recently announced exclusive Walmart collection.Shearer and Teplin are also the stars of Netflix’s Emmy-nominated “Get Organized with the Home Edit,” which is produced by Hello Sunshine and will debut its second season this year.

The sexy singletons are heading to Peacock.

Paramount Pictures acquires worldwide rights to 80 FOR BRADY from Endeavor Content, who will produce the film.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorPeople has a new top editor: Liz Vaccariello, formerly editor in chief of Real Simple magazine, is taking over the reins of the entertainment and human interest title.Vaccariello takes over for Dan Wakeford, who is leaving after three years as EIC.The change at the top of People’s masthead comes after Meredith’s magazine group was acquired by IAC’s Dotdash in a $2.7 billion deal. Earlier this month, the resulting Dotdash Meredith shuttered print editions of six magazines, including InStyle and EW, and laid off about 200 employees.Dotdash Meredith also announced the promotion of Zoë Ruderman to VP and GM of People’s digital operations.

Selome Hailu The U.S. version of hit reality dating competition “Love Island” has moved to Peacock after three seasons at CBS. Peacock has ordered two new seasons of the series, the first of which is set to shoot in California and premiere in summer 2022.In “Love Island,” group of singles search for love while living together in one villa.

Seven time Super Bowl Champion and recently retired football player Tom Brady is making the leap from the gridiron to the silver screen as Brady is set to act in and produce “80 For Brady,” a road trip comedy for Paramount and Endeavor Content, according to an individual with knowledge of the project.Paramount Pictures acquired the worldwide rights to “80 For Brady” from Endeavor Content, who will produce the film.The film also stars Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Sally Field.“80 For Brady” is co-written and directed by Kyle Marvin, who is also executive producing with partner Michael Covino under their Watch This Ready banner and Jeff Stott. Marvin and Covino wrote the latest script based off a draft by Emily Halpern & Sarah Haskins.“80 For Brady” is inspired by the true story of 4 best-friends and New England Patriots fans who take a lifechanging trip to the 2017 Super Bowl LI to see their hero Tom Brady play, and the chaos that ensues as they navigate the wilds of the biggest sporting event in the country.Brady will produce via his 199 Productions banner, alongside Donna Gigliotti and Endeavor Content.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Call Me Kat” actress Schuyler Helford’s teen-parenting comedy “Unplanned in Akron” has received a pilot order at CBS.Written by Helford with Emily Wilson (“The Conners”) supervising, the multi-cam project follows two teenagers navigating parenthood in the best way they know how. With a little help from their friends and parents, they’ll learn that mistakes in life don’t have to derail your life – that no matter what age you are, taking care of a child is no joke – but sometimes, you just gotta laugh (or cry) your way through it.Helford is co-executive producing the potential series.

Ellise Shafer SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not seen “Euphoria” Season 2, Episode 7, “The Theater and Its Double.” When Ryan Heffington set out to choreograph the dance number in the penultimate episode of “Euphoria” Season 2, he took a cue from the song it’s set to, Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero.”“I knew it was — and had to be — larger than life,” Heffington tells Variety of the dance, which takes place during Lexi’s (Maude Apatow) play and features over a dozen men in shiny gold football pants gyrating against work out equipment — and each other — in the locker room. Ethan (Austin Abrams) stars in the dance as a character mirroring Nate (Jacob Elordi), whose sexuality (and homophobia) has been bottling underneath the surface during the past two seasons.

Guy Lodge Film CriticThe hills are indeed alive with the sound of music in Swiss filmmaker Michael Koch’s intimate Alpine epic “A Piece of Sky,” but if you go in expecting twirling frolics, expect to be harshly disappointed. Acting as a kind of distinctly non-Greek chorus, a full Helvetian choir pops up between the acts of this small-scale domestic tragedy, their solemn folk songs lending a mournful running commentary to this story of a mountain family undone by medical misfortune and psychological upheaval.

CBS has given a pilot order to Unplanned in Akron, a multi-camera comedy from Schuyler Helford (Call Me Kat), Eric Feig’s Picturestart and CBS Studios.

“I don’t want to be that person who lives in a town and says, ‘I used to remember when that was a movie theater,’ ” Arianna Bocco tells Deadline as the IFC Films president and New Jersey native formally joins Bradley Lab — a subsidiary of theater developer/manager Cinema Lab.

EXCLUSIVE: Sci-fi and fantasy publisher Heavy Metal, global talent representation company Range Media Partners and Oscar-nominated/Emmy-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger have joined forces to create Classick Club, a forward-thinking blockchain, NFT and Web3 company focused on bringing the prestige and counterculture of classic rock’n’roll into the nascent metaverse.

We’ve been saying it wrong for all these years! Lindsay Lohan, 35, shocked fans when she introduced herself on TikTok earlier in February, and she said her name a little differently than many of us have been pronouncing it since she became a child star with 1998’s The Parent Trap. Her debut on the video app was extremely simple, but it raised tons of questions from fans who had no idea that Lohan was said differently.

EXCLUSIVE: Erin Moriarty (The Boys, Jessica Jones) and Jamie Campbell Bower (Stranger Things, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald) have signed on to star in Screen Gems’ film True Haunting, based on Edwin F. Becker’s book of the same name, which will be directed by Gary Fleder.

Odell Beckham Jr. is starting off 2022 strong by becoming not only a world champion, but a father!The Super Bowl LVI champion and his girlfriend, Lauren Wood, have welcomed their first child together. On Wednesday, February 23, he took to Instagram to announce that their bundle of joy arrived on February 17.In his lengthy caption, OBJ talked about the one-of-a-kind experience of seeing their baby welcomed into the world, thanked his other half for how strong she is, and revealed the little one’s name: Zydn.A post shared by Odell Beckham Jr (@obj)“2-17-22, 0605.

Elton John faced a terrifying situation when he was flying from the UK to New York, after his private jet suffered a hydraulic failure at 10,000 feet in the air. The iconic singer was traveling to New York City for a special performance of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour at Madison Square Garden, however just an hour into the flight something went wrong with the aircraft and the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing, quickly making a U-turn near the coast of southern Ireland.On top of the malfunction, the tripulation was facing winds reaching 8mph, making it harder for the pilot to land.

We are hours away from enjoying Premio Lo Nuestro, and the excitement surrounding the award is almost palpable. Each year since 1989, Univision honors the best of Latin music, and since 1990 presenting our Hispanic stars with the Lo Nuestro Excellence Award (Premio Lo Nuestro a la Excelencia).

Hilary Duff has a message to all the mom-shamers who criticized her parenting skills last month: Stay in your lane!During a chat with romper, the "Younger" actress addressed the controversy that enveloped her and husband Matthew Koma earlier this year after their 3-year-old daughter, Banks, was caught on video in the backseat of a moving car without a car seat."The other day—my publicist would absolutely kill me if I brought this up," Hilary told romper. "There was this huge story that came out because my friend Molly [Bernard] was in the backseat of our car with Banks without her car seat.

MARK Wright has infuriated ITV after quitting their brand new show The Games at the last minute – over text. Those working on the flagship new series said they were stunned that one day after filming the reality star turned fitness guru sent a message to ITV bosses saying he was “too busy” to take part.

A fraudster footballer took out an insurance policy minutes after crashing his BMW into three parked cars - then lied about when the accident happened.

KYM Marsh's former Coronation Street co-stars have reunited to celebrate her new theatre role. The actress, 45, quit Corrie three years ago and recently landed a part in the stage production of Fatal Attraction.

ALAN Carr has revealed he's a distant relative of ITV star Jonathan Ross. The comedian, 45, and broadcaster Jonathan, 61, both have links to Margate, Kent, and somewhere along the line share the same ancestors.

The Ministry of Justice has faced criticism after it emerged jailed Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi was able to lead a violent Islamist gang while behind bars at a high-security 'prison within a prison'.

EXCLUSIVE: Kacey Rohl is set as a lead in ABC drama pilot L.A. Law, a revival of the iconic Steven Bochco legal drama. She joins original cast members Blair Underwood and Corbin Bernsen, who are reprising their roles as Jonathan Rollins and Arnie Becker, respectively, as well as fellow new series regulars Hari Nef, Toks Olagundoye, Ian Duff, John Harlan Kim and Juliana Harkavey.

Hamilton stars Daveed Diggs, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. are set to reunite on stage later this month.The three actors will be performing as part of the opening number for the 28th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, taking place on February 27, reports Variety.Last year, Diggs earned a SAG nomination for his performance in the Disney+ recording of Hamilton, while Odom Jr.

(Spoiler alert: This article discusses the ending of “Judas and the Black Messiah”)Director Shaka King’s late-breaking awards hopeful “Judas and the Black Messiah” was filmed almost entirely in Cleveland with veteran cinematographer Sean Bobbitt (“12 Years a Slave”) operating the camera.

Filmmaker Shaka King realized early on that the only way to get a major Hollywood studio interested in the story of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton was to make a film that was part biopic and part genre. His theory proved correct.

Judas And The Black Messiah.Stanfield, who portrays FBI informant William O’Neal in the film, said he found playing the role of the bad guy so mentally and physically taxing that he ended up seeking help.The actor highlighted a cut scene where he has to poison Black Panther leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) as an example.

People are talking about H.E.R., who recently rocked Super Bowl LV with a soulful rendition of "America the Beautiful" (with a guitar solo that would have made Prince smile) and whose groovy throwback "Fight for You" can be heard in Warner Bros.' Judas and the Black Messiah, about the 1969 police assassination of Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton. The 23-year-old Grammy-nominated virtuoso with the acronym for a name — it's pronounced "her" and stands for Having Everything Revealed — spoke to THR from her Miami recording studio about her goals of achieving representation and revolution through music.

The Writers Guild of America has announced its nominees in the categories of original, adapted and documentary screenplay for the 2021 WGA Awards. The original screenplay nominees are Judas and the Black Messiah, Palm Springs, Promising Young Woman, Sound of Metal and The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Judas and the Black Messiah, which was released in theaters and on HBO Max this past Friday does that. “One of the things we wanted to kinda showcase with this film was that the Black Panthers were motivated by a love of their people and that there was a lot of love,” Director and co-writer Shaka King Tells ESSENCE.