Hollywood Playbook: Tuesday's Top 5 News Items

Hollywood Playbook: Tuesday's Top 5 News Items

Support Independent Film about Abortion Doctor and Serial Killer Kermit Gosnell

Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer are best known for their well-received, fact-based documentaries that bust left-wing narratives wide open. Their most recent film, “FrackNation,” thoroughly debunked the dishonest, anti-fracking documentary “Gasland” and earned a serious distribution deal through Mark Cuban’s AXS-TV. Now the married filmmakers are turning their attention to America’s most successful serial killer, abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell.

Gosnell’s three decade murder-spree resulted in thousands of innocent babies being unceremoniously butchered and disposed of like trash. His “success” is unprecedented. But because Gosnell is part of the protected class of the abortion industry, the news media only covered the story reluctantly and Hollywood isn’t going to touch it.

McElhinney and McAleer intend to make a feature film about Gosnell, but need to go around Hollywood’s gatekeepers with crowd-funding. They have budgeted the feature at $2.1 million, have already raised $193,685, and have 42 days to raise the rest.

I just donated $100 safe in the knowledge that if they hit their goal, a well-made, compelling and important film produced by two skilled filmmakers with a notable track record will come out of it.

Also, if the $2.1 million goal is not reached, everyone who contributes gets their money back.

Every dollar counts. Please give what you can here.

 

Amazon Lands Streaming Rights to ’24: Live Another Day’

Just as the streaming service did with what was originally intended as a 13-episode event series “Under the Dome,” Amazon Prime has picked up the streaming rights to the upcoming 13-episode event series “24: Live Another Day.”

Episodes of “Under the Dome” were made available at Amazon just four days after broadcast. After the series (which ended up being a season when the network  unexpectedly renewed it) was over, you could stream the entire season — which is how I watched it … and was unimpressed.

This is a very smart move for Amazon, and a perfect product. “24” was one of the first series to encourage binge-watching.

Amazon struck a similar deal with CBS for the new Halle Berry series “Extant,” a limited summer series produced by Steven Spielberg’s company.

The fact that two broadcast networks are willing to do business with a streaming service tells you how much money must be in it. Also, the streaming deal did not seem to hurt the broadcast ratings for “Under the Dome.” It had the highest ratings of any scripted summer series in years.

 

Netflix Will Finally Bring Pablo Escobar Story to Life

The true-life story of Medellin Cartel leader Pablo Escobar is one of those projects kicking around Hollywood forever that no one seemed able to crack, or at least get greenlit. Scheduled to debut sometime on Netflix this year is the first 13 episode season of “Narco:”

The series will chronicle the life and death of Escobar, the ruthless cartel boss and known terrorist who also was a congressman, a family man and revered by the poor as a new Robin Hood. …

It was originally envisioned as a feature, but [the producers and director] decided that a series was a better way to tell a sprawling story, with a big part of the allure was making a series that would reach the expanding Latin American TV market, and the show will be bilingual and will shoot in Colombia, often in the real locations during the hunt for Escobar and all the mayhem he created.

The 8 to 13 episode season seems to be the magic number for cracking the art-form of television. The normal 22-24 episode season is just too long. But with 13-episodes, you can get something very, very special.

I think it was HBO’s “The Sopranos” was the first to crack that code.

Other than “The Sopranos,” “Seinfeld,” and “Married with Children,” I went nearly 15 years without watching any kind of television. Now my DVR is bursting at the seams with around a dozen different 13-epside season shows and I have zero interest in anything Redbox has to offer. I also turn down more free screeners of current movies than I accept.

 

Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel Get Busy in First ‘Sex Tape’ Red-Band Trailer

I’ve pretty much given up on the genre of the Hollywood comedy, and nothing in this trailer leads me to believe I’ve made a mistake. All the forced lewdness aside, doesn’t this pretty much look like a comedy premised on a sex tape but “about” a couple of people who spend a hundred minutes trying to frantically retrieve iPads?

 

DGA Names Assistant Executive Director of Diversity

Hey, maybe someone could start this by getting this beautiful and talented Oscar-winner out of racist Hollywood’s “dark-skinned” purgatory.  

Just a thought.

 

Quick Hits

Stephen Colbert Devotes ‘Colbert Report’ To Rebuttal Racism Charges

‘Days Of Our Lives’ Lesbian Wedding Makes Daytime TV History

20 most frustrating TV finales ever

Brittany Murphy Is a Murder Suspect in Trailer for Final Film ‘Something Wicked’

Five Remakes that Suck and Don’t Suck

 

 

Send tips, requests to jnolte@breitbart.com

Follow  John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC              

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