The Marvel Cinematic Universe appears ready to return to Wakanda.
Marvel Studios has not officially confirmed that a third film in the Black Panther franchise is in the works, but actor Denzel Washington on Tuesday indicated that there is, and that he will have a role.
Speaking to the Today show on Australia’s Channel 9 as part of a Gladiator II press junket, Washington said that director Ryan Coogler is writing a part for him in the next Black Panther film.
When asked about his future plans, Washington said that “at this point in my career, I’m only interested in working with the best, I don’t know how many more films I will make, probably not that many. I want to do things that I haven’t done.”
“I played Othello at 22, I’m now going to play it at 70,” he continued. “After that, I’m playing Hannibal. After that, I’ve been talking with Steve McQueen about a film. After that, Ryan Coogler is writing a part for me in the next Black Panther.”
Black Panther has become one of the MCU’s signature franchises, with the 2018 film starring Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o and Michael B. Jordan garnering not only critical acclaim but a massive box office haul, earning more than $1.3 billion.
Boseman died at age 43 in 2020.
The 2022 sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, functioned as a tribute to the late actor, and a way to continue the story of Wakanda and its people. it also launched to success at the box office.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Lil Rel Howery (Get Out) is set to direct and star in comedy-horror Haunted Heist, alongside Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip).
The Coven, fresh off the theatrical success of Terrifier 3, has signed on to represent the feature from a script by Carl Reid, writer of Hulu horror Mr. Crocket. It will mark Howery’s directorial debut.
In Haunted Heist, “four estranged friends reunite at what appears to be a typical house. But one friend has ulterior motives; he plans to rob the place and needs their help to find an antique worth a fortune. But the house is straight up haunted, and the group must squash their differences to survive the night and an insane pack of ghosts”.
Filming is being lined up for January 2025 with The Coven launching world sales at the American Film Market this week in Las Vegas.
Howery will produce Haunted Heist with Death Ground’s Josh Feldman and Sean King O’Grady — the team behind Howery’s Hulu movie The Mill — alongside Robinwood7’s Feras Majid Shammami and Jesse Ford. Priscilla Ross Smith and Kendall Anlian are executive-producing. Feldman and O’Grady also recently produced Mr. Crocket for Hulu.
This will be The Coven’s sophomore debut as a producer after their 2023 Canadian production Shadow of God, starring Mark O’Brien (Ready or Not) and Jacqueline Byers (Prey for the Devil).
Howery is best known for his roles in Get Out, The Mill, Free Guy and Judas and the Black Messiah. He will next appear in Universal’s Dog Man and Sony’s One Of Them Days. Haddish is well known for Girls Trip, Like a Boss, The Card Counter, and Bad Boys: Ride or Die. She previously collaborated with Howery on The Carmichael Show, Uncle Drew, as well as their Best Friends Comedy Tour in 2023.
“I’m so excited to be working on this project in front and behind the camera” said Howery. “It’s going to be so much fun.”
“We are always looking for something fun and fresh. The best Saturday night movie that an audience could hope for,” said The Coven’s Priscilla Smith. “Haddish and Howery will knock this out of the park.”
Howery is repped by UTA, Fourth Wall Management and Cohen & Gardner. Haddish is repped by UTA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Cole.
Source: Deadline
Quincy Jones, the musical giant who did it all as a record producer, film composer, multi-genre artist, entertainment executive, and humanitarian, has died. He was 91.
Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, said that he died Sunday night at his Bel-Air home surrounded by his family.
“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” his family said in a statement. “And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him.”
Jones received the Motion Picture Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1995, the Grammy Legend Award in 1991, and 28 Grammys from an all-time best 80 nominations. He was to be presented with an honorary Oscar this month.
Survivors include one of his seven children, actress Rashida Jones.
In a phenomenal career that spanned more than 60 years, Jones produced Michael Jackson’s best-selling albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad; obtained the rights to the novel The Color Purple, cast a young Oprah Winfrey in the Steven Spielberg 1985 film adaptation and received three Oscar nominations for his work; helmed the historic recording sessions for the 1985 charity single “We Are the World,” the best-selling single of all time; and produced Lesley Gore’s 1963 chart-topping hit “It’s My Party.”
The first U.S. feature that Jones scored was Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker (1964), and he did the music for two landmark films released in 1967: the best picture Oscar winner In the Heat of the Night and Truman Copote’s In Cold Blood.
He described his first visit to Hollywood to THR‘s Seth Abramovitch in May 2021.
“I was dressed in my favorite suit, and the producer came out to meet me at Universal,” he said. “He stopped in his tracks — total shock — and he went back and told [music supervisor] Joe Gershenson, ‘You didn’t tell me Quincy Jones was a Negro.’ They didn’t use Black composers in films. They only used three-syllable Eastern European names, Bronislaw Kaper, Dimitri Tiomkin. It was very, very racist.”
For television, Jones composed the theme songs for such series as the 1969-71 Bill Cosby Show, Ironside and Sanford and Son and executive produced such series as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where he discovered Will Smith, and In the House, starring LL Cool J.
He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, and the next year he produced the documentary Keep on Keepin’ On, about jazz legend Clark Terry and his mentorship of a blind piano prodigy.
Jones survived two brain aneurysms in 1974. After the first, he wrote in his 2008 book, The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions: Photos, Letters, Memories & More From Q’s Personal Collection, “It didn’t look like I’d make it, so my friends planned a memorial … They had the concert anyway.”
With his neurologist at his side, he attended the service at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles as Richard Pryor, Marvin Gaye, Sarah Vaughan, and Sidney Poitier spoke of his greatness.
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born in Chicago on March 14, 1933, to parents Quincy Delight Jones Sr. and Sarah Frances Jones. His mother worked in a bank before being admitted to a mental institution for schizophrenia when Quincy was 7; his father was a carpenter who played semi-pro baseball. He was raised with his only full-blood brother, Lloyd.
Quincy Sr. divorced Sarah shortly after she was institutionalized and remarried a woman named Elvera, who had three children. They then had three more of their own for an eight-sibling family.
“We were in the heart of the largest Black ghetto in Chicago during the Depression,” Jones recalled in an interview for the Academy of Achievement, “and every block was the spawning ground for every gangster, Black and white, in America too. So, we were around all of that.”
His father in 1943 uprooted the family to Bremerton, Washington, where he accepted a new job. They later moved to Seattle, where Quincy Jr. attended Garfield High School and ignited his passion for the arts by studying music composition and learning to play the trumpet. That kept him out of trouble.
When just a teenager, Jones met a 16-year-old Ray Charles — a meeting captured in the 2004 Jamie Foxx film Ray — who became a huge inspiration, teacher, and friend, and they would work together on several musical projects.
Jones attended Seattle University, studied music, and played in the college band — Clint Eastwood also was a student at the time — but completed just one semester before transferring to Berklee College of Music in Boston on a scholarship. He left college to tour with Lionel Hampton as a trumpeter and arranger for some of the era’s leading talents, including Charles, Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington and Gene Krupa. His first Grammy win was for the song arrangement on Count Basie’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”
Jones signed as an artist with ABC Paramount Records in 1956 and moved a year later to Paris, where he studied with music theorist Nadia Boulanger and became the musical director for the Les Disques Barclay label. He toured throughout Europe, working as musical director on composer Harold Arlen’s Free and Easy tour, and he formed a band called The Jones Boys that was comprised of jazz artists from that show. They got great reviews, but money was scarce.
“We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving,” he told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered that there was music and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.”
Jones began working with Frank Sinatra in 1958 when they collaborated on a benefit show for which Jones did the arrangements. Sinatra hired him to arrange his 1964 album It Might as Well Be Swing with the Count Basie Orchestra, and Jones worked on the 1966 live set Sinatra at the Sands, which contained his famous arrangement of “Fly Me to the Moon” (that was the first recording played by astronaut Buzz Aldrin when he landed on the lunar surface in 1969).
He collaborated with Sinatra through various TV shows and other recordings during the years, and that led to arranging gigs for other artists like Billy Eckstine and Peggy Lee.
“There was no gray to the man. It was either Black or white,” Jones said of Sinatra in 2001’s Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. “If he loved you, there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t do for you. If he didn’t like you, shame on your ass. I know he loved me too. In all the years working together, we never once had a contract — just a handshake.”
Jones’ solo albums gained him acclaim, including Walking in Space, Gula Matari, Smackwater Jack, You’ve Got It Bad, Girl, Body Heat, Mellow Madness and I Heard That!
“Soul Bossa Nova,” a 1962 song he wrote and produced, was used for the 1998 World Cup in France and was featured in Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run (1969) and in the Austin Powers movies.
Irving Green, president and founder of Mercury Records, helped Jones secure a music director position at the label. He advanced to vice president in 1961, becoming the first African-American to achieve that high a post at a major label.
During his time as an executive, he moonlighted as a film composer, scoring the critically acclaimed Pawnbroker for Lumet, which led to his exit from Mercury for Los Angeles and even more work in this area.
In 1965, he composed the score for Sydney Pollack’s first film, The Slender Thread, starring Poitier. Jones would work on other movies including Walk, Don’t Run (1966), Carl Reiner’s Enter Laughing (1967), Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), The Italian Job (1969), Cactus Flower (1969), They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) and The Getaway (1972).
In 1968, Jones became the first African-American to receive two Oscar noms in the same year. He and songwriting partner Bob Russell (they were the first African-Americans to be nominated for best original song) were honored for “The Eyes of Love” from the Robert Wagner romantic drama Banning, and his original score for In Cold Blood was nominated as well. (For the latter film, Jones listened to the interrogation tapes of the punks who committed the murders for inspiration.)
In 1971, Jones became the first African-American to be named as the musical director and conductor of the Oscars, and he served as executive producer for the Academy Awards in 1996. His Hersholt award marked another first for an African-American.
With seven Oscar noms, he is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the African-American with the most.
In 1975, Jones founded Qwest Productions, for which he arranged and produced certified albums by Sinatra and other major pop stars. He produced the soundtrack for The Wiz (1978), starring Jackson and Diana Ross.
Jones’ 1981 album, The Dude, yielded multiple hit singles, including “Ai No Corrida” (a remake of a song by Chaz Jankel), “Just Once” and “One Hundred Ways,” the latter two featuring James Ingram on lead vocals and marking Ingram’s first hits.
He formed the label Qwest Records in 1980 as a joint venture with Warner Music Group, building a roster that included an eclectic group of musicians, among them British post-punk band New Order, Joy Division, Ingram, Sinatra, Tevin Campbell, Andre Crouch, Patti Austin, Siedah Garrett, Gregory Jefferson and Justin Warfield.
For The Color Purple, Jones was nominated for best picture, original score and original song — three of the drama’s 11 Academy Award noms — but he and the film went home empty-handed on Oscar night. (He also was a producer on the 2023 remake.)
Jones’ social activism was an important part of his life. He supported Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s and later Jesse Jackson’s P.U.S.H. movement and worked alongside Bono on a number of humanitarian projects, one in particular to eliminate Third World debt. He founded an organization called The Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, which builds homes in Africa and connects youth with learning music and culture.
He famously used his influences to attract the musical superstars of the day into the A&M Studios in L.A. in 1985, leading the session for “We Are the World” by demanding the participating artists “check your ego at the door.” The song raised more than $63 million for Ethiopian famine relief.
He formed Quincy Jones Entertainment in 1990 in a co-venture with Time Warner. QJE produced the NBC sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which put Smith on the map as an actor and artist, as well as UPN’s In the House and Fox’s Mad TV, among others.
In 1993, he co-founded QDE, Quincy Jones/David Salzman Entertainment, producing films, TV shows and educational entertainment and publishing two magazines, VIBE and Spin.
Jones, who said he spoke 26 languages and could write in seven, was married to high-school sweetheart Jeri Caldwell from 1957-66, to actress Ulla Andersson from 1967-74, and to actress Peggy Lipton of TV’s The Mod Squad (Rashida’s mom) from 1974-90. His seven children included one with dancer Carol Reynolds and another with actress Nastassja Kinski.
“When life begins to seem like too much, we should take a moment to let the soul catch up with the body,” he wrote in The Complete Quincy Jones. “Go out and find a song you love, a poem that touches your heart, and take the time to let the whisper of heaven’s voice come into your mind. Every day that you wake up and are still above the ground — that should be the only reason you need to be happy.”
Source: The Holywood Reporter
Chris Rock is set to direct and star in “Misty Green,” described as a contemporary tale of Hollywood excess and inequity.
Based on an original script by Rock, “Misty Green” follows Misty, an undeniably talented actress whose vices have derailed every attempt to revitalize her career. Her best opportunity in ages arrives in the form of Jordan (Rock), a film director with the perfect role for her — were it not for their contentious past. Additional casting is underway.
Rock and seasoned exec and former Fox head Peter Rice (“Saturday Night,” “28 Years Later”) will produce alongside James Lopez for MACRO Film Studios and Tommy Oliver for Confluential Films. Executive producers are Charles D. King for MACRO Film Studios and Codie Elaine Oliver for Confluential Films. Neon International will represent the foreign rights and introduce it at AFM next week while CAA Media Finance will represent the domestic rights.
Rock was last seen on the big screen in last year’s “Rustin” while his previous turn as director was 2014’s critically acclaimed comedy ensemble “Top Five,” in which he also starred. He was recently tapped to helm the U.S. remake of Oscar-winning Danish drama “Another Round” for Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way. Rock also serves as executive producer and narrator of “Everybody Still Hates Chris,” a reimagined animated version of his beloved autobiographical family comedy “Everybody Hates Chris.”
Rock is represented by CAA, Untitled Entertainment and Yorn, Levine, Barnes, Krintzman, Rubenstein, Kohner, Endlich, Goodell & Gellman.
The Neon International slate currently includes Michael Covino’s “Splitsville” starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona; Osgood Perkins’ “Keeper”; Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence”, which made its world premiere in Sundance; Jason Buxton’s “Sharp Corner” starring Ben Foster and Cobie Smulders; and “They Follow,” the long-awaited sequel to the modern horror classic “It Follows” from David Robert Mitchell and starring Maika Monroe.
Source: Variety
Bill Condon is set to direct Eddie Murphy in Amazon MGM Studios’ untitled George Clinton biopic. Murphy, who teamed with Condon and was Oscar-nominated for his role in Dreamgirls, will star as Parliament-Funkadelic leader George Clinton.
Script is being written by Virgil Williams, from an original draft by Max Werner. The project was initiated by Catherine Davis, a lifelong George Clinton fan, who brought the idea to Murphy.
The film will be produced by Murphy through his Eddie Murphy Productions, John Davis through Davis Entertainment, Catherine Davis, and Greg Yolen. Eddie Murphy Productions’ Charisse Hewitt-Webster, as well as George Clinton, Archie Ivy, and Jeff Jampol, are executive producing.
The film is based on George Clinton’s memoir, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You? The film is the untold story of the influential pioneer of funk and his tumultuous journey to founding musical collective Parliament-Funkadelic. Known for their outlandish sci-fi themes, surreal sounds, and psychedelic shows, Clinton and his band’s wild road redefined music and culture.
The film reunites Murphy and Condon, who most recently worked together on Dreamgirls, in which Murphy starred alongside Jamie Foxx, Beyonce Knowles, and Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson. Condon is in post-production on Kiss of the Spider Woman, a feature adaptation of the Tony-winning Broadway musical, starring Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna. He’s repped by WME, Anonymous Content and attorney Wayne Alexander.
Murphy next stars for Amazon MGM in The Pickup, opposite Keke Palmer and Pete Davidson. He’s repped by WME and ML Management.
Williams, who was Oscar-nominated for Mudbound, co-wrote The Piano Lesson script with director Malcolm Washington, based on the August Wilson play. The film, which is in the Oscar hunt, stars Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Danielle Deadwyler, Corey Hawkins, Michael Potts, and Ray Fisher and is produced by Denzel Washington and Todd Black. The film will be platformed on November 8 before being released by Netflix on November 22nd. Williams is repped by CAA, manager Craig Brody from Map Point, and attorneys John Meigs and Mahdi Salehi of Hansen, Jacobson.
Source: Deadline
Jamie Foxx‘s upcoming stand-up special “What Had Happened Was…” will premiere on Netflix on Dec. 10.
In the new comedy hour, the actor will discuss the medical emergency that left him hospitalized and fighting for his life last year.
In April 2023, the Oscar and Grammy winner was sidelined by a sudden, serious medical complication and hospitalized in Atlanta. An official cause for the emergency has yet to be disclosed, though Foxx has alluded to the severity of his condition in the months since. Most recently, he revealed (via Art of Dialogue) that it started with a “bad headache,” but then he was “gone for 20 days” and woke up with no memory of what happened.
Earlier this year, while being honored by the African American Film Critics Association, Foxx revealed that he would finally tell the world what happened to him, but he planned to “do it in a funny way.”
“We’re gonna get back to the stand-up sort of roots,” said Foxx, whose last comedy special was in 2003. Over three nights in October, Foxx performed the show in Atlanta, where he reportedly discussed the outpouring of well-wishes (and online rumors) surrounding his hospitalization. Bloomberg reported that Netflix won the rights to the special in a competitive situation.
“I said, ‘If I can stay funny, I could stay alive’ … I’m back,” Foxx says in a short teaser for “What Had Happened Was…” released by Netflix.
The special is directed by Hamish Hamilton and executive produced by Foxx, Datari Turner, Marcus King, James Longman, Raj Kapoor, Hamilton and Katy Mullan. “What Had Happened Was…” is produced by Foxxhole Productions and Done + Dusted.
Foxx is also back on Netflix on Jan. 17 with “Back in Action,” an action comedy with Cameron Diaz that he was filming at the time of his medical emergency. Production on the movie was halted and then resumed in January 2024. Foxx was also temporarily replaced as the host of the Fox game show “Beat Shazam” during his recovery.
Watch the teaser clip below.
No matter how hard you try, you can’t break up with your past. This Valentine’s Day, Oscar® winner Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Loki) rockets into his first major leading man role as an unlikely hero, a seemingly mild-mannered realtor with a dark secret that he is desperate to leave behind. Spoiler alert: He won’t.
From 87North—producers of the groundbreaking action films Nobody, Violent Night, Bullet Train, Atomic Blonde, and The Fall Guy—comes a visceral, high-octane story of wrath and revenge.
Quan stars as Marvin Gable, a realtor working the Milwaukee suburbs, where ‘For Sale’ signs bloom. Gable receives a crimson envelope from Rose (Oscar® winner Ariana DeBose; West Side Story, Argylle), a former partner-in-crime that he had left for dead. She’s not happy. Now, Marvin is thrust back into a world of ruthless hitmen, filled with double-crosses and open houses turned into deadly warzones. With his brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu; Tomb Raider, Warcraft), a volatile crime lord, hunting him, Marvin must confront the choices that haunt him and the history he never truly buried.
The film features a killer soundtrack and impressive and diverse cast that includes former NFL running back and Super Bowl champion Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch (Bottoms, 80 for Brady), Mustafa Shakir (Emancipation, Luke Cage), Lio Tipton (Crazy, Stupid, Love., Lucy), Rhys Darby (Jumanji: The Next Level, Yes Man), André Eriksen (Violent Night, The Trip) and Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Perry Mason).
Produced by 87North’s Kelly McCormick and David Leitch, Love Hurts is written by Matthew Murray (Sheltered, CloudStreet: Soaring the American West) & Josh Stoddard (Warrior, Kaleidoscope) and Luke Passmore (Archenemy, Slaughterhouse Rulez). Guy Danella (Violent Night) is also producing. The executive producer is Ben Ormand. Making his feature film directing debut on Love Hurts is acclaimed veteran stunt coordinator and fight coordinator JoJo Eusebio, whose credits include some of the greatest action films of the past decade including Black Panther, The Avengers, the John Wick films, The Matrix Resurrections, Violent Night, The Fall Guy and Deadpool 2. Eusebio also served as the second-unit director on Deadpool 2, Violent Night, and Birds of Prey.
Follow Love Hurts on socials! / lovehurtsmovie / lovehurtsmovie / lovehurtsmovie www.lovehurtsmovie.com #LoveHurtsMovie
Genre: Action Cast: Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Daniel Wu, Sean Astin, Mustafa Shakir, Lio Tipton, Rhys Darby, Marshawn Lynch, André Eriksen Screenplay: Matthew Murray & Josh Stoddard and Luke Passmore
Director: JoJo Eusebio
Producers: Kelly McCormick, David Leitch, Guy Danella
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Follow us on Twitter at / universalpictures www.universalpictures.com
Regina Hall is getting into the unscripted TV business.
The Best Man: Final Chapters and Girls Trip star, via her Rh Negative production company, has signed a first-look deal with MGM Alternative, the unscripted division of Amazon MGM Studios, to develop and produce shows across a range of unscripted genres, including game shows, true crime and docuseries. The first project under the deal is called Squad Games, a competition loosely inspired by Girls Trip that will feature “celebrities and their real-life BFFs on an exotic getaway where they compete in wild challenges.”
“I’m so excited for this new partnership with MGM,” Hall said in a statement. “I’m positive that the relationship between Rh Negative and their team will be an incredibly supportive and productive one and I’m thrilled about what we have in the works.”
Said Barry Poznick, general manager of MGM Alternative, “Ever since we saw Regina Hall co-hosting the Academy Awards two years ago, we knew she had something special that would resonate with reality fans. Her humor, honesty, creativity and style of storytelling make her a perfect partner as we continue to expand MGM Alternative’s slate of premium unscripted programming.”
The deal with MGM Alternative represents Rh Negative’s first foray into unscripted programming. Hall was a producer of her feature film Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul and an executive producer of the psychological thriller Master, which streamed on Amazon’s Prime Video. She was also a producer on Showtime’s Black Monday, where she starred opposite Don Cheadle and Andrew Rannells.
Hall is repped by Independent Artist Group.
EBONY getting ready to for its 2024 Power 100 Gala and has announced the performers and hosts.
Grammy Award-winner and actress Coco Jones and singer-songwriter Durand Bernarr will be hitting the stage to perform, while Michelle Buteau and Tone Bell — stars of Netflix’s Survival of the Thickest — will serve as the gala’s hosts.
“EBONY Power 100 is a dazzling celebration of Black excellence at its absolute peak!” EBONY CEO Eden Bridgeman said in a press release. “With the reveal of our dynamic hosts and electrifying performers, this year’s event promises to be the most unforgettable yet! EBONY Power 100 is a transformative force, shining a spotlight on Black achievement across every sector.”
Adding, “We are thrilled to offer a platform that not only honors today’s trailblazers but also ignites the aspirations of the next generation of Black leaders and innovators. Get ready for an extraordinary night that will inspire and uplift!”
The influential media outlet recently dropped the list of honorees for its prestigious 2024 EBONY Power 100 list, and they include:
Artists In Residence: Aja Monet, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Chloe Arnold, Gabriel Moses, Jeremy Pope, Kennedy Ryan, Kenny Leon, Maleah Joi Moon, Paul Tazewell and Trinity Joy
Business Disruptors: Andrea Nelson Meigs, Ayo Davis, D.J. Vaughn, Dionne Harmon, Eric Austin, Ingrid Best, Kevin Hart, Melissa Butler, Pat McGrath and Tracee Ellis Ross
Community Crusaders presented by Nationwide: Arian Simone, Aulston Taylor, Damon Hewitt, Gina Duncan, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, Kelley Robinson, Stefanie Brown James, Wawa Gatheru and Maryland Governor Wes Moore
Entertainment Powerhouses: Cord Jefferson, Gayle King, Kenan Thompson, Kerry Washington, Maya Rudolph, Ryan Coogler, Snoop Dogg, Taraji P. Henson, Tasha Smith and Vince Staples
Generation Next presented by United Airlines: Angel Reese, Ayra Starr, Doechii, Gabby Shepard, Genesis Butler, Kai Cenat, Latto, Monet McMichael, Quincy Wilson, and Uncle Waffles
Influential Creators: Aurora James, Aaliyah Jay, Funny Marco, Jerald “Coop” Cooper, Kahlana Barfield Brown, Kamie Crawford, Keith Lee, Kwame Onwuachi, Micah McDonald, Sean Bankhead and Wayman Bannerman
Leaders In Sports: A’ja Wilson, Dawn Staley, Jalen Hurts, Jaylen Brown, Jordan Chiles, Kimberly Browne Davis, Noah Lyles, Sha’Carri Richardson, Stephen Curry and Tony Clark
Media Mavens: April Ryan, Jennifer Hudson, Joe Budden, Keke Palmer, Lindsay Peoples, Nina Parker, Shannon Sharpe, Sidney Madden, Tank and J. Valentine, and Tasha McCaskiel
Music Innovators: Charlie Wilson, Coco Jones, Connie Orlando, Jason “J” Carter, Maurice “Moetown” Lee, Steve Canal and Troy Brown, Jon Batiste, Metro Boomin, Rob Gibbs, Samara Joy, SZA and Tyler, the Creator
STEM Trailblazers: Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, Ciara Imani May, Dr. Ebony Brown, Heman Bekele, Jasmine Lawrence Campbell, Dr. Khalia Braswell, Professor Lesley Lokko, Dr. Melissa B. Davis and Dr. Tiara Moore
The 2024 EBONY Power 100 Gala will be held at Nya Studios West in Los Angeles on Sunday, Nov. 17, and is supported in sponsorship by, Nationwide, Prime’s New Original Series: Cross, United Airlines, and Baccarat.
Comedy Dynamics has unveiled the trailer for Tony Rock: Rock the World, the debut special from comedian Tony Rock, announcing that it will be released across platforms on November 5, debuting in album form on November 8th.
Taped at The Long Beach Laugh Factory, the special sees Rock offer a fresh take on post-pandemic life, covering Black culture, gender, and relationships. Jay Chapman directed, with Charleston Rock, Jaden Parrish, and Dana Marshall producing. (Check out the special trailer below.)
In a statement, Rock said, “This project has been a monumental endeavor, crafted during countless nights of brainstorming, rewriting, and perfecting every single bit. As we approach the release date, I feel an immense sense of pride and accomplishment. This isn’t just a show; it’s a milestone in my career, and I believe it’s some of my best work yet.”
Added Comedy Dynamics CEO, Brian Volk-Weiss, “Tony’s new special is absolutely hilarious from start to finish. It’s one of those memorable specials you’ll have stuck in your head for years to come.”
A comedian, actor, and producer known to some as the younger brother of comic Chris Rock, Tony has been performing stand-up since the late ’90s. Recently starring in CBS’s sitcom Living Biblically, he’s also appeared in series like Everybody Hates Chris, along with Killing Hasselhoff, Think Like a Man, and other films.
The host of podcast Live from the Green Room, Rock has also been seen hosting for programs like HBO’s All Def Comedy and NBA TV’s The Warm Up, along with BET’s Black Card Revoked and Apollo Live. He is represented by IAG and Authentic.
Source: Deadline