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Ava DuVernay’s Barbie Doll Sells Out Minutes After Hitting the Market

By goodblacknews on December 8, 2015
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Ava DuVernay Barbie (MATTEL)
Many people were eagerly anticipating the arrival of the Ava DuVernay doll Monday. From refreshing constantly on the Barbie Collection website to waiting for Mattel to release the link on Twitter, some were left disappointed when it came to actually being able to buy the doll. But there were others who were lucky as well as fast enough to purchase the doll.
Twenty minutes after Mattel tweeted the link to its Barbie site, DuVernay’s doll was sold out. Potential customers tweeted their anguish and dismay after not being able to make their purchase. Then Mattel informed everyone that the doll would be available shortly at Amazon.com.
https://twitter.com/AVAETC/status/674018558506958848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Some people waited for Mattel to release the Amazon link, while others searched on Amazon for the doll. And there it was, available for preorder. Once word got around on social media that the doll was already on Amazon, it was every eager consumer for him or herself. Around 1:30 p.m. EST, Mattel finally tweeted the link to the Amazon.com site. But it was too late; the doll was already sold out.
More tears. More disappointment for those eagerly waiting to get their hands on the doll.
https://twitter.com/direct7000/status/673989886748131329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I’m pretty sure Mattel didn’t expect the doll to sell out, especially since the company hadn’t planned to mass-produce the doll. But how often is a doll made in the likeness of a great black filmmaker on the market? How about never.
The fact that DuVernay’s doll sold out within minutes of its release is a testament to the fact that representation matters. People want to see dolls in their image and in the image of those people they admire. If Mattel wants to continue to make an impact, someone in its R&D department better start doling out ideas about how to jump on this.
A DuVernay doll is just the beginning.
How about a Viola Davis doll? A Kerry Washington doll? A Denzel Washington doll? A Neil deGrasse Tyson? Idris Elba, anyone?
Remember back in the day when Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were all the rage? On Monday, DuVernay’s doll and the anticipation were the equivalent. Instead of fighting in stores, people were fighting against the clock and how fast they could refresh their browsers.
This tweet perfectly summed up the day:
https://twitter.com/upperechelonwnd/status/673969253620432900?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
article by Yesha Callahan via theroot.com

Queen Latifah Lands Lead Role in Lee Daniels’ Fox Music Pilot

By goodblacknews on December 8, 2015
Queen Latifah Lee Daniels
Queen Latifah (ROBERT MAXWELL FOR VARIETY)

Queen Latifah has landed a lead role in Lee Daniels’ untitled music project at Fox, which was formerly titled “Star,” Variety has learned. Three more regulars — all relative newcomers — have also been cast.
The Untitled Lee Daniels Music Pilot goes into production this month in Atlanta, and while the potential series has only been ordered to pilot at this point, Queen Latifah’s star power, combined with Daniels’ “Empire” track record at Fox, makes the project a strong contender for the 2016-17 television season.
The pilot revolves around three young women, who form a girl group with hopes of making it big in the music industry. The project has been described in the vein of “Dreamgirls,” while incorporating the manufacturing of modern-day girl groups, showcasing the allure and heartache of the cut-throat music scene, and exploring cultural themes from a new perspective.
Queen Latifah will anchor the young cast, playing Carlotta, the owner of an Atlanta beauty salon who has an amazing voice and becomes a surrogate mother to the three girls in the group, even though she doesn’t approve of their musical dreams.
Following a nationwide casting call, actress and singers Jude Demorest, Ryan Destiny and Brittany O’Grady have been cast as the leading girl group members.
Demorest (“Dallas,” “The Middle”), from Detroit, has landed the role of Star, the tough 18-year-old who spent her childhood in and out of foster homes after the death of her mother, and who will do anything to become the star she was named to be; Destiny (“Low Winter Sun”), also from Detroit, has been cast as Alexandra, the wealthy 20-year-old who grew up on New York’s Upper East Side, but who, for years, has tried to put her privileged world behind her, so she can make real, authentic music; and O’Grady (“The Messengers”), from Washington, DC, will play Simone, Star’s younger sister who dreams of the day Star will return to rescue her from the abusive foster home in which she was placed five years before.

Kendrick Lamar Leads Grammy Nominations With 11

By goodblacknews on December 7, 2015

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The Recording Academy announced the Grammy Award nominations this morning. Kendrick Lamar leads the field with 11 nods. The Weeknd and Taylor Swift both received seven Grammy nominations. Other top nominees include Drake, John Legend, and Kanye West.
The Academy is committed to celebrating a diverse blend of talented entertainers, musicians, and producers, and this commitment is evident in the nominees for the Album of the Year category.  According to Grammy.com. Lamar has been nominated for his “jazz-infused rap,” Alabama Shakes for their “alternative and soulful rock,” Swift for her pop, Chris Stapleton for his “classic country sounds,” and The Weeknd for his “genre-bending R&B style.”
D’Angelo and The Vanguard are nominated for Record of the Year, along with Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, and Swift.
The Grammy ceremony will be held Feburary 15, 2016 in Los Angeles. A list of nominees follows below:

Viola Davis Covers InStyle Magazine for January; Here are 5 New Reasons To Love Her

By goodblacknews on December 5, 2015

Viola Davis on InStyle
Viola Davis is having the best year ever. The Emmy Award-winning actress will bring in the New Year as the cover model for the January 2016 issue of InStyle Magazine.
We love Viola’s transparency during her interview. She says that she’s nothing like her cutthroat character Annalise Keating on How To Get Away With Murder. Instead she enjoys going to Target, wearing her natural hair and “going to space” with her gorgeous 5 year old daughter Genesis.
Here are five new things we didn’t know about Viola:
1. Off screen her wardrobe isn’t glamorous:  “If I were to compare my style to Annalise Keating, I would say that I have absolutely no style,” she says with a laugh “Annalise Keating is an Alexander McQueen kinda Max Mara girl. That’s not me. I have a five year old!”
2. She’s about to get married for the third time! When she first wed fellow and actor-producer Julius Tennon 13 years ago, Viola wore a simple skirt from Express. A few years later they exchanged vows again, and she wore a more traditional dress. For their latest upcoming vow renewal, Davis is wearing a custom dress by Carmen Marc Valvo. 

3. She and her daughter are actually astronauts:  “We go into space. We explore different planets,” Davis says of the game Genesis is most currently fond of. “This ship is in danger. We almost died at one point. We lost oxygen.”
4. She knows how to turn down and relax:  “I am addicted to spas,” she says. “If we go to a hotel, we’ll be the only people in that spa for hours. We’ll start at 5 in the morning sometimes.”
5. She’s empowered by her natural beauty: “What’s released me most from the fear of aging is self-awareness,” she says. “I’ve never determined my value based on my looks or anything physical. I’ve been through a lot in life, and what has gotten me through is strength of character and faith.”
article by Zon D’Amour via hellobeautiful.com

"The Wiz Live" Ratings Strong: NBC Musical Draws 11.5 Million Viewers

By goodblacknews on December 4, 2015
The Wiz Live! NBC
COURTESY OF NBC

It’s Also the Most-Tweeted Live Special Program on Record

Two years after NBC stunned the industry with huge ratings for its live presentation of “The Sound of Music,” the network was back at it Thursday night with “The Wiz Live,” which drew impressive numbers of its own. The event also set a Nielsen Twitter record as most social live special program in the more than four years of tracking such numbers.
Despite facing a highly-rated NFL game on CBS, last night’s live musical, whose all-star cast included Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Ne-Yo, Amber Riley, Uzo Aduba, Stephanie Mills and David Alan Grier, averaged a 3.4 rating/11 share in adults 18-49 and about 11.5 million viewers overall from 8 to 10:45 p.m.,  according to preliminary Nielsen estimates. The only NBC entertainment series to fare better this fall is “The Voice,” whose season premiere averaged a 3.5/11 in 18-49 and 12.37 million.
According to Nielsen, roughly 269,400 people send 1.6 million tweets about “The Wiz Live!” on Thursday night and 6.4 million people saw those tweets a total of 128.9 million times. Last night’s production more than tripled the number of tweets for either “Sound of Music” (449,536) or “Peter Pan” (474,735).
Last night during the 8-11 p.m. EST window, global digital marketing technology company Amobee Brand Intelligence said “The Wiz Live!” attracted 1.374 million tweets during its three-hour telecast window — more than four times the number generated last year during the live telecast of “Peter Pan Live” (360,000). Roughly 30% of the sentiment was positive, 58% neutral and 13% negative — meaning the Twitter sentiment was 133% more positive than negative around the broadcast. Shanice Williams, the 19-year-old actress playing Dorothy, scored especially well, with only 2% of the sentiment surrounding her performance considered negative.
As expected, “The Wiz Live!” fared especially well in markets with large African-American populations. While the overall household average in Nielsen’s 56 metered markets was 7.9, the top scores came in Richmond (16.1), Norfolk (15.0), Baltimore (14.8), Washington, D.C. (13.2) and Atlanta (13.2). Joining D.C. and Atlanta as top-10 markets soaring above the national average were Philadelphia (10.3), New York (10.2) and Chicago (10.0).
article by Rick Kissell via Variety.com

"The Wiz Live!" Airs Tonight on NBC, to be 1st Live TV Program to Provide Vocal Description for Sight-Impaired

By goodblacknews on December 3, 2015

"The Wiz Live" on NBC, December 3 at 8pm EST/PST
“The Wiz Live!” on NBC, December 3 at 8pm EST/PST (photo courtesy NBC)

NEW YORK — When “The Wiz Live!” airs on NBC this Thursday, it will come alive for the blind with a voiced description of the broadcast’s sights and action integrated into its soundtrack.
NBC parent Comcast says this will be the first live entertainment program in U.S. history to be accessible in this way to those who are blind. The vocal description is a narration track interspersed between existing pauses in dialogue that describes the show’s visual elements such as facial expressions, settings, costumes and stage direction.
This enhanced broadcast of “The Wiz Live!” will be a pilot program available on local NBC stations where SAP (Second Audio Program) feeds are available. The service will be provided by Descriptive Video Works, which has provided more than 1,000 hours of live description for certain news and sports events.
“The Wiz Live!” premieres Thursday at 8 p.m. EST, with stars including Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, David Alan Grier, Ne-Yo, Elijah Kelley, Uzo Aduba and Common, as well as Shanice Williams as the young heroine, Dorothy.
article via accessatlanta.com

"American Crime" Creator John Ridley Gets Greenlight on ABC Drama Pilot "Presence"

By goodblacknews on December 3, 2015
John Ridley Presence pilot
Writer/Director/Executive Producer John Ridley (Photo by Terence Patrick)

As pilot season kicks off, ABC is looking to stay in business with “American Crime” creator and Oscar winner John Ridley, giving his detective drama project “Presence” a formal pilot order.
In contention for the 2016-17 television season, “Presence” has been hot at ABC since the get-go, as the drama was the first pilot script order at the network this development season.  “Presence” follows Presence Foster, a former Army veteran who finds herself navigating a widely divergent and highly colorful cross section of L.A., as she unintentionally begins a career as an unlicensed private investigator.
Hailing from ABC Studios, Ridley wrote the pilot script and will direct and executive produce through his International Famous Players Radio Picture Corporation with his fellow “American Crime” executive producer Michael McDonald, who will executive produce “Presence” by way of his ABC-based Stearns Castle banner.

SEE MORE: John Ridley Options Memoir ‘No Place Safe’ for ABC Studios

Aside from “Presence” and “American Crime,” which debuts its second season on January 6, Ridley and McDonald have another drama set up in the early stages with ABC Studios — the duo optioned the rights to Kim Reid’s novel “No Place Safe: A Family Memoir” for a limited series.
Ridley also has a top-secret Marvel project in the works at ABC Studios, where he is under a producing deal.
article by Elizabeth Wagmeister via Variety.com

Spike Lee Leads Gun Violence Protest After "Chi-Raq" Premiere

By goodblacknews on December 2, 2015
chi raq premiere gun violence protest
Rev. Al Sharpton and Spike Lee (STEPHEN LOVEKIN/VARIETY/REX SHUTTERSTOCK)

The fact that Chicago’s police superintendent was fired hours before the premiere of Spike Lee’s latest feature, “Chi-Raq,” only reinforced the timeliness of the movie’s message about the senselessness of gun violence and racial discrimination. And instead of an after-party, Lee led many attendees out of Manhattan’s Ziegfeld Theater on a march down Broadway to Times Square.

The movie, the first feature produced by Amazon Studios, is a loose adaptation of the ancient Greek drama “Lysistrata.” In Lee’s telling, a group of determined women in Chicago band together to demand that their husbands and lovers put down their weapons, or lose their intimate privileges.

“It was great in 411 B.C. — it’ll work today,” Lee said of the source material Tuesday night. “This film is about changing lives.”
Chicago is among the big U.S. cities that is suffering through a spike in violence and homicides, particularly among African-Americans. Protests have rocked the city in the past few days following the release of a video showing the police shooting a 17-year-old black teenager some 16 times last year. Lee said he hoped “Chi-Raq” would help inspire others to “work harder to make America safer.”
Kevin Willmott, who co-wrote the script with Lee, said the events of the day made for a “surreal” experience at the premiere. The movie was shot in Chicago last summer over a six-week period, which allowed cast members to see first-hand the issues depicted in the story. Chicago is the “epicenter” of violence at present but these issues are hardly isolated to one city, Willmott said. “It’s an American problem,” he noted. “It’s about guns, it’s about race, it’s about jobs. There’s nothing new about the problem.”

Anthony Anderson Inks Multi-Year Deal to Continue as Host of the NAACP Image Awards

By goodblacknews on December 1, 2015

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“Blackish” star and NAACP Image Awards Host Anthony Anderson

The NAACP and TV One announced today that Anthony Anderson has signed a multi-year deal to continue as host for the 47th and 48th NAACP Image Awards.  The 47th NAACP Image Awards will be nationally telecast live on TV One on Friday, February 5, 2016 as a two-hour special from the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. The live telecast will also include a one-hour live pre-show from the star-studded red carpet.
“I look forward to the NAACP Image Awards each year! The NAACP Image Awards always delivers an epic evening with the best of the best across film, TV, music, and literature,” said Anderson.  “It is a privilege and honor to be asked back to host for the next two years – there is no doubt that this year’s show is going to be magnificent.  I may even have a few surprises up my sleeves!”
Anthony Anderson currently executive produces and stars alongside Tracee Ellis Ross and Laurence Fishburne on the hit ABC series “Black-ish,” for which he won a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series. He has also earned Emmy and People’s Choice Award nominations for his role in the series. Anderson can next be seen in “Barbershop 3: The Next Cut.”
As previously announced, Reginald Hudlin and Phil Gurin have signed a three-year deal to continue as executive producers for the NAACP Image Awards. 
For all information and latest news, visit the official NAACP Image Awards website at http://www.naacpimageawards.net.
article by Tambay A. Obenson via Shadow and Act

"Creed" a Massive Box Office Success in Philadelphia; Rakes in $42.6M Overall

By goodblacknews on November 29, 2015

Creed Box Office
“Creed” stars Sylvester Stallone and Michael B. Jordan (COURTESY OF WARNER BROS.)

Rocky Balboa is so synonymous with Philadelphia that the “City of Brotherly Love” erected a statue to memorialize the steps that the fictional boxer bounds up as part of his iconic training routine.
Well, actually the statue, with its portrait of the pugilist flinging his hands triumphantly in the air, was created for a scene in “Rocky III” and donated to Philadelphia by Sylvester Stallone, but at this point it has become such a symbol of the city’s working class spirit that its origins are almost superfluous.
That close bond between city and subject played out at the box office this weekend with the debut of “Creed,” which finds Balboa coaching the illegitimate son (Michael B. Jordan) of his former nemesis Apollo Creed. The picture, which took in an outstanding $42.6 million over its first five days in theaters, is over-indexing in Philadelphia by a massive 72%.
“Philadelphia is on fire and it has been since opening day,” said Jeff Goldstein, a distribution executive vice president at Warner Bros., the studio that is distributing the film.
Two of the top five best-performing theaters, AMC Neshaminy and the AMC Cherry Hill, are from the Philadelphia area. Another local theater, Regal Riverview Plaza, cracked the top ten list of highest-grossing theaters. On most films, those lists are dominated by locations in New York and Los Angeles, Goldstein said.
“Creed” is doing well in those cities and is also performing strongly in major metropolitan areas like Chicago, Atlanta and Houston, playing particularly well in communities with large Hispanic and African-American presences.
It’s not uncommon for films to do well in the places where they are set. For instance, both “Spotlight” and “Black Mass,” two fall releases that play up their Boston backdrops, did very well in the city when they debuted.
In the case of “Creed,” Philadelphia is almost a supporting character. The film recreates that run up the steps, features local landmarks such as South Philly’s Italian Market and plays up the fictional Balboa’s status as a hometown hero.
“Philadelphia is a part of all of the film’s DNA, so it makes sense it would play well there,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with Rentrak. “When the heart of the movie is a certain geographical location, it usually does well there.”
article by Brent Lang via Variety.com