July 27, 2026
Common has committed to star in the ensemble cast of Barbershop 3, the MGM sequel that New Line will distribute. He joins Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer, who are reprising their roles from the first two movies, and The Best Man franchise director Malcolm D. Lee, who’s helming. Cube Vision is producing and MGM will run production. Bob Teitel and George Tillman Jr. of State Street Pictures are the lead producers. The script is by Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver.
HBO took U.S. television rights to director Marc Silver’s “3 1/2 Minutes,” after its premiere in documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival this year. And now Participant Media has announced a limited theatrical release of the acclaimed and timely feature documentary, which is now going to be titled “3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets,” opening on June 19th, 2015 in New York, and then on June 26th, 2015 in Los Angeles.
The film chronicles the story of Jordan Davis, the unarmed black 17-year-old, who was shot to death at a Florida gas station by a white fellow customer, Michael David Dunn. “3 1/2 Minutes” explores the aftermath of Jordan’s tragic death, the latent and often unseen effects of racism, and the contradictions of the American criminal justice system.
HBO will air the film in the fall, after its theatrical run.
The Jordan Davis shooting took place after Dunn, a white middle-aged male, and Davis exchanged angry words over the volume of the music in Davis’ car. Dunn fired 10 bullets at a car full of unarmed teenagers and then fled. He was arrested the next day and claimed he shot in self-defense.
He was convicted on three counts of attempted second-degree murder for firing at three other teenagers who were with Davis, and one count of firing into a vehicle. He was sentenced in October to life without parole.
“When we started this journey, our aim was make sure that Jordan’s story was not going to be forgotten, that he would not become a statistic in an increasingly violent world; this is why we are so fortunate to be partnering with HBO and Participant Media for the distribution of ‘3 1/2 Minutes,'” director Silver said in a previous press statement. “We are now certain that Jordan’s story will reach the widest, most diverse audience possible.”
To see a trailer and 2 new clips from the film, click here.
article by Tambay A. Benson via blogs.indiewire.com
BET Networks has named veteran Fox Searchlight production executive Zola Mashariki as Executive Vice President and Head of Original Programming. Based in Los Angeles, she will oversee scripted and unscripted programming and development as well as casting for the cable network, reporting to BET Networks President of Programming Stephen Hill.
Mashariki’s appointment completes the restructuring in BET’s top programming ranks following the September departure of president of original programming Loretha Jones. In December, BET promoted President of Music Programming & Specials Stephen Hill to President of Programming, overseeing both Original Programming and Music Programming & Specials. Hill, who remains based in New York, has extensive background in music shows and specials though a limited interaction with the Hollywood creative community. That is a void Mashariki is expected to fill. Like Jones, she will be based in Los Angeles.
According to Deadline.com, VH1 has announced production of The Breaks, an original movie about the Hip-Hop business set in New York City during the early 90s, that will serve as a backdoor pilot for a potential series. Christopher Edward Martin, better known as DJ Premier, multiple Grammy-award winning member of the seminal rap group Gang Starr, will serve as executive music producer and compose the score.
The Breaks is based on Dan Charnas’ non-fiction book The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop, which covers the rap from its infancy in the 1970s house party and park scene through the staggering financial and cultural milestones of the early 2000s. Set in 1990, the series will follow three friends from different backgrounds attempting to break into the business just as the art form became part of the pop music mainstream.
Given the setting, which happens to mark the middle point of the golden age of hip hop, the rise of gangsta rap, and the height of New Jack Swing, Texas native DJ Premier’s involvement is a huge advantage. In addition to his work with Gang Starr, Premier has been involved with some of the most influential and successful rap and R&B albums of all time, including works by KRS-One, Big Daddy Kane, Snoop Dogg, Compton’s Most Wanted, Nas, D’Angelo, The Notorious B.I.G., and Jay Z.
The Breaks follows VH1’s previous TV films, 2013’s CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story, and 2014’s Drumline: A New Beat, both of which saw great ratings for the network. Single Ladies, an original series which ran for three seasons on VH1and is now enjoying a fourth on Centric, started as a two-hour back door pilot. If successful, The Breaks could similarly spawn a full series aimed at the audience of other shows with soundtracks overseen by music titans, like Fox’s Empire, with music production by Timbaland, and ABC’s Nashville, which saw T-Bone Burnett as music producer during its first season.
The Breaks will be written, directed and executive produced by Seith Mann, whose previous credits include episodes of The Wire, Fringe, The Riches, Entourage, and Homeland. In addition to his production work, DJ Premier is also the host of a weekly show on Sirius XM’s Hip-Hop Nation. Filming for The Breaks will begin in June, and the film is scheduled to air sometime in late fall 2015.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
According to bet.com, Ice-T has announced his very own music festival for this summer. The first-ever Art of Rap Music Festival kicks off July 18 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, Calif., followed by another show July 19 in Northern California at the Shoreline Amphitheater.
Keeping in line with his critically acclaimed Art of Rap documentary from a few years ago, the festival lineup is jam packed with influential rap artists including Ice-T himself, Afrika Bambaataa, Melle Mel, Rakim, Kool Moe Dee, The Game, Bone Thugs ‘N’ Harmony, Doug E. Fresh, Warren G, Kurtis Blow, EPMD, Xzibit, Biz Markie, DJ Quik and Slick Rick.
The Art of Rap Music Festival will feature two stages with more than 25 different artists, as well as break-dancers, graffiti artists and vendors. Tickets go on sale Friday, April 24 at 10 AM PST.
Visit www.ArtofRapFest.com for more information.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow@lakinhutcherson)
According to ew.com, Oscar-winning writer/producer John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) is teaming up with Marvel to develop a mysterious new TV series. The deal reportedly involves reinventing an existing Marvel superhero character or property for ABC—but all sides are staying quiet on exactly which title Ridley is adapting.
Ridley is an executive producer of ABC’s acclaimed midseason drama American Crime, which has not yet received a second season renewal. Coming off winning best adapted screenplay for 12 Years a Slave, Ridley is also a writer/producer on the 2016 big-screen update of Ben Hur.
Marvel’s aggressive expansion into television now includes four current series (ABC’s SHIELD, Agent Carter—which is on the bubble for a pickup—and Netflix’s Daredevil), plus several confirmed upcoming titles (Netflix’s A.K.A. Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, followed by the Netflix character mash-up The Defenders). Neither Marvel nor ABC would comment on the Ridley project.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
His death was confirmed by Artists International Management, which represented him. Mr. Sledge had liver cancer, for which he underwent surgery in 2014, Mark Lyman, his agent and manager, said. Mr. Sledge, sometimes called the King of Slow Soul, was a sentimental crooner and one of the South’s first soul stars, having risen to fame from jobs picking cotton and working as a hospital orderly while performing at clubs and colleges on the weekends.“I was singing every style of music: the Beatles, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Motown, Sam Cooke, the Platters,” he once said. “When a Man Loves a Woman” was his first recording for Atlantic Records, after a patient at the hospital introduced him to the record producer Quin Ivy. It reached No. 1 on the pop charts in 1966 and sold more than a million copies, becoming the label’s first gold record. (The Recording Industry Association of America began certifying records as gold in 1958.) Raw and lovelorn, the song was a response to a woman who had left him for another man, Mr. Sledge said. He called its composition a “miracle.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYb84BDMbi0&w=420&h=315]
An album of the same name was released that year, and three more studio albums for Atlantic followed in the 1960s: “Warm and Tender Soul,” “The Percy Sledge Way” and “Take Time to Know Her.”
While Mr. Sledge never again reached the heights of his first hit, “When a Man Loves a Woman” had many lives: as an early highlight of the Muscle Shoals, Ala., music scene; as a movie soundtrack staple in the 1980s, heard in “The Big Chill” and “Platoon”; and in a 1991 cover version by Michael Bolton, which also topped the Billboard chart and earned Mr. Bolton a Grammy.
Although the song, which ranks 53rd on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest of all time, is credited to two of Mr. Sledge’s early bandmates, the bassist Calvin Lewis and the organist Andrew Wright, who assisted with the arrangement, Mr. Sledge said of the melody, “I hummed it all my life, even when I was picking and chopping cotton in the fields.”
Comedian Kevin Hart has teamed up with the United Negro College Fund to award four Philadelphia high school seniors $50,000 scholarships for their stellar academic performance.
Hart selected the students himself as a way to reward them for their high GPA’s and to alleviate some of the financial stress that a college education can cause.
“This is me stepping up to the plate and saying what you’re doing is dope,” Philly.com reports Hart saying. “You’re dope. You’ve got the opportunity to be the dopest of all dopetivity.”
The Philadelphia native posted a message on his Instagram Saturday congratulating the young scholars saying, “I love my city and I will continue to put on for my city…Congrats to the 4 seniors that I chose. Now go be great!!!!”
This isn’t the first time Hart has used his celebrity wealth and platform to give back to the next generation of young leaders. Last year, the funnyman donated $50,000 to Texas Southern University’s band after hearing that the Tom Joyner Foundation was raising money to help the band see TSU alumnus Michael Strahan inducted into the Football Hall of Fame.
The four winners of Hart’s scholarship will also be flown to Atlanta for the UNCF’s “An Evening of Stars” event hosted by Black-ish star Anthony Anderson. The show will air on BET April 26.
article by Courtney Connley via blackenterprise.com