Thriller “The Perfect Guy” narrowly beat out horror film “The Visit” for first place at the weekend box office, picking up a leading $26.7 million.
“The Visit,” M. Night Shyamalan’s return to the shock and chills genre that made him famous with “The Sixth Sense,” was close behind with a sterling $25.7 million. Going into the weekend, both films were expected to pull in between $15 million and $17 million.
“The Perfect Guy” has more than doubled its $12 million budget in a single weekend, putting it on a path to profitability. The story of a successful lobbyist (Sanaa Lathan) who rebounds from a breakup by embarking on a new relationship with a Mr. Wrong (Michael Ealy) was backed by Sony’s ScreenGems division. The studio had a similar success on the same weekend last year when “No Good Deed,” a thriller with Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson, debuted to $24.2 million.
“It’s ideal timing, because there’s not a lot of competition in the marketplace and you can really stand out with a slightly lower [ad] spend,” said Josh Greenstein, president of worldwide marketing and distribution at Sony.
In order to bring in its audience while keeping costs at a minimum, the studio aggressively went after African-American moviegoers. It launched a BET Awards takeover for “The Perfect Guy” and also debuted a customized trailer to appear alongside “Straight Outta Compton” that was wordless save for a sultry rendition of “I Put a Spell On You.”
“We wanted to sell it as a sexy, taut thriller,” said Greenstein. The picture marks the first ScreenGems title he has handled the marketing campaign for since he was brought over to Sony from Paramount Pictures in 2014.
article by Brent Lang via Variety.com
Good Black News
President Barack Obama told members of the military Friday that he calls them as he sees them when it comes to the big decisions his job requires.
“When I go to bed, I go to bed easy, because I know that I’ve made the best decisions I could make,” Obama said during a 9/11 military town hall at Fort Meade near Washington, D.C.
The commander in chief took questions from service members piped in from around the world during the event designed to mark the 14th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“On 9/11, I thought it was particularly appropriate for me to be able to address you directly, and to say thank you on behalf of the American people,” Obama told the troops.
Whether in person, via phone, video conference, or the Internet, troops asked questions ranging from the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, to how the president and first lady Michelle Obama raise their daughters in the glare of the White House. (On that last query, the president said, “I just do what Michelle tells me to do and it seems to work out.”)
At one point, Obama says it appears to him that Syrian President Bashar Assad is inviting the Russian military into his country because he’s worried about holding onto power. The president said that the United States has warned Russia that beefing up its support for Assad is doomed to fail.
Obama also said that the United States needs to step up its responses to cyber attacks, and criticized China for some of its cyber practices.
The president chuckled when one of the troops asked him how he dealt with people “hating” and “talking smack” about him all the time.
“Not everyone is talking smack about me,” Obama said. “But there is a sizable percentage in Congress that talks smack about me, no doubt about it.”
Obama said he must own all decisions, whether it’s the operation that killed Osama bin Laden to the initial problems with the health care website, which he described as a “screw-up.”
Said Obama: “If it’s an easy question, it doesn’t get to my desk.”
In closing, the president again thanked the troops for their work in the years since 9/11.
“What you do is vital to our way of life,” Obama said. “America is strong, and it’s strong because of all of you.”
article by David Jackson via usatoday.com
Debbie Allen rose to fame with “Fame,” serving as a director, producer and choreographer. She was also the first black woman to be Emmy-nominated in the dramatic lead actress category. More than three decades later, she has a recurring role on “Grey’s Anatomy,” and is a frequent director — and now executive producer of the show. “It’s a little crazy, but what a great life,” Allen tells Variety. “I’m like a cat on a hot tin roof that somehow landed on all fours.”
What are your new responsibilities on “Grey’s Anatomy” Season 12, being a director, actor and executive producer?
I’m very involved in every episode, in terms of production design. I’m selecting the directors this season, looking over everything from makeup and hair to the actors’ concerns. I spend a lot of time with the writers, which I love.
How do you balance acting in an episode that you’re also directing and producing?
It’s actually how I started on “Fame.” I trained in acting, literature and theater, so talking to actors is something I’m really used to doing. That gives me a little bit of an edge sometimes. I know how to speak the actor’s language. On “Fame,” I started as Ms. Lydia Grant and I was the choreographer, but I soon became their favorite director because I knew how to shoot the dance and then I understood the acting. Doing it all at the same time is how I came into it.
Have you noticed a big change in your role on “Grey’s,” now that you’re an executive producer?
Very dramatic change. I’ve always been there as a director and somewhat of a den mom — it’s interesting; so many of them grew up on “Fame,” and I’ll never forget the first time I directed, Patrick Dempsey started singing “Fame” and doing jetes, and I’m like, “Stop it already. Stop it!” — so now, there are things that are my responsibility or things that I keep my eye on or things that I can mitigate. I’m responsible for a lot of things, which is a wonderful position to have. I’ve done this once before on “A Different World.” I was the executive producer and director on that show for five years. But this is different. It’s an hour, it’s in its twelfth season, but it feels like it’s brand new.
Speaking of Patrick Dempsey, how is the set different without him?
We had a great relationship. My nickname for him was “Dash” — Dash was the kid in “The Incredibles” that was running fast. He would come through the set like that. He was on the move. Racing cars defines him for real. Patrick is not there so it changes the dynamic of the story for Meredith.
How much will you be featured in this season?
Catherine Avery is still a guest star. She’s not a series regular, but I’m there so when they need me now — last year, they had to go and try to find me — they can take advantage of me, and it’s okay! I’m not mad about it.
What are your new responsibilities on “Grey’s Anatomy” Season 12, being a director, actor and executive producer?
I’m very involved in every episode, in terms of production design. I’m selecting the directors this season, looking over everything from makeup and hair to the actors’ concerns. I spend a lot of time with the writers, which I love.
How do you balance acting in an episode that you’re also directing and producing?
It’s actually how I started on “Fame.” I trained in acting, literature and theater, so talking to actors is something I’m really used to doing. That gives me a little bit of an edge sometimes. I know how to speak the actor’s language. On “Fame,” I started as Ms. Lydia Grant and I was the choreographer, but I soon became their favorite director because I knew how to shoot the dance and then I understood the acting. Doing it all at the same time is how I came into it.
Have you noticed a big change in your role on “Grey’s,” now that you’re an executive producer?
Very dramatic change. I’ve always been there as a director and somewhat of a den mom — it’s interesting; so many of them grew up on “Fame,” and I’ll never forget the first time I directed, Patrick Dempsey started singing “Fame” and doing jetes, and I’m like, “Stop it already. Stop it!” — so now, there are things that are my responsibility or things that I keep my eye on or things that I can mitigate. I’m responsible for a lot of things, which is a wonderful position to have. I’ve done this once before on “A Different World.” I was the executive producer and director on that show for five years. But this is different. It’s an hour, it’s in its twelfth season, but it feels like it’s brand new.
Speaking of Patrick Dempsey, how is the set different without him?
We had a great relationship. My nickname for him was “Dash” — Dash was the kid in “The Incredibles” that was running fast. He would come through the set like that. He was on the move. Racing cars defines him for real. Patrick is not there so it changes the dynamic of the story for Meredith.
How much will you be featured in this season?
Catherine Avery is still a guest star. She’s not a series regular, but I’m there so when they need me now — last year, they had to go and try to find me — they can take advantage of me, and it’s okay! I’m not mad about it.
A 16-year-old Georgia cheerleader has just broken a tumbling world record. Angel Rice completed ten double full twists in one minute while an official from the Guinness World Records counted the seconds of her tumbling routine.
“It took me until the next day to realize, wow! It’s real!” Angel told Fox5Atlanta. ” It didn’t feel real when it was happening. I had to actually think about it and look at the plaque.”
Tumbling coach Frank Riley said that he had taken notice of Angel the minute she arrived at his gym at just five years old.
Of course, now that Angel has broken the world record, everyone wants to know what she’ll do next. We’ll just have to wait and see.
“When she came it was like, ‘Wow! Who is this little girl?’” said Riley. “She was strong. She wasn’t one of the kids that come to the gym and they’re scared. Anything I asked her to do she would try,” he added.
To see video of her tumbling, go to: http://thegrio.com/2015/09/11/georgia-cheerleader-16-sets-tumbling-world-record/
article via thegrio.com
Fox has put in development The Crusaders, an hourlong drama series from Legacy writer-director Thomas Ikimi, the 2010 film’s star Idris Elba, Legendary TV and studio-based Di Bonaventura Television.
Written by Ikimi, The Crusaders, which has a script commitment, focuses on an extended family of second-generation Africans living in the U.S. who specialize in locating and returning valuable objects stolen from Africa during colonial occupation. UK-born Ikimi and Elba are both of African descent. Elba executive produces the project through his Green Door Pictures, along with Ikimi through T&T Studios and Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Dan McDermott via Di Bonaventura Television.
Elba previously executive produced Fox’s Luther remake, which went to pilot stage but has had problems casting the lead, played by Elba in the original British series.
Ikimi’s short film Nostradamus premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
article by Denise Petski via deadline.com
WARREN, Mich. (AP) — Unable to have his way with Congress, President Barack Obama reached back to his roots as a community organizer and sought Wednesday to spark a national movement in support of his idea for free community college.
Congress has shown next-to-no interest in Obama’s $60 billion community college proposal, so he’s taking his case to the people. “It’s an idea whose time has come,” Obama told an audience at Macomb Community College. “It’s an idea that makes sense.”
Obama said six states and communities have created programs similar to what he proposed during his State of the Union address earlier this year, including one announced by Milwaukee on Wednesday. Lawmakers in more than 10 other states have introduced legislation providing for free community college, he said.
Getting an education is the best investment anyone can make for their and the country’s future, Obama said. “Education has always been the secret sauce, the secret to America’s success,” he said.
Obama announced that a new, independent “college promise” advisory board will work with various organizations to build momentum for the idea by highlighting programs that already provide free community college, and recruiting more states and communities to do likewise. It will be headed by a woman who Obama said is his “favorite community college instructor,” Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden, and former Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer, a Republican.
Biden, who teaches English at a community college near Washington, D.C., traveled to Michigan with the president. “It’s important that you give your friends, your families, your classmates, a heads-up to join the movement to make two years of community college free because education is the key to America’s future,” she said while introducing Obama.
Obama also announced $175 million in Labor Department grants to help create 34,000 apprenticeship slots around the country.
Lauren, Ashleigh and Christian Conner have been studying music since they were toddlers. Violinists and a cellist, the trio of siblings has long had a heart for music. But when they moved to New York from New Jersey last year and saw the number of homeless people in the city’s streets, they realized they had a heart for much more.
“I saw [the homeless people] on the street and I felt sad for them,” Christian, 9, tells PEOPLE.
The three moved from Sussex County in October with their parents, Zenobia and Keith Conner. Zenobia says that from the moment the family got to the city, Christian wanted to help.
She tells PEOPLE that the young cellist would repeatedly ask her for money to give to the less fortunate and, after awhile, she said, “If you want to give some money to the homeless, then go out there and play your cello.”
And play he did. Christian and his sisters, 10-year-old Ashleigh and 11-year-old Lauren (both violinists), decided to take to the Fulton Street subway station to play music with hopes of raising enough money to give to the less fortunate. To see video of these amazing siblings busking, click here.
Last week, the three siblings set up their music stands in a corner of the bustling station. Ashleigh tells PEOPLE that on their first day, they played for two hours and raised a little more than $240. The three play works by composers like Beethoven, Bach and Karl Jenkins as onlookers in the station watch in amazement.
A hula-hooping queen took over Manhattan on Wednesday as part of a tour celebrating her inclusion in the new Guinness World Records book. Jaws dropped and cell phones were thrust into the air as Marawa Ibrahim showed off her supernatural hula-hooping skills in Bryant Park.
The 33-year-old Australian broke the record for the most hula hoops spun simultaneously — somehow managing to twirl 160 hoops a full three times around her 5-foot-4-inch frame.
Ibrahim grew up reading Guinness books and long dreamed about someday making it inside the famed tome. “It was one of the absolute greatest days of my life because I wanted it for so long,” Ibrahim said of the day she learned she had shattered the old record of 132 hoops.
But Ibrahim is not planning to retire her hoops anytime soon. She has her sights — and hips — set on taking the hula-hooping-while-running crown.
“It’s kind of addictive,” she said.
The Guinness World Records 2016 edition will be available starting Thursday. To Ibrahim’s in motion, you can catch her in the video below around the 1:40 mark:
https://youtu.be/zuUoNtospYE
article by Rich Schapiro via nydailynews.com
Toyota is partnering with Rainbow PUSH Excel to provide $75,000 scholarships to 10 deserving engineering and business college students through the Jesse L. Jackson Sr. Fellows Scholarships. In addition to the scholarships, Toyota is offering these students the opportunity to work at one of their facilities across North America to gain valuable real-world experience, as well as be paired with mentors from Toyota management to help guide them through the next three years of college.
“The scholarship recipients were selected from hundreds of applicants,” Simon Nagata, chief administrative officer, Toyota North America, noted in a statement. “Toyota is proud to recognize and invest in the outstanding academic achievements of these 10 scholars. The commitment to community service and personal excellence of these future leaders is truly inspiring, and we are excited to be a part of their journey.”
With STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) professional jobs going unfilled, Toyota is preparing to fill the pipeline with qualified candidates. The scholarships were awarded to college students who are majoring in either STEM or business academics, states Toyota.
Students also had to demonstrate participation in community service and a financial need. The $25,000 scholarship is renewable each year for a maximum three-year period. In order to receive the award each year, the students must maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 throughout the school year.
“Selma” director Ava DuVernay has given an extreme makeover to her 5-year-old distribution company. Previously known as AFFRM (African American Film Festival Releasing Movement), the filmmaker has relaunched and expanded the company as Array.
“I’ve always felt as if there were so many films that get made but not seen,” she told Variety. “The real focus of our company has always been distribution. What we’re doing now is opening our arms a little wider and enlarging our mission.”
Array announced Tuesday that it has two films due out this fall: South African director Sara Blecher’s coming-of-age drama “Ayanda and the Mechanic” and Takeshi Fukunaga’s debut feature, “Out of My Hand.”
The focus will be films by minorities and women. Array aims to significantly boost the number of films it releases beyond the original company’s two a year. AFFRM released DuVernay’s 2012 film “Middle of Nowhere.”
“It’s a definite evolution of what we were doing at AFFRM,” she said. “When I was out promoting ‘Selma,’ I became aware of so many other films that ought to be getting distribution. And this is a problem I can do something about because of my experience.”
DuVernay said Array will distribute films via the theatrical arthouse circuit as well as on streaming platforms.
Array has teamed with Netflix to release Tina Mabry’s “Mississippi Damned,” a family drama that debuted at Slamdance in 2009. That film recently began streaming on Netflix.
article via eurweb.com