The Broadway musical The Notebook, based on the beloved Nicholas Sparks book and subsequent romantic film starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, will close in December.
The production’s website just listed Sunday, Dec. 15, as the show’s final performance.
The time-spanning show, the cast of which includes Jordan Tyson, John Cardoza, Maryann Plunkett and Dorian Harewood, started previews on Feb. 10 before having its official opening on March 14.
The production featured music and lyrics by singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson and was nominated for three Tony Awards. A national tour will launch in September 2025 at Playhouse Square in Cleveland, Ohio, with other cities to follow.
When the final episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones was released five years ago, many viewers found themselves distraught about the conclusion of the series and disappointed with the ending. Series star Kit Harington recently opened up to GQ Hypeabout his thoughts on the final season, the backlash and the future of his character, Jon Snow, within the franchise.
During that final season of GOT, Harington said he believes “mistakes were made” within the story.
“Some people thought it was rushed and I might agree with them,” he said. When asked specifically about the finale episode, he said, “I think there were some interesting choices that didn’t quite work.”
Regardless, Harington isn’t sure there was an alternative to what he called a rushed ending.
“I look at pictures of me in that final season, and I look exhausted. I look spent. I didn’t have another season in me,” he told GQ.
Upon the conclusion of the series, Harington said he was contacted by HBO about a potential spin-off titled Snow. Initially he rejected the proposition, but later reconsidered.
“I thought there could be an interesting and important story about the soldier after the war,” he said. “I felt that there might be something left to say and a story left to tell in a pretty limited way.”
The spin-off has since been called off, mainly because in coming up with a storyline, Harington found himself uninspired.
“I kind of backed out and said, ‘I think if we push this any further and keep developing it we could end up with something that’s not good. And that’s the last thing we all want.’”
Although the franchise propelled his career, Harington also feared being pigeonholed into the character of Jon Snow.
Now you can catch Harington in a new role on HBO’s Industry, where he’s found himself as Sir Henry Muck, a wealthy green-tech CEO. The first episode of season 3 is available to stream on Max.
Fans weren’t the only ones hoping for more of Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness when WandaVision ended more than three years ago.
“I was always interested in more Agatha,” Jac Schaeffer, who created that series, as well as the new Agatha-centric spin-off, Agatha All Along, told Good Morning America.
Schaeffer said viewers’ overwhelming response to Hahn’s performance as the witchy breakout character — and that viral song — was a whirlwind ride, but a series focused on her “didn’t seem within the realm of possibility.”
The showrunner said a year or so after WandaVision ended, she was “exploring different characters and different worlds” for other Marvel projects, but she couldn’t get Agatha out of her head.
“It just kept going back to her,” she recalled, crediting Hahn. “The joy and complexity and the continued interest in this character is because of her.”
Hahn called it “an actor’s dream” to be able to embrace all aspects of her character — from the dramatic to the kooky.
“I’ve been blessed enough in this career to be able to jump into different genres,” she said. “I’ve never been really pigeonholed … so I feel like this is, weirdly, the culmination of that ability.”
As for whether or not Agatha is a true villain, Hahn and Schaeffer have a few thoughts.
Hahn said, “It feels very binary to call someone just bad” — even Agatha.
“There is much more to explore there,” Schaeffer said, adding that she also wouldn’t call Agatha “evil.”
“I think that as a young person she was told she was bad … and that kind of thing imprints on a person,” she said.
Also starring Patti LuPone and Aubrey Plaza, Agatha All Along premieres with two episodes Sept. 18 on Disney+.
Joaquin Phoenix has reportedly abandoned a controversial film from director Todd Haynes just five days before the shoot was about to start in Guadalajara, Mexico.
IndieWire was first to report the news, adding that Haynes previously described the project as an “explicit” love story between two men set in the ’30s.
Some crew claim that’s what caused the mercurial actor to drop out, though Haynes insisted to the publication in 2023 that Phoenix was well aware of the content. “Joaquin was pushing me further and going, ‘No, let’s go further.’ This will be an NC-17 film,” Haynes said.
“The whole experience was prompted by Joaquin,” he said at the time. “It was prompted by his daring, his desire to push through barriers and to really get into the uncomfortable places about this relationship.”
Variety confirmed the exit, reportingthe crew had already built sets for the film Phoenix helped develop, but days before Haynes could call action he got “cold feet.”
The trade reported in July that Top Gun: Maverick star Danny Ramirez had joined the cast.
The publication says the last-minute exit could end up costing seven figures: Phoenix’s role can’t be recast and the movie was pre-sold internationally based on his name being attached to it, as is common in Hollywood dealmaking.