Adam Driver returning to stage with off-Broadway revival of ‘Hold on to Me Darling’

August 1, 2024

Good Morning America

Adam Driver is returning to the theater this fall with a turn in award-winning playwright Kenneth Lonergan‘s acclaimed play Hold on to Me Darling.

Directed by Tony winner Neil Pepe — as it was when the play was first staged in 2016 — Driver’s 13-week engagement will begin preview performances on Sept. 24, officially opening Oct. 16 at New York City’s historic Lucille Lortel Theatre.

The Ferrari star will be playing fictitious country music star Strings McCrane, who “finds himself in an existential tailspin” after his mother’s death.

“The only way out, he decides, is to abandon superstardom in favor of the simple life, so he moves back to his hometown in Tennessee,” producers continue.

“The simple life turns out to be anything but simple in this brilliantly observed tragicomedy, as the consequences of Strings’ success and mind-bending effects of his fame prove all but impossible to outrun.”

Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

Driver was last on Broadway in 2019’s Burn This, and has performed off-Broadway as well, including in the award-winning drama Angels in America.

Will Wesley Snipes play Blade again? Ryan Reynolds pushes for one last ride for “Marvel Daddy”

Amen Ra Films/Getty Images

(SPOILERS) While Wesley Snipes‘ return as the half-vampire vamp hunter Blade in Deadpool & Wolverine blew fans’ minds, the guy who made it happen, Ryan Reynolds, is pushing for Snipes to take to the big screen on one last adventure.

While some cite 2000’s X-Men as the start of the superhero explosion at the movies, one could argue it was Snipes’ 1998 hit Blade that kicked it all off.

To a photo of him with his arm around Snipes, Reynolds wrote on Instagram, “There is no Fox Marvel Universe or MCU without Blade first creating a market. He is Marvel Daddy. Please share for a Logan-like send off.”

Reynolds first starred opposite Snipes in 2004’s Blade: Trinity, and in spite of the rumored on-set drama, he reached out to Snipes to see if he was interested in joining the hero-packed Deadpool threequel.

“I didn’t think we would be able to pull it off,” Snipes recently told Entertainment Weekly. “I didn’t think that Marvel was into it, Disney was into it — also because they had Mahershala [Ali] cast for the next upcoming version of it.”

Snipes recalled, “[B]ut [when] you get a call from Ryan Reynolds out of the blue after 20 years, you go, ‘Okay, I got to take this call. … He told me the idea [and said] ‘If you’re in, we’re in.'”

Ali was announced as the successor to the role in 2019, but the project has been mired in development delays, including script changes and the exit of director Bassam Tariq just before production was scheduled to start in 2022.

The delays were even snarked at in Deadpool & Wolverine, with Snipes saying in character, “There’s only ever gonna be one Blade.”

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ swinging onto Hulu in August

20th Century Studios

20th Century Studios has announced Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes will make its streaming debut on Hulu on Aug. 2.

The synopsis for the film reads, “Set several generations in the future following Caesar’s reign, apes are living harmoniously as the dominant species — and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows.”

It continues, “As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.”

Director Wes Ball‘s movie will join other installments in the franchise on Hulu, including 1968’s original Planet of the Apes; Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970); Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971); Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972); Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973); Planet of the Apes (2001); Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011); Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014); and 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes.

20th Century Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

Michael Crichton estate suing ‘ER’ vet Noah Wyle and company over ‘The Pitt’ TV show

Wyle in ‘The Pitt’ – Max/Warrick Page

Deadline is reporting that the estate of author Michael Crichton, the late bestselling author and one of the co-creators of ER, is suing one of the show’s stars, Noah Wyle, along with producers of an upcoming Max medical series called The Pitt.

According to the suit obtained by the trade, Crichton’s widow, Sherri, claims after a yearlong negotiation to reboot ER, Warner Bros. Television, ER‘s producer John Wells and other producers, including Wyle, walked away and “transplanted” the idea to a Pittsburgh-set medical series called The Pitt.

Warner Bros. Discovery-owned Max has already given the forthcoming series a 15-episode order.

The lawsuit states, “After negotiating unsuccessfully with Crichton’s estate for nearly a year for the right to reboot ER, Warner Bros. simply moved the show from Chicago to Pittsburgh, rebranded it The Pitt, and has plowed ahead without any attribution or compensation for Crichton and his heirs.”

It added, “The Pitt is ER. It’s not like ER, it’s not kind of ER, it’s not sort of ER. It is ER complete with the same executive producer, writer, star, production companies, studio and network as the planned ER reboot.”

The lawsuit charges the producers with “breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and intentional interference with contractual relations.”

Critchton’s camp seeks to “redress that grievous wrong and to ensure that studios are held accountable to the creators upon whose imaginations and ingenuity their successes depend.”

It also says Wells’ actions were “a personal betrayal of a 30-year friendship” with the late author, who died at 66 in 2008.