Eddie Murphy to play funk legend George Clinton in upcoming biopic
Disney/Randy Holmes
Eddie Murphy has reportedly signed on to play a funk music icon on screen.
Variety reports that the actor/comedian is set to star as Parliament-Funkadelic leader George Clinton in a biopic directed by Bill Condon, the same director who directed Murphy in Dreamgirls, a role that earned him an Oscar nomination.
The film, which Murphy will also produce, will be based on Clinton’s 2014 memoir Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?
Clinton, who launched his funk career in the ’70s as one of the founding members of the collective known as Parliament-Funkadelic, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. He and the band were also honored in 2019 with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
While the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streaming service is officially mum so far, The Hollywood ReportersaysJuror #2, likely the final film from 94-year-old Clint Eastwood, will debut on Max around December.
The straight-to-streaming moves made in the past by then-HBO Max were controversial in 2021 — when the studio’s entire lineup, including Godzilla vs. Kong and Dune, debuted in theaters and on streaming on the same day. The strategy was both to build up the then-fledgling streaming service’s subscriber base and to service post-pandemic movie fans who were not ready to return to theaters.
That said, some in the industry griped the move took a toll on the films’ box office potential.
However, the trade says the Hollywood icon gave his blessing to the release plan for the older-skewing courtroom drama that stars Nicholas Hoult, J.K. Simmons and Kiefer Sutherland.
Juror #2 has already had a limited theatrical release so that it can qualify for Oscar consideration, and the critics who’ve seen it have given the movie a 91% score on the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
(LR): Josh Rivera as Aaron Hernandez, Schwarzenegger as Tebow – FX/Michael Parmelee
The third installment of FX’s American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez is now streaming on Hulu. Based on the podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc., the series “explores the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide and their legacy in sports and American culture.”
The third episode, “Pray the Gay Away,” features Patrick Schwarzenegger as Tim Tebow, who was Hernandez’s former college teammate. The Gen V star tells ABC Audio his involvement all comes back to the show’s producer Ryan Murphy.
“It’s so funny because so many people asked me why was I interested in doing something that was only in the show for two episodes when some of the other stuff I’ve done before was bigger,” Patrick says.
He says one of his goals as an actor is “to surround myself with really great talent and showrunners and producers.” He notes, “I’m a huge fan of what Ryan’s done in the industry, he’s been a powerhouse for decades on end, and to be able to work with him in any capacity for me is a great win.”
When reminded that Murphy often recasts actors he’s previously worked with, Schwarzenegger laughed, adding, “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
Tebow’s Christian faith is famously important to him, and how he lives his life couldn’t be a sharper contrast to the one that Hernandez infamously led off the field.
“He’s faith first, faith forward,” the actor says of Tebow. “[He] notices that there’s something else happening off the field, and how can he reach out and be a lending hand to try to make Aaron a better human and to learn from his mistakes? And … Tim understands those mistakes to be, you know, drugs and alcohol and partying.”
Will Smith and his Bad Boys director, Michael Bay, may be reuniting for the first time in more than 20 years on the upcoming Netflix action movie Fast and Loose.
Sources tell Deadline that Bay is in final negotiations to helm the film in which Smith is set to star.
Fast and Loose, per the outlet, “follows a man who wakes up in Tijuana with no memories. As he pieces together his past, he learns he’s been living two lives: one as a crime kingpin and the other as an undercover CIA agent.”
The film has reportedly been on Smith’s radar since the release of Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which earned $400 million worldwide.
Smith and Bay’s first collaboration, the original Bad Boys movie in 1995, marked Bay’s directorial debut and solidified Smith’s reputation as a bona fide box office star.
