News

Fox’s Empire has rounded out its cast with the signing of Kaitlin Doubleday (Catch Me If You Can) as a series regular. The hip-hop industry drama pilot from Lee Daniels, Danny Strong and Brian Grazer centers on Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard), a charismatic, savvy music superstar who is about to take his company, Empire Entertainment, public. Doubleday will play Rhonda, the wife of Lucious’ oldest son Andre (Trai Byers), a sexy, manipulative woman who shares Andre’s Ivy League background and intends to help him scrap his way to the head of Empire. Doubleday, repped by Paradigm and Mpg Management, appeared in features Home Of Phobia and Waiting and ABC’s Cavemen. Related: 2014 Fox Pilots Regina Hall is set as a recurring in Andrew Gurland’s new FX series Married, which will debut this summer. Created, directed and executive produced by Gurland, Married stars Nat Faxon and Judy Greer as Russ and Lina Bowman,...

There’s a theory that you can tell more about a society from its “low-brow” pop culture than you can from its high art. If that’s true, there’s not too much that’s more low-brow than the teen sex comedy, movies which are usually celebrations of male promiscuity and debauchery – often with a vague or bittersweet moral tacked on at the end.

What are teen sex comedies saying about gay people?

Surprisingly, the news lately is pretty good. A trio of recent teen sex comedies, Easy A, She’s Out of My League, and I Love You, Beth Cooper, have either included sympathetic gay teen characters, or joked about gay themes in surprisingly progressive or inclusive ways.

Of course, gay folks have always existed in teen sex comedies in some form or another. It’s just that they’ve usually appeared either as brief sight gags to be ridiculed or,...

Walter Hamada, Jonathan Hung and Chris Fenton, formerly of MBST Entertainment, have departed the company and set up a new management/production company, H2F Entertainment. Among them, the trio rep 43 writers, 10 directors and 10 actors, including writers Greg Coolidge (Sorority Boys), Chris Morgan (Cellular), Matt Allen and Caleb Wilson (Four Christmases), Michael Weiss (Around the World in 80 Days), Ed Horowitz (Exit Wounds), the Wheat brothers (Pitch Black) and Gregg Rossen and Brian Sawyer (Diesel Debutante); writer-directors Ryan Shiraki (Home of Phobia), Rob McKittrick (Son of the Mask), Peter Cohen (Whipped), Tony Vitale (Kiss Me Guido) and John Patterson (The Sopranos); and actors Lucas Black, Ryan Pinkston, Brooke D'Orsay, Russell Wong, Sam Huntington and Josh Coxx. The company also reps Pacesetter Pictures International and Dreamwave Prods. The Beverly Hills-based H2F also is attached to produce The Ryan Pinkston Thing for MTV Networks, HSI's Waiting and Inner Circle, to be directed by Paul Street and starring Hayden Christensen and Robert Duvall. Hamada was a vp production at Columbia Pictures before joining MBST more than four years ago. Hung started his industry career at Chris Lee Prods. before moving on to management. He spent 2 1/2 years at MBST. Fenton previously worked as an agent at WMA for seven years before moving to MBST.

PARK CITY -- Hollywood's major talent agencies have hit Park City in full force with a volley of bashes to celebrate clients, films and corporate partners. First into the fray was ICM on Saturday night. The agency partnered with Samy Boy, Shelter and Exodus and returned to Village at the Lift -- host of ICM's bash last year -- for a packed party that turned out ICM's Shaun Redick, Nicole Clemens, Jeff Shumway, Carter Cohn, Renee Tab and Chris Hart along with Sam Nazarian, Adam Rosenfelt, the cast of Home of Phobia, Shannon Elizabeth, Joseph Reitman, Lance Bass and helmer Angela Robinson, who directed festival selection D.E.B.S.

Anna Faris, who turned heads for her bubbly turn in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, will team with The Practice star Marla Sokoloff to star in Richard Zelniker's Vinyl. Thora Birch and Jena Malone have already signed on to the project, which is due to start shooting in February in Los Angeles. Zelniker is directing from his own script. Vinyl centers on the women behind a male rock 'n' roll band that is on the verge of breakout success. Faris will play the live-in girlfriend of the band's bad-boy lead guitarist. Sokoloff will star as a bar waitress who wreaks havoc on the band when she comes between a band member and his girlfriend. Other casting is expected to be announced in January. Bill Bannerman and Tom Rooker are producing for Zelniker. Faris is repped by the Gersh Agency and Raw Talent. Her other credits include the Scary Movie franchise and May. Sokoloff is repped by Endeavor and Myles Levy at James/Levy/Jacobson. She next stars in the 2004 Sundance Film Festival entry Home of Phobia.