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After playing the host of “Kaun Banega Crorepati,” the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” in “Slumdog Millionaire,” Indian star Anil Kapoor will be the new host of “Bigg Boss Ott,” a Hindi-language adaptation of the “Big Brother” format. The third digital edition of the reality show will commence June 21 on billionaire Mukesh Ambani‘s JioCinema Premium streamer. The first season was hosted by Indian media personality Karan Johar and the second by Bollywood star Salman Khan.

“‘Bigg Boss Ott’ and I are a dream team. We’re both young at heart; people often say – jokingly – that I’m reverse ageing, but Bigg Boss is – seriously- timeless. It feels a bit like going back to school, trying something new and exciting,” Kapoor said. “Unscripted reality has something for everyone – laughter, drama, and surprising twists, and I can’t wait to bring my own flavor to it.

Exclusive: Artists First has signed actor Brandon Micheal Hall for management.

Hall is perhaps best known for his breakout role opposite Alia Shawkat in the acclaimed TBS/HBO Max series Search Party, created by Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charlies Rogers and Michael Showalter, which ran for five seasons.

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During the course of that dark comedy’s run, he also led the Humanitas Prize-winning CBS drama God Friended Me from EP Greg Berlanti, as well as ABC’s half-hour comedy The Mayor exec produced by Jeremy Bronson, Daveed Diggs and Jamie Tarses.

Hall is a graduate of Juilliard, the British American Drama Academy, and the South Carolina Governor School of the Arts and Humanities,...

When eulogizing screen performers, we often look at an Academy Award as either the launchpad or the apex of an actor’s life. In the case of Cloris Leachman, who died Wednesday at the age of 94, her Oscar was just one milestone in the career of an exceedingly versatile character actress.

Leachman was honored over the years both for her dramatic intensity and for a comedy skillset that embraced neurotic tension and fearless physicality with equal grace. She not only lived to be a nonagenarian, but she also remained busy and in demand to the very end, with recent credits as a voice in “The Croods: A New Age” and on such shows as “Mad About You” and “American Gods.”

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1926, Leachman studied at Northwestern (where her classmates included fellow comedy legends Paul Lynde and Charlotte Rae) before competing in the 1946 Miss America pageant. She...

Oscar winner and eight-time Emmy winner Cloris Leachman, best remembered as the delightfully neurotic Phyllis Lindstrom on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and her own subsequent sitcom, was remembered by Hollywood as an incredibly hilarious woman and “comedic genius.” She died of natural causes on Tuesday in Encinitas, Calif., and was 94.

Her portrayal of Phyllis garnered her two Emmys as a featured actress in a series during the mid-’70s and made her a household name. She won a supporting actress Academy Award in the early part of the decade for a far different character, an embittered small-town housewife in Peter Bogdanovich’s coming-of-age drama “The Last Picture Show.”

Her seemingly overnight success came only after two decades of hard work in theater, television and film. Leachman was in her 40s when stardom finally hit and effortlessly transitioned to more grandmotherly roles later in life.

Mel Brooks, director of “Young Frankenstein,...

Thanksgiving — the angsty precursor to Christmas and the first “at bat” for the family get together. What to do when you need to break some delicate news about your personal life when you face a family where everyone is caught up in their own dramas and not listening very well? Filmmaker Jenna Laurenzo’s new film Lez Bomb is a sweet and joyous romp of a film that deals with a serious issue and takes the sting out of it in a most artful and touchingly funny way. Coming out to your family is a tough one for so many, […]

The post Lez Bomb exclusive: Jenna Laurenzo interview about the holiday film you need right now appeared first on Monsters and Critics.

Caitlin Mehner (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Tembi Locke (Eureka) are set for recurring roles opposite Rachel Lefevre and Russell Hornsby on Fox’s new legal drama series Proven Innocent, from Empire co-creator Danny Strong and writer David Elliott.

Written by Elliott, Proven Innocent follows a criminal defense firm led by Madeline Scott (Rachelle Lefevre), a fierce and uncompromising lawyer with a hunger for justice.

Mehner will play Heather Husband, a classic mean girl from high school and Madeline Scott’s (Lefevre) nemesis who continues to torment her in adulthood.

Locke will portray Vanessa Dale, a professional and empathetic therapist to Easy Boudreau (Hornsby).

Mehner is coming off the recurring role of Honey Bruce in Emmy-winning The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and supporting roles in The Best of Enemies opposite Sam Rockwell and Taraji P. Henson and in the most recent Ocean’s Eight. Mehner also stars in the indie comedy...

The holidays wouldn’t be special without a few surprises.

Cloris Leachman and Bruce Dern star in Lez Bomb, a new holiday comedy about a young woman, Lauren (Jenna Laurenzo), who goes home for Thanksgiving with a bombshell revelation.

The film follows Lauren as she attempts to come out to her parents and extended family — only to send mixed messages as her male friend is mistaken for her boyfriend. People has an exclusive first look at the comedy’s trailer.

“When am I meeting the boyfriend?” her mother, Rose, asks her, to which Lauren replies, “Soon.”

Unbeknownst to her mother,...

Lez Bomb, Hide & Seek on roster.

Edward Noeltner’s La-based Cinema Management Group (Cmg) has boarded sales on horror thriller The Shed from A Bigger Boat Productions as part of its slate for the upcoming Afm.

New titles include Lez Bomb starring Cloris Leachman and Bruce Dern, who just replaced the late Burt Reynolds on Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and Locarno premiere Hide & Seek.

Cmg handles international sales on The Shed (pictured) from producers Peter Block and Cory Neal, which just wrapped principal photography in upstate New York.

Frank Sabatella directs the feature from A...

Exclusive: Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to Lez Bomb, written and directed by and starring Jenna Laurenzo and executive produced by Bobby Farrelly. The pic, financed and produced by Sprockefeller Pictures, won a jury award when it world premiered at the Bentonville Film Festival, and now will hit theaters and on-demand platforms November 9.

The pic centers on a young woman (Laurenzo) who comes home for Thanksgiving with life-changing news. Little does she know, the eccentric cast of characters that make up her extended family have their own stirring surprises, with the ensuing events forcing the family to come together in what amounts to the most unceremonious of holidays. The ensemble cast includes Cloris Leachman, Bruce Dern, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Kane, Steve Guttenberg, Elaine Hendrix, Caitlin Mehner, Brandon Micheal Hall and Rob Moran.

The pic is a follow-up to Laurenzo’s 2015 short Girl Night Stand.

“I wanted to create a broad,...

Exclusive: Having reunited with Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll co-star Denis Leary for his USA Network pilot Erase earlier this summer, Elaine Hendrix is now joining Fox’s Proven Innocent.

The midseason replacement legal drama from Empire co-creator Danny Strong and writer David Elliot will feature Hendrix in the recurring role of Susan Andrews, I’ve learned. In a cast that includes Kelsey Grammer and Rachelle Lefevre, The Parent Trap alum’s character is a shameless self-promoting TV pundit who has the pull to sway public opinion with her proclamations of guilt or innocence.

Now, I’m not saying Nancy Grace, but you get the general idea that Strong and Elliot are aiming for here, right?

A somewhat fictionalized telling of the Amanda Knox saga, by Strong’s own admission at TCA last month, Proven Innocent sees Lefevre as a crusading lawyer leading a criminal defense team that seeks to free the wrongful convicted.

Geena Davis' Bentonville Film Festival, which champions women and diverse voices in media, on Saturday announced its 2018 award winners.

The ceremony was hosted by The Real’s Loni Love, and presenters included festival co-founders Davis and Trevor Drinkwater and actress Stephanie Beatriz, with performances by Martina McBride and the Latin X Theater Project.

Actor and filmmaker Natalie Morales was presented with the fest's first See It, Be It Award, recognizing her rising and influential voice in the landscape of diversity and inclusion in media.

Jenna Laurenzo's Lez Bomb took the best narrative film jury award, best documentary honors went to Emanuel from director...

Exclusive: Lez Bomb is Jenna Laurenzo’s directorial debut and her follow-up to her short film Girl Night Stand, which went viral online, garnering well over 2M views on Youtube, then was translated into other languages by lesbian fans from around the world and ended up, surprisingly, having a big Chinese following. The multi-generational story about two women coming out stars Cloris Leachman, Bruce Dern, Kevin Pollak and Steve Guttenberg and is exec produced by Bobby Farrelly. Watch an exclusive clip above.

The project started in earnest when Laurenzo was on the festival circuit with Girl Night Stand and Farrelly saw her short and read Lez Bomb and wanted to come aboard. The comedy is about a young woman (Laurenzo) who comes home for Thanksgiving with some life-changing news. Little does she know, the eccentric cast of characters that make up her extended family have their own stirring surprises as well.

Bobby Farrelly has spent a quarter century in comedy, and the co-director of films like “Dumb and Dumber” and “There’s Something About Mary” says the world’s sense of humor has become increasingly touchy.

“People are very thin-skinned about a lot of subjects,” he said, speaking at Idaho’s Sun Valley Film Festival, held March 15-19. “You can’t even joke about them. These aren’t the days of Lenny Bruce, when you could try a bunch of different things and break rules. Now, people are sensitive. But I think it’ll change. It’s a cyclical thing. Someone will come along who’s doing it differently, a modern-day Joan Rivers who can make people laugh about being sensitive.”

Read More: How Two Brothers Directed One Film With a Singular Vision

Another change Farrelly noted is the shrinking number of names that matter as comedy box office draws. It...

Sprockerfeller Pictures will produce Lez Bomb, an upcoming comedy from writer and director Jenna Laurenzo (Girl Night Stand), who will star. A family ensemble comedy, Lez Bomb is about a closeted young woman who brings her girlfriend home for Thanksgiving, only to have her coming out plans thwarted by the unexpected arrival of her male roommate. Also starring are A.B. Farrelly (Treading Yesterday), Brandon Micheal Hall (Search Party), Elaine Hendrix (Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll)…...