Ezat Delijani dies

Ezat Delijani, a philanthropist and developer who's credited with protecting several historic cinemas in downtown La, died Saturday in Beverly Hillsides of complications because of lymphoma.Delijani grew to become a prominent property magnate in La after running his native Iran throughout the nation's 1979 revolution.3 years later, he bought the La Theater in order to save it from demolition. It had been the very first of 4 moviehouses on Broadway that he'd purchase.A downtown intersection was devoted as Ezat Delijani square last year. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com

London theater looks ahead

Londons legit scene can anticipate RSCs 'Matilda,' above, and Broadway transfer 'The Book of Mormon,' below.BirdRubinsteinLondon-- Because the West Finish legit industry shakes from the scare from the city's recent riots, Julian Bird and Mark Rubinstein, the 2 incoming heads from the Society based in london Theaters (SOLT), remain upbeat about prospects for any coming year that'll be assigned off next summer time through the Olympic games, getting a good increase of vacationers towards the city -- but additionally a diploma of uncertainty towards the theater biz. "The riots had hardly any impact," states Bird, SOLT leader, who, together with prexy Rubinstein runs the org's shows. "Sales at TKTS were just like normal. About the roads from the West Finish itself over individuals days, nothing made an appearance to possess transformed."A primary reason for future optimism is the fact that box office advances for West Finish shows are greater compared to they were this time around this past year, which Bird states is a straightforward situation of lots of good new shows arriving. "A number of that's star-driven -- for example David Suchet in 'A Lengthy Day's Journey Into Night' -- however additionally, there are the RSC hit manufacture of 'Matilda,' without any star names whatsoever," he states. "Getting a evening out in the London theater is clearly something which people still look foward to, and they are prepared to book ahead."Stating their email list of shows within the pipeline, he's naturally upbeat about potential customers.Tony a2z magnet "It of Mormon," Stephen Daldry's "Bridget Jones' Diary" and Judy Craymer's Spice Women musical "Viva Forever," are probably the shows arranging for West Finish berths together with "Crazy in love with You," "Singin' while it is raining,Inch "The Obligations" and "Top Hat."Potential houses of these and all sorts of other West Finish shows are at the disposal of London's theater proprietors, however their collective existence is overseen by Rubinstein and Bird because the cake toppers of SOLT.In June, Rubinstein, who's creating "Butley" in the western world Finish with Dominic West and also the European tour of "Fela!," grew to become the very first independent producer to become made SOLT prexy in fifteen years. His forerunners were theater proprietors like Nica Burns, whose three-year term publish lately ended. Bird continues to be at SOLT only slightly longer -- for nine several weeks. He hit the floor running this year, substantially boosting the profile and media positioning from the Olivier Honours having a proceed to the exclusive Royal Opera House, which already hosts the BAFTAs.The 2 executives are keeping a specific eye about the 2012 Olympic games, which figures to possess a major effect on West Finish biz, for better or worse. Rubinstein sees the Games, skedded for This summer 27-August. 12, like a challenge around an chance: More and more people come in town, however it can not be assumed that sports-minded site visitors may wish to treat themselves to some evening of theater. As Bird sees it, the primary real question is exactly what the tourist profile may be like throughout that period."You will see individuals with time available,Inch he states. "Accordingly, around 25 shows have previously opened up their booking period for next summer time -- booking that far ahead hasn't been done before." The SOLT chief notes that you will see added TKTS cubicles and purchasers shops in proper places, such as the Olympic site itself.Rubinstein feels the Olympic games ultimately is going to be advantageous towards the industry. "In the long run, they'll be a positive thing for London theater, provided we understand it properly when it comes to while using occasion to advertise British theater all over the world,Inch he states.And also the 2012 Paralympics, to become locked in London a couple of days later, can give the Society an chance to publicize its existing initiatives regarding access, Bird notes.Promotion, he thinks, is central to his role at SOLT. He cites the prosperity of Kids Week, an initiative that's been running in mid-August within the last 14 years, this year from August. 12-Sept. 14. Throughout that point, youngsters 16 and under could possibly get free or half-cost tickets to shows when supported with a full-having to pay adult. Broadway has started an identical program that runs in Feb."This past year saw an archive quantity of sales," Bird states, "and just per week into the 2010 season, we have nearly equaled that."With the amount of top shows within the pipeline, Bird sees fall 2012 and spring 2013 shaping as seasons of change for that West Finish, though he cautions that "everything (comes) lower to commercial deals between theater proprietors and individual productions."Searching past the local picture, Bird hopes SOLT can forge a more in-depth connection to transatlantic counterpart, the Broadway League. "We all know fundamental essentials two greatest marketplaces for theater there already is available an exchange plan for stars on sides from the Atlantic," he states. "There is however more work to become completed to result in the flow of talent between your two metropolitan areas even simpler." Contact David Benedict at benedictdavid@mac.com

Kris Jenner To Guest Host on 'The Talk' Comedian Sheryl Underwood Joins as Co-Host

Getty ImagesKris Jenner and Sheryl Underwood The Talk is making room on its couch for Kris Jenner and Sheryl Underwood. The Maintaining Using the Kardashians personality continues to be slated to guest host for 2 days at the start of the approaching second season from the CBS talk show, while actress/comedian/on-air personality Underwood will join as co-host, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Jenner will guest host at the start of the growing season and it is being eyed like a potential fill-in host for Sharon Osbourne on days she's not available. Osbourne introduced in This summer that she'd be going for a break in the Speak with hang out with her husband, Ozzy Osbourne, who definitely are overall an 18-month-lengthy tour. Underwood, who located BET's Comic View and it is a normal on-air personality about the syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show, will begin the growing season like a co-host by having an option to become regular host about the series should her chemistry gel with Sara Gilbert and Julie Chen. Producers continue to be searching for potential hosts or guest hosts and but haven't eliminated the potential of beginning the brand new season with four people about the panel. The Talk's second season will bow Sept. 6 with Chen, Gilbert and Osbourne with Underwood about the panel too. This news comes per week after reviews appeared that Carol Robinson Peete and Leah Remini wouldn't be coming back towards the show because of its second season. Original co-host Marissa Jaret Winokur left early this season. Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com Twitter: @Snoodit Kris Jenner The Talk

Bradley Cooper Won't Play The Crow, and 5 Other Stories You'll Be Talking About Today

Also in this Tuesday edition of The Broadsheet: Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy may team for ID Theft… G.I. Joe 2 signs up Walton Goggins… J.R.R. Tolkien heads to the big screen (sorta)… and more ahead. · If you were among those stunned to read Bradley Cooper was talking with director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo about starring in the remake of The Crow, this news should warm the cockles of your heart: Cooper had to bow out of Crow consideration due to a scheduling conflict. The bro-tastic Hangover star is set to shoot Paradise Lost for original Crow director Alex Proyas in early 2012 (irony!), the same time frame that Fresnadillo will film The Crow. No word yet on who will replace Cooper, but THR reports Mark Wahlberg and Channing Tatum have come up in discussions. [THR/Heat Vision] · Melissa McCarthy is officially like Hansel: so hot right now. She’s attached to star opposite Jason Bateman in ID Theft, a comedy about a guy (Bateman) who gets his identity stolen by a thief (McCarthy). The role was originally written for a man, but after seeing McCarthy in Bridesmaids over the summer, Bateman pushed for a change. Steve Conrad (The Pursuit of Happyness) wrote the script, with Craig Mazin (The Hangover Part II) working on the rewrite; expect ID Theft to shoot during McCarthy’s Mike & Molly hiatus next spring. [Deadline] · Justified favorite Walton Goggins has joined the cast of G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation as Warden Nigel James (great name). He’s just the latest newcomer to the Jon M. Chu-directed sequel, joining Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Adrianne Palicki and possibly Bruce Willis. Channing Tatum returns from the original. [Variety] · Author Steve Hillard will adapt his novel Mirkwood for the big screen. The book focuses on a fictional version of Lord of the Rings writer J.R.R. Tolkien. [THR/Heat Vision] · HBO had such a good time with Todd Haynes on Mildred Pierce that the network has reenlisted him to produce Dope. Based on the novel by Sara Gran, the potential series would follow a heroin addict turned private investigator in the 1950s. Julianne Moore, who previously worked with Haynes on Safe, is attached to star. [Deadline] · 13 percent of cell phone users fake calls to avoid “unwanted conversation.” You’re not alone! [THR]

Snookis 2012 Predictions: Blackouts & Pandemonium!

FIRST PUBLISHED: August 15, 2011 3:56 PM EDT LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Jersey Shore star Nicole Snooki Polizzi foresees a grim future when she looks ahead to 2012 and it has nothing to do with a pickle shortage or the inability to tan. The economy is really scary because 2012 is coming, the pint-sized reality star recently told the Wall Street Journal (yes, Snooki chatted with the Journal!). I feel like the first thing thats going to happen is a blackout, she said of the coming new year. And then everyone freaks out and the world goes crazy. Despite her dire outlook, the reality star who is currently filming a new season of her hit MTV series and also has a spin-off in the works, with pal Jenni JWoww Farley is retaining some hope about 2012. So hopefully, Obama will take care [of the economy] before 2012, she added. Before the darkness and madness of 2012 begins, Snooki is also hoping for some Dancing with the Stars glory. Find out why the Garden State darling changed her tune about appearing on the reality competition, HERE! Copyright 2011 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WWE Summerslam 2011

Its the biggest event of the Summer, and it continues to shine in Hollywood! The WWE Universe will be watching as the Superstars of World Wrestling Entertainment bring SummerSlam to the Staples Center. Last year s show saw WWE and World Heavyweight Championship Matches and a 7-on-7 battle pitting the best of Raw against the upstart Nexus. Who knows who the superstars of Raw and SmackDown will top themselves?

NBC to bring back Frankenstein

Frankenstein It's aliiive! Well, it may be.NBC is creating a modern-day remake of Frankenstein, based on the Hollywood Reporter. The project originates from House executive producers Garrett Lerner and Russel Friend for Universal Media Galleries and BermanBraun. Universal Galleries is the owner of the home privileges to Frankenstein, among other classic monsters, like Dracula and also the Wolf Guy.Obtain the relaxation of present day newsFrankenstein continues to be modified for that small screen before in 2 forgettable TV movies in 1973 and 1993, although not like a series. The classic Mary Shelley novel is possibly most widely known because of its film adaptations, most particularly the 1931 James Whale film starring Boris Karloff, the "Universal monster rally" films featuring Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, and also the Wolf Guy within the '40s and Mel Brooks' 1974 spoof Youthful Frankenstein. Can you watch a Frankenstein series?

'The Help' Review: An Adaptation That Would Make Any Author Proud

'The Help,' adapted from Kathryn Stockett's 2009 bestseller, is a story of friendship, rivalry, racial injustice, and female empowerment set against the backdrop of one of the ugliest periods in American history. While a lot of men out there might write it off as one for the women, those guys won't know what they'll be missing. Here are our thoughts on the big-screen version of one of the most popular books of the past two years: What's It About? Set in 1960s Jackson, Miss., in the midst of the civil rights movement, 'The Help' is story of Aibileen and Minny, two African-American women who have worked as maids in white households their entire lives, and Skeeter, a white woman whose moral compass starts spinning after her friends strike up an initiative to build outdoor bathrooms for "the help." Just out of college and itching to pursue a career in journalism, Skeeter pitches an idea to a publishing house in New York for a book told from the perspective of Southern black women who spend their lives raising white babies only to have those babies grow up and become their new employers -- and, in many cases, tormentors. After getting the go-ahead, Skeeter convinces Aibileen and Minny to meet with her in secret to document their stories in the hopes of getting their voices heard, despite the considerable dangers to their safety and livelihoods. How Does It Compare With the Book? We've read the book and we liked it, but, surprisingly, we liked the movie more. Tate Taylor's script, to its credit, stays quite true to the events and characters in the book that worked so well. While certain events have been moved around and some of the finer details are left out, nothing detracted from the movie as a whole. If you're a student who was assigned the book for summer reading, you might miss a couple points here and there, but you could probably just see the movie and still pass the test with ease. (Not that we recommend that!) For the most part, the transfer from the page to the screen couldn't be better. The only downside of the adaptation is that, with so many characters and plot points to cover, the perspective jumps around an awful lot. The novel is also told from the varying perspectives of the three central characters, but the film sometimes feels staggered when certain characters find themselves in the spotlight at one point, then disappear completely for the next 15 or 20 minutes until the focus changes and their story picks back up. This would be a bigger problem if every actress didn't make the absolute most out of her screen time, but since that's a non-issue across the board, it's more something you just get used to than it is a glaring drawback. As far as emotional roller coasters are concerned, this one does the novel justice and then some. Reading the book, we got a lump in our throat maybe once or twice over the course of some 500 pages; watching the movie, we were fighting back tears (along with everyone else in the theater) a handful of times over the course of two hours. While Kathryn Stockett did an amazing job of creating these characters in the first place, seeing them in the flesh really drives it all home -- which isn't a slight on the book as much as it is a compliment to the film. This really is a doozy of a tear-jerker, never careening toward the melodramatic and as genuine as anything we've seen all year. Is It as Controversial as the Book? Yes, but that's an element that we didn't have much issue with in the first place. Race relations is always a touchy subject, and when you consider the time, setting and different viewpoints from which the story is told, controversy was inevitable. In 'The Help,' we see full-fledged super-racists who worship the Jim Crow laws like they were scripture, but we also see an arguably stereotypical image of Southern African-American women. While some might have more of a problem with that depiction than others, we have a tough time pointing any fingers at the movie since it doesn't change or sugarcoat anything we read in the book. How's the Cast? It's one of the strongest ensembles we've seen since 'The Fighter,' and the best female cast we've seen in years. This one's all about the women, and they do an exceptional job all around. One performer who now has a strong chance at an Academy Award nomination -- or even a win -- is Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark. Davis, who was robbed of an Oscar three years back for her incredible supporting role in 'Doubt,' turns in a raw, intense, vulnerable performance that shook us to the core time and time again. If only she'd had more screen time. The biggest surprise is probably Bryce Dallas Howard as the pie-loving mega-bigot of Jackson, Hilly Holbrook. This is Howard's best role to date, and we admire how she sinks her teeth into such an insanely conniving and outrageously unlikable character. Emma Stone does a fine job as Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, even if she doesn't shine quite as brightly as her dazzling co-stars (Stone can do no wrong in our book after being so amazing in 'Easy A'), while Octavia Spencer is perfect as Minny Jackson. Jessica Chastain is utterly delightful as Minny's ditzy employer, Celia Foote, and the great Allison Janney is just that as Skeeter's mom. Sissy Spacek, as Hilly's mother, effortlessly turns an otherwise-minor character into one of the sharpest and most memorable roles of the bunch. Like we said, this is a big cast, but everyone here really does deserve mentioning. Coming after 'Bridesmaids' earlier this summer -- another instance where the girls showed up the boys -- 'The Help' feels like a natural progression in a year in which actresses are raising the bar left and right. Is it worth seeing? Even having read the book, we weren't quite sure what to expect here, but long before the credits started scrolling, it became plain that this film is something special. Regardless of your gender or your familiarity with the novel, 'The Help' is affecting and well worth seeing. It's rare to find an adaptation that manages to trump its source material, but thanks to a clear appreciation for the book from director Tate Taylor and a powerhouse ensemble, it does just that. VERDICT: 8/10 Helping Hands Photos courtesy of Touchstone Pictures.

ILM, Imageworks release Alembic 1.0

The shift toward open standards and open-source software in visual effects and animation took another step forward Tuesday as Industrial Light & Magic and Sony Pictures Imageworks released version 1.0 of Alembic -- their open-source interchange format for animation graphics files. "It allows us to hand data between facilities in an easier way than ever before," said Imageworks chief technical officer Rob Bredow. In development more than a year, Alembic represents a rare collaboration between the rival visual effects giants. "We're providing all of this to the community as a single large open-source project," Bredow said. "And we'll see the community develop it from there." The announcement came at a press conference Tuesday morning at the Siggraph conference in Vancouver. Alembic allows animation graphics files to move between software applications easily and quickly, which was not possible with previous file formats. "Most of the things that people come to ILM to Imageworks to do is extremely complicated. You have to use every off-the-shelf tool and internal software to pull this work off. So this helps have the common language between all the different applications," Bredow said. Version 1.0 is the first official production-tested version of Alembic, already in use at Imageworks on "Men in Black III" and "The Amazing Spider-Man." ILM and Imageworks were working separately on the problem of an interchange format; when they learned of each other's work, they decided to pool their efforts. They announced Alembic at last year's Siggraph conference, and with a working version already in hand, they expected to release version 1.0 in just two to three months. But, as Bredow told a Monday session on open source software, once they tried to merge the two projects "we realized we had to rewrite the whole thing from the ground up to realize both our goals," something he said "was not an easy decision." Bredow noted that since the project is open source, neither Imageworks nor Lucasfilm will get any direct financial benefit from it. "This is not a small investment," he said. "Not only do you have to believe it yourself, you have to convince other people who are responsible for funding our organization. We're a for-profit entity." Contact David S. Cohen at david.cohen@variety.com

John Gray Targets 'The Hanging Tree' As 'White Irish Drinkers' Followup

White Irish Drinkers writer/director John Gray has acquired the Bryan Gruley mystery thriller The Hanging Tree, and he'll write the script to direct. Gray will also produce it under his Ovington Avenue Productions along with partner Melissa Jo Peltier. They worked together on White Irish Drinkers, the coming of age drama that was released by Screen Media. The Hanging Tree is the second novel in Gruley's Starvation Lake mystery series. Gus Carpenter, a former Detroit Times reporter-turned detective, tries to solve the mystery of how a former resident of the Michigan resort town winds up hanging from a tree after she returns home. Gray, who created the CBS series The Ghost Whisperer and wrote and directed Martin and Lewis and Helter Skelter for CBS, also directed the features Born to Be Wild and The Glimmer Man. The book deal was made by WME. "Bryan Gruley has written a brillians series of novels, with rich characters in an incredibly visual and fascinating world," Gray said. "The themes in this particular novel resonated deeply with me and I'm passionate about bringing it to the screen."