‘Purlie Victorious’ Broadway Review: Leslie Odom Jr. Keeps Ossie Davis’ Groundbreaking Comedy True To Its Title

Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp through the Cotton Patch (★★★★☆) is a complete con artist and long-winded orator. He’s got the best intentions.

Preview performances for Broadway‘s I Need That starring Danny DeVito begin tonight, and already the limited engagement has been extended by a week.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Mexican actor/director/writer/ producer Eugenio Derbez “can do anything.” That’s what Ben Odell, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Derbez’s production company, 3Pas, believes. “The roles he’s been offered to date are the comedy relief guy,” Odell tells Variety. “The best of Hollywood is the big spectacle movies.

Broadway‘s critically acclaimed Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch starring Leslie Odom, Jr. has extended its limited engagement by four weeks, with closing night at the Music Box Theatre now set for Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Lionsgate‘s adaptation of the Judy Blume novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” has been submitted for the Golden Globes in the comedy/musical categories, Variety has learned exclusively. With the expansion from five to six nominees this year, the movie will compete for recognition against Warner Bros’ “Barbie,” Searchlight Pictures’ “Poor Things” and Focus Features’ “The Holdovers.” Written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, the film tells the story of 11-year-old Margaret, who is uprooted from her life in New York to New Jersey, where she deals with the challenges of new friends and a new school. Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

Troubled musicals, like troubled friendships, can often seem like defeats lying in wait, sponging up every last second of loving care, effort and good intention. So Maria Friedman’s smartly tended production of that most troubled of stage properties, the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth backwards musical Merrily We Roll Along deserves all the applause – and ticket-buying business – it’s getting at Broadway‘s Hudson Theatre.

Gogglebox star Stephen Lustig-Webb is set to compete against the likes of Miles Nazaire and Amber Davies in the upcoming series of Dancing on Ice which returns in January. But the 52-year-old reality star admitted to OK! on the red carpet at Sunday's Pride of Britain Awards that he was already worried about his performances on the ice. "[I've got] absolutely no rhythm and no balance," he told us before the glitzy event.

British screenwriter and film director Terence Davies has died aged 77 following a “short illness”, his manager has said.

Jordan Moreau In the horror genre, nothing really ever stays dead. Universal and Blumhouse’s sequel, “The Exorcist: Believer,” is launching at the box office this weekend, and it’s made $2.85 million in Thursday previews so far. The R-rated movie is expected to make between $30 million and $36 million in its opening, which will mark the best launch of the horror franchise ever.

The new movie The Exorcist: Believer, which serves as a direct sequel to the original 1973 movie, is now in theaters.

his 2018 “Halloween” reboot with Jamie Lee Curtis. And, on paper, his plan doesn’t sound so bad. Running time: 121 minutes.

There are myriad talking entry points to “Exorcist: Believer”—David Gordon Green’s latest horror legacy sequel and the follow-up to his “Halloween” trilogy. For one, it’s awful, but it’s also fascinating, chock-full of thought-provoking ideas— impossible to fully disregard even when the film goes off the rails.

In the long history of horror films since the dawn of cinema, it would be hard to imagine any of them quite having the particular impact of 1973’s The Exorcist which became the first horror film ever to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, along with nine other nominations including Best Actress for Ellen Burstyn. It eventually won two Academy Awards for William Peter Blatty’s screenplay based on his 1971 novel, and for the bone chilling Sound work. When I saw it as a young kid in its original incarnation at the National Theatre in Westwood (now no longer existing), there were lines like you have never seen wrapping completely around the block. Warner Bros. even put a nurse on duty in the lobby for those who passed out, no mere gimmick because it actually happened. Nothing I have seen since in the genre has matched that one for me, but it wasn’t for Hollywood not trying. There are countless imitations, even a couple of failed direct sequels including the dreadful 1977 followup, Exorcist II: The Heretic, and the forgettable Exorcist III: Legion in 1990. There have been TV series attempts, an origin angle with Exorcist: The Beginning in 2004, and countless others using the come-on Exorcist in their title. Earlier this year we even had another film, based on the Vatican’s longtime real life demon slayer, The Pope’s Exorcist which thanks to a dedicated performance by Russell Crowe worked quite well on its own terms

Gordon Cox Theater Editor Leslie Odom Jr. isn’t just the star of the new, critically acclaimed Broadway revival of “Purlie Victorious.” He’s also one of its producers. The combination is really working for him.

The artisanally-hand crafted worlds of Wes Anderson are obviously whimsically delicate, precious, often delightful, frequently ornate, and are globally renowned for their visual distinctiveness: precise, symmetrical, soft-hued pastel color-inflected, and rigorous to the point of being lovingly caricatured on social media TikTok videos. Perhaps what isn’t as apparent to the viewer is just how detailed and fastidious Anderson’s screenplays have become in recent years, like prescriptive miniature novels in their own right.

Variety‘s annual Business of Broadway Breakfast, fortifying themselves with coffee and frittatas on a rare day off, to celebrate a new season of plays, musicals and revivals. The event, which was presented by City National Bank, included discussions with Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez. They are taking their acclaimed Off-Broadway production of “Merrily We Roll Along” to the Main Stem and hoping to redeem the Stephen Sondheim musical, which flopped when it debuted in 1981.

Leslie Odom Jr‘s daughter gets possessed in the second trailer for the upcoming horror flick The Exorcist: Believer.

Jessica Kiang Anyone familiar with the often disquieting solo work of directors María Alché and Benjamín Naishtat may be put on high uneasiness-alert by the opening scene of “Puan,” their first co-directed feature. Despite the jaunty pop song playing, an older man going for a morning jog in a scrubby Buenos Aires park, suddenly keels over dead of a heart attack.

On Thursday, the ‘Special’ singer’s attorneys formally denied the claims filed by three of her former dancers last month.

There’s no question that Melissa Etheridge is an inviting performer, whether she’s beckoning through her window or simply asking us to enjoy some of the great rock singing ever – and, yes, at 62 she is still a great rock singer, her raspy voice as rangy, powerful and, when she wants, as subtle as it was during her 1990s breakthrough days.