No song and dance man — Hugh Jackman will not host the Oscars a second year in a row.
The actor, who’s starring on Broadway with Daniel Craig in the drama “A Steady Rain,” quietly turned down the job sometime during the past few weeks.
I liked Jackman as the song and dance man of the Oscars. He drew praise from others as well. He says he’ll host the Oscar show again in the future, but is not certain.
After his Broadway run, Jackman plans to take time off and prepare for The Real Steel, the Shawn Levy-directed DreamWorks drama that starts production in the spring.
ET’s behind-the-scenes look at Nine, the movie musical based on the provocative Broadway show, articulates vibrant and stimulating women who were apart of world-famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis). The women include his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penelope Cruz), and his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), an American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the whore from his youth (Fergie) and his mother (Sophia Loren). The film is directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago). The movie will be in the movie theatres November 25, 2009.
Tyler Perry is set to write, direct and produce an adaptation of the 1975 play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.”
For Colored Girls is set for a November production start date in Atlanta with a planned release date next year. The play is a series of 20 poems telling stories of love, abandonment, domestic abuse and other issues faced by black women.
“For Colored Girls,” written by Ntozake Shange, who will write the screen adaptation, was first performed in 1975.
I am looking forward to seeing Perry work on an adaptation from some one else’s work. He’s quite the talent.
Up stayed high at the box office with Night at the Museum: Battle Smithsonian hanging in the balloons shadows. Two Family films at the top definitely tells us the movies we want to see.
I am excited about Nine. The trailer is brilliant. The art direction alone is amazing.
The word is that Nine is vibrant and provocative musical following the life of world famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis). He has to come to terms with his creatived life and personal crisis of huge angst, while balancing the several women. The women are his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penelope Cruz), and his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), an American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the whore from his youth (Fergie) and his mother (Sophia Loren). Rob Marshall (Chicago) directs the film. The original 1982 Broadway production of “Nine” won five Tony Awards including Best Musical.
Tony Award Winning broadway musical Hairspray brings its act to the Royal Caribbean International’s highly anticipated Oasis of the Seas when the ship sets sail from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in December 2009. One of two productions to take place in the ship’s grand Opal Theater, Hairspray will open with a wide array of cruise industry firsts that the cruise line will debut with the launch of Oasis of the Seas and is another addition to its diverse entertainment offerings.
The show is licensed to Royal Caribbean International for three years aboard Oasis of the Seas with an option for a fourth year. Under the agreement, which was struck with the aid of New York City-based Music Theater International and Broadway Theatrical, the show will be available exclusively to the cruise line, ensuring the ‘feel good’ performance will be the only of its kind at sea.
While the show has been trimmed just slightly to fit within the average 90-minute run time, consistent with Royal Caribbean’s theater productions, guests and Hairspray fans will be pleased to find that the hottest, high-energy numbers will remain on the playbill. The show will be offered three or four times on each seven-night cruise itinerary, ensuring that guests have the opportunity to see the show at their leisure during their vacation.
Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas will be the largest and most revolutionary cruise ships in the world when launched in December 2009 and December 2010, respectively. Architectural marvels at sea, both ships will span 16 decks, encompass 220,000 gross registered tons, carry 5,400 guests at double occupancy, and feature 2,700 staterooms. Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas will tout the cruise line’s new neighborhood concept of seven distinct themed areas, which include Central Park, Boardwalk, the Royal Promenade, the Pool and Sports Zone, Vitality at Sea Spa and Fitness Center, and Entertainment Place. The two ships will sail from their homeport of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
It looks like Aaron Eckhart will star with Nicole Kidman in the adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Broadway Pulitzer Prize winning play “Rabbit Hole.”
John Cameron Mitchell is set to direct with Kidman producing through her Fox-based Blossom Films banner.
Lindsay-Abaire’s adapting his story of a blissfully married couple whose lives are disrupted after their 4-year-old son is killed in a traffic accident and the deliverance they must undertake to regain happiness.
Robin Williams is headed to Broadway this spring where he will perform his standup tour of his solo show “Weapons of Self-Destruction” at the Neil Simon Theater.
The Broadway performances are part of an 80-city tour which started earlier February in Santa Barbara.
Line Cinema is producing a modern version of the musical Damn Yankees with Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaa attach to star. Carrey will play the devil and Gyllenhaa to play Boyd. It’s their first musical.
“Damn Yankees” won seven Tony Awards when it bowed on Broadway in 1955. The story follows Joe Boyd, a happily married middle-aged man whose devotion to a hapless pro baseball team prompts him to make a Faustian bargain with the devil to help the team. He’s transformed into slugger Joe Hardy, in exchange for Boyd’s soul. Boyd can break the deal, but the deadline occurs during the World Series. Adding to the plot, the devil engages Lola, a gorgeous lost soul, to seduce the slugger and seal his fate.
Damn Yankees classic tunes include “You Gotta Have Heart” and “Whatever Lola Wants.”
Damn Yankees was produced by Warner Bros in 1958. The film was directed by Abbott and Stanley Donen, with Ray Walston and Gwen Verdon re-creating their stage performances, and Tab Hunter playing the slugger.
No song and dance man — Hugh Jackman will not host the Oscars a second year in a row. 
Tyler Perry is set to write, direct and 
Pulitzer Prize winning play “Rabbit Hole.”
