LeBron James’ SpringHill Entertainment and Vertigo Entertainment, the latter of which produced It, are in talks to team up to produce a new iteration telling of the gory happenings at Camp Crystal Lake, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. While the intense interest in Halloween is partly a factor in the coming-together reboot, another is the legal case, decided just under a month ago, which saw original Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller regain the rights to his screenplay.
Showbusiness Rumors
Clevis Murray: Talked to Aaron Gordon on a few things, including why accept a role in “Uncle Drew.” “I just wanted to see the behind scenes of movie making and how they make movies and how actors act. I’m super interested in making films in the future and being in them.”
Relief arrived by phone the next day. James announced he was awarding Johnson a four-year contract. And after James provided the Lakers with personal scouting reports on potential housemates — Johnson had said to Spectrum SportsNet that he’d “definitely ask him his opinion because he knows those players better than us” — the most viral casting call in memory commenced. First they signed Rajon Rondo, a point guard who once fastballed a water bottle through a 50-inch television in a film session. Then they signed Lance Stephenson, a guard who established himself as no less than James’ foremost irritant by blowing into his ear canal in the 2014 Eastern Conference finals. Then they signed JaVale McGee, a center so notorious for on-court bloopers that his mother publicly accused Lakers legend and TNT analyst Shaquille O’Neal of bullying her son. And then they signed Michael Beasley, a forward who wore a wristwatch on his right ankle while debating, in a televised interview, whether humans use only 10 percent of their brains. “If the Lakers were ‘Family Matters,'” says one Western Conference source, “this would be like adding four f—ing Urkels.”
Bryant won an Academy Award earlier this year for the animated short film “Dear Basketball,” which was adapted from a poem Bryant wrote as part of his farewell message to the NBA. In a statement to Variety on Wednesday, Bryant said he was “disappointed” by the decision. “This decision further motivates me and my commitment to building a studio that focuses on diversity and inclusion in storytelling for the animation industry,” Bryant said.
“After discussions with the various stakeholders of Animation Is Film, the decision has been made to remove Kobe Bryant from the 2018 jury,” said Eric Beckman, CEO of GKIDS, the independent animation distributor that produces the event. “We are a young organization and it is important to keep our collective energies focused on the films, the participating filmmakers, and our festival attendees.”
A petition was posted on Change.org last week, urging the festival to remove Bryant from the jury. Variety is one of the sponsors of the event, along with the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and ASIFA Hollywood.
