Country star Kane Brown has announced his “Blessed & Free” tour for the fall, which comes with the underlying assumption that the nation will be mostly blessedly COVID-free by the time the outing kicks off in indoor arenas on Oct. 1. As a major basketball fan who played the sport in high school, Brown made a point of making sure the 35-city tour is hitting all 29 NBA basketball venues in the U.S. along the way, in what’s said to be the first time a country performer has landed in every one during a single tour.
Showbusiness Rumors
Production is underway on a four-episode docuseries centering on top basketball player Pau Gasol, Variety can reveal exclusively. The series chronicles Gasol, the two-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers and six-time NBA All-Star, as he winds down his professional career. The as yet untitled series is directed by Oriol Bosch (“Andrés Iniesta: The Unexpected Hero”), and produced by PG Productions, RTG Features and THINK450, the content arm of the National Basketball Players Assn. (NBPA). PG Productions and RTG Features are handling sales.
LeBron James: . @Dame_Lillard @AntDavis23 @KlayThompson @DianaTaurasi @Nnemkadi30 THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for taking time out of your busy schedules, trusting me and playing a huge part of Space Jam: A New Legacy!! Means a lot! 🙏🏾✊🏾💪🏾👑 @spacejammovie
Earlier this summer, Damian Lillard joined LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, Diana Taurasi and a host of other professional NBA and WNBA players, as well as the likes of Don Cheadle and Sonequa Martin-Green for the filming of Space Jam 2, the sequel/remake of the Michael Jordan vehicle, which was originally released in 1996. James takes the lead role this time, with Lillard presumable picking up one of the roles filled by Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Larry Johnson in the original.
Bo Burnham has been cast as Boston Celtics star Larry Bird in HBO’s upcoming series about the Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s. The untitled series was ordered at HBO in December 2019. It is described as chronicling the professional and personal lives of the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers, one of sports’ most revered and dominant dynasties, in what came to be called the Showtime Era.
You can watch Steph and Ayesha Curry appear on the latest episode of Sesame Street on HBO Max. “The Currys join Elmo, Cookie Monster and Grover for a bit of friendly competition to show young viewers how cooking a healthy breakfast can help them play, learn, and even shoot a basketball,” the press release states.
