Although some people never quite ‘got’ the 1996 Tony winning musical Rent, it cemented its place as a touchstone of modern musical theatre, running for 12 years on Broadway (which at the time put it amongst the 10 longest-running shows in Broadway history). Now it’s headed to TV as a live musical event, which Fox has announced it is planning to air in the US.
THR reports that it’s taken a long time to secure the rights, but the estate of the show’s creator, Jonathan Larson, is now on board, with Marc Platt producing. Loosely based on La Boheme, Rent follows a group of young bohemians living in Alphabet City in New York, who as they deal with love, art, death, sexuality and issues around HIV/AIDS.
The show was turned into movie in 2005, with most of the original cast reprising their roles. However it was met with mixed reviews and unimpressive box office. Fox will be hoping for more luck with their live TV version.
“Rent was Jonathan’s dream of sharing the theater and the passion he had for it with a whole new generation,” comment Julie and Al Larson. “None of us could have imagined the massive impact that the messages and themes in Rent would have on the theater community or the world… except for Jonathan. We are absolutely thrilled to be continuing Jonathan’s legacy and the still-relevant themes of the show in this way.”
It hasn’t been announced when the show will air, although we may have to wait until next year, as Fox has already announced a live musical version of A Christmas Story, which will debut in December. Elsewhere NBC will screen Bye Bye Birdie with Jennifer Lopez at Christmas, and the recently announced Jesus Christ Superstar for Easter 2018.
There aren’t that many female directors, even fewer black female directors, and fewer still black female lesbian directors, so Dee Rees is a little bit special, especially considering the success she’s had with movies like Pariah and the biopic Bessie. Now though she’s planning something a little different, a horror movie about black lesbians in rural America.
On Monday we’ll be getting the first trailer for the 12 episode return on much loved sitcom Will & Grace. To whet our whistle, a brief tease of that trailer has been released, giving us our first look at Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes back on set, and the clapperboard going down on a new set of adventures.
The most successful short film collection in the world is returning at the end of the month for its 16th selection of gay treats. As always there’s a great and eclectic selection of gay-themed shorts. You can find out more about what shorts are on the disc and watch the trailer below.
There is a still a fear in Hollywood of getting typecast for playing gay, and that if you take more than one or two gay roles, you’ll be in a career cul-de-sac. It’s the same fear that stops a lot of famous folk from coming out – that suddenly you won’t be cast as straight characters (which of course is most roles).
We’re hoping to bring you a review of Tomcat as soon as we can, but as the film opened in the UK today exclusively at the ICA in London, we thought it would be well worth posting the trailer. It’s certainly a challenging film that starts off sweet and very sexy (and pretty explicit), before heading in some unexpected and rather dark places.
Synopsis: ‘THE FREEDOM TO MARRY traces the marriage equality movement’s historic progress through the four decades of work by Evan Wolfson, the architect of the movement (who is the founder and president of Freedom to Marry), and pioneering civil rights attorney Mary Bonauto, who argued many of the key cases, including the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision.
Moonlight hasn’t doesn’t winning awards yet, as last night at the MTV Movie Awards, it picked up Best Kiss for the smooch between Ashton Sanders and Jharrel Jerome as the teenage versions of Chiron and Kevin. Of course the scene in question on the beach involved a bit more than just a kiss, but it was for the lip locking that they got their gong.
I’ve never been to Lithuania, so I can’t attest how easy or not it is to escape from, but the title of this movie suggests you’ll have a few problems. A few of you may remember the film causing a bit of interest during its crowdfunding stage when director 
Less than 12 months ago, the Will & Grace team reunited for a pro-Hillary, anti-Trump 10-minute mini-episode. That’s now led to what few people expected – the show’s return to network TV for 12 brand new episode, which are due to start airing on NBC this autumn.