Support independent journalism, free from the trades and other publications that are part of the tinsel town machine.
For 12 years, Showbiz411.com has been covering Hollywood, Broadway, the music business and the business of celebrity. Ads are our main source of funding, but contributions (not tax exempt) from readers who enjoy the scoops, exclusives, and fact based reports are always welcome and very appreciated. To inquire about ads, email us at showbiz411@gmail.com.
HBO is having trouble with the final season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Sunday night’s episode dropped 31.1% from the prior week. The episode tied the season low — the second episode — with just 257,000 viewers.
That’s down from 373,000 the week before — that was right after actor Richard Lewis died. The audience interest was up. This week also suffered from being up against the Oscars. They would certainly overlap in audience.
This week, Lori Loughlin was the guest star. But “Curb” does no previews, so no one knew the actress who went to jail in the college scandal was going to be on screen.
There are just four more episodes til the end. After that, HBO will depend on the return of “Hacks” in their comedy lineup to get some ratings. Let’s hope it’s as good as its own previous seasons!
So — Don Lemon’s streaming show will launch on Monday on all platforms except X Twitter.
Apparently, the first interview Lemon taped — with Elon Musk — didn’t go so well.
Musk disliked it so much he cancelled his deal with Lemon.
Of course, Lemon doesn’t care. He was just awarded $24 million in a settlement with CNN. He’s got You Tube and Apple streaming his show. He’s also going to post clips from it on Twitter.
But Musk, the advocate of free speech, didn’t want uncensored ideas on his platform.
Olivia Munn looked great over Oscars weekend. She and partner John Mulaney wowed the crowd at the Armani celebration for Martin Scorsese. She did it again at the Oscars.
But it turns out Munn was recovering from a double mastectomy after a breast cancer diagnosis. Her statement is below. Speedy recovery!
I included this news in an Oscar report but it’s broken free and drawing retweets by the bulk.
Exclusively, the great Steven Spielberg told me that “Ready Player Two,” the sequel to his huge hit from a couple of years ago, will be coming.
Only Spielberg will produce, not direct. He didn’t give me a timetable.
“Ready Player One” — released six years ago — made money hand over fist. Total worldwide box office was $579,055,653. US domestic was $137 million.
Zak Penn wrote the clever screenplay. I wondered all this time what had happened to the inevitable sequel, so it’s good news that “Ready Player Two” is simmering out there and maybe we’ll see it in the next couple of years.
Spielberg, meantime, is exploring his options for new films with a lot of choices including “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara,” which has been bantered about for years. He also has a remake of “Bullitt” with Bradley Cooper that’s been on deck for some time. Knowing Spielberg, he’ll make two at a time. He’s famous for that!
Ratings for the Oscars were good, and the ABC broadcast was certainly a showcase for the winners.
But the two movies that should have gotten box office bumps simply didn’t, at least on Monday.
“Oppenheimer” was up just 1% from Sunday with slightly less than $30,000 in its remaining theaters.
“Poor Things” — which won Best Actress and three big craft prizes — was down 14% from Sunday and just under $40,000.
No, the main interests on Monday were seeing “Dune Two” and “Kung Fu Panda 4.” I guess by now everyone who’s wanted to see the Oscar winners has satisfied that urge.
But that was Monday. Yesterday — Tuesday — may be a different, more encouraging story. We’ll check in during the afternoon and see what happened.
Very sorry to hear about Eric Carmen. He was a bit of a Phil Spectorish power pop genius who made The Raspberries a cult favorite in the early 70s when rock was innovative but also recalled the Beach Boys and the Beatles from the 1960s.
Their song, “Go All the Way” was retro and new wave before its time, as were songs on their first couple of albums like “Let’s Pretend,” “I Wanna Be with You,” and “Overnight Sensation” (my personal favorite).
But the Raspberries were a cult group and broke up rather quickly in 1974. They were simply before their time.
Luckily, Clive Davis was starting Arista Records and knew Carmen could be a star. He flew to Cleveland and encouraged Carmen to make a solo album. The result was a hit album two massive hits: “All By Myself” and “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again” in 1975. They were timeless pop, still heard over and over today.
Carmen released many records over the years, but two more hits struck gold: he co-wrote “Almost Paradise” from the movie “Footloose” and a solo hit with “Hungry Eyes” from “Dirty Dancing.”
In July 2005, the Raspberries reunited for two shows at BB Kings in New York. It was sold out and the guests in the audience included Jon Bon Jovi and songwriter Desmond Child. The shows were hits and there was a talk of a revival but it never came to pass.
I lost track of Eric Carmen over the years that followed until the pandemic. I was so delighted to find him on social media, as were others. But a weird thing happened. It turned out he was a full on fan of Donald Trump. Rather than sully the memory of the songs, I disconnected from him. At least politically, he’d lost his mind.
Still the music lives on. His wife of seven years, wrote on social media: “It is with tremendous sadness that we share the heartbreaking news of the passing of Eric Carmen. Our sweet, loving and talented Eric passed away in his sleep, over the weekend. It brought him great joy to know, that for decades, his music touched so many and will be his lasting legacy. Please respect the family’s privacy as we mourn our enormous loss.”
“Only Murders in the Building” is proceeding on to Season 4 now. But will the beloved show jump the shark with too many guest stars?
I reported exclusively in January that Meryl Streep was returning to the series. I had already scooped that Nathan Lane was coming back. In January, at the AFI lunch, showrunner John Hoffman told me: “Everyone is coming back.:
There have been announcements already this month that guest stars will include Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria and Molly Shannon. Now Zach Galifianakis has been added to the list.
Sometimes more is more. And too much. “Only Murders” really depends on Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. Then there are supporting players like Jackie Hoffman, Tina Fey, Jesse Williams, Michael Cyril Creighton, Ryan Broussard, Da’Vine Joy Randolph (now an Oscar winner), and Jeremy Shamos.
Let’s hope that’s it! They already had to kill off Jane Lynch’s Sazz, although she’s sure to turn up in the new season in flashbacks.
Not shocked by this: the X account for the movie “Origin” claims they weren’t invited to Neon’s Oscar party last night.
Neon dumped Ava Duvernay’s film, made sure no one saw it and wasn’t included in the Oscar conversation. I was surprised Duvernay, who used to be a publicist, didn’t speak out about the situation.
The movie was ignored totally, and died. I’m told that Duvernay did not get along with the distributor, and that was the problem.
The Twitter X account says: “Is it odd that the filmmakers of Neon’s current film in theaters weren’t invited to this Neon celebration? Nope. Standard operating procedure for Quinn and team. That’s how Neon rolls. More on this later.”
Neon put all their time, money, and attention into “Anatomy of a Fall.” They were better at promoting the dog, Messi, than anyone from “Origin.”
Is it odd that the filmmakers of Neon’s current film in theaters weren’t invited to this Neon celebration? Nope. Standard operating procedure for Quinn and team. That’s how Neon rolls. More on this later. https://t.co/XvoSnFc0zH
Last year’s Oscars ratings were around 18.8 million depending on how you measured them.
By moving up an hour to 7pm last night, ABC brought in 19.5 million — only slightly better than last year.
It’s not a huge victory, but it’s better than doing worse than 2023.
The show was also actually a little short, at just three hours. It was accommodated for three and a half.
But with Best Song nominees not getting all the songwriters read aloud, and Best Picture flubbed again, a few minutes were shaved off the show.
The final numbers are the best since 2020, right before the pandemic. It helped that people had seen most of the movies and that of them — “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — were big hits.
Jimmy Kimmel made some mistakes and a few laughs fell flat. But overall he’s an excellent host and should absolutely return next year — if he’ll do it.
Rickey Minor was a superb musical director, and all the numbers — especially Ryan Gosling’s spectacular “I’m Just Ken” — were exciting and compelling.
So, on to next year. With “Barbenheimer” having such big box office, we may have seen a peak Oscar experience.
I’m so sorry to hear of the death of Malachy McCourt at age 92.
The beloved actor was a star of ABC’s “Ryan’s Hope” in almost 300 episodes. He also appeared in every New York soap opera, from “Guiding Light” to “Search for Tomorrow” and “All My Children.”
Malachy, like his brother Frank — who wrote “Angela’s Ashes” — was a wordsmith. He published two memoirs and a volume of poetry. He had a lovely, lilting, lyrical Irish accent and a big burly persona that would have been suited for the Brendan Gleeson character in “The Banshees of Inisherin.” He was part of two Broadway casts as a stand-by, in “Mass Appeal” and “Translations.”
McCourt’s bar — called Malachy’s, on the Upper West Side — was probably an inspiration for Ryan’s bar in the soap opera. The actor played the bar tender Kevin MacGuiness, a sounding board of reason for the various colorful characters. He was the opposite of a soap character — totally genuine, authentic, and real. An era ends with his passing and the memory of his brother, Frank. They will be sorely missed.
