November 17, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

ABC News/Steve Iervolino(LOS ANGELES) — Oscar-winning screenwriter Quentin Tarantino is making his fiction-writing debut with a two-book deal, including a novel based on his Academy Award-winning film Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood. 

The film, which netted a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Brad Pitt and a second screenwriting trophy for the filmmaker, will provide the inspiration for a movie novelization that will be published by HarperCollins.

A second book, Cinema Speculation, is being called a, “deep dive into the movies of the 1970’s…from one of cinema’s most celebrated filmmakers, and its most devoted fan.”

Set in 1969, Hollywood centered on a fading big screen star played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and his best friend and stunt double Cliff Booth, played by Pitt. 

“In the seventies movie novelizations were the first adult books I grew up reading,” Tarantino said in a statement. “And to this day I have a tremendous amount of affection for the genre. So as a movie-novelization aficionado, I’m proud to announce Once Upon A Time…in Hollywood as my contribution to this often marginalized, yet beloved sub-genre in literature.”

He added, “I’m also thrilled to further explore my characters and their world in a literary endeavor that can (hopefully) sit alongside its cinematic counterpart.”

According to the publisher, the project, “will amplify Tarantino’s original award-winning vision, while also offering a fresh, playful and shocking departure from the film.”  The books will “chart the lives” of Dalton and Booth “both forward and backward in time,” says the publisher.

This isn’t the first time Once Upon A Time… has inspired a spin-off.  Tarantino has said in the past that he was writing episodes of Bounty Law, the fictional black-and-white Western series depicted in the movie.  In fact, he was eyeing a five-chapter series based on the show, in which DiCaprio’s character starred.

By Stephen Iervolino
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 17, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for CORE Gala(LOS ANGELES) — Conan O’Brien is making some moves within the WarnerMedia company. His nightly TBS chat show, Conan, will end in June of 2021, but the former Late Night and Tonight Show host will move to a weekly show format for HBO Max, which shares TBS’ parent company. 

Airing weeknights at 11 p.m., Conan debuted on TBS in 2010. The cable show was created after O’Brien moved to the West Coast for a brief tenure as host of The Tonight Show, which saw him both succeed, and then shortly thereafter be replaced by, Jay Leno.

O’Brien will also continue his acclaimed Conan Without Borders travelogue show for TBS, the network announced. “In 1993, Johnny Carson gave me the best advice of my career: ‘As soon as possible, get to a streaming platform,’ O’Brien joked in a statement from the company. “I’m thrilled that I get to continue doing whatever the hell it is I do on HBO Max, and I look forward to a free subscription.”

“Conan’s unique brand of energetic, relatable, and at times, absurdist, comedy has charmed late-night audiences for nearly three decades, said Casey Bloys, chief content officer for HBO and HBO Max. “We can’t wait to see what he and the rest of Team Coco will dream up for this brand-new, variety format each week.”

By Stephen Iervolino
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

November 17, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Jason Nocito/GQ(LOS ANGELES) — (NOTE LANGUAGE) Did George Clooney really give his best buds a million bucks in cash each?  The Oscar-winning actor and producer gets candid about that rumor and more in the cover story of GQ‘s new Man of the Year issue.

The answer about the cash, is yes.  The 59-year-old explains, “[O]ver a period of 35 years [they] helped me in one way or another. I’ve slept on their couches when I was broke…” he says of the 2013 gesture. “I just thought basically if I get hit by a bus, they’re all in the will. So why the f*** am I waiting to get hit by a bus?”

Clooney detailed the Ocean’s Eleven-like scene of picking up the cash in a florist truck, and later presenting a Tumi bag with $1 million bucks each to those 14 friends.

Not that his life’s without problems.  A head injury on the set of 2005’s Syriana left Clooney in so much pain he contemplated suicide.  Then in 2018, he suffered a serious motorcycle accident in Italy. As he and producing partner Grant Helsov waited for an ambulance, looky-loos were filming him on the pavement.

“I’m not a cynical guy,” Clooney says. “But I’ll never forget the moment that what I thought might be my last few moments was for everyone else a piece of entertainment.”

As a result of both incidents, Clooney’s been in “constant discomfort” for 15 years.

Like millions of us, Clooney’s been sheltering in place at home lately. “I cut my own hair and I cut my kids’ hair and I’m mopping it and vacuuming and doing the laundry,” he declares, adding, “I feel like my mother in 1964. You know, I understand why she burned her bra.”

And though once an avowed bachelor, Clooney says his marriage to human rights attorney Amal Clooney has changed his life. “I didn’t know how un-full it was until I met Amal,” he says.

By Stephen Iervolino
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.