Virginia Sherwood/NBC(NEW YORK) — Shooting on the New York City-based Law & Order: Organized Crime has been suspended after a member of the production tested positive for COVID-19.
Deadline reports the segment of the production affected was Zone A, meaning the cast of the NBC show and those with direct contact to them. Such “zone” designations have allowed film crews to operate — and quickly isolate — any cases of the virus and those affected by them.
Like all shows currently in production, the Law & Order series operates under strict pandemic protocols.
Law & Order: Organized Crime will launch with a reunion of star Christopher Meloni and his former Law & Order: SVU partner Mariska Hargitay on April 1. The show kicks off with an SVU crossover event at 9 p.m., following by Organized Crime at 10 p.m.
A new kids-and-family podcast called This Duckburg Life, hosted by Danny Pudi as Huey Duck, debuts on March 29.
“For Huey as a character, this is exactly what he would love to do, is be able to kind of go in there and be doing these in-depth stories within Duckburg in a podcast format,” Pudi tells ABC Audio. “It really just kind of felt like a natural place for Huey to go.”
Pudi says he took inspiration from public radio’s This American Life and “harnessed Huey’s frenetic energy” into a calmer, quieter podcast host style.
The whole seven-part series was recorded during lockdown from Pudi’s very own…closet.
“We were able to do it from my house, I was upstairs in my closet,” he says. “It was pretty bare bones. I just hung some blankets around me, you know, [it] looked like I was in a blanket fort. And we just did it like that in the closet. And I think it turned out great.”
You can listen to This Duckburg Life — which will also feature voice appearances by David Tennant, Ben Schwartz and Bobby Moynihan reprising their DuckTales roles — on Disney XD YouTube, DisneyNOW and Disney XD VOD every Monday.
Netflix(NEW YORK) — Professional prankster and comedian Eric Andre found the perfect team for his new Netflix hidden-camera comedy, Bad Trip.
Andre, who enlisted good friend Lil Rel and comedian Tiffany Haddish to help him pull pranks on unsuspecting bystanders, tells ABC Audio that there were definitely challenges in using their familiar faces. Thankfully, he explains, they “had a whole plan in place.”
“Rel wore his hair and his facial hair like he never wore before. We had a specific costume for him,” Andre says. “Tiffany Haddish — we had face tattoos and cornrows and we dressed her like a construction worker.”
“I cut my hair down,” he continues. “So like a haircut, glasses, face tattoos. Those little things would throw off a lot of people and shake them off the scent.”
While a good disguise helped Andre and his co-stars to fly under the radar, the jokester says it was also important to stay away from his audience.
“My demographic is all like dudes under 25 years old,” he says. “So as long as we prank aunties and… soccer moms, I knew I wasn’t going to get busted.”
“Like anybody over 45 years old does not recognize me in the street,” Andre laughs. “So… they’re not college kids, they’re not frat boys, they’re all like tired moms.”
So what happens when someone does get recognized? Andre says they used special “code words” to escort people away and even flat out lied if necessary.
“One time this woman was like, ‘Hey, you look like Lil Rel Howery,'” Andre recalls. “And Lil Rel went, ‘Yeah, I get that all the time man. That’s crazy… I liked him in Get Out. He was great.’ And she totally [believed it.] She was like, ‘Okay…'”
Leslie Nestor Miranda/FilmMagic(TEXAS) — Larry McMurtry, who wrote the Pulitzer-winning Western novel Lonesome Dove and adapted Anne Proulx’s groundbreaking same-sex cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain for the big screen, has died.
Lonesome Dove became a miniseries that earned 18 Emmy nominations and six wins back in 1989; the production also scored two Golden Globes and four nominations.
Brokeback Mountain earned McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, a Best Director win for Ang Lee, as well as a host of nominations, including Best Picture, and Oscar nominations in both the lead and supporting actor and actress categories for, respectively, the late Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Michelle Williams.
The film also rode off into the sunset with a collection of other awards, including BAFTAs, and the coveted Golden Lion at Cannes.
Some of McMurtry’s other novels were also adapted into Oscar-winning classics like The Last Picture Show and Terms of Endearment.
He was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama in 2015.
L-R – Dastmalchian, Cena, Elba, Melchior/Warner Bros. Pictures/HBO Max(LOS ANGELES) — The anticipated trailer for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad has just debuted; and appropriately, the R-rated “red band” trailer is set to Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work.”
The follow-up/reboot to 2016’s Suicide Squad features some returning characters from the original, such as Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Viola Davis’ steely fed Amanda Waller, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag and Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang.
However, the new trailer also features the new members of the anti-hero team, including Idris Elba’s Bloodsport, Pete Davidson’s Blackguard, and John Cena’s ironically named ultra-violent hero Peacemaker.
The snippet sets up a rescue mission, in which the gang, casually dressed — either undercover or before they get their superhero gear — sets up to rescue Quinn.
Except she’s already escaped.
Still, the gesture moves her. “You were gonna save me?” she says, her voice quavering.
Apart from some naughty language, the snippet features loads of action, as well as appearances from new team members including David Dastmalchian’s Polka-Dot Man, Daniela Melchior’s rodent-controlling Ratcatcher II, Guardians of the Galaxy vet Michael Rooker as the brilliant computer hacker Savant, Peter Capaldi as the criminal mastermind The Thinker, and of course the shark-headed baddie King Shark, which was motion-captured by Steve Agee, but apparently voiced by another returning Guardians player, Slyvester Stallone.
And if a man-shark and Sean Gunn’s human-sized weasel named Weasel wasn’t enough for you, there’s apparently a giant killer starfish they have to contend with.
The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6, 2021.
Virginia Sherwood/NBC(NEW YORK) — Shooting on the New York City-based Law & Order: Organized Crime has been suspended after a member of the production tested positive for COVID-19. 
