MUSIC/ COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES ANNOUNCED: Singers Reba McEntire and Jean Shepard and songwriter Bobby Braddock have been chosen to join the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. McEntire, who is back on the charts with her country take on Beyonce's pop-R&B hit "If I Were a Boy," is this year's "Modern Era" Hall of Fame selection. "When I was a young girl, we would take vacations to Nashville and tour the Country Music Hall of Fame," McEntire said in a statement. "And now, for me to be inducted, is a dream come true." Shepard, who posted 45 singles on the country charts from 1953 through 1978, gets the nod in the hall's "Veteran Era" category. As the co-writer, with Curly Putman, of the country classics "He Stopped Loving Her Today" for George Jones and "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" for Tammy Wynette, among the hundreds of songs he's written or co-written over more than half a century, Braddock is the 1st inductee in the hall's new songwriter category. The 3 honorees will be inducted at a ceremony to be held later this year at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Adele debuts at #1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with her sophomore album "21" selling a mighty 352,000 copies in its 1st week according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's her best sales week, and highest charting album, and also the highest frame for any album since the sales week ending November 28, 2010. That's when Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" and Nicki Minaj's "Pink Friday" started in the #1 and 2 slots, respectively, with 496,000 and 375,000. Notably, "21" also bows atop the Digital Albums chart with 217,000 downloads, 62% of the set's overall 1st week. Again, it's the biggest week for a digital set since West's "My Beautiful" moved 224,000 downloads in its premiere. Adele, who took home the best new artist Grammy award in 2009, reached #10 with her debut set "19." It has spent a total of 71 weeks on the tally and has shifted 948,000 copies in the US. This week, it bounds from #50-16 on the Billboard 200, giving the singer a pair of albums in the top 20. This week, "Rolling In the Deep," "21's" 1st single, moves from #13-7 on the Digital Songs chart, moving 151,000. To date, since its release to retailers on November 30 of last year, it has sold 621,000. Another "21" song, "Someone Like You," which she has been performing to great reaction on a number of TV shows lately, bows at #45 with 51,000.
CBS and Turner Sports are turning to Kings of Leon to add some star-power to their upcoming March Madness coverage. Beginning Friday, the companies will roll out a multi-platform campaign featuring tournament footage weaved into a music video for “The Immortals,” a song off of the band’s latest album, "Come Around Sundown," in 5800 movie screens around the country. “It really gives an iconic soundtrack to the marketing campaign, and it’s a way to make it memorable,” said a Turner Sports’ senior vice president. Getting the word out is critical, since CBS and Turner agreed last April to collectively shell out $10.8 billion for a 14 year contract to carry the annual college basketball tournament. In addition to shared Web and wireless rights, games will air across 4 networks: CBS, TNT, TNT and truTV. For the 1st time in the tournament’s 73-year history, all 67 games will be televised in their entirety. To supplement the theatrical push, which runs through March 17, the campaign will make its way to digital billboards, elevator ads, cable, radio, print and the Web. The campaign will culminate in a headline performance by the 4 time Grammy winners at the Coca-Cola Zero Countdown concert, part of the tournament’s final four weekend festivities, on April 2.
Aretha Franklin says she's lost 85 pounds as part of an ongoing effort to drop weight. The Queen of Soul said in a taped interview that aired yesterday on "The Wendy Williams Show" that she's been trying to shed pounds ever since looking at pictures of herself and deciding she was "entirely too fat". Williams interviewed Franklin last Friday at a Detroit-area hotel. The 68-year-old Franklin underwent surgery for an undisclosed ailment in December and didn't go into detail about it during the interview with Williams. Franklin did say that a recurring pain in her side last year was her "first inkling that something was not what it should be". Franklin made her 1st public appearance last month on the Grammy Awards, in a segment from her home. Her dramatic weight loss sparked rumours that her health was declining.
Beyonce's publicist has confirmed that the singer has donated the money she made for certain performances toward Haitian earthquake relief efforts after learning that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has been a third-party promoter of the shows. A statement that was released said "the decision was made to put that payment to a good cause," as soon as the singer learned where the money came from. Earlier this week, Nelly Furtado announced that she also donated $1 million that had come from Qaddafi. Another artist, Usher, is reportedly facing music industry calls to surrender fees earned from performing for Gaddafi's family. According to Rolling Stone, the singer received an undisclosed sum for performing at the same party as Beyonce in 2009. Mariah Carey also accepted $1m to perform for Gaddafi's son Muatassim in 2008, while rapper 50 Cent gave a show for him at the 2005 Venice film festival. Managers for Usher, 50 Cent and Carey have so far declined to comment.
On Sunday’s ABC telecast of the 83rd Academy Awards, viewers didn’t see everything that happened onstage. Presenters Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin walked on to the Kodak Theater stage greeting each other before the camera suddenly moved to show Bardem’s significant other Penelope Cruz, who recently gave birth. What viewers did not see was Bardem and Brolin dancing onstage or the 2 actors kissing before reaching the podium. According to show producers, they cut to Cruz before they could even see what was happening, and were sorry they missed it. "It would have made a great TV moment".
FILM/ 3D "STAR WARS" SET FOR FEBRUARY 2012: Lucasfilm Ltd. and 20th Century Fox will release the 3D version of "
Star Wars: Episode I:The Phantom Menace" on February 10, 2012. George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic is supervising the 3D conversion, with an eye for both technological considerations and artistic intentions. Lucasfilm believes "Star Wars" is perfectly suited to be seen in 3D. Lucas hopes that releasing the film early in the year, outside of summer blockbuster season, will give it an open run at the box office and also set up the opportunity to sell merchandise through the balance of the year. The plan under discussion would make the release of the subsequent films in the series an annual event on the film calendar. If the 1st in the series meets with success, the remaining 5 films would follow a year apart on comparable dates. However, depending on how the 1st release performs, the companies could also decide to open the subsequent entries in different spots on the calendar.
FILM/ DIANE LANE JOINS "SUPERMAN": Diane Lane will play Martha Kent in Zack Snyder's upcoming "Superman" movie. Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures said late Wednesday that the actress is set as "the only mother Clark Kent has ever known." "This was a very important piece of casting for me because Martha Kent is the woman whose values helped shape the man we know as Superman," Snyder said in a statement. "We are thrilled to have Diane in the role because she can convey the wisdom and the wonder of a woman whose son has powers beyond her imagination." Lane will star with Henry Cavill, who was recently announced as the new Clark Kent/Superman. As far as other roles, Kevin Costner is a "person of interest" for the part of Jonathan Kent, while Viggo Mortensen is on Snyder's radar to play General Zod. The movie, set for a December 2012 release.
FILM/ "BLADE RUNNER" REBOOT IN THE WORKS: Alcon Entertainment, the company behind "The Blind Side," is looking to bring the world of "Blade Runner" back to the big screen. The 1982 cult classic, which was directed by Ridley Scott and starred Harrison Ford, was based on a Philip K. Dick novel titled "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". The company is in final negotiations to acquire the film, television and ancillary franchise rights to produce prequels and sequels to the iconic science-fiction thriller. Alcon is getting the film rights from Bud Yorkin, who was an exec producer on the original movie. Yorkin will serve as a producer on the projects. The story is set in a future where man has created clones called replicants who are used for dangerous work. When the replicants rebel against their makers on a space colony, they are banned and hunted down. The movie centered on Rick Dekard (Ford), a retired member of a police officer corps called blade runners who hunt down replicants on Earth. Dekard is called back to duty one more time to track 6 clones who escape a colony and come to Los Angeles.
Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, who voice-starred together in Disney’s "Toy Story" movies, are teaming up for another Disney project, "Jungle Cruise". The 2 are attached to star in the live-action adaptation of the Disney theme park ride, being produced by Mandeville’s David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman, riding high as part of the producing team behind "The Fighter". Roger S. H. Schulman has been hired to write a new draft of the script for the long-in-development project. The story’s details are being kept under wraps, but Disney is planning "Cruise" as a big action-adventure movie with unique aspects that will make it more than just a straight-up adventure. Hanks is attached to play a family guy while Allen would play a tour boat captain. The moviemakers plan on having a script completed before going out to directors.
PEOPLE/ ZSA ZSA GABOR HOSPITALIZED: Zsa Zsa Gabor was taken to the emergency room and hospitalized yesterday after her doctor detected a problem with blood flow in her left leg during a regular weekly exam. Gabor's personal doctor detected no blood flow in the leg, her husband, Prinz Frederic Von Anhalt said. The actress and socialite turned 94 on Super Bowl Sunday. Her right leg was amputated above the knee on January 14 to prevent the spread of gangrene. Gabor has been in and out of the hospital repeatedly with complications following surgery to replace her left hip, which she broke along with other bones in a July 2010 fall from bed. She suffered a stroke in 2005 and has been partially paralyzed since a 2002 car accident. And to add insult-to-injury, the Bel-Air mansion shared by the couple was burglarized early Sunday, with Von Anhalt estimating the value of missing items-art, statues, cameras, at $100,000. "My wife was very upset about the statues. She was crying," he said. "What can I say, I don't know if she knew what was going on, but it upset her very much".
No comments:
Post a Comment