Page 17 - Florida Sentinel 8-20-19

Entertainment
Nicole Avant, Wife Of Netflix Boss, Had To ‘Pitch And Pitch’ To Get ‘Black Godfather’ Doc On Streaming Service
Nicole Avant (L) and Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Saran- dos attend the 70th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Mi- crosoft Theater on September 17, 2018 in Los Angeles, California.
Chance The Rapper On Why He
Actress and producer
Nicole Avant may be mar-
ried to the chief content officer
of Netflix, but even she had to
“pitch and pitch” her ac- Avant’s music executive fa- claimed “Black Godfather” ther, Clarence Avant.
Chance the Rapper is known for being a high-profile advocate of public schools in his hometown of Chicago, but he is also using his platform to take on the issue of mental health.
“Mental health and mental wellness are extremely impor- tant to me and everybody be- cause we all know people that are affected by it,” Chance said Friday on “Good Morning America.” "We all can be af- fected by it.”
The artist, whose real name is Chancelor Bennett, com- mitted last year to donating $1 million to health services in Chicago through SocialWorks, his nonprofit organization.
SocialWorks also launched its own mental health initia- tive, My State of Mind, which provides grants to mental well- ness service providers and is working to create an "inclusive guidebook" of mental health services in the Chicago area, according to SocialWorks.
said it’s a go.”
Bill Clinton and Barack
Chance the Rapper appears on "GMA" Aug. 16, 2019.
Obama are both in the film, which tells the story of
Chance has spoken out in the past about dealing with anxiety and how mental health was not a "thing that we talked about" during his childhood.
"I think anxiety is also something that I'm just now being exposed to," he told Complex magazine in 2017. "A really big conversation and idea that I'm getting intro- duced to right now is black mental health. 'Cause for a long time that wasn't a thing
that we talked about. I don't remember it. I don't remember people talking about anxiety."
"I don't remember, when I was growing up, that really being a thing," he said.
Last year the rapper was applauded for using his social media following to urge people to be patient and supportive to people with mental illness. Chance's tweet on the topic went viral with more than 230,000 likes.
Donated $1M For Mental Health:
'We All Can Be Affected By It'
documentary about her father, Clarence Avant, to the streaming service before her hubby gave it the green light.
Diddy, Irving Azoff, Clive Davis, Jamie Foxx, Lionel Richie and Motown legend Suzanne de Passe are also featured in the film. De Passe received a standing ovation after the screening. David
Avant was part of a panel
at Stephanie and Floyd
Rance’s 17th annual Martha’s
Vineyard African-American Letterman sat behind her
Film Festival and shared with the audience that “at first [her husband Ted Sarandos] wasn’t feeling it for Netflix, but when she told him she had two presidents confirmed to ap- pear in the doc, that’s when he
and Sarandos. “After the lights came on, fans noticed him and he had to take at least 100 selfies,” said a spy.
“His wife was trying her best to move him along, but he was into it and didn’t say no.”
Kevin Hart To Star And Produce STX Superhero Comedy Feature ‘Night Wolf
Shari Headley Officially Boards 'Coming To America 2'
SHARI HEADLEY
STXfilms has bought the high concept comic superhero pitch Night Wolf from Detec- tive Pikachu scribes Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit, a project that Kevin Har twill star in and produce via his HartBeat Productions.
Night Wolf follows a Meet the Parents-esque encounter where a man (Hart) meets his future father-in-law for the first time only to discover he is secretly the superhero known as the Night Wolf.
Hart starred in The Upside, the $100 million grossing hit which STX distributed back in January. Earlier this year, STX Entertainment announced it would partner with HartBeat Productions to produce two new comedy projects which Hart would topline. Night Wolf is the third project Hart is developing with the studio. STX previously announced Black Friday and an untitled romantic comedy. The Hart- Beat team will oversee produc- tion with STXfilms’ SVP of Production Drew Simon.
“After we acquired Night Wolf, we submitted it to
in love with this pitch about an everyday guy who is meeting his in-laws for the first time and unwittingly discovers his dad to be is secretly a super- hero,” said Hart.
STXfilms’ upcoming slate include Hustlers (September 13, the pic is also debuting at TIFF), Countdown (October 25), 21 Bridges (November 22), Playmobil (December 6), Brahms: The Boy II (Decem- ber 6), My Spy (Jan 10), and Guy Ritchie’s The Gentle- men (Jan 24) among others.
In addition to The Upside, Hart also had Illumination/Universal’s The Secret Life of Pets 2 which has made close to $379M world- wide. He also has Sony’s Ju- manji: The Next Level on Dec. 13.
Hernandez and Samit are represented by 3 Arts Enter- tainment and Karl Austen and Michael Auerbach at Jackoway Austen Tyerman Werthheimer Mandlebaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein. Hart is represented by 3 Arts, UTA and Schreck Rose Dapello & Adams.
It's been made official: Shari Headley will return to star in Coming to America 2.
She joins other returners
Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Paul Bates and newcomers Jermaine Fowler, Kiki Layne, Wesley Snipes, Leslie Jones and Rick Ross. The film will see Akeem return to the U. S. to discover the son he never knew he had, LaVelle. Headley was the last outstanding main cast member that still needed to close a deal.
An April report told us that the character of LaVelle (Fowler) was a 30-year-old Queens hustler with a heart of gold. Raised by his mother, LaVelle wants a better life for himself, which could be right
around the corner as he learns that he's the possible Zamun- dan heir. LaVelle "has the gift of gab, able to crack wise with humor, but is by no means a clown" and he "struggles with discipline, authority and self- motivation."
Meeka, on the other hand, is the 20-year-old "proud and principled daughter of Za- munda" who is "athletic and skilled in the art of self-defense, but she is also measured in her temperament, always seeking a calm, diplomatic solution to conflict." Meeka is beautiful and capable, but still holds anx- iety over "wanting to be the son Akeem never had." Her chal- lenge is to show her father her true self and "be brave with her heart."
KEVIN HART
Kevin Hart and the Team at
HartBeat hoping they would loveitasmuchaswedid.Itis a big, broad comedy and the idea is great fun and perfectly matched with Kevin’s comedic talent. We are thrilled to be working on what will now be our fourth film together,” said Chairman of STXfilms Adam Fogelson who made the announcement this morn- ing.
“I am excited to be working with our friends at STX again. They brought us a great project with Night Wolf. I instantly fell
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