Marshall director Reginald Hudlin has signed on to direct Beyond the Velvet Rope, a musical film that will be based on the original music of Andreas Carlsson. The prolific Swedish songwriter has penned hits for the likes of Celine Dion, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and American Idol stars including Carrie Underwood and Clay Aiken.
The original script for Velvet Rope was penned by Oscar-winning Rain Man writer Ron Bass and Walter Becker & G.L. Lambert. It centers on an up-and-coming pop star named Sky who falls in love with her prolific songwriter Luke as they make their way through the Los Angeles music scene in the late 1970s. They make a fairy-tale ascent to the top, but Luke begins to drift from his first love (music) and finds the fine line between success and failure, and the realization that life can turn on a single song.
Carlsson, an ASCAP Songwriter of the Year whose songs have sold more than 150 million units, has written 14 new songs for the pic, which he is also producing alongside Marcus Englefield and George Lee for Storyoscopic Films. Executive producers are Niklas Bergman, Hudlin, Robyn Klein, Andrew Lerios, and Jeremy Ross.
“The ability to work closely with a film rooted in music has been on my bucket list and is a genre that started my career,” said Hudlin, a prolific TV director who was Oscar-nominated for producing Django Unchained in 2017. “The opportunity to blend a well-written story with exceptional original songs is a special moment as a director and music lover. The raw reality of ascending and descending and then finding success as an artist of any kind in Hollywood is filled with the kind of emotion that organically allows for great storytelling.”
Added Carlsson: “The music for this film is
inspired by the core of my upbringing. As a Swede, I was enamored with American
pop culture and the music of the late 70s along with the films from the era. I
am looking forward to working with Reggie who has fully grasped the musical
vision of the film. Along with my musical collaborators Kalle Engstrom and
Jörgen Elofsson, we are ready to create an important film that will focus on a
significant part of America’s musical timeline.”
Hudlin, who also produced the Oscars in 2017, is repped by CAA. The pic deal was negotiated by Weintraub Tobin, Qap Legal, and Fox Rothschild.
The third installment of Marcus
Miller and Reggie Hudlin’s hugely popular celebration of black movie music
returns! Hosted by the very funny comedian/musician Craig Robinson, this year’s
installment promises new clips, special guests, and some fan favorites.
Programs, artists, dates, prices and availability subject to change.
Craig, Marcus and me at the Hollywood Bowl press event. With Herbie Hancock photobombing in the background.
Less than 24 hours after it was revealed that Wu-Tang Clan is releasing an EP later this week (May 17), in conjunction with Showtime documentary, Wu-Tang: Of Mics & Men. Heads now get some new music and information from the project released through Mass Appeal (who is also behind the film) and Wu’s 36 Chambers, LLC. Ghostface Killah and RZA have teamed to release “On That Sh*t Again,” the opening song from the upcoming companion release.
The song features a piano and drum beat. G.F.K. begins with a story about a night out, after an argument at home. Things get hairy as Ghost’ gets ready for a show at Madison Square Garden with Dru Hill. The Staten Island MC packs artillery for the event before RZA drops in with a recent rhyme about living the lavish life.
According to Pitchfork, who premiered the song, the soundtrack is executive produced by RZA’s brother, Mitchell “Divine” Diggs and Mustafa Shaikh. Notably, Divine says in Wu-Tang: Of Mics & Men that the film includes his first interview. Sacha Jenkins’ documentary chronicles the late 1990s fallout between Divine and members of the Wu-Tang Clan surrounding management and the former’s production company. In episode 4 of the film, there is footage of Ghostface and Divine arguing over royalties and management commissions from that era.
The seven-song collection also includes some audio footage, from Nas and Hip-Hop journalist-turned-Luke Cage series creator Cheo Hodari Coker. Notably, Inspectah Deck, U-God, and Method Man do not appear to be involved.
I’ve always wanted to make a “secret” movie, one I did on the down low that no one knew about until it was about to come out. Well, I’ve finally done it. For the past three years, I’ve been shooting my first documentary feature film, and it will be released worldwide on June 7th! We literally just finished it and turned it over to Netflix, who financed and is releasing the film.
The movie is called THE BLACK GODFATHER and I promise it’s gonna blow your mind. Here’s an article about it from BILLBOARD magazine:
Industry Pioneer Clarence Avant Spotlighted in Netflix Doc ‘The Black Godfather’: Exclusive
Clarence Avant poses for a portrait during the 41st NAACP Image awards held at The Shrine Auditorium on Feb. 26, 2010 in Los Angeles.
Feature-length project bows June 7
Music industry legend Clarence
Avant is the focus of the forthcoming Netflix documentary The Black Godfather. Produced by Avant’s
daughter Nicole Avant and directed by Reggie Hudlin, the feature-length
documentary will premiere June 7.
The documentary’s title is derived from Avant’s longtime—and well-deserved—nickname: the “Godfather of Black Music.” During a multi-faceted career that dates back to the racially charged ‘60s, Avant defied convention and perception by parlaying his natural talent as a powerhouse negotiator into successful tenures as an artist manager, label executive, radio broadcaster, music publisher and ongoing social activist/philanthropist.
In addition to mentoring hitmaking producers and executives such as Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Antonio “L.A.” Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and Sony/ATV chairman/CEO Jon Platt, Avant has played a key, behind-the-scenes role for a diverse list of celebs, sports figures and dignitaries that includes Quincy Jones, Bill Withers, Muhammad Ali and Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
The Black Godfather chronicles Avant’s colorful, barrier-breaking career and enduring legacy through insightful interviews with an industry who’s who. Among those paying tribute are Snoop Dogg, Sean “Diddy” Combs, hit songwriter Diane Warren, Lionel Richie, David Geffen, music/film producer Suzanne de Passe, Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge, actress Cicely Tyson and Jamie Foxx. Avant received the Industry Icons Award at the 2019 Pre-Grammy Gala in February. He was also presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2016.
Michael Koskoff and his son
Jake wrote the screenplay for my movie, MARSHALL. Please read the New York Times Obit printed
below to truly appreciate what an amazing man he was.
While he was a successful
trial lawyer, his kids were into show business.
So he decided he would write a script.
He knew Thurgood Marshall had a significant case in his town, so he
researched it and with the help of his son, wrote an amazing script that
actually got produced! It’s a miracle of
a story but when you read his life story it’s not surprising.
Mike was always a joy to be around. Always happy, hard working and always with his wonderful wife. I’m grateful to say he was my friend.
Cathy Zuraw/Hearst Connecticut Media, via Associated Press
The lawyer Michael Koskoff in 2016 at his home in Westport, Conn. An author described his courtroom techniques as “raw theater.”
By Sam Robert – April 26, 2019
Michael P. Koskoff, a renowned and dogged Connecticut litigator who defended Black Panthers, won record malpractice awards, mounted racial job-discrimination battles and sued gunmakers whose weapons were used in the Sandy Hook school massacre, died on Wednesday in a Manhattan hospital. He was 77.
The cause was complications of
pancreatic cancer, his son Jacob, a screenwriter, said. He and his father
collaborated on the screenplay for “Marshall” (2017), a feature film
about the 1941 trial of a black man accused of raping a white woman. The
defendant was represented by a future Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.
Michael Koskoff advised his other
son, Joshua, a senior partner in the Connecticut firm of Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, in litigation against companies that manufactured and sold the
semiautomatic rifle used by the gunman in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in 2012.
Last month, the Connecticut Supreme Court created a potential opening for victims’ families to hold the companies — including Remington Arms, which made the rifle — liable for the attack.
Mr. Koskoff, who lived in
Westport, Conn., was the scion of a family of performers who starred on
disparate stages. Some were actors, singers and musicians. (A cousin was Alfred Newman, the
celebrated Hollywood composer.) Others were litigators who held forth in
courtrooms. His father, Theodore, was both his law
partner and a cellist.
“We’re show people,” Michael
Koskoff once explained.
Mr. Koskoff won record
settlements in Connecticut negligence and malpractice cases by coupling skills
he had acquired in training to be a Shakespearean actor with a lifelong
antagonism toward corporate greed.
He also pioneered the use of
vivid courtroom videos delivered in a documentary format.
In 1979, Mr. Koskoff persuaded a
jury in Danbury, Conn., to award his client $1.8 million in a wrongful-death
case — Connecticut’s first verdict of more than $1 million in such a suit.
In 1999, jurors awarded $27 million for
what he had demonstrated was a bungled heart operation at Yale-New Haven
Hospital, which left a 29-year-old man permanently blind and brain-damaged. At
the time, it was the biggest personal injury verdict in the state’s history.
That same year, Mr. Koskoff was lead counsel in a class-action case against the state for illegal wiretapping of calls between clients and their lawyers. It ended with a $17 million settlement.
In a medical malpractice case
that became the subject of a book, “Damages: One Family’s Legal Struggles in
the World of Medicine” (1998), by Barry Werth, a couple represented by Mr.
Koskoff settled for $6.25 million in the early 1990s nine years after their
baby, who had severe cerebral palsy and developmental disabilities, was born at
Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. (The child’s twin brother had been stillborn
there).
Perri Klass, acknowledging that “while it may be difficult for a practicing physician like me to see a malpractice lawyer as a hero,” wrote in The New York Times Book Review that “Damages” did “full justice to Michael Koskoff’s skills, and to the mix of personal history, political fire and competitive zeal that sends him into court.”
In his book, Mr. Werth described
Mr. Koskoff’s courtroom techniques as “raw theater.”
“Koskoff liked to depend on his own ‘visceral and instinctive reality’ of what was happening in a courtroom — was a witness nervous? arrogant? appealing? unappealing? — to decide how best to keep the drama fresh,” Mr. Werth wrote. “He also liked to keep the other side’s experts off balance by not letting them know what to expect of him. If he met them, he might like them, and that would dull his attack.”
Michael Peter Koskoff was born on March 19, 1942, in Bridgeport, Conn. His mother was Dorothy (Fuchs) Koskoff.
Barry Wetcher/Open Road Films
After graduating from the Cambridge School in Weston, Mass., he attended Brandeis University but left after a year to study at the American Shakespeare Academy in Stratford, Conn. Once he realized that he was unlikely to make a living on the stage (“Something about being a ‘bad actor’ deterred me from continuing,” he said), he enrolled in the University of Bridgeport. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1963 and earned a law degree in 1966 from the University of Connecticut School of Law.
In 1963, Mr. Koskoff married Rosalind Jacobs, who survives him. In addition to their sons, he is also survived by their two daughters, Sarah Koskoff, an actress and screenwriter, and Juliet Koskoff, a lawyer in New York; two sisters, Elizabeth Koskoff and Susan Glazer; and eight grandsons.
