News

Alan Sacks, who teamed with stand-up comic and fellow Brooklynite Gabe Kaplan to create the popular 1970s ABC sitcom Welcome, Back, Kotter, has died. He was 81.

Sacks died Tuesday of complications from lymphoma in New York while on a visit there, his wife, talent agent Annette van Duren, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was first diagnosed 22 years ago but spent several years in remission before the cancer returned.

In the 1980s, after a project involving the iconic L.A. band The Runaways never got off the ground, Sacks took the footage and incorporated it into a plot about a director working on a tight deadline to finish a movie starring Runaways member Joan Jett.

The resulting film, Du-Beat-e-o (1984), which he also helmed, was set against the background of the hardcore L.A. punk scene and featured Ray Sharkey and Derf Scratch of the punk band Fear.

He also wrote and...

Film and TV writer-producer Alan Sacks, who had an eclectic career that included co-creating the popular 1970s series “Welcome Back, Kotter” and working on projects set in the 1980s L.A. punk scene, died of complications from lymphoma on Tuesday in New York. He was 81.

Sacks was born in Brooklyn and started his career in the research department of ABC Television. After moving to Los Angeles, he continued working at ABC as a program executive. Along with Gabe Kaplan and Peter Meyerson, he helped develop and co-create “Welcome Back, Kotter,” basing the sitcom on his high school friends in Brooklyn and on Kaplan’s stand-up routine.

He also worked on “Chico and the Man,” created by “Welcome Back, Kotter” executive producer James Komack.

In 1991, Sacks created and produced a Saturday morning children’s show, “Riders in the Sky,” for CBS, which replaced the “Pee-Wee Herman Show.”

During the 1970s and ’80s,...

Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders is a rousing look into motorcycle gangs, one of the most American of subcultures. The film takes place in the 1960s when the wild freedom of riding in packs of bikes along the open roads of the United States with one’s club transformed into the heavy violence and wild mayhem of a biker gang. Starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy, the long-awaited movie about an outlaw motorcycle gang in Chicago is set to open June 21, after its previous release date of Dec. 1 was pushed.

The Focus Features film is inspired by the work of photographer Danny Lyon, who first became noticed for his photos in the early 1960s documenting the Civil Rights movement. He followed and then joined the Chicago chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. From 1963 to 1967, he took thousands of photos, engaging club members and, just as importantly, their wives and girlfriends in interviews,...

Exclusive: Patrick Burleigh, the screenwriter/playwright whose credits include the Marvel movies The Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, has turned in a scripted adaptation of the award winning children’s book The Last Bear by Hannah Gold. The producers are now going out to directors.

Producers are Ara Keshishian of Zq Entertainment (upcoming Locked with Anthony Hopkins and Bill Skarsgard), Adrian Askarieh of Prime Universe Films (Hitman), and Matt Wexler of WexWorks media (Paw Patrol). Zq financed the development of the script.

Published by Harper Collins in 2021, the novel won the BBC’s Blue Peter Award, and has become a fixture in schools libraries and has been translate in over 27 languages. Its sequel, Finding Bear, was also a bestseller when published last year.

The story focuses on the unlikely friendship of the 11-year old April and a lost Polar Bear in the Arctic. As April grows further apart from her widower father,...

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) announced the dates for the Moebius Film Festival, an annual two-day screening series showcasing graduate student filmmakers. The festival will take place May 30-31, 2024.

This year’s event features an expanded portfolio of participating schools, including the festival’s first international-based institutions, the Institute of Art, Design and Technology (Iadt) in Dublin, Ireland and the National Film and Television School (Nfts) in Beaconsfield, England, along with New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts joining the program.

The ninth edition of the Moebius Film Festival will feature 10 short films curated from more than 130 submissions, including live-action, animated, and foreign language entries, all with a wide range of perspectives and highlighting its commitment to embracing cultural and artistic diversity.

Conceived by then-trainees and now CAA Motion Picture agents Christina Chou, Zach Kaplan, and Pete Stein, as well as Lingie Park, Moebius is organized by a team...

The cast of Welcome Back, Kotter was unforgettable, each member bringing something unique to the table in this classic sitcom. John Travolta's breakout role as Vinnie Barbarino catapulted him to stardom, leading to iconic movie roles and a legendary career. Despite its controversial elements, Welcome Back, Kotter remains a timeless time capsule of the 1970s, impacting popular culture immensely.

Welcome Back, Kotter is best remembered as one of the defining sitcoms of the 1970s, but what has its cast been doing since the show went off the air? Airing for four seasons from 1975 to 1979, the comedy series captured the zeitgeist of that complicated era and transcended its genre by actually having something to say about the state of inner-city schools at the time. Hilarious and poignant in equal measure, the series was relatively short-lived by sitcom standards, but it had a massive impact on popular culture. Its success was...

Marvel Studios teases the introduction of a new Scarlet Witch replacement in the upcoming Agatha: Darkhold Diaries spinoff, possibly portrayed by Joe Locke as Billy Kaplan. Billy Kaplan, also known as Wiccan, shares similar abilities with his mother, making him a suitable candidate for the Scarlet Witch's successor. Elizabeth Olsen's return as the Scarlet Witch in future projects remains unconfirmed, but Billy Kaplan's debut in Agatha: Darkhold Diaries could pave the way for her eventual comeback.

Marvel Studios' replacement for the Scarlet Witch has been teased for the MCU Phase 5's Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, and a new fan video has imagined what this hero's grand debut might entail. Elizabeth Olsen portrayed Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch, in the MCU between the post-credits scene of 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier and 2022's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, though the latter seemed to feature the powerful hero-turned-villain's demise.

You are reading an exclusive WrapPRO article for free. Want to level up your entertainment career? Click here for more information.

In the ongoing battle for streaming supremacy, a surprising contender has emerged in the form of Fast channels — free ad-supported streaming television, a hybrid of the new and the old.

According to Pluto TV’s global SVP and head of consumer marketing Valerie Kaplan, Fast isn’t the future, it’s the present tense.

“I think Fast is now,” Kaplan told TheWrap’s co-executive editor Adam Chitwood during a panel titled Fast Forward Thinking: Innovations and Strategies in Ad-Supported Streaming Wednesday at TheGrill, the publication’s annual business conference.

She continued, “It’s projected to reach $6 billion in revenue in 2023, with double that in coming years.”

On the panel, Kaplan was joined by Patrick Courtney, Fuse Media’s head of digital and business development; Beth Anderson, BBC Studios SVP...

MSNBC’s Katie Phang says there’s one important takeaway from Wednesday’s second defamation ruling against Donald Trump in federal court.

Phang, in a dispatch from outside a Lower Manhattan courtroom, told “The ReidOut” that if the notion the twice-impeached and four-times indicted former president is a liar wasn’t stamped into concrete before Judge Lewis Kaplan’s ruling, it is now.

“It just goes to show that Donald Trump is a proven liar,” a fired-up Phang said. “And when you have this many criminal cases pending, and your credibility as a criminal defendant may come into play, either because other defendants say that you have done something or you yourself are crazy enough to take the stand, which Donald Trump says he’s willing to do, if you already have findings that he’s a liar — it may not be admissible in your criminal trial, but trust me,...

A judge has found Donald Trump liable for defaming columnist E. Jean Carroll in 2019. Now, the only issue at hand is how much he should pay in damages.

In a ruling Wednesday morning, Judge Lewis Kaplan issued a partial summary judgment in Carroll’s favor. Because a jury determined in May that Trump defamed Carroll in Oct. 2022 when he denied raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-Nineties, Kaplan ruled that similar 2019 statements by Trump about Carroll were “substantially the same” and made with “actual malice.” Therefore,...

Director Jeff Nichols wanted three magnetic faces to anchor his motorcycle movie, “The Bikeriders,” which just launched at the Telluride Film Festival. He and his casting director Francine Maisler landed a stellar multinational cast for this three-hander led by Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, and Jodie Comer.

The Nichols/Maisler collaboration began with “The Tree of Life” producer Sarah Green. “There’s this young guy who could be the next Terry Malick,” Green told Maisler, who checked out “Take Shelter” and met with Nichols back in 2010. “He was very quiet and humble,” Maisler said at a Telluride interview with Nichols.

Maisler went on to cast “Mud” and every Nichols film since, including “Midnight Special,” which featured an early role for Adam Driver, and “Loving,” which landed Irish actress Ruth Negga an Oscar nomination. “You just put an actor in his hands and they can fly,” said Maisler. “You have a script.

Kevin Federline is offering support to his ex-wife, Britney Spears, on the heels of her divorce from Sam Asghari.

The former dancer’s lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan, shared Federline’s well-wishes to Spears on his behalf while speaking with both Et and NewsNation’s “Banfield”.

While appearing on “Banfield”on Wednesday — a news and talk show hosted by Canadian-American journalist, Ashleigh Banfield — Kaplan clarified that he doesn’t know the “inside track” of Spears and Asghari’s breakup, but does know that Federline “hopes” the two will “work it out.”

Read More: Sam Asghari Speaks Out About Divorcing Britney Spears: ‘Sh-t Happens… I Wish Her The Best Always’

“He just hopes that everything works out for the best, whether that’s being together or not being together,” Kaplan explained. “He just hopes that they make good decisions and work out, either go their separate ways or get back together.”

The...

The horror comedy series Shining Vale premiered on Starz back in March of 2022 – and just when I was starting to wonder if the show was turning out to be “one season and done”, Entertainment Weekly has gone ahead and broken the news that Shining Vale season 2 is scheduled to begin airing on Friday, October 13th! Along with that confirmation comes the unveiling of some first look images from the new season, and you can check those out at the bottom of this article.

Created by Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan, the first season of Shining Vale followed a dysfunctional family that moves from the city to a small town into a house in which terrible atrocities have taken place. But no one seems to notice except for Patricia “Pat” Phelps, who’s convinced she’s either depressed or possessed – turns out, the symptoms are exactly the same. Pat is a...

Britney Spears has a sweet mama moment!

On Saturday, the “Baby One More Time” singer shared a picture of her carrying her youngest son, Jayden.

In the picture, which she simply captioned, ” : Gsi Media,” Spears and her son coordinate in matching blue outfits while she carries him on her hip.

The singer turned off the comments on the post.

Spears shares Sean, 17, and Jayden, 16, with ex-husband, Kevin Federline.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by River Red (@britneyspears)

The “Oops I Did It Again” singer’s sweet picture comes after Et learned that she signed off to allow Federline to relocate their children to Hawaii.

Spears’ lawyer, Matthew Rosengart, wrote a letter dated May 31 to Federline’s attorney informing him that the singer does not intend to interfere with Federline’s plans to uproot the family and relocate to Hawaii. Spears has offered her full consent.

In the letter,...

Yo La Tengo experienced a full circle career moment on Thursday when Ira Kaplan took the mount at Citi Field to throw the first pitch at a New York Mets game. The group’s name comes from a decades-old story from the team’s 1962 inaugural season when center fielder Richie Ashburn and shortstop Elio Chacón worked out a way to avoid collisions by calling fly balls in Spanish. Instead of “I got it,” Ashburn would shout: “Yo la tengo!”

“Please welcome guitarist and vocalist Ira Kaplan from the group Yo La Tengo,...

Josh Friedman, who worked on ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ and developed ‘Snowpiercer’, has been roped to write the script for Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four. Matt Shakman, who was the key director behind Marvel series WandaVision, is on board to helm the feature that has a release date of February 14, 2025, and is set to kick off Phase 6 of its storytelling universe, reports hollywoodreporter.com.

‘Fantastic Four’ was the heroic team that introduced readers, and the world at large, to Marvel Comics and ushered in the Marvel Age, as the self-generated hype machine described it in the 1960s.

Written by editor Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four No. 1 brought forth Reed Richards, a scientist dedicated to his work and unafraid to push the boundaries of science; Sue Storm, his girlfriend-turned-wife; Johnny Storm, Sue’s hothead and hot-rod-loving brother; and Ben Grimm, Richards’ beefy best friend.

After an unauthorised...

THR has reported that Marvel’s Fantastic Four movie has a new writer. Marvel Studios has tapped Josh Friedman to rewrite the script for the upcoming feature which will be directed by WandaVision‘s Matt Shakman.

Josh Friedman has been part of James Cameron’s writers room for the Avatar sequels, and shares a story by credit on Avatar: The Way of Water with James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and Shane Salerno. He also co-wrote the script for Avatar 4 alongside James Cameron. Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer were the previous writers on the Fantastic Four movie. It’s not clear if Friedman will work from that script or start from scratch. Kaplan and Springer are better known for their comedy scripts, while Friedman is much more involved in the world of science-fiction.

Related Fantastic Four: Kevin Feige says the reboot will be a big pillar in the...

Out with the old, in with the new. That's the case with Marvel's long-awaited "Fantastic Four" movie reboot, as the project has added a new writer — and that new writer is Josh Friedman. This update comes from the folks at The Hollywood Reporter, who bring word that the "Avatar: The Way of Water" writer has boarded the project, which is due to be directed by Matt Shakman ("WandaVision"). Whether or not this change is for the better or for the worse is almost impossible to say at the moment, but it does indicate Marvel Studios is headed in a different direction than previously planned.

Prior to the hiring of Friedman, duo Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer had been tapped to reboot Marvel's first family for the big screen. Kaplan and Springer lean more into the comedic side of things, with upcoming projects such as "Disaster Wedding" and "K-Pop: Lost in America" on their resumes.

Marvel’s first family is getting a rewrite. Josh Friedman, who worked on Avatar: The Way of Water and developed Snowpiercer as a TNT television series, has been tapped to write the script for Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four.

Matt Shakman, who was the key director behind Marvel series WandaVision, is on board to helm the feature that has a release date of Feb. 14, 2025, and is set to kick off Phase 6 of its storytelling universe.

Fantastic Four was the heroic team that introduced readers, and the world at large, to Marvel Comics and ushered in the Marvel Age, as the self-generated hype machine described it in the 1960s.

Written by editor Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four No. 1 brought forth Reed Richards, a scientist dedicated to his work and unafraid to push the boundaries of science; Sue Storm, his girlfriend-turned-wife; Johnny Storm, Sue’s hothead and hot-rod-loving brother; and Ben Grimm,...

Exclusive: James Gray and Focus Features are reuniting as Gray has come on to direct Ezekiel Moss for the studio from a script by Keith Bunin. Likely Story is producing the film. Bunin recently delivered a draft that blew the studio and Gray away with the director recently committing to it. Gray and Bunin will now team to develop the full the story as they get ready for the pre-production process.

The film is a Depression-era ghost story about a young, imaginative boy living in a small town who befriends a mysterious drifter who may or may not have the supernatural ability to communicate with the dead.

The project has been something the studio has been developing for awhile with Philip Seymour Hoffman planning to direct prior to his tragic death in 2014.

Known for his critically acclaimed dramas like We Own The Night and Two Lovers, Gray recently directed Armageddon Time for Focus Features,...

From a potential writers strike to Covid-19 safety protocols on set, some of Hollywood’s top producers offered a peek on Wednesday at how they approach some of the industry’s most contentious issues.

The insiders, typically tight-lipped on Hollywood dealings, discussed their thoughts on widespread industry concerns and trends at a brunch honoring the top physical production pros during a multiday networking event, from March 27 to 30, hosted by the Association of Film Commissioners International (Afci), a group made up of more than 300 commissioners on six continents. The brunch, a joint effort between Afci and The Hollywood Reporter, saw a turnout of hundreds of production executives and film commissioners across the world, who chatted over quiche, fruit platters and pastries.

Featured on the panel were Janet Graham-Borba, executive vp production for HBO; Marcy Kaplan, physical production principal at MGM Television and MGM+; and Herb Gains, executive vp production for Legendary.

A federal judge denied President Trump’s request for a summary judgment against writer E. Jean Carroll’s claim of defamation against him. In his Tuesday ruling, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan gave a written lashing to the former President’s legal arguments.

Carroll has brought forth two lawsuits against Trump, including a civil rape lawsuit based on allegations that the former president sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a department store in the Nineties. A separate suit argues that Trump defamed Carroll through statements that Trump...

Exclusive: Paramount Pictures is developing the action thriller Bella with Scream VI actress Samara Weaving set to star in the Larysa Kondracki-directed title.

Craig Flores is producing via Bread & Circuses Entertainment and Chad Stahleski is producing through his 87eleven Entertainment. Alex Young and Jason Spitz are executive producing via 87eleven.

Jesse Wigutow is writing based on Jason Markarian’s script.

Set against the backdrop of a crime wave that gripped New York City in the ’80s, Bella is a hyperstylized action thriller about a cop’s daughter who, as her father clings to life following an assassination attempt, goes on a rampage to unearth her father’s attacker and weed out deep-rooted corruption in the New York City Police Department.

Flores tells Deadline: “Bella cleverly reinvents the female-led action genre pairing a sexy and unapologetic rock ‘n’ roll edge with the gritty heightened realism of ’80s New York City.

Exclusive: The second annual Nalip Latino Lens Narrative Short Film Incubator for Women of Color has selected its class of 2022: Holly M. Kaplan, Nicole Otero, Akilah ‘Ak’ Walker, Diana Gonzalez-Morett, Jhanvi Motla, and Frida Perez.

As part of this program, the filmmakers received a $25k grant to produce a new short film. Throughout that process, they were supported by executives at the Nalip and Netflix, who provided creative feedback during development as well as guidance through post-production. The films will showcase at a special screening at Nalip’s Diverse Women in Media Forum on March 30, 2023, in Los Angeles.

“We are grateful to Netflix and the mentorship support provided by individuals that hold a strong place in the industry and constantly elevate the filmmakers’ voices,” Diana Luna, Nalip Executive Director said in a statement. “Writers, Ligiah Villalobos and Stephanie Adams-Santos; Director, Carlos Lopez Estrada: Casting Director, Carla Hool; and fundraising expert,...

CBS has handed a pilot order to JumpStart, a multi-camera comedy based on Robb Armstrong’s long-running comic strip. Wayne Conley (The Best Man) penned the TV adaptation. The project, from Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, Wendy Trilling’s TrillTV and CBS Studios, was among the first CBS buys for the 2023-24 season made last June. The order caps an almost decade-long journey for Kapital to adapt JumpStart for TV.

Based on the popular comic strip that debuted in 1989, JumpStart is set in Philadelphia and follows Joe, a cop, his wife Marcy, a nurse, and Joe’s partner Crunchy. Joe and Marcy are young, hip, urban parents with old school values who are willing to sacrifice for their kids and have some laughs while doing it!.

Conley executive produces with Kaplan and Melanie Frankel of Kapital Entertainment, Trilling for TrillTV and Armstrong’s producer Bridget McMeel, who brought the property to Hollywood,...

For nearly 40 years, Yo La Tengo have been carrying on one of the great conversations in rock & roll history, welcoming us into their little idyll of pastoral noise, mumbled epiphanies, and sublime cover song choices. Even a diehard fan might struggle to pass a multiple-choice exam where you have to match a list of their song titles with the album they were on, but that sense of familiarity and constancy imbues every new release with the feeling of checking in with old friends. What’s more, their attention to detail...

Former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll filed an upgraded lawsuit against former President Donald Trump on Thanksgiving, the first day of New York’s new Adult Survivors Act, the Associated Press reports. The one-year lookback window enables survivors of sexual offenses that occurred when they were over the age of 18 to sue regardless of the statute of limitations.

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, filed the legal paper electronically minutes after a new state law took effect and temporarily lifted New York’s deadlines for suing over sexual assault. Carroll sought...

I really liked the autopsy scene.”

Jodie Foster spears some fat, glistening cannellini beans from the antipasto plate and describes a satisfying day’s work on her upcoming film.

“There’s a body on the table, murdered, with grotesque mutilations,” she says. “So there’s a certain basic horror, of course. And compassion for the victim. But the more my character gets into the work, she experiences a kind of – I know this sounds weird – a kind of exhilaration. She’s excited. She wants to get inside the skull of the man who did this.