James Earl Jones: Last News

The current Broadway season schedule seemed done and dusted at the start of this month: With an opening night of April 26, the new Kander & Ebb musical New York, New York would be the final production of 2022-23, arriving just a day before the April 27 Tony eligibility cut-off date.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Ephraim Sykes, a Tony nominee for the Temptations musical “Ain’t Too Proud,” is returning to Broadway in “Room,” a stage version of the Oscar-winning movie. The play and the 2015 film, starring Brie Larson, were based on Emma Donoghue’s 2010 best-selling novel. “Room” tells the story of Ma, who was kidnapped as a teenager and held in captivity for seven years. She’s trapped with her five-year-old son Jack, who was born in confinement and has no concept of the outside world. But the time has come to escape imprisonment and face their biggest challenge to date: life outside Room. As previously announced, “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” star Adrienne Warren is leading the cast as Ma. Sykes, whose stage and screen credits include “Hamilton” and “Hairspray Live,” is playing SuperJack.

Many decades after her brilliant and unsettling plays became seen Off Broadway, at regional theaters or, sometimes, not at all, the great playwright Adrienne Kennedy is making her Broadway debut tonight when her 1992 work Ohio State Murders opens as the inaugural production at the newly renamed James Earl Jones Theatre.

Ohio State Murders, in which she is on stage for the entirety of the 75-minute play. The very next day, she will perform to a sold-out Carnegie Hall for a solo concert. And that’s all after she drops her six-year-old daughter off at the school bus. “To be honest, ‘me time’ is kind of nonexistent right now,” she says from her New York home.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In “Is That Black Enough for You?!?,” Elvis Mitchell’s highly pleasurable and eye-opening movie-love documentary about the American Black cinema revolution of the late ’60s and ’70s, Billy Dee Williams, now 85 but still spry, tells a funny story about what it was like to play Louis McKay, the dapper love object and would-be savior of Billie Holiday in “Lady Sings the Blues.” The year was 1972, and African-American audiences had rarely (if ever) been given the chance to gawk at a movie star of color who was not just this sexy but this showcased for his sexiness. Louis was like Clark Gable with a dash of Marvin Gaye; when he was on that promenade stairway, Williams says that he just about fell in love with himself. That’s how unprecedented the whole thing was. The actor recalls how the lighting was fussed over (we see a shot in which Louis appears bathed in an old-movie glow), and how unreal that was to him on the set. At the time, Black actors didn’t get lighting like that. But Black audiences drank it in with a better-late-than-never swoon, even as they knew that this was a representation they’d been denied for more than half a century.

Only Bruce Willis has the rights to Bruce Willis’s face, it transpires.

according to Vanity Fair.The Ukrainian start-up Respeecher, which specializes in voice cloning for content creators, used archival recordings and an AI algorithm to generate Jones’s voice for Disney+’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series, released in May.This was done in collaboration with Disney-owned “Star Wars'” production company Lucasfilm, which explained that Jones “guided” the character’s lines in the show, but his actual voice was generated by Respeecher, according to AV Club.Although the project coincided with the early days of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, Respeecher’s employees saw it to completion.

It looks like James Earl Jones will no longer be providing the voice of Darth Vader.

Additional casting and the full creative team for the Broadway premiere of Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders were announced today, with Bryce Pinkham (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) and Lizan Mitchell (Cullud Wattah) joining previously announced star Audra McDonald.

Encouraging her fans and fellow Broadway-goers to spread the hashtag “The Majestic Is Fit For A Prince,” TV and stage icon Carol Burnett has launched a social media campaign to get Broadway’s Majestic Theatre renamed for legendary producer and director Harold Prince.

Wilson Chapman editor Barry Jenkins is heading to Pride Rock. At D23, the acclaimed “Moonlight” director appeared on stage to officially announce “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a new prequel to the 2019 “Lion King” film. Originally announced in 2020 as a sequel to the 2019 film, “Mufasa” tells the origin story of the iconic Disney father, exploring his childhood growing up with his brother Scar. The film will feature the voice of Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as younger versions of the characters, filling in for James Earl Jones as Mufasa in both the 1994 original and the 2019 CGI remake, and Jeremy Irons and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the villainous Scar. In addition to announcing the title, exclusive preview footage of the film was shown to the audience of the D23 expo.

renamed to honor of the EGOT winner. “The dedication of the James Earl Jones Theatre honors one of the most beloved Broadway and film actors of all time,” Shubert Chairman and CEO Robert E.

Jered Barclay, a longtime stage and screen actor who found a second career as a TV voice-over artist for series including The Smurfs and The Transformers, has died. He was 91. His longtime friend Myra Turley said Barclay died July 23 of MDS leukemia in North Hollywood, CA.

the struggling streamer’s quarterly earnings report Tuesday was that it lost fewer subscribers than it expected to — 1 million instead of 2 million. Pop the cork, losers! While it is possible that third quarter results will look somewhat rosier thanks to the enduring fandom surrounding the show “Stranger Things,” that lil bump will be a short-lived distraction from the inevitable:Netflix has lost the streaming wars.Disney+ has “Star Wars,” Marvel and “Avatar”; HBO Max boasts DC Comics, “Harry Potter” and “Godzilla.” Woebegone Netflix — sigh — touts migraines starring Melissa McCarthy.“Stranger Things,” you say? The Duffer Brothers’ popular sci-fi series has just one more season to go, now that its once adorable stars’ voices have become deeper than James Earl Jones’.  “The Crown”? Who cares?In any case, Netflix desperately needs more than one reliable megahit to stay afloat.

Emily Longeretta The “Field of Dreams” TV adaptation is no longer happening at Peacock, Variety has learned exclusively. Universal Television is currently shopping the project to other outlets.The show adaptation of the 1989 movie was ordered straight-to-series at Peacock in August 2021. Michael Schur was set as writer and executive producer under Fremulon, with Lawrence Gordon of The Gordon Company also executive producing with David Miner of 3 Arts and Morgan Sackett.

EXCLUSIVE: Jason Alan Carvell (NCIS: New Orleans) has been tapped to play the key role of Malcolm X in the upcoming third season of Epix drama series Godfather of Harlem in a recasting. Production begins this week in New York on the series, starring Forrest Whitaker.

Broadway is about to make history. On Thursday, the Nederlander Organization announced it will rename the Brooks Atkinson Theatre after legendary performer Lena Horne, who died in 2010 at 92.

Dazzling in a bright white topcoat and pants, Tony Awards host Ariana DeBose trumpeted progress on Broadway in a high-energy opening number and monologue. (See video clip below.)

Zach Braff shocked fans of the new Disney+ series “Obi-Wan Kenobi” with the latest episode.

didn’t wait long to reunite the titular Jedi Master (Ewan McGregor) and Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen). In “Chapter III” of the limited series, the two come face to face as the Sith Lord tracks his former mentor down on the planet Mapuzo, where Ben and a young Princess Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair) ended up after fleeing Daiyu. Ahead of the episode’s debut on Disney+, McGregor teased that the moment “will be a surprise” -- and indeed it was.

series marks Hayden Christensen’s return to the franchise, it also was revealed that James Earl Jones has reprised his role “as the voice of Darth Vader.” In episode three of the Disney+ limited series, the Sith Lord made his formidable debut as he closed in on his former Jedi Master (Ewan McGregor) on the planet Mapuzo, where Obi-Wan and a young Princess Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair) had taken refuge after fleeing Daiyu. Although the episode featured Christensen’s long-awaited return in full costume, after Anakin Skywalker’s downfall was completed at the end of the 2005 film,, fans were surprised to hear Jones once again assume the voice of the dark side. “Absolute goosebumps!” one fan wrote on Twitter, while another posted, “We are so blessed that James Earl Jones is still healthy and well enough to come back for that iconic voice.”“You should have killed me when you had the chance.” VADER IS BACK! THE Darth Vader!!! Hayden Christensen & James Earl Jones!!! Absolute goosebumps! This will be a day long remembered! #Vader#ObiWan#Kenobi#DarthVader#ObiWanKenobipic.twitter.com/LhCYvVIR2A#ObiWan #ObiWanKenobi   [SPOILERS]: - - - - - - - - - - - OH MY GOSH ITS VADER AND JAMES EARL JONES IS VOICING HIM! I-