The Tracking Board Hollywood's Insider Information

BREAKING: STAR WARS EPISODE IX LANDS JURASSIC WORLD DIRECTOR COLIN TREVORROW 

EXCLUSIVE  〉After twenty-two years, the cartoon duo are preparing to make a return to the silver screen. 

Warner Bros. has a new feature version of TOM AND JERRY in the works. The film will mark the second theatrically released feature starring the characters, after Phil Roman's 1992 film Tom and Jerry: The Movie. The studio is currently looking for a writer and searching for the right take on the characters. Cate Adams and Jesse Ehrman will oversee the project for the studio.

Warner previously announced a live action Tom and Jerry film in 2009, but ultimately decided against the direction of the project, which was going to be in the vein of the 2007 film Alvin and the Chipmunks. Sherlock Holmes producer Dan Lin was attached to the project, with a screenplay by Eric Gravning. The current project is being developed as an animated film, in the vein of the source material.

Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, the characters were first introduced to the public in the MGM theatrical short Puss Gets the Boot in 1940. During the original run of the characters under MGM between 1940 and 1957, 114 short films were created, winning seven academy awards for best animated short.   

Following the Hanna Barbera run, the property was acquired by Gene Deitch, who produced thirteen shorts featuring the characters, moving on to Chuck Jones, who produced thirty-four additional shorts. The characters gained mass popularity with the initial television airing of the Hanna Barbera shorts on CBS in 1965. The characters would continue to be introduced to new generations as the shorts would continue to re-air on multiple networks, including Cartoon Network.

The last theatrical entry was released by Miramax Pictures, entitled Tom and Jerry: The Movie, in 1992. The film was produced and directed by Phil Roman, with a screenplay by Dennis Marks. The film failed to resonate due to the focus on making a musical-comedy instead of featuring the characters in their classic slapstick environments. The film remains the only wide released feature starring the characters.

Warner Bros. first acquired the property in 2006. The studio released a series of Saturday morning cartoons titled Tom and Jerry Tales, which aired between 2006 and 2008. The studio then revived the characters for Cartoon Network in 2014, with the release of two eleven minute animated shorts. 

The characters have appeared in a number of direct to video feature releases, with the 2014 film Tom and Jerry: The Lost Dragon being the most recent. Warner is looking to reinvent the characters for a mass audience once again with their current project. 

—TO SEE ALL THE PROJECT DETAILS CLICK HERE—

EXCLUSIVE

 〉Hart will play an unhappy husband who hires someone to seduce his wife.

Kevin Hart is set to star in Universal Pictures' comedy GREENER. The project was developed for Hart and based off an idea from three of Hart's friends, with the studio currently searching for the ideal writer. The comedy centers on a man who, confident that he's in a loveless marriage but too chicken to file for divorce, hires someone to seduce his wife, only for him to discover that he's still in love with her. Will Packer will produce through his shingle, Will Packer Productions, and Hart will produce through his Hartbeat Productions. Barbara Dreyfus will also produce.

Peter Cramer, who also oversaw the development of Ride Along, will oversee for the studio. The project marks the latest collaboration between Packer and Hart,who  teamed for The Wedding Ringer and the upcoming action/comedy The Black Phantom.

The project continues Universal's profitable relationship with Hart, whose pic Ride Along made a record for the highest domestic opening weekend gross in the month of January, before becoming bested by American Sniper. Ride Along grossed $134,141,530 worldwide, prompting Universal to fast-track a sequel. Hart currently has three other projects in development at Universal, including the untitled Ride Along sequel, the sports comedy Ballers, and the animated comedy The Secret Life of Pets.

In the last few years, Hart has risen to become a box office titan, with his theatrical stand-up special Let Me Explain grossing $32,305,049 worldwide combined with his success from Ride Along, jettisoning him into becoming a hot commodity. His 2015 comedies The Wedding Ringer and Get Hard, which teamed him with Will Ferrell, grossed a combined 142.7 million.

Hart will next star in the untitled Ride Along sequel and the animated comedy The Secret Life of Pets for Universal. The comedian will also team with Dwayne Johnson for the Warner Bros. comedy Central Intelligence.

Hart is repped by UTA and 3 Arts Entertainment.

—TO SEE ALL THE PROJECT DETAILS CLICK HERE—

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                                    THE NEW STANDARD FOR                                                         SCREENWRITING  COMPETITIONS

The sole objective of the Launch Pad Competition is to recognize writers who have the passion and talent deserving of a professional Hollywood career, and with our track record we have shown that we can do just that. That's why the Launch Pad Competitions have led to 63 writers being signed in just 18 months. Yes, that's correct. Let that number sink in for a moment to let you know how serious we are.

                                                             ALL NEW PRIZES & PROGRAMS

** Guaranteed Signings **

** All New Mentorship Program **

** Roundtrip Flights to Los Angeles **

** An Exclusive Private Event with our Judges **

** Meetings with Agents, Managers, Producers, Executives *

We are proud to introduce some amazing additions to this years competition. First and foremost, we are happy to announce that all three of this years Grand Prize winners (Overall, Comedy, Drama) will be flown out to Los Angeles for an action packed round of meetings with top level agents, managers, executives and producers. This is where you get the opportunity to meet with prospective reps and producers directly and allow your skills and talents to leap off the page and into the room. Best of all, our top three winners will be our guests of honor at an exclusive Tracking Board judges dinner, where you will have a chance to meet and dine with our amazing judges and alumni.

The time, sweat and energy a writer commits to their work should be met with the same unwavering commitment from a writing competition. We’re about pushing past contests that are just “names on a page” and not resting until the writers who come out of these competitions have a real chance of finding success.

                        SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?              EARLY BIRD SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN!

                                                ENTER TODAY!

By: Madelyn Glymour | Contributor

It probably goes without saying that tonight’s Glee panel was an emotional couple of hours. Glee is pretty sentimental to begin with, but at its final Paley panel, a week before the series finale, in front of an adoring audience who’s just seen the upcoming flashback episode? Even I was getting teary-eyed, and I haven’t been a regular Gleewatcher since season two.

There’s only one two-hour finale left to go, so obviously moderator Tim Stack didn’t ask a lot of questions about the future. Instead, the panel took on the feel of a retrospective, kind of  like a behind-the-scenes clip show, as cast members recollected their first, final, and favorite moments on set. They talked about revisiting the pilot in the finale (“It was so hard,” Lea Michele said. “I did not realize how fast I talked every single day.”); their final days on set (“I cried the whole week. I was a mess,” said Michele, whom everyone agreed was the most emotional — followed by Jenna Ushkowitz); and the heady days of the show’s initial, highly publicized season (“Amazeballs,” said Jane Lynch of appearing on Oprah).

By: Emily Schmitt | Managing Editor

AN: Full disclosure - I've seen every episode of Glee.  Well, aside from this finale season, because I knew months ahead of the first episode just how bad it was going to get.  The endless spoilers made it pretty clear that what we were in for with the conclusion of the Fox show wasn't going to be pretty.  More new cast members?  A main character dating his ex-fiance's former abuser? (Nevermind using the boring, tired, and lazy trope of breaking up the couple again.) Moving the show back to Lima, Ohio after the forward momentum of New York City?  Did any of that appeal to anyone?  Anyone at all? (Bueller?...Bueller?...)

So, in light of not being able to ask about an upcoming season, these are my five more retrospective questions about Glee, now that it's limping and crawling towards the end.

1.  So what the hell happened? Seriously.

Believe it or not, Glee used to be groundbreaking. Glee used to matter, at least to some people.  Glee also used to pull in pretty big ratings for a musical high school dramedy on Fox.  We're talking 10 - 12 million viewers.  But then. But then season 3 showed up.  It's kind of hard to pinpoint where exactly everything went wrong.  Maybe it was having some of the main cast graduate from high school at the end of season 3 while some of the cast mysteriously remained high school juniors. (Not even counting Blaine Anderson, who was a year older than the rest of the kids until suddenly he was a year younger.  That's some Benjamin Button bullshit right there.)  Or was it that EP/writer/etc. Ryan Murphy found a new toy in American Horror Story and The New Normal and forgot to pay attention to this one? Whatever it was, it happened, and it never recovered.

By: Madelyn Glymour | Contributor

If I were ranking this year’s Paley moderators — and hey, everything else gets ranked in entertainment reporting, so why not? — Kristin Dos Santos would take first place easily. Faced with a crowd of extremely excited fans, she kept things fun enough to placate the audience, but also in-depth enough that the panelists got to actually say something about their show. Her strategy? She brought a goody bag with her, and after every few serious questions, she would pull something out to play a game with the panelists.

The first was a game of Never Have I Ever (“Ne’er Have I E’er,” Dos Santos called it), played with honest-to-God whiskey; then she had on-screen newlyweds Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan play the Newlywed Game (Heughan roped co-star Tobias Menzies in for an assist); finally, she made Balfe play “Kill, Marry, Screw” with the Outlander characters. Did any of this provide deep insight into the show or the cast? No, but Balfe in particular has charm to spare, so it didn’t drag too much. And it allowed Dos Santos to mostly contain the more bantering portions of the program, so that she could ask some real questions during the downtime.

1. Who Was The Stranger Watching Claire?

In episode one, we see a kilted man in the street watching Claire. Yet, when Frank approached, he disappeared.  Now, Frank suspects that the man may have had to do something with Claire’s disappearance. Was it Jamie? If so, was he a ghost or did he become a time traveler? Or was it another time traveler entirely? If not Jamie, then who?

2. Will Claire Choose Jamie Or Frank?

Claire has clearly made a new life for herself in 1743. She’s married and deeply in love with Jamie. But, as Frank searches for her in 1946, we can’t help but wonder if she’ll ever return. And if given the choice, who would she choose?

3. Will Claire ever tell Jamie that she is actually from the future? If so will he believe her?

Oh boy. If Claire ever does decide to drop this bomb, how will Jamie take it. Others have been suspicious of Claire’s origins, but what will happen if say, Black Jack Randall discovers her secret? Will Jamie be able to trust her if he finds out?

By: Clark Allen | Associate Editor

I’m hearing that Dominic Cooper is the frontrunner to lead AMC’s new comic adaptation PREACHER. The series, developed by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Sam Catlin (Breaking Bad), will be based upon Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s cult classic 1990s comic book series of the same name.

Though there have been no official offers extended to Cooper, I’m hearing that he’s the top pick to star as Jesse Custer. Cooper’s involvement could come as a surprise to some fans, who typically fan-casted actors known for grittier roles. No stranger to television, Cooper’s just finished his run on ABC’s Agent Carter and BBC America’s Flemming.

Preacher follows Jesse Custer, a reverend ripe with inner turmoil in a small Texas town, who becomes merged with a supernatural entity, birthed from both an angel and a demon, that escaped from heaven, causing him to develop the power of persuasion and capable of making anyone do anything that he commands. Together with his ex-girlfriend Tulip and an Irish vampire named Cassidy, the trio sets off to find God and find answers as to why he abandoned Heaven.

THE COMPLETE LIST WITH ALL RSVP DETAILS & CONTACT INFORMATION!

All parties and events below are compiled exclusively for members of The Tracking Board and are not to be shared with any others. Any disclosure, copying, or distribution of the contents of this electronic transmission is prohibited. 

New parties and events will be added daily as the festival nears. Keep this page bookmarked for more details and RSVP info as we get closer!

By: Emily Schmitt | Managing Editor

PaleyFest 2015 picked back up tonight with the Teen Wolf Panel, and we learned a few interesting things about the upcoming season. If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out our live coverage from the event and our recap of the panel. Check out all of our PaleyFest coverage here.

1. Tyler Hoechlin WILL return for Season 5 in some capacity as Derek Hale.  Even though it was announced earlier that day by BuzzFeed that Hoechlin would not return as a series regular, Teen Wolf creator/EP Jeff Davis reassured fans that they had not seen the last of Hale.  Hoechlin, it should be mentioned, is pursing probably greener pastures on the big screen.

2. Crystal Reed, who played the late Allison Argent, was at the panel and she revealed that she was the first person to audition for Allison.  Looks like she made the right impression.

3. According to Davis, the fifth season will “be all about senior year.”  So I guess that gives us some sort of clue as to how much time has passed on the show.  Though it remains to be seen how many kids will actually live to see graduation.

By: Madelyn Glymour | Contributor

Teen Wolf had the smallest audience of any of the Paley panels so far, but damn if it wasn’t also the most enthusiastic. There was a lot more screaming and audience back-and-forth than even the Scandal panel had, but the Teen Wolf cast must be old hat at that by now (tonight can hardly have been the first time that Dylan O’Brien faced a wall of women screaming for him to take his shirt off), so all in all it ended up more fun than awkward.

It was also a lot more informative, in terms of where the show is going, than any of the panels I’ve seen so far. (I know that Homeland dropped some big reveals, but I wasn’t there for that.) The big news, of course, is that starting in season five, original cast member Tyler Hoechlin will no longer be a series regular. (In case you were wondering: Yes, the audience flipped out.) Showrunner Jeff Davis said that Hoechlin approached him and said that an indie movie he was filming (possibly Linklater’s Boyhood follow-up That’s What I’m Talking About) had inspired him to want to “do other things that scare him.” But, Davis assures us, “We haven’t seen the last of Derek Hale.” Hoechlin will remain on the show in some capacity.