Get ready to read and hear a lot this fall about David Oyelowo (pronounced “oh-yellow-oh”), the 36-year-old British actor who gained some prominence last year via The Help and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He’s got four films coming out in the next three months: Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy (October 5); 2012 Sundance award-winning drama Middle of Nowhere (October 12); Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (November 16); and the Tom Cruise action drama Jack Reacher (December 21).

Oyelowo is very good in The Paperboy, playing one half of a crack Miami newspaper reporting team (together with Matthew McConaughey) that comes to Lately, Florida in 1969 to investigate the possibly wrongful Death Row conviction of a local man (John Cusack) for the murder of a town sheriff. The actor has a big fan in Daniels, who planned earlier to make a civil rights era movie with Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. and has the performer in his next film, The Butler. From The Paperboy press notes:

Daniels rewrote the character specifically for Oyelowo, transforming the part of Yardley Acheman from a white reporter into a cultured and sophisticated black man, whose English accent helps him navigate the still largely segregated American South of the 1960s. “As a black man himself, Lee was very interested in how a black reporter in Florida in 1969 would have been greeted and how he would react in that situation,” says Oyelowo.

Read more

Washington Times reporter Kerry Picket and staff at The Smoking Gun spent part of yesterday exposing the very objectionable actions of LA resident Marcus Davonne Higgins. Since the middle of last week, Higgins – who on Twitter goes by the handle of @MACCAPONE – has been tweeting out to celebrities a South Florida address he claimed belonged to George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin.

Never mind the insensitivity (and possible criminal liability) of such an action. Greatly complicating matters is the fact that the information, which was re-tweeted by filmmaker Spike Lee last Friday, has now been shown to be completely incorrect. Per Picket and TSG, the address is that of a namesake man who has not lived at the tweeted address since 2005. This Zimmerman is the son of a senior citizen couple still at the residence. From the Smoking Gun report:

The original tweet was sent to Lee (and numerous other celebrities like Will Smith, 50 Cent, and LeBron James) last Friday afternoon by Higgins, a 33-year-old Los Angeles man… Higgins first began disseminating the address to his Twitter followers last Wednesday…

Read more

As VP of production for Columbia/Sony Pictures, Devon Franklin is the man responsible for the blockbusters The Pursuit of Happyness, Hancock, and The Karate Kid remake. His latest film  Jumping The Broom blends romantic comedy with spirituality, a theme Franklin says resonates now more than ever with moviegoers.

“I do think that, in general, when you look at what’s going on in the world and where kind of how things are,” he said in our @mediabeat interview, “people are looking to go to the theater and find hope, and to get inspired, and to be encouraged. And I think that when you have faith in a film, and you do it right, it can do that.”

Franklin also expressed some disappointment in Spike Lee‘s longstanding criticism of Tyler Perry. (In case you missed it, Perry recently bit back, telling Lee he can “go to hell.”)

“There is room for everyone — for Tyler, for Spike. I mean, there’s room for all different types of filmmakers and all different types of filmmakers of color. Our experience is incredibly rich and diverse, so why would we allow ourselves to be subject to a dialogue that doesn’t represent that?” he said. “Would you ever say, ‘Hey, I’m going to see the Jerry Bruckheimer movie over going to see the Brian Grazer movie’? No. It doesn’t even make sense.”

Part 2: Columbia Pictures VP Devon Franklin: ‘If You Write a Good Script, We’ll Find It’

Part 3: Columbia Pictures VP Devon Franklin Talks Netflix, Social Media

For a long time now, HBO has dominated the Cable Ace and Primetime Emmy Awards. This year, you can add the prestigious Peabody Awards to the pay cabler’s premium recognition parade.

The network claimed seven of 39 2010 Peabody Awards announced by the University of Georgia, more than any other news or TV outlet. Along with the Tom Hanks produced miniseries The Pacific and Spike Lee‘s follow-up New Orleans documentary If God is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise, the HBO nods also encompass a pair of more unusual Peabody players:

Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals: Not your average sports biography by a long jump shot, it examines the different cultures from whence these NBA legends sprang, their unusually long rivalry and their unlikely friendship.

Read more

This could be interesting. Pitchfork says that David Lynch of Mulholland Drive fame will be directing a webcast of an upcoming Duran Duran concert at the Mayan in LA on March 23rd. Lynch details his concept for the webcast in the press release: “The idea is to try and create on the fly, layers of images permeating Duran Duran on the stage. A world of experimentation and hopefully some happy accidents.”

The webcast is part of an online series called “American Express Unstaged” which partners famous directors with equally famous musical counterparts. Last year Terry Gilliam directed an Arcade Fire show while Spike Lee took the helm of a Roots/John Legend production.

Can’t wait to see what kind of “happy accidents” Lynch can come up with live on the web this year.

In journalism class, the topic of how to write a great “lede” is endlessly discussed, analyzed and rehearsed. Today, Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter John Beifuss shares a shining example of this art form in connection with rumblings of a new Hollywood project about the life of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Writes Beifuss:

Judging from Hollywood’s success rate, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of brotherhood and racial equality might be achieved before the first definitive King biopic gets to the screen.

Read more

In March, David Ehrenstein penned a piece in the LA Times titled “Obama the ‘Magic Negro’”. The term ‘Magic Negro’ comes from film criticism about the stock character commonly played by say Morgan Freeman. Wikipedia explains the phrase as ‘a supporting, often mystical stock character in fiction who, by use of special insight or powers, helps the white protagonist get out of trouble.’

It’s like the hooker with a heart of gold or the nun with no heart at all. A movie cliche. Like when someone coughs – they’re dying. Or a woman throws up – she’s pregnant.

Anyway, Ehrenstein’s piece was not about Barack Obama, it was about the image of the Magic Negro and what the public has projected on to him.

Enter, right-wing ‘knowhard’ Rush Limbaugh and ‘satirist’ Paul Shanklin. Shanklin wrote a spoof to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon”. Titled,”Barack the Magic Negro.” With the lyrics sang by an Al Sharpton impersonator,”Barack the magic negro lives in DC. The LA Times they called him that because he’s not authentic like me. The guy from the LA paper said he made guilty whites feel good…” and “Don’t vote the Magic Negro in…”

So, who cares? No one. But then Chip Saltsman, former Mike Huckabee campaign staffer (snicker) wants to be RNC chair, so what better to send out to all his associates for Christmas than a copy of “Barack the Magic Negro”.

Read more

New York University adjunct associate professor Reed Martin wanted to clarify the aim and the scope of his new book, “The Reel Truth,” which FBLA wrote about last week. To be honest, we gave an honest interpretation. As marketing books are extremely difficult to market and having contributed to several marketing texts in the past, we simply told him Good Luck. That wasn’t enough.

To wit, we’ll let Mr. Martin have it his way:

“NYU adjunct associate professor Reed Martin has written a new book he hopes will help first- and second-time indie filmmakers navigate the current economic downturn. ‘The Reel Truth,’ (Faber & Faber, Jan. 2009) draws from more than 100 interviews with leading names in the independent film world, which has seen its share of hard times of late. This past year alone saw the closings of New Line Cinema, Picturehouse, Paramount Vantage, and Warner Independent Pictures, as older audiences stayed home with Netflix rentals and TiVo while younger moviegoers found it hard to pull away from Facebook updates and Xbox LIVE.”

See more below:

Read more

Variety

Scott Rudin has offered one of his former development guys, Craig Perry, a first-look deal, thus gaining an opportunity to “generate mainstream comedies and family films.” Perry produced the American Pie and Final Destination movies.

Sidney Sheldon, the prolific author and producer, has died. During his extensive career he wrote several Broadway musicals, screenplays and televisions series, in addition to a multitude of novels. His television career included producer of The Patty Duke Show, I Dream of Jeannie, and Hart to Hart, in addition to a number of his novels produced as made-for TV movies including Rage of Angels, Bloodline and Memories of Midnight. His career awards included a Tony for Best Musical: Redhead in 1959, an Oscar for his original screenplay of The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer starring Cary Grant, two WGA awards for Easter Parade and Annie Get Your Gun, and an Emmy for I Dream of Jeannie.

Hollywood Reporter

Television is the new feature, according to a CBS development exec. Pilot orders are running towards nighttimee soaps and high-cncept dramas, while the networks are avoiding open-ended serials–Lost being the only hit out of the current crop. Big name directors, like Spike Lee, Brett Ratner, Guy Ritchie, and Barry Sonnenfeld are directing pilots.

The Police will perform at the Grammys in February. Sting had hinted at this during the TCAs, where he was promoting his PBS project, a collection of 16th-century classical music called Songs From the Labyrinth, as the 30th anniversary of the band was approaching. THe group will open the show on CBS.