This Is What Happens When You Let Celebrities Have Kickstarters
Today in show business news: Now Melissa Joan Hart wants your money for a movie, The Newsroom has a season premiere date, and a look at a new Romeo & Juliet.
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Don't say I didn't warn you. Now that the Veronica Mars movie is happening thanks to thousands of loyal, money-giving fans, other old acts are trying to get in on the Kickstarter game to fund their little projects. Enter Melissa Joan Hart, former teen queen of Clarissa and Sabrina fame, who, not simply content with Melissa & Joey I guess, has started a Kickstarter campaign to fund a movie called Darci's Walk of Shame. See, she wants to do something risque and dirty, to prove she's not just some innocent former teen princess on an ABC Family sitcom with a former teen prince. No, she's an adult and this could be her adult movie. (Not that kind of adult movie.) And all she's asking for is $2,000,000 in the next 43 days. Yes. $2,000,000. Seems... modest. And what are some of the prizes that you'll receive should you donate? Oh, y'know, for $300 or more MJH will follow you on Twitter for an entire year! (This was offered by Kristen Bell and crew too.) For $5,000 or more? You get a costume worn by MJH in the movie. Meaning for $5,000 you get a low-budget movie starring Melissa Joan Hart and some old clothes. Terrific. Look, people are free to spend their money how they want, and hey the project has already raised over $13,000 as of 4 PM EDT, but good grief, guys. Is this really what we want? Is this really what we want to encourage? I really don't think it is. Oh well. What can you do. Kick on, starters. [Kickstarter]
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Set your phasers to stunned that this show really exists! HBO has announced that season two of everyone's favorite hate-watch The Newsroom will premiere on Sunday, July 14. Oh isn't that exciting? There's so much recent news for them to preach to us about, so many big self-important speeches to be made, so many madcap opportunities for all the women characters to act frazzled and crazy until a calm man comes and helps them. Is it July yet? I really cannot wait. [Deadline]
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Hm. Kristin Chenoweth has been cast opposite Matthew Broderick on a CBS pilot. She'll play Broderick's sister, so we at least will not have to endure them having some sort of Broadwayyyyy romance. Still, though. This worries me. Chenoweth and Broderick are likable on their own (unless they're hosting the Oscars red carpet, in Chenoweth's case), but together? That sounds like a lot. Doesn't it? I mean theater people are great and all, except... are they that great? On their own, maybe. But when you put theater people together, things can get pretty awful pretty quickly. Trust me, I am one of those people, and I have some shameful memories from college days. Ever been to a college theater party? If not, consider yourself lucky. I'm not suggesting that Chenoweth and Broderick together on some CBS pilot is going to be like a college theater party, I'm just saying that it might be a little much. But who knows. Maybe they'll make comedy magic together. And if this pilot doesn't work out, maybe they can team up on Broadway. Kiss Me Kate? [The Hollywood Reporter]
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Speaking of theater, here is a trailer for a movie version of Romeo & Juliet. Don't know Romeo & Juliet? Oh it's a play "From the greatest playwright who ever lived," according to the trailer. Haaaa. Do we really need that descriptor when talking about g.d. Shakespeare?? It's like they're saying that he would have won a Tony or an Oscar or something had those things existed four hundred and fifty years ago. Very silly. And then it goes on to call Romeo & Juliet "the greatest love story ever told." Is it? Is it really? It's maybe the most important in the Western canon, influential as it's been, but is it the "greatest"? Two teens meet, want to do it real bad but aren't supposed to, two gang members are killed in duels, and then the kids kill themselves. It's dramatic, sure, but is it the greatest? I just don't think it is! So there's some controversy for you on a Friday afternoon. Romeo & Juliet is not the greatest. Anyway, the movie looks kind of silly. I mean, it's Chuck Bass and Sideways from Sideways doing fancy Shakespeare. Plus Douglas Booth looks like he was made in some sort of whimsical Renaissance-era laboratory. Douglas Booth: A Leonardo Da Vinci creation. Preposterous.
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