Entertainment news in brief
Published 12:00 am Sunday, July 8, 2018
Roseanne says she has multiple TV offers
Roseanne Barr’s Hollywood exile looks like it’ll be short-lived.
The controversial actress said she’s already weighing offers to go back in front of the camera barely a month after she was axed at ABC.
“Inside every bad thing is a good thing waiting to happen, and I feel very excited because I’ve already been offered so many things, and I almost already accepted one really good offer to go back on TV, and I might do it,” Barr told Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on his podcast released Saturday. “But we’ll see.”
Barr was fired and “Roseanne” canceled in late May after she called Valerie Jarrett, the former senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, the baby of the “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes.”
The entire cast, minus Barr, has since been brought back for a second reboot, tentatively called “The Conners.” Part of the rules for the show’s return was that Barr would waive any financial and creative rights.
“I didn’t ask to be paid off. I asked for nothing, and I just stepped away … because that is penance. I put a lot of thought into it,” she told Boteach.
Barr, who blamed her late-night racism on Ambien, said she plans to apologize to Jarrett, but isn’t sure how.
“It’s all about right words and you have to do a lot of meditating and praying for the right words and I just don’t know what the right words would be,” she said.
New Will Packer show set to film in Atlanta
Atlanta producer Will Packer, known for such hit films as “Ride Along,” “Girls Trip” and “Think Like a Man,” is now getting deep in TV and his new OWN series, “Ambitions,” will be shot in his current home base of Atlanta.
Packer confirmed the news last week. He said he just completed the film “What Men Want” starring Taraji P. Henson in Atlanta (inspired by the 2000 Mel Gibson vehicle “What Women Want”) and is starting production of his newest comedy, “Little,” with “Black-ish” star Marsai Martin. He said he tries to do as much as possible in Atlanta.
Packer said casting for “Ambitions” has not been finalized yet for the soapy drama, which is described as “a multi-generational family saga centered around one woman who, having recently relocated and intent on revitalizing her marriage, finds herself going head to head with some of the most powerful and deceitful players in the city.”
He said Atlanta will also be the fictional heart of the show and will in effect be a character.
“Ambitions” is set to begin production this fall and will debut on OWN next year.