John Ridley Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…,” Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities. The same phrase could describe the state of the documentary industry. 

Welcome to the premiere episode of Doc Talk, our new podcast hosted by Oscar-winning writer-director John Ridley and Deadline’s documentary editor Matt Carey. We’re kicking off with a deep dive into a signature power of documentary: The capacity to right a grave wrong in the criminal justice system by freeing a wrongfully convicted prisoner. Only a handful of major nonfiction filmmakers has achieved this extraordinary feat, springing men and women who faced Death Row or life sentences.

Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of Hurricane Katrina, there wasn’t a lot of archival footage of some of the more devastating moments that producers wanted to depict in Five Days of Memorial — like when the roof came off the Superdome and the 9th Ward flooding. So VFX Supervisor Eric Durst (Snowpiercer, Perry Mason) said his team went back “forensically” to research those moments before depicting them in the Apple TV limited series.

Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of Hurricane Katrina, there wasn’t a lot of archival footage of some of the more devastating moments that producers wanted to depict in Five Days of Memorial — like when the roof came off the Superdome and the 9th Ward flooding. So VFX Supervisor Eric Durst (Snowpiercer, Perry Mason) said his team went back “forensically” to research those moments before depicting them in the Apple TV limited series.

Editor’s note: Marcus Ryder is a veteran UK and international news journalist and editor, academic and executive. He is among the most-respected figures working in British media diversity and his campaigning work as the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity has been influential throughout British entertainment circles. Yesterday, he was named CEO of the Film and TV Charity. Like our recent guest columnist John Ridley, Ryder harbors concerns companies are turning their backs on anti-racism and diversity pledges made since the death of George Floyd but here he argues the issues date back much further than that.

John Ridley is the Oscar-winning 12 Years A Slave writer, writer/director of Five Days At Memorial, and the Eisner-nominated writer of the DC Graphic novel series GCPD: The Blue Wall, which premieres in September about systemic injustice in the Gotham City PD. He’s been working in Hollywood long enough to witness the the ebbs and flows of diversity initiatives, and he fears the inclusion momentum that came after the death of George Floyd and opened opportunities to new filmmakers, could well turn into a forgotten fad as the urgency fades.

Jonnie Davis is leaving ABC Signature.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran TV executive and producer Michael McDonald (American Crime) is finalizing a deal to join Amazon Studios’ executive ranks as Head of the Comedy and Drama Development team in the US SVOD TV Development and Series – Wholly Owned division led by Nick Pepper, I hear. He will oversee development of all wholly owned comedy and drama series. Amazon Studios declined comment.

After his quotes about writing for Lost appeared in a Vanity Fair book excerpt Tuesday, veteran scribe Javier Grillo-Marxuach doubled down via social media by sharing more of his experience on the ABC drama.

EXCLUSIVE: Trevor Jackson, known for his role as Aaron Jackson, the male lead opposite Yara Shahidi on Freefom’s Grown-ish, has signed with APA for representation.

Netflix has unveiled its 2023 feature film slate, consisting of 49 titles. 

EXCLUSIVE: C. Henry Chaisson, writer of Keri Russell-fronted film Antlers and Apple series Servant, is turning Nick Cutter’s underwater thriller The Deep into a series for Amazon.

Five Days at Memorial, the grim tale about the disastrous events that took place at a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina, finished its eight-episode run today on Apple TV. Here, Executive Producer Carlton Cuse (Locke & Key, Lost), who together with John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) adapted the series from the nonfiction book by Sheri Fink, explains what it was like to chronicle the story of healthcare professionals like Dr. Anna Pou (Vera Farmiga) and incident commander Susan Mulderick (Cherry Jones), who faced overwhelming odds to save patients at Memorial Medical Center.

Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in the late summer of 2005.The eight-episode series, premiering Aug. 12 on Apple TV+, is based on Sheri Fink’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name chronicling the hellish five-day timespan at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans as Katrina ravaged the city, breached levees, submerged most of the area underwater and forced the hospital and LifeCare — a private health facility on the 7th floor — to evacuate its patients with deadly results that no one could have foreseen … or, perhaps, even avoided.The series opens on Sept. 11, 2005, 13 days after Katrina first made landfall, when 45 bodies were discovered in the abandoned hospital’s chapel, with no explanation of what happened to them or how they got there.

Carson Burton Crowds at the DGA theater in Los Angeles were buzzing on Monday night when Chris Pine made a surprise appearance on the red carpet. Pine came out to the “Five Days at Memorial” premiere to support his dad, Robert Pine, in his newest acting endeavor.The father-son duo posed together before Chris made his way into the theater, letting his father walk the line to talk to the press.For Robert, his decision to get involved with this project came down to the script. “John Ridley and Carlton Cuse wrote [the script], and you just don’t get good writing like that all the time,” Pine told Variety.

Apple TV+ is exploring the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in its latest limited series, “Five Days at Memorial.”The series is based on actual events, chronicling the impact of the hurricane — which quickly became one of the deadliest natural disasters in the country’s history — and its aftermath on Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans. When the floodwaters rose, power failed, and heat soared, exhausted caregivers at the hospital were forced to make decisions that would follow them for years to come. In a trailer released Wednesday, nurses, doctors, and residents brace for the hurricane as it races toward the city.

Apple TV+ has set global premiere dates for Five Days at Memorial, its limited series from John Ridley and Carlton Cuse, and darkly comic thriller series Bad Sisters, starring Sharon Horgan.

EXCLUSIVE: Comic book and graphic novel publisher IDW has unveiled nine new original comic book projects set for release beginning in July as part of a new initiative. While the focus is on creating new comic book IP, following publishing of the comics, the IDW Entertainment Group will work to potentially develop the IP for film, television and other entertainment mediums the way the company has done in the past with such titles as Wynonna Earp and Locke & Key.

EXCLUSIVE: Carlton Cuse is returning to Amazon Studios. The prolific, Emmy-winning writer-producer, who co-created and was showrunner for the first two seasons of the Prime Video Original Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, has signed a first-look deal with Amazon Studios. Under the multi-year pact, he will develop and produce projects to premiere on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

EXCLUSIVE: Audio Up, the podcast studio behind series from the likes of Anthony Anderson and James Ellroy, is ramping up its moves into TV and film.

EXCLUSIVE: Dorian Missick (Shirley), Pamela Reed (Outside In), Amanda Warren (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and Jim Klock (The Underground Railroad) will round out the cast of Prime Video’s The Burial, which is currently in production.

EXCLUSIVE: Micaela Wittman, the actress who recently made her feature directorial with the satirical mockumentary Clairevoyant, has signed with Untitled Entertainment for management. She will be represented there by Katie Rhodes and Dannielle Thomas.

EXCLUSIVE: Lance Reddick (John Wick franchise), Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea), André Holland (Passing), Terrence Howard (Empire), Christina Jackson (Swagger), Michael Cherrie (Home Again), Dorian Missick (For Life), Amirah Vann (Underground), W. Earl Brown (Deadwood) and newcomer Ethan Jones Romero have joined the cast of Shirley, an upcoming film from Participant and Regina King’s Royal Ties Productions, which has landed at Netflix.

Ephraim Sykes, the Tony-nominated actor of Broadway’s Ain’t Too Proud and Hamilton, will join Brandon Victor Dixon, Lillias White and Walter Bobbie in the world premiere Off Broadway musical Black No More in January.

a tweet by comedian Jenny Yang. “Just watch this movie trailer without knowing the title and let the feeling move you,” she wrote.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticTony winner Leslie Odom Jr. (“Hamilton) has been nominated for two Oscars.