Judy Blume Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Over 50 years after Judy Blume’s classic novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was published, the author’s work is back in the spotlight on many fronts

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has rounded out the cast for Forever, adding Xosha Roquemore (Captain America) and Marvin Lawrence Winans III (Abbott Elementary) as series regulars opposite Michael Cooper Jr. and Lovie Simone in the upcoming drama series from Girlfriends and Being Mary Jane creator Mara Brock Akil. Additionally, five have been cast in recurring roles. They are Barry Shabaka Henley (A Star is Born), Ali Gallo (Unhuman), Niles Fitch (This is Us), Paigion Walker (All American) and E’myri Crutchfield (Fargo). In addition to Simone and Cooper, they join previously announced Wood Harris and Karen Pittman.

My guest this week is Karen Pittman. She’s hit the headlines lately for her reported departure from the Max show And Just Like That…, and in this episode of 20 Questions on Deadline she explains why she won’t be back for Season 3.

EXCLUSIVE: Adriyan Rae lands recurring role on Netflix’s Forever created by Mara Brock Akil.  

Meredith Woerner Deputy Editor, Variety.com Karen Pittman — who played Dr. Nya Wallace on “And Just Like That” since the “Sex and the City” revival premiered in 2021 — will not return for Season 3. After two seasons on the “Sex and the City” revival series on Max, the streamer announced that Pittman would not reprise her character for the upcoming season, due to scheduling conflicts.

EXCLUSIVE: A fan-favorite character is leaving And Just Like That… Karen Pittman, who played Nya Wallace in the first two seasons of the Sex and the City sequel, will not be returning for the upcoming third season of the hit Max series.

Karen Pittman (The Morning Show) and The Wire alum Wood Harris are set as leads opposite Michael Cooper Jr. and Lovie Simone in Forever, Netflix’s upcoming drama series from Girlfriends and Being Mary Jane creator Mara Brock Akil.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Given the current dismal political and cultural climate as well as streaming services’ massive appetite for celebrity driven content, it comes as no surprise that the 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival is chock full of portrait documentaries. Frida Kahlo, Christopher Reeve, Luther Vandross and Tammy Faye are just a few of the boldface names that are being examined in various docus featured in the Sundance nonfiction lineup. The festival is no stranger to star-driven docus.

Nick Clement The way an actor approaches and prepares for a role can be different with each project, and in some instances, the material presents specific obstacles that make the experience even more personally fulfilling or transcendent. This is true for actors of any age but is especially notable for a trio of younger talent in this awards season. One of the year’s best performances arrived in last summer’s coming-of-age dramedy, “Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret,” from the now-15-year-old Abby Ryder Fortson.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Get in, loser. We’re riding with Rachel McAdams because she’s still Queen Bee. Since she’s become a mother, life has changed.

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with Kelly Fremon Craig‘s adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, which marks the first time a book penned by YA icon Judy Blume has made it to the big screen.

Kelly Fremon Craig, the writer, director and producer of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, opened up about what inspired her to reach out to Judy Blume to adapt the beloved coming-of-age novel into a film.

Valerie Wu Intern The 2023 annual Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF), hosted from Oct. 12 to Oct. 19, has announced its slate of awards winners.

Matthew Heineman’s documentary profiling Grammy and Oscar winning musician Jon Batiste and the medical struggles for his wife that have marked trying times in their marriage leads the pack of nominees for the 8th Annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards with six. The inspiring docu from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground was picked up by Netflix after premiering and winning acclaim at the Telluride Film Festival last month. Not far behind are a trio of docus each with 5 mentions including 20 Days In Mariupol, Kokomo City, and Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. And not to be ignored, this weekend’s boxoffice champ, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour which landed a nomination as Best Music Documentary. The CCDA nod marks the first awards recognition for the film (however it is not eligible for a Documentary Oscar) which only just had its first premiere screening on Wednesday of last week and came in just under the eligibility wire.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Lionsgate‘s adaptation of the Judy Blume novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” has been submitted for the Golden Globes in the comedy/musical categories, Variety has learned exclusively. With the expansion from five to six nominees this year, the movie will compete for recognition against Warner Bros’ “Barbie,” Searchlight Pictures’ “Poor Things” and Focus Features’ “The Holdovers.” Written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, the film tells the story of 11-year-old Margaret, who is uprooted from her life in New York to New Jersey, where she deals with the challenges of new friends and a new school. Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

William Earl The Newport Beach Film Festival has added a screening of “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret” to its Fashion Island main stage line-up. The screening on Sunday, Oct. 15 will include a Q&A with author Judy Blume, writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig and producers James L.

Ariana Grande and Gabrielle Union are just two of the major stars who signed an open letter that calls out and condemns book banning.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Rachel McAdams will star in the Broadway premiere of “Mary Jane,” a new play by Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog. Anne Kauffman, who recently oversaw an acclaimed revival of “The Sign in Sydney Brustein’s Window,” will direct.

Adam Sandler‘s new movie You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah has landed a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes.The new film, which features Sandler’s real life daughter, lands on Netflix this week (August 25), and has received favourable reviews from critics ahead of its release.The Hollywood Reporter said that the film is “a sweet, amusing film geared toward younger audiences, who will best relate to the main character’s personal travails as she prepares for the film’s main event.”Variety, meanwhile, said: “Playing like a cross between Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and John Hughes’ Sixteen Candles in scale, scope and sound without being derivative, its characters, conflicts and conundrums are filled with potent, earned emotions.”Ahead of the film’s release, it currently has a rare 100 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with five reviews counted.A synopsis for the film reads: Stacy and Lydia are BFFs who’ve always dreamed about having epic bat mitzvahs.“However, things start to go comically awry when a popular boy and middle school drama threatens their friendship and their rite of passage.”Despite this early praise, Sandler has explained how he came to terms with critics “hating” his movies.The actor has starred in a number of critical flops over his career, including Grown Ups, Jack And Jill, Little Nicky, Mr. Deeds and others.

One of the titles in the bestselling Arthur children’s book series faces a potential ban after a conservative claimant said that it “damaged souls.”

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic As someone who grew up in Texas back in the late 1980s, when “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” takes place, I can assure you: The last thing any closeted Southern teen wants is to stand out. That must make it a special kind of torture to be named after thinkers one’s peers aren’t likely to read until college.

It’s been a banner Emmy nomination day for Imagine Entertainment, the company notching 14 noms across a variety of categories including Outstanding Scripted Variety Series and Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. 

EXCLUSIVE: WME has signed actress Abby Ryder Fortson, the 15-year-old up-and-comer known for leading Lionsgate‘s recent coming-of-age dramedy Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, based on the classic Judy Blume novel published in 1970.

Judy Blume has a movie out. I’ve not yet seen it, but good for her. Her Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing was the first book to elicit laughter from me.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday. Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo. It is predicted to take home $250 million worldwide on its opening weekend, Forbes reported.

Selome Hailu Now in her eighties, legendary children’s author Judy Blume only recently became keen to the idea of adapting her books for the screen. But when it came to “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” — arguably Blume’s most famous title — her arms were crossed. She didn’t want any filmmaker to touch it. “And then I got this letter from Kelly,” Blume told Variety, smiling, in a cover story for March’s Power of Women issue. She’s referring to “The Edge of Seventeen” writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, to whom she eventually granted the screen rights. Blume was convinced for three reasons: the beauty of the letter that Fremon Craig wrote her, the fact that James L. Brooks mentored Fremon Craig and would serve as a producer on the film, and most importantly, the fact that Fremon Craig was the first person to pursue the rights whose work Blume had previously seen. Within a week of the letter, Fremon Craig and Brooks flew to Key West, Fla. to make an in-person plea to Blume; the rest is history. “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” hit theaters via Lionsgate on April 28.

At a time when theatrical is looking to distinguish itself with more prolific fare than the factory conveyor belt of humdrum product coming from streaming, it’s with great upset to hear that Lionsgate’s feature adaptation of Judy Blume’s pinnacle 1970 novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret fell greatly short at the box office with a $6.8M opening; below both the $7M-$9M that the studio was seeing, and the more bullish $10M+ that rivals spotted.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter It’s another weekend of box office domination for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which collected a towering $40 million in its fourth frame. Those ticket sales, down just 33% from the weekend prior, were easily enough to rule over the weekend’s newcomers, including literary adaptation “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” Finnish war drama “Sisu” and biopic “Big George Foreman.” After four weeks on the big screen, “Mario” has grossed $490 million in North America and $532 million internationally to loom even larger as the highest-grossing film of 2023. It’s also the first movie of the year to cross $1 billion globally, a distinction held by only five pandemic-era blockbusters.

As has been the case since the start of April, Universal/Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has lapped the box office competition, becoming the first animated film of the 2020s to gross $1 billion worldwide while competitors search for vastly smaller opening weekends among niche audiences. \Another strong hold of just a 33% drop has given the film a fourth weekend total of $40 million domestic and $108 million worldwide, pushing the film’s overall totals to $490 million domestic and $1.02 billion global.

according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo. The movie based on the popular Nintendo game has earned more than $458 million in the US since opening on April 5 — and is projected to hit the $1 billion global milestone on Sunday, according to the Hollywood Reporter.