Tag Archives: Joan Crawford

Amazon Acquires Jennifer Lopez-Produced Skydance TV Series “Backwards in Heels”

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It’s a moment of heels-ing for Jennifer Lopez.

Amazon has acquired the Skydance TV series Backwards in Heels, produced by the 52-year-old Puerto Rican superstar, off the table.

Jennifer LopezThe series will be written and directed by Richard LaGravenese and follows the aspirational and timeless story about the glamorous women living at the Barbizon Hotel in post-WWII New York City.

Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, and Benny Medina will produce under their Nuyorican Productions. Julie Goldstein is also producing.

The Barbizon Hotel, located at 140 East 63rd St. on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, was for several decades a female-only residential hotel for young women who came to NYC for professional opportunities.

Built in 1927, the 23-story hotel was a blend of Italian Renaissance and late Gothic revival and Islamic decorative elements.

No men were allowed above the ground floor, and strict dress and conduct rules were enforced. Men began to be admitted as guests in 1981.

Famous guests and residents throughout its history included Lauren Bacall, Betty Buckley, Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth and Grace Kelly, among several others.

Lopez was honored with the Icon Award at the iHeartRadio Music Awards last week. She recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of her breakout movie Selena, in which she played the Tejano legend.

The actress’ recent romantic comedy feature Marry Me was one of the most viewed movies ever on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service, approaching 6M accounts. Before the pandemic, her crime caper feature Hustlers ranked as her highest-grossing live-action movie of her career at the domestic B.O. with $105M, and her biggest opening ever with $33M.

Lopez and her Nuyorican Productions are teaming with Skydance and Concord to develop a slate of original projects based on the latter’s catalog of musicals, which includes the works of Broadway icons Rodgers & Hammerstein.

She next is starring and producing the Netflix movies The Mother and Atlas. 

Molina to Star in the Judy Wood Biopic “Saint Judy”

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Alfred Molina has found a saintly project…

The 63-year-old half-Spanish actor has signed on to star in Saint Judy, the biopic about Los Angeles immigration attorney Judy Wood who argued a landmark case that changed the asylum laws for women coming into the U.S.

Alfred Molina

Sean Hanish is directing, and the project is set to go before the cameras on May 10.

The story follows Wood, a single mother in her mid-30s who moved to Los Angeles and committed herself to immigration law, particularly asylum cases. She entered into law after having a vision about it. She would end up representing an Afghani immigrant woman who had been persecuted for opening up a school for girls in her home country.

Wood fought a tenacious battle in and out of court against established law, and the case ended up before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The result of many years of fighting for the schoolteacher resulted in Wood single-handedly changing the law of asylum nationwide, allowing women to be designated a protected class. She not only saved the life of her client but thousands of other female refugees who would have been sent back to their home countries where they faced certain death.

Helmer Hanish and Cannonball Productions’ Jaconi-Biery are producing Saint Judy with Molina, who was also in their last production Sister Cities.

Molina is currently starring in a great showcase role as director Robert Aldrich on FX’s ratings giant Feud: Bette and Joan. He plays opposite Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis, Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford, Judy Davis as Hedda Hopper and Stanley Tucci as Jack Warner for series creator Ryan Murphy.