movies
Richard Harrison Dead: Sword-and-Sandal, Spaghetti Western Star Was 90
Richard Harrison, the chiseled American actor who found fame and fortune overseas as the star of sword-and-sandal films, spaghetti Westerns and Z-grade ninja movies, has died. He was 90.
Harrison died Friday of natural causes in Los Angeles, producer and longtime friend Joan Borsten reported.
After showing up in small roles in such Hollywood films as 1958’s Too Much, Too Soon and South Pacific, Harrison headed to Italy and became an instant leading man in the mold of muscleman Steve Reeves with The Invincible Gladiator (1962).
The next year, he starred in Avenger of the Seven Seas and Gladiator 7, then followed in 1963 with Gunfight in the Red Sands (Duello Nel Texas), an Italian-Spanish spaghetti Western that featured a score by Ennio Morricone.
He turned down Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964) but said he recommended Clint Eastwood for the part of the unnamed stranger that jump-started his fellow expat’s career.
After work slowed in Europe in the late 1970s, Harrison starred in lots of low-budget ninja features out of Hong Kong for about a decade. He wound up making more than 100 B-films (and even directed a handful) in his career.
Born in Salt Lake City on May 26, 1935, Harrison came to Hollywood at age 17, worked at gyms owned by bodybuilders Vic Tanny and Bert Goodrich and modeled for beefcake magazines before taking acting lessons at Fox under Sandy Meisner.
He landed bit parts in films including Kronos (1957); Jeanne Eagels (1957), starring Kim Novak; Too Much, Too Soon, starring Dorothy Malone; South Pacific, starring Mitzi Gaynor; and Tall Story (1960), starring Anthony Perkins.
On Master of the World (1961), starring Vincent Price, he met castmate Loretta Nicholson, the daughter of James H. Nicholson, a producer on the American International Pictures release, and they married in 1961.
Borsten said that Harrison hosted industry dinner parties that always ended with “pasta at midnight” and counted among his closest friends Reeves, George Cukor, Franco Nero, Gore Vidal, Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter, Stewart Stern, Al Bano and Romina Power.
During the Cold War in 1985, he helped Soviet actor Oleg Vidov, known as the “Russian Robert Redford,” defect at the U.S. embassy in Rome. (Vidov and Borsten married in 1989 and were together until his death in 2017.)
Returning to Los Angeles in 1986, Harrison and his second wife, Francesca, bought a run-down property in Malibu with an infinity view of the Pacific and built a home that would call “Villa Francesca.” That home, however, was lost in the Palisades Fire last year.
In addition to his wife — they married in 1978 — survivors include three of his four children.
“Harrison never let his movie star status, especially in Italy where he couldn’t walk down the street without being recognized, go to his head,” Borsten noted. “Instead, he saw his unexpected career as an opportunity to see the world and meet interesting people.
“When asked how he’d choose his next project, he said he’d ask the producer where it was going to be shot and would accept if he’d never traveled to the location. Once on the plane, he’d finally read the script.”
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movies
Did O.J. Simpson Have An Accomplice? Peacock Doc Suggests He Did
Peacock is launching a two-part documentary that claims to offer “real evidence” that suggests members of O.J. Simpson’s inner circle may know more than they’ve let on about the brutal murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
The NBCUniversal streamer has ordered OJ’s Accomplice from Ample Entertainment.
The two-part doc will premiere in December and will “challenge long-held assumptions about the case that captivated a nation”.
Nicole Brown Simpson – O.J’s ex-wife – and Ron Goldman were murdered on June 12, 1994. Former NFL star Simpson was charged with the murders and became a fugitive after failing to turn himself in to the LA Police Department and instead took off in a White Ford Bronco on a ride that was watched live by millions.
However, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of both murders in 1995 after an eight-month trial, although Goldman’s father filed a civil suit against the Naked Gun star and a jury found him responsible for the deaths.
Peacock is exploring the fact that law enforcement “never seriously considered the idea” that Simpson may not have acted alone.
The documentary “challenges the dominant narrative around the O.J. Simpson murder saga and offers real evidence suggesting that what we thought we knew about the most obsessed-over crime story of all time could be all wrong.”
It will feature interviews with Kato Kaelin and Nicole Brown’s sister, alongside never-before-heard first-person accounts from eyewitnesses and presents new information “raising questions as to whether members of OJ’s inner circle may have been there that night.”
Created by Ample boss Ari Mark, who exec produces alongside Sumit David, Sphere Abacus is handling international distribution of the two-parter.
Ample Entertainment is behind series such as Netflix’s This Is The Zodiac Speaking and Peacock’s Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy.
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movies
Warners Pushes ‘Gremlins’ Movie a Year, Moves DC’s ‘Dynamic Duo’
Audiences will have a to wait awhile longer for the next Gremlins movie, with Warner Bros. moving the release date of its untitled third installment in the franchise back 11 months.
The film will now open Oct. 6, 2028, back from its previous date of Nov. 19, 2027. Chris Columbus, who wrote the 1984 original Gremlins is directing and writing the script with Final Destination Bloodlines duo Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein.
Amblin Entertainment’s Kristie Macosko Krieger and Holly Bario are producing with Columbus, Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe via 26th Street Pictures. Steven Spielberg executive produces. The original, Joe Dante-directed feature centered on adorable creatures and spawned the 1990 sequel, also directed by Dante.
Warners has also shifted the date for DC Studio’s Dynamic Duo, an animated feature that will focus on two young men who have held the mantle of Robin — Dick Grayson and Jason Todd. It hails from puppeteering and animation studio Swaybox, and will be a mix animation, puppetry and CGI. Matt Aldrich is penning the script, with DC Studios‘ James Gunn and Peter Safran producing with The Batman director Matt Reeves’ 6th & Idaho.
The new date places it five months ahead of The Batman: Part II, which opens in February 2028.
More to come.
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movies
‘Dynamic Duo’ & Untitled ‘Gremlins’ Head To Fall 2028: Warner Bros Release Date Changes
Warner Bros has made some release date changes, unrelated to its pending marriage with Paramount.
The DC Robins-origin puppet meets animation feature, Dynamic Duo, is moving from June 30, 2028 to Sept. 22, 2028. The reason being is because Warner Bros distribution believes this will be a good back-to-school animated feature slot for not just K-12, but also teens and college kids. The movie has the potential to his the Spider-Verse crowd.
Coincidentally, this shifts Dynamic Duo away from Paramount’s big feature take of video game Call of Duty on June 30. There are no Paramount movies on Sept. 22, 2028.
Also shifting forward, is Chris Columbus directed untitled Gremlins which is moving from Nov. 19, 2027 to Oct. 6, 2028 (Warners has had good luck in that first weekend of October with Joker). Gremlins wasn’t up against any Paramount movies on its 2027 date, nor is it on its new weekend.
Dynamic Duo marks the first joint project between DC Studios and the Bill Damaschke-led WBPA.
The 6th & Idaho movie scripted by Matthew Aldrich is being made by a new animation studio out of New Orleans named Swaybox and that studio’s husband-and-wife creators Arthur Mintz and Theresa Andersson. Mintz will direct this movie
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