{"id":5446,"date":"2019-10-21T01:28:08","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T08:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=5446"},"modified":"2019-10-21T01:28:08","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T08:28:08","slug":"dueling-aretha-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2019\/10\/21\/dueling-aretha-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Dueling Aretha Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>MGM<\/em>&nbsp;is moving forward with its&nbsp;<strong>Aretha Franklin&nbsp;<\/strong>biopic.&nbsp; \u201cRespect\u201d is currently filming in Georgia and stars&nbsp;<strong>Jennifer Hudson&nbsp;<\/strong>as Auntie Re (she\u2019s also doing her own singing).&nbsp; Joining the cast will be&nbsp;<strong>Forest Whitaker&nbsp;<\/strong>in a surely sanitized version of the&nbsp;<strong>Reverend Franklin<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Marlon Wayans&nbsp;<\/strong>as Aretha\u2019s first husband,&nbsp;<strong>Mary J. Blige&nbsp;<\/strong>will play&nbsp;<strong>Dinah Washington<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Tituss Burgess&nbsp;<\/strong>will star as&nbsp;<strong>Rev. Dr. James Cleveland<\/strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Audra McDonald&nbsp;<\/strong>will play Aretha\u2019s mother (who left the family when Aretha was 6) and&nbsp;<strong>Heather Headley&nbsp;<\/strong>as singer&nbsp;<strong>Clara Ward<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Not to be outdone, the&nbsp;<em>National Geographic Channel&nbsp;<\/em>is making its own Aretha feature as part of their&nbsp;<strong><em>Genius<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp;series (last year,&nbsp;<strong>Antonio Banderas&nbsp;<\/strong>starred as&nbsp;<strong>Pablo Picasso<\/strong>).&nbsp; Their Aretha will be&nbsp;<strong>Cynthia Erivo<\/strong>, best known for starring in&nbsp;<strong><em>The Color Purple<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp;on&nbsp;<em>Broadway&nbsp;<\/em>and who will be playing&nbsp;<strong>Harriet Tubman&nbsp;<\/strong>on the big screen next month.&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong><em>Genius: Aretha<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp;is being done in conjunction with the Franklin estate.&nbsp; Speaking of misleading statements,&nbsp;<em>NatGeo&nbsp;<\/em>says that this is \u201cthe first and only authorized&nbsp;scripted limited series on the&nbsp;<em>Queen of Soul<\/em>\u201d.&nbsp; Not to be confused with the first and only authorized scripted featured film \u2013 see above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MGM&nbsp;is moving forward with its&nbsp;Aretha Franklin&nbsp;biopic.&nbsp; \u201cRespect\u201d is currently filming in Georgia and stars&nbsp;Jennifer Hudson&nbsp;as Auntie Re (she\u2019s also doing her own singing).&nbsp; Joining the cast will be&nbsp;Forest Whitaker&nbsp;in a surely sanitized version of the&nbsp;Reverend Franklin,&nbsp;Marlon Wayans&nbsp;as Aretha\u2019s first husband,&nbsp;Mary J. Blige&nbsp;will play&nbsp;Dinah Washington,&nbsp;Tituss Burgess&nbsp;will star as&nbsp;Rev. Dr. James Cleveland,&nbsp;Audra McDonald&nbsp;will play Aretha\u2019s mother (who<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5447,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5446\/revisions\/5447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}