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Monday June 26, 2017 16 ENtertainment

Next president?

STEPHEN COLBERT went on Russian TV to announce he’s “considering” a run for the White House in 2020.

The CBS “Late Show” host appeared on a Russian late-night show titled “Evening Urgant” where he played a round of Russian roulette (only with shots of vodka instead of bullets) with host Ivan Urgant. After downing one of the shots, Colbert declared, “I am here in Russia to announce that I am considering a run for president in 2020, and I thought it would be better to cut out the middle man and just tell the Russians myself.”

If Colbert decides to run he could have plenty of celebrity competition; Kanye West and Dwayne “The Rock” John-son (with running mate Tom Hanks) have also semi-seri-ously announced they’re run-ning in 2020.

AwardAN awards ceremony for actor Bryan Cranston in Munich on Friday night turned into a lovefest with fans outdoing each other in their praise of the “Breaking Bad” and “Trumbo” star.

Alongside the crowds of screaming Germans on the red carpet, who came out in force to see Cranston receive the Cinemerit Award, the life-time achievement honor of the Munich International Film Fes-tival, prominent festival guests could barely contain their excitement. Director Robin Swicord, whose Cranston-starrer “Wakefi eld” screened following the Cinemerit cer-emony, called Cranston “an actor’s actor” and credited international fans of “Breaking Bad” with raising his profi le.

New jobDIRECTOR Thomas Schlamme has been elected president of the Directors Guild of America as voted by the delegates at the Guild’s national biennial con-vention at the DGA national headquarters in Los Angeles.

Schlamme directed and is credited with creating the look of such hit TV series as “The West Wing,” “Spin City,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” and “Parenthood,” among many others. His latest project is FX’s “Snowfall” from creator John Singleton.

He has won three DGA Awards and nine Emmys.

(SD-Agencies)

At a GlanceRon Howard to direct

Han Solo movieTHE Millennium Falcon has a new pilot.

Ron Howard has been named as the new director of Lucasfi lm and Disney’s untitled Han Solo movie.

The offi cial announcement came Thursday morning, two days after directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were let go from the movie they had spent over four and a half months directing. Creative differences over style and tone came to a head between the duo and Lawrence Kasdan, with the studio backing the veteran screenwriter.

The fi ring sent shockwaves around Hollywood and beyond

as the movie was about three-quarters through principal photography and the replace-ment of a director at that stage is near-unprecedented. The movie was scheduled to shoot for three and a half more weeks, with fi ve weeks of reshoots built into the schedule — the latter a standard procedure on large franchise productions.

Howard will meet with the actors — Alden Ehrenreich is playing the iconic smuggler and Donald Glover is portraying Lando Calrissian, with Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke and Thandie Newton also on the roll call — to soothe a rattled set and will pore over a rough edit to see

George R.R. Martin’s

‘Nightfl yers’ picked up for

Syfy pilot

SYFY is fast-tracking George R.R. Martin’s “Nightfl yers.”

The NBCUniversal-owned cable network has picked up the drama based on the “Game of Thrones” creator’s novella to pilot.

The news comes a month after Syfy put the Universal Cable Productions drama in development as part of its upfront presentation to ad buyers.

Based on Martin’s 1987 novella and fi lm of the same name, “Nightfl yers” is set in the future on the eve of Earth’s destruction and follows a crew of explorers who journey on the most advanced ship in the galaxy, The Nightfl yer, to inter-cept a mysterious alien space-craft that might hold the key to their survival. As the crew nears their destination, they discover that the ship’s artifi cial intel-ligence and never-seen captain may be steering them into deadly and unspeakable hor-rors deep in the dark reaches of space.

Jeff Buhler (“Jacob’s Ladder”) will pen the script. Robert Jaffe, who penned the 1987 feature fi lm based on Martin’s novel, is set as a producer. Martin is not involved, given his overall deal with HBO, where he’s currently co-writing two of the four potential “Game of Thrones” follow-ups that are in the works.

“We are looking forward to diving deeper into George R.R. Martin’s chilling world of ‘Nightfl yers’,” said Bill McGold-rick, exec vp scripted develop-ment at NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. “The script that Jeff delivered encapsulates this classic sci-fi horror story and adapts it to a platform where we can truly explore the depths of madness.”

The “Nightfl yers” pilot pickup comes as Syfy is rebranding its on-air look as part of a greater push to focus on science fi c-tion. As part of the move, Syfy recently picked up Super-man prequel “Krypton” and graphic-novel-based “Happy” to series. This marks the fi rst of Syfy’s new pilot crop. Still to be determined is the fate of 2016 pilot “The Machine.”

(SD-Agencies)

JOHNNY DEPP is apologizing for his comments about Presi-dent Donald Trump.

The actor issued a statement exclusively to People apologiz-ing for the remarks he made Thursday in England at the Glastonbury Festival, during which he asked the crowd, “When was the last time an actor assassinated a presi-dent?”

“I apologize for the bad joke I attempted last night in poor taste about President Trump,” he said. “It did not come out

as intended, and I intended no malice. I was only trying to amuse, not to harm anyone.”

The actor was on hand to introduce a screening of his 2004 fi lm “The Libertine” when he asked the crowd, “Can you bring Trump here?” When the crowd began booing, Depp followed up, saying, “No, no, no, you misunderstood completely. I think he needs... help.”

He continued, “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?” The crowd then cheered and clapped, but Depp

continued speaking, saying, “I want to clarify, I’m not an actor. I lie for a living.”

The White House previously condemned his remarks. “Presi-dent Trump has condemned violence in all forms and it’s sad that others like Johnny Depp have not followed his lead. I hope that some of Mr. Depp’s colleagues will speak out against this type of rhetoric as strongly as they would if his comments were directed to a Democrat elected offi cial,” a statement read. (SD-Agencies)

Depp apologizes for Trump joke

Stephen Colbert

what the project needs. Filming is set to resume July 10.

“I’m beyond grateful to add my voice to the Star Wars Uni-verse after being a fan since 5/25/77,” Howard tweeted Thurs-day afternoon. “I hope to honor the great work already done and help deliver on the promise of a Han Solo fi lm.”

Howard, who directed 1995’s “Apollo 13” and won an Oscar for helming 2002’s “A Beautiful Mind,” appeared in Lucas’ 1973 breakout fi lm “American Graf-fi ti” and helmed Lucas’ 1988 pet fantasy project “Willow.”

The untitled Han Solo fi lm is slated for release May 25 next year. (SD-Agencies)

Alden Ehrenreich is playing Han Solo.

Ron Howard

George R.R. Martin and his book “Nightfl yers.”