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Spike Lee Slams Django Unchained: "I'm Not Gonna See It"

Don't expect legendary film maker Spike Lee to catch Quentin Tarantino's latest creation.

While his own visions of race and culture have sparked dialogue beyond the New York most of his work pays homage to, the director of "Red Hook Summer" had little to say about the slavery love story "Django Unchained."

"I cant speak on it 'cause I'm not gonna see it," he tells VIBETV. "All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors. That's just me...I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody else."

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Byron Allen Secures $10 Billion Acquisition Of Regional Sports Networks

Media mogul Byron Allen’s empire keeps getting bigger. The former comedian and Entertainment Studios founder joined forces with Sinclair Broadcast Group to secure a massive acquisition of 21 Fox regional sports networks valued at $10 billion, Black Enterprise reports.

The business deal means that Allen outbid Ice Cube, LL Cool J and other potential buyers looking to snatch up the nearly two dozen networks that were up for grabs.

Additionally, Allen’s Entertainment Studios will shell out $165 million to purchase four small-market television stations in Louisiana and Indiana from Bayou City Broadcasting.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Allen explained that he reached out to Disney after the company put the stations up for sale. “When the assets became available this summer I reached out to Disney and said that we have interest, and they put us in touch with their investment bankers and we started to get into it.”

Entertainment Studios also wanted to purchase Tribune Broadcasting, but was bested by another company. “We turned our attention to what’s next,” Allen said while sharing his admiration for Fox News founder and billionaire media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, who sold Fox to Disney. Allen noted the RSN stations as Murdoch’s “best work.”

Allen’s company also purchased the Weathers Channel last year. “There’s a lot we can do with the Weather Channel and these RSNs in terms of documentaries and biographies and who knows, even sports leagues,” he said. “You never know.”

Allen added, “My goal is to build the biggest media company in the world. Everyday that’s what I’m striving for.”

The business relationship between Allen and Sinclair dates back decades as the company was one of the first buyers of his late night talk show Entertainers with Byron Allen. The 58-year-old executive has come a long way since he launched Entertainment Studios more than 20 years ago.

“I started the company from my dining room table 26 years ago and I could barely pay my phone bill,” Allen recalled. “There were days [that] they turned off my phone, and days I didn’t eat. There were days that I was calling TV stations from a payphone and we just kept plugging away. Finally we kept selling show after show and we ended up with about 43 television shows.”

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Lee Danels' Music Drama ‘Star’ Canceled After Three Seasons

Lee Daniels series, Star, has been canceled after three season on air, Variety reports. The series starring Jude Demorest, Ryan Destiny, Brittany O’Grady, Quincy Brown, Queen Latifah and Amiyah Scott aired it's season three finale on May 8.

The finale ended on a cliffhanger with the murder of one character and several other characters being shot and possibly killed during a wedding scene between Destiny and Brown’s characters, Alex and Derek.

According to Shadow & Act the cancelation wasn’t ratings related but likely due to Disney’s $71. billion Fox acquisition. The network also canned freshman series The Passage, as well as Lethal Weapon and The Cool Kids.

Star, which was created by Daniels and Tom Donaghy, premiered in 2016 and airs after Daniels' other music-related series, Empire. The hourlong weekly drama follows the story of three young singers, Star (Demorest) Simone (O’Grady) and Alex, as they set out on the road to stardom and the obstacles they endure while navigating through the music industry.

 

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Actor Steve Harvey attends the super welterweight boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor on August 26, 2017 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada
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Steve Harvey's Daytime Talk Show To End In June

Steve Harvey's nationally syndicated show has officially come to an end.

According to Variety, the series will take its final bow in June. The final episode was filmed on Thursday (May 9), but details about what took place remain unknown. Steve ran for seven years on NBC, with Harvey one of the few people of color with a successful talk show in the daytime slot in years. The talk show was previously pushed as The Steve Harvey Show but changed styles and tone after Endeavor’s IMG Original Content reached a deal with Harvey in 2017 that included him receiving a majority stake in the show.

In September, it was previously reported that Harvey was losing his slot with NBC after the network announced plans to develop a talk-variety hour with Kelly Clarkson.

A source told Variety that Harvey has no regrets about making the shift to IMG and changing the content from a traditional Oprah-like feel to heightened attention to celebrities and pop culture. “Steve took a shot,” the source said. “He still made more money than he would have under the old deal.”

Harvey touched on the topic back in January at the Variety Entertainment Summit, throwing bits of shade at NBC for not keeping him in the know about the decision.

“I thought I was, until they made an announcement a couple of weeks ago that they wanted to give Kelly Clarkson the owned-and-operated NBC networks -- that’s my slot," Harvey said about the decision. "I don't know if it sold, it's not selling like they thought, but I thought it would have been nice of them to come to me -- as the only dude who’s survived [in daytime TV] for seven years -- about it. You know, I'm an honorable guy," he added. "I'm just an old school guy, and I just thought that you're supposed to just talk to people and just go, 'Look, you've been good business for us. This is what we're thinking of doing, are you OK with that?' No, you just don't put something in the paper and say, 'I'm just going to make this move right here,' because it's crazy."

Ironically, the show has gotten more attention on social media thanks to Harvey's candor about general topics. This week, the comedian was met with disputes about ableism after he pushed the idea of "no days off" work ethic by not sleeping in. With a new audience (agreeing with his views or not) there's a chance the show can be picked up at another network or live in streaming world.

Rich people don’t sleep 8 hours a day. pic.twitter.com/jcDWBYKE6V

— Coach Kay (@Kierstensharris) May 7, 2019

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