Briefly
Turns out the Ben-Hur crash-andburn was worse than originally thought. Final numbers released Monday show the quasi-religious saga starring Jack Huston earned just $11.2 million (U.S.), knocking it out of a psychologically important top-five position. The movie and its remake of the famed chariot scene cost about $100 million to produce.
American audiences will get the rare chance to catch a sneak peek of the new Miss Saigon before it opens on Broadway next spring. A filmed version of the musical’s live 25thanniversary celebration in London will make its world premiere in some 175 U.S. movie theatres on Sept. 22, six months before the same production with the same leading actors lands on Broadway.
Harry Potter’s Rupert Grint will play a member of a crime gang in Crackle’s Snatch, a drama series based on Guy Ritchie’s 2000 film. The streaming network announced the casting of Grint, along with Dougray Scott ( Fear the Walking Dead) and Ed Westwick ( Gossip Girl), for the10-episode, hour-long drama that premieres in 2017. Grint, who will serve as an executive producer, will play “the dynamic, frustratingly chaotic and utterly posh Charlie Cavendish.”
Jim Gaffigan’s TV Land sitcom won’t be back for a third season. The Jim Gaffigan Show, which is inspired by Gaffigan’s real life, completed its second season on Sunday. The show received critical praise, but ratings weren’t strong. Recent Sunday originals have been averaging slightly fewer than 500,000 same-day viewers.
Steven Hill, a versatile character actor in theatre, films and television who achieved his greatest success late in life as grumpy District Attorney Adam Schiff on TV’s Law & Order, died Tuesday. He was 94. Hill also starred for a season in the 1960s series Mission Impossible and was in more than two dozen films, including Billy Bathgate, White Palace and Yentl. After he left Law & Order in 2000, Hill was a pitchman in commercials for TD Waterhouse Investor Services.
Tyra Banks is trading the catwalk for the classroom. The former host of America’s Next Top Model and FABLife will teach students at Stanford University next May. Banks will serve as a guest lecturer for two weeks for a class on creating and protecting a personal brand. The school says about 25 graduate students will receive instruction from the mogul and model.
Justin Timberlake is a new partner and producer of the Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival in the same Tennessee community where he lives. Pilgrimage, a two-day music festival, debuted last year on a horse farm in Franklin, Tenn., and was cofounded by Kevin Griffin of the band Better Than Ezra.