Movie’s Bett’ and switch?
A little White lie? Movie producers — perhaps keen to move quickly to capitalize on the outpouring of emotion after her death — are promoting a “new” documentary called “Betty White: A Celebration.” But it is appears the flick is at least a partial rehash of a doc on White that was released in 2018. It’s set to be in theaters on Jan. 17. An eagle-eyed fan — who had been excited to head to the theater to see something new on White — pointed out to Page Six that in the trailer for the film, interviewees like Ryan Reynolds, Carol Burnett, Alex Trebek and Valerie Bertinelli are wearing the same exact outfits as in interviews for 2018’s PBS doc “Betty White: First Lady of Television.”
Upon further inspection, the “Celebration” trailer footage of White’s celeb friends all saying her name appears about one minute into “First Lady,” which ran on Netflix in several regions from January 2020 until Jan. 11 of this year.
There also seem to be some of the same clips used from White’s television career and footage of her work with animals.
“Celebration” is produced by Mike Trinklein and Steve Boettcher, the director of “First Lady.”
A rep for distributor Fathom Events, which is putting out the doc in theaters, tells us: “There will be some footage included from the 2018 film, but the majority of ‘Betty White: A Celebration’ is new content.”
“‘Celebration’ includes one particularly poignant exclusive — Betty’s final on-camera appearance, recorded just 10 days before her passing,” according to a press release.
“Its special message expresses Betty’s deep appreciation for her fans — and demonstrates that even in her final days, she never lost her sense of fun.” It also appears to have added new guests such as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman and Jay Leno.