Jay Leno to make rare film appearance in The Beatles manager movie Midas Man
Leno joins the feature as television host Ed Sullivan
Aux News The Beatles
In his first film role since 2017, Jay Leno takes on the part of another, long-running television host: Ed Sullivan. Leno will appear in Midas Man, which charts Beatles manager Brian Epstein’s role in 1960s pop.
Currently in production, Midas Man stars The Queen’s Gambit’s Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as the late Beatles manager. The project also stars Emily Watson (Punch-Drunk Love), Eddie Marsan, Lukas Gage (The White Lotus), Rosie Day, and Bill Milner.
The Ed Sullivan Show ran from 1948-71 on CBS, serving as the blueprint for variety shows. The Beatles performed many times on The Ed Sullivan Show, including what was their first appearance in front of an American audience. Their first appearance, which aired on February 9, 1964, was viewed by 73 million viewers—which was a record for that time. It’s considered the inciting incident which launched American Beatlemania and the wider British Invasion.
As a comedian, Leno served as the longtime host for The Tonight Show. Picking up the gig in 1992, Leno hosted the late night show until 2009. After a one year hiatus—during which Conan O’Brian assumed the role as host—Leno returned to lead the show once again until 2014. Shortly after his departure, Leno was inducted into the Television Hall Of Fame. He’s taken on many film and television roles as himself, most notably in Cars, in which he appeared in as Jay Limo.
Production for Midas Man recently went into an enforced hiatus as producers searched for a new director to replace Jonas Akerlund, after it was believed other projects were impeding his work on set. They have since brought on Sara Sugarman to direct the rest of the feature. Sugarman is best known for directing the Lindsey Lohan feature Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen.
No release date has been set for Midas Man.
17 Comments
Congress better watch out!
Those clowns from Congress should try the Nacho flavour.
Crow looks more like Leno than Leno looks like Sullivan.Seriously, it’d be less distracting if they had Crow play Sullivan.
I can’t believe this article didn’t mention his 1980s buddy cop movie with Mr. Miyagi, “Collision Course”. Sure, it’s both terrible and terribly racist, but it’s his first leading man role!
(seriously, don’t watch it, it’s super racist.)
I loved that movie, but it is absolutely racist. I love it the way I love my racist grandma (RIP 1924-2009). It is bizarre to think about how there’s an alternate universe where this movie was a raging success and Jay Leno and Pat Morita churned out three or four more of these and defined the modern buddy cop genre, Mel Gibson is a mildly successful day time soap opera actor in Australia who no one in the States ever heard of, and Letterman capped off a legendary run as host of the Tonight Show before handing the reigns off to O’Brien.
Did Jay Leno also play Mad Max in this alternate universe?
There’s cars in it so sure
This sounds nice.
Bummer that it’s super racist because it sounds kinda fun when I looked it up on IMDB.
Pat Morita a.k.a. “The Hip Nip”!?
And a thousand unemployed character actors who actually look and sound even a little bit like Ed Sullivan pour themselves a stiff drink (bottom shelf, because they can’t afford the good stuff).
We’ve got a really big chin tonight!
I appreciate that based just on this one casting announcement I can easily decide whether this movie will be worth my time.
So the rationale for casting someone who neither looks nor sounds like Sullivan and isn’t known to be a particularly good actor is, “They both hosted a TV show?”
In case you were wondering what Jay was up to nowadays, he’s hosting the latest revival of the game show You Bet Your Life.
In unrelated news, today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jacob Cohen, who would find fame under the name of “Rodney Dangerfield.”
At least they don’t have to worry about a prosthetic chin.