This Sister Can Act Happy: Goldberg Seals Mega-Deal
Whoopi indeed. Whoopi Goldberg signed a two-picture deal with Hollywood Pictures last week for slightly less than $20 million, sources said.
The deal calls for the actress to star in two Hollywood Pictures projects - “Eddie” and “The Associate.”
The signing further underscores the fact that actresses are finally ascending the Hollywood pay scale. Last month, Demi Moore agreed to star in Castle Rock Entertainment’s “Striptease” for $12 million.
“Eddie” is about a rabid NBA basketball fan who gets a chance to coach her favorite team. In “The Associates,” Goldberg will play a talented investment banker who breaks the glass ceiling by creating an imaginary senior male associate, which causes business people to take her ideas more seriously.
Garth up to 50 million
Garth Brooks’ seven albums - all released within the past six years - have sold more than 50 million copies in the U.S. The only acts edging him out in total sales are the Beatles, with 68 million albums in 31 years, and Billy Joel, with 55 million in 20 years. Brooks’ two best-selling albums are “No Fences,” which has sold 13 million, and “Ropin’ The Wind,” 11 million.
Beatles stuff on market
The televised Beatles megaretrospective planned for later this year, news of which Paul McCartney casually let slip recently, is bound to whet public appetite for the Fab Four. Musicom International will be there to dish out the nostalgia.
The Havertown, Pa.-based producer of music memorabilia is marketing limited-edition platesigned “museum quality” lithographs of Beatles’ album covers, part of a collection called “The Fine Art of Music” that includes covers from the Rolling Stones, the Doors, the Who, Santana, Elvis and others.
Denny Somach, who founded the company about a year ago, says the lithographs are aimed at “the 50-year-old guy who grew up on rock ‘n’ roll; the 45-year-old housewife who was screaming at JFK airport when the Beatles arrived in ‘64.” He thinks those fans of a certain age will part with $98 to $250 per print, marketed on TV, through record stores and furniture stores and with a toll-free line (1-800-219-MUSIC).
Somach says he’s aiming to fill the gap between concert T-shirts and John Lennon’s yellow Rolls-Royce, which sold for $2.3 million in 1985. “People are longing for these images,” he says.
Typecasting for Tom Arnold
Tom Arnold is finalizing talks to star in “The Stupids” for director John Landis. Arnold, who is currently working on “Big Bully” in Vancouver, would start work on the picture in early June.
“The Stupids,” based on the Harry Allard series of children’s books, tells of the Stupid family, led by patriarch Stanley, who become involved in an adventure in which they unravel a conspiracy.
‘Flipper’ movie swimming along
“‘Crocodile’ Dundee” star Paul Hogan is wrapping talks to star in “Flipper,” which Universal Pictures will release in summer 1996. The picture, slated to start production at the end of this summer, is based on the hit TV show of the early 1960s.