Today’s entertainment headlines include Jonah Hill announcing that he will be skipping press for his projects going forward over mental health concerns, Rights to "The Lord of the Rings" being sold to Swedish video game publisher Embracer, and "The Great American Baking Show" getting set to be released on The Roku Channel in 2023.  

Between Bells

 In Entertainment: Jonah Hill Skips Press, ‘Great American Baking Show’ Heads to Roku

Jonah Hill, he's penned an open letter revealing he will soon debut a documentary all about mental health titled spots. It's named after his personal therapist, dr Phil stutts. However you will not catch him promoting it or any of his upcoming projects. So Hannah, we gotta talk about in his letter, the actor writes quote through this journey of self discovery within the film. I've come to the understanding that I have spent nearly 20 years experiencing anxiety attacks which were exas abated by the media, appearances in public facing events. Hill went on to say quote, you won't see me out there promoting this film or any of my upcoming films. While I take an important step to protect myself. Hill says he believes it wouldn't be true to himself or for the film if he does press Hills other upcoming projects include netflix's comedy, you people, which he co wrote with director kenya Barris, he stars opposite Eddie Murphy and Julia louis Dreyfus as well in that, I mean look, this is another major celebrity coming out, talking about mental health and the struggles that they have given the fact that Shawn Mendez canceling his entire tour. You applaud him for coming out and being so transparent about it and it makes you think of all the times and all the interviews that he's done the tons and millions of them to promote different films, how much terror was going through his mind and his body while doing all of this. I'm sad as a reporter who enjoys doing interviews with celebrities to talk about particular projects that we won't be able to sort of get him in interviews, but you have to applaud him for being honest and talking about this, he admitted that he had severe anxiety attacks, panic attacks during these interviews and whenever he did red carpet events, he did say in that letter that he knows he's one of the lucky few that can take time off from work and not, you know, not really affect his income or lifestyle in any way. I do wonder if other actors will now follow suit. Like hey and how these um studios are dealing with these A list celebrities saying, you know what, I'm not gonna promote this movie, I have to work on my mental health, I'm imagining the studios can't be thrilled with, look. He also has said he the talk on social media and people in the, in the industry and paparazzi about his weight really, really, really got to him and that was not something that he really appreciated it. And it really, really also sabotaged his mental health and look Florence Pugh. Just this last week when she's talked about her and Zach splitting up. She also talked about the media chatter and and the people on social media, talking about her relationship and all this stuff that's happening in the private lives of celebrities, it really gets to them. So while of course we hold a lot of these people in public figures to higher standards to these really high standards because of who they are. We have to remember at the end of the day, they're people just like us, you and I talked about this, the J lo doc you don't think anything bothers Jlo and know that absolutely critiques really affected her. Meanwhile the right, it's the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have been sold. Middle Earth Enterprises, the holding company that owns all of J. R. R. Tolkien's works has been sold to Swedish gaming company embrace. Er Now earlier this year, Variety learned the previous owner, the Saul Zaentz company was looking to sell embrace her now has control over movies, video games, board games, merchandizing and theme park rights for this fantasy franchise. The deal also includes Amazon's The Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power, which by the way is debuting on prime video on september 2nd, can't wait for that. In a press release, embrace er said the total cost for all acquisitions came in around $770 million. Now, upcoming projects include the animated movie, The Lord of the Rings, the War of the role here um and the mobile game The Lord of the Rings, Heroes of Middle Earth. Now the press release mentions opportunities down the line that could include exploring additional movies based on iconic characters like Gandalf or Aragon. Aragon. Exactly. So I this is I'm surprised there's only 770 million could have easily been a million people love this and there's so it's like what marvel's doing, you can do so much with these characters, they can get their own spin offs, it's all I. P. Right now and we've seen that from netflix in particular with Stranger Things, but now that Stranger Things is gonna get spinoffs as well and you mentioned marvel think of Star Wars, think of what Disney Plus is essentially done with Star Wars and all the different Orations and spin offs that you essentially get here. We're now sort of in this time now in the streaming culture where less new things are gonna be greenlit, it's all going to be driven that people and the streamers know are going to be surefire hits because of all of this. And the fact that lord of the rings, as you mentioned, a popular franchise, my dad and I used to read the lord of the rings books when we were younger, so this is going to be a franchise, he's going to be obsessed with Amazon needs one of these things. Amazon doesn't really sort of have one of their sort of 10 franchises. Now they do and look at all the opportunities that they can sort of spin off different parts of this that then can go within the amazon echo sphere here as a result and when the show debuted on september 2nd, we see this a lot, a lot of new fans will probably go back to the old movies and books again, 100%. And by the way, this is the most expensive show on television by the way, $30 million in episode is how much it costs episode for this thing. So it's gonna be fantastic. All right onto our favorite story of the week. Look at this. You ready, those magic words? Yes, Okay, I'll set you up. Yeah, okay. You say All right, okay. On your mic, I am petrified. That's given me quite a few sleepless nights. Here we go. I feel happier already. Get your oven mitts, everyone A U. S. Adaptation of the british competition series. The great british baking show on the way the great american baking show, gonna debut exclusively on the Roku channel in 2023. Ellie kemper and Zach Cherry A K A Dylan in Apple Tv Plus is Severance have signed on to co host the series. The duo gonna take viewers into the iconic tent to watch contestants show off their talents to prove, but they're America's top baker paul, Hollywood and Prue Leath. The judges from the original UK version also going to take part in this series. The great american baking show is set to feature 6, 60 minute episodes. I love the great british baking show. Yeah, well sometimes not as good as these people, but it's like one of the most calming most amazing shows especially to watch at night. We should note that this show has been on for five seasons, one season on CBS four on abc. I never really sort of gained a ton of traction. You had Ayesha curry hosting a couple of the seasons. You had uh mary berry who was on the first couple of seasons of the great british baking show. She was one of the judges in addition to paul Hollywood. But somehow we just never really took off for american audiences. We were more obsessed with the british version more than the american version, which I don't know, I think it's interesting, but either way, I think it's a great sign for the