Dave Chappelle Being Sued..

One of Dave Chappelle's former employees says the comic asked him to be his manager for nine months beginning last year, but never paid him.

In a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Mustafa Abuelhija said Chappelle told him in September 2004 that he could be his personal manager and spread the word to his financial aides but never put it in writing.

The deal outlined in Chappelle's business and financial records called for Abuelhija to receive 5 percent of Chappelle's revenue from personal appearances and 10 percent of entertainment deals, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Monday.

The suit said Abuelhija was owed his cut of an initial payment of $4.5 million from Comedy Central for the third and fourth seasons of "Chappelle's Show." The deal was reportedly to be worth $50 million, but the comic walked out after doing half of the third-season episodes.

Since disappearing in May, Chappelle, 32, has since resumed performing live standup. Comedy Central recently announced that it will broadcast next spring the four episodes' worth of sketches he filmed before his exit.

The lawsuit said Abuelhija was fired by Chappelle at a San Francisco hotel in June 2005 and had received only $40,000 as an advance against the sum Chappelle owed him in commissions as a personal manager.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit alleged, Chappelle had earned $2.2 million from personal appearances and about $6 million in entertainment deals including the contract for his show.

Abuelhija, who met Chappelle when he managed a New York comedy club in 2000, also said he produced the movie "Dave Chappelle's Block Party" but never received the producer credit to which he was entitled. The film, which screened at the Toronto Film Festival in September, is to be released in March.

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Can 'Kong' Make Peter Jackson King Again?

Can 'Kong' Make Peter Jackson King Again?

"Kong" is likely to be king of the box office, but does the latest incarnation of the chest-thumping big banana deserve the crown?

"Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson's much-hyped "King Kong" remake opens on Wednesday, and after winning an Oscar, losing almost 80 pounds on the so-called "Skull Island Diet" and nearly shutting down Manhattan's Times Square to promote the picture, Jackson faces expectations as high as the king of apes himself.

"I think it's possibly going to surprise people — if they go see this movie, they're going to come away having seen a film they weren't expecting to see," Jackson told FOX News. "This is not a monster film — it's a film about a huge creature with a heart and a soul and a very noble but very scary animal that lives on this island and how he connects with Ann Darrow [played by Naomi Watts]."
foxnews.com



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Felicity Huffman goes from 'Housewife'

Huffman plays a male about to have a sex-change operation and Kevin Zegers is the teen son he never knew in 'Transamerica.'


Well before Felicity Huffman won an Emmy for playing a long-suffering suburban mom on ABC's " Desperate Housewives Series On DVD," she was known for her role as a hard-charging female producer in the male-dominated world of TV sports.
Wearing the proverbial pants amid a studio full of men on "Sports Night" may actually have been good preparation for Huffman's first starring film role.

In "Transamerica," opening tomorrow, the veteran character actress plays someone you won't likely see at a coffee klatsch on Wisteria Lane.

Her Stanley (Bree) Osbourne is a man who is in the process of getting a sex-change operation.

"Whether I could pull that kind of role off felt really risky to me," says Huffman, who won an Emmy in September for playing harried hausfrau Lynette Scavo on "Housewives."

Playing a transgendered male "felt like I was carrying a full glass of water on a unicycle juggling cross-country," adds the actress.

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