Terrence Howard is suing his former agency CAA over his Empire salary, alleging underpayment due to racist bias.
The 54-year-old actor appeared in 102 episodes of the Fox music drama, playing Lucious Lyon from 2015 to 2020.
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Fox has announced that they are not moving forward with the planned Empire spinoff focused on Taraji P. Henson‘s character, Cookie.
Deadline reports that the series is going to be shopped to other networks like Hulu and ABC.
Announced in July, Fox had planned the series to center on Cookie Lyon, the wife of Terrence Howard‘s Lucious Lyon, and the mom of Andre, Jamal, and Hakeem Lyon.
The plot was pretty much unknown at the time of the announcement, but Fox did revealed that it might have followed “Cookie as she moves to L.A. and potentially feature some of her other family members.”
The flagship series, Empire, just wrapped up a six season run earlier this year and centered on Lucious, a hip-hop mogul who battles to choose a successor among his three sons who are battling for control over his multi-million dollar company.
Cookie Lyon might be returning to your TV screens in the future!
Taraji P. Henson is set to reprise her iconic role in an Empire spin-off series that is currently in the works at Fox. This marks the first project to come out of the Oscar-nominated actress’ first-look deal with the network.
Empire co-creator Danny Strong will co-write the series with Yolanda Lawrence and Stacy A. Littlejohn, who also worked on the hit show. They will all serve as co-showrunners.
Not much is known about the spin-off series’ plot, but THR reports that it will “follow Cookie as she moves to L.A. and potentially feature some of her other family members.”
Things didn’t end as planned on Empire when the series came to an early conclusion back in April 2020 due to the pandemic. The spin-off series will give the creators a chance to wrap things up properly.
Empire‘s next episode will also be its finale for the foreseeable future.
The long-running show’s 18th episode of its final sixth season due to air next week will be its last for now, creators confirmed on Tuesday (April 14).
Lee Daniels and Danny Strong issued statements about the sudden ending of the show.
“The success of Empire and bringing the Lyon family to broadcast television will always be one of the proudest achievements of my career. This show is the definition of breaking barriers. Thank you to our incredible cast, especially Terrence and Taraji, along with our amazing writers and tireless crew, for all of their hard work and bringing this story to life. I think there’s more to do with these characters, and I’m heartbroken we aren’t getting to shoot the finale we wanted—at least not yet. But you know what they say in television? Stay tuned! To the Empire!” Lee said, via Deadline.
“We’re so proud of this show and of everything this incredible cast – led by Taraji and Terrence- and crew accomplished over six seasons. The episode airing on April 21 was never meant to be the series finale, but due to current events it will likely be the last one our fans will see for a while. We had an ending for the series planned that we all loved, and hopefully someday we’ll be able to film it and give the series its proper conclusion. But we hope everyone tunes in to our last original episode, because the work done by our cast and crew deserves to be seen by the widest audience possible. Big thank you to Fox for being our home for these many years. And here’s hoping this isn’t the end!” said Danny Strong.
Taraji previously spoke about how shooting was cut short for the series.
The final season of Empire is being cut short due to the health crisis and now Taraji P. Henson is revealing just how close they were to finishing the last couple episodes.
There were supposed to be 20 episodes in the final season, but now the series finale will be episode 18.
“We were almost finished,” Taraji told Variety on March 31, right before it was announced that the season would be cut short. “We were at the finish line.”
“We had 20 episodes to shoot,” she added. “We were in the middle of episode 19 and then this happened. So, we just have about a week and a half to go, about 10 more days and we’ll be finished.”
The cast will no longer be going back to set to finish the final episodes. Scenes that were filmed for episode 19 will be edited into episode 18, which airs on April 21.
Empire is coming to an end sooner than expected.
The sixth and final season of the hit Fox series will end sooner than originally planned due to the ongoing world health crisis.
Fox announced late Tuesday night (March 31) in an on-air promo that the show’s 20-episode sixth and final season will now conclude on April 21, with Episode 18 now serving as the show’s series finale, according to Deadline.
“Get ready for the shocking final three episodes of Empire,” a voice-over declared over a promo for next week’s “We Got Us,” the 16th episode of the current sixth season, starring Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard.
The last completed episode before the production shutdown, Episode 18, which is scheduled to air on April 21, is now set to be the premature end of Empire. “To help create a more seamless overall ending, we hear this newly minted finale will likely feature footage from Episode 19, which was halfway through filming when the health crisis paused all Hollywood production.”
