Quick Takes: Carmike to show ‘Bully’

The country’s fourth-largest theater chain has had a change of heart about “Bully.”

After announcing it would not play the teen-oriented documentary because it had a policy against showing unrated films, Carmike Cinemas will indeed play the movie. It will treat the picture as an R-rated film and will not allow anyone under 17 to see it if not accompanied by an adult.

The move means that among the largest four theater chains, only Cinemark, the country’s third-largest exhibitor, will not show “Bully,” which opens Friday.

Regal Cinemas said it would show the film and treat it as an R; AMC will also show it, allowing minors who have written permission from an adult to see it on their own.

Weinstein Co. decided to release the film without a rating after losing an appeal with the Motion Picture Assn. to overturn its R rating.

—Steven Zeitchik

Couric will fill in on ‘GMA’

Katie Couric is returning to morning TV, for a week anyway. But what’s got people raising their eyebrows is where she’s doing it — ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Couric, who has a deal with Disney-ABC Domestic Television for a daytime talk show called “Katie,” which will debut in September, will be filling in for regular “GMA” co-host Robin Roberts, who is on vacation next week.

Couric was co-host of “Today” in December 1995, when the NBC show ascended to No. 1 in the morning ratings race and began a winning streak that has continued ever since — 850 weeks.

Yet frisky “GMA” has been making noise lately. Last week the ABC show was only 137,000 viewers behind “Today” (an average of 4.98 million to 4.84 million), the closest the two shows have been since 2008.

In 2006, she left “Today” to become the anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” where she stayed for nearly five years.

—From staff and wire reports

Not ready to face retirement

Five years ago, just off a bout from cancer, Bob Schieffer was set to retire from CBS’ “Face the Nation.” That never stuck, and now he’s doubling his workload.

Starting Sunday, the public affairs program expands to an hour. Vice President Joe Biden, whom Schieffer interviewed Thursday in Milwaukee, is the featured guest. Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are also booked.

With a presidential campaign underway, it’s an attention-getting time for the Sunday morning shows. The landscape changed already this year when George Stephanopoulos returned to the helm of ABC’s “This Week” in January.

Schieffer, who turned 75 in February, had long planned to retire shortly after he turned 70 in 2007. He even announced it publicly. But he was persuaded to stay for the 2008 election, and retirement never happened.

“I’m just having so much fun,” he said. “I don’t know what I would do [if I quit working].”

—Associated Press

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FOR THE RECORD:
Earl Scruggs tribute: In the March 30 Calendar section, the headline on a Quick Takes item said that the CMA was planning a tribute to Earl Scruggs. As the article said, it is the Academy of Country Music (not the Country Music Assn.) that will be paying tribute to the late bluegrass banjo artist at its annual awards show Sunday night. —

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CMA planning Scruggs tribute

The funeral for legendary bluegrass banjo artist Earl Scruggs will be held Sunday in Nashville.

And with comedian and banjo player Steve Martin, one of his biggest fans, already scheduled to appear on the Academy of Country Music Awards on Sunday night, the show’s producers are planning a moment to remember the pioneering musician. Scruggs died at age 88 of natural causes Wednesday morning.

Flowers were laid on his Hollywood Walk of Fame star Thursday morning as news of his passing continued to ripple through the music community.

Scruggs’ funeral will be conducted at Ryman Auditorium, once home to the Grand Ole Opry for many years.

—Associated Press

‘Hair’ star snaps up ‘Book’ gig

Gavin Creel, the Tony-nominated actor who starred in the 2009 Broadway revival of “Hair,” will trade in his love beads for the Holy Scripture when he joins the national tour of “The Book of Mormon,” which kicks off in August in Denver.

The tour’s second stop will be at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, for a 12-week engagement starting Sept. 5.

Creel is set to play Elder Price, the bright-eyed Mormon missionary of ambiguous sexuality. The role is played in the Tony-winning Broadway production by Andrew Rannells.

No other casting for the tour has been announced.

—David Ng

New album for Aerosmith

Aerosmith has reunited with Jack Douglas, who produced the band’s key 1970s albums, and quietly recorded a new studio album even as its lead singer traded jokes with Jennifer Lopez on “American Idol.”

Steven Tyler said Aerosmith was finishing two final songs for the as-yet-untitled album, its first since 2004’s “Honkin’ on Bobo,” and that he expected it to be released in about three months.

Joined Wednesday by Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer at a Los Angeles mall, Tyler revealed three track titles: “Legendary Child,” “Beautiful” and “Out Go the Lights.”

Earlier in the week, the band announced that its 18-stop U.S. Global Warming Tour begins June 16 in Minneapolis.

Tyler said he reached out to Douglas — who produced 1974’s “Get Your Wings,” 1975’s “Toys in the Attic” and other seminal albums from the multiplatinum Boston band — and the other group members joined him in L.A.

—Associated Press

Finally

Renewed: Fox announced Thursday that it is bringing back “Bones” for an eighth season.

Sequel: Will Ferrell appeared on Conan O’Brien’s TBS talk show Wednesday night to announce that he would be making a sequel to his 2004 comedy “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”