Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Crystal set new streaming projects
Jerry Seinfeld, left, and Billy Crystal both have new streaming projects in the works. Credit: Composite: Emma McIntyre / Getty Images for Netflix; Vivien Killilea / Getty Images for SiriusxM
Two Long Island comedic legends each have new streaming projects in the works.
Netflix announced Wednesday that Massapequa-raised Jerry Seinfeld would make his feature directing debut with "Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story." The streaming service's logline for the film reads: "Michigan, 1963. Kellogg's and Post, sworn cereal rivals, race to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast forever. A tale of ambition, betrayal, sugar, and menacing milkmen."
Seinfeld, 68, co-wrote the script with Spike Feresten and Andy Robin from his classic series "Seinfeld," plus Barry Marder, who co-wrote Seinfeld's animated "Bee Movie" with those three. The comic will star alongside Rockville Centre-raised Amy Schumer, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, James Marsden, Jack McBrayer, Tom Lennon, Adrian Martinez, Bobby Moynihan, Max Greenfield, Christian Slater and Sarah Cooper.
The cereal industry had similarly been the subject of filmmaker Alan Parker's 1994 "The Road to Wellville," set in turn-of-20th-century Battle Creek, Michigan, and starring Anthony Hopkins as the eccentric Dr. John Harvey Kellogg.
Meanwhile, six-time Emmy Award winner Billy Crystal, who was raised in Long Beach, will star in and serve as an executive producer of the limited series "Before" for Apple TV+, according to multiple trade reports Wednesday. Crystal, 74, will play a child psychiatrist and recent widower, Eli, who encounters a troubled young boy. No time frame was given for production or airdate.
"Before” creator Sarah Thorp wrote the 2010 romcom "The Bounty Hunter," starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, and was a writer-producer on the 2016 A&E supernatural series “Damien,” among other credits. Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson (1988's "Rain Man”) will direct the Paramount Television production.
Crystal, whose rare TV-series credits since his 1970s breakthrough on "Soap" include the 2015 FX sitcom "The Comedians," has not commented publicly. He and Levinson had worked together on the 2002 mob comedy "Analyze That," in which Crystal starred and both he and Levinson served as executive producers.
Crystal is currently starring on Broadway in the Tony-nominated musical "Mr. Saturday Night."
