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'It was an apology from one human to another,' one resident at NYC center tells MTV News of meeting the '30 Rock' star.
By John Mitchell

Tracy Morgan meets with LGBT teens
Photo: GLAAD

Earlier this month "30 Rock" star Tracy Morgan offended many with homophobic remarks he made during a stand-up show in Nashville. The comedian has since made several public apologies and announced this week that he had partnered with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in its efforts to combat anti-gay bullying.

On Friday (June 17), in his first major project with GLAAD, Morgan met with youth from the Ali Forney Center in New York City, the nation's largest organization serving homeless LGBT youth. The actor also met with Elke Kennedy, whose 20-year-old son Sean was killed in 2007 in an anti-gay hate crime.

"Initially, he seemed very nervous, I think he seemed kind of frightened when he got there," Carl Siciliano, the head of the Ali Forney Center, told MTV News after the meeting with Morgan. "I don't think he knew what to expect from us." Siciliano said Morgan was "very apologetic" and 'just wanted to make it really clear that he was there to apologize, that he hadn't meant to do this, that he was hurt by what he had done. He was repeatedly apologetic."

At the center, Morgan spoke openly with the young residents, including Jayden, who was rejected by her family when she came out of the closet. "It was an apology from one human to another and I really appreciated that," Jayden told us.

"Today, Tracy saw firsthand the toll that homophobia and anti-gay violence can take on a person's life," GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios said in a statement. "By meeting with LGBT teens left homeless because of who they are, we hope that Tracy has come to understand that so-called 'jokes' about gay youth are not just irresponsible, they are damaging."

The actor also spoke with Kennedy, an LGBT activist who travels around the country speaking out against anti-gay violence and rhetoric as part of Sean's Last Wish, an organization she founded in her son's memory. According to Kennedy, Morgan was so moved by Sean's story that he got choked up, saying, "You know, that should never happen. That's why my comments, the ones I made, are not going to be made again."

Kennedy said she believed Morgan was truly sorry for the comments he made, which included alluding to killing his own son if he grew up to be homosexual. "I feel like he made a commitment during this meeting to make a difference," she told MTV News. "He said that he was going to use his talent as a comedian to be an advocate for the LGBT community."

During the meeting, Morgan announced that he'll return to Tennessee on June 21 to apologize to those he offended during his stand-up act. While in Nashville, he also plans to meet with the Tennessee Equality Project and local advocates. What do you think of Tracy Morgan's efforts? Tell us in the comments.

Relive the superhero's journey to the big screen with our handy guide!
By Eric Ditzian

Ryan Reynolds in "Green Lantern"
Photo: Warner Bros.

Comic book adaptations often weave a circuitous and amusing path toward the big screen. Remember when Cher was rumored to be up for the role of Catwoman in "The Dark Knight Rises"? But few superhero flicks can compete with the epically bizarre twists and turns that tripped up "Green Lantern" for years.

Jack Black was once tapped to play the ring-bearing protector of the universe. When the rotund comedian's version collapsed, everyone from Brian Austin Green to Justin Timberlake were rumored to be circling the green-suited superhero. Can you imagine Quentin Tarantino helming a "Green Lantern" flick starring one of these dudes? Well, the "Inglourious Basterds" director turned down the chance to take control of the project. And now, here we are. "Green Lantern" opened in theaters Friday (June 16) with Ryan Reynolds as test pilot-turned-superhero Hal Jordan, Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale") in the director's chair, and the film, we'd say, is all the better for it. But how did we arrive at this moment? To answer that question, let's slip on our power rings and take a trip back into the cinematic past with another MTV News cheat sheet. That's the only way to discover everything there is to know about "Green Lantern":

Recharging the Lantern
After years in development hell, the project seemed finally to be moving forward in August 2008, when the DC Comics property moved back into active development with a script by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green. There was even talk that the movie would begin filming the next spring and that Ryan Gosling would take on the lead role. While Campbell eventually began to eye the film, production didn't move forward, even though Warner Bros. announced a December 17, 2010, release date.

Would filming begin in September? Would Anton Yelchin ("Star Trek") become Hal Jordan? What about fellow "Trek" star Chris Pine? Rumors, rumors, everywhere! Unsurprisingly, the release date was moved back to June 17, 2011.

Finally, in July '09, the ring chose its man: Ryan Reynolds officially landed the role of Hal Jordan.

Greeting the Corps
"I fell in love with the character when I met with Martin Campbell," Reynolds told us a few months later. "When I sat down with him, I really got what it is that this guy is all about. When you have a guy like Martin Campbell, part of his charm is that he has balls of titanium, and the other part is that he's slightly crazy, and you have to be to take on something with the scope of 'Green Lantern.' "

No joke. The 3-D film journeys from the shores of America to the most distant planets of the universe. There are aliens galore, a villain who thrives on fear and power rings that harness willpower into fantastical manifestations, like giant machine guns and supercharged fists. Jordan finds himself at the center of it all, after he's chosen to join the Green Lantern Corps, an army of fighters chosen to protect the universe from all evils. The baddies they must confront in the film are Dr. Hector Hammond, a scientist turned lumpy-headed villain, and Parallax, a smoky enemy capable of engulfing planets and who threatens to snuff out all life forms. Into this mess steps Jordan with two quests: stop the bad guys and get the girl — a lovely test pilot named Carol Ferris, played by Blake Lively.

Lively nabbed the part in January 2010, and the rest of the cast soon followed: Mark Strong as the Lantern named Sinestro, Peter Sarsgaard as Hammond and Tim Robbins as his father, Senator Hammond.

We got our first peek at Reynolds in his motion-capture gear in May. It'd be another two months until we peeped the actor in glowing-green character. Not everyone was pleased with what they saw.

"There has to be a little healthy debate about it," Reynolds told us later. "I mean, that's important. If it were just slanted one way or the other, I don't think it would be that satisfying. And truthfully, we've only seen a tiny glimpse of the suit, you know, we haven't seen it in motion. And we haven't seen the full suit as well."

Green Lantern's Light
The first trailer popped up in November, and once again fans were less than impressed. But Reynolds didn't sweat it. "I'm not worried about it," he told us in April. "We've never been worried about it, because we saw the early concepts and we saw how well they worked. Unfortunately, that was stuff you can't just release and show to people, because it needs to be perfected and all that stuff. I'm not worried about it at all."

Public opinion started to change this summer at WonderCon and CinemaCon, as fans got their eyes on fresh "Green Lantern" footage. "The first time I saw it was just breathtaking," Reynolds told us recently. "I think the first time it hit me that we really did it right was in WonderCon," he told us recently. "I'd been shooting in Africa at the time, so I flew back just to be there, and I was exhausted, and they put up this 10 or 11 minutes of footage, and you could feel it going like a wave through the audience."

Breathtaking was exactly our opinion of an eye-popping poster we debuted in April — one that featured a slew of Corps aliens like Tomar-Re, Abin Sur and Kilowog. Another trailer arrived in May: more aliens, more action and more of Reynolds' sometimes goofy, sometimes badass superhero. It was more than enough to get us pumped about the movie to come.

"For me, what attracted me to it most was the space-epic nature of it," Reynolds told us at the MTV Movie Awards in early June. "I just loved that you had this film that was an origin story, that's not really starting in the third act like a lot of them do. I grew up with movies like that. I love movies like that. So just to be part of it was mind-boggling."

Check out everything we've got on "Green Lantern."

For breaking news and previews of the latest comic book movies — updated around the clock — visit SplashPage.MTV.com.

• MTV Rough Cut: 'Green Lantern'

• 'Green Lantern' Trailer: Five Key Scenes

'It's, like, an energy thing,' funnyman tells MTV News of befriending the birds.
By Kara Warner

Jim Carrey
Photo: MTV News

For those familiar with the work of actor Jim Carrey, his presence in the very family-friendly, warm-and-fuzzy movie "Mr. Popper's Penguins" might have been a bit of a head-scratcher. However, as Carrey will explain himself, he's always had a soft spot in his heart for the Arctic-dwelling furry friends.

"It's, like, an energy thing," he told MTV News recently of his ability to bond instantly with his web-footed co-stars. "Any animal, I just kind of get with their energy somehow, I can't explain it," he said, before recalling a certain pivotal and infamous character on his résumé.

"I do have a special affinity for animals because I'm Ace Ventura, Pet Detective," he deadpanned. "So, you know, that's something I like to revisit every once in awhile."

As for how he wound up playing workaholic Mr. Popper, whose life is turned upside down with the unexpected inheritance and delivery of six Gentoo penguins, Carrey said he has a way with creating his own destiny, as it were.

"I have this weird manifestation thing in my life. If I say I like something, the next thing you know, I'm getting a script about it," he explained. "It's just what happens. I was Twittering about [penguins], and it was on my website, 'I really like penguins,' out of nowhere, a non-sequitur," he said. "And then the script comes to me, and I go, 'Well, if it's not a bad script, I'm going to make it work.'

"My managers are like, 'A penguin movie? Really?' " he continued. " 'Does that fit into the rock-and-roll kind of deal of your life and career?' I go, 'I gotta go with it.' "

And so Carrey's road to "Mr Popper's Penguins" was born.

"I think we got the best of all worlds in this," Carrey said of the film's widespread appeal. "It's not without an edge. It's got cool, funny stuff in it, and it's kinda touching."

Check out everything we've got on "Mr. Popper's Penguins."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

Fif also reveals that he is on Dr. Dre's next single, 'The Psycho.'
By Rob Markman

50 Cent
Photo: Michael Tran/ FilmMagic

50 Cent went into renegade mode Thursday, blasting his label on Twitter and releasing his new single "Outlaw" independently of Interscope. Don't get it twisted, however: The G-Unit General isn't just acting off of emotion. This is all part of his plan to light a fire under the label in preparation of his fifth, yet-untitled album. (50 confirmed to MTV News that this is not the Black Magic album he had announced in 2010.)

On April 18, Fif announced via Twitter that he was going to be dropping a single from his new album, but never did. When MTV News caught up with him a few days later on the L.A. set of Nicole Scherzinger's "Right There" video, 50 backtracked, saying that instead, he opted to work in conjunction with Interscope on the release.

"So I had the record I was ready to launch, and we sat down and everybody talked," Fif told MTV News in an interview Friday (June 17). "What happens is, there are a lot of people involved in my actual launch, because its three parties; it's Shady, then you got Aftermath, then you got Interscope, and then you got me on my end. So by the time we got to go sit down with [Interscope chairman] Jimmy [Iovine], we talked a little bit, and then I ended up having to go see Dre, because we had the little issue, the confusion about the Twitter stuff."

The "Twitter stuff" the Southside Jamaica, Queens, rapper is referencing is when he charged on the social-networking site that Dre and Jimmy Iovine were "mad" because Fif announced that he was developing his own brand of high-end headphones to rival the Good Doctor's Beats by Dre.

"We sat down, we cleared that up, me and Dre, and then we said, 'Let's just get back to the music and do what we do,' " Curtis said before revealing his and Dre's next move. "Immediately after, we wrote a song together called 'The Psycho'; it's Dre's next single."

After making peace with his partners, it was 50's intention to release his own single with his label's support and have a record that would impact radio so he could perform at Hot 97's annual Summer Jam concert at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. There was no single and, subsequently, no 50 Cent at the show, which took place June 5. "Why would I be going to Summer Jam to perform a bunch of feature songs?" the rapper asked rhetorically. "That's not for me. I rather not be there than to go through that."

Things took a turn Thursday when the MC tweeted: "Ok I tried to be cool with my record company. I went to the meeting talk to everyone and sh-- feels like there moving in slow motion," adding that he wouldn't drop an album in 2011 unless Interscope got "on the same page." Then he premiered his new song "Outlaw" later that evening in an effort to cause excitement for his upcoming LP, which will be his last on Interscope.

Though he is visibly concerned about how the rollout of his album is being handled, Fif wants to be clear about where he places the blame. "It's not necessarily Dre or Jimmy; it's more the guys that they pass the responsibilities onto. It takes longer for people, because they'll be like, 'OK, we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that,' and the building will start having those conversations, but they're not actually moving at that point."

What do you think of 50 Cent's label drama? How about the new song "Outlaw"? Let us know in the comments!

• 50 Cent

Odd Future crooner's eerie clip hit the Web on Thursday.
By Steven Roberts

Frank Ocean
Photo: MTV News

Since the release of his mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra this past February, Frank Ocean has gone from a relatively unknown songwriter to the Internet's best-kept secret, and now he may be poised to be music's next big thing. But with Ocean choosing to do very little press, his appearance in Tyler, the Creator's "She" video may be one of the only times many people have seen the Odd Future crooner besides a handful of press photos.

That all changed Thursday: The video for Ocean's "Novacane," one of Nostalgia's many standout cuts, just hit the Web. The Nabil Elderkin-directed clip features Ocean in what looks like a dimly lit hotel suite. With each exhale of a joint, Ocean is surrounded by ghostly incarnations of beautiful women, tigers and pandas. At one point, Ocean smears what appears to be novocaine — or Procaine, for those out there with dentist parents — on his solemn-looking face.

The song is the first single from the Def Jam re-release of Ocean's album. A track list for the re-release of the album has yet to appear, but the free version featured a variety of samples, from Coldplay's "Strawberry Swing" to the Eagles' "Hotel California," which may be difficult to clear. When MTV News caught up with Ocean at the Coachella festival in April, even he joked that he was skeptical whether they'd be cleared.

"The Eagles sample has no chance in hell of being cleared," Ocean said. "Coldplay sample, possibly. I hear 'possibly' from people who say they know. MGMT, those guys seem chill. I heard they heard the record and they liked it a lot, so hopefully that can go some way.

"Hopefully the sh-- gets worked out. We might pull a Hail Mary and clear the Eagles' record. They might want all of the publishing for the whole album, though, which can't happen," Ocean added.

• Frank Ocean