Month: December 2020

Bruce W. Smith and Ralph Farquhar, best known as two of the executive producer behind iconic animated sitcom “The Proud Family,” have signed a multi-year overall deal with Disney. Under the wide-ranging pact, the pair will produce animated and live-action series and films for Disney’s Branded Television division, working closely with Disney Channels senior vice
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Quibi’s spectacular crash this year left the short-lived short-form video company’s employees looking for work. At least one of Quibi’s top executives has moved on: Ambereen Toubassy, who had been chief financial officer at the Jeffrey Katzenberg-founded startup, is joining enterprise-software firm Airtable as CFO in January 2021. Quibi had been among the customers for
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As part of a broader strategy revamp, Condé Nast announced that Anna Wintour — who has served as the top editor of Vogue’s U.S. edition for 32 years — will assume the role of chief content officer. Wintour will also now serve as global editorial director of Vogue while continuing her oversight of Vogue U.S.
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Armenia has chosen Arman Nshanian’s feature film debut “Songs of Solomon” as its official submission to the 93rd Academy Awards in the international feature film category. “Songs of Solomon,” written by Audrey Gevorkian and based on “The Past Unsung” by Sirvart Kavoukjian, explores the life of the composer Archbishop Solomon, also known as  Komitas, who had
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Former “Morning Becomes Eclectic” host Jason Bentley is back with his first new project since leaving the signature KCRW show last year. Bentley has partnered with 101 Studios and Soho House to launch a new entertainment podcast, “The Backstory,” which pairs different artists, creators and performers in conversation. The first episode, featuring actor/producer Kristen Bell
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Vevo’s year-end statistics show that Future and Drake’s “Life is Good” is the most viewed Vevo video of 2020, with 1.3 billion views globally; and J Balvin is the most viewed Vevo artist, with 2.7 billion views worldwide. Both cool, and you can see the top 10s below. But arguably more interesting are the songs
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Comcast customers with Xfinity X1 or Flex service can now watch HBO Max right from their cable boxes. While the cable giant was one of WarnerMedia’s launch partners for HBO Max (inking a deal at the 11th hour), Comcast subscribers previously have had to use other platforms like iOS, Android, Apple TV or PlayStation console
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Netflix has unveiled the animated feature film “The Magician’s Elephant,” with a voice cast including Noah Jupe, Pixie Davies, Sian Clifford, Natasia Demetriou, Dawn French, Brian Tyree Henry and Benedict Wong. “The Magician’s Elephant” is based on Newbery Award winner Kate DiCamillo’s novel of the same title. The film, currently in production, marks the directorial
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Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and Random House, a division of Penguin Random House, have announced a new literary publishing partnership to be called Roc Lit 101. According to the announcement, the venture is an imprint devoted to publishing “books at the intersection of entertainment and genre-defying literature, including exhilarating, innovative work from some of the biggest artists and
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Lowly, the independent label launched in 2017 by The Nations’ founder Andre Benz and president Creighton Burke, has named music industry vet Sarah Landy vice president of the label.  In this newly created role, Landy will oversee all aspects of label operations for Lowly. Landy comes to Lowly from Kobalt’s AWAL, where she was hired
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Public.com, the social stock-investment app startup, tapped more celebrity backers for its $65 million Series C funding round. Among those are pro skateboarder Tony Hawk and EDM-pop duo the Chainsmokers, through their Mantis VC fund. Venture-capital firm Accel led the round for the third consecutive time, joined by Lakestar and prior investors Greycroft and Shari
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Matthew McConaughey has again shared his ruminations on the two extreme sides of the political divide, this time during an interview on U.K. broadcaster ITV’s “Good Morning Britain.” The “Dallas Buyers Club” star last week pointed out that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory had the left in denial, just as some Republicans are now sceptical
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U.K. producers are in discussions with the government to extend the £500 million ($664.6 million) COVID-19 insurance scheme for Film & TV production. As first reported by Broadcast, producers are seeking to extend the deadline by six months, to June 2021. U.K. producers’ body Pact is currently gathering information to support the extension, which will
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Global Screen, the Munich-based sales company owned by Will Smith and Marc Forster’s Telepool, has closed distribution deals for major territories on “Plan A,” a true World War II story, starring August Diehl (“A Hidden Life,” “Inglourious Basterds”) and Sylvia Hoeks (“Blade Runner 2049,” “The Girl in the Spider’s Web”). Signature Entertainment has acquired all
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Rolling off the Oscar-nominated animated feature “Mirai,” Paris-based sales company Charades is set to reteam with Japanese auteur Mamoru Hosoda on his next directorial outing, “Belle.” “Belle” follows a fruitful collaboration between Charades, Hosoda and his production company Studio Chizu. “Mirai” world premiered at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2018 and was acquired by GKids for
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