Issa Rae and Adam McKay are teaming up to adapt the Serial Productions podcast “Nice White Parents” into a half-hour series at HBO, Variety has learned. The project has received a pilot commitment at the premium cabler. The show is described as a satirical look at the conflict and comedy that arise when highly resourced
Month: December 2020
After shocking fans with a Patrick Dempsey cameo earlier this season, “Grey’s Anatomy” pulled the same trick again on Thursday night, as T.R. Knight’s character George O’Malley returned to Meredith’s (Ellen Pompeo) dreams. Last night’s surprising episode managed to win the broadcast ratings race, thanks in no small part to “Thursday Night Football” being benched.
The Assn. of Independent Commercial Producers has agreed with Hollywood unions to adopt COVID-19 testing for workers on sets. A rep for one of the International Alliance of Theaterical Stage Employees locals confirmed to Variety that the deal has gone into effect. The Directors Guild of America and the Intl. Brotherhood of Teamsters have also been
The family of late actor Kirby Morrow, known for his voice roles on “Dragon Ball Z,” Lego’s “Ninjago” and many more series, is raising money to start a scholarship in his honor. Morrow died in late November at 47 years old, and his brother Casey Morrow and the Calgary Foundation in Alberta, Canada, started a
Disney Plus’ vice president of nonfiction originals Dan Silver has exited the streamer for a new role at Netflix, Variety has confirmed. Silver will take on the role of director of documentary feature films at Netflix. He will report to Lisa Nishimura, vice president of independent film and documentary features. Silver has a long history
Sony Music Entertainment has acquired Human Re Sources, J. Erving’s Los Angeles-based artist distribution and services company, from the music and tech company Q&A. It will become part of The Orchard, Sony’s global independent music distribution and artist and label services company. According to the announcement, Human Re Sources will continue to sign and develop
Star-in-the-making Ariana DeBose is ready to redefine what it means to be Latino, or how she identifies as Afro-Latina. “You cannot just boil down what it is to be Latino in one thing,” she says. “Observing the industry…Rita Moreno, my Queen, she’s been the standard and it’s a very specific look, which hasn’t necessarily allowed
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are joining the original song Oscar race with a stealth entry. David Fincher’s “Mank” hits Netflix on Friday, featuring “(If Only You Could) Save Me,” a song written by the film’s composers and performed by Adryon de León that will be submitted for the upcoming Academy Awards, and other guild
ViacomCBS’ MTV Entertainment Group has signed a first-look development deal with Ryan Michelle Bathé. Under the terms of the deal, Bathé will develop and executive produce new series for MTV Entertainment Studios, with an emphasis on emerging talent and underrepresented voices. “Ryan is a talented, versatile performer who’s tapping into some very funny and fresh
A majority stake in the publishing catalog of legendary Fleetwood Mac singer and solo artist Stevie Nicks, who recently enjoyed a surprise chart smash with her 43-year-old song “Dreams,” has been acquired by Primary Wave, according to an announcement on Friday. The company will also represent Nicks in brand alliance and brand marketing opportunities and
As Brazil emerges from its shoot shutdown, the magnitude of its biggest production, Netflix fiction miniseries “Senna,” about Formula One racing genius Ayrton Senna, is rapidly becoming clearer. The series, now in development, ticks multiple boxes for both Netflix and its producer, São Paulo-based Gullane. “Language is no longer a barrier, only ambition and quality
PrettyMuch, the pop group launched by “American Idol” and “X-Factor” veteran Simon Cowell in 2017, has signed with long-running Warner Music imprint Sire Records. The move follows the closure of Cowell’s Syco label, which parted ways with partner Sony Music last summer after an 11-year run; with the news was first announced by Billboard. “We‘re
“I guess the movie theaters will just be Halloween stores now.” That was the glib response from a veteran studio executive on Thursday, joining a chorus of powerbrokers, agents and other Hollywood insiders floored by the news that Warner Bros. Pictures will be releasing 17 movies — its entire 2021 slate — simultaneously in movie
(SPOILER ALERT: Do not read on if you have not watched the sixth episode of season 2 of Disney Plus’ “The Mandalorian.”) After a wildly exciting episode which gave us the ass-kicking first live-action appearance of Ashoka Tano, this week’s edition of “The Mandalorian” was lighter on big reveals, but heavier on Mando’s parental stress
Like Thanos collecting all six of the Infinity Stones to become an all-powerful being in the Avengers movies, red carpet darling and fashion’s favorite It girl Zendaya just added one more feat to her very own gauntlet—minus the whole trying to wipe out civilization like giant purple villain. For her next trick, Zendaya will enter
Italy’s storied Titanus studio, producers of myriad golden era works from Cinema Italiano, has inked a global distribution deal with pubcaster RAI’s sales unit RAI Com for its entire library of roughly 400 titles. The landmark agreement, besides distribution, entails a collaboration to restore and preserve the Titanus library, which is a treasure trove comprising
Regal Cinemas owner Cineworld Group is hoping for an agreement on release windows after Warner Bros.’ shock announcement on Thursday that their entire 2021 slate would release simultaneously in cinemas and on HBO Max day and date. In a statement released Friday, a Cineworld spokesperson said: “Cineworld was aware of WB’s plan to release ‘Wonder
Alibaba Pictures has launched a new in-house film studio modeled on A24 and called “Surprise Works.” The company announced a large line-up of upcoming local projects, which it says herald a strategic shift more firmly towards original content production. In the past, Alibaba Pictures cast itself in more of a complementary than primary role in
If the arrival of vaccines offers some hope of the year-consuming COVID-19 pandemic eventually cooling off, the attendant mini-genre of the coronavirus documentary is only getting warmed up. For years to come, we can doubtless anticipate dozen upon dozen of films probing all angles of what happened and how, what went wrong and how much.
The stakes are suddenly much higher for WarnerMedia and Roku in their months-long standoff over HBO Max. The clock is ticking for both companies, which — 191 days after HBO Max’s debut — still don’t have a deal for Roku to distribute the HBO Max service on its platform. WarnerMedia substantially upped the ante Thursday,
With 3.6 million subscribers, New Music Friday is hardly Spotify’s most popular playlist (that would be Today’s Top Hits, which tops 27 million). And with 100 new songs or remixes each week sprawled across multiple genres, it doesn’t provide the sort of focused punch of powerful genre-specific playlists like Rap Caviar. Yet it’s become one of the
Rooster Teeth, the WarnerMedia-owned entertainment division focused on sci-fi, gaming and fandom, is boosting its studio development team with the hires of two execs from the TV world. Rooster Teeth Studios has recruited unscripted TV development and production veteran Wayne Sampson, most recently at NBCUniversal, as head of unscripted content. Scripted comedy exec Emily Hughes,
In deals forged during Ventana Sur, Chile’s Naira Films has secured the backing of Italy’s Keep Digging Prod. and Chile’s “Perro Bomba” producer Infractor Films to complete the financing of their Chilean independence war film “The Wealth of the World” (“La Riqueza del mundo”). The feature debut of artist-painter Simon Farriol is now being edited
Strand Releasing has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Majid Majidi’s “Sun Children,” which competed at Venice and represents Iran in the international feature film race at the 2021 Academy Awards. Represented in international markets by Hengameh Panahi’s Celluloid Dreams, “Sun Children” has been critically acclaimed in the festival circuit, and its young leading actor Ruhollah
British-Guyanese actor Letitia Wright, star of “Black Panther” and Steve McQueen’s “Mangrove,” has responded to extensive backlash after she posted a controversial anti-vax video to Twitter on Thursday night. On Friday afternoon U.K. time, Wright tweeted, “my intention was not to hurt anyone, my ONLY intention of posting the video was it raised my concerns
Netflix Korean-language “Crash Landing on You” was named as the best drama series at the third running of the Asian Academy Creative Awards. Malaysia-Singapore co-production “The Garden of Evening Mists” was named as the best feature film. Singapore actors features prominently among the performance winners. Yeo Yann Yann was named best lead actress for her
Show Me the Fund, a new resource aimed at helping Latin American producers navigate a myriad of little known funding opportunities, was the focus of Wednesday’s Ventana Sur session on international funding. The initiative – a partnership between film export bodies Brazilian Content and Cinema do Brasil and the AV support organization Projeto Paradiso –
Ganesh Rajaram is an old hand at the game of licensing TV shows in the Asia region. Executive VP of sales at FremantleMedia, he breaks down what content is working, and where it is working, and sheds some light from a seller’s perspective on the impact of the coronavirus. Variety: It’s ATF this week. What
A live interview with an AI influencer and a virtual gathering of top internet personalities from around the world kicked off the inaugural edition of VidCon Now Asia on Thursday. Presented as one of the new additions to the Singapore Media Festival, VidCon Asia is the local, online version of the popular event for digital
“Highlands Shadow,” “Cursed Fathers” and “Greta’s Journal” are among five animation projects selected for a new women animation directors’ training initiative launched this year at Ventana Sur’s Animation!, in alliance with France’s Annecy Festival and Argentina’s Institut Français. A 2D eight-episode series “Highlands Shadow” weighs in as a fantasy grounded in traditional folklore mixing action,
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