When Natasha Lyonne, Leslye Headland and Amy Poehler put their heads together to come up with a show unlike any other, they knew they wanted it to be both funny and unafraid to tackle traumatic experiences that most comedies would avoid at all costs. “We were always interested in themes that weren’t necessarily comedic on
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The odds of ever seeing all four original KISS members on a stage again grew even more remote after Ace Frehley ripped into Gene Simmons in a Facebook post Tuesday, calling his former bandmate “an asshole and a sex addict” who “groped my wife.” “The gloves are off,” Frehley declared in the eviscerating missive, which
January 30, 2019 9:30AM PT Chloe Grace Moretz will star as a World War II pilot in the action horror movie “Shadow in the Cloud.” Roseanne Liang is directing the film, while Max Landis is penning the script. It centers on a pilot who boards a B-17 Flying Fortress, clutching a black radio bag with
Apple escalated its simmering conflict with Facebook Wednesday, revoking access to its enterprise developer certification program and in turn preventing Facebook employees from running company-internal apps on their iPhones. The move comes after news broke that Facebook was using the program to distribute a questionable market research app to thousands of users. Techcrunch reported Tuesday
Viacom Digital Studios is expanding its talent and development team with two new hires: Heather Johns, formerly with Kevin Hart/Lionsgate’s Laugh Out Loud, and RJ Larese, who hails from Popsugar. Johns, named VP of talent and development for pop culture, music and lifestyle overseeing talent discovery, talent development, booking, and talent relations for MTV and
Warner/Chappell Music today announced the promotion of Ben Vaughn to president & CEO of Warner/Chappell Nashville. According to the announcement, Vaughn, who joined the company in 2012 and was promoted to president five years later, will continue to lead the division’s creative and commercial activities. He will report to Warner/Chappell Music’s incoming Co-Chair & CEO
Remember those white hotel slippers Justin Bieber was seen bopping across New York City in last August? Turns out he wasn’t just a huge fan of the comfy (yet too-small) slippers, he actually designed a whole line of them and debuted his newest experiment when he launched his own fashion label, Drew, last December. Now,
Patrick Drahi’s Altice France, the French branch of the telecom company, has entered exclusive discussions to acquire a majority stake in Molotov, the French media start-up co-launched by Cannes Film Festival president Pierre Lescure and Jean-Louis Blanc, the founder of Allocine. If approved by France’s anti-trust board, the deal will allow Molotov, a disruptive, digital
Gone are the sweet summer days of the newly betrothed Biebers, Justin and Hailey, running around New York making out and crying, then making out again and crying again. Smoochable summerwear included crop tops and cutoffs paired with scrunchies, hoops, and hats for Hailey. Justin wore ‘90s-baggy basketball shorts, tie-dye socks, and Joe Dirt hair.
Paramount Pictures laid off roughly 20 staff members from several departments on Tuesday as part of a restructuring effort, insiders familiar with the matter told Variety. Departments including legal, business affairs, TV and finance were affected. Cuts were not major and largely affected back-office staff. Paramount chief operating officer Andrew Gumpert addressed the matter in a
January 30, 2019 8:09AM PT An Arizona 14-year-old stumbled upon Apple’s FaceTime bug earlier this month and tried to warn the company, but contacting it proved difficult, according to NBC News. Grant Thompson was trying to set up a group chat with some fellow “Fortnite” players when he discovered the FaceTime app was forcing other
Movie studios often use the Super Bowl to drop trailers for their coming blockbusters. Since last year, a rival source of video entertainment has been doing the same. Amazon Prime Video will return to the Super Bowl this year, dropping a 60-second trailer in the third quarter for “Hanna,” a new drama centered on a
Tubi says viewing on its free, ad-supported video-on-demand service is surging — and it’s planning to spend more than $100 million this year licensing library TV shows and movies to keep the flywheel spinning. In 2018, Tubi claims its ad revenue grew more than 180%, with fourth-quarter 2018 advertising revenue larger than all of 2017
“Jane the Virgin” star Justin Baldoni has struck a deal with a private investor to sell a majority stake in his Wayfarer Entertainment banner to a private investor based in Chicago. The transaction also calls for the investor, whose name was not disclosed, to establish a $25 million fund to produce content that is in
SiriusXM announced fourth quarter and full-year 2018 operating and financial results in an earnings call Wednesday morning, including record revenue of $1.5 billion and $5.8 billion, respectively, increasing 7% and 6% compared to the prior year periods. Sirius CEO Jim Meyer (pictured) and CFO David Frear also discussed the company’s plans for Pandora, which it
Lady Gaga got into a heated verbal exchange with one of Dr. Luke’s lawyers while being deposed as part of the long legal battle between the producer and Kesha, according to court documents recently unsealed and reported by The Blast. At one point, Gaga tells Luke’s attorney that she “should be ashamed of yourself.” The deposition,
January 30, 2019 6:00AM PT Mattel and Warner Bros. are partnering up to bring the toy company’s Hot Wheels to theaters in the first ever live-action feature film for the beloved racecar franchise. This will mark the second partnership for the two companies following the news of the “Barbie” feature film starring Margot Robbie. “We
While the Carters — a.k.a. Jay-Z and Beyonce — are notable by their absence from the 2019 Grammy nominees in a category Jay has won a record seven times, that makes this year’s slate only slightly less interesting: For the first time since 2007, the lead artist on two of the nominated performances are white.
MADRID — Big Spanish-language arthouse sales company Latido Films has just acquired world sales rights to Berlinale Panorama entry “Holy Beasts,” a step up in scale for its directors, “Sand Dollars” Laura Amelia Guzman and Israel Cardenas, which turns around the extraordinary, if ill-known, Dominican cineast Jean-Louis Jorge. The deal excludes producers’ home territories. Starring
January 30, 2019 5:16AM PT “We are all capable of disloyalty,” Richard Gere warns in his first role for the small screen in decades, in BBC drama “MotherFatherSon.” Gere plays media overlord Max, who can be seen as a kingmaker and family man in the show’s first trailer. Max is a newspaper and media baron
Sir Peter, meet Sir Paul, and Mother Mary. “Lord of the Rings” filmmaker Peter Jackson has come aboard a project that Paul McCartney had previously hinted was in the works: a new Beatles documentary using the 55 hours of in-studio footage that were shot in early 1969 for the 1970 feature film “Let It Be.”
James Honeyborne, the creator of “Blue Planet II,” has inked an overall deal with Netflix. Honeyborne is an internationally acclaimed producer of blue-chip natural history programming. He recently left U.K. pubcaster the BBC’s Natural History Unit to set up his own banner, Freeborne Media, with director Renee Godfrey. They have inked a multiyear deal to
KISS Guitarist Ace Frehley Goes Off on Gene Simmons … ‘You Groped My Wife’ 1/30/2019 8:05 AM PST Ace Frehley‘s firing back at Gene Simmons for telling him to kiss off — and dropping nasty allegations about Gene getting handsy and threatening to sue his ex-bandmate. The founding KISS guitarist blasted Simmons Tuesday, in response to
Storm clouds might be hovering on the Hollywood-China entertainment horizon, with Washington and Beijing stuck in their trade war and bilateral industry talks stalled. But there are strong reasons to believe that Hollywood is poised for a sunnier year at the Chinese box office in 2019 than it had in 2018. January has already brought the
The vast majority of conspiracy theories have one key thing in common: Investigate them, and they turn out not to be true. But that doesn’t mean all of them aren’t true. “Cold Case Hammerskjöld” is a slow-building documentary mystery that sucks you in like a vortex. It offers several intertwined conspiracy theories, at least one
Nent Group’s Nordic streaming service Viaplay has boarded “With One Eye Open,” partnering Twelve Town and Nice Drama on the Swedish drama series which brings a fresh look to Swedish and Russian ties. The eight-part series is based on Martin Österdahl’s “Ask No Mercy,” the first of three books in the Max Anger suspense trilogy.
GOTEBORG, Sweden — After “Borgen” and “Ride Upon the Storm,” DR Drama’s next ambitious show is a fictional-character driven drama set against a terror attack in a Copenhagen restaurant. Penned by “Dicte” co-creators Ida Maria Rydén and Dorte W. Høgh, the series explores the lives of eight characters before and after the attack, and how
January 29, 2019 9:47PM PT While Netflix is barred from entering mainland China as a video platform operator, the streaming giant is expanding its roster of Chinese-language original content. Production is now under way in Malaysia on “The Ghost Bride.” The six-part series is adapted from a novel of the same title created by Choo
January 29, 2019 9:09PM PT In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by the TV advertising attention analytics company iSpot.tv, Twentieth Century Fox claims the top spot in spending for the second week in a row with “Alita: Battle Angel.” Ads placed for the sci-fi thriller had an estimated media value
January 29, 2019 8:51PM PT An executive producer of “NCIS: New Orleans,” Adam Targum, is no longer with the series, Variety has confirmed. Targum is the subject of a report from Vulture, which indicated that his exit occurred after a complaint was received by HR. Targum had served as deputy to showrunner Christopher Silber and left the