Tech

A bright-red, child-size magical morphing creature is heading to Disney platforms. Disney Branded Television inked a deal with Moonbug Entertainment for 52 episodes of 7-minute CG series, “Morphle,” based on the YouTube short-form hit My Magic Pet Morphle. It’s the first partnership between Disney and Moonbug, whose properties include the CoComelon kids’ content juggernaut. The

The TV upfronts are usually a dog-and-pony show where networks unveil their new content slates. At YouTube’s Brandcast presentation for brands and agencies, held for the first time during upfronts week, the focus was on the gigantic video platform’s popular creators, its scale across internet TVs — and a new solution for marketers to set

Netflix has pink-slipped about 150 staffers, mostly in the U.S., as it works to rein in costs with its top-line growth having slowed down. The cuts come across departments and are driven by the need to reduce expenses rather than the performance of individual employees, according to the company. The layoffs represent roughly 2% of

Oscar, BAFTA and Grammy winning Indian composer A.R. Rahman (“Slumdog Millionaire”) has revealed his next directorial venture after “Le Musk,” his debut which premiered at the Cannes Film Market’s Cannes XR program. The project will be another film in the VR space, titled “Confessions.” “Now this [“Le Musk”] is finished and we’re happy about it,

Candle Media, the next-gen media roll-up play run by ex-Disney execs Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, today announced the acquisition of ATTN:, a media company that produced short-form news content for Gen Z and millennial audiences. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. According to a source familiar with the pact, Candle Media is paying about $100 million

As TikTok has become more ingrained in the fabric of today’s society, the line between the social media world and the entertainment industry is growing increasingly blurred. With millions of followers to their name, TikTok creators are now an undeniable force in Hollywood, making their presence known in film, television and music. In celebration of

In the latest twist in Elon Musk’s will-he-or-won’t-he Twitter buyout saga, the billionaire is demanding hard proof of the social network’s assertion that less than 5% of its users are fake accounts or spam bots — and he said the deal cannot “move forward” until Twitter does so. Without citing any evidence for his claim,

Netflix signed a multiyear services renewal with VFX and animation company DNEG, under which the streamer expects to spend at least $350 million with the company through 2025. The non-exclusive agreement covers the provision of visual effects and virtual production services by DNEG for Netflix series and movies through September 2025. The new deal extends

Once again, “Heartstopper” was the top show on Variety’s Trending TV chart for the week of May 9-15, extending its winning streak to four straight weeks. The Netflix series pulled in 256,000 engagements (down 57% week-over-week) as fans demanded a second season or finally caught up on the coming-of-age story, inspired by Alice Oseman’s webcomic

Japan’s Tokyo Broadcasting System network is partnering with Naver Webtoon, South Korea’s leading digital comics platform, and Tokyo-based manga production house Shine Partners to launch a new webtoon company.  Called Studio TooN and based in South Korea, the joint venture will plan and make webtoons with Japanese and Korean creators for the global market. One

After nearly six years at Snap, head of originals Vanessa Guthrie is leaving the company. Guthrie will depart Snap at the end of June 2022. At that point, Anjuli Millan, head of production for Snap Originals for the past three years, will step into the role as head of original content. “During her time with

Amazon Freevee, the new name of the ad-supported video service formerly called IMDb TV, announced today that the Freevee app is now available through Apple’s App Store on Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD. Freevee features originals from the Amazon Studios, including the recently crime drama “Bosch: Legacy” (a spinoff of “Bosch” on Prime

Paramount Global promoted Marco Nobili to EVP, international general manager of Paramount+, as the media company has set an aggressive global rollout schedule for its premium streaming service. Nobili previously was SVP of international marketing, data and analytics for Paramount Global’s streaming division. Also Monday, the company announced a new title for Olivier Jollet, who

Fremantle and Wattpadd Webtoon Studios, which is the entertainment arm of the user-generated fiction and comics entertainment outfits, have announced a new partnership that will see them co-develop a slate of European film and TV projects. These will be adapted from successful Spanish, Italian, and English language stories with built-in global fandoms on Wattpad and

As RuPaul’s DragCon celebrating the global franchise comes to a close after hosting a three-day weekend of events and taking over the Los Angeles Convention Center, VH1 and MTV Entertainment Studios has unveiled its new podcast “Squirrel Friends: The Official RuPaul’s Drag Race Podcast.” “Squirrel Friends” is set to launch on May 23 and will

YouTube earlier this year wound down most of its originals division, in a significant pullback on its investment in scripted and unscripted programming. But it’s not totally out of the game: YouTube is continuing to bulk up its slate of kids and family originals, as part of its previously announced $100 million fund earmarked for

Is Elon Musk getting cold feet over his $44 billion bid for Twitter — or is he just trying to drive the price tag down? Early Friday, the mega-billionaire tweeted that his deal for the social network was “temporarily on hold,” citing the need to conduct due diligence on Twitter’s claim that fake and spam

Johannes Larcher and Luis Duran, respectively HBO Max’s general managers of international and Latin America, are set to exit the streaming service as part of the ongoing shakeup at Warner Bros. Discovery, Variety has confirmed. The two top HBO Max execs are the latest layoffs to surface as a new leadership team is being put

Billionaire Elon Musk’s plans to buy social media platform Twitter are on hold for now, he said on Friday. “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk posted on Twitter. Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has made his first move into the podcast space with “Radioman,” a ten-part Audible Original crime drama. “Game of Thrones” actor Coster-Waldau co-created the series written by Joe Derick and produced by “The X-Files” vet Frank Spotnitz and Emily Feller. Set in a fictional Yorkshire town called Tanford, the story follows Chas, an

Netflix loves to tout its culture of avoiding rules and minimizing corporate red tape. But of course, the company does have operating guidelines, famously detailed in the Netflix Culture document posted on its website. Co-founder Reed Hastings even wrote a 2020 book elaborating on the principles, titled “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of

Kendrick Lamar’s video for his latest single, “The Heart Part 5,” is a stunning feat of deep fake technology, where the rapper’s face morphs seamlessly into those of Kobe Bryant, O.J. Simpson, Jussie Smollett, Kanye West, Nipsey Hussle and Will Smith. It’s certainly not without precedent: Created by Lamar and collaborator Dave Free with their

Two top Twitter execs — Kayvon Beykpour, head of the group that builds the social-media app’s core features, and revenue product lead Bruce Falck — said they were fired by CEO Parag Agrawal. Twitter is in the midst of a pending $44 billion takeover by mega-billionaire Elon Musk. Beykpour, in announcing his departure on Twitter,

The streaming joint venture between Comcast and Charter Communications — which is aiming to create a U.S.-wide aggregated streaming device platform — doesn’t have a name. But now it has a leader: The two cable operators announced Marcien Jenckes, who’s been with Comcast since 2010, will lead the JV. In the new role, Jenckes will

Spotify is making management changes to bolster the leadership of its podcast content operations following the departure of Courtney Holt, who served as head of studios and video. Max Cutler, who joined Spotify in 2019 with its acquisition of Parcast, the scripted podcast studio he co-founded, has been promoted to head of talk creator content

Amazon Music and Wondery, the indie podcast studio Amazon snapped up last year, have assembled a diverse lineup of series in development for 2022 and beyond. “This slate provides a lot of shows that are building on our past successes and driving into new areas,” Marshall Lewy, chief content officer for Wondery and Amazon Music.

Wattpad Webtoon Studios, the user-generated fiction entertainment outfit, and Italy’s Leone Film Group have announced a deal to co-develop a slate of films for the Italian and international marketplace based on original fiction stories from Wattpad. The pact is an expansion of their previously announced deal to make a film based on Blair Holden’s “The

YouTube has hatched a new way to spur content production for YouTube Shorts, its TikTok-like short form video feature: The video giant is launching Green Screen, which lets creators use clips from the billions of videos on YouTube as the background for their Shorts. With Green Screen, YouTube Shorts creators will be able to remix

Ready to listen to an off-the-cuff tale from Adam McKay as you drift off to dreamland? Of course you are. In the forthcoming podcast “Bedtime Stories With Adam McKay” from Sony Music Entertainment, the filmmaker, writer and comedian will deliver an “immersive and lulling auditory experience” — one that McKay will make up on the

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, heads will turn at a new May-December romance: TikTok, which is 6 years old, has hooked up with the venerable fest, now celebrating its 75th anniversary. How is it that Cannes — which, in years past, notoriously banned social-media posting from its famous red-carpeted steps — is now welcoming