Pulse Films has further pumped up its scripted team with the hiring of Jamie Hall as its executive vice president of scripted production and commercial affairs. Hall is the former COO of Frank Spotnitz’s Big Light Productions, where he oversaw strategic partnerships and financing for entertainment projects. Hall’s appointment follows the recent hiring of Dimistra
Television
October 11, 2018 11:55AM PT Joanna Coles, the veteran magazine editor and former chief content officer of Hearst Magazines, is coming aboard “CBS This Morning” as a creative adviser. CBS News President David Rhodes announced the news to staffers Thursday. Coles’ role will be part time. “Initially, Joanna will be engaged with the CBS This
Lena Dunham and her producing partner Jenni Konner may have split in July for their own individual production deals at HBO, but Konner insists there are no hard feelings between her and her fellow “Girls” co-creator. “We’re both so happy about it,” Konner told Variety at the Wednesday night premiere of HBO’s “Camping,” the duo’s last
October 11, 2018 11:21AM PT The long-awaited third season of HBO’s “True Detective” finally has a premiere date. The new season will debut on the premium cabler on Jan. 13 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, with the season consisting of eight episodes. The new season tells the story of a macabre crime in the heart of the
Cody Fern broke hearts and broke out with his performance as David Madson in “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.” But now he has re-teamed with Ryan Murphy for “American Horror Story: Apocalypse,” in which he plays the demonic Michael Langdon, who can snap the necks and stop the hearts of those in
Emma Roberts will star in an ice skating drama series that has been ordered at Netflix, Variety has learned. The series, “Spinning Out,” stars Roberts as Kat Baker, an up-and-coming, high-level single skater who’s about to turn in her skates after a disastrous fall took her off the competition track. When Kat seizes an opportunity to continue
October 11, 2018 9:10AM PT Dana McClintock, a longtime CBS communications executive, was named the company’s executive vice president and chief communications officer, giving the company an experienced hand in a new role as it works its way through high scrutiny after recent disclosures about its former CEO, Leslie Moonves. McClintock succeeds Gil Schwartz, who
October 11, 2018 9:05AM PT Channel 4 international drama chief Simon Maxwell is leaving the U.K. broadcaster to set up a new scripted TV shingle backed by Endeavor Content. The new firm does not yet have a name, but there’s no immediate rush as Maxwell will not leave Channel 4 until the end of the
The CW and #SeeHer are joining forces, Variety has learned exclusively. Their partnership will include co-sponsoring the network’s fall launch event, as well as presenting the third annual #SeeHer Award at the Critics’ Choice Awards in January 2019. The CW’s fall launch event is entitled “Powerful Programming, Powerful Women” and will be held Oct. 14 in
Keshet International, the global distribution arm of Israeli content powerhouse Keshet, has announced that it will launch international sales at Mipcom of “Autonomies,” a dystopian Israeli drama set in an alternate-reality Jewish state. The show, which premiered to critical acclaim on HOT cable in Israel in early September, centers on a new kind of two-state
Yellow Bird Sweden, the Banijay-owned Scandinavian production company behind “Headhunters” and “Occupied,” is joining forces with its sister company Bunim/Murray Productions to launch Yellow Bird U.S. A close joined venture between the two Banijay-owned banners, Yellow Bird U.S. will be headed by Marianne Gray, a producer at Yellow Bird Sweden who played a key role
It’s not only pay TV operators in Latin America that are launching and cultivating OTT services. Globo, the biggest broadcast network in Latin America, has just bowed one of its banner new Mipcom titles, “Harassment,” on Globoplay, its digital platform. A series in the social-issue line of “Jailers” and “Under Pressure,” it is not digital
British actor Dominic West (“The Affair,” “Les Miserables”) is set to receive Canneseries’s inaugural Excellence Award during Mipcom, the international TV showcase which kicks off Oct. 15. West will be celebrated at Mipcom for his “outstanding contribution in TV series,” said Reed Midem, which organizes Mipcom, MipTV and Canneseries, in a statement. Although Canneseries will
MADRID — Marta Hazas, who has leapt to fame as the absolute lead of “Velvet Collection” – Movistar + first original series which it sold to Netflix – will now star opposite series creator Javier Veiga in “Pequeñas Coincidencias,” a more unusual romantic comedy which marks several new milestones in Spain’s fast evolving high-end production
Global drama producer Fremantle is teaming with Fabula, headed by director Pablo Larrain (“Jackie”) and producer Juan de Dios Larraín (“Gloria Bell”), to produce “La Jauría” (The Pack), a brand new Spanish-Language drama series starring Daniela Vega, the lead in Fabula’s Academy Award-winning “A Fantastic Woman.” A psychological gender crime thriller set against and energized
October 11, 2018 1:00AM PT Sony Pictures Television has landed the international rights to “Into the Dark,” the anthology series that has just launched on Hulu in the U.S. The series hails from the TV arm of “The Purge” studio Blumhouse. It comprises 12 feature-length episodes that are running monthly on Hulu. Each installment comes
MADRID — Erik Barmack, Netflix vice president, international originals, sits on a sofa in an elegant, but discreet, uptown Madrid hotel. He looks rather tired, which he should do. The night before saw the premiere of “Elite,” Netflix’s newest Spanish original series, a murder thriller set at a posh co-ed high school plumbing the depths
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Boy Wonder,” the fifth episode of “American Horror Story: Apocalypse.” Another “Coven” witch was resurrected, and the “White Witch” aka Stevie Nicks appeared in the fifth episode of “American Horror Story: Apocalypse” — and it was all because Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) allowed Michael Langdon (Cody
October 10, 2018 4:30PM PT NBC is developing a series based on a character from the popular novel “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” Variety has learned. Titled “The Last American Vampire,” the potential series is described as a supernatural thriller that follows Abby, a young analyst, as she’s recruited into a special division of the FBI that investigates
CBS is developing a drama series based on the DC Comics property “Secret Six,” Variety has learned. The project, which has received a pilot production commitment at the network, follows six morally ambiguous strangers, each with their own unique specialties and secret pasts. They are brought together by an enigmatic figure who blackmails them into working
In Today’s TV News Roundup, Netflix has cast Freya Allen and Anya Chalotra in its upcoming adaptation of “The Witcher,” and “SNL” has teased the upcoming hosting appearance of series alum Seth Meyers. DATES Season two of the Amazon Prime series “Patriot” is set to premiere Nov. 9, starring Michael Dorman (“Wonderland”), and written and directed
October 10, 2018 3:45PM PT Comedian Chris Spencer is developing a multi-camera comedy at Fox that boasts LeBron James among its executive producers, Variety has learned. The series is currently titled “I Just Do” and is inspired by Spencer’s comedy. It’s about an African-American family therapist and his loving and expressive Latina wife living beyond their means
October 10, 2018 3:01PM PT Amazon Studios is close to a deal with actor Blake Lively for a new scripted series. Jennifer Salke, head of the e-commerce giant’s entertainment division, teased the project Wednesday and the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit. Speaking with Vanity Fair‘s Krista Smith, Salke said that she has been recently meeting
After six seasons of saving Star City on the CW’s “Arrow,” Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) finds himself in a new place when Season 7 kicks off: in prison, with his double-life as the Green Arrow exposed. The series also went through a transition off-screen, as long-time showrunners Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle stepped down. (Guggenheim
Fox will be logistically ready for its pending mega-deal with the Walt Disney Co. to close Jan. 1, top exec Peter Rice told employees Wednesday. According to sources present at a town hall meeting on the Fox lot in Los Angeles, Rice reiterated that the deal is still on track to close sometime in the
Model Karlie Kloss and designer Christian Siriano will take over as host and mentor, respectively, of reality franchise “Project Runway.” Kloss will also serve as executive producer on the series, which is set to return to Bravo next year for a new season. “As someone who grew up watching ‘Project Runway,’ I could not be
October 10, 2018 11:49AM PT There’s another change at the top of the new CBS series “FBI.” The freshman drama, which is executive produced by Dick Wolf, is changing showrunners for the second time. Greg Plageman is stepping down and Rick Eid and Derek Haas are stepping in to split showrunning duties on the show.
Showtime has renewed the Jim Carrey comedy “Kidding” for a second season. Carrey, in his first series regular role in 20 years, plays Jeff, aka Mr. Pickles, an icon of children’s television and a beacon of kindness and wisdom to America’s impressionable young minds and the parents who grew up with him. But when this beloved
October 10, 2018 11:00AM PT Michael Kenneth Williams has joined the cast of HBO’s “Lovecraft Country.” Based on the 2016 novel from Matt Ruff, the series follows Atticus Freeman as he joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of
The rise of the streamers is being felt on the business side of TV, in the markets where buyers and sellers congregate to trade programming. MipTV in April and Mipcom in October have traditionally been about distributing content territory-by-territory, but the world of TV, and its rights, has changed. That is increasingly evident in Cannes,