Tom Cruise helped Paramount Global’s operations do good business last year, but he wasn’t able to lend a similar boost in the second quarter of 2023. The New York owner of CBS, Nickelodeon and the Paramount movie studio posted a second-quarter loss after ad revenue at its various TV networks sunk 10% and the company
Television
Production veterans John Attard and David “Doc” Abbott have launched Showdog Studios, a content company based in Franklin, Tenn. The partners are self-financing the business and have established a development fund to create their own content. The pair are at work on an anthology series, “Revive: Portraits of Redemption,” with producer Tom Evans that they
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Selena Gomez, Steve Martin and Martin Short are ready to solve their biggest crime yet. “Only Murders in the Building” returns to Hulu on Tuesday, Aug. 8. Hulu $7.99/Month Buy Now Season 3 will
On Monday’s episode of the “Jeopardy!” podcast “Inside Jeopardy!,” showrunner Michael Davies clarified how the trivia series would proceed with its fall season amid the ongoing WGA strike and announced a sweetening of the pot for second and third-place winners. “I believe, principally, that it would not be fair to have new contestants making their
Paramount Global is near a deal to sell its Simon & Schuster publishing operations to investment giant KKR for as much as $1.62 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. Paramount Global, the owner of CBS, Paramount+ and Nickelodeon, is expected to report its second-quarter earnings Monday afternoon. Paramount Global declined to make
Noah Schnapp was stuck in his drafts. The 18-year-old actor, who’d become a household name on Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” kept putting off posting a video he’d shot on his phone — an announcement he’d been contemplating making for a few months. His closest friends kept texting him: When are you going to post it? I
“Avoidance,” featuring BAFTA-winning British comedian Romesh Ranganathan, will premiere on BritBox International in North America and South Africa in September. Created and written by Ranganathan and Benjamin Green (“Romantic Getaway”) and starring Ranganathan (BBC’s “The Ranganation,” Netflix special “The Cynic”), the series follows anti-hero Jonathan who is struggling to get back on his feet after
Bobby Flay wants to offer a tweak on a familiar journalism recipe. Each week, CNN’s Sunday series, “The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper,” takes viewers on a one-hour deep dive into a single story or topic, led by a different CNN journalist. On Sunday, August 13, the central correspondent will be Flay, the celebrity chef,
Dennis Miller has extended his contract as president of the CW Network through 2027. Miller joined the network as president in October 2022, following its acquisition by Nexstar Media Group from Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery. A month later, Brad Schwartz was brought on as president of entertainment at the network. Over the past
DISTRIBUTION Germany’s ZDF Studios has secured worldwide distribution rights for documentary series “Hitler’s Power” (3 x 50’), an exploration of how and why Hitler rose to power and the terrible events that followed. On Jan. 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. The series examines why the Nazi leader was confident of the
Disney+ Hotstar India’s Syria-set thriller series “The Freelancer” is in the works. Based on the bestselling 2017 book “A Ticket to Syria” by Shirish Thorat, the series is from showrunner Neeraj Pandey (Disney+ Hotstar’s Special Ops franchise), produced by Friday Storytellers and directed by Bhav Dhulia (Netflix’s “Khakee: The Bihar Chapter”). Pandey said: “’The Freelancer’
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 2 premiere of “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” now streaming on Max. The Los Angeles Lakers are on top of the world at the start of “Winning Time” Season 2. It doesn’t take long before they find themselves back on their asses. After
Lisa Cloud, the mother of Angus Cloud, shared a statement on the actor’s passing on social media Friday evening, recalling how he was spending his time before his sudden death on Monday at the age of 25. Writing on Facebook, Lisa Cloud also acknowledged Angus’ grief following the recent death of his father, Conor Hickey.
WWE is once again making changes to its on-air commentary teams, Variety has learned exclusively. Beginning Aug. 7, Michael Cole and Wade Barrett will serve as the commentators for “Monday Night Raw” on USA Network. This marks a return to “Raw” for Cole, who first appeared on the show in 1997 and has served as
Albert Alarr is out as executive producer of NBC’s long-running soap opera “Days of Our Lives” after a 20-year tenure as a director and producer for the show. His exit follows a misconduct investigation by “Days” producer Sony Pictures Television. Janet Drucker, a veteran producer who has been with “Days” since 1984, has taken on
Everyone seems to have a personal story about Paul Reubens, aka Pee-wee Herman. And those stories seem always to revolve around birthdays. I didn’t know Reubens, but apparently half of the people on my Facebook timeline did, because they’re all sharing memories about the lengths Reubens would go to every year to celebrate their big
HBO’s “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” is back for Season 2, and it’s still electric and a damn good time. The first season, mostly spanning the 1979-1980 NBA calendar, unpacked the origins of Los Angeles Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss (a crass but delightful John C. Reilly) and exhaustively detailed the origins
In “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart,” the namesake plants have multiple meanings. After a fire takes the lives of both of her parents in coastal Australia, nine-year-old Alice (Alyla Browne) moves to Thornfield, a secluded wildflower farm run by her estranged grandmother June (Sigourney Weaver). But Thornfield is more than just a source a
The Edinburgh TV Festival has revealed the 90 successful candidates that have been selected for its talent schemes — Ones to Watch, TV PhD and The Network. The schemes are part of The TV Foundation, the festival’s charity with a mission to identify and nurture the next generation of talent from all backgrounds. Ones to Watch is
AMC Networks reported its second-quarter 2023 earnings Friday, revealing it had lost 500,000 more subscribers across its portfolio of niche streamers and was down 17% in U.S. ad sales for the April 1-June 30 period. AMC Networks lost 300,000 subscribers across its streaming services in Q1, falling from 11.8 million at the end of 2022 to 11.5 million
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the season finale of “Hijack,” which dropped on Aug. 4 on Apple TV+. “Will Kingdom Airlines Flight 29 land safely?” is the question that “Hijack” fans have been asking since the moment arch negotiator Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) first spotted a suspicious-looking toiletry bag being passed from one
SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers from “A Hundred Years Ago,” the eighth episode of Season 2 of “And Just Like That,” now streaming on Max. I was as skeptical as anyone when it became clear that Aidan was returning to “And Just Like That.” The “Sex and the City” character, Carrie’s other great love and one
While delivering remarks Thursday at the groundbreaking ceremony of Project Angel Food’s The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation Campus in Los Angeles, Chuck Lorre revealed he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when he was just 22. “When I was a young man, I was really really very ill. I was severely ill with ulcerative colitis. I
It’s a “Suits” week yet again. The legal drama that ran on USA Network from 2011 to 2019 had its third week in a row in the No. 1 spot on Nielsen’s weekly streaming rankings. With a 3.7 billion minutes watched from July 3 to July 9, a 17% increase from last week’s 3.1 billion,
Leslie David Baker, who starred as Stanley Hudson on all nine seasons of NBC’s popular sitcom “The Office,” announced on social media that he is returning all of the donations fans sent it via Kickstarter for his proposed Stanley spinoff. The exact donation total being returned is $110,629.81, Baker said. Back in 2020, Baker went
Blake Griffin and Ryan Kalil’s film and TV production company, Mortal Media, has led an investment round for animation studio Swaybox Studios, Variety has learned exclusively. As part of the investment, Mortal Media will join Swaybox’s advisory board, while Griffin and Kalil have also put an untitled live-action/animation hybrid project into development with the studio.
“This is not ‘Big Brother!’” That’s the message that comes across loud and clear in the exclusive trailer for Season 2 of “The Challenge: USA.” For the first time, vets from MTV’s “The Challenge” will play on CBS; Season 1 only featured alums from “Survivor,” “Big Brother,” “The Amazing Race” and “Love Island.” “The most
When Chris Eyre’s “Smoke Signals” won the audience prize in Sundance 25 years ago, the director thought the kudos would soon lead to a landslide of opportunities for Native talent. Amid a flourishing independent film scene, the road trip dramedy won acclaim and awards as the first feature written, directed and produced by Native filmmakers.
One week before the originally scheduled Aug. 10 return of “Rap Sh!t,” Max has delayed the comedy series’ second season to Nov. 9. Season 2 will debut with two episodes followed by weekly drops until the Dec. 21 finale. The move comes as a result of the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. As the labor
Warner Bros. Discovery appears to have bigger digital plans for Charles Barkley and Anderson Cooper. Warner Bros. Discovery plans to introduce a more robust offering of sports and news content to its Max streaming service in the near future, executives said during a conference call Thursday with Wall Street analysts, an effort they no doubt