Chris Harbert is calling it a wrap on his talent agency career. The veteran TV packaging agent, who was part of the team that launched UTA in 1991 and has spent the past 20 years at CAA, will retire from the agency business at the end of this month. Harbert indicated that he’s looking for
Television
Penn Badgley ignited a fiery social media debate in February when he revealed that he now refuses to act in sex scenes. “That aspect of Hollywood has always been very disturbing to me — and that aspect of the job, that mercurial boundary — has always been something that I actually don’t want to play
Judy Greer has joined ABC’s “Drop-Off” (working title) as a series regular, Variety has learned. She’ll play Amanda, the hyper-confident, uber-organized, mom who seemingly has it all together and runs the inner circle at Julia’s kids’ school. She’s an expert at the art of a compliment that’s actually an insult. Amanda, who usually arranges babysitting
Garrett Hedlund has been cast in a recurring guest role in Taylor Sheridan’s forthcoming “Bass Reeves” series set at Paramount+, Variety has learned exclusively. He’ll portray Garrett Montgomery, a so-called posse man of the era who Bass hires for his riding know-how and expertise of the area. He joins previously announced stars including lead and
With the third season of Apple TV+’s Emmy-winning comedy “Ted Lasso” premiering on March 15, Variety spoke with series stars Jason Sudeikis, Brett Goldstein, Juno Temple, Brendan Hunt, Nick Mohammed and Toheeb Jimoh. The interviews offered insights about what comes next for the “Ted Lasso” characters, as well as the rationale behind creative decisions made
On the heels of Oscar night, I applaud the broad Asian representation among the winners and am particularly in awe of Michelle Yeoh, who made history as the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress. While this is welcome progress, we are all aware that many extraordinary filmmakers, cinematographers and craftspeople
Fox is hungry for a different kind of advertising dollar. The Fox Corp.-owned broadcast network has thrived for years on outlays from movie studios and fast-food chains, but in 2023, it’s looking to expand its relationship with something that might be more hearty. Armed with its recent launch of the Studio Ramsay Global with celebrity
Dracmorda and Swanthula Boulet have announced their upcoming Halloween-inspired variety show, “Halfway to Halloween,” for fans who can’t wait until October 31 to celebrate the spooky. The Boulet Brothers will host and produce the upcoming scripted variety show, which is set to air on AMC+, and the AMC horror streaming platform, Shudder, on April 25.
Aardman Animations’ founder Peter Lord and “Waltz With Bashir” director Ari Folman are set to receive Pulcinella Career Awards at Italy’s Cartoons On The Bay TV animation festival which is broadening its scope. The event launched in 1996 by Italian state broadcaster RAI has now expanded beyond TV toons to comprise video game productions, the comic
Pablo Torre is about to become a creature of two worlds. The veteran ESPN writer and on-air personality is leaving the Disney sports-media giant — and he’s staying, too. Torre is joining Meadowlark Media, the content company founded by former ESPN chief John Skipper and the sports commentator Dan Le Batard. And yet, Torre is
Chinese TV producer Linmon Media struck a decidedly international tone during the presentation of its 2023-24 slate at FilMart, with presenters speaking about their Chinese-language projects in only English and Korean, and handing out sleek project literature in multiple languages. Apart from a slate of romance, medical and crime dramas targeted at domestic audiences, the
Vivendi has entered into exclusive negotiations to sell 100% of its publishing house Editis to a subsidiary of Czech Media Invest (CMI) founded by Daniel Kretinsky. Following its latest board meeting on March 8, Vivendi said it has received several bids for the sale of Editis and has chosen the offer brought by International Media
Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, behind “Compartment No. 6” and “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki”– both awarded in Cannes – will now turn his attention to new series “Yours, Margot.” The upcoming series is one of the 10 projects chosen for Series Mania and Beta Group’s Seriesmakers. Based on Meri Valkama’s novel,
Half of the jokes in “Problemista” fell on deaf ears at the film’s SXSW world premiere, but not because the audience didn’t want to hear them. Rather, the Austin crowd covered up several lines of dialogue with howling laughter seemingly every other time writer-director-star Julio Torres opened his mouth as Alejandro, an aspiring toy designer
Singapore-based media and entertainment company mm2 Asia and Taiwan’s Man Man Er are starting development on series ”Tales of Mystery” (working title), a series borne from the strategic partnership of the pair with Taiwanese intellectual property company Million Star (Huaxing) Entertainment, which was revealed in December 2022. The series was announced at Hong Kong’s ongoing
As he was lifted into the Dolby Theater rafters five minutes before the Oscars were set to begin, Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue still wasn’t locked. It couldn’t be: Several of his gags would involve pop superstar Rihanna — but it all depended on whether she’d be in her seat. “We had two versions of the monologue,”
SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from Monday’s episode of Fox’s “9-1-1,” entitled “In Another Life.” Well, “9-1-1” fans, you can stop holding your breath, because Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark) came back to life following his literal shocking “death” from a lightening bolt strike during the March 6 episode. But before he returned to us,
Seven years ago, pioneering film and TV producer Debra Martin Chase was thinking about leaving Hollywood. The first Black woman to ink an overall deal at any studio, she’d produced such genre-defining hits as “The Princess Diaries,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” and “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.” While getting projects about women and people
Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service has acquired Makbul Mubarak’s award-winning debut feature, “Autobiography,” for the Southeast Asian region. The film, which is being sold by Alpha Violet, follows young Rakib (Kevin Ardilova), whose father is in prison and whose brother works abroad. He works as the housekeeper in a mansion in a rural Indonesian town
The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers exchanged proposals on Monday, as they prepare for face-to-face bargaining next week. Last week, the guild membership voted 98.4% in favor of the “pattern of demands,” a high-level summary of the guild’s top issues for a new basic agreement. The items
Africa is turning out to be an unlikely market for Chinese television producers, according to one production executive. Hou Hong Liang, chairman of Chinese television production company Daylight Entertainment revealed his amazement at meeting African fans of Chinese television stars in a recent trip to the continent, even as he bemoaned the lower profitability of
Tilda Swinton is over the pandemic, and she doesn’t care who knows it. She opened her keynote appearance at South by Southwest by sharing her pleasure that the pandemic had gotten to a point where audience members at the event didn’t have to wear masks anymore. Later in the conversation, Swinton said, “I’m about to
SPOILER ALERT: This contains spoilers from the Season 1 finale of “The Last of Us,” now streaming on HBO Max. Sunday’s season finale of “The Last of Us” tackled two of the video games most famous scenes: the giraffe moment and the final hospital shootout. Joel (Pedro Pascal) shoots his way through the Salt Lake City hospital as
“The Last of Us” closed its first season with yet another triumph. With an audience of 8.2 million people for Episode 9, the series broke its own viewership record — a significant feat, considering that the finale was released during ABC’s telecast of the Oscars. A combination of Nielsen numbers and first-party data from Warner
Sean “Diddy” Combs is entering the race to buy BET, joining fellow media moguls Tyler Perry and Byron Allen as they vie to purchase a majority stake of BET Media Group amid reports that owner Paramount Global is exploring a sale of the asset, Variety has confirmed. Run by CEO Scott Mills, BET Media Group
Oscar Isaac is in discussions to lead “Helltown,” sources say. The series is currently in development at Amazon. According to the logline, the hour-long, 8-episode crime thriller follows the life of Kurt Vonnegut before he became known to the world as a renowned author. Per Amazon, “In 1969 Kurt was a struggling novelist and car
The blockbuster French cast of Amazon Prime Video’s third season of “LOL: Qui rit, qui sort” speaks volumes about the Japanese variety format’s tremendous popularity in France. The Amazon Original series, adapted from the format “LOL: Last One Laughing,” scored its biggest launch to date on Prime Video in France since bowing on March 10.
Canada-set mystery series “Three Pines” has been by canceled by Prime Video after just one season. The streamer confirmed to Variety that it has opted not to bring the Alfred Molina-starring show back for another run following an eight-episode first season that wrapped on Dec. 23. “We are proud of the work done on the
Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon Prime Video have set the launch date and pricing for their ‘Warner Pass’ offer in France to March 16. Priced at €9.99 per month, the offer will be available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video Channels in France, and will boast all of HBO programs, along with 12 channels, including Warner TV, Eurosport, Discovery
When NBC News announced in January that Hallie Jackson, its senior Washington correspondent, would leave the anchoring duties she had held at MSNBC since 2016, some eyebrows rose. But NBC News was chasing something else on the rise: Digital audiences. Since Jackson began anchoring a late-afternoon hour on NBC News Now in December 2021, a