The Roku Channel has announced that its two celebrity chef series, “Martha Cooks” and “Emeril Cooks,” have both scored second seasons. Hosted by Emeril Lagasse, “Emeril Cooks’” will return for a second season that premieres on Feb. 17, while Season 2 of “Martha Cooks,’” hosted by Martha Stewart, will premiere on April 3. Both series’
Television
Warner Bros. Discovery has decided to keep Discovery+ as a standalone streaming offering and to proceed with launching the yet-to-be-named combined product of Discovery+ and HBO Max, Variety has confirmed. According to a Wednesday report in the Wall Street Journal, “Instead of combining HBO Max and Discovery+ in their entirety, the new platform will feature
Oscar-winning director and producer Kevin Macdonald has struck a multi-project creative partnership with the Workerbee Group. Macdonald, whose credits include “One Day in September,” “Touching the Void” and “Marley,” is executive producing a major feature documentary for a streaming platform as the first element of his two-year Workerbee deal. Details are yet to be announced
LeBron James scored his 38,388th career point Tuesday evening, becoming the NBA’s all-time scoring leader. The 38-year-old James surpassed fellow Los Angeles Laker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had held the record since April 1984. James went into Tuesday evening’s match-up against the Oklahoma City Thunder with 36 points left to go before breaking Abdul-Jabbar’s record 38,387
WWE has announced its annual “SummerSlam” will take place at Detroit’s Ford Field on Aug. 5. The announcement marks the first return of “SummerSlam” to Michigan in 30 years and the first WWE event to take place at Ford Field since “WrestleMania” in 2007. “Landing WWE ‘SummerSlam’ at Ford Field is a signature win for
Former NBA star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf tells his story — both on and off the court — in the Showtime documentary “Stand,” with the guidance of director Joslyn Rose Lyons. The documentary examines how Abdul-Rauf’s standout playing career was derailed by controversy over his decision not to stand during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But
CBS wants to cut back on late-night talk and play up the games in the wee hours of the morning. CBS is expected to replace its long-running “Late Late Show” after a 28-year run with a reboot of the Comedy Central game show “@midnight,” according to a person familiar with the matter, in a maneuver
Daniel Dae Kim will star in and executive produce a series adaptation of the graphic novel “Butterfly” currently in development at Amazon, Variety has learned exclusively. The project is described as a character-driven spy thriller. Per the official logline, the series centers on “David Jung (Kim), an enigmatic, highly unpredictable former US intelligence operative living
The series adaptation of the novel “Three Women” is nearing a revival at Starz, Variety has confirmed with sources. The series was previously set up at Showtime but that network scrapped the show despite having shot the entire first season. According to an individual with knowledge of the situation, negotiations are currently underway. Starz declined
The Wellsbury peaches have cruised their way onto the Netflix Most Popular English TV chart. Heading into its fifth week on the Netflix Top 10 list, Season 2 of “Ginny & Georgia” was viewed an additional 38.09 million hours pushing the title’s overall tally to 504.77 million hours viewed. This places the series on the
Amazon is developing two new series set within the “Bosch” universe. Variety has learned that Amazon Studios is currently developing shows based on the Michael Connelly characters Jerry Edgar and Renee Ballard. Edgar was portrayed by Jamie Hector throughout the seven season run of “Bosch,” while Ballard has never been featured onscreen before. According to
Banijay Americas is undergoing a leadership transition as Cris Abrego hands the CEO reins to Ben Samek as he shifts focus to business development and acquisitions for the Banijay Group unit focused on production for North and South America. Abrego has served as chairman of Banijay Americas and president and CEO of the Endemol Shine
Classic British sitcom “Fawlty Towers” is being revived at Castle Rock Entertainment with original series writer and star John Cleese and his daughter Camilla Cleese set to write and star. Matthew George, Rob Reiner, Michele Reiner and Derrick Rossi are executive producing the series for Castle Rock Television, which is developing the project. “Fawlty Towers,” written
“Aladdin” star Mena Massoud has revealed the first slate of projects out of his company Press Play Productions, which aims to bridge the gap between Hollywood and the Middle East and North Africa. With offices in Dubai and Los Angeles, Press Play was founded by Massoud and producing partner Ali Mashayekhi, who heads content development
Red Crown Productions, the shingle behind films including “Honey Boy,” “Hello My Name is Doris” and “Beasts of No Nation,” is expanding into television — starting with a project based on the advent of the “if it bleeds, it leads” local TV news format. Red Crown has optioned the television rights to “Lights Camera Crime,”
Mediawan Kids & Family, the youth entertainment division of the European powerhouse, has acquired a majority stake in Wildseed Studios, the British production company behind “The Last Bus” and “Hungerford.” The deal marks the first international acquisition of Mediawan Kids & Family, a leading purveyor of animated series and features including “The Little Prince” and
FX and BBC series “Great Expectations,” “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ literary masterpiece, has set a premiere date on Hulu. The six-part limited series will premiere on March 26 exclusively on Hulu in the U.S. and feature the first two episodes on that date. FX made the date announcement on Feb.
Note: This article is an offshoot of Variety Intelligence Platform’s special report “The New Face of Content Piracy,” available exclusively to VIP+ subscribers. It’s easy to assume that what’s driving illegal consumption of film and TV is as simple as viewers wanting to watch popular titles without paying for them. Indeed, that was essentially the
The case for Sherri Shepherd as TV mom of the year is here. With her upcoming appearance in Season 2 of “Harlem,” she adds a new onscreen daughter under her wing — and they’ve got a matching look that screams family ties. As a fan of Tracy Oliver’s series on Amazon Prime, the talk show
The MTV Movie & TV Awards are back on one night. The ceremony, set to honor the best in both movies and television — scripted and unscripted — will return on Sunday, May 7, for a live show at the Barker Hangar in Los Angeles. The event will air on MTV internationally in more than
Bob Iger is gearing up to take the earnings stage on Feb. 8 for his first quarterly report and public Wall Street conference call since his surprise return to the Disney CEO post that he exited in February 2020. But running what is likely to be a less-than-stellar quarterly financial presentation for the company is
The Disney+ streaming service in Hong Kong has omitted a recent episode of “The Simpsons” long-running cartoon series that was critical of the mainland Chinese government. The episode “One Angry Lisa” (episode 2 of season 34) sees Lisa called up for jury duty and Marge become obsessed with her exercise bike. While on a virtual
BBC chair Richard Sharp has denied allegations that he helped “arrange” a loan for the then U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2020. Appearing before a parliamentary enquiry convened by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee on Tuesday, Sharp said: “I’ve never given the [former] Prime Minister advice. He’s never sought
CNN and PBS NewsHour each won two prizes in the 2023 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Awards, an annual recognition of some of the best work in the realm of audio and video journalism. Other winners among a group of 16 included CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” “This American Life” and the Louisiana TV station WBRZ. Sixteen honorees
Hulu has released the first trailer for the upcoming comedy series “History of the World, Part II.” The sketch comedy series will premiere March 6 with two episodes, followed by the release two episodes daily until the finale on March 9. It’s been 40 years since the release of Mel Brooks’ “History of the World,
From the Sicilian terraces of the Four Seasons to the asphalt tailgate parties of Phoenix, Emmy-winning writer Mike White is headed to the Super Bowl. The former “Survivor’ contestant and “Enlightened” creator has delivered HBO a ratings and pop culture sensation with his dramedy “The White Lotus” for two seasons now, and will lend his
Ben Stiller is nearing a deal to star in a limited series adaptation of the documentary “Three Identical Strangers,” Variety has learned. The series hails from writer Amy Lippman with Sony Pictures Television producing along with SK Global and TriStar Television. Like the documentary, the series would focus on the true story of Bobby Shafran,
The 65th annual Grammy Awards telecast brought in 12.4 million in total viewers on Sunday night according to Nielsen’s time zone-adjusted fast national ratings, making it the most viewed show of the night and the largest audience for the ceremony since 2020. That’s up 30% from last year’s show which drew in approximately 9.6 million
Episode 4 of “The Last of Us” set yet another series high. 7.5 million viewers tuned into Sunday night’s episode, up 17% from the 6.4 million that tuned into Episode 3. That the show’s audience is still growing at this point is an especially impressive feat, as Episode 4 aired on HBO and released on
Kevin Costner’s time with the hit Paramount series “Yellowstone” could be coming to an end. According to sources, Costner could potentially exit the series on which he has played John Dutton since it launched in 2018. The issue seems to be Costner’s shooting schedule, with Costner being available for fewer days as the show has