Television

The Television Academy announced that it will honor actor, director and activist Sean Penn with the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award. Additionally, six television figures will be inducted into the Academy’s 26th Hall of Fame: Ken Burns, Debbie Allen, Bob Daly, Robert L. Johnson, Rita Moreno and Donald A. Morgan, A.S.C. The Hall of Fame event

Peacock announced season two of the original baking competition series, “Baking It,” hosted and executive produced by Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler. The second season premieres on the streamer on Monday, December 12. The second season of the series marks the first time the Emmy-winners have hosted a show together. Poehler replaces fellow “Saturday Night

Marc Resteghini, the head of series development at Amazon Studios, is exiting the company amid management restructuring, Variety has confirmed with sources. Resteghini is said to be currently negotiating at producing deal with Amazon that will keep him in the company fold and allow him to develop new projects their in the future. Sources say

UPDATED: “The Batman” spinoff series about Arkham Asylum at HBO Max has brought on Antonio Campos as its new writer, Variety has learned exclusively from sources. Sources also say that Campos will direct and serve as showrunner/executive producer on the series, should his version of the show ultimately go forward. Although Matt Reeves had previously

Ryan Murphy continues to lead the competition for the fifth week in a row. After toppling “Monster,” the Evan Peters-led limited series on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, to the No. 2 spot, Murphy’s “The Watcher” sits at No.1 on the Netflix top 10 chart for the second consecutive week. During the Oct. 17-23 viewing window,

Jesse Williams has been cast in Season 3 of “Only Murders in the Building.” Williams will recur as a documentarian with a particular interest in the case that Mabel (Selena Gomez), Charles (Steve Martin) and Oliver (Martin Short) are working on. The series follows three unlikely friends who live in the same building in New

The second accuser in the Danny Masterson rape trial broke down on the stand Tuesday when describing retaliation she has faced from the Church of Scientology. The woman, a former girlfriend of Masterson’s who has been identified in court as Christina B., appeared to have a panic attack as she discussed the consequences of being

Trevor Noah’s successor may be someone “Daily Show” viewers haven’t seen on the program in some time — if ever. Comedy Central, which has already indicated it is considering the show’s current group of faux “correspondents” and contributors as potential candidates to succeed current host Trevor Noah, is also mulling contenders from outside their ranks,

FX has greenlit “Never Let Me Go,” a drama series inspired by Kazuo Ishiguro’s science fiction novel of the same name. This is the second screen adaptation of the book, as a movie starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield came out in 2010. The thriller series will follow Thora (Viola Prettejohn), a rebellious

Christmas — and Kevin Bacon — is coming for Marvel fans. Star-Lord, Groot, Rocket Raccoon, Drax, Mantis and Nebula are bringing the holiday cheer to Disney+, with Marvel Studios revealing a first look at “The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special,” set for release on Nov. 25. In the trailer, Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord isn’t feeling

Welcome to Vault 33! Amazon’s upcoming “Fallout” TV series, adapted from the popular, post-apocalyptic video game series, has gotten its first look, and it appears to take place, at least partly, in the underground bunker called Vault 33. Released by Amazon on Tuesday, which also marked the 25th anniversary of the “Fallout” video game franchise,

The upcoming episode of “Call Me Kat” will include a title card paying tribute to Leslie Jordan after his death at age 67 in a car accident on Monday. Titled “Call Me Uncle Dad,” Season 3 Episode 5 will air on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. Since the debut of “Call Me Kat in 2021,” Jordan

Swedish thriller series “Hostage,” which is being distributed by Global Screen, centers on the hijacking of a passenger aircraft, and the arrest of a Syrian academic by Swedish intelligence agency SAPO. Variety spoke to the show’s director Karen Fahlén, and Jonas Karlsson, who stars alongside Liv Mjönes and Adam Lundgren. The six-part series is a

Actress Bryce Dallas Howard took to Twitter to share a first look at her character in the upcoming animated Disney+ series “Tales of the Jedi,” which is an anthology show based within the “Star Wars franchise.” The “Jurassic World” actress will be playing Yaddle, a female version of the species that the iconic Yoda character

Matthew Perry reveals in his upcoming memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” that he had to pull out of Adam McKay’s star-studded Netflix comedy “Don’t Look Up” after a medical scare in which his heart stopped for five minutes (via Rolling Stone). The actor was at a rehab center in Switzerland at the

Despite the impact of the pandemic, Japan’s anime industry would seem to be in a state of rude health, according to figures in the Anime Industry Report 2022, an annual survey that has been conducted every year since 2009.   At a TIFFCOM seminar on Tuesday, Anime Industry Report chief editor Masuda Hiromichi and TIFF Japanese

Long-time Fremantle executive Rob Clark, who has been virtually synonymous with the company’s success in the global formats business, is retiring after almost 20 years. The director of Global Entertainment — an animated character well known to many in the international industry — will officially depart in February 2023. Fremantle has confirmed that there will

Some seven months after “Top Gun: Maverick” hit theaters in the U.K. and Ireland it’s finally heading to Paramount+. It will be available to the streaming platform’s U.K. and Ireland subscribers from Dec. 22, no doubt providing an early Christmas present for Tom Cruise fans. The sequel to the 1986 hit sees Cruise training a

James Corden took some time at the start of Monday’s episode of “The Late Late Show” to acknowledge a recent controversy involving his now-reversed ban from New York restaurant Balthazar, offering an apology for “the rude comment” he directed toward to the business’s waitstaff. Corden said he made the comment “in the heat of the

A former girlfriend of actor Danny Masterson testified Monday that she awoke one night in November 2001 to find that he was raping her. The woman — who is identified in court as Christina B. — told jurors that she yelled at him and tried to shove him away. But he just pressed down harder,

Sunu Gonera, co-creator and executive producer of AMC’s upcoming drama series “Parish,” has been removed from the project following an internal investigation into “very serious allegations” against him. “We recently became aware of some very serious allegations against an individual working on this production, who was immediately suspended and then terminated at the conclusion of

Netflix has canceled adult animated comedy “Bad Crimes” mid-production, and the project is now being shopped around to other platforms. “Bad Crimes” was being produced by comedy veterans Greg Daniels and Mike Judge (“King of the Hill”) with Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus set to voice the lead roles. The series is described as a

SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from the Oct. 23 Season 1 finale of “House of the Dragon,” now streaming on HBO Max. Unlike most “House of the Dragon” viewers on Sunday night, Olivia Cooke, who plays Alicent Hightower, wasn’t watching the finale — because she wasn’t in it. Instead, she and co-star Emma D’Arcy, who

Warner Bros. Discovery, trying to get its balance sheet in order, said it will incur between $3.2 billion and $4.3 billion in pre-tax restructuring charges related to Discovery’s acquisition of WarnerMedia. The media company disclosed expected ranges for the charges in an SEC filing Monday. For the third quarter of 2022, WBD estimates it will

Production on Season 3 of “Call Me Kat” will pause production following the death of Leslie Jordan, Variety has learned. The actor died on Monday in a car accident age 67. Season 3 is currently airing on Fox, having premiered on Sept. 29. Since the comedy series debuted in 2021, Jordan has held the series

“The Great British Baking Show” (aka “The Great British Bake-Off”) knew what kind of reaction doing a “Mexican Week” might provoke. The new season’s fourth — and sure enough, immediately controversial — episode opened with hosts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas standing in a bucolic English garden, sporting matching ponchos, sombreros, and excitable grins. “I’m

“House of the Dragon” brought in 9.3 million viewers after airing its Season 1 finale on Sunday, according to Warner Bros. Discovery. This includes both linear viewers who caught the episode during its four airings on HBO’s cable channel and HBO Max streams through the night. That makes Episode 10, titled “The Black Queen,” HBO’s

Prosecutors in the Danny Masterson trial called a witness to the stand on Monday to back up a woman’s claim that the actor raped her. But once on the stand, the witness, Shaun Fabos, offered a detail that was helpful to the defense. Fabos testified that he never saw bruises on the woman during a

Leslie Jordan was one of the most beloved comic actors of his generation, which was more than evident after news of his death at age 67 came on Monday. His many celebrity co-stars, friends and admirers and mourned on social media, posting notes about his kindness and humor. One of Jordan’s best-known credits was playing

Leslie Jordan, an Emmy-winning actor, writer and singer best known for his roles in “Will & Grace,” “American Horror Story” and “Hearts Afire,” has died. He was 67. Jordan was driving in Hollywood Monday morning and crashed into the side of a building at Cahuenga Blvd. and Romaine St. It was suspected he suffered some