A live studio audience will once again fill the seats on set of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” Starting with the Oct. 28 show, 40 fans will be seated in the talk show’s audience section alongside 70 virtual attendees. The return to live audiences may be happening just in time for the show’s Halloween week, but
Television
Legendary Entertainment has closed a deal to develop Tencent Comics’ popular webcomic “I’m a Killer Maid” into a TV series for the international market, marking a rare example of Chinese IP being developed for an audience outside China. The comic is one of the Chinese platform’s more popular titles, with a total of 1.66 billion
Jon Stewart is returning to the world of news with a current affairs series at Apple, Variety has confirmed. The show is part of a multi-year first-look deal the former “Daily Show” host has signed with the streamer via his production company, Busboy Productions. Apple has ordered multiple seasons of the new show right out
As a director, Marielle Heller has been on a tear, with her first three theatrical releases — “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” (2019), “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” (2018) and “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” (2015) — garnering praise from critics, appreciation from audiences and Oscar nominations for Tom Hanks, Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant.
COVID-19 has forced CBS to take an axe to virtually all its scripted shows. The network has cut down series orders for more than half a dozen shows from the usual 22 episodes to between 16 and 18, Variety has confirmed. Sources say that showrunners were told the number of episodes in their new season was in
Allison Tolman and Nick Frost have been cast in Season 2 of “Why Women Kill” at CBS All Access. The second season of the dark comedy anthology series is set in 1949. It will explore what it means to be beautiful, the hidden truth behind the facades people present to the world, the effects of
“Dancing With the Stars” and “The Voice” topped the Monday ratings race and led their networks to a tie in the overall leaderboard. The ABC dancing show scored a 1.0 rating among adults aged 18-49 and drew 6.1 million total viewers, a solid 20% jump from last week’s episode in the former metric. Right after
A TV series based on the cult horror films “Ginger Snaps” is in the works from the producers behind AMC’s hit series “Killing Eve.” The trilogy of “Ginger Snaps” movies, released in the early 2000s, follows a pair of teenage sisters obsessed with death and the occult. The darkly comedic horror films starred Emily Perkins
JoAnn Alfano is set to lead current programming for the both Universal Television and Universal Content Productions. The announcement was made Tuesday by Pearlena Igbokwe, chairperson of Universal Studio Group, in a letter to staff obtained by Variety. In addition, Alfano will add the International Formats Group to her purview, with the group being folded
After announcing a multi-year partnership around four months ago, CBS Studios and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) have tapped former Will Packer Media exec Sheila Ducksworth to lead their combined venture. Ducksworth has been appointed president of the new CBS/NAACP production partnership, assuming the role on Nov. 9. In this
#MeToo. #TimesUp. Now #NotDone? A new documentary from first-time director Sara Wolitzky, titled “Not Done: Women Remaking America,” looks back on the last few years of advancements in the women’s movement. Premiering on Oct. 27 on PBS, just days ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the project feels both perfectly timed and also like it
AMC Networks-backed streamer Acorn TV has snapped up North American rights to Mira Nair’s acclaimed period drama “A Suitable Boy.” The eagerly anticipated deal, which was brokered with producer Lookout Point (“War And Peace,” “Les Misérables”) and distributor BBC Studios, will see Acorn TV premiere the series to audiences in the U.S. and Canada on
Josh O’Connor, who plays Prince Charles in season 4 of Netflix’s “The Crown,” and BAFTA winner Jessie Buckley (“Wild Rose,” “Chernobyl”) are set to star as Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers in “Romeo & Juliet,” a made-for-television production by the U.K.’s National Theatre. “Romeo & Juliet” was originally scheduled to play this summer to theater audiences, but
Fresh off the stunning finale of “Lovecraft Country,” HBO’s newest occupant of the Sunday night time slot fared just as well in the ratings. Sunday saw the premiere of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant thriller “The Undoing,” which managed to match the “Lovecraft Country” curtain-raiser with 1.4 million total viewers across all platforms. That figure
In today’s TV news roundup, Netflix unveiled the premiere date of the final season of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” and Apple TV Plus released a trailer for “Becoming You.” DATES Freeform‘s Instagram account will house the network’s new two-episode limited series, “The Clock Is Ticking” on Oct. 27 and Nov. 3. The digital series, part
Thomas Haden Church will star in and executive produce the multi-cam comedy “The Texanist” currently in development at Fox. The series, which Variety exclusively reported was in development back in January, is innspired by the long-running Texas Monthly column of the same name. It centers on Dave (Church), an opinionated Austin-area radio show host who calls
The CW has released two first-look images for the “Batwoman” suit redesign based around actress Javicia Leslie’s character, Ryan Wilder. The outfit will be featured starting in Season 2, episode 3, and is the first original design for the new Batwoman, as Leslie takes over the mantle from Ruby Rose, who led the show during
HBO’s new series “The Undoing” marks the first time Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant have worked together, but becoming the married couple at the center of the series didn’t take too much effort. “I remember the read-through when we first came to New York,” Kidman tells Variety. “We read all of it in one sitting,
“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” is adding new housewife Crystal Kung Minkoff for Season 11, Variety has confirmed. Kung Minkoff marks the first-ever Asian American cast member to join the franchise. Her addition to the show comes as Bravo has been increasing efforts to diversify its casts across its programming. Kung Minkoff will join
Donald Trump’s contentious interview with veteran “60 Minutes” host Lesley Stahl, as well as Joe Biden’s less eventful sit-down, scored the show its largest audience since 2018. The dual Biden and Trump interviews, the latter of which the President cut short, drew a total of 16.8 million total viewers on CBS and scored a 2.4
Thanksgiving is still about a month away, but at the Lifetime cable network, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The A+E Networks-backed outlet on Friday launched its annual “It’s A Wonderful Lifetime” holiday-movie extravaganza, which puts 1200 hours of content appropriate to the season on its schedule across ten weeks. But good cheer
Oscar Isaac is in talks to star in the Marvel series “Moon Knight” at Disney Plus, Variety has learned. “Moon Knight” tells the story of Marc Spector, an elite soldier and mercenary who decides to fight crime after he becomes the human avatar of Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon. The role would mark
Ava DuVernay’s “Cherish the Day” will be back for more love and exploration. The anthology series has been renewed for a second season at OWN, with season 1 co-EPs Raynelle Swilling and Teri Schaffer taking over as showrunners from Tanya Hamilton. News of the renewal comes around seven months after the first season wrapped its
James Wan has found his latest horror project. The “Saw” and “Insidious” creator is set to executive produce “Archive 81,” a supernatural horror series which has received an eight-episode order at Netflix. Loosely inspired by the found footage horror podcast of the same name, “Archive 81” hails from writer, showrunner and executive producer Rebecca Sonnenshine
Fox News Media confirmed “a few positive” exposures to the coronavirus among its employees in the wake of a New York Times report that said its president and a handful of well-known anchors were being told to quarantine after recently coming in close proximity to a person with coronavirus. The Times reported that Fox News
Suzanne Mackie, one of the U.K.’s pre-eminent drama executives, has left “The Crown” producer Left Bank Pictures to set up her own independent production company, Orchid Pictures. Mackie has been a key architect of “The Crown’s” success from the very beginning, playing a key part in shepherding the Golden Globe-winning show’s first four seasons and
ITV Studios’ smash hit reality format “Love Island” is finally getting a localized version in Canada. Canada’s Quebecor Content has commissioned a French-language version of the program, which marks its 19th local adaptation. The franchise recently announced commissions in Spain, Nigeria and Italy. In Canada, the show will be co-produced by Productions Déferlantes and Zone
Korean series “Kingdom,” and “The World of the Married” and China’s “The Bad Kids” were the most rewarded shows on Sunday at Busan’s Asian Contents Awards. The event in its second year was live-streamed from the Busan International Film Festival, where hosts and performers were the only ones physically present. Presenters and prize-winners joined remotely
Lesley Stahl told President Trump up front: “You know, this is ’60 Minutes.’ And we can’t put on things we can’t verify.” On Sunday night, the show remained true to its word. The venerable CBS newsmagazine aired significant portions of the interview it conducted with President Trump earlier this week, even though the White House
Jason Kilar sat in a darkened conference room in 2007, telling anyone who came to visit about the wonders of a new video-on-demand service called Hulu. Kilar was the outlet’s first CEO, and the room in which he was perched stood in the headquarters of NBCUniversal, one of Hulu’s two original co-owners. Another worker in