Steve James’ buzzy Sundance docuseries “City So Real” has landed at National Geographic. Nat Geo has acquired the series, which takes a multifaceted look at Chicago and its history-making 2019 mayoral election, and is lining it up for a fall premiere. The series hails from James, whose previous work includes “America to Me” and “Hoop Dreams,”
Television
Apple has signed a first-look film and television deal with Appian Way, the production company founded by Leonardo DiCaprio. The multi-year deal between covers television projects and features. DiCaprio and Appian Way, which is co-run by Jennifer Davisson, already have two projects set up at the streamer — the feature “Killers of the Flower Moon”
As if shooting “The Bachelorette” under quarantine wasn’t enough drama, ABC’s female-fronted reality show has been rocked by more real-life twists that will play out on-screen in the upcoming season. Over the weekend, rumors began to swirl that “The Bachelorette” lead, Clare Crawley, would be replaced by “Bachelor” alum, Tayshia Adams, when a Reddit user
SAG-AFTRA has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on a three-year deal covering TV animation. The deal, announced on Monday, covers animated programs produced for television, including network TV, basic cable and streaming platforms. The new three-year agreement, which will need to be approved by the SAG-AFTRA executive
“Hunters” has been renewed for a second season at Amazon, Variety has learned. The series was created by David Weil, who also serves as executive producer and co-showrunner along with Nikki Toscano. Jordan Peele also executive produces along with Win Rosenfeld under their Monkeypaw Productions banner. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon directed the pilot and is also an executive
If it’s good wi-fi, it’s “Meet The Press.” Chuck Todd, who has moderated NBC News’ Sunday-morning public affairs program since the fall of 2014, and worked a weekday version of the show on MSNBC since 2015, will now expand the series to streaming video. With the maneuver, NBC News is taking a new swing at
The CW premiered two of its international acquisitions to low numbers on a rerun heavy Sunday night. Canadian series “Fridge Wars,” which sees professional chefs attempting to make restaurant quality dishes from ingredients found in a family’s refrigerator, debuted coldly to a 0.1 rating among adults 18-49 and 432,000 viewers. Later on, U.K. comedy panel
Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal’s La Corriente del Golfo has teamed with Amazon Prime Video on a new issue-driven conversation series “Pan y Circo” (Bread and Circus), which will launch globally on the platform on Friday (Aug. 7). Using an innovative new format of Luna’s own design, the series seats a group of different
California’s production tax credit program has attracted HBO’s”‘In Treatment” and TBS’s “Miracle Workers.” The California Film Commission announced Monday that the drama series “In Treatment” is relocating from New York and that the “Miracle Workers” anthology comedy is moving from the Czech Republic. The state’s production tax credit program requires recipients to begin production within
Specialty channel Sky Arts, part of pay TV operator Sky, has ordered a new photography project by acclaimed photographer Rankin. From Monday through Aug. 23, amateur and professional photographers are invited to send in new photographs or something from their back catalogs that represents their 2020, in the categories Family, Fun, Self, Beauty, Empathy and
China’s Huanxi Media has struck a deal with All3media International to license 110 hours of factual content, that will play on its Huanxi.com SVoD platform. The deal covers 25 titles with genres including true crime, travel, food, arts/culture, history and royalty. Titles include two seasons of Studio Lambert’s globe-trotting adventure “Race Across the World,” and another
Australia’s pay-TV leader Foxtel is expanding its on-demand offering by adding A+E Networks’ LMN-Lifetime Movie Network to its film lineup. The package, which targets a predominantly female audience with made for television movie content, will be made available from Sept. 1, at no extra charge to subscribers of the Foxtel Movies bundle. Foxtel says that
Filming has got under way in Adelaide on Australian comedy-drama series “Aftertaste.” It is the first major production to shoot in the state of South Australia since the coronavirus shut-down, and comes as a state of disaster and a nighttime curfew are declared in neighboring Victoria state, which includes Melbourne. The six-part Closer Productions show
Iconic auteur director, Wong Kar-wai has finally confirmed “Blossoms Shanghai” will be his first dive into dramatic TV series production. An adaptation of Jin Yucheng’s multi-award-winning Shanghai-set novel, “Blossoms,” the series also marks a return for Wong to his birthplace. Although he is associated with the free-wheeling Hong Kong film industry, Wong was born in
Wilford Brimley, best known for his roles in “The Natural,” the 1982 remake of “The Thing,” “The Firm” and “Cocoon,” died on Saturday. He was 85. His agent, Lynda Bensky, told The New York Times that he had been sick with a kidney problem for two months. Brimley was also famous for the series of
Michael Schur, the creator of “The Good Place” and co-creator of “Parks and Recreation” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” took to Twitter on Friday to pay tribute to television host and his father-in-law Regis Philbin, who died on July 24 at 88. Not only did the two work in the same industry, but Schur has been married
Mahlon Reyes, a deckhand on Discovery Channel’s reality show “Deadliest Catch,” died on July 27. He was 38. Reyes’ wife confirmed to TMZ that he suffered a massive heart attack in his hometown of Whitefish, Mont., on July 25 and was rushed to the hospital. However, he did not regain consciousness and his family decided
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the second season of “The Umbrella Academy,” streaming now on Netflix. The second season of “The Umbrella Academy” snaps its characters back in time to the 1960s — and yes, that includes Kate Walsh as the Handler, despite being shot and presumed dead in
Harley Quinn’s story has always been a love story. Since her first appearance in “Batman: The Animated Series” in 1992, the psychiatrist turned pinwheeling hellion has always overflowed with spirit, smothered those around her with affection, offered up her heart on a silver platter even when she knew she was offering herself up to get
When Real Madrid Fooball Team proposed the purchase of Spanish women’s football club Club Deportivo Tacón, producers Tomas Pastor and Ana Pastor saw a story — women’s soccer team that was going to make it into the biggest club in the world. With the success of the U.S. women’s soccer team, they got the ball
Before embarking on their multi-year journey to document the plight of immigrants under the Trump administration, filmmakers Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz entered into a contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. While this did not given the agency approval over the final product, which is a six-episode docuseries entitled “Immigration Nation”
James Murdoch, former chief executive of 21st Century Fox and son of Rupert Murdoch, has resigned from the News Corp. board of directors over “disagreements over certain editorial content” published by the company’s news outlets, per an investor filing. His brief letter reads as follows: Ladies and Gentlemen: I hereby tender my resignation as a
The NBA returned on Thursday night to bumper TV ratings for TNT. A thrilling showdown between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers drew 3.4 million total viewers, more than doubling the network’s average viewership for a regular season telecast. To put that number into perspective, that represents the eighth most-watched game of
This year’s Virgin Media BAFTA TV Awards provided an early upset when Mo Gilligan beat a host of TV’s established names to win the Entertainment Performance Award. Gilligan, the host of “The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan,” saw off well known performers Graham Norton, Frankie Boyle and Lee Mack to take the first prize of
“We’re confident that no viewer would conclude that Professor Dershowitz is a shyster based on one line of opinion from a fictional character on the Series, as opposed to the real-life, factual publications that have called him exactly that,” Anschell wrote. Dershowitz noted that legal issues stemming from a blend of fact and fiction are
HBO and Sky Atlantic’s “Chernobyl,” Channel 4’s “Stath Lets Flats” and Channel 4 and Netflix’s “The End of the F—king World” emerged with two BAFTAs apiece at this year’s awards. “Chernobyl” won for mini-series and leading actor for Jared Harris, adding two prizes to its existing haul of seven gongs at the BAFTA TV Craft
British star Idris Elba says a movie version of his hit BBC TV series “Luther” is happening. Speaking to the press on Friday after receiving one of BAFTA’s highest honours, the BAFTA Special Award at the Virgin Media BAFTA Television Awards, Elba said: “I’ve maintained I’d like to see it come to a film, and
The cast of “Nine Perfect Strangers” just keeps on getting more perfect and strange. Michel Shannon is the latest name to sign on for the Hulu series, joining previously announced cast members Melissa McCarthy, Nicole Kidman, Manny Jacinto, Luke Evans, and Tiffany Boone, among others. The show, which was received a greenlight from by Hulu
Tamar Braxton and WE tv are officially cutting ties, following Braxton’s call out of the network over its “excessive and unfair” work demands. In a new statement from WE tv, obtained exclusively by Variety, the network says it “will work with her representatives to honor her request to end all future work for the network.” The
“Holey Moley” continued to card a solid round of golf, or ratings, leading ABC to a Thursday night win alongside Univision. The mini golf competition series hit the fairway with a 0.5 rating among adults 18-49 and just under 3 million viewers, on par with last episode ratings-wise, but down around 15% in terms of