Bill Murray is the latest name to stop in for a quick bite at Quibi. The veteran “Ghostbusters” and “Groundhog Day” star will play a recurring role opposite Dave Franco in “The Now,” a comedy series which hails from “Green Book” director Peter Farrelly. “The Now” centers on Ed Poole (Franco), who is about to
Television
November 15, 2019 11:23AM PT After posting big numbers in the Live+Same Day TV ratings, ABC’s “The Little Mermaid Live” has emerged at the top of the charts for the week it aired after three days of delayed viewing. The live musical, which featured Auliʻi Cravalho in the titular role and a powerhouse performance from
November 15, 2019 10:30AM PT Liz Astrof is set to write and executive produce the single-camera comedy “Pivoting” at Fox, Variety has learned. The series is set in a small, middle-class town in Long Island. It follows three close-knit childhood friends, after the death of another. During the grieving period, when psychologists advise not to make
A decade into Hallmark’s “Countdown to Christmas” initiative, the demand for original programming is higher than ever, with more holiday-themed projects across platforms. But for Hallmark, the only true competition comes from within. “We push ourselves every year to do even more — and ‘more’ may not mean volume, but to make high-quality stories, to
Clive Owen has been cast as President Bill Clinton in the upcoming third season of “American Crime Story” at FX, Variety has confirmed. The season will focus on Clinton’s impeachment and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. It was previously announced that Beanie Feldstein will star as Lewinsky, with Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp and Annaleigh Ashford as
“The Intouchables” directors Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, whose latest film, “The Specials,” played on closing night at Cannes, are set to make their TV debut with a French adaptation of the hit Israeli series “BeTipul” (“In Treatment).” Commissioned by the Franco-German network Arte, the French makeover, “En Therapie,” will be directed by Toledano, Nakache,
November 15, 2019 7:26AM PT Shari Redstone is emphatic: ViacomCBS has plenty of resources and the scale to compete in the new world order for media giants. “We absolutely have enough scale,” Redstone said Friday morning during her Q&A held as part of the Paley Center for Media’s International Council Summit in New York. “We
In this week’s International TV Newswire, major Spanish broadcasters get stung for anti-competitive practices, Intaglio preps two new English-language series out of Berlin, A+E Networks EMEA’s executive team is announced, Topic picks up a trio of Eccho Rights Scandinavian series and “Finding Joy” gets a second season on RTÉ and Acorn TV. CNMC Sanctions Mediaset
Gary Oldman will star in a small screen adaptation of Mick Herron’s Slough House books at Apple, Variety has learned. Titled “Slow Horses” after the first novel in the series, the show follows a team of British intelligence agents who serve in a dumping ground department of MI5 – Slough House. Oldman will star as
Britain is getting a new prime minister – on TV, at least, after “Peaky Blinders” star Helen McCrory signed on to play the part in the BBC political thriller “Roadkill.” PBS Masterpiece has boarded the series and will co-produce and launch it in the U.S. Masterpiece’s Rebecca Eaton will exec produce the project. McCrory joins
The antitrust suit filed by Hollywood’s major agencies against the Writers Guild of America has been set for a Jan. 17 hearing. U.S. District Court Judge Andre Birotte issued the calendar update this week on the litigation, filed on Sept. 27 by CAA, UTA and WME after the agencies consolidated their individual agency suits. The
Amazon has renewed gritty legal drama “Goliath” for a fourth and final season. The series centers on washed-up lawyer Billy McBride, played by Billy Bob Thornton, who seeks redemption after a client he successfully defended from a murder charge went on to slaughter a family. Thornton won a Golden Globe for his performance in 2017.
The “Star Wars” franchise is no stranger to the strange and odd. But the wildest of all the offerings from the galaxy far, far away is the bizarre (but beautiful) “Star Wars Holiday Special.” And Jon Favreau is ready to resurrect it. The TV special celebrating the Wookiee holiday “Light Day” aired on CBS in
November 14, 2019 2:00PM PT “Counterpart” creator and showrunner and “The Jungle Book” scribe Justin Marks has signed an overall deal to create new content for FX Productions. “Justin is a true creative talent and we feel fortunate to be his partners in supporting his vision of bold and ambitious storytelling,” said FX Entertainment original
November 14, 2019 12:59PM PT CBS TV Studios and the Television Academy Foundation are coming together to help a group of students live long and prosper. The two have announced a partnership to launch the “Star Trek” Command Training Program, an internship open to graduate and undergraduate college students nationwide, in 2020. Initially, the new
The first day of the impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump drew over 13 million total viewers across the broadcast and news networks combined. Fox News’s coverage from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. drew the highest total viewership of any network, averaging around 2.9 million sets of eyeballs. MSNBC followed in second with 2.7 million
Netflix will amend elements of its documentary series “The Devil Next Door” after the Polish prime minister and others complained to CEO Reed Hastings about the show, which centers on the trial of John Demjanjuk who was accused of being a notorious Ukrainian concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible. Polish premier Mateusz Morawiecki
Stephen Colbert has expanded the circle of people helping to make the ultimate decision about what the funniest things are for him to say each night on CBS’ “Late Show.” Three writers/producers who have been with Colbert for years will get new duties at his late-night program. Ariel Dumas, a longtime writer for Colbert, has
NBC has handed an early renewal to “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” Season 7 of the cop comedy isn’t set to premiere until Feb. 6 2020, but the network has already seen fit to order an eighth season. During season 6 (its first on NBC after being canceled by Fox in 2018), “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” averaged a 1.2 rating
November 14, 2019 9:15AM PT Kristen Stewart (“Seberg”) loves “Naked and Afraid” and wondering what shoes smell like. Stewart discussed her tastes in reality TV and interest in Shia LaBeouf’s (“Honey Boy”) shoes during a conversation for “Variety Studio: Actors on Actors.” LaBeouf began the interview by asking Stewart what she likes to watch in
November 14, 2019 6:20AM PT Disney chairman-CEO Bob Iger has signed on to the MasterClass digital education service, offering a course in business strategy and leadership. The course, available as of Thursday, will detail Iger’s view on the importance of taking bold steps and embracing mistakes in business. Iger also promises to dig into “case
Argentina’s Murillo Cine, whose credits take in Cannes sidebar entries “The Snatch Thief” and “Land of Ashes,” is dipping its toe into TV drama production with “Vertientes del Paraná,” a miniseries project exposing the social tragedy of femicide, from writer-director María Florencia Álvarez. Álvarez turned heads with her 2013 feature debut, “Habi la Extranjera,” a
Viacom chief Bob Bakish took a short victory lap during the company’s final quarterly earnings call Thursday before the completion of its merger with CBS Corp., which is expected to be sealed early next month. Bakish talked up the return of Paramount Pictures to profitability for the first time in four years, and the return
November 14, 2019 2:50AM PT Veteran TV executive Ofanny Choi has been promoted to president of Celestial Tiger Entertainment. She replaces CEO Todd Miller, who will leave the company. Backed by Saban Capital, Lionsgate and Malaysia’s Astro Overseas, Hong Kong-based Celestial Tiger operates a bouquet of Asian pay-TV channels. It also produces original production for
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Final Girl,” the finale episode of “American Horror Story: 1984.” The final episode of “American Horror Story: 1984” is appropriately called “The Final Girl,” a reference to the term given to that one (usually virginal) young woman who manages to survive the massacre in most
In today’s TV news roundup, ABC announced the premiere date for “The Bachelor” Season 24, while Showtime set a date for Eddie Griffin’s new comedy special. CASTING Freeform announced that it has cast the pilot for “Last Summer.“ Chiara Aurelia will star as Jeanette and Mika Abdalla will star as Kate in this “unconventional thriller” about
The Disney Plus series “The Mandalorian,” three other streaming series, and two FX series have been nominated by Hollywood union publicists for the year’s top publicity campaign. “Catch 22,” “Fosse/Verdon,” “Pose,” “Stranger Things” and “When They See Us” picked up the other nominations. The nominees for the International Cinematographers Guild Publicists’ Maxwell Weinberg Award for
As Amazon prepares to launch the fourth and final season of “Man in the High Castle” on Friday, the show’s exec producer, Stewart Mackinnon, has gone out of the gate with Circle Pictures. The newly minted production outfit will, Mackinnon told Variety, work across TV and film, and will major on drama projects with a
November 13, 2019 4:04PM PT In a major triumph for the Writers Guild of America, the Abrams Artists Agency has signed the WGA’s Code of Conduct, allowing the agency to return to representing WGA members again. Chairman Adam Bold made the announcement Wednesday, saying that the agency wants to put its clients back to work.
Quentin Tarantino has his next several months mapped out. He plans to finish writing a book, do a play, work on a TV series and then figure out what his 10th movie will be, the writer-director told a packed audience at a BAFTA event in London on Wednesday night. Without going into detail, Tarantino said