Banijay Group is on the verge of sealing a deal for production and distribution powerhouse Endemol Shine, sources tell Variety. Vivendi-backed Banijay and Endemol Shine’s joint owners, Disney and Apollo, are understood to have scheduled a meeting for Thursday after talks accelerated in recent days, with Banijay now on the brink of finally closing a
Television
The climax of this year’s Canneseries came, appropriately enough, at its end, Ep. 1 of Russell T. Davies’ “Years & Years,” its final series, which played at its closing gala, concluded. There was a brief silence and then a barrage of applause. The audience knew,if comments from spectators made as they walked out of Cannes
Jimmy Kimmel kicked off his annual weeklong residency in Brooklyn on Monday night with two of the east coast’s biggest music stars: Bruce Springsteen and Alicia Keys. For the fifth year, Kimmel’s studio moved from Los Angeles to the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s theater where he taped his show in front of a live studio
Amazon’s upcoming “Lord of the Rings” series has cast Joseph Mawle in a main role, Variety has confirmed with sources. Mawle joins previously announced cast members Will Poulter and Markella Kavenagh. Official details of Mawle’s characters are being kept under wraps, but sources say he will play a villain named Oren. Amazon declined to comment. Reps
In today’s TV news roundup, “She-Ra and the Princess of Power” Season 4 adds Jacob Tobia, and The Weather Channel announces the premiere date for its climate change special with the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. CASTING Jacob Tobia has joined Netflix‘s “She-Ra and the Princess of Power.” Voicing Double Trouble, Tobia joins Aimee Carrero, Karen Fukuhara,
Who will watch the Watchmen? Turns out 1.5 million people, that’s who. The debut of the highly anticipated HBO series delivered that many sets of eyeballs across all the premium cabler’s platforms on Sunday night. For comparison, Sunday’s premiere was up 21% in linear on last week’s “Succession” season finale, and up 20% from the
October 21, 2019 12:30PM PT Melanie Lynskey has been cast in one of the main roles of the Showtime ensemble drama pilot “Yellowjackets,” Variety has learned exclusively. The project tells the story of a team of talented high school girls soccer players who survive a plane crash deep in the Ontario wilderness. The series chronicles
October 21, 2019 12:00PM PT Jessica Goldberg is set to write a drama with a put pilot order at NBC that Amy Poehler will executive produce. The project is titled “The Mother-in-Law,” based on the novel of the same name by Sally Hepworth. It is described as a thriller centered around a woman’s complicated relationship
Playwright Katie Cappiello is teaming with “House of Cards” creator Beau Willimon to bring an adaptation of her 2013 play “Slut” to the small screen. The show, titled “Grand Army,” is set up at Netflix with Odessa A’zion set to lead the cast. “Grand Army” follows five students at the largest public high school in
Hollywood loves a good baddie, and for the last 50 or so years, a large proportion of those villains have been Russian. Take Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), who killed Apollo Creed in the ring in “Rocky IV,” or Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman), who hijacked the President’s plane in “Air Force One,” or more recently the
October 21, 2019 11:00AM PT HBO Max is continuing its content push with an order for a “Crazy Rich Asians” inspired docuseries. Titled “The Ho’s,” the eight-episode half-hour series hails from Lionsgate TV and plunges viewers into the over-the-top world of the Ho’s, a Vietnamese immigrant family who built a multi-million dollar bank, a real
October 21, 2019 10:30AM PT Fox Corporation has hired Yoel Flohr as executive vice president of technology and digital, Variety has learned He will report to Fox Corporation chief technology officer and president of digital Paul Cheesbrough. In his new role, Flohr will lead the digital product portfolio for Fox Entertainment, overseeing existing digital products
Welcome back to Tune In: our weekly newsletter offering a guide to the best of the week’s TV. Each week, Variety’s TV team combs through the week’s schedule, selecting our picks of what to watch and when/how to watch them. This week, a whole string of shows premiere their final seasons, including Netflix’s animated comedy
October 21, 2019 10:00AM PT Monica Lewinsky has teamed with “Catfish” co-host and producer Max Joseph to produce “15 Minutes of Shame,” a documentary for HBO Max about the culture of public shaming. “15 Minutes of Shame” is described as a look at people from around the world who have been caught up in a
October 21, 2019 9:40AM PT “Riverdale” Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and two of the show’s writers have set up the drama “The Shelley Society” at HBO Max with a pilot order, Variety has confirmed. The project follows a young Mary Shelley and a band of her fellow Romantics, including Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, as they
October 21, 2019 9:00AM PT Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner’s Hazy Mills Productions have joined the SAG Awards producing team. The guild announced this morning that Kathy Connell will once again serve as the show’s producer along with Hayes and Milliner in partnership with Avalon Harbor. “Attending the SAG Awards has always been a pleasure
October 21, 2019 9:00AM PT Alia Shawkat has been cast in the upcoming FX pilot “The Old Man,” Variety has learned exclusively. She joins previously announced lead Jeff Bridges as well as cast members John Lithgow and Amy Brenneman. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Thomas Perry, the series centers on Dan
London-based comedian, actor and writer Katherine Ryan says her boyfriend fought off a masked burglar and saved a laptop that contained scripts from her upcoming Netflix show, “The Duchess.” Sharing details on Instagram over the weekend, Ryan said her partner, Bobby Kootstra, tackled the intruder. “This is why I love Bobby K.,” Ryan wrote. “He
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle open up on the stress of living in the spotlight in a candid documentary that is scoring more international deals. “Harry and Meghan: An African Journey” was broadcast Sunday on ITV in the U.K. and will go out on ABC in the U.S. on Wednesday night. Produced by ITN Productions
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the series premiere of “Watchmen,” which aired Oct. 20 on HBO. The protagonist of “Watchmen” is leading a double life. By day, she goes by Angela (Regina King) and is a bakery owner, daughter, wife and mother who is first introduced to the audience
Rome’s MIA market for TV series, feature films and documentaries wrapped positively Sunday with organizers boasting a bump in attendance just as some 2,500 executives departed in an upbeat mood after four days of dealmaking and presentations of mostly European fresh product, which elevated Italy’s global standing in the industry, especially within the TV sector.
Netflix recently announced a new Italian original titled “Zero” that will mark the first Italian series centered around the present-day lives of black Italian youths. “Zero” is based on several books by young writer and TV music show host Antonio Dikele Distefano, who was born in Italy from Angolan parents. The project was originated by
ROME – In an increasingly complex TV market, with a host of new big-ticket streaming services preparing to enter an already crowded arena, both buyers and sellers are rethinking some of the fundamentals of the TV business as they grapple with the best way to reach global audiences. A host of top producers, network executives,
ROME – The impending rollout of Disney Plus, HBO Max, and other new streaming services promises a new era of uncertainty—and opportunity—for broadcasters and producers in an industry already disrupted by the likes of Netflix and Amazon. At a panel hosted by the European Producers Club Friday afternoon during the MIA market in Rome, executives
ROME – Over the course of two decades in the industry, Lionsgate Television chairman Kevin Beggs has witnessed the ups and downs of a business that has frequently found itself confronting both dizzying new possibilities as well as existential threats. But these days the veteran exec, who oversees the development of all scripted and non-scripted content
October 18, 2019 4:01PM PT After swooping in with a solid debut in Live+3, the CW’s “Batwoman” doubled in week 2 after three days of delayed viewing to a 0.6 rating from a 0.3. That figures is still down a 0.1 ratings point on the tally from its premiere. “This Is Us” finished as the
“Cowboy Bebop” star John Cho sustained a knee injury on the set of the live-action Netflix series while filming in New Zealand in October, Variety has learned, leading to a 7-9 month break in production. While the nature of the incident that led to the injury is not altogether clear, it occurred during a rehearsed
October 18, 2019 3:26PM PT In today’s TV news roundup, NBC announced the “Making It” Season 2 premiere date and HBO Max greenlit a new docuseries from Brad Goreski and Gary Janetti. DATES Hosts Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman will return with the second season of “Making It” on NBC Dec. 2. After the show’s
For some, “Dame Helen Mirren playing the Catherine the Great” is all the convincing they’ll need to watch this new biographical limited series, which is perfectly understandable. The casting of Mirren in the role, which follows the Russian empress in the embattled latter years of her life, is a smart choice that proves its worth
October 18, 2019 2:00PM PT Disney Plus further fleshed out its nonfiction content slate at an International Documentary Association showcase event Friday, as the streamer, preparing for its Nov. 12 launch, continues to flesh out its programming strategy. Among the announcements: The streamer has acquired the global distribution rights to “Howard,” the Don Hahn-directed documentary