July 25, 2019 2:51PM PT Mark Gordon is officially moving on from his role as Entertainment One’s president and chief content officer of film and television in the wake of a conflict with the group. Instead, he is shifting his efforts to developing and producing content for the British-Canadian indie as part of a multi-year
Television
The Writers Guild of America West is turning up the heat on Endeavor’s planned initial public offering, accusing the parent of WME of widespread potential conflicts of interest. The WGA West issued a second “Investor Alert” on Thursday in advance of Endeavor’s IPO, warning that the new public company’s corporate governance structure dramatically favors company
“Will & Grace” executive producers Max Mutchnick, David Kohan and James Burrows, in conjunction with the cast, have decided to end the “Will & Grace” reboot on NBC with the 2020 season, its third season that follows an original eight-season run. “We think of the ‘Will & Grace’ reboot episodes the way Karen Walker thinks
Two rounds of congressional testimony from Special Counsel Robert Mueller Wednesday drew nearly 13 million viewers across the nation’s mainstream news outlets, according to early data from Nielsen Media Research. According to the data, NBC drew the largest audience in the demographic most desired by advertisers, people between 25 and 54, while Fox News Channel
Jeff Bridges is set to star “The Old Man,” a new drama that has been ordered to series at FX, Variety has learned. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Thomas Perry, “The Old Man” centers on Dan Chase (Bridges), who absconded from the CIA decades ago and has been living off
Over three seasons, Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack” has tackled everything from learning disabilities to coming out. Centered on a multi-generational Asian American family, the show follows the titular Andi Mack (played by Peyton Elizabeth Lee) as she wades through middle school life after learning a bombshell of her own: that the woman she thought was
As “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss shop an overall global deal around town, the field has narrowed to Netflix, Amazon and Disney, sources tell Variety. Earlier chatter pointed to rival players such as Comcast-owned NBCUniversal and HBO parent WarnerMedia also jockeying for a chance to ink an agreement with the showrunners,
Julia Butters was just 4 when she made her acting debut on an episode of “Criminal Minds.” Six years later, the 10-year-old star of ABC’s “American Housewife” makes the leap to the big screen in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” And what a leap it is. Julia appears in the film
Jessica Rothe is set to star in and executive produce a comedy pilot set up at HBO Max, Variety has learned. Titled “Delilah,” Rothe will star as the title character. After a life-changing event, Delilah’s first step toward putting her life back together is to introduce herself to a complete stranger who may or may not
July 25, 2019 9:00AM PT Streaming service BritBox will bring British crime drama “The Bay” to its subscribers, as well as the upcoming “Gavin & Stacey” Christmas special. The streamer, which in North America is an equal joint venture between ITV and BBC Studios, has also landed popular U.K. shows including “Death in Paradise,” which
NBC will boost its Olympics push on Twitter next year, under a new partnership that will include a 20-minute daily studio show live from Tokyo produced exclusively for the social network. Content under the deal — available to users only in the U.S. — also encompasses a daily poll that will allow fans on Twitter
Advertisers increased the amount of money they were willing to commit to NBC’s primetime schedule and other parts of NBCUniversal, the latest in a series of flashing signals showing Madison Avenue continuing to earmark ad dollars for traditional TV despite a host of attractive digital-video alternatives. Aided by the sale of spots in the 2020
July 25, 2019 6:44AM PT “Downton Abbey” producer Carnival Films has snagged the rights to “The Second Sleep,” the upcoming novel from “Fatherland” author Robert Harris. The thriller will be published by Penguin Random House imprint Hutchinson in September. It will follow young priest, Christopher Fairfax, who arrives in a remote English village to conduct
July 25, 2019 6:25AM PT Comcast units are double down on the content and streaming wars as NBCUniversal plans to launch its advertising-supported streaming platform in April and Sky is vowing to double the volume of original content it delivers with an emphasis on European material. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke and Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch
July 25, 2019 2:21AM PT “National Treasure” scribe Jack Thorne is penning “Best Interests” for the BBC, a drama series about a family’s fight to save their sick young daughter after doctors say the child should be allowed to die. The four-part series is the first commission for Chapter One Pictures, the U.K.-based producer set
July 24, 2019 5:50PM PT “Los Espookys” is coming back for more scares. HBO has renewed the comedy for a second season. The series is headlined by “Saturday Night Live” veteran Fred Armisen who serves as a writer and executive producer as well as playing the role of Tico. The half-hour series is set in
Damon Lindelof is taking a very Alan Moore approach to his series adaptation of Moore’s graphic novel “Watchmen.” Speaking at the Television Critics Association summer press tour on Wednesday, Lindelof said that Moore has a “punk rock spirit” and that if someone had told him that he was not allowed to do something in his
AT&T reported early Friday that HBO lost linear subscribers in the second quarter of 2019, but HBO programming chief Casey Bloys clarified that under the Home Box Office umbrella, HBO the network actually gained subscribers, and that the overall figure reflected losses on Cinemax’s end. Comcast and other providers have recently removed Cinemax from some
In today’s roundup, “Silicon Valley” returns to HBO for its final season this October, and CBS releases the first trailer for “Why Women Kill.” DATES “Silicon Valley” will return to HBO for its sixth and final season this October. An official premiere date will be announced at a later date. The new season, which will
The cast of “His Dark Materials” discussed the series’ religious themes at HBO’s summer press tour event. Executive producer Jane Tranter insisted that, despite the protestations leveled at the 2007 film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novels, the HBO series “is not an attack on religion.” “We’re adapting the books across the broad expense of television,
Neither “Designated Survivor” nor “Tuca & Bertie” will return for new seasons at Netflix. “Designated Survivor,” which starred Kiefer Sutherland as a low-level cabinet secretary who becomes President of the United States, started out as an ABC drama series but was canceled by the broadcaster after two seasons. It was announced last September that Netflix
Executives from Amazon Studios, Twitter and Tubi, the world’s largest ad-supported video-on-demand service, head the lineup of keynote speakers at content market and conference Mipcom, the event’s organizer Reed Midem announced Wednesday. Mipcom, which takes place in Cannes, France from Oct. 14 to 17, will adopt as its overarching theme “The Streaming Offensive.” According to
HBO’s president of programming Casey Bloys addressed the report that “Big Little Lies” Season 2 director Andrea Arnold was locked out of the show’s editing process. “Let me clarify. There wouldn’t be a second season without Andrea. We’re indebted to her,” Bloys said at the Television Critics Association summer press tour on Wednesday. “As anybody
Speaking at HBO’s TCA summer press tour event, the pay cabler’s programming chief Casey Bloys was asked about the controversial final season of “Game of Thrones” and the fan petition which demanded that the eighth season be re-shot. “There are very, very few downsides to having a hugely popular show, but one I can think
TV’s latest emerging hit takes all the thrills of a traditional reality competition program and mixes in an awful lot of drama. It’s not a knock-off of “American Idol” or a new MTV series. Instead, it’s something that might be best compared to a Sunday public-affairs program laced with amphetamine. CNN is seeking exponentially high
July 24, 2019 12:39PM PT Hulu is hitching a ride to another galaxy. The streamer is developing a series based on Douglas Adams’ classic sci-fi novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The prospective series is being penned by “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “Lost” executive producer Carlton Cuse and “Wonder Woman” writer Jason Fuchs. Cuse
Valerie Harper’s husband Tony Cacciotti took to Facebook Wednesday to announce that he has decided not to move his wife into hospice care despite recommendations from doctors. “I have been told by doctors to put Val in Hospice care and I can’t [because of our 40 years of shared commitment to each other] and I
July 24, 2019 11:41AM PT Abrams Artist literary agents Brad Rosenfeld, Paul Weitzman, and Karen Kirkland have departed to form their own agency. The new entity, known as Culture Creative Entertainment, has already signed the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) new code of conduct. Rosenfeld and Weitzman were previously vice presidents and the co-heads of
“Younger” has been renewed for a seventh season at TV Land, the cabler announced Wednesday. This marks the show as the longest-running original series for the cabler. “Season after season, ‘Younger’ has continued to reach new heights and build an incredibly loyal fan base,” Keith Cox, president of development and production, Paramount Network and TV
All Elite Wrestling (AEW) will not be kickstarting a new chapter in the Monday Night Wars. WarnerMedia announced Wednesday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour that AEW will begin airing live weekly shows on TNT beginning Wednesday, Oct. 2 from 8-10 p.m. ET. However, the debut comes just two days before WWE will