The upcoming Netflix comedy series “Slutty Teenage Bounty Hunters” has cast its two leads. Maddie Phillips and Anjelica Bette Fellini will star as the titular teens in the new series executive produced by Jenji Kohan. Phillips and Fellini will star as fraternal twin sisters Sterling and Blair Wesley. In addition, Kadeem Hardison has been cast
Television
The sun may be shining, but Amazon Prime subscribers probably won’t be coming outside, considering the wealth of titles coming to the streamer next month. Viewers looking for a touch of nostalgia will be able to binge Peter Farrelly’s “Dumb and Dumber” starring a 14 year-old Jim Carrey or its 2014 sequel “Dumb and Dumber:
SPOILER ALERT: Do not keep reading if you have not seen Season 3 of “Jessica Jones” Welcome to “TV Take,” Variety‘s television podcast. In this week’s installment, Variety TV reporter Joe Otterson chats with Melissa Rosenberg, the creator, showrunner, and executive producer of Netflix’s Marvel drama “Jessica Jones.” Centered around the Marvel Comics character of the
The lineup of impressive names to commit to Quibi continues to grow. Liam Hemsworth is the latest to join the Jeffrey Katzenberg-founded short form content company, as the “Hunger Games” star has been cast as the lead in an as-yet-untitled action-thriller series. He will play the central character of Dodge Maynard who, desperate to take
In this week’s International TV Newswire SVOD original content stakes a claim to screens large and small, HBO Latin America announces castings, Netflix gets to work in Africa, New Zealand sci-fi heads to Europe and Nordic countries back student projects. SVODs Dominate July’s Most Anticipated Series Lists Forget the book on the beach, SVOD platforms
The enduring real-life mystery of “Isdal Woman” will be the subject of a new spy thriller series. Handwritten Pictures, part of Stefan Arndt and Tom Tykwer’s X Filme, and Beta Film’s “Undercover” producer Good Friends are the German producers. Fenes Film is the Norwegian partner. Beta Film will handle distribution and take the project to
Eccho Rights, a leading sales company in Sweden, is set to ramp up its executive team with the hiring of Lisa Widén, a former head of production at Film Capital Stockholm whose co-production credits include “Before We Die” and “Jordskott.” At Eccho Rights, Widén will be handling sales and acquisitions for Scandinavia. She will continue
Amid growing uncertainty over the Writers Guild of America’s standoff with agents, the WGA has asked the nine biggest individual agencies to begin bargaining. The WGA’s negotiating committee made the announcement in a message to members Thursday on the heels of UTA suing the guild for alleged abuse of its collective bargaining authority and engaging
In today’s TV news roundup, a behind the scenes Seinfeld attraction called “The Seinfeld Experience” will open in New York City in the fall. CASTING Juliette Lewis, Ryan Kwanten and Jordan Alexander are set to star in the second season of the Blumhouse TV anthology series “Sacred Lies: The Singing Bones,” which streams on Facebook
“One Day At A Time” fans asked for the series to be saved, and Pop TV has answered the call. A 13-episode fourth season of the show will air on Pop, a CBS-owned cable network, in 2020. The series had previously been cancelled after three seasons on Netflix, causing a substantial backlash from fans and
June 27, 2019 1:00PM PT Showtime is developing a one-hour series about private military contractors with David Ayer, Variety has learned exclusively. Ayer is attached to write and direct the series, currently titled “The Company.” It is described as an irreverent look at the military contracting industry during its Wild West heyday post 9/11. Further
Peter Ramsey, who won an Oscar this year for co-directing the hit animated film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” has joined the long list of high-level speakers for the 2019 View Conference, which runs from Oct. 21-25 in Turin, Italy. “I’m delighted to announce that Peter Ramsey, who is the first African American director to win
Netflix has partnered with comedy producer and director Marty Callner and Funny Business, Inc. for a stand-up comic tribute show entitled “The Hall: Honoring the Greats of Stand-Up,” the streamer announced Thursday. The special will be executive produced by Callner and Randall Gladstein, partners in Funny Business, Inc., and manager/producer David Steinberg. The induction ceremony
Just over a week after her “Game of Thrones” brother-lover Nikolaj Coster-Waldau joined a pilot at FX, Lena Headey has been a cast in a pilot of her own. The actress, who was most recently seen under a pile of rubble in the final episode of the HBO mega hit, will play the title character
June 27, 2019 10:24AM PT Gabriel Byrne and Elizabeth McGovern are in action in the first pictures from the “War of the Worlds” series from Canal Plus, Fox Networks Group Europe & Africa, and AGC Television. The H.G. Wells adaptation is set in modern-day Europe. Byrne and McGovern belong to an ensemble cast featuring Léa
In a deal with 20th Century Fox Television, Sarah Esberg, most recently a longtime producer and executive at Brad Pitt’s Plan B, is making the leap to Drew Goddard’s production company to become president of the newly formed Goddard Textiles. “The prospect of joining Drew, whose work I have loved and admired for years, at
Michael Chabon has been named the showrunner on “Star Trek: Picard” at CBS All Access. “‘Star Trek’ has been an important part of my way of thinking about the world, the future, human nature, storytelling and myself since I was ten years old,” said Chabon. “I come to work every day in a state of
June 27, 2019 9:00AM PT USA Network has ordered a pilot based on the book “Masters of Doom” by David Kushner with James and Dave Franco on board as executive producers, Variety has learned. “Masters of Doom” is the true story of two computer geniuses in an obscure corner of America who, along with a group
June 27, 2019 8:30AM PT The jokes were as fresh as Bill de Blasio’s interruptions. Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah all broadcast their late-night programs live Wednesday night, part of an effort that has quickly become de rigueur to capture audiences tuning in to a big event tied to U.S. elections.
The 30-year-old “Final Fantasy” saga is the latest iconic video game brand to be getting the live-action treatment. Sony Pictures Television is working on a first ever live-action adaptation of the series, with Hivemind and Square Enix, the Japanese developer behind the games, also involved. Exact plot details on the prospective series, beyond the source
The first Democratic primary debate, which featured Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Cory Booker and Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke among others, posted solid ratings and total viewership, but was unable to match the prolific numbers of the 2016 cycle’s first round. Last night’s feisty affair drew a total of 15.3 million viewers across NBC, MSNBC and
June 27, 2019 3:42AM PT “Big Brother” is returning to German screens after a five-year break. Sat.1 will air the German version of the show, which will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Endemol format that paved the way for a raft of other unscripted shows around the world. Sat.1 said it would also
A new adaptation of “All Creatures Great and Small” is in the works for Viacom’s Channel 5 in the U.K. and Masterpiece on PBS in the U.S. The source books by James Herriot, about country veterinarians in 1930s rural England, were made into a much-loved 1978-90 British series that ran to 90 episodes, which also
June 27, 2019 2:23AM PT Viacom is adding a trio of channels from its recently-acquired Pluto TV to My5, the on-demand service of Channel 5, the U.K. free-to-air broadcaster it also owns. Ad-supported OTT service Pluto TV is already available in the U.K., but the My5 deal widens its distribution. It also bulks up My5
The opening night of the first debates of the 2020 Democratic Party primaries brought — even by the standards of such way-far-out confrontations between candidates for whom the election remains a far-off dream — vastly more empty drama than new information. But then, that may have been by design. NBC News’s organization of the debates,
June 26, 2019 7:51PM PT Max Wright, best known for playing patriarch Willie Tanner on the sitcom “Alf,” died Wednesday. He was 75. Wright’s family confirmed his death to TMZ. The actor died in his home in Hermosa Beach, Calif., after years of battling cancer. Wright was diagnosed with Lymphona in 1995. Wright is most
June 26, 2019 7:10PM PT NBC was left red-faced during Wednesday night’s Democratic presidential debates when audio issues plagued moderators Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow. The incident happened as Todd was about to ask Sen. Elizabeth Warren about gun control in the United States. “We are hearing our colleague’s audio,” Todd said as voices could
June 26, 2019 5:33PM PT YouTube’s head of scripted programming, Jon Wax, is in talks to join Amazon Studios, according to an individual with knowledge of the matter. Wax is said to be in discussions for head of genre programming at Amazon, a position held by Sharon Tal Yguado until recently. Variety reported on her
The Writers Guild of America has gone to the Securities and Exchange Commission in its battle with Hollywood’s largest talent agencies over the issue of packaging fees and affiliated production. The guild sent a letter to William Hinman, director of the SEC’s corporate finance division, the guild accuses WME parent company Endeavor of misrepresenting the
MTV’s dating reality show “Are You The One?” is addressing changing attitudes regarding sexuality and gender identity by featuring sexually fluid contestants on the show’s eighth season, which bows June 27. The shift from the show’s past focus on heterosexual relationships is part of the larger effort at MTV to be relevant to younger viewers