SAG-AFTRA and the ad industry have reached a tentative agreement on a three-year successor deal to their master contract. The two sides said the agreement includes a “flexible” compensation model but gave no details. The accord was announced Tuesday night after the current contract was extended two days past its March 31 expiration. The SAG-AFTRA
Television
Showtime is developing an animated comedy series from writer Annah Feinberg titled “Multifarious Maris,” Variety has learned exclusively. In the half-hour series, on the night of her thirtieth birthday, Maris discovers a superpower. It’s not flight. It’s not teleportation. It’s the ability to, upon finishing one-too-many glasses of wine, travel amidst the lives she might
Variety is doubling down on tube talk. The entertainment industry news leader has relaunched two podcasts devoted to all things TV: “TV Take with Daniel Holloway” and “My Favorite Episode with Michael Schneider.” Both podcasts aim to tackle the TV business from unique angles, and feature conversations with some of the industry’s top-tier creators, producers,
In today’s roundup, “The Hills: New Beginnings” sets a premiere date of Monday, June 24 and USA Network’s “Miz and Mrs.” is renewed for a second season. DATES MTV’s anticipated docu-series “The Hills: New Beginnings,” will make its debut on Monday, June 24. Brandon Thomas Lee and Mischa Barton will star in the reboot, joining
Showtime appears to be set to bring Tom Ripley, the serial killer antihero of Patricia Highsmith’s novels, to the small screen. Sources say the cabler is in final negotiations for a straight-to-series order from Steve Zaillian, who will return to writing and directing TV for the first time since creating HBO’s award-winning mini-series “The Night
Fox News Channel once again came out on top of the cable news ratings for the first quarter, but not without stiff competition from MSNBC and Rachel Maddow in particular. In the primetime 8-11 p.m. slot, Fox News averaged 2.4 million total viewers (down 1% from the year-ago quarter), with including 421,000 in the key
Oscar nominated screenwriters Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani kicked off the WGFestival 2019 on Saturday with an opening keynote conversation about their paths to writing and comedy. Presented by the Writers Guild Foundation with Academy Education and Nicholl Fellowship Programs, the festival brought together top creatives and executives from the industry for panels, discussions
“Blind Date” is getting a modern-day reboot, courtesy of Bravo, Variety has learned. The original “Blind Date,” which ran for for 10 syndicated seasons from 1999 to 2006, used hidden cameras to film two strangers, who were fixed up by the show, as they embarked on their first date. Now that dating apps have changed the
The urge to become a journalist bearing witness to the events around her was born in Christiane Amanpour out of a family calamity, and also a failed med school application. As a teenager in her native Iran, she watched the buildup to the Islamic revolution that toppled the shah in 1978 and that eventually forced
April 2, 2019 11:35AM PT As if the wait for the final season of “Game of Thrones” couldn’t get any harder, HBO has dropped three new teasers in 24 hours. The newest teaser video, titled “Aftermath,” shows a destroyed and abandoned Winterfell with sounds of howling winds, clanging swords and roaring dragons filling the minute-long
Taraji P. Henson is being celebrated as one of Variety‘s Power of Women nominees for her work on the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, which she founded in 2018 in her late father’s memory, to eradicate the stigma around mental health in the African-American community. The Oscar-nominated star of “Empire” reveals that dealing with mental health issues is
April 2, 2019 10:38AM PT RuPaul Charles is ready to take on daytime TV. The “RuPaul’s Drag Race” host has signed a deal with Telepictures and Fox Television Stations for a three-week test run of a talk show strip to begin June 10. “RuPaul” is billed as a blend of celebrity and newsmaker interviews mixed
Fox News Channel is known best for primetime hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, but its top executive is also enthusiastic about “The Five,” a panel show that airs each day at 5 p.m. “No matter where it went, it was the best decision I ever made as a programming executive,” says Suzanne Scott,
Netflix has renewed “The Umbrella Academy” for a second season, Variety has learned. Season 1 cast members Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, and Justin Min will all reprise their roles in Season 2. In addition, Steve Blackman will return as showrunner. The second season, which will consist of 10
Suzanne Scott sits atop the most watched operation in cable news, and easily the most controversial. She has managed to keep out of the spotlight during her long run at Fox News — viewers certainly know who Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are, but not her. Yet her anonymity may no longer be possible. Since
In one of this week’s Intl. TV Newswires, DR, a classic European drama series producer, announces its plans for 2019 and competing with major international streamers; the U.K. government implements its plan to promote growth in kids TV; Banijay and Clearwood team up, unveiling a new series from “A Very English Scandal” author John Preston;
HBO Europe’s ‘Success,’ its first HBO Adria original, directed by Academy Award-winner Danis Tanovic (“No Man’s Land”), kicks off with a life management guru, Kiki, on stage, under a dazzling spotlight, lecturing to an unseen audience on “six steps to success.” “First, they fired me for having a sick son, not being able to work
April 2, 2019 6:30AM PT The Season 9 finale of “The Walking Dead” was the lowest-rated finale the show has ever had. In the Nielsen Live+Same Day ratings, Sunday’s finale averaged a 1.9 rating in adults 18-49 and 5 million viewers. In fairness, that is up over 20% in both measures compared to last week’s
April 2, 2019 6:09AM PT Zee’s Global Content Hub has announced the first European deals for its blue-chip documentary “The Life of Earth From Space.” RTL’s pay-TV service Geo TV will show the documentary in Germany, while Discovery has taken it for its U.K., Spain and Benelux channels. Other buyers include Planete + for France
Taraji P. Henson’s organization, the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, is named after her late father, who returned from the Vietnam War with mental health issues. For the Oscar-nominated actress, ending the stigma surrounding mental illness in the black community is a deeply personal cause. In 2003, Henson’s high school sweetheart and ex-boyfriend, William Lamar Johnson,
When Viacom starts meeting with Madison Avenue this week to sell its coming slate of programs, it will have more to pitch than shows and schedules. The company will also be touting advertiser services. Over the eighteen months, Viacom has acquired a suite of new media venues ranging from WhoSay, an influencer-marketing platform; VidCon, a
Christiane Amanpour knows plenty about danger. The veteran CNN host and correspondent rose to fame with her intrepid reporting of the 1990s wars in the Balkans, including the siege of Sarajevo, where snipers in the hills played bloody sport with civilian lives. The experience taught Amanpour the importance of solidarity with her fellow journalists, some
MADRID — Nabil Ayouch (“Horses of God,” “Much Loved,” “Razzia”), one of the foremost Arab World filmmakers, is preparing “Blackout,” a real-time, near-future social-issue thriller drama series set on the border of Europe and Africa in and around Ceuta, one of Spain’s enclaves in Morocco. “Black-Out” is set up at Ayouch’s Paris-based Les Films du
The leaders of the Writers Guild of America have started laying the groundwork for writer members to operate without agents. The WGA notified members Monday that its joint WGA East and WGA West Staffing Submission System has gone live. The notification came a day after after the WGA announced that its members had voted overwhelmingly
April 1, 2019 3:38PM PT In today’s roundup, Netflix releases the official trailer for the dark comedy “Dead to Me,” and John Barrowman joins The CW’s “Glamorous.” DATES Netflix has revealed the premiere date and official trailer for “Dead to Me,” a new dark comedy series starring Christina Applegate, Linda Cardellini, James Marsden, Ed Asner and Brandon
April 1, 2019 2:25PM PT From Litchfield to Central Park. “Orange Is the New Black” star Danielle Brooks exclusively tells Variety that she is going to make her Shakespeare in the Park debut this summer, starring as Beatrice in “Much Ado About Nothing.” “I haven’t done Shakespeare in nine years, [but] I’m ready,” Brooks said
April 1, 2019 2:04PM PT Although the midseason premiere of “Empire” was one of the show’s lowest rated episodes ever, it faired better in delayed viewing. In Live+7 the show went from a 1.2 to a 1.9 rating, a 58% bump which is slightly above the 53% increase that season 5 episodes of the show
Mark Boal, the former journalist who wrote and produced “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” is returning to the espionage arena and dipping his toe into television for the first time, Variety has learned. Showtime has made a series commitment for “Intelligence,” a spy thriller series which Boal will write, direct and executive produce. The show,
Horror fans now have the chance to binge their scares like never before. CBS All Access’ new iteration of “The Twilight Zone, which premieres Monday, boasts modern horror maestro Jordan Peele as executive producer and narrator. It is one of many horror anthology shows to make it to air in recent years. In addition to
Ripping from the headlines is nothing new. For years, film and television have looked to real-world scenarios for inspiration. While HBO’s “Veep” does not have direct parallels to the real-life happenings of President Donald Trump’s White House, actor Sam Richardson, who plays Richard Splett on the Emmy-winning comedy, has a theory about how the political