Television

In today’s roundup, `Netflix’s “The Order” is renewed for a second season and the CW releases the first trailer for Season 6 of “The 100.” FIRST LOOKS “Hot Bench” has given us an exclusive sneak peek at its 1000th episode airing in syndication April 1. A clip from the upcoming episode shows millennial roommates battling

March 28, 2019 2:01PM PT Wrestling fans will be able to relive some of the most infamous moments and learn untold secrets with Viceland’s new docu-series, “Dark Side of the Ring.” The six-episode series, which premieres April 10 at 9 p.m. ET., will dive into the biggest controversies from in and out of the ring

Variety has exclusively learned that Urban Movie Channel has set the new multi-generational family drama “A House Divided” for a summer 2019 premiere. The series follows the direct descendants of Letty Sanders, who was enslaved in the 1800s and later became the wealthiest black woman in Los Angeles. The show centers on present-day members of

Jay-Z will receive the President’s Award in recognition of special achievement and distinguished public service at the 50th NAACP Image Awards on Saturday. “The President’s Award is an honor we carefully bestow upon an individual, maintaining its significance and commitment to recognizing excellence in service that directly affects our community,” NAACP president Derrick Johnson said

March 28, 2019 11:08AM PT The three-part PBS Masterpiece miniseries “Mrs. Wilson,” which premieres Sunday, is an entertaining but daunting experience. Heavy on drama but light on action, the piece methodically deconstructs a widow’s reckoning of her late husband when all of his deceit comes crashing down around her after he’s gone. Every time she

Writer and showrunner Dana Fox has signed a multi-year overall development deal with Paramount Television and Anonymous Content, Variety has learned.  Fox currently serves as co-creator, showrunner and executive producer on the Paramount Television and Anonymous Content co-production “Home Before Dark,” which is slated to launch on Apple’s recently announced streaming service Apple TV+. Inspired by the

When the third season of “Stranger Things” hits this summer, fans can binge-watch the show on Netflix or they can play through the entire season in a pixelated ’80s-inspired game. But Dave Pottinger, “Stranger Things 3: The Game’s” director, hopes they’ll do both. Not only will the game hit on July 4, the same day

Once upon a time, “Veep” was cathartic. When it premiered in 2014, it made the nasty subtext of government clashes, usually relegated to back chambers and CSPAN, excoriating text. It decoded the grim smiles of politicians in the most cynical way possible, laying bare the ways in which they can twist the system in order

Natalie Morales is known for scene stealing work on television series such as “The Middleman,” “Parks and Recreation,” “The Grinder” and “Santa Clarita Diet” but now she is stepping into the spotlight as the lead and titular character on new NBC sitcom “Abby’s.” What does being the lead of a show in today’s television landscape

March 28, 2019 10:00AM PT Animation producer Nora Smith has signed a multiyear overall deal with 20th Century Fox Television, Variety has learned. Under the deal, she will serve as co-showrunner and executive producer of “Bob’s Burgers” alongside creator and showrunner Loren Bouchard. Smith’s deal is the fourth that Twentieth TV has announced since the studio

Kayla Cromer, the star of the upcoming Freeform comedy “Everything’s Gonna Be Okay,” disclosed that she is on the autism spectrum during her remarks at the Freeform Summit press event held Wednesday night in Hollywood. Cromer said the summit was the ideal place for her to speak candidly about dealing with a hidden disability. The

Seeking to diversify and bolster its scripted output, Banijay Rights has signed a first-look development deal with Ellie Wood (“Bleak House”), a veteran British producer who founded and runs the independent production company Clearwood Films. Under the pact, Banjiay Rights and Wood will work together to develop and produce all of Clearwood Films’ TV series

LILLE, France — Series Mania’s Forum wrapped Wednesday, the festival proper on Saturday night. Here are 10 takeaways on events to date at the biggest edition ever: 1.NETFLIX: NO IN-HOUSE PRODUCTION IN FRANCE, BUT BEYOND? The role of the independent producer in an Over-the-Top platform world proved the No. 1 talking point of Series Mania.

March 28, 2019 4:47AM PT President Donald Trump has weighed in on the Jussie Smollett saga, calling prosecutors’ decision to drop all charges against the “Empire” star “an embarrassment to our Nation.” On Twitter, the president called on the FBI and the Justice Department to “review” the “outrageous” case, but failed to provide more specifics.

CBS Studios International and Scoope Media have inked a licensing deal for an African version of “The Doctors,” the long-running daytime show that blends entertainment with health advice from a panel of real-life doctors. Produced in Nigeria by Scoope Media U.K., the series will premiere in the last quarter of 2019 on the Scoop! SVOD

LILLE, France — People were lined up around the block for hours at Lille’s Le Nouveau Siècle theater on Tuesday night, hoping to get into a keynote speech given by Uma Thurman. She was joined on stage by French journalist Olivier Joyard, where the two discussed highlights from the actress’ blockbuster career as well as

The first scene of Channel 4’s upcoming “Baghdad Central,” created and written by Stephen Butchard and lead-directed by Alice Troughton, captures, with a jolt, the hectic hubbub of an ordinary street scene in Baghdad: One man fixes a container, banging it rhythmically as if it were a drum; there’s the table of street conversation, a

TV has been trying to recapture the magic of “The Twilight Zone” for decades. Since it went off the air for the first time in 1964, the CBS anthology series that merged horror with humanity has been revived twice — in the 1980s and in the early 2000s. Lately, the series’ formula, pasting genre tropes

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the fifth and final season premiere of “Jane The Virgin.” It took five seasons but the CW’s take on a telenovela finally delivered one of the biggest genre tropes: amnesia. Picking up immediately from where the third season left off, Jane (Gina Rodriguez) was

A+E Networks brought out an eclectic group of personalities — from George W. Bush to Sylvester Stallone to Salt-N-Pepa to Garth Brooks — Wednesday night to tout new programming and initiatives coming to History, A&E and Lifetime. The program pitch at A+E’s upfront presentation at Jazz at Lincoln Center seemed like a back-to-basics approach for

Fox Entertainment CEO Charlie Collier held his first town hall event with the employees of the broadcast network on Wednesday. Speaking to an audience of more than 300 people on the Fox lot in addition to employees in New York and elsewhere on simulcast, Collier said that he hopes employees will “walk the halls with

March 27, 2019 4:15PM PT History has teamed with Sylvester Stallone to develop “Tenderloin,” a police drama set in New York in the early 1900s. Stallone is set to executive produce and direct multiple episodes of the series through his Balboa Productions and A+E Studios. “Sons of Anarchy” alum Stephen Kay is penning the pilot.

John Legend and “American Idol” producer Simon Lythgoe are among those teaming up to develop “Love at First Song,” a music competition-dating show hybrid, Variety has learned. The show, which is based on a format first seen on Vietnamese TV and hails from South Korean entertainment and mass media company CJ ENM, will likely try and

Jussie Smollett is nominated for an NAACP Image Award for his work on “Empire,” but it’s still unknown if he will attend the upcoming festivities on Saturday at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. Anthony Anderson, who returns as host for the sixth consecutive year, hopes the actor will make an appearance. “I hope to see

In today’s roundup, a two-hour feature documentary on the making of the final season of “Game of Thrones” comes to HBO May 26 and Netflix releases a trailer for the upcoming interactive Bear Grylls series “You vs. Wild.”  DATES “Game of Thrones: The Last Watch,” a two-hour feature documentary on the making of the upcoming

March 27, 2019 2:43PM PT Walt Disney Television chairman Peter Rice downplayed the threat of massive layoffs hitting Disney’s enlarged television division during an hourlong town hall held Wednesday morning. The gathering marked the first time that many Disney TV employees had the chance to see Rice in person. The event was held at a

Amid shaky prospects for a new deal with Hollywood agents, members of the Writers Guild of America have started voting on a “code of conduct” that will enable writers to fire their agents on April 7. Five days of online voting by the 15,000 WGA members began Wednesday morning. The code includes provisions eliminating agency

A TV writer filed suit against Creative Artists Agency on Tuesday, alleging that his agents stole his idea for a show and gave it to a higher-profile client. John Musero worked as a writer on the Aaron Sorkin show “The Newsroom” in 2014. The following year, he says he wrote a pilot called “Main Justice,”

March 27, 2019 10:56AM PT In a competitive situation, Paramount Television has landed the rights to the follow-up novel to “Sex and the City,” Variety has confirmed. “Is There Still Sex in the City?,” which is set to be released by Grove Press on Aug. 6, hails from “Sex and the City” author Candace Bushnell.

The “Game of Thrones” prequel pilot at HBO is beefing up its cast. Marquis Rodriquez, John Simm, Richard McCabe, John Heffernan, and Dixie Egerickx have all been cast in series regular roles. As with all things “Game of Thrones,” the exact nature of the characters each will be playing is being kept under tight wraps.