Deborah McIntosh and Alex Walton will lead WME Independent, a new division of WME that will handle domestic and international film sales and film financing consulting services. Both were most recently at Endeavor Content, which WME’s parent company Endeavor Holdings is selling a majority stake in as part of a settlement agreement with the Writers
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A “Babylon 5” reboot is in development at The CW, Variety has learned. Original series creator J. Michael Straczynski is onboard to write the project. He will also executive producer under his Studio JMS banner. Warner Bros. Television, which produced the original series, will produce the reboot. The new iteration of the sci-fi series is described
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Former NBC Entertainment and Showtime marketing chief Len Fogge has launched a new company, Len Fogge Consultants, targeted at working with media companies, consumer marketing organizations and ad agencies throughout the business. Based in both Los Angeles and New York, Fogge said the new shingle will focus on marketing structure and workflow design, creative brand
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Disney Plus and National Geographic released the first official trailer for the six-part original series “Welcome to Earth,” starring Will Smith and streaming this December. The series follows Smith on an adventure around the world, guided by accredited travelers as he explores Earth’s greatest wonders as well as its most hidden secrets. “I’ve got a
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Justin Timberlake has joined his longtime collaborator Timbaland at Beatclub, an online global marketplace for music makers offering exclusive beats, loops and sounds. Beatclub, founded by Timbaland and his longtime manager and business partner Gary Marella, has already signed up such A-listers as J. Cole, Mike Will Made It, Mike Dean, Scott Storch, Larance Dopson,
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Beck Bennett, the versatile “Saturday Night Live” player who has won notice for his impressions of Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence over eight seasons at the show, will leave the venerable NBC late-night series even as it welcomes back a number of senior cast members who hinted they might be
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CAA and ICM Partners are joining forces in a landmark agency merger that reflects the larger consolidation in the entertainment landscape. The deal, if approved, would mark a shift in the Hollywood agency landscape, reducing the Big Four agencies to the Big Three, with WME and UTA as CAA’s largest competitors. The agreement unveiled on
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Ticketing platform Dice has raised up to to $122 million in Series C funding in a round was led by new investor, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with follow on investments from Tony Fadell’s Future Shape, Blisce, French entrepreneur Xavier Niel, Mirabaud Private Equity, Cassius and Evolution. “We believe DICE’s technology has the capacity to transform
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Mara Brock Akil has launched the new production company story27 under her previously announced overall deal at Netflix. In addition, Akil has hired Susie Fitzgerald as president of development and production. “At story27, thoughtful and entertaining projects centering the humanity of the marginalized is the priority and that starts with identifying the best and most
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All products and services featured by Variety are independently selected by Variety editors. However, Variety may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. The curtains are finally rising again on Broadway this month, with theaters officially reopening at full capacity. The
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“Aline,” the biopic loosely based on French Canadian hitmaker Celine Dion, has been acquired by Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films for U.S. distribution. The critically acclaimed musical comedy-drama world premiered out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It will be released theatrically in the U.S. in early 2022. Lemercier, one of France’s most
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The first trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” is here. The film will have a limited release on Nov. 26 and expand nationwide on Dec. 25. Set in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley during the 1970s, “Licorice Pizza” stars Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie, Valley native Alana Haim and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman,
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Roblox and the National Music Publishers’ Association today announced an agreement that “settles any previous claims against Roblox and sets the foundation for future partnerships with global publishers that will unlock new creative and commercial opportunities on its platform,” according to the announcement. In June, a group of music publishers sued Roblox through the NMPA
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Condragulations are in order for Irish presenter Graham Norton, who’s set to host “Queen of the Universe,” a new unscripted international drag queen singing competition, Variety can reveal. Produced by “RuPaul’s Drag Race” producers World of Wonder, the Eurovision-style series finds countries going head to head with their top drag queens putting their real singing voices to
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Trevor Phillips has achieved the rare distinction of becoming both a national treasure and something of a provocateur in the U.K. Over the past four decades, he has turned his hand to writing, broadcasting, documentary-making, politics and even retail (he spent four years as president of U.K. department store John Lewis’s “partnership council”), among other
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Talks with Edward Enninful, editor-in-chief of British Vogue and European editorial director of Vogue and Ed Guiney, producer of “Normal People” and “Room,” are among the highlights of the BFI London Film Festival’s industry program. The festival’s LFF Connects strand, which celebrates the intersection between film and other creative industries, features Enninful and will explore
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