The show that taught 1980s kids not to hide in an abandoned old refrigerator — or, at the very least, learn CPR in case one of your friends does sneak into one of those scary old latch iceboxes — will not continue with its revival. The updated “Punky Brewster,” which Peacock brought back as part
Issa Rae is best known for creating and starring in “Insecure,” the Emmy-winning show praised for its realistic portrayals of Black women coming-of-age in LA. And with the new reality show, “Sweet Life: Los Angeles,” she’s trying her hand at capturing the experience for “real.” Produced under Rae’s Hoorae content banner, the HBO Max reality
“Better Days” director Derek Tsang has been tapped to direct and co-executive produce Netflix’s adaptation of “Three-Body-Problem” for David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. The forthcoming series, based on the trilogy from Chinese author Liu Cixin, tells the story of what happens when humanity discovers that we are not alone in the universe. “Game of Thrones”
An attorney for R. Kelly attempted to discredit one of the accusers leveling allegations of sexual abuse against the singer on Thursday, after she’d claimed he had slapped and choked her during what she described as their final sexual encounter more than 10 years ago. Jerhonda Johnson Pace, the first witness testifying for prosecutors in
Britney Spears’ housekeeper has filed a battery complaint with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, alleging that the singer accosted her in a fight over a cell phone. The alleged incident took place on Monday at Spears’ home. Sheriffs deputies took a report and will present their findings to the district attorney’s office. Spears’ attorney, Mathew
Greetings from Variety Awards Headquarters! Today is Aug. 19, 2021, which means final-round voting starts TODAY; it’s also 11 days until final voting ends on Aug. 30; and 31 days until the Primetime Emmys telecast on Sept. 19. And here we are, after months of preparation, strategy and campaigning, it all comes down to the voting. Of course, I’m talking about the official
As concerns grow over a rising number of COVID-19 delta variant cases in Los Angeles County, the Television Academy will also require Creative Arts and Primetime Emmy attendees to test negative for the pandemic in addition to showing proof of vaccination. Separately, the TV Academy also announced that two more categories have been added to
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. A matching companion ups the ante for any Halloween costume. Why dress up as a “Hocus Pocus” Sanderson
Peter Gallagher has been cast in Season 18 of “Grey’s Anatomy,” Variety has confirmed. Gallagher is the latest addition to the cast of the long-running ABC medical drama. It was previously announced that Kate Burton would return to the series, reprising the role of Ellis Grey. Gallagher will play Dr. Alan Hamilton who knew Ellis back
Adobe announced a deal to acquire Frame.io, a cloud-based video collaboration platform, in a transaction worth $1.275 billion. Adobe said the deal is expected close during the fourth quarter of its 2021 fiscal year (which ends in late November), subject to regulatory approval and other closing conditions. Upon close, Frame.io co-founder and CEO Emery Wells
Marvel fans will be getting a look at one of the up-and-coming heroes of the MCU earlier than expected. Dominique Thorne, who will star as the superhero Ironheart in her own Disney Plus series, will make her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” next year, Variety has confirmed. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige
Pietro Marcello, the critically acclaimed Italian filmmaker of the Venice prize-winning “Martin Eden,” has just started shooting “Scarlet” (“L’envol”), a French-language drama set in Northern Normandy. Orange Studio has acquired international sales rights to the film which will be distributed in France by Le Pacte. Charles Gillibert, whose Paris-based outfit CG Cinema previously delivered award-winning
The premiere of Serbian drama series “Bad Blood” Wednesday night at the Sarajevo Film Festival was more than just the usual red-carpet event. An ambitious, decades-spanning period drama that chronicles the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, it was the first series from the festival’s CineLink Drama co-financing forum to go into production since its
Snap hired Konstantinos “KP” Papamiltiadis as the company’s first VP of platform partnerships. The nine-year Facebook veteran will lead efforts to on-board Snapchat partners ranging from individual augmented-reality creators to companies that incorporate the app’s camera and AR technology into their apps. At Facebook, KP most recently served as VP of platform partnerships. He will
Rocker Jason Isbell may usually have one of the funniest celebrity accounts on Twitter, but when it comes to his engagement with other users on subjects related to the COVID explosion in the last year and a half, it’s been no laughing matter — or at least a subject of acerbic gallows humor, at most.
“Masked Singer” panelist Robin Thicke is teaming up with up-and-coming TikTok star La’Ron Hines for a new show, Variety can reveal. Leopard USA, the New York-based production company backed by the U.K.’s Argonon Group (“The Masked Singer U.K.”), is developing the as-yet-untitled series with Thicke, who mentors the viral video star. With nearly nine million
“BMF” used “the same technology” that Martin Scorsese used in “The Irishman” in order to turn Marshall Mathers aka Eminem back in time for the seventh episode of the upcoming Starz drama. Executive producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson revealed that tidbit during the series’ Television Critics Assn. press tour panel on Aug. 19. Mathers was
A biopic based on the life of the late “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry is in the works from Roddenberry Entertainment. Gene Roddenberry’s son Rod Roddenberry is producing with Trevor Roth; the duo serves as executive producers on current series “Star Trek: Discovery” and “Star Trek: Picard.” Adam Mazer, the Emmy-winning writer of the Dr.
Foo Fighters will receive the MTV Video Music Awards’ first-ever Global Icon Award at the 2021 ceremony, airing live from Barclays Center on Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. According to MTV, the Global Icon Award — a fixture of the network’s Europe Music Awards (EMAs) — “celebrates an artist/band whose unparalleled career and continued impact
Facebook removed the profile of a man who claimed he had a bomb in his truck near the U.S. Capitol building, in addition to taking down the livestream during which he made the threats. Floyd Ray Roseberry surrendered to Capitol police officers Thursday afternoon, according to the New York Times, after several hours of negotiations
Los Angeles prosecutors have indicted producer Harvey Weinstein for a fourth time, reviving a sexual battery charge that was thrown out by a judge last week. Judge Lisa B. Lench had dismissed the charge on statute of limitations grounds, finding that the grand jury had not considered evidence that would allow the charge to be
With public health laws, travel regulations and COVID variants rapidly changing every day, putting together this year’s Edinburgh Intl. Film Festival has been no easy task. But with 2020’s edition of the festival having been cancelled due to the pandemic, the team behind the EIFF were determined to forge ahead despite lacking a creative director
“Europa” director Haider Rashid was shocked when he first read about the dangers encountered by migrants on the Balkan route, a well-trod passage from Turkey to Eastern Europe undertaken by many thousands of people hoping to reach the West each year. That shock became the genesis for “Europa,” which offers a glimpse into the life
Courteney Cox is arguably best-known for two diametrically opposed genres: the multiple jokes per page format of sitcom “Friends” and the jump scares of slasher-horror franchise “Scream.” But with Starz’ “Shining Vale,” she will be combining a version of those two tones. “Sharon [Horgan] and I set out very, very ambitiously — and Sharon before
Blues Traveler’s tour bus crashed on Thursday morning in Minnesota. Fortunately, the members of the band are safe and said to have sustained minor injuries. “This morning our tour bus went off the road and crossed the median,” the band announced on Facebook. “Thankfully we are all safe and have only sustained minor injuries. Our
OnlyFans, which has amassed a base of more than 130 million users largely for adult-oriented subscription fan pages, announced that it will ban sexually explicit content this fall. The U.K.-based company said it is making the changes “to comply with the requests of our banking partners and payout providers,” in a statement provided to Variety.
Female filmmakers need to make sure they can continue telling the kind of stories they want, said Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović during Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Talk. Kusijanović, who recently won the Camera d’Or at Cannes for her debut feature “Murina,” criticized the Oscars’ new diversity rules for encouraging a form of reverse engineering.
The Academy of Country Music Awards show, long broadcast on CBS until a split this year is no longer looking for a network home. In 2022, the ACMs will bypass broadcast television altogether and be available exclusively as a livestream on Amazon Prime Video. The dramatic development in the ongoing game of musical chairs among
Following moves by Stevie Nicks, Garth Brooks and others, Nine Inch Nails announced on Thursday that they have cancelled all concert appearances for 2021. The group was scheduled to begin a series of dates in September and November in Cleveland on September 21. “It is with great regret that we are cancelling all NIN appearances
The first meeting between caustic comedy doyenne Deborah (Jean Smart) and snarky Twitter-infamous writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) in “Hacks” doesn’t exactly go well. Ava storms out after an exchange of withering putdowns, before Deborah screeches after her and offers her a job, closing the first chapter of the new HBO Max comedy and launching a