Welcome back to Tune In: our weekly newsletter offering a guide to the best of the week’s TV. Each week, Variety’s TV team combs through the week’s schedule, selecting our picks of what to watch and when/how to watch them. This week, “Schitt’s Creek” airs a holiday special and “The Runaways” returns for Season 2
Former ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey is joining Netflix as the vice president of original content, Variety has learned. In her new role, she will report to Cindy Holland, who is also vice president of original content. Dungey is expected to start working at the streamer in February. “We’re delighted to be adding Channing’s expertise, leadership
December 17, 2018 9:58AM PT 20th Century Fox veteran Vincent de la Tour is joining Paramount Pictures in a role covering Austria, Germany and Switzerland. He will be executive vice president for theatrical and home media for those territories, overseeing the local teams and reporting to Cameron Saunders, Paramount’s EVP of international theatrical distribution, and
For most of its 91 years, Oscar has been surrounded by hoopla. Now it’s surrounded by noise, which isn’t the same thing. For decades, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ attitude toward the media was: “Don’t talk about the organization; instead, talk about the creative members and their movies.” But in the internet
It’s been less than four years since #OscarsSoWhite became a hot topic at the Academy Awards after 2015 films like “Creed” and “Straight Outta Compton” failed to land major nominations for people of color. (It actually began the year before but picked up steam when, for the second year in a row, no people of
This awards season, the Hollywood studios’ Golden Boy, Oscar, stars in The Return of the Prodigal Son. This year’s lineup of studio contenders has opened screen doors to the top award after Oscar’s long affair with those wild young things called “the indies.” As the blockbusters became the more and more favored means of recoupment
For as scattered as the Golden Globes can be, there are at least a couple of constants when it comes to the nominations. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has proved time and again that its favorite kind of actors to reward tend to come from two extreme sides of the spectrum: talented first-timers and huge
December 17, 2018 9:39AM PT Starz has promoted Marta Fernandez to executive VP of originals programming. Fernandez has been with Starz since 2007. Most recently, she has helped steer the original programming team and leads the company’s inclusion initiatives. Among the shows that she directly oversees are the drama series “Vida” and “American Gods” and
NBCUniversal’s Hispanic broadcaster Telemundo is developing its first English-language newscast in collaboration with YouTube in a bid to tap the burgeoning U.S. Hispanic youth demographic. Borne out of a YouTube grant aimed at awarding journalism projects that “elevate quality journalism, evolve business models to drive sustainable growth, and empower news organizations through technological innovation,” Telemundo News’
Jared Gutstadt, the co-founder of production music house Jingle Punks and a multi-instrumentalist who favors guitar and drums, is extending beyond his field with the release of his first album of original material under the name Bear and a Banjo. In typical Punks style, Gutstadt — who performs under the name Jingle Jared — is
From Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump, the leaders of right-wing Republican politics have tended to be fire-breathers (or, in the case of Reagan, a saber rattler who could make snake oil taste like honey). But Dick Cheney broke that mold. Speaking in soft terse corporate tones, with the precision squint of someone
December 17, 2018 8:56AM PT Popular YouTube creator PewDiePie’s ongoing battle to keep his channel’s subscriber count No. 1 ahead of India’s T-Series took another bizarre twist: A branded-content section of the Wall Street Journal’s website was hacked with a fake message apologizing to PewDiePie and urging people to subscribe to his channel. A spokeswoman for
December 17, 2018 8:49AM PT Comcast television subscribers can now enjoy YouTube in ultra-high definition: The Google-owned video service is now serving up 4K videos on Comcast’s Xfinity X1 set-top boxes, the cable company announced Monday. X1 owners who also happen to have a X1 voice remote can get access to a curated selection of
Earlier this year, Sony/ATV Music Publishing Chairman/CEO Martin Bandier announced that he will be stepping down from his post at the end of March, 2019, when his contract expires. It is a matter of fact and not opinion to say that he is one of the greatest music publishers in history and has built the
Ed Sheeran topped Pollstar’s 2018 year-end global touring chart with a record $432 million gross on 4,860,482 tickets sold, the publication announced today, with Taylor Swift’s “Reputation” tour leading the U.S. tours chart with $277.3 million and came in second globally with $345.1 million on 2,888,892 tickets sold. Jay-Z and Beyonce’s “OTRII” tour of North America
Ruth Bader Ginsburg returned to her hometown on Sunday for the New York premiere of “On the Basis of Sex,” a biopic starring Felicity Jones tells the Supreme Court justice’s origin story. The 85-year-old Brooklynite received a standing ovation when she entered the Walter Reade Theater — a testament to the Notorious RBG’s rock-star status. Ginsburg
Paul McCartney and Emma Stone get surreal for a good cause in the short film inspired by McCartney’s new anti-bullying song “Who Cares,” which held its premiere Sunday night at Beverly Hills’ Fine Arts Theater. In the short directed by Brantley Guitierrez (a longtime McCartney tour photographer) and choreographer Ryan Heffington, the music legend and
Netflix isn’t killing movie theaters. At least, that’s the take-away from a new study conducted by EY’s Quantitative Economics and Statistics group, which finds that people who go to movies in theaters more frequently also consume more streaming content. That flies in the face of the “conventional wisdom” of box office sages, who grimly ascribe
Sunday night’s “This Is America” tour stop could have been seen as a funeral for Childish Gambino — the musical alter-ego Donald Glover has said he’s retiring after this tour and forthcoming album — but that doesn’t mean it was a somber occasion. On the contrary, Gambino put on a show at Los Angeles’ the
The Internet thundered to Cardi B’s defense in the wake of her estranged husband Offset’s ill-advised, public act of contrition, when he crashed her Saturday night performance at the Rolling Loud festival with flowers and a cake that spelled out “Take Me Back Cardi” — and failed to impress her. Social media lit up with
In a year that gave us films like “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” this weekend’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” delivers one more home run for underrepresented groups in media in 2018. An animated film that takes advantage of Sony’s piece of the Marvel pie, “Spider-Verse” not only puts a mixed-race, middle-class teenager in the
Google has set plans to dramatically boost its footprint in New York City: The internet giant said it will invest more than $1 billion to establish a new 1.7-million-square-foot campus, Google Hudson Square, in Manhattan. The move is a major part of Google’s expansion plans in the city that will let it more than double
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has announced that Jeff Bridges will receive the Cecil B. DeMille award at the 76th Golden Globes on Jan. 6, 2019. Bridges has starred in films like “The Big Lebowski,” “Crazy Heart,” “True Grit,” and “The Fabulous Baker Boys.” “The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is delighted to bestow the 2019
December 17, 2018 4:23AM PT Oscar-nominated actress Charlotte Rampling, whose career has spanned more than 100 film and television roles, will be honored with a special Golden Bear at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival. The fest will also pay homage to Rampling by screening a selection of her work, including Sidney Lumet’s “The Verdict” (1982),
Jacques Audiard’s “The Sisters Brothers” has been nominated for best film and director at the 24th Lumieres Awards, France’s equivalent of the Golden Globes. The Western starring Joaquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly and Jake Gyllenhaal world-premiered at Venice Film Festival, where it earned Audiard a best director award. Produced by Paris-based company Why Not, “The
Creative Artists Agency (CAA) has signed with We Pictures, the production and distribution company founded by Hong Kong-born director and producer Peter Chan Ho-sun. It aims to boost the company’s footprint both in China and abroad. Within China, CAA China will help We Pictures to develop new business partnerships and find new sources of investment
December 17, 2018 3:15AM PT Paul McCartney was joined by fellow former Beatle Ringo Starr and Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood onstage at London’s O2 arena Sunday, creating an all-star rock ‘n’ roll lineup for the ages. For his encore, McCartney invited Starr and Wood to join him in a performance of Beatles number “Get
Elizabeth Karlsen and Stephen Woolley, the producers of such films as “Carol,” “Their Finest” and the recent “Colette” starring Keira Knightley, will receive the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award at the BAFTA Film Awards. The prolific pair run Number 9 Films and have a long list of credits. They will pick up their accolade at
December 17, 2018 1:42AM PT “Bohemian Rhapsody” reclaimed top place at the South Korean box office, overtaking “Default,” after spending two weekends in second place. The Fox release earned $4.38 million from 554,000 admissions for a total of $61.0 million from 7.94 million admissions. In its seventh weekend of release “Rhapsody” accounted for 27% of
December 17, 2018 12:59AM PT “Aquaman” comfortably dominated the Chinese box office for the second weekend. Although it dropped 47% in its second week, the latest Warner Bros.’ DC Comics title again accounted for the majority of all cinema business nationwide. The watery superhero movie earned $53.9 million, according to data from exhibition and distribution