As a strike authorization vote got underway, the WGA called on its members to save television and feature writing. The guild, in an email to members seen by Deadline, said, “The survival of writing as a profession is at stake in this negotiation.” The missive continued, “Over the past decade, while our employers have increased their profits by tens of billions, they have embraced business practices that have slashed our compensation and residuals and undermined our working conditions. We’ve met and talked with thousands of you about our bargaining agenda and heard loud and clear that this negotiation can’t be business as usual. The compensation increases and protections we’re demanding are designed to restore what has been taken away from writers." >>>Large Number Of Votes Coming In |
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Mip TV 2003 - Mip TV is just around the corner and, as ever, content will be king. Deadline has identified 12 of the biggest formats and docs set to light up the Croisette and they involve Hot Wheels, pianos, King Charles, Jimi Hendrix and more. >>>Best In Class Projects
Cookin' - Rachael Leigh Cook has signed a wide-ranging deal with Fox’s Marvista Entertainment. The pact will see Cook develop, produce and act in a number of projects including a holiday film and There She Goes (w/t), a feature loosely based on her real-life experiences. >>>Star Will Work In Front Of & Behind The Camera
Movin' - Paramount is moving around a number of its unscripted shows. VH1 series Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, Couples Retreat and Caught In The Act: Unfaithful are headed to MTV. >>>BET Sale A Factor
In Brief - The BBC and CNN are teaming up to mark 20 years since the Columbia space shuttle disaster with documentary Columbia: The Final Flight (w/t)… Elan Gale, the creator of FBoy Island and a long-time Bachelor producer, has struck an overall unscripted deal with ITV America. |
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Rachel Nichols is looking to provide some “quiet time” for both basketball stars and viewers with her new Showtime series, Headliners with Rachel Nichols.
The host known for her past stints at ESPN and Turner is leveraging her basketball knowledge and Rolodex for the new series. On Thursday’s premiere, she will sit down with Joel Embiid, the Philadelphia 76ers star and favorite to win league MVP honors. Other upcoming guests on the weekly interview showcase include NBA A-listers Steph Curry, Dwyane Wade, and Jason Kidd.
Nichols told Deadline she is optimistic the show can break through the glut of sports talk programming. “The idea is that we’re getting the best of the best, the most interesting people, the guys who have accomplished the most in the sport of basketball," she said, and giving viewers a "360-degree view of who a person is" and insights "that you don’t get from 6-second clips on Instagram." >>>Return To TV |
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Exclusive Sebastian Stan and Maria Bakalova are attached to star in an untitled spy comedy in very early development at Paramount. The script, which is said to involve a failed double agent who becomes an unlikely success, is based off an original pitch. Paul Feig is eyeing the director's chair. Exclusive Emmy Award-winner Julie Bowen will star in Peacock’s coming-of-age thriller Hysteria! Bowen will play the mother of a teenage outcast who experiences a series of supernatural disturbances that force her to question everything she knows about her son and worry about the growing threat of Satanism in their small Midwestern town. The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey has been cast in the second season of BBC prison drama Time alongside Jodie Whittaker, Tamara Lawrance and Siobhan Finneran. Jimmy McGovern’s show will move on to a women’s prison where Ramsey will play Kelsey, thrown together to face an unfamiliar world with Orla (Whittaker) and Abi (Lawrance). Oscar winner Adrien Brody, Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Emmy winner Guy Pearce and Conversations With Friends star Joe Alwyn are among cast confirmed for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. Principal photography on the film began in recent weeks in Hungary. In Brief - Hugo Weaving, Joanna Scanlan, Ruth Bradley, Tom Brooke and James Callis have joined Season 4 of Apple’s spy series Slow Horses… Jaime Camil has joined the cast of Apple’s Acapulco for Season 3. |
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More News
🐦 In a hastily arranged interview with the BBC overnight, Twitter owner Elon Musk said his time at the social media platform has been “a rollercoaster” with a “high pain level.” Delivering updates on a number of his more controversial decisions, he said “mistakes [have been] made along the way” but that the social media giant is “headed to a good place.”
🌈 Andrew Lloyd Weber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is coming to the big screen. Jon M. Chu, who is currently directing Wicked for Universal, will helm the Weber project for Amazon Studios, as Deadline's Baz Bamigboye was first to report.
💼 Anonymous Content has upped longtime literary managers and producers Ryan Cunningham, David Kanter and Nicole Romano to partner.
🦚 Peacock is heading into the metaverse, launching Wednesday on Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro virtual reality headsets. The launch is part of an overall, 3-year partnership between NBCUniversal and Meta Platforms.
👑 Prince Harry will attend next month's coronation of his father, King Charles, though his wife, Meghan Markle, plans to stay in California.
🏎️ Paramount+ has extended its push into sports by reaching a co-branding deal with Formula 1. While the streaming service doesn't have rights to air F1 races, it will be able to promote characters, movies and series in Fan Zone areas.
🎥 The Cannes Film Festival said that Pedro Almodóvar’s short film Strange Way of Life will world premiere at its upcoming 76th edition. The Western shot in southern Spain stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal and is the filmmaker’s second English-language experience, after The Human Voice in 2020.
🤯 A judge on Tuesday expressed anger over a recent disclosure made by Fox that Rupert Murdoch is listed as an officer of Fox News, not just Fox Corporation. “This is a problem,” said Judge Eric M. Davis, indicating that it could have impacted his rulings in the case. Fox has argued that Fox Corporation and its officers, including Murdoch and son Lachlan, did not have daily operational roles at the network.
✍️ Alfred A. Knopf will publish Brittney Griner’s untitled memoir in spring 2024. Deal was closed by Reagan Arthur, Knopf EVP and Publisher, and world rights were sold by Kimberly Witherspoon at Inkwell Management with Jon Liebman at Brillstein Entertainment and Lindsay Kagawa Colas at Wasserman. Griner will recount the tumultuous events of 2022, when she was arrested and imprisoned in Russia.
🧟 After helping relaunch the Scream franchise, the filmmaking collective known as Radio Silence has signed on to an untitled monster thriller at Universal Pictures. The group’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett will direct the project, with Chad Villella serving as producer alongside William Sherak, Paul Neinstein and James Vanderbilt at Project X Entertainment. The untitled monster thriller will look to provide a unique take on legendary monster lore with a fresh, new direction.
In Brief - Brillstein Entertainment Partners has struck a first-look deal with Paramount TV Studios… Green Book actor Frank Vallelonga Jr.'s cause of death has been disclosed… Broadway box office blossom as Shucked opens, Phantom heads towards final curtain. |
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Trending  On the heels of NBC extending his six scripted series for another season, sibling Universal Television has extended Dick Wolf’s massive overall deal spanning broadcast and streaming for his Wolf Entertainment for another two years.
🔻 The largest U.S. movie theater ad network, National CineMedia, said Tuesday night that it filed a voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in U.S. District Court. |
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On the Radar
Wed - Warner Bros Discovery streaming event
Thu - TCM Festival kicks off; Nicolas Cage on Colbert
Fri - First weekend of Coachella
Sat - Deadline Contenders TV; NBA Playoffs begin
Sun - NAB starts
Mon - Fox-Dominion suit
Tue - Netflix earnings |
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Magic Moment - Jeremy Renner made his first red (well, blue) carpet appearance since a serious snowplow accident sidelined him earlier this year. Renner rode a knee scooter and bumped into the king of the Magic Kingdom himself, Bob Iger, who also happens to be the über boss at Disney+, which streams Renner's show Rennervations, which the premiere was celebrating.
The series follows the actor giving back to communities around the world as he "Renner-vates" trucks and buses from his massive, Nevada-based fleet, creating unique vehicles for those in need.
“Working on this show is not work, it’s always a lot of fun, good laughter and really good causes. It really actually moves the needle a lot for people and it certainly moves the needle a lot for me in my life,” Renner told Deadline. |
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