Felicity Huffman is returning to acting — and to ABC — with a single-camera comedy that has landed a big pilot production commitment at the network. The Peanut Butter Falcon‘s Zack Gottsagen co-stars in the project from Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment. Written by Becky Hartman Edwards, the untitled comedy is inspired by Susan Savage, the real-life owner of the Triple-A baseball team the Sacramento […]
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Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo is being scorched on social media for not pushing back at Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen from him. During the Sunday morning interview – the president’s first since losing the race to Joe Biden — Trump called the election “rigged” and a “fraud” in what journalist Yashar […]
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President-elect Joe Biden will have an all-female senior communications team at his White House, reflecting his stated desire to build out a diverse White House team as well as what’s expected to be a return to a more traditional press operation. Biden campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield will serve as Biden’s White House communications director. […]
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Luther actor Idris Elba is set to interview former Beatle Paul McCartney for a 60-minute BBC One holiday special. Produced by The Graham Norton Show outfit So Television, Idris Elba Meets Paul McCartney will be filmed in London over the coming weeks in line with local Covid-19 rules. Elba, who moonlights as a musician and DJ, will interview McCartney about his career as one of the […]
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The arrival of Margaret Thatcher in season four of The Crown was keenly anticipated: Gillian Anderson is magnificent, Thatcher was an icon whichever way you cut it, cue popcorn, etc. In fact, when it arrived, Anderson’s performance was unnerving. Damian Barr, the author of Maggie & Me, not a Tory, puts this a bit more strongly: “I’m […]
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The 2020 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was a welcome — but atypical — sight. Though no crowd could be in attendance, 20.7 million TV viewers tuned in from 9 a.m. to noon, when it averaged a 5.3 rating among adults 18-49, according to Nielsen. Those numbers made the Thanksgiving parade NBC’s highest-rated and most-watched entertainment […]
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Los Angeles County announced a new stay-home order Friday as coronavirus cases surge out of control in the nation’s most populous county. The three-week order takes effect Monday. It came as the county confirmed 24 new deaths and 4,544 new cases of COVID-19. The five-day average of new cases was 4,751. Nearly 2,000 people in […]
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President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn. He made the announcement on Twitter, writing, “It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon. Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!” Flynn pleaded guilty […]
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Beyoncé’s big summer — with the Juneteenth release of “Black Parade,” her work with Megan Thee Stallion on the “Savage” remix and her Black Is King film — vaulted her into the top spot as the most-nominated artist at the 2021 Grammys. The superstar musician scored nine nominations, extending her record as the most-nominated female artist in Grammy […]
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Fox News has reached a settlement with the parents of Seth Rich in a dispute over the network’s coverage of his death. Rich, then a staffer for the Democratic National Committee, was shot in the back in July 2016. While law enforcement characterized it as a botched robbery, a Fox News story about his death […]
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Former ESPN star Jemele Hill is moving into scripted television and has teamed with Gabrielle Union to develop a half-hour comedy series about Black women with financial independence. New Money, which is based on a story from Hill and The Undefeated journalist Kelley Carter, who run Lodge Freeway Media, is in development at Showtime. The series is produced by Union’s I’ll […]
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Weeks after the passing of legendary “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, Sony Pictures Television has announced that popular contestant and “Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time” tournament winner Ken Jennings will serve as the first of a series of interim guest hosts when the trivia game show returns to production on Monday, Nov. 30. “Alex believed in the importance of […]
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Taylor Swift won three American Music Awards Sunday night, including the top “favorite artist” honor — explaining her absence as due to being busy in the studio re-recording her entire Big Machine catalog. The climactic favorite artist award came as something as a surprise, since Swift’s name had not come up as a winner any time earlier in […]
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It appears increasingly likely that Jeff Zucker will step down as CNN president, with Vanity Fair reporting on Friday that it could happen early next year. According to the report, which cites someone familiar with the matter, Zucker is widely expected in the senior ranks at WarnerMedia to step down sometime during the first quarter of […]
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Universal Filmed Entertainment Group has unveiled a multi-year agreement with Canada’s Cineplex chain to shorten the theatrical window and bring movies more quickly to the home. The pact, announced Friday, mirrors similar agreements that the studio reached on July 28 with AMC Theatres and on Nov. 17 with the Cinemark chain. Under the terms of the new agreement, Universal […]
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A Wipeout contestant died Wednesday after completing the course for the TBS show, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed. The unidentified male contestant suffered an undisclosed medical emergency on the Santa Clarita set. “We are devastated to have learned of his passing and our deepest sympathy goes out to the family,” a TBS spokesperson said in a statement. The contestant was treated […]
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When Drew Barrymore launched her talk show this fall, she had no clue that she wouldn’t be chatting with her guests face-to-face. But since debuting in September, she’s conducted digital interviews with A-listers such as Reese Witherspoon, Anne Hathaway and Cameron Diaz. If you watched the premiere episode of “The Drew Barrymore Show” at home, […]
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With a second wave of COVID-19 impacting many parts of the globe, Wonder Woman 1984 is changing course yet again. The tentpole is all but giving up on a traditional theatrical release and will instead bow in whatever cinemas remain open on Dec. 25 as well as stream on HBO Max that day. In international markets where […]
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Rachel Bloom brings humor and transparency to her debut book, I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are (Grand Central Publishing), a collection of comic essays, accounts of her childhood, school years and her journey into Crazy Ex-Girlfriend success. In the book, out Tuesday, Bloom particularly opens up about her mental health journey, including experiencing the onset of obsessive-compulsive […]
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In April, Parton announced she was giving the money to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. That was one of the trial sites for the Moderna vaccine, which is nearly 95% effective, according to early data. A Vanderbilt spokesperson said Parton’s “generous” gift was helping “several promising research initiatives”. A portion of the singer’s money went […]
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Conan O’Brien is no longer a night owl. The comedian is ending his run as a late-night talk show host after nearly three decades. O’Brien, 57, announced Tuesday that he’ll finish his TBS series “Conan” at the completion of its 10th season in June 2021. However, he has signed on for a new, weekly variety […]
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Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde split earlier this year, a source confirmed to People this week. The couple, who were together for nine years and engaged for more than seven, share a son Otis, 6, and a daughter, Daisy, 4. They had their reasons, of course, for wanting to end their romantic relationship. The source said that the […]
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ABC is bringing three comedy kings together. The Disney-backed broadcast network has handed out a straight-to-series order for an untitled multicamera comedy starring Alec Baldwin and Kelsey Grammer and from Modern Family co-creator Chris Lloyd. The series is earmarked for the 2021-22 broadcast season. Written by Lloyd and his longtime Modern Family cohort Vali Chandrasekaran, the series revolves around […]
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Some 17 months after Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings LLC acquired Big Machine Label Group and all of its recorded music assets, sources tell Variety the veteran manager and entrepreneur has sold the master rights to Taylor Swift’s first six albums. The buyer, an investment fund, is as yet unknown but the deal is believed to be north of $300 […]
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Reality TV is getting the behind-the-scenes treatment. E! has greenlit the limited event series “For Real: The Story of Reality TV,” hosted and executive produced by Andy Cohen, which will recall famous moments from “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” “The Bachelor,” “The Real World,” “The Real Housewives,” “Survivor” and other well-known unscripted series. The seven-part series […]
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