Joe Biden’s team announced new details for its plans for the presidential inauguration, which the president-elect already indicated would bear some similarities to the nearly all-virtual Democratic National Convention, reimagined because of Covid-19. Stephanie Cutter and Ricky Kirshner, who spearheaded the convention plans, will serve as executive producers of the inaugural, with Rod O’Connor as senior adviser. […]
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CNN’s chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta fired off a final question as White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany left her briefing Tuesday, asking her about the “disinformation” he accused her of spreading “every day.” McEnany was attacking the media just before halting her briefing, accusing reporters of not paying enough attention to stories involving […]
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Upcoming NBC series “Mr. Mayor,” starring Ted Danson and Holly Hunter, is pausing production this week after half a dozen COVID-19 cases occurred on set, Variety has learned. Six positive cases were recorded with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health at 100 Universal City Plz, Bldg. 5225, in Universal City, Calif. Four of those results came in between Friday and Monday […]
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Kelly Clarkson’s daytime talk show is sticking around for a while. NBCUniversal Syndication Studios has renewed The Kelly Clarkson Show for two more years, which will take it through its fourth season in 2022-23. The show has been cleared in 75 percent of the country, including on NBC-owned stations, for seasons three and four. “One ray of […]
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Showtime is giving Shameless a royal sendoff. The premium cable network announced Monday it has picked up Shameless Hall of Shame, a companion series designed to celebrate John Wells’ departing dramedy with six hourlong retrospective episodes. Set to launch Sunday, Dec. 27, at 9 p.m., the six-episode series will feature new and original Shameless scenes juxtaposed with a retrospective look at each […]
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Ilana Glazer’s “False Positive” is popping up at Hulu. The A24 film, co-written and produced by Glazer and John Lee is set to debut as a Hulu original in 2021. “False Positive” marks Glazer and Lee’s feature film co-writing debut, after working together on “Broad City.” Glazer stars in the film as Lucy, who after several attempts at […]
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Chris Pine is negotiating a deal to star in Dungeons & Dragons, the live action film based on Hasbro’s massively popular role-playing game from Wizards of the Coast. Hasbro/eOne and Paramount are jointly producing and financing, with eOne distributing in the UK and Canada, and Paramount the rest of the world. Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley will […]
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Tony Award winner Ann Reinking, an actor, dancer and choreographer, died on Saturday night in Washington, her sister-in-law Dahrla Reinking told Variety. She was 71. News of the actor’s death was first announced Monday on Facebook by dancer and choreographer Christopher Dean, who teaches Reinking’s niece. “The lights on Broadway are forever more dim this morning and […]
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The Supreme Court tossed out a suit filed by the attorney general of Texas and backed by President Donald Trump that sought to throw out the results of the election in four states that went for Joe Biden. The court ruled that the state of Texas “has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts […]
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Paramount Television Studios has locked Michael Douglas and Christoph Waltz for Reagan & Gorbachev, a limited series that James Foley will direct. Douglas will play President Ronald Reagan, and Waltz will play Mikhail Gorbachev, in a series that B. Garida adapted from the Ken Adelman’s book Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War. Adelman was Reagan’s arms control director. The package is coming together […]
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Time magazine has named President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as its 2020 Person of the Year. The title reflects the ability of the chosen individual to “affect the news or our lives, for better or worse,” as the magazine describes. Upon the winning the honor Thursday, Biden and Harris simply said, “Thank you for […]
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Showtime is moving forward with its comedy from the Safdie brothers. The premium cable network has tapped Emma Stone to star in The Curse, which has now been formally ordered to series. Picked up to pilot in February, the comedy from the Uncut Gems duo is described as a genre-bending scripted comedy that explores how an alleged curse disturbs […]
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NBC is developing Zorro, a contemporary take on the classic masked vigilante character with a gender swap. It comes from a high-profile creative team, which includes filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, writer-director Rebecca Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara and her LatinWe, as well as Ben Siverman and Howard T. Owens’ Propagate. CBS Studios, where Propagate has a deal, will co-produce with Universal TV. Co-written by […]
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Jessica Simpson is getting into business with Amazon. The singer, actress, fashion mogul and author has signed a multimedia rights deal with the tech and retail giant that includes a pair of TV projects at Amazon Studios as well as a publishing component. The two TV shows, one unscripted and one scripted, are based on […]
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The Academy Awards have announced producers for the upcoming 93rd ceremony. Emmy nominee Jesse Collins (“Zoboomafoo”), Oscar nominee Stacey Sher (“Django Unchained” and “Erin Brockovich”) and Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh (best director for 2000’s “Traffic”) will produce the upcoming show, which is scheduled to air on Sunday, April 25. This is the trio’s first time producing the annual Oscars telecast. “The upcoming Oscars […]
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Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment is putting down roots at Amazon. The 6-year-old company behind such projects as I, Tonya; Birds of Prey; and Hulu’s Dollface has inked a first-look television deal with the streaming service. The news comes as the company, previously housed at Warner Bros., is already in production on TV series elsewhere, including Netflix’s Margaret Qualley-fronted dramedy Maid and the […]
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Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli’s daughter Olivia Jade is finally discussing her experience being caught in the middle of the college admissions scandal. Jade, 21, sat down with Jada Pinkett Smith and Willow Smith for Tuesday’s episode of “Red Table Talk.” She explained her decision to participate in the show in a promo clip on Instagram, saying, […]
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The song-catalog bonanza of 2020 just hit a peak that is not likely to be topped: Universal Music Publishing Group has acquired Bob Dylan’s entire catalog of songs in a blockbuster agreement encompassing more than 600 copyrights spanning 60 years, ranging from 1962’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” to this year’s “Murder Most Foul.” His catalog was previously administered in the […]
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David L. Lander, who played Andrew “Squiggy” Squiggman for all eight seasons of the popular ABC sitcom Laverne & Shirley, has died. He was 73. Lander died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from multiple sclerosis, his wife, Kathy Fields, told TMZ. The actor was diagnosed with the disease in May 1984 but kept it a […]
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A regional state stay-at-home order will go into effect for Southern California and San Joaquin Valley at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday amid rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. State officials confirmed the order with The Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press on Saturday afternoon. The California Department of Public Health reported on Friday that ICU capacity dropped to 13.1 […]
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Apple TV+ is banking on some gutsy women. In a competitive situation, the streaming service has ordered a straight-to-series order for an event docuseries from Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea Clinton based on their best-selling book, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience. The Clinton women will host and exec produce […]
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Warner Bros. is plotting a sweeping response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has shuttered movie theaters around the country. After announcing that Wonder Woman 1984 will go to HBO Max as well as theaters Dec. 25, the studio has laid out a similar path for its 2021 slate amid uncertainty about when moviegoing will get back to normal. […]
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David Sheehan, one of the most prominent entertainment journalists and critics in the Los Angeles TV news arena for more than 30 years, has died. He was 82. Sheehan died Tuesday at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center from complications of a stroke he suffered last week. “I worked with him the day before he went […]
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Election month was big for all three major cable news networks, but CNN saw the most record-breaking growth. Compared to last November, CNN’s total viewership grew 135% and its viewership in the key demo grew 209%, according to Nielsen Media Research ratings data. Overall, says the network, it broke all of its previous viewership records. […]
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Julianna Margulies has joined the cast of “The Morning Show” Season 2, Variety has learned exclusively. She will play Laura Peterson, an anchor at UBA News. She joins returning series stars Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon as well as Steve Carell, Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell, Bel Powley, Karen Puttman, and Desean Terry. It was also previously […]
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