PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
More unscripted fashion fare is headed to TV. Tan France (Queer Eye) and designer/model Alexa Chung will host 10-ep Netflix competition series Next In Fashion, which features designers competing to become the next big thing. No date has been set for the launch, but season one will have ten episodes. Judges include stylist Elizabeth Stewart and fashion guru Eva Chen; winner will receive a $250,000 prize and an opportunity to debut their collection with luxury fashion retailer Net-a-Porter. Series is created and produced by Theoldschool and exec-produced by Robin Ashbrook and Yasmin Shackleton with co-exec producer Adam Cooper.
FX partnered with the Peabody Awards for TV special Stories of the Year, slated to air this summer, in which Peabody-winning writers and producers will explore social issues ranging from race to rape culture to multicultural representation in media in a roundtable moderated by comedian Hasan Minhaj. Peabody exec director Jeffrey Jones announced the docu-style show this past weekend at the 78th Annual Peabody Awards. Den of Thieves is producing for FX, with exec producers Jesse Ignjatovic, Evan Prager and Chris Choun and co-exec producer Jeff Roe.
Jon Steinberg, co-creator of Black Sails, and producing partner Dan Shotz inked a three-year overall deal with Fox 21 Television Studios to develop and run series. The two most recently were exec producers of Apple streaming series See. Steinberg previously exec produced Black Sails, on which Shotz served as exec producer and writer. Steinberg also created and was exec producer of Human Target, and co-created and produced CBS series Jericho.
Hulu is developing a pilot based on the 1984 Stephen King novel Eyes of the Dragon. Seth Grahame-Smith (Lego Batman Movie) is writing the pilot ep and serving as showrunner for the show, based out of Fox 21 Television Studios. Grahame and KatzSmith partner David Katzenberg will exec-produce along with Bill Haber, Roy Lee and Jon Berg. Eyes of the Dragon is set in the fictional realm of Delain and follows two prince brothers.
Syfy gave a series order to live action drama Vagrant Queen, adapted from the Vault Comics brand and slated for release in 2020. Series will be produced by Blue Ice Pictures and by an all-female team of writers and directors featuring Jem Garrard as creator and showrunner. Adriyan Rae (Light as a Feather) has been cast in the lead role of Elida, Tim Rozon (Diggstown) as Isaac and Paul du Toit (Maze Runner) as Commander Lazaro.
Globo and Sony Pictures Television entered a multi-project deal to co-develop and co-produce two English-language scripted dramas—limited series The Angel of Hamburg and Rio Connection—with a third project in the works. SPT-backed Floresta will co-produce the projects in partnership with Globo Studios, for which this is the studio’s first venture into English-language drama. The Angel of Hamburg is based on the life of Aracy de Carvalho, a Brazilian clerk in the Consulate in Hamburg who secretly helped hundreds of Jews escape to Brazil during the Nazi regime. Rio Connection is based on the European gangsters who established Brazil as the central organized crime hub for trafficking heroin into the US in the ‘70s.
Top 10 Weekend Domestic Box Office Estimates: May 17-19
John Wicke – Chapter 3: Parabellum (LG/S) $57 million, opening weekend
Avengers End Game (BV) $29.4 million (week 4), cume revenue $770.8 million
Pokeman: Detective Pikachu (WB) $24.8 million (week 2), cume revenue $94 million
A Dog’s Journey (Universal) $8 million, opening weekend
The Hustle (UAR) $6.1 million (week 2), cume revenue $23.1 million
The Intruder (SGem) $4 million (week 3), cume revenue $28.1 million
Long Shot (LG/S) $3.4 million (week 3), cume revenue $25.7 million
The Sun Is Also a Star (WB), $2.6 million, opening weekend
Poms (STX) $2.1 million (week 2), cume revenue $10 million
Uglydolls (STX) $1.6 million (week 3), cume revenue $17.2 million
Source: Comscore
NEW & RETURNING SERIES
Fox bumped up the season 16 premiere of So You Think You Can Dance by a week to Monday, June 3 at 9p.
True-crime anthology series Dirty John will slide over from Bravo to sister NBCU network USA for its upcoming second season, slated to premiere in 2020. The podcast-inspired Dirty John received a two-season straight-to-series order by Bravo in January 2018. The first season, starring Connie Britton and Eric Bana, became the highest-rated scripted series ever on the network.
COMING UP
ABC News chronicles the youth movements of 1969 that spurred the Woodstock Festival and Stonewall Uprising in a special airing Tuesday, May 21 at 10p. Featuring interviews with music artist John Fogerty, activists Laverne Cox and Jazz Jennings, and Woodstock co-creators Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld, the doc marks the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of one of the most revolutionary concerts of all time.
A title change for the PBS event previously known as Tianamen: Seven Weeks That Changed The World. The special is now called Tiananmen: The People Vs. the Party, and is part of a PBS summer slate celebrating cultural milestones.
DIGITAL DATA
ATTN: is launching new series I Never Expected, produced in partnership with The Honest Co. Series follows five women as they navigate their first pregnancy, from first trimester through birth. All 19 eps are available on The Honest Co.’s blog.
TECH TALK
Google is lowering the curtain on its cloud-based video stitching service Jump, on June 28. Jump, announced in 2015, was seen as a vote of confidence in VR video; the offering also was to include the development of dedicated VR cameras in partnership with companies such as GoPro and Yi… In related company VR news, YouTube will bring its VR app to Facebook’s Oculus Quest when that headset launches later this month. YT VR already is available on the Oculus Go and Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Playstation VR and HTC Vive headsets.
Spotify is testing an in-car device that allows users to access music and podcasts with voice commands. In a blog post, the company said its first hardware foray, called for the time being “Car Thing,” is being tested in the US only, among a small group of premium subscribers.
KIDS NEWS
HBO snagged US rights to animated children’s film Lino 3D from Argentine production house FilmSharks. The film follows a kids party entertainer who’s determined to change his life and gets his wish after he visits a wizard who inadvertently turns him into a big cat.
Ameba TV will stream 59 titles of kids content from Nelvana, including 6Teen, Anatole, Babar, Babar and the Adventures of Badou, Being Ian, Blazing Dragons, Birdz, Braceface, Class of Titans, Di-Gata Defenders and Redwall.
CASTING
Da’Vine Joy Randolph (On Becoming a God in Central Florida) and David Holmes (The Hill) are in as series regulars opposite Zoe Kravitz and Jake Lacy in Hulu’s reimagining of High Fidelity, based on the 1995 Nick Hornby novel… Greg Bryk will topline opposite Peyton Elizabeth Lee in contemporary princess story Secret Society of Second Born Royals for Disney+.
