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PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
Drama series The Most Fun We Ever Had is in development at HBO. From Amy Adams and Stacy O’Neil’s Bond Group Entertainment and Laura Dern and Jayme Lemons’ Jaywalker Pictures, series is based on Claire Lombardo’s bestselling novel, which follows four sisters who each are struggling to exist in the shadow of their parents’ idyllic marriage. Lombardo will pen the adaptation and co-exec produce.
CBS gave a put pilot commitment to an untitled comedy series from former NBA star/actor/businessman Rick Fox, creator Dan Kopelman, and producers Kapital Entertainment and Warner Bros. TV. Penned by Kopelman and inspired by Fox’s real-life experience, series follows a recently retired pro basketball star who attempts to reconnect with his estranged son by buying an esports franchise.
Apple TV renewed Ron Moore’s space-race drama For All Mankind ahead of its series debut November 1. Also reportedly renewed or in the process of being renewed for a second season are upcoming Apple series See, Dickinson, Little America and Home Before Dark, reports Deadline.
Nick Jonas is officially in the production business. Dash & Lily, an eight-ep holiday romantic comedy, is in production at Netflix from Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps and Jonas’ new shingle Image 32, based on the YA book series. Action centers on a whirlwind holiday romance and is toplined by Austin Abrams (Euphoria, This Is Us) and Midori Francis (Good Boys).
Adventure series The Outpost will get a third season, slated to drop in summer 2020 on The CW. Series follows the lone survivor of a race called the “Blackbloods.”
RT Features, the production house behind Ad Astra and Call Me By Your Name, is launching indie RT Television in Brazil, in partnership with Anonymous Content and CAA. TV division, headed by RT Features TV chief Barbara Teixiera, will be based in Sao Paulo, and will develop premium series for the local market and Latin America.
Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment launched Landmark Studio Group in partnership with entertainment industry veteran David Ozer as CEO. Cole Strategic Partners has committed funding to Landmark, which will develop, produce, distribute and own all IP it creates. Among projects already in the works are scripted drama The Fix, docuseries The History of Gangster Rap and supernatural horror series Safehaven.
Quibi continues to beef up its Daily Essentials programming slate. The Weather Channel will provide exclusive daily weather programming for the short-form service beginning in April 2020, with a mix of national and hyper-localized weather and forecasting stories. Quibi also announced Your Daily Horoscope, an animated horoscope series combining humor and adult animation created by Attn: and exec-produced by Will Arnett and his company Electric Avenue, and Tom Werner. And, mobile meditative experience The Daily Chill will be part of the Quibi slate.
All3Media unveiled factual label Angelica Films, to be run by former BBC and Field Day Productions exec Sally Angel. Documentary and factual programming for broadcasters and streaming services are the production focus of the UK production company.
Mitre Television and Studio Lambert are jointly producing car competition show Street Car Showdown (working title) for BBC Two. Each week, two rival teams from are challenged to convert two ordinary second-hand cars into souped-up racing machines in 10 days and a limited budget, competing in a series of challenges.
Lagardere Studios acquired Spanish company Veranda and is launching production label Cameron’s, dedicated to international programming. Lagardere Studios previously had a minority stake in Veranda and now has picked up the remaining stake from Grupo Good.
RETURNING SERIES
OWN drama series Ambitions returns for its midseason premiere Tuesday, November 12 at 10p. Series hails from producer Will Packer.
All eight eps of the third season of CBS All Access’ original comedy No Activity will be available on the service beginning Thursday, November 21. Season 3 finds detectives Nick Cullen and Judd Tolbeck back in uniform with a revolving door of quirky new partners and even quirkier criminals.
COMING UP
Netflix dropped its holiday lineup, including films, special eps, themed series and kids programming. Film slate includes Kristin Davis and Rob Lowe starrer Holiday in the Wild (November 1), Let it Snow (November 8), Jason Schwartzman- and JK Simmons-topped comedy Klaus (November 15), previously announced The Knight Before Christmas (November 21), Holiday Rush (November 28) and A Christmas Prince (December 5).The Netflix movies join series including the second season of The Great British Baking Show: Holidays, debuting November 9.
20/20 will present a two-hour special on actress and Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten, who was murdered at age 20 by her estranged husband. Feature, which airs ahead of the 40th anniversary of her death, will debut Friday, October 18 at 9p.
Documentary Women of Impact: Changing the World will debut on National Geographic Channel on Saturday, October 26, at 10p. Narrated by Julianna Margulies, special showcases boundary-breaking women whose stories create a portrait of the past, present and future of the distinctly female impact on our world.
MTV’s 2019 MTV EMAs performance lineup includes Halsey, Rosalía, show host Becky G, Akon, Ava Max and Mabel. Show airs Sunday, November 3 at 9p CET.
The annual Urban One Honors awards show will take place Thursday, December 5, 2019 at MGM National Harbor and air on TV One on January 20, 2020 as a two-hour telecast. Event heralds accomplishments of individuals in entertainment, media, music, fashion, sports, education and the community.
TECH TALK
She’ll be there for you. Jennifer Aniston has come to the Instagram party, joining the social platform yesterday and posting a Friends reunion photo.
Anime hub Crunchyroll and digital publisher Webtoon formed a partnership that will include the creation and development of new animated co-productions. The companies also will collaborate on the distribution, licensing and retail of each new series.
Google’s game streaming service Stadia will be available to the public on November 19. Service will stream games directly from the cloud; players will need to buy the Stadia controller and a Chromecast Ultra video streaming adapter, as opposed to a full game console. Google will selling both products as part of the Stadia Founder’s Edition package for $129.
Google also intro’d the Nest Mini, a $49 revamped version of its smart speaker. The new $49 Nest Mini speaker packs bigger sound than its Home Mini predecessor and has a built-in machine learning chip, ultrasound for proximity detection and the ability to pair two speakers.
It’s goodnight for Google’s Daydream VR platform. The company won’t support the platform in its new Pixel 4 phone.
KIDS CORNER
Pocket.watch extended its partnership with Hulu to bring season 1 of Hobby Kids Adventures to the platform. New seasons of the studio’s Ryan’s World, EvanTube Ultimate Mishmash and HobbyKids Ultimate Mishmash also are headed to Hulu. The new content will be available on Hulu on Friday, October 18, bringing the total number of pocket.watch-created eps on Hulu to 177. Additionally, Vudu will bring Hobby Kids Adventures and pocket.watch Challenge Squad to its new ad-supported service beginning this week.
In related news, pocket.watch greenlit a gaggle of new shows. Twelve-ep animated comedy-mystery series Onyx Monster Mysteries is based on the popular Onyx Kids YouTube channel, with Doreen Spicer-Dannelly (The Proud Family) in as exec producer and showrunner. Also in the works is horror-comedy Zombees, with Beatriz Acevedez and Doug Greiff (co-founders of Mitu) as exec producers; EvanTube’s Dollar Toy Squad, created by Matthew Schwartz and Yoram Benz; animated-live action hybrid Do Crew; Jillian’s Mystery Craft Box, a 10-ep live-action series featuring exec producer Karina Garcia; and horror anthology series The Claw.
Island Of Misfits put in development Farmer Mars (working title), an animated series from Paw Patrol and Bob the Builder creator Keith Chapman. Series, aimed at K3-6, is set on Mars and follows a young Earth boy named Rob who works on a farm operated by an upbeat yet absent-minded owner.
Nelvana and Spin Master announced animated action series Bakugan: Battle Planet has been picked up by broadcasters including Netflix in the US and Canada.
Nickelodeon International commissioned live action comedy series Goldie’s Oldies (working title). Series, the first original commission made exclusively for Nickelodeon International’s channels outside the US, also marks Viacom International Studios UK’s first foray in scripted comedy.
PODCAST POSTS
The podcast business just got funnier. Will Ferrell and iHeartMedia partnered to launch Big Money Players Network, a new podcast company focused on scripted and unscripted comedy shows. The network will unveil 10 podcasts during the next two years, produced by Ferrell and iHeartMedia.
Second season of Nat Geo podcast Overheard at National Geographic is out. Short-form, fact-based podcast gives listeners an inside look into the company; new season launched with the ep Digging Up Disaster, featuring Nt Geo Explorer Beverly Goodman.
CASTING
Heather Graham joined the cast of CBS All Access’ adaptation of Stephen King novel The Stand… Tony winner Renee Elise Goldsberry scored a multi-episode arc in CBS’ supernatural drama Evil.
ADVERTISING & BRANDS
Telemundo revealed the 2019 corporate sponsors for the fifth annual Latin American Music Awards, slated to air Thursday, October 17 at 8p. Boost Mobile, Ford, L’Oreal Paris, State Farm, Verizon and Universal Studios Hollywood join the lineup of first-time brand sponsors for the music special, while Toyota, ULTA Beauty and Xfinity return to the show.
Vivendi-owned video platform Dailymotion partnered with RTK, a programmatic infrastructure and ad operations company. RTK will integrate its header bidding solution onto dailymotion.com. Dailymotion’s advertising partners now can seamlessly integrate with RTK’s solution to bid on the platform’s display inventory.
TV and film tracking and insights platform TV Time is acquiring NY-based Mediamorph, which powers more than two-thirds of all global digital transactional revenue for the film and TV industries.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Star Trek: Discovery and Man With a Plan are headed to the UK. A new licensing agreement between CBS Studios International and Channel 4 will bring the series across the pond to launch on E4 in 2020.
Propagate Content inked local format deals to bring its series Jane The Virgin to Korea, Egypt, Greece, Israel and China. Series wrapped its US run on the CW in late July.
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