Amazon Studios has won a heated auction among four other studios and streamers for a Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston vehicle. The untitled body-swap comedy was pitched last week by Max Barbakow, who will write and direct the film. LuckyChap Entertainment, the production label of Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Josey McNamara, will produce alongside Roberts and her Red Om Films banner, Aniston’s Echo Films, and Barbakow. >>>Sign Of Amazon Bolstering Film Slate |
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| Deadline Exclusives & Originals |
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Unscripted Boom Looms - A potential writers strike would be incredibly harmful for many in Hollywood, but there’s one sector of the entertainment industry that is quietly optimistic it could lead to a boom for them: unscripted television makers. The linear broadcast networks, cable networks and streamers are starting to prepare for a strike and are bulking up unscripted development in case the scribes do put down their tools. >>>"It's Definitely Coming"
Primetime Exit - CNBC is moving out of original, primetime entertainment programming and Deadline understands that the two execs who oversaw it — Denise Contis and Timothy Kuryak – will exit as part of the restructure, along with other execs across functions including marketing. >>> Cancellations
'Perfect' Project - Nicole Kidman is back at HBO with another high-profile limited series based on a novel, The Perfect Nanny. Kidman and Pen15 co-creator and co-lead Maya Erskine are set to star in the project, which HBO landed in a very competitive bidding process. >>> Sinister Situation
A Pyramid Scheme - Peacock is headed to Ancient Egypt with Cleo, a one-hour dramedy in development from writer Jessica Runck (Man With a Plan), Jane the Virgin developer/showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman, Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, TrillTV and CBS Studios. Cleo revolves around Cleopatra, an overqualified young woman who is forced to hide her intelligence behind make-up. >>> Modern Relevance
In Brief - Grown-ish star Trevor Jackson signed with APA...The premiere of Accused had hefty delayed viewing that helped it become Fox’s most-watched drama debut in 3 years...Activist Artists Management signed Venice & Toronto prize-winner Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir. |
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BOX OFFICEAvatar: The Way of Water is now the fourth highest-grossing film ever globally, giving James Cameron three of the top four spots on that all-time list. The film had cumed $2.11 billion worldwide through Sunday and should soon pass Cameron's Titanic. Domestically, the film's $620.5 million thus far puts it at number 11. The film has also broken records at CJ 4DPlex’s Screen X and 4DX auditoriums, which employ multi-sensory technology to submerge moviegoers into a pic’s action. Gross in those venues sits at $85 million.
Best Picture Oscar-nominated films also saw a bounce, with Women Talking up 167% over the week previous and The Fabelmans, Tár and The Banshees of Inisherin also getting bumps.
A trio of specialty films show how potent horror is at the post-pandemic box office with the latest pop from a strong showing by Fear and Infinity Pool, released this weekend, and Skinamarink in week three.
Shah Rukh Khan is back, and in a big way, as the Indian superstar's action-packed espionage pic Pathaan has been breaking records for a Hindi title since debuting Wednesday in India and overseas. Its total was $66.2 million through Sunday. |
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Pickups, Renewals & Cancellations |
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More News
💉 A strong majority of SAG-AFTRA members responding to a guild survey say they approve of Hollywood’s Covid vaccination mandate. Over two-thirds (67.1%) of members surveyed said that they "approve of employers requiring Covid vaccination as a condition of access to the set." 🦠 Hollywood’s unions and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers have agreed to extend their Covid protocols through April 1, with only minor changes, including the elimination of pre-employment and weekly Covid testing for some crew members. 🔥 The controversy heating up around the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences conducting a review of campaign procedures this year may be much ado about nothing, writes Deadline's Pete Hammond. Christina Ricci, for one, agrees.
👑 Haydn Gwynne, who plays Queen Consort Camilla in The Windsors, has said the royal comedy is planning to shoot a special episode in time for King Charles’s Coronation later this year. 🎙️ Roseanne Barr is making her return to stand-up comedy in a new special on Fox Nation, which will debut on February 13. A teaser for Roseanne Barr: Cancel This! was dropped during the NFC Championship Game. |
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Hirings, Promotions & Exits
Exclusive: Former Fifth Season COO Tim Robinson, who recently left the company, was let go following an allegation of misconduct. The alleged incident involved Robinson pulling someone’s trousers down at a 2022 company retreat. It’s not clear what the context was or whether there is ongoing legal action stemming from the incident.
Exclusive: A3 Artists Agency has promoted Adam Loria and Samantha Schmidt to senior agents, and Stephanie Nolan and Sydnie Rowland from coordinators to agents within the Alternative Programming, Digital Media, Licensing & Branding division. All four have are part of a division which has grown from just two people in 2014 and now boasts 50 team members, representing over 300 creators. |
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Trending  Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is breaking Nielsen streaming records in the U.S. The film became the most-streamed movie in a measurement week with 2.9 billion minutes viewed.
🔻 Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes are exiting GMA3: What You Need To Know and leaving ABC after reports last month that they were having a romantic relationship. |
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Obituaries
🕯 Lisa Loring, best known for bring Wednesday Addams to life in The Addams Family sitcom in the mid-1960s, has died. She was 64. Loring’s close friend, Laure Jacobson, shared in a Facebook post news of her death on January 28 after the actor was taken off life support following “a massive stroke.” Loring’s work as Wednesday Addams had recently resurged following Jenna Ortega’s portrayal of the iconic character in the Netflix series. After The Addams Family, Loring went on to make appearances on multiple shows like The Phyllis Diller Show, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Fantasy Island, Barnaby Jones and As the World Turns. 🕯 Actress Annie Wersching, best known for her roles in the television series 24, Bosch and Timeless, died of cancer early Sunday morning. She was 45. Wersching continued to shoot even after her 2020 diagnosis, with prominent roles in Star Trek: Picard as the Borg queen in Season 2, and The Rookie. She also voiced Tess in the popular The Last Of Us video game, which was adapted into a TV series by HBO. 🕯 Tom Verlaine, whose band, Television, was one of the more influential groups on the New York punk scene in the 1970s, died Saturday at 73 in Manhattan. Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Patti Smith, announced the death, saying in a statement that it occurred “after a brief illness." Television was not a huge commercial success, but Verlaine was a vast influence on guitarists of the era, and continued on as a solo artist after the group broke up after two albums. 🕯 Gregory Allen Howard, the first African-American screenwriter for a $100 million drama with Remember The Titans, died Friday in Miami after a brief illness. He was 70. Howard also was the only African-American screenwriter to write a spec script that became a $100 million movie. His credits further included Michael Mann’s Ali, as well as the award-winning stage play Tinseltown Trilogy . Howard was a two-time winner of the NAACP Image Awards, and also won the Christopher Award, the Howard University Paul Robeson Award for Artistic Excellence and the Heartland Film Festival Award for Screenwriting Excellence.
In Brief - 🕯 Barrett Strong, artist and songwriter credited with having given Motown its first hit with “Money (That’s What I Want),” has died at 81. 🕯 English actress Sylvia Syms passed away in the UK on Friday at 89; she was best known for roles in Ice Cold Alex, Victim, The Tamarind Seed and Stephen Frears’ The Queen. 🕯 Adama Niane, the French actor known for Baise-Moi, Get In and Lupin, has died at age 56. 🕯 Everett Quinton, a staple of New York’s post-1960s downtown theater scene and standard-bearer for the style of performance known as the Ridiculous, died of glioblastoma January 23 in Brooklyn at age 71. |
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On the Radar Mon - D.L. Hughley guest-hosts The Daily Show
Tue - Spotify earnings; Pamela Anderson on Kimmel
Wed - ACE Eddie Awards nominations; Meta earnings
Thur - Tech earnings (Apple, Amazon, Alphabet); Trevor Noah on Corden
Sun - 65th Annual Grammy Awards; 1923 season finale |
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"Give Him His Respect" - An injured Patrick Mahomes led the Kansas City Chiefs to within field goal distance with less than a minute to go to help secure a 23-20 victory in the AFC Championship game against the Cincinnati Bengals, sending Kansas City to the Super Bowl for the third time in four years. This time, they will face the Philadelphia Eagles. |
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