‘9-1-1’ Star Jennifer Love Hewitt Teases ‘Fun’ Winter Finale for Maddie and Chimney, How Maddie Will React to Buck’s Big Decision

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Los Angeles-based real estate developer The Ratkovich Company, which brought the Hercules Campus in Playa Vista to life for Google and YouTube Studios, and a J.P. Morgan Global Alternatives investment group have acquired a three-acre property near Downtown Culver City with plans to develop it into a creative campus like others in the area occupied by Amazon, Apple, WarnerMedia, Sony, TikTok, Nike and Adobe, Variety has learned exclusively. Dubbed “The Bowcroft Collection,” the 73,035-square-foot group of connected buildings stretches from 5950-5978 Bowcroft Street, near the intersection of Jefferson and Obama Boulevards in Los Angeles.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Following a quarter that saw Netflix release several of its most popular titles of all time — per the streamer’s self-reported internal measurements — and subscriber growth after two straight quarters of losses, co-CEO and chief content officer Ted Sarandos is feeling “better and better” about the company’s $17 billion content spend budget. “Both the scope and scale, as well as the range and cadence of hits is improving,” Sarandos said during Netflix’s prerecorded Q3 earnings interview with his fellow execs, which was released Tuesday afternoon following the announcement of the third-quarter results. “So I feel better and better about that $17 billion of content spend because what we have to do is be better and better at getting more impact per billion dollar spent than anyone else. And that’s how we’re focusing on it. So I think we’re spending at about the right level. And as we re-accelerate revenue, we’ll revisit that number, of course. But we’re a pretty disciplined bunch about that.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer We’re almost a month into the broadcast TV fall 2022 season and we’ve already got a few winners and losers to discuss when it comes to new scripted series. There are multiple ways to categorize a victory in the this ever-evolving TV landscape, but for the purposes of this story looking at the debuts of NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and The CW’s new shows, Variety has ranked the programs by the total viewers that each series premiere racked up, according to Nielsen’s Live + Same Day data.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Cobra Kai” closed in on nearly 2 billion minutes viewed on Netflix in the first full week after its Season 5 launch on Sept. 9, as the streaming audience for Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and HBO’s “House of the Dragon” dipped, according to Nielsen’s newly released streaming rankings for the month-ago period. From Sept. 12-18, the first four episodes of “The Rings of Power” hit 988 million minutes viewed on Prime Video, while the first five of “House of the Dragon” landed 960 million minutes viewed on HBO Max. Meanwhile, “Cobra Kai” — which currently has five seasons and 50 episodes available for streaming on Netflix — was watched for 1.9 million minutes when counting viewership across the entire series, per Nielsen.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Vought International has two new hires to boast about: Supes Firecracker and Sister Sage made their epic debut Monday in two first-look photos from “The Boys” Season 4 revealed by Amazon’s Prime Video. In the photos, which you can view at the bottom of this post, you’ll see Susan Heyward suit up as Sister Sage and Valorie Curry rocking her Firecracker costume. Both of the supersuits were designed by Laura Jean Shannon, “The Boys” costume designer who styled Jensen Ackles’ fan-favorite Soldier Boy look for Season 3. Fans will want to pick the details of these costumes apart as much as possible, because Amazon says that everything else about the Firecracker and Sister Sage characters “will be kept under wraps until the season airs.” While we don’t know when that will be just yet, we do know “The Boys” Season 4 is currently in production in Toronto — so stay tuned.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer After debuting eight new original holiday movies in 2021, BET+ is getting even more into the seasonal spirit this year with 10 more titles rolling out beginning Nov. 3, Variety has learned exclusively. The 2022 slate features films starring Ne-Yo, Sereyah, Romeo Miller, LeToya Luckett and LaLa Milan, as well as returning BET+ holiday movie staples like Jasmine Guy, Terrence Carson and Dorien Wilson. The titles come from directors and writers including Victoria Rowell (who also appears in “A Christmas Gift”), Robin Givens, Bree West and Patricia Cuffie Jones. “We’re committed to bringing quality Black stories to the screen and the holidays are no exception,” BET+ executive vice president and general manager Devin Griffin said. “Year after year, our members devour holiday programming; in fact, our original holiday films continue to out-perform, which is why we’re committed to growing our investment in this area of the service. But it’s not just about meeting demand, it’s also about authenticity. Our cast and crews are a powerhouse of Black excellence from creatives behind the camera like Victoria Rowell, Robin Givens and Patricia Cuffie Jones to the incredible performances of talent like Ne-Yo, Serayah, Romeo Miller, Dorien Wilson and Jasmine Guy, to name a few. With a weekly rollout of content come November, we’re excited to help our members celebrate and enjoy the holidays all season long.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOLER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched through the Season 1 finale of Netflix’s “The Midnight Club.” “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Midnight Mass” mastermind Mike Flanagan turned his attention to a younger audience for his new Netflix series, “The Midnight Club,” which launched Friday. The new drama concludes its 10-episode first season with just a few answers, and many more questions about the fate of Ilonka (Iman Benson) and her fellow terminally ill teens at Brightcliffe Hospice, the Paragon cult’s mysterious connection to Dr. Stanton (Heather Langenkamp), the teens’ head caregiver and owner of the hospice, what actually happened to Julia Jayne/Shasta (Samantha Sloyan) and why those elderly ghosts are haunting Ilonka and Kevin (Igby Rigney).

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Jamie Lee Curtis professed her love to a room filled with more than 5,000 “Halloween” franchise fans at New York Comic Con on Saturday, telling the crowd: “No matter what I do — whatever the fuck I do forever — Laurie Strode is because of you and I thank you. ” Curtis choked up at the start of panel when moderator Drew Barrymore first brought her out for the one-on-one sit down and began by asking how it feels to finally come to the conclusion of her “Halloween” story with the release of “Halloween Ends.” The slasher finale will debut in theaters and on the streaming service Peacock. “Endings are a bitch, but so is Laurie Strode,” Curtis said, before wiping tears away from her eyes as the crowd cheered for her.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer A new trailer for the third and final season of Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Picard” launched out of New York Comic Con Saturday, revealing new additions to the Patrick Stewart-led show’s cast — including the return of some iconic villains from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Per Paramount+, Brent Spiner will be back on “Picard,” not as Data, but as a character the streamer describes as “named Lore” — evoking one of the most formidable villains in “Next Generation” history: Data’s evil twin brother, Lore, who was defeated and disassembled at the beginning of Season 7 of “Next Gen.” Additionally, Daniel Davis will return as Professor Moriarty from “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” the Holodeck personification of a fictional character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be an enemy for Sherlock Holmes. “Next Gen’s” Moriarty ended up becoming self aware.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Community” fans, sit tight: More of your favorite cast members may indeed appear in the upcoming Peacock film — including Donald Glover. That’s according to creator Dan Harmon, who addressed why two key “Community” stars, Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown, were missing from the greenlight news last week. Although Peacock and Sony Pictures TV announced production of the film with original stars Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Jim Rash and Ken Jeong, Harmon confirms to Variety that others could still pop in as well. “I think that Donald is coming, based on word of mouth, but it’s just the deal isn’t official or wasn’t official. It would be difficult to really commit to doing this thing without Donald,” Harmon said. “So I believe he is coming back. I think if there’s names missing from a list, it’s because the names that are on the list, their deals are agreed upon enough that it’s OK to say they are on the list, and anybody that’s not on a list, it’s just not the case yet. So there is nothing official about anybody being out.”  

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The premiere of “Interview with the Vampire,” AMC’s first Anne Rice TV adaptation, and the eagerly anticipated return of the final season of “The Walking Dead” on Oct. 2 took streamer AMC+ to its highest two days of viewership and subscriber growth since the platform’s October 2020 launch, Variety has learned exclusively. Per AMC+, “The premiere of ‘Interview’ and the return of The Walking Dead’ drove AMC+ to the most successful two days in its history on Sunday and Monday and highest levels of series viewership and new subscriber acquisition ever.” According to the company, which currently has 10.8 million streaming subscribers across AMC+ and its other platforms, the series premiere of “Interview” now ranks as the No. 1 new series launch ever for AMC+, in both viewership and acquisition, “tripling the early activity of the previous record holder in these categories,” AMC’s freshman drama “Dark Winds.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer With peak nerd TV upon us, there’s never been a better time to be a fan of genre programming – or David S. Goyer, a devotee and prolific writer-producer of genre fare. Goyer and his Phantom Four Films partner Keith Levine produced Hulu’s new David Bruckner-directed “Hellraiser” movie, which launched Friday, and are in the middle of filming their latest take on classic IP, “The Omen” prequel movie “The First Omen,” in Rome. Beyond that, the pair are in post-production on the second season of Apple’s “Foundation” adaptation, breaking the writers’ room for more episodes of the “Batman Unburied” podcast for DC and Spotify. They’re also working on two spinoff podcasts, including “Riddler,” featuring Hasan Minhaj, and a Batgirl/Barbara Gordon project. And they’re in the early stages of developing a dramatic series revolving around Michael Moorcock’s “The Eternal Champion” books for Skydance and Apple TV+ with “Foundation” writer Dana Jackson. If that’s not enough, they’re also holding their breath for a renewal of the Warner Bros.-produced “The Sandman” at Netflix.   

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Mike Flanagan has faced his worst fear: The jump scare. The “Midnight Mass” and “Haunting of Hill House” mastermind packed 21 separate instances of the classic horror trope into the premiere of his latest Netflix series, “The Midnight Club,” a tally so high it actually breaks the Guinness World Record for “most scripted jump scares in a single television episode.” A Guinness World Record official presented Flanagan and Co. their certificate for the achievement during the “Midnight Club’s” New York Comic Con panel Thursday night, which included a preview of the premiere episode ahead of the show’s Friday launch.