Amazon Studios Shakeup: Vernon Sanders to Run TV Solo as Albert Cheng Shifts Focus to COO Role

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefConstruction is under way in Seoul on CJ LiveCity Arena, a venue which aims to be the first major arena dedicated to K-pop.Backed by CJ Live City, a subsidiary of Korean entertainment conglomerate CJ ENM, the venue is designed for mega-scale concerts with 20,000 indoor seats, and capacity for a further 40,000 outdoors.

After their collaborative global success on Sony’s $1.76 billion grossing Jumanji movies, director Jake Kasdan is getting back in business with Dwayne Johnson and his Seven Bucks Productions for a holiday movie with Amazon Studios, previously titled Red One.  

Matt Hausfater, Teddy Riley, and Aaron Buchsbaum, creators and executive producers of the upcoming Amazon Original adult animated comedy series Fairfax, have signed first-look deals with Amazon Studios. Under the pacts, they will create and produce projects via their The Adorable Trio production banner to premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

Rick Schultz Mort Sahl, a trailblazing political satirist whose biting wit and uncompromising intellect broadened the world of conventional standup comedy, died Tuesday in Mill Valley, Calif. He was 94.The New York Times confirmed his death with his friend, Lucy Mercer.In 1953, when Sahl first appeared at the Hungry i, a San Francisco folk singer’s hangout, he was an unknown with little stage experience.

Will Tizard ContributorAs the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival’s 25th-anniversary edition launches in the Czech Republic, fest director and founder Marek Hovorka shows no signs of complacency.

Perth and Kinross Council’s education committee convener is “disappointed” secondary pupils will have to continue wearing face masks.

EXCLUSIVE: Will Yun Lee and Mark and Christine Holder’s Seoul Street and 04 Entertainment have preemptively nabbed the rights to My Summer in Seoul, bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken’s forthcoming romance novel set in the competitive world of K-Pop, to adapt as a television series. A search is out for a female Asian American writer to pen the adaptation.

EXCLUSIVE: A feature documentary about an orphaned tiger cub proved to be irresistible catnip to streamers. In a just concluded auction, Amazon Studios acquired the untitled documentary from 30WEST and directors Melissa Lesh & Trevor Frost.

A former “Survivor” contestant was taken to hospital last week after being attacked by a woman at her pilates studio early Thursday morning.

Former "Survivor: Fiji" contestant Michelle Yi was stabbed and beaten with a metal baton early Thursday morning in Santa Monica, Calif.  The former reality show contestant says that she was arriving at a pilates studio where she teaches classes around 6 a.m. when a disheveled and irate woman began yelling things at her and approached the front door.  Speaking to People, Yi claims that when she tried to tell the woman to leave, she was attacked.  "She stabbed me in the left bicep," says Yi.

according to People.Authorities said the alleged perpetrator had attacked two others before Yi and appeared to be off her medication. Yi, 37, arrived at the pilates studio where she was teaching a class shortly before 6 a.m., but as her students started to arrive, she noticed a disheveled woman heading toward the door.“She was yelling all sorts of things like, ‘You stole my identity,’ and ‘You’re a prostitute,'” Yi told the publication.

health conditions,” he told The Associated Press in an interview in the capital, Ouagadougou.Sawadogo said the number of venues has been reduced this year.The weeklong festival showcases works by African filmmakers and works produced on the continent.

tweeted simply on Thursday.In a statement released by the organization, he said, “This has been my dream job, even with malaria, a plane crash in Congo and periodic arrests abroad for committing journalism. Yet here I am, resigning — very reluctantly.”The Times announced his departure in a piece outlining his 37 years with the paper and his plans to pursue a political career.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Max is developing Aloha MotherF**ker, a drama series based on Jason Ryan’s best-selling novel Hell-Bent. Mad Dogs creator Cris Cole will write the adaptation, which comes from Will Yun Lee and Mark and Christine Holder’s Seoul Street.

Coltan, short for columbo-tantalite, is an ore containing the metal element tantalum, which due to its resistance to corrosion and high permittivity is used in capacitors essential to the functioning of smartphones, laptops, and other high-tech devices.

Amazon Studios has ordered a pilot for the drama series Once Upon a Time in Aztlan from STXtelevision, starring and executive produced by George Lopez via his Travieso Productions banner.

EXCLUSIVE: TruTV has handed a pilot order to Seoul Hunters, a sketch comedy show from Cathy Shim (Reno 911!) and Robert Ben Garant (Reno 911!, Night At The Museum), Big Breakfast and Ben Silverman and Howard T. Owen’s Propagate. Shim and Garant also star, along with up-and-coming comic Peter Kim (Fairfax) and popular Korean comedian and trot artist Kim Young-chul (Knowing Bros).

Mónica Marie Zorrilla Amazon Studios has ordered a pilot for the George Lopez-led drama series “Once Upon a Time in Aztlan,” hailing from STXtelevision. The Mexican American multi-award-winning actor, author, comedian and film and TV star is executive producing via his Travieso Productions banner.

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Studios’ longtime Chief Operating Officer Albert Cheng, who also has served as Co-Head of Television for the last three and a half years, will focus solely on his duties as COO going forward, with Co-Head of Television Vernon Sanders becoming Head of US/Global Television at Amazon Studios. The announcement was made this morning by Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios, in a companywide memo obtained by Deadline.