AR Content’s Alexander Rodnyansky Reveals Details of Two New Genre Series (EXCLUSIVE)

Grown-ish will return to Freeform for Season 5 with a familiar face and two new showrunners at the helm.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large“Black-ish” may be ending, but the series’ creative universe continues: Freeform has ordered a fifth season of spinoff “Grown-ish.” And as “Black-ish” concludes, another one of that long-running series’ cast members is now set to segue over to “Grown-ish”: Marcrus Scribner has officially been added to the show’s cast.Scribner will reprise his role as Andre Johnson Jr., and as the network explains, “he embarks on his own journey to being ‘grown.'” In moving to “Grown-ish,” Scribner joins his TV sister, Yara Shahidi (who plays Zoey), on the show.Also, as part of the Season 5 pickup, playwright/producer Zakiyyah Alexander (“Russian Doll,” “La Brea”) and “Black-ish” executive producer/showrunner Courtney Lilly will take over as co-showrunners. Season 4 showrunner Julie Bean and executive producer Jenifer Rice-Genzuk Henry are departing the show.

New World will soon get a new weapon and the conclusion of the story of Isabella, according to Amazon Game Studios.In a statement, Amazon has explained the new additions to the New World Public Test Realm (PTR) in March. The big one is the addition of the blunderbuss. A ranged weapon, it promises “high mobility coupled with potent close-to-mid range damage”.That damage will be scaled based on the player’s strength and intelligence which means it’s well suited for “bruiser or age builds”.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAfter what we’ve all been through in the past two years, every concert feels like a miracle, but a Dua Lipa show more than most. On the surface it might be easy to underestimate the heavy emotions associated with her “Future Nostalgia” album, which was famously released on March 27, 2020, just as the horrors of the pandemic were becoming clear: It’s a dance-party album that arrived at seemingly one of the worst possible times in human history for a dance party album, when there were no parties and the only dancing was done on our own.Yet instead of striking a sour note or seeming like a cruel taunt, it was many people’s escape, their comfort food, their crying blanket — a reminder not only of what we couldn’t have, but what we hoped to get back as everyone wondered, without exaggeration, when or if we’d ever be at a concert or on a crowded dancefloor again.

Manori Ravindran International EditorIn 2020, one of the first indications that all wasn’t right for a global TV industry just waking up to the threat of COVID was the Chinese delegation of buyers pulling out of the BBC Studios Showcase.As revealed by Variety on Feb. 5, 2020, around 20 Chinese companies skipped the early February event due to travel bans in place for parts of China following the coronavirus outbreak, whose death toll had just surpassed that of SARS.Two years later, world events are again affecting London Screenings. Several senior distribution sources have told Variety that most representatives from Russian streamers, broadcasters and distributors, as well as Ukrainian media companies, have canceled their trips to the U.K.

Maksim “Maks” Chmerkovskiy is providing another update from inside the Ukraine.

 Saturday Night Live in a move away from the show’s traditional opening sketch.The Chorus, who were founded in 1949 as a way for Ukrainian immigrants to “preserve and cultivate the rich musical heritage of Ukraine”, were introduced by SNL regulars Cecily Strong and Kate McKinnon at the show’s opening.Ukraine has officially severed diplomatic ties with Russia and declared martial law after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an attack on the neighbouring nation on February 24.The Chorus went on to perform an emotive rendition of ‘Prayer For Ukraine’, which you can watch below.After that, the show went on to reveal a set of candles in the shape of the word ‘Kiev’, Ukraine’s capital, which is still currently under siege.“Prayer for Ukraine” performed by Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York pic.twitter.com/5pi2l1Olpx— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) February 27, 2022198 Ukrainians – including three children – have been killed at the time of writing, according to Health Minister Viktor Liashko. A further 1,115 people have reportedly been wounded, including 33 children (via Al Jazeera).

Saturday Night Live decided to skip their normal funny cold open for an emotional performance.

Saturday Night Live opened without a skit. Instead, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfolding, the show featured the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York.

NEW YORK -- For journalists, the confusion surrounding Russia's attack on Ukraine deepened the challenge of covering it — and made one CNN reporter's stumbling upon an airport under attack Thursday all the more remarkable.While Russia's invasion had been an ominous possibility for months, it unfolded with little reliable information from the attackers. Many reporters depended upon sporadic audio and video of bombs exploding in the distance, and details from Ukrainians and American intelligence, to try to tell the story of citizens in a Western-styled democracy suddenly plunged into war.CNN's Matthew Chance followed a tip from a Ukrainian source when he and a crew rushed to an airport about 20 miles outside the capital city of Kyiv.Russians had attacked, but by the time Chance had arrived, he was informed that Ukrainians had regained control of the airport.

“My parents fled this country for this exact reason,” Valentin “Val” Chmerkovskiy posted to Instagram on Thursday (Feb. 24). The Ukrainian-American dancer shared a video from The New York Times that showed citizens fleeing the city of Kyiv as Russian troops invaded the country. Val, 35, said that his parents left Ukraine “not because it wasn’t good to them, but because their kids would see war eventually. It’s a cruel irony that 28 years later, my brother [Maksim “Maks” Chmerkovskiy] is in a bombshelter (sic) in [Kyiv].”

Christopher Vourlias Two-time Oscar-nominated producer Alexander Rodnyansky (“Leviathan,” “Loveless”) said he felt “unbearably ashamed” and “incredibly, deeply sad” when his son called from Kyiv on Thursday with news that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had begun.“Of course, I realized before that the situation might go this way, but I still couldn’t believe that missiles are exploding in Kyiv,” Rodnyansky told Variety by email. “I couldn’t imagine that Kyiv, my native town, where my relatives, friends and colleagues live, where my parents and grandparents are buried, will be struck by missiles of the country where I have been living and working for the last 20 years, together with my family and friends.” The Moscow-based producer was born in the Ukrainian capital, which was under siege by Russian troops on Friday.

Make sure to verify the news stories that you’re seeing on TikTok because some disinformation about the Ukraine crisis is spreading on the social media app.

Donald Trump.The committee reportedly hopes to have a final report in the fall.Government reports are not copyrighted and are generally available for free, though the 9-11 Commission's study of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election have been the basis for best-selling books.For the Jan.

Finnish skier Remi Lindholm went viral this weekend after he revealed just how cold his body was during the Olympic men’s 50km mass start cross country skiing race.

EXCLUSIVE: Showtime is expanding its cast for The Chi, with the addition of Nia Jervier (Dear White People) and Carolyn Michelle Smith (House of Cards) who will take on recurring roles for the series’ upcoming fifth season.

Brother in Every Inch definitely offers the world something it’s never seen before — the training of Russian air force pilots on an actual Russian air base — but guess what: It looks exactly flight training in any other country. All the same, this second feature from director Alexander Zolotukhin (after his debut three years ago with A Russian Youth) does take you somewhere new as it examines the progress of twin brothers as they undergo the rigors of learning to fly jet fighters, even if it’s presented in a semi-arty way that is both aesthetically pleasing and dramatically skimpy. This visually entrancing short feature (just 80 minutes long) premiered in the Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival.

Christopher Vourlias Germany’s Sola Media has closed a wave of international sales for the animated feature “Finnick,” produced by Riki Group, which will be released by Sony Pictures Russia in Russia and CIS on March 24.The CGI-animated comedy follows the adventures of 13-year-old Christine, who befriends the young prankster Finnick – one of the furry and usually invisible beings known as Finns. The odd couple has to team up as detectives to solve the mysterious events happening in their city.The Stuttgart-based sales agency has inked deals with Eagle Pictures (Italy), Independent Films (Benelux), Koch Films (German/Austria/Switzerland), Vertigo Releasing (U.K.), Tanweer (Greece), Selmer Media (Scandinavia), Myndform (Iceland), Rialto (Australia and New Zealand), and Black Sheep Films (South Africa), and holds exclusive distribution rights in multiple additional territories.

Julia Garner is having quite a year!First, the actress returned to the screen in her Emmy-winning role as Ruth Langmore on, capping off the first episodes of the crime drama's fourth and final season with a meme-worthy scream and a promise to exact revenge on the drug kingpin who murdered her cousin, Wyatt.«It's always funny because… by the time it comes out, I forget like, how intense it was,» Garner told ET recently of the revelations that set up 's final episodes, due out later this year.«You’re just going to have to wait,» she teased. «It gets more intense. It gets very intense. The ending of season [4A], the first half, was just the beginning of the intensity, that ending.»While fans wait for more , Garner can next be seen playing a completely different but equally compelling role: convicted fraudster Anna Delvey, in Shonda Rhimes’ true-crime limited series, . A far cry from Ruth's Southern drawl, the actress had to master a complicated accent in order to portray the German expat, who pretended to be an heiress as she conned hundreds of thousands of dollars out of New York’s high society and financial institutions. Garner first started by learning “a German accent and then Russian and then put it all together,” she explained, adding that she had to subtly layer in a British accent. And because Anna spent so much time in New York City and interacting with Americans, “musically it shouldn’t sound European.