Brooke Shields’ ‘Pretty Baby’ Doc Is ABC News’ Most-Watched Hulu Debut Ever (EXCLUSIVE)

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Amazon is bringing more than 100 of its Prime Video originals to Freevee, the company’s ad-supported platform that’s home to new hit “Jury Duty,” this year. The deal marks the first time these titles will be available to view for free and with commercial breaks. Among the slate of hit Prime Video shows and movies that will begin streaming on Freevee (while still remaining available for ad-free viewing on Prime Video) are “Reacher,” “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” “The Wheel of Time,” “A League of Their Own” and “LuLaRich.” As of Monday, more than 50 of these originals are now available for streaming on Freevee, including “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” “The Grand Tour,” “Mozart in the Jungle,” “Bosch,” “Modern Love,” “Savage X Fenty,” “Sylvie’s Love,” “Troop Zero” and “Late Night.”

Brooke Sheilds takes control of the narrative by sharing her story in her own words in the Hulu documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, from director Lana Wilson.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Aidy Bryant is set to star in “Lonely Hearts Club,” a dramedy series based on an episode of the Crime Junkies podcast, currently in the works at Peacock. “Beau Is Afraid” filmmaker Ari Aster is executive producing the project. Set in the late 1940s, “Lonely Hearts Club” is described as a darkly comedic true crime thriller about a lonely woman who falls in love with a dim but handsome con man. Together they form an unlikely “Loser-Bonnie-and-Clyde”-style partnership that ends in lies, murder and the electric chair. The show is based on an episode of Ashley Flowers’ Crime Junkie podcast entitled “Infamous: The ‘Lonely Hearts’ Killers.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Amazon is putting its ownership of the Culver Theater to good use with a two-day screening of “The Boys” Season 3. On both Friday, April 28 and Saturday, April 29, all eight episodes of the third season of the Prime Video drama will play on the big screen in the Culver City cinema (formerly an ArcLight/Pacific theater, acquired by Amazon in July 2022) starting at 9 a.m. For the April 28 screening, the FYC event will run until 6:30, ending in an hourlong Q&A with the cast and executive producers in honor of National Superhero Day. There will be no Q&A on April 29, which will conclude the festivities at 5:30.

EXCLUSIVE: Mary Bruce has been named chief White House correspondent for ABC News.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “The Good Doctor” has been renewed for a seventh season at ABC ahead of its Season 6 finale. The medical drama, which debuted in 2017, stars Freddie Highmore as Dr. Shaun Murphy, a young autistic surgeon who has savant syndrome and works in the surgical unit at the prestigious San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital. Alongside Highmore, the “Good Doctor” cast includes Hill Harper as Dr. Marcus Andrews, Richard Schiff as Dr. Aaron Glassman, Fiona Gubelmann as Dr. Morgan Reznick, Will Yun Lee as Dr. Alex Park, Christina Chang as Dr. Audrey Lim, Paige Spara as Lea Dilallo, Bria Samoné Henderson as Dr. Jordan Allen and Noah Galvin as Dr. Asher Wolke.

the monetary victor in the company’s defamation settlement with Fox News, but the cable TV network’s statement “acknowledging certain claims about Dominion to be false” has left much to be desired from those who wanted to see Fox admit to lying about the 2020 election results on air.When questioned on Wednesday by “Good Morning America” co-anchor George Stephanopoulos, who noted that “what you didn’t get was an apology,” Dominion CEO John Poulos admitted the statement that Fox News put out was not what he wrote.“There was an acknowledgment, and certainly it was not the way I wrote it. I had some conversations with my team, my co-founder and I, and at the end of the day, the court system is really about accountability.

John Poulos, the CEO of Dominion Voting Systems, defended the $787.5 billion settlement with Fox News and Fox Corp., telling Good Morning America that “all of the facts we had discovered during the case had already come to light.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters revealed what exactly went wrong with the live “Love Is Blind” Season 4 reunion special on Sunday — and how they plan to fix the problem with other live broadcasts moving forward. “We’re really sorry to disappoint so many people,” Peters said during a prerecorded Q1 earnings interview Tuesday. “We didn’t meet the standard that we expect ourselves: to serve our members and just be clear from a technical perspective. We’ve got the infrastructure. We had just a bug that we introduced, actually, when we implemented some changes to try to improve live-streaming performance after the last live broadcast, Chris Rock[‘s ‘Selective Outrage’] in March. We just didn’t see this bug in internal testing because it only became apparent once we put multiple systems interacting with each other under the load of millions of people trying to watch ‘Love Is Blind.'”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery finally revealed the plans (and confirmed the long-rumored name) for its new streaming service, Max, which will combine offerings from HBO Max and Discovery+ into one product, during a splashy press presentation on the Warner Bros. Studio lot Wednesday. The event kicked off at 10 a.m. at the iconic Burbank location, presided over by WBD CEO David Zaslav, president and CEO of global streaming and games JB Perrette, HBO and HBO Max CEO and chairman Casey Bloys (who now also has oversight of Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Magnolia Network), and U.S. networks group chairman and chief content officer Kathleen Finch. Variety is on the scene, ready to fill you in on all the details about the new streamer, Warner Bros. Discovery’s direct-to-consumer strategy, the future of HBO and the standalone version of Discovery+.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” Paramount’s “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” HBO’s “The Last of Us” and Netflix’s “Arcane” are just the start of a new wave of movies and TV series based on popular video games and table-top gaming IP.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The CW network has tapped Roku exec Ashley Hovey as the broadcaster’s first-ever chief digital officer. Per the the Nexstar-owned CW, in this new role, Hovey will be responsible for overseeing the business strategy and day-to-day operations of the network’s digital operations and OTT streaming platforms, including the CW App. An AVOD platform, the CW App has over 92 million downloads to date and serves as home of new episodes and seasons of the CW’s primetime programs, live streaming of its sports content and on-demand library. Hovey, who most recently served as senior director of the ad-supported business for The Roku Channel (TRC), including both on-demand and FAST channel content, will begin her duties at the CW April 17. She will report to Dennis Miller, president of the CW.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Fox Nation is moving further into reality TV with the launch of new series “The Real Hatfields & McCoys: Forever Feuding.” Launching April 24 on the Fox News-backed streaming service, the five-episode series “will spotlight the modern-day Hatfields and McCoys whose notoriously violence-ridden relationship has taken a contemporary twist. From the families’ brutal disputes in the 1800s to current 21st century issues, the program, set in West Virginia, highlights their ongoing rivalry.” Per Fox Nation, “Hatfield family members including Nancy Justus (the oldest surviving direct descendent of Devil Anse Hatfield), Missy Lester, Amber Bishop, Chad Bishop and Christopher Champagne will be featured on the program, while the McCoys’ Big Jim, Courtney Quick, Derek DeProspero, Casandra Champagne, James Quick and John Quick will appear.”

Lana Wilson always knew Brooke Shields was very beautiful and famous, but prior to making “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields,” a deeply honest and affectionate portrayal of Shields’ life story, she didn’t really consider that much more about the American cultural icon. “I first vaguely remember encountering her though her sitcom work in the ‘90s,” recalls Wilson, also the filmmaker of the Taylor Swift documentary, “Miss Americana.” “And I had a vague sense of something that had to do with her postpartum [depression].

Tatiana Siegel For most of their 21-year marriage, George Stephanopoulos and Ali Wentworth have operated on separate career tracks. He is an Emmy-winning ABC News host and political commentator and she is the “Jerry Maguire” actress-turned-New York Times best-selling author-turned host of the hit iHeardRadio podcast “Go Ask Ali.” But those boundaries crumbled while they were stuck at home together during the COVID pandemic, with the couple deciding to team up on a shared endeavor: the production company BedBy8. “Let’s not deny that being empty-nesters kind of played a part,” says Wentworth, who is the mother of two adult daughters with Stephanopoulos. “We thought, ‘Wow, we have so many stories to tell.’ And we can sort of stay in our lanes within the company.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Gordon Ramsay is looking to find a new culinary entrepreneur to financially back in his upcoming Fox competition “Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars,” and Variety has your first look at the food and drink industry execs who will be competing for the celeb chef’s $250,000 investment. Among those picked as contestants for the series, which debuts May 24 on Fox after the “MasterChef” Season 13 premiere, are the masterminds behind food brands and businesses including Fat Miilk, the Pepper app, Confetti Cakes baking kits, Snow Cone King, Happy Grub, Vegan AF, Pizza Girl, Smart Cups, Luther Bob’s and more. See the full list of competitors for “Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars” Season 1 below.

controversial career and her years as the “It” girl of the ’80s — including the allegation that she was raped by a Hollywood executive 30 years ago.“She really wanted an outside perspective on her life, and nothing was off limits,” director Lana Wilson 39, told The Post. “She only voiced one concern, and that was basically, ‘I hope that I am a multi-dimensional person in this film.’ She had this experience of being reduced to only one thing.”Wilson said she started the process by diving into an “insane treasure trove” of archive material given to her by Shields, 57. “It was stuff her mom had collected for over 40 years — thousands of photographs and video clips,” she said. “At the same time, I was getting to better-know Brooke while interviewing her and people close to her. What I saw was this journey she went on from being an object and a person who didn’t voice her opinions, to a human being who had opinions — and agency and control over her own life.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Hulu is adding three new titles to its growing lineup of original docs: “Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told,” “Queenmaker: The Making of An It Girl,” and “The Jewel Thief.” “Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told” “recounts the rise and fall of a small Atlanta HBCU picnic that exploded into an influential street party and spotlighted ATL as a major cultural stage,” per Hulu’s description. “Can the magic of Freaknik be brought back 40 years later? Executive producers include showrunner Geraldine L. Porras and director P Frank Williams, as well as Jermaine Dupri, Luther Campbell, Peter Bittenbender and Melissa Cooper for Mass Appeal, Eric Tomosunas for Swirl Films, Terry Ross and Alex Avant. Nikki Byles and Jay Allen are producers.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Cops Reloaded” is headed to Dan Abrams’ Law&Crime Network, Variety has learned exclusively. Consisting of 158 episodes, “Cops Reloaded” features some of the most memorable suspects, car chases and action-packed moments from the long-running series “Cops.” The show will be available to stream across Law&Crime’s platforms and clips from all episodes will be available on the network’s YouTube channel. “’Cops Reloaded’ is the perfect addition to our content library,” Law&Crime president Rachel Stockman said. “We have a robust and rapidly growing fanbase that’s highly interested in content surrounding law enforcement so we are eager to continue to deliver them more of what they want to see.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch could be called upon to testify in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit suit against Fox News and Fox Corp., per a Delaware judge who says he is not against calling upon the media moguls. If the attorneys for Dominion issue trial subpoenas to force a testimony from the Fox leaders, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said at a public hearing Wednesday he, “would not quash it and I would compel them to come,” per NBC News. “It would be my discretion that they come,” Davis said. Dominion’s attorneys requested in a letter to the court Wednesday that live testimony be required from Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, as well as Fox board member and former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Fox exec Viet Dinh. Davis approved the request to compel each of them to testify, according to NBC News.