‘Craig of the Creek’ Renewed for Season 5, Cartoon Network and HBO Max Order Prequel Movie and Preschool Spinoff

reported was filed at the Los Angeles Superior Court Monday. In fact, Warner Media ordered its entire 2021 roster to be released on their sister platform HBO Max, while moving up the release date for “The Matrix Resurrections” from its originally scheduled 2022 premiere to December 2021, attorneys for Village Roadshow claimed in the filing.“WB’s sole purpose in moving the release date of ‘The Matrix Resurrections’ forward was to create a desperately needed wave of year-end HBO Max premium subscriptions from what it knew would be a blockbuster film, despite knowing full well that it would decimate the film’s box office revenue and deprive Village Roadshow of any economic upside that WB and its affiliates would enjoy,” the suit stated.Village Roadshow also claims to be the victim of “rampant piracy” facilitated by the streaming release, adding that Warner Bros.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNational Geographic announced a slate of more than a dozen upcoming original programs Monday, all of which are produced by the brand but will debut exclusively on Disney Plus — not on the Nat Geo cable channel. But despite the shift, Nat Geo content president Courteney Monroe promised that it’s not a sign that the Disney-owned brand has completely moved away from linear content.“I realize that all of my announcements today were for Disney Plus originals, but that in no way diminishes our focus and investment in National Geographic programming for the linear channel,” Monroe told reporters Monday during Nat Geo’s virtual presentation at the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“The Boondocks” reboot series has been scrapped at HBO Max, Variety has learned.In September 2019, HBO Max ordered a two-season revival of the animated series before the WarnerMedia-owned streaming service had even launched.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterHulu has delayed “The Orville” Season 3 premiere from March until June, but released the first few minutes of footage from the new season as fans’ conciliation prize while they wait even longer for the return of the former Fox show.“To all The Orville fans: Thanks for being so patient with us as we’ve navigated the production challenges resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” “The Orville” creator and star Seth MacFarlane said in a statement tweeted Friday. “As occasionally happens, our show has been repositioned amidst the ever-changing television schedule landscape, which means that the wait will be just a bit longer, and we’re now preparing for a June 2nd launch on Hulu.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe Pearson family will be hitting the bench for a few weeks as the final season of “This Is Us” is bumped from NBC’s primetime schedule — along with all of the network’s other regularly slated comedies and dramas —  to bring in the Beijing Winter Olympics.While many “This Is Us” fans may not want to part with new episodes of the show in favor of figure-skating, curling and bobsledding competitions from Feb. 2-20, those viewers should know they were going to lose the Pearsons for three weeks this season, with or without the 2022 Olympics.“We don’t love having it off for two weeks [during the Olympics], but those two weeks would have been repeats or preempts anyway, because there’s 18 episodes and 21 weeks,” Steve Kern, head of scheduling for NBC, told Variety. “And so it actually helps us.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe “V.C. Verse” has found its official home at A+E Networks.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe second season of “Euphoria” is a dream for HBO. Over the first three installments of its second season, the Zendaya-led drama has nearly doubled its Season 1 per-episode viewership, Variety has learned exclusively.The “Euphoria” Season 2 premiere, which first aired Jan. 9, has drawn 13.1 million viewers across multiple HBO and HBO Max to date, with Episodes 2 and 3 tracking similarly, per HBO.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“9-1-1” and spinoff “9-1-1: Lone Star” will be reunited on Fox’s Monday primetime lineup when the O.G. show comes back from hiatus in March. When the two are once again airing in the back-to-back 8 and 9 p.m.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus revealed Tuesday it is moving forward on developing TV series remakes of classic ’80s movies “Urban Cowboy” and “Flashdance,” bringing on “Dear White People” creator Justin Simien to write and direct the latter project.Additionally, the ViacomCBS-owned streamer said during its virtual session at the Television Critics Association press tour it has put a docu-comedy series from “Mr. Show” duo Bob Odenkirk and David Cross in the works.The “Urban Cowboy” project comes after Paramount Television Studios first set up development on a TV series based on the film of the same name at Fox in 2015, which was later scrapped.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus has renewed its revival of “The Game” for Season 2.Starring Wendy Raquel Robinson and Hosea Chanchez, the show is a continuation of the-CW-network-and-later-BET-show of the same name. “A modern-day examination of Black culture through the prism of pro football,” “The Game” follows the team as they face racism, classism and more, all while fighting for fame, fortune, respect and love.“The Game” revival also stars Adriyan Rae, Vaughn Hebron, Analisa Velez and Toby Sandeman.The first iteration of “The Game” debuted on The CW in 2006.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAMC Networks has renewed its multiyear distribution deal with Comcast.Under the continued agreement, AMC Networks’ linear channels — AMC, We TV, BBC America, IFC, and SundanceTV — and streaming service AMC Plus will remain available to Comcast Cable’s Xfinity TV, broadband and XClass customers. Additionally, the pact covers expanded availability of AMC Networks’ other targeted streaming services — Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now, Allblk and the recently acquired Hidive — to Comcast users.Among this year’s upcoming content offerings from AMC Networks are the final seasons of “The Walking Dead,” “Killing Eve” and “Better Call Saul,” as well as the launch of new shows “61st Street,” “Dark Winds,” “Tales of the Walking Dead,” “Moonhaven” and the first two series in its Anne Rice TV universe, “Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire” and “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches.” “We are excited to continue and also expand our longstanding partnership with Comcast through a new agreement that includes not only continued carriage of our cable networks, but also our fast-growing targeted streaming services including AMC+, which was made available first to Xfinity customers,” Josh Reader, president of distribution and development for AMC Networks, said.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterFox revealed a first look at some of the costumes for “The Masked Singer” Season 7 during the network’s telecast of the NFL’s NFC Championship game on Sunday, with a promo showing six competitors from the season’s three groupings: The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly.The specific classifications are a new touch, seeing as “The Masked Singer” has only referred to a season’s groups by an assigned letter (i.e. Group A) throughout its first six seasons.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterCBS is bringing the funny to a larger audience than its broadcast competition this season with eight of the top 10 most-watched comedies belonging to channel that’s home to “Young Sheldon.” And yes, “Young Sheldon” is by far the most-watched of that group.Out of the 34 comedy titles that have aired across ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the CW at this point during the 2021-2022 season, a tally that includes repeats of the broadcasters’ sitcoms, CBS has the six most-watched all to itself: “Young Sheldon,” “Ghosts,” “The Neighborhood,” “Bob Hearts Abishola,” “United States of Al” and “B Positive.”The rest of the top 10 list is made up of encores of “Young Sheldon” in seventh place, followed by ABC comedies “The Conners” and “Abbott Elementary” in the eighth and ninth slots, and reruns of “The Neighborhood” in 10th. At this time last year, there were 38 comedy series airing across the broadcast networks — again, including repeats — and CBS had six of the 10 most-watched.

Angelique Jackson WarnerMedia OneFifty has acquired the short films, “Namoo” and “When the Sun Sets,” to be released on HBO Max.Both films are shortlisted to be nominated for the 2022 Academy Awards, with “Namoo” as a contender in the animated short film category and “When the Sun Sets” in the live-action short film category. The nominations will be formally announced on Feb.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAT&T CEO John Stankey told investors he expects HBO Max to recoup all of the subscribers lost last fall after WarnerMedia pulled HBO from the Amazon Prime Video Channels marketplace in September amid ongoing agita in the TV industry about the fees Amazon takes for facilitating sales of subscription TV services.During AT&T’s hourlong fourth-quarter earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Stankey also noted that market conditions have spurred price hikes by HBO Max rivals, which means that HBO Max is not the most expensive of the major domestic players at present. Stankey didn’t mention Netflix by name, but the inference was clear.Last October, AT&T reported that HBO and HBO Max lost about 1.8 million subscribers in the third quarter after the disengagement from Amazon in the previous month.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterByrde family fans flocked to Netflix to watch “Ozark” Season 4, Part 1, drawing more viewers than any other TV series in its debut week on the streamer.The first half of the final season of the Jason Bateman-led drama landed at No. 1 on Netflix’s English-language TV Top 10 list for the week of Jan. 17-23, with 77 million hours viewed in just its first three days.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterBruce Miller has renewed his multiyear overall deal with Disney, cutting MGM Television from the agreement this time around.“The Handmaid’s Tale” showrunner previously signed a joint overall pact with Hulu and MGM in 2018. Miller’s new deal is still with Hulu, but now adds in Disney’s ABC Signature to the mix, and no longer includes MGM, which produces “The Handmaid’s Tale.”Under the new overall deal, Miller will continue at the helm of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is currently in pre-production on Season 5, per Disney, and develop projects for ABC Signature and Hulu, some of which he will create and write, and others he will supervise.“Bruce has created one of the most iconic series in all of television in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’ His work has had worldwide influence and we’re thrilled and honored to be working with him at ABC Signature.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterJorja Fox is leaving CBS’ “CSI: Vegas” ahead of the show’s second season of the “CSI” spinoff series.“Hey all you #CSI fans! After much deliberating, I have decided not to ‘Sidle up’ for CSI Vegas. For me CSI has always been a love story.

HBO Max is offering 20% off monthly plans for a year. If you've been waiting for an opportunity to catch up on HBO Max's Emmy-winning show  and the reboot, then this might be it. When you sign up for an annual plan before the deal ends, you can save $2 each month on HBO Max with ads.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterPeacock has canceled “Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol” after just one season of the drama.“We were so proud to bring this action-packed mystery thriller to our members and enjoyed watching this compelling series unfold with a satisfying, complete story,” Peacock said in a statement to Variety. “We’re grateful to Dan Dworkin, Jay Beattie, Dan Brown, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard along with CBS Studios, Imagine Television and UTV for bringing this international bestselling novel to life.”Based on Dan Brown’s international bestselling thriller “The Lost Symbol,” the series follows the early adventures of young Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who must solve a series of deadly puzzles to save his kidnapped mentor and thwart a chilling global conspiracy.