Dark Comedy Drama ‘Average Joe’ From Robb Cullen & McG Lands Cast Contingent Order At BET+

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are set to join an exclusive list of people when they receive the President’s Award at the 2022 NAACP Image Awards.

CBS has given a pilot order to Unplanned in Akron, a multi-camera comedy from Schuyler Helford (Call Me Kat), Eric Feig’s Picturestart and CBS Studios.

“Aziz Ansari is an incredible talent and, with this script, he brings a singular combination of insightful humor and pathos,” Searchlight presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to be partnering with him on his feature directorial debut which is long overdue, and of course working with the genius Bill Murray once again.”Taylor Friedman and Cameron Chidsey are overseeing the project for Searchlight Pictures.

“Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’” by Kyle Buchanan (William Morrow):Leo Tolstoy’s adage that “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” is inverted in the making-of film book genre: They are all unhappy in the same way. Each features a suffering auteur beset by money men, clashing actors, blown schedules and more, all while threatened with professional extinction.Fortunately, Kyle Buchanan’s oral history “Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’” pulls away from clichés by tossing the keys to the filmmakers themselves.

Wilson Chapman editorThe NAACP and BET have announced the performers and presenters for the 53rd NAACP Image Awards.Nine-time Grammy Award winner and recent Super Bowl halftime show headliner Mary J. Blige will perform at the live show. The ceremony will also feature Samuel L.

CBS is moving on to its comedy pilots.

It’s a busy morning of pilot pickups at ABC.

ABC has ordered a drama pilot about a group of therapists in Philadelphia from This Is Us writer/director Kay Oyegun.

Manori Ravindran International EditorChrissy Metz, the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated star of “This Is Us,” stars alongside “It” actor Wyatt Oleff and Fin Argus in Jamie Sisley’s drama “Stay Awake,” which premieres at the Berlin Film Festival this week.The feature — which is based on Sisley’s 2015 short film of the same name — centers on brothers Ethan (Oleff) and Derek (Argus), who are trying their best to navigate the pressures of teenage life while tending to their mother’s (Metz) debilitating prescription drug addiction.Based on Sisley’s experience growing up in small-town America, “Stay Awake” is billed as “a personal exploration of the roller coaster ride that families go on while trying to help their loved ones battle a disease that affects millions every day.” In an exclusive clip shared with Variety, the two brothers are shown arguing about the money needed to pay for their mother’s rehabilitation treatment. The subject matter is especially resonant given the recent representation of America’s drug crisis on screen in shows such as Hulu’s “Dopesick.”“The themes and characters in ‘Stay Awake’ mean the world to me since they’re based on my childhood.

Angelique Jackson Bleecker Street has secured North American rights to Catherine Hardwicke’s new action-comedy, “Mafia Mamma,” starring Toni Collette, Monica Bellucci and Rob Huebel.Collette stars in the film as a suburban American woman, who inherits her grandfather’s mafia empire and must learn navigate her new role as the head of the family business, defying everyone’s expectations.Based on an original idea by acclaimed French novelist, screenwriter and filmmaker Amanda Sthers, Hardwicke directs from a screenplay written by Debbie Jhoon and Michael J. Feldman (Peacock’s “AP Bio,” Hulu’s”Deadbeat”).

Rashida Jones has been tapped to star in Apple’s new dark comedy series, Sunny.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterApple has ordered the dark comedy series “Sunny” with Rashida Jones set to star, Variety has confirmed.The 10-episode series is based on the book “Dark Manual” by Colin O’Sullivan. In the half-hour show, Jones stars as Suzie, an American woman living in Kyoto, Japan, whose life is upended when her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash. As “consolation” she’s given Sunny, one of a new class of domestic robots made by her husband’s electronics company.

EXCLUSIVE: Apple TV+ has handed a formal 10-episode series order to Sunny (fka Dark Manual), a half-hour darkly comedic drama starring and executive produced by Rashida Jones, from Katie Robbins (The Affair, The Last Tycoon) and A24. Lucy Tcherniak (Station Eleven, The End of the F***ing World) is attached to direct.

Jo Koy’s movie Easter Sunday, which was scheduled to open roughly two weeks before Easter weekend on April 1, is heading to Aug. 5.

Nicole Kidman is among the stars getting ready to “Roar” in the upcoming anthology series from Apple TV+.

Amazon Studios has picked up to series The Horror of Dolores Roach pilot based on the hit Gimlet podcast, starring One Day At A Time alumna Justina Machado in the title role. The project, in development at Amazon since 2020, hails from Blumhouse Television, which won the rights to adapt the podcast in 2019 in a competitive situation, Spotify’s Gimlet and GloNation Studios. The Horror of Dolores Roach will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

ABC has given a cast-contingent pilot order to Will Trent, a crime drama based on Karin Slaughter’s bestselling Will Trent book series, from The Big Leap creator Liz Heldens and Dan Thomsen (Batwoman) who previously worked together on Fox’s The Passage. 20th Television, where Heldens is under a deal, is the studio.

Clifton Collins Jr., Michael Gandolfini, Josh Hamilton and Brooklyn Mackenzie have rounded out the cast of the film adaptation of M.T. Anderson’s “Landscape With Invisible Hands” for MGM, Annapurna and Plan B.The dark, surreal comedy will be written and directed by Cory Finley (“Bad Education,” “Thoroughbreds”) and will be set in a “deeply stratified, alien future.” This will be one of the announced projects by Plan B as part of their recently signed deal with MGM.

EXCLUSIVE: Tom Hanks comedy A Man Called Otto is full-steam ahead with filming set to begin next month in on location in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we can reveal.