Birthday blessings! Robert Downey Jr. rang in his 58th year by looking back at 57 — complete with a rare glimpse at his family life.
18.03.2023 - 01:19 / variety.com
William Earl Former Spotify, Conde Nast and CW executive Dawn Ostroff is set to join the board of directors for Paramount Global in May. Ostroff is poised to join the board as an independent director at Paramount Global’s annual meeting on May 8. Incumbent board members Candace Beinecke and Ronald Nelson will not stand for re-election at that meeting, which will bring the number of board members to 11, including Ostroff. “We are thrilled to welcome Dawn to Paramount’s Board at such an exciting moment in our evolution,” said Paramount Global chair Shari Redstone. “We believe her leadership, diverse expertise in content strategy and her long track record of driving transformation will prove invaluable as we seek to continue building on the success of Paramount’s global multiplatform strategy.”
More to come
Birthday blessings! Robert Downey Jr. rang in his 58th year by looking back at 57 — complete with a rare glimpse at his family life.
BreAnna Bell Showtime has announced its forthcoming spy drama, “Ghosts of Beirut,” will make its debut on Friday, May 19, on Showtime’s streaming site and will air on linear on May 21 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. The four-part limited series tells the origin story of 21-year old Mughniyeh (who is also referred to as “The Ghost”), an elusive Lebanese terrorist who evaded capture from the CIA and Mossad for two decades. He was responsible for more American deaths than any other individual prior to 9/11. “Told from the American, Israeli and Lebanese perspectives, the series traces Mughniyeh’s origins from the Shiite slums of South Beirut to his masterminding of the concept of suicide bombers, a deadly tactic that led to his swift rise as the world’s most dangerous terrorist. Based on extensive research of still-classified events, the drama spans decades and weaves in first-hand, real-life interviews with prominent officials from the CIA and Mossad, connecting the turmoil of 1980s Beirut with the spy games of the modern Middle East,” reads Showtime’s official description.
EXCLUSIVE: Showtime has set Ghosts Of Beirut, a four-part spy drama based on the real-life espionage story of the manhunt for Imad Mughniyeh, the elusive Lebanese terrorist who outwitted his adversaries in the CIA and Mossad for over two decades. The limited series, from Fauda creators Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz, features an international cast led by Dina Shihabi (Jack Ryan), Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding), Garret Dillahunt (12 Years a Slave), Iddo Goldberg (Snowpiercer), Hisham Suleiman (Fauda), Amir Khoury (Image of Victory) and Rafi Gavron (A Star is Born).
Robert De Niro is slated to star in “Bobby Meritorius,” a new crime drama in the works at Paramount+. The series comes from Paramount Television Studios, which made a commitment to develop the show in a competitive situation.
Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Tanya Giles is stepping down as chief programming officer for streaming at Paramount Global. Giles was promoted in June 2021 to help oversee all streaming content programming efforts for the media conglomerate that has invested heavily in its Paramount+ streaming platform. News of Giles’ departure was first reported by Deadline. The move comes as Paramount Global has been taking steps to further streamline its content, production and network operations under an increasingly smaller number of leaders. In late January, the company unveiled the plan to consolidate its stalwart pay TV cabler Showtime with the Paramount+ platform.
Paramount Global has named Kristin Southey EVP, Investor Relations, effective immediately. She succeedes Anthony DiClemente, who will remain with the media company through mid-April to ensure a smooth transition.
In a Broadway season that might be remembered for a lovely, pared-down minimalism – the intriguing starkness of A Doll’s House with Jessica Chastain, the less-is-more near-concert-style presentations of Into the Woods and Parade – director Thomas Kail’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street will stand out for, among many other attributes, its full-on, unabashed ambition. A prodigious theatrical event that aims for greatness and achieves it, this revival of the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler masterpiece is not to be missed.
The “Mean Girls” musical has cast “Mad Men” star Jon Hamm as Coach Carr. The Emmy-winning actor and star of “Confess, Fletch” and “Beirut” will play the school’s gym teacher and sex-ed instructor.
Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Republic Pictures, an historic movie label founded in 1935 and shuttered in 1967, has been revived by parent company Paramount Global. The banner will function as an acquisitions play, releasing titles acquired by Paramount Global Content Distribution. “We’ve chosen to revitalize the Republic banner given its storied history of delivering popular movies to a global audience, ” said Dan Cohen, Paramount chief content licensing officer and newly-named president of Republic Pictures. “With our best-in-class global distribution teams working to identify the best homes around the world, we aim to continue that legacy by offering audiences great entertainment across all genres.”
Yesterday, it was announced that veteran writer Steven Knight (“Spencer,” “Eastern Promises“) would be joining the next untitled “Star Wars” film to help prepare a script ahead of the sci-fi adventure movie’s eventual production. Now there’s even more news about Knight’s upcoming film projects, and the latest one announced by Deadline is certainly a doozy for fans of classic thrillers.
Shari Lynette Carpenter, Miko Lim and Oscar Rene Lozoya have been selected to participate in the 2023-2025 Paramount Directors Initiative, Paramount Global announced on Thursday.
EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures has preemptively acquired a remake of the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock-directed psychological thriller Vertigo, with Robert Downey Jr eyeing the James Stewart lead role of the former police detective forced to retire after a line of duty trauma that leaves him with fear of heights and vertigo. The script will be written by Steven Knight, the See and Peaky Blinders creator who just signed on to write a Star Wars film.
Ghost shirts, which are sacred to certain Indigenous communities, were thought to guard the wearer against bullets through spiritual power. This precious heirloom is at the center of Tony Tost’s directorial debut film at SXSW, Americana. This western dramedy has some tricks up its sleeve, thanks to the brilliant writing and the script’s comedic timing. It boasts a big cast of actors including Sydney Sweeney, Halsey, Paul Walter Hauser, Zahn McClarnon, Simon Rex, Eric Dane and Gavin Maddox Bergman.
Bob Bakish, chief executive of Paramount Global, saw total compensation in 2022 of $32 million, up from $20 million the year before.
Paramount Global is shuffling its board of directors, including the addition of Dawn Ostroff, who will serve as an independent non-executive director, the company announced Friday. The filing also noted that Bob Bakish would be making $31.5 million.Ostoroff’s seat is pending a stockholder vote that will take place at Paramount’s 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders later this year. Bakish, who serves as Paramount Global’s president will be receiving a pay boost to $31.5 million as a result of $16 million stock awards grant.
Dawn Ostroff, a seasoned media executive who most recently served as chief content and advertising business officer at Spotify, will joining the Paramount Global board, the company announced today.
Sean “Diddy” Combs has just joined the potential purchase party of Black Entertainment Television (BET), with the mogul setting his sights on majority stake, TheWrap has confirmed.A source close to Combs says the Grammy award-winning musician and record label executive is “exploring the opportunity to purchase BET as a part of his strategy to build a Black-owned global media powerhouse,” Variety was the first to report. The source added that conversations around Diddy buying majority stake in the network has yet to happen. Diddy is the latest to take interest in the acquisitions of the network, following behind Tyler Perry, Byron Allen and Miami-based media company Group Black, which was founded by Richelieu Dennis, Bonin Bough, and its CEO Travis Montaque. Under the umbrella of BET Media Group lies brands BET, BET+, BET Studios and VH1, which was to the group from Paramount Media Networks in a restructuring rearrangement. This would be another lucrative entrepreneurial business move for Diddy, who founded media company Revolt in 2013.
BET, joining fellow media moguls Tyler Perry and Byron Allen as they vie to purchase a majority stake of BET Media Group amid reports that owner Paramount Global is exploring a sale of the asset, Variety has confirmed. Run by CEO Scott Mills, BET Media Group includes BET, BET+, VH1 (which was moved under the group in a restructuring at Paramount last November) and BET’s production arm, BET Studios. A source close to Combs tells Variety that the global music icon and record executive turned multi-industry entrepreneur is “exploring the opportunity to purchase BET as a part of his strategy to build a Black-owned global media powerhouse.”
meeting up with a 16-year-old on the Growlr dating app.According to a memo from the Broward County State Attorney’s Office explaining its decision, the teen’s parents wanted to pursue charges against Parson but did not want to subject their son to be questioned on the stand and were reticent to allow prosecutors to speak with him to help determine the facts of the case.Assistant State Attorney Danielle Lennox, of the office’s sexual battery and child abuse unit, wrote in the memo that a victim advocate from the office had begun reaching out to the family after the charges against Parson were filed.In a May 2022 phone conference with the victim’s parents, Lennox explained what the process of pursuing prosecution would entail, but they were reticent to have their son speak with her.Lennox agreed to give them time to think and scheduled a follow-up meeting with the parents to arrange an in-person interview with the teen, but was unable to reach the family.
former Showtime leader David Nevins’ offer to buy the network for about $3 billion.“Yeah, we got an unsolicited offer for Showtime. We looked at it,” Bakish said. “And the reality is, it wasn’t that interesting to us.