Discovery Raising $30B In Mega Debt Sale To Fund Pending WarnerMedia Merger

Paramount Global is raising $1 billion in fresh cash through a bond sale expected to close March 29.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle EditorLos Angeles chef Evan Funke knows his way around the Oscars.Not only is his father, Alex, a three-time Academy Award winning visual effects director (“I’ve been to a couple of Oscars as a guest of my dad’s,” Evan says), but he’s also helped create the dishes for the annual Governors Ball several times alongside culinary celeb Wolfgang Puck.And now this year, Funke, whose Italian eateries Felix in Venice and Hollywood’s Mother Wolf are celebrity and industry hot spots, will make his debut designing the menu for the Vanity Fair viewing dinner and after-party, which returns this year to the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills after the 2021 hiatus due to the pandemic. Variety caught up with Funke as he put the finishing touches on the top-secret menu to talk pasta, Bill Murray and the dangers of red sauce.How do you begin coming up with a menu for one of Hollywood’s biggest parties of the year? I want everyone to have pasta and one pasta that I really wanted to highlight is something that was passed on to me during my very first trip when I moved to Italy — Alessandra Spisni’s lasagna Bolognese.

Party in Music City! Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean and more of country’s biggest stars will be honored at the 2022 CMT Music Awards.

Bob Verini “Steven had said that he wasn’t going to make the film if he couldn’t cast it correctly.”Thus, explains casting director Cindy Tolan, assembling the perfect ensemble was of existential importance to Spielberg’s revisited “West Side Story.” The goal was to capture all the charisma of the beloved 1961 original, while avoiding its much-criticized, inauthentic approach to ethnicity.“I looked to my office and I said, ‘We are not going to be the reason this film does not get made.’” An early, viral social media posting kicked off an 18-month worldwide search, involving open calls and appointments from the U.S. to Puerto Rico and Australia.All told, she claims, “we saw 30,000 humans,” and in no sense did any have to be professionals or even trained.

The fans are in charge! The first round of nominations for the 2022 CMT Music Awards have been announced — and the list is full of chart-topping artists.

2022 CMT Music Awards are almost here — and it's going to be a star-studded night!On Wednesday, CMT announced the nominees for country music's only entirely fan-voted awards show — which will be hosted live from Music City by Anthony Mackie and Kelsea Ballerini on Monday, April 11 -- and the list includes some of the biggest names in music. Kane Brown leads the pack this year with four nominations, while Ballerini, Mickey Guyton, and first-time nominees Breland and Cody Johnson earned three nods apieceThe first round of nominations for the coveted Video of the Year award includes 12 acts, spotlighting artists like Brandi Carlile, Kacey Musgraves, Luke Combs, Maren Morris, Miranda Lambert and Taylor Swift feat.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefKat McNamara (“Maze Runner,” “Shadowhunters”) has joined the cast of “Jade” the feature directorial debut of producer, director and stuntman James Bamford. The film began production on Thursday.The cast already includes Mickey Rourke “Sin City,” “The Expendables,” “The Wrester”) and Mark Dacascos (“John Wick 3,” “Crying Freeman,” “Brotherhood of the Wolf”) and Shaina West (“Black Widow”).“Jade” presents the story of a woman (West) who comes between a powerful businessman and a gang leader in their search for a hard drive that could damage the operations of Interpol.

Discovery just announced that its stockholders have approved its merger with AT&T’s WarnerMedia to create Warner Bros. Discovery, “a premier, global entertainment company” — marking the completion of one of the few remaining closing conditions for the merger.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterDiscovery investors voted in approval of the company’s $43 billion acquisition of WarnerMedia from AT&T to create Warner Bros. Discovery during a special meeting of stockholders Friday, marking one of the final formal steps before the transaction can close.The deal, a spinoff of WarnerMedia from AT&T, is expected to be completed early in Q2, with insiders telling Variety the estimated date is between April 11-28. The merger has already received approval from the U.S.

Discovery shareholders are set to OK the $43 billion merger with WarnerMedia on Friday, the last big step before AT&T completes the spinoff. Ahead of the deal’s expected close next month, a who’s-in/who’s-out parlor game is gaining intensity as CEO David Zaslav finalizes the leadership team.

Miss Universe 2020, Andrea Meza is as creative as they come. The Mexican beauty queen, turned Telemundo TV personality, showed her funny side as she recreated the viral and controversial look worn by Kim Kardashian at the Balenciaga Fall/Winter 22 collection show during this year’s Paris Fashion Week, in which she also shined exposing her fab silhouette and great sense of humor.The Mexican Telemundo host not only showed her look on her TV program En Casa Con Telemundo, she also took to Instagram to share a series of photos of the process she went through to achieve this style...using rolls of yellow vinyl tape with the word ‘Caution’.

The xx‘s Oliver Sim has announced that his debut solo single, ‘Romance With A Memory’, will be released tomorrow (March 10).Sim, who plays bass and is co-lead vocalist in The xx, will also share a new lyric video when the track drops at 3pm UK time tomorrow.A snippet of ‘Romance With A Memory’ has been shared today (March 9) by Sim on his Instagram account, which you can hear in the below clip.“I cannot tell you how much joy it brings me to watch a ghoul having a good time,” Sim said in the caption about the video for the new song.A post shared by Oliver Sim (@hideousbastard)“I’ve made a compilation of some of my favourite monsters, killers and queers getting down to ‘Romance With A Memory’. I hope both the music and monsters make you feel as happy as they make me.”You can listen to Sim’s ‘Romance With A Memory’ in the below lyric video from 3pm on March 10.Sim will also begin The xx’s new monthly radio show on Apple Music 1, titled Interludes Radio, tomorrow.For the inaugural “horror-themed” episode, Sim will be joined by a host of friends and collaborators including Florence Welch, Elton John, Sampha, Jimmy Somerville and director Yann Gonzalez, as well as his bandmates from The xx.

A life-long friend has paid tribute to a dad-of-one who was found dead at a bus station last week.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Barcelona-based Scenic Rights, the leading literary rights broker for Spanish-language film and TV series, has officially opened its Mexico City office as it continues to expand its purview across key territories, including Madrid, Los Angeles and most recently, Prague.The Mexico City office opening, delayed twice by the pandemic, kicks off operations on Monday March 7. According to Scenic Rights CEO, Sydney Borjas, the company’s Mexican branch will oversee more than 30 book to film-TV project adaptations, mostly into series.Ana Karen Larios, previously a foreign rights manager at VF Literary Agency, has been tapped as Scenic Rights’ content manager in Mexico and will report to the agency’s Chief Operating Officer Ignacio Diaz.

Miley Cyrus, 29, continues to soak up the sun while vacationing in Mexico with boyfriend Maxx Morando, 23, and this time, she’s showing off her stellar bod in a sexy black one piece. In photos you can see here, the “Wrecking Ball” singer put her slim figure on display with the classic black swimsuit, later adding a blue bucket hat and cozying up to her beau who went casual for the occasion in a white tank and high-waisted white jeans.

Russia-Ukraine war.The band, which consists of musicians Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool, was set to perform on May 29 at Spartak Stadium.“With heavy hearts, in light of current events we feel it is necessary to cancel our upcoming show in Moscow at Spartak Stadium,” Green Day wrote on their Instagram Story.“We are aware that this moment is not about stadium rock shows, it’s much bigger than that. But we also know that rock and roll is forever and we feel confident there will be a time and a place for us to return in the future,” the band continued.