Disney Entertainment Television’s Comms & Publicity Team Undergoes Restructuring; Richard Horrmann & Ashley Kline Shapiro Among Execs With New Duties

EXCLUSIVE: Mandalay Pictures (Air) Yale Entertainment, and Post Film have partnered to produce a new thriller titled Barron’s Cove, starring Garrett Hedlund (Mudbound), Stephen Lang (Avatar), Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect, X), and Hamish Linklater (The Big Short).

In case you hadn’t heard, mermaid-core is set to be the next big beauty trend, with Pinterest searches for ‘mermaidcore’ skyrocketing by 614% according to a new analysis from fashion site Nasty Gal. With Google searches for mermaid style also rising by 736% worldwide over the past year, it looks like the power of Disney’s long anticipated live action remake of The Little Mermaid has already found its way into the makeup bags of beauty fans everywhere.

Disney+ will launch season 2 of Marvel’s Loki on October 6. Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige announced the date Tuesday during Disney’s Upfront presentation, where he also introduced first-look footage of the upcoming season. New episodes will air weekly.

K.J. Yossman Denise Richards is set to star as a radio host looking for a date to the company Christmas party in holiday movie “A Christmas Frequency,” Variety can reveal. Veteran director Lindsay Hartley (“The Romeo and Juliet Murders”) will helm the project, which is being produced by Nicely Entertainment. Ansley Gordon (“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”), who wrote the screenplay for “A Christmas Frequency,” will also star in the movie alongside Johnathan Stoddard (“Furry Little Christmas”) and James Hyde (“The Young and the Restless”). In the film, which is already in production, Richards stars as morning radio show host Brooke Walkins, who is not only secretly separating from her husband Todd (Hyde) but haemorrhaging ratings on her show. When she finds out the show is being axed, Brooke’s producer Kenzie Parker (Gordon) has the bright idea of setting up the host with a series of blind dates live on air to help Brooke find someone to take to the company’s Christmas party.

J. Kim Murphy Bob Chapek, the former Disney CEO who was abruptly ousted from the company last November, is among a group of executives facing a lawsuit claiming violations of securities law for allegedly providing misleading statements and omissions about Disney+ and its subscriber growth. The case, filed by Local 272 Labor Management Pension Fund on May 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, also names former Disney executive Kareem Daniel and current CFO Christine McCarthy, as well as the Walt Disney Co. itself, as defendants. The document states that the case seeks a lead plaintiff and judicial determination for a class action suit representing Disney shareholders from Dec. 10, 2020 to Nov. 8, 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: Ashley Moore (I Know What You Did Last Summer) and Camren Bicondova (Gotham) will topline Festival of the Living Dead, a Tubi film inspired by the classic 1968 zombie pic Night of the Living Dead co-written and directed by George A. Romero.

Kelly Siegler, star of Oxygen’s Cold Justice, has a new series for the NBCUniversal cable network as it unveils its latest slate of true-crime series.

. It started with , which has accrued over five million views. The video, which is soundtracked to the song “Remember You Omnichord” by Mars Bars, features still shot after shot of Disney princesses: Ariel from ; Aurora from Sleeping Beauty; Belle from Beauty and the Beast; Snow White from *Snow White—*each with their nose ringed in red.

on the video, which scored 5.3 million views since it was posted last month.A TikToker known as Robin Reaction also shared a clip last year making a similar argument. The creator claims that some of the earliest princesses barely had a nose at all, at least when the animated beauties were viewed head-on.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Writers Guild of America West will begin picketing Tuesday afternoon outside of Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Warner Bros., and the other major studios in Los Angeles, after a strike was called on Monday night. The Writers Guild of America East, based in New York, put out a schedule for the “first two weeks of picketing,” which will begin on Tuesday at the Peacock NewFront on 5th Avenue. The WGAE also plans to picket outside Netflix headquarters in New York on Wednesday. The WGA called a strike Monday night, after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers announced that negotiations had concluded for the day without a deal. The current three-year contract expires at midnight on Monday.

Netflix has set June 9 for the Season 2 premiere of Big Mouth spinoff Human Resources. An impressive list of guest stars will join the show for its upcoming final season including Florence Pugh, Miley Cyrus, Eugene Levy, Sam Richardson, Niecy Nash-Betts, Jason Mantzoukas, and Isabella Rossellini.

most recent round of layoffs, Disney Entertainment has reorganized its communication and publicity departments, TheWrap confirmed on Friday.Separate from today’s re-org, a spokesperson confirmed that in February, Shari Rosenblum, an 18-year veteran of the studio and SVP of publicity for Disney Television Studios, began heading up publicity, talent relations and events for 20th Television, 20th Animation and ABC Signature. She reports to Candice Ashton.Additional changes across the company include the following: Richard Horrmann will now oversee strategic communications for Disney Entertainment Television.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Disney Entertainment has reshuffled roles and oversight among some comms and PR execs amid the second round of layoffs companywide. In addition to this week’s changes, Variety has confirmed that since February, Shari Rosenblum has led publicity, talent relations and events across 20th Television, 20th Animation and ABC Signature as SVP of publicity for Disney Television Studios. Rosenblum, who has spent 18 years at the studio leading campaign efforts for series including “Modern Family,” “The Dropout” and “Homeland,” reports to Candice Ashton. New reorg moves include:

Apink apart from Jung Eun-ji have left their longtime agency IST Entertainment.On April 28, IST Entertainment released a statement announcing that Apink members Park Cho-rong, Yoon Bo-mi, Kim Nam-joo and Oh Ha-young have left the agency. This marks the end of the four members’ partnership with the entertainment company, which began in 2011 upon the group’s debut.Of the group’s five members, Jung Eun-ji was the only one to renew her contract with IST.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Scott Greenberg, the co-founder and CEO of Fox-owned animation studio Bento Box Entertainment, is exiting the company, Variety has confirmed. Greenberg is also the CEO of Fox’s Web3 media and creative technology company Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL). He will officially depart both roles on May 19. “It’s been an incredible honor and privilege to work alongside the many people who have helped build Bento Box and Blockchain Creative Labs into two great companies,” Greenberg said. “The many series and projects we launched together are a great source of lasting pride to me. Deep down, I’m an entrepreneur at heart who enjoys building organizations and nurturing their teams to bring out the best in themselves. With Bento Box and BCL running full steam ahead on the path for continued growth and success, now is the time to explore new opportunities.”

Carole Horst For 50 years, it’s been a safe place for storytellers – musicians, animators, directors, writers, artists of all kinds – to learn, grow and thrive. As CalArts celebrates its golden anniversary, it also faces the future head-on.  Broad trustee emeritus Tim Disney, whose great-grandfather, Walt Disney, laid the foundation for what is now a world-class arts school, says that CalArts was founded with very large-scale, utopian ideas by Walt Disney. “Disneyland and CalArts were very grand things,” Disney says, adding that Walt died before the school opened and that his grandfather, Roy Disney, “had the very hard job” seeing the plans through. “His commitment was a very beautiful thing.” 

As we are kicking off Day 3 of Disney’s second round of layoffs, here is information on a couple of cuts that happened yesterday but got lost in the flurry of staff reductions. We will update with more as layoff news comes in throughout the day.

EXCLUSIVE: Ice Cube is teaming with Jesse Collins Entertainment on a sports docuseries revolving around his successful Big3 sports league. Ice Cube will star in and produce via his Cube Vision with Jesse Collins Entertainment.

EXCLUSIVE: Rising Australian actress Olivia DeJonge (Elvis, The Staircase) has signed with Linden Entertainment for management.

Day 1 of Disney’s second wave of layoffs is impacting ABC and Freeform’s senior programming ranks and Disney Television Studios’ music operations.