‘Entertainment Tonight’ Undergoes Layoffs

EXCLUSIVE: After announcing new docs on NFL Hall of Famer Mel Blount and MLB icon Tommy John in Whatever It Takes and The Bionic Man, respectively, Winter State Entertainment has unveiled The Hitman: A Tommy Hearns Story as its latest sports documentary.

Clarence Avant, the judicious manager, entrepreneur, facilitator and adviser who helped launch or guide the careers of Quincy Jones, Bill Withers and many others and came to be known as the “Black Godfather” of music and beyond, has died. He was 92.

EXCLUSIVE: Creative Artists Agency will be instituting staff reductions, Deadline has learned. The round of layoffs, expected early next week, will impact about 60 people across a number of divisions, I hear. That is a fraction of the agency’s global headcount, which is in the thousands.

Tom Werner’s Werner Entertainment, the production company behind ABC’s popular comedy series The Conners, has signed a global licensing deal with Lionsgate’s Worldwide Television Distribution Group and Debmar-Mercury.

ESPN today pushed its chips into the center of the sports gambling table.

Jaden Thompson Actor Alexandra McVicker has signed with Fusion Entertainment for management. McVicker, who is transgender, hails from Lexington, Kentucky. Prior to her transition, she was known for her breakout role on the HBO show “Vice Principals,” a dark comedy starring Danny McBride and Walton Goggins as conniving high school vice principals vying to run the school.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Capitol Music Group and Motown Records have entered into a partnership with Glass Window Entertainment, the label founded by multiplatinum rapper Dominique “Lil Baby” Jones, with rapper Rylo Rodriguez as the first artist signed to the partnership. Terms were not disclosed, although sources tell Variety it is a multi-million-dollar deal.

Go inside (arguably) the divorce of the century,

Top exhibitor AMC Entertainment rode the box office revival in the second quarter, beating Wall Street forecasts and returning to profitability.

Girls’ Generation member Sunny has announced that she has parted ways with longtime agency SM Entertainment.The singer, real name Lee Soon-kyu, took to her personal Instagram page earlier today (August 8) to personally announce her departure from the company. “I want to express my gratitude to SM Entertainment who gave great help so that 19-year-old Lee Soon-kyu could debut as Girls’ Generation’s Sunny,” she wrote in a letter, per translations by Soompi.“Looking back, there are so many people I have been grateful to for the past 16 years.

William Earl “Live From My Den” returns for a fifth season this August. Created by Artists Den Entertainment, the series highlights extraordinary artists as they perform from the spaces most significant to their creative processes. Each episode features a live performance, an interview with Variety and an exclusive tour of a location that inspires the artist creatively.

EXCLUSIVE: US-based MindRiot Entertainment, co-producer of the forthcoming Parallel starring Danielle Deadwyler (Till), Aldis Hodge (Black Adam), and Edwin Hodge (The Tomorrow War), is crossing the pond to open an office branch in Ireland. 

UK Agency Insanity Group Restructures Entertainment Team

EXCLUSIVE: Winter State Entertainment on Tuesday announced two feature docs on NFL Hall of Famer Mel Blount and MLB icon Tommy John that will lead its forthcoming slate, having wrapped principal photography on each right before the launch of the WGA strike.

EXCLUSIVE: Imagine Entertainment has struck a preemptive film rights deal for Whalefall, the next anticipated novel from bestseller Daniel Kraus. The deal for the book option was reached ahead of its August 8th publication by MTV Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Seth MacFarlane has donated $1 million to The Entertainment Community Fund to help provide financial assistance for industry workers during the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. The organization, formerly known as The Actors Fund, also exclusively tells me that recent donors include The Katie McGrath & JJ Abrams Family Foundation, Stacey Abrams, Annette Bening, Tom Bergeron, Greg Berlanti, Rachel Bloom, Rosanne Cash in memory of Johnny Cash, Suzanne Collins and Cap Pryor, Vince Gilligan, Lynn Nottage, Michelle Pfeiffer and David E.

Carra Fenton has been appointed to SVP of Entertainment Sales at Deadline. This marks Fenton’s return to the leading entertainment digital publication she spent nine years helping to build. Brianna Corrado, Deadline’s Senior Director of Entertainment Sales, has been promoted to VP. Both report to Deadline publisher Kasey Champion.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large “Entertainment Tonight” is undergoing layoffs with the entertainment news show cutting less than 10% of its staff, Variety has learned. A staff-wide Zoom was held on Wednesday afternoon where employees learned of a “small restructuring of staff,” sources close to the show tell Variety.

CEO Adam Aron said a court ruling Friday that makes it harder for AMC Entertainment to raise cash has serious implications for the circuit’s financial stability — a blowout ‘Barbenheimer’ weekend at the box office and surging share price notwithstanding.

BreAnna Bell Mikhael Tara Garver has joined the executive ranks of Culture House Media as the head of a new division, Culture House Immersive. Prior to the appointment, Garver most recently served as Director ofImmersive Experience creating the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Garver will lead the department from the Culture House headquarters in LA alongside founder Carri Twigg. Raeshem Nijhon and Nicole Galovski will continue to oversee the New York office. “As I was looking for the right home to build the next generation of immersive entertainment and thenext phase of my career – Culture House became the obvious choice,” commented Mikhael Tara Garver.“I am first and foremost a fan, but more importantly, we share an ethos, a commitment to quality work,and a belief in entertainment that can impact culture. My vision for Culture House Immersive includesthe creation of a slate of original narrative experiences, a best in class content studio working with otherartists and makers to create live, in person and innovative ways to engage with story and culture.Immersive at its best is about that feeling you have at an extraordinary shared experience – that’sinclusive, emotive and exciting. The experience economy is growing rapidly, and I am confident that atCulture House Immersive we can lead the way in how to build a sustainable business for immersiveentertainment.”