‘Hot Pink’: Amazon Studios’ YA Pilot Sets Five Lead Roles

The musical Dear Evan Hansen has been turned into a feature film and the first trailer just dropped!

EXCLUSIVE: Sigourney Weaver is to lead an adaptation of Holly Ringland’s book The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart for Amazon.

What will a person do to change their life? It’s a fascinating thought at the center of Lauren Oliver’s “Panic.” The Amazon adaptation of her bestselling novel covers events surrounding an increasingly dangerous quest for renewal. In the process, those involved face the grim realities of poverty, injustice, and all too common fallacies that go hand in hand with small-town idyll.

Super Bowl champ Russell Wilson and Grammy-winning singer Ciara are bringing their talents to Amazon Studios.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorAmazon has teamed with the Producers Guild of America to host a virtual conference to examine the state of AAPI representation in media and entertainment.The May 20 event, which will be open to the public free of charge, will feature panels, interviews and a musical performances to showcase the array of Asian and Pacific Islander ethnicities and cultures.The focus of Amazon Studios Voices: API Representation in Film and Media will be on how Hollywood can take

boycott the organization, which has no black members and a history of snubbing the work of Black creators in awards seasons. Time’s Up demanded an overhaul of the HFPA which then lead the group to hire USC professor Shaun Harper to examine its “systemic” issues.

Add Amazon Studios to the growing list of organizations that have stated they will not work with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association until it significantly revamps its diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterKym Whitley and Danny Garcia have been cast in recurring roles in the Amazon YA pilot “Hot Pink,” Variety has learned exclusively.The pair joins previously announced stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nina Bloomgarden, David Iacono, Mimi Davila, Dana Donnelly, and Myra Molloy, as well as fellow recurring star David Arquette.The show is loosely inspired by Elana K.

Elaine Low Senior TV WriterAmid a spate of anti-Asian hate crimes this past year, the story of Vincent Chin — the 27-year-old Chinese American brutally beaten and killed in 1982 by two former autoworkers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, who blamed him for the economic downturn in Detroit — has become the focus of renewed interest for the entertainment industry.

EXCLUSIVE: David Arquette has been cast in Amazon Studios’ coming-of-age pilot Hot Pink, created by Elisabeth Holm.

EXCLUSIVE: Marginal MediaWorks is expanding into scripted series with Hummingbird, an hour-long, LatinX genre series, which was sold to Amazon Studios, following a competitive bidding situation.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter“The Summer I Turned Pretty” series at Amazon has cast Lola Tung, Rachel Blanchard, Jackie Chung, and Christopher Briney, Variety has learned.The series is based on the Jenny Han YA novel of the same name. It is described as a multigenerational drama that hinges on a love triangle between one girl and two brothers, the ever-evolving relationship between mothers and their children, and the enduring power of strong female friendship.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorRobin Thede, the multi-hyphenate behind HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” is developing a zombie action-comedy feature “Killing It” with Jax Media and Amazon Studios.Thede wrote the screenplay and will produce. The story revolves around a group of underachieving friends who find themselves overrun by zombies while they are in Atlanta to visit Spelman College, 10 years after they dropped out of the prestigious HBCU women’s school.

Grey’s Anatomy holds four of the 10 positions on Billboard’s Top TV Songs chart, powered by Tunefind, led by Anson Seabra’s “Walked Through Hell,” which enters at No. 1.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterAmazon Studios has ordered a YA pilot based on the Harlan Coben novel “Shelter,” Variety has learned exclusively.Shelter” is the first novel in Coben’s Mickey Bolitar book series. MGM has acquired the rights to all the other books in the Mickey Bolitar series as well.