Inside Amazon Games Chief’s Strategy to Build Up a Triple-A Threat With ‘Tomb Raider,’ ‘Lord of the Rings’ and Leaving Space for New IP (EXCLUSIVE)

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from Episode 5 of “The Boys” Season 4, currently streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. While Homelander (Antony Starr) and the supes were away at Vought’s V52 fan event (not to be at all confused with Disney’s 23) on this week’s episode of “The Boys,” Butcher (Karl Urban), Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and company played with a group of crazy, vicious farm animals on a journey to find a supe-killing virus. Amid those two wild plot points was a graver storyline: Hughie (Jack Quaid) and his recently returned mother Daphne (Rosemarie Dewitt) saying goodbye to Hugh Sr. (Simon Pegg), when Hughie agrees to give his dad a pain-free death to put him out of his new misery.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Gamers can return to the “Cozy Grove” universe this week with the launch of sequel game, “Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit.” The new titled, which launched Tuesday, is a mobile-only game exclusive to Netflix, which acquired “Cozy Grove” developer Spry Fox as an in-house studio in October 2022, differentiating it from its predecessor, which was released on Apple Arcade, Nintendo Switch (arguably the most-chosen platform for the game’s players), Xbox, PlayStation and PC in 2021. But Spry Fox co-founder and studio director David Edery tells Variety that making the game for Netflix didn’t affect the title as much as fans of other platforms would first assume.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Dungeons and Drag Queens” star Monét X Change has landed her own variety talk series at “Dimension 20” streamer Dropout. Titled “Monét’s Slumber Party,” the show is described as an “edgy, playful and queer variety show” where “Monét X Change will welcome friends, comedians and other celebrities to an adult sleepover.” “Combining honest conversation with a little mischief, ‘Monét’s Slumber Party’ will tackle taboo subjects like sex, dating and relationships with openness and humor,” per Dropout.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SAG-AFTRA is launching a fourth tier of its proposed indie video game contract that covers game developers’ projects in the $15 million to $30 million budget range. The news comes amid ongoing negotiations between the union and gaming giants including Activision, EA, WB Games, Disney and Take Two, among others.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers from Episode 5 of “The Boys” Season 4, currently streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. Halfway through “The Boys” Season 4, things are looking grim for our untraditional heroes, as Frenchie (Tomer Capone) leaves The Boys to turn himself in for all the murders he committed prior to his time working with Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie (Jack Quaid), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) and now Annie/Starlight (Erin Moriarty). The decades of guilt over those deaths, including the blood on his hands from previously killing the family of his new love interest Colin (Elliot Knight) when Colin was younger, drove Frenchie to a drug-induced mental breakdown and subsequent confession at a jail at the end of the episode.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The Xbox app is coming to two Amazon Fire TV devices beginning in July. Microsoft Gaming revealed on Thursday that Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) will go live on Fire TV 4K Max (a device priced at $59.99) and Fire TV Stick 4K ($49.99) through the Xbox app, giving access to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (priced at $16.99 per month) games for currently subscribed and new customers.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Barefoot Contessa” star Ina Garten has signed a new exclusive multiyear deal at her longtime home Food Network that includes a Season 5 renewal for her latest show, “Be My Guest With Ina Garten.” The next season of Garten’s Emmy-award-winning cooking talk show set at the East Hampton home she shares with her husband Jeffrey will launch in the fall and boast a guest list that includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert and fellow Food Network star Bobby Flay, among others. Previous seasons of “Be My Guest” have featured Emily Blunt, Jennifer Garner, Nathan Lane, Laura Linney, Stanley Tucci, astronaut Nicole Mann, ballerina Misty Copeland, restaurateur and author Danny Meyer and journalist Frank Bruni.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Film and TV studio A24 has secured a new round of funding led by Josh Kushner’s investment firm Thrive Capital. In connection with the investment, Kushner will be joining the board of directors for A24, best known for such films as “Civil War,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Moonlight” and “Uncut Gems,” and TV series “Euphoria,” “Beef,” “Ramy” and “The Sympathizer.” Financial details and exact figures were not disclosed by A24 and Thrive Capital, but sources confirm to Variety the investment from Thrive Capital gives it a valuation of about $3.5 billion — a 40% increase since A24’s first round of funding, which was $225 million at $2.5 billion in 2022.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers from Episode 4 of “The Boys” Season 4, currently streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. It’s been nearly a week since Episode 4 of “The Boys” Season 4 dropped on Amazon’s Prime Video, and fans are still reeling from the bloody mess of corpses Homelander (Antony Starr) left in the Vought Tower labs’ “bad room” after his big return to his old stomping grounds. The episode revealed exactly the extent to which Homelander hasn’t recovered from the messed-up experiments conducted on him as a lab-created supe kid, thanks in part to Starr’s own suggestions for how Homelander would interact with the Vought employees who were the closest things he had to family as a child — and who were also his torturers.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Netflix‘s live-action “One Piece” TV series has cast the first new actors for its upcoming second season, adding the comic book adaptation’s versions of four villains. “Raised by Wolves” actor Daniel Lasker will play Mr. 9, “Batwoman’s” Camrus Johnson has been cast as Mr.

The Prince and Princess of Wales' love story famously began at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.The couple met during their first year when they were both living at St Salvator's Halls of Residence and would later go on to live with one another. While the pair have now been married for 13 years and share three children, it seems they may have crossed paths many years earlier, according to a royal expert. Vanity Fair’s Royal Correspondent and best-selling author Katie Nicholl, claims Prince William may have first caught Kate's eye when their schools' hockey teams played each other.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer After touring his “Pissing Out Cancer” standup comedy special, YouTube star Hank Green made one significant change to the set the night before filming the televised version for indie streamer Dropout, and that decision was in part thanks to Keanu Reeves. “Because there was a pretty big gap between the last time I toured it and when I was going to be filming the special, I came to LA early and did eight shows over six days before I shot the special just to brush up,” Green told Variety.

EXCLUSIVE: Alan Cumming, the host and producer of Peacock’s reality phenom The Traitors, has signed a first-look producing deal with NBCUniversal. The pact spans scripted and unscripted content for NBCU’s portfolio of brands.  

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Microsoft Gaming is taking a victory lap after an impressive Xbox Games Showcase presentation at the David Geffen Theater in Los Angeles on June 9, which was anchored by the reveal of “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6,” followed by major announcements across all of Xbox’s studios, including Bethesda, Activision and Blizzard, as well as collaborations with third-party developers. Xbox president of gaming content and studios Matt Booty sat down with Jennifer Maas, Variety senior business writer of TV and video games, to discuss highlights from this year’s presentation, the inner workings of Xbox post-Activision Blizzard, and more for Variety’s “Strictly Business” podcast.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from the Season 10 finale of “Jet Lag: The Game,” now streaming on Nebula. “Jet Lag: The Game” dropped its Season 10 finale Wednesday on Nebula, featuring the epic conclusion to the Down Under saga of the travel game show and the presentation of a cartoon-kangaroo-balloon-shaped trophy to either Adam Chase and Ben Doyle or Sam Denby and two-time guest player Toby Hendy.

Russell Crowe has explained why he turned down the role of Aragorn in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy.The Oscar-winning actor was among those considered to play the iconic character in Peter Jackson’s trilogy, though the part eventually went to Viggo Mortensen – who himself replaced original casting Stuart Townsend.Speaking for a fan question segment for British GQ, Crowe was asked whether he regretted turning down the franchise, the star replying: “I don’t actually. I was a big Tolkien reader when I was a kid, so I got quite excited by the idea of Lord Of The Rings.“But I very much felt the studio were making that decision, not the film director,” he added.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer This is not a joke: CollegeHumor wants your Emmy vote. Actually, just over two months after the internet comedy company, which rebranded as Dropout last year, sold out a 17,000-seat live performance set for January 2025 at Madison Square Garden, that proposition might not seem as funny anymore.

In this week’s episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo goes back in time to realize not much has changed with the film, “Firebrand.” Directed by Karim Ainouz (“Invisible Life,” “Futuro Beach”), the film follows Catherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), the sixth wife of Henry VIII (Jude Law), who finds herself fighting for survival when the paranoid king grows more suspicious of her actions.

Adorable Prince Louis, six, has stolen the show at Trooping the Colour after being spotted letting out a huge yawn.The youngest prince couldn't help but show how he was feeling, as a body language expert explains to OK! that it's inevitable he would feel 'bored' and start to 'mess with things.' Adrianne Carter exclusively told OK!: "Louis is getting bored; he's starting to mess with things.This is a sign that Louis is still the lovely and bright personality that we've come to recognise. Louis's big yawn was unspotted by Kate so he was able to give it his all!" But luckily, the prince later seemed to be enjoying himself more as he was seen dancing along to the music.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers fromSeason 3 of “Bridgerton,” now streaming on Netflix. In the Season 3 finale of “Bridgerton,” when Lady Whistledown steps into the light of her true identity — Penelope Bridgerton (Nicola Coughlan) — her husband, Colin (Luke Newton), learns not only to accept, but to applaud her for who she is. After that, Whisteldown imposter Cressida Cowper (Jessica Madsen) is shunned from London, the ton rejoices in the birth of a “Polin” baby (a boy, making them the new Lord Featherington) and delightedly theorizes about which Bridgerton sibling will take the lead next.