Magnolia Network PR Chief John Marsicano Joins Endeavor as VP of Internal Comms (EXCLUSIVE)

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer 42West’s BHI has promoted two employees to new leadership roles and hired Red Bull’s head of U.S. communications for gaming, Variety has learned exclusively. At the Dolphin Entertainment-owned brand, Jonah Keel has been elevated from vice president to senior vice president, while account director Briana Richard has been upped to VP in her division. In addition to these promotions, 42West/BHI co-presidents Dean Bender and Shawna Lynch have brought on Red Blake Shuster as a new VP. “Since BHI was acquired by Dolphin Entertainment and subsequently merged with 42West in January 2021, the division has experienced high double-digit growth,” Lynch said “We owe a great deal of that success to the leadership skills of Jonah and Briana. They are both client and staff relationship builders that drive the efforts of our best-in-class clients, while simultaneously bringing on new and exciting partners.”

EXCLUSIVE: Producer John Martinez O’Felan has secured financing and set his next Project, Barton Creek, a Latino-led and LatinX inclusive feature biopic written and directed by award-winning Cuban-American director Carlos V. Gutierrez.

There are seven brand new shows coming to Magnolia Network this fall.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Rodrigo Sorogoyen, director of “As Bestas,” “Riot Police” and the Oscar-nominated “Madre,” is bringing onto the international market “La Guerra,” a six-part drama delivering a new vision of the Spanish Civil War which looks like one of the biggest Spanish series ever made. Sorogoyen will direct all six episodes. Isabel Peña, Sorogoyen, and Eduardo Villanueva, “Riot Police’s”writing team, have fairly definitive version of three episodes with the rest at an initial phase.  “La Guerra” was originally set up at Movistar Plus+. In an amicable settlement – Sorogoyen has gone on to direct and promote an episode of Movistar+ original “Offworld” at last week’s San Sebastián – after Movistar Plus+ pulled out of the series, Sorogoyen and Villanueva’s Madrid-based label Caballo Films have recovered the rights. 

EXCLUSIVE: Magnolia Network is expanding its lineup for fall, adding seven new series to its original programming slate and renewing six others.

Making a change. Amid Kelsea Ballerini and Morgan Evans’ ongoing divorce, the country songstress has tweaked several of her lyrics.

EXCLUSIVE: Jenna Ortega has boarded Lionsgate and Point Grey’s Miller’s Girl opposite Martin Freeman, Deadline has learned.

Piers Morgan is known to be outspoken on his views about Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, however, he's done something of a U-turn after describing Harry and his brother Prince William's vigil reunion 'heart-rending'. The two brothers joined with their six cousins on Saturday evening to stand beside the coffin of their late grandmother the Queen in a silent vigil at Westminster Hall.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Spanish indie production shingle Nadie es Perfecto, producer of Alex de la Iglesia’s hit comedy “Perfectos Desconocidos,” has tapped former Netflix exec Juan Mayne to join the company as it revs up its slate with a slew of new projects. These include two pics in pre-production: “La navidad en sus manos,” in co-production with Bowfinger and Esto También Pasará, directed by Joaquín Mazón, starring Ernesto Sevilla and with a special collaboration from actor-filmmaker Santiago Segura, who has worked with de la Iglesia and Guillermo del Toro; and “Locomía,” directed by Kike Maillo, starring Jaime Lorente (“Money Heist,” “Elite”) and Alberto Ammann (“Lope,” “El silencio del cazador”).

Chip and Joanna Gaines are joining the HBO Max family with content from their Magnolia Network. During a commercial break from the 2022 Emmy Awards, the streaming service launched a new promo where the couple was featured alongside the dragons from House of the Dragon and The White Lotus.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The 74th annual Emmy Awards are about to begin at the Microsoft Theater at L.A. Live. The Monday event, hosted by Kenan Thompson, kicks off at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, and will include the bestowment of 25 awards during the live, three-hour telecast. Up for the top award of the evening, outstanding drama series, are “Better Call Saul,” “Euphoria,” “Ozark,” “Severance,” “Squid Game,” “Stranger Things,” “Succession” and “Yellowjackets.” On the comedy side, the contenders include “Abbott Elementary,” “Barry,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Hacks,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Only Murders in the Building,” “Ted Lasso” and “What We Do in the Shadows.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Hillary Clinton remembered Queen Elizabeth II as “a woman who served with such honor and distinction” on Thursday, just hours after news broke of the longtime monarch’s death. “We lost a woman who served with such honor and distinction from literally the time she was a child, until two days ago when she received the new prime minister,” Clinton told Variety at the New York premiere of “Gutsy,” her and daughter Chelsea Clinton’s new Apple TV+ docuseries. “And I was privileged to meet her and spend time with her. Probably one of the highlights of my time in public service was when I was secretary of state, staying in Buckingham Palace and talking with her about her gardens, which were a great love of hers, and actually walking around the gardens with her gardener and going to a white-tie dinner in the grand dining room. I had many really pleasant and wonderful conversations. She loved to ask questions, she was so lively and she’ll be missed.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Fox’s “Bloom County” animated series has signed “The Simpsons” writer Tim Long as co-showrunner on the project, Variety has confirmed. Long will write, executive produce and showrun the comedy, which is still in the development stage at Fox, alongside original “Bloom County” comic strip creator Berkeley Breathed. Per Fox, “Bloom County” centers on a collapsed lawyer, a lobotomized cat and an overly-carbonated penguin immigrant living in the world’s last boarding house in the world’s most forgotten place deep in the dandelion wilds of FlyWayThe@%!#OVER country. To wit, today’s America at a glance.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent   Eight years after delivering his Oscar-nominated film “Timbuktu,” Abderrahmane Sissako is set to make his anticipated directorial comeback with “The Perfumed Hill.” Gaumont is representing in international markets and will introduce it to buyers at at Toronto. The French studio will also distribute the film in France, while Cohen Media Group will release it in the U.S. Re-teaming Sissako with his “Timbuktu” co-writer Kessen Tall, “The Perfumed Hill” is a romance drama set between China’s tea hills, the Ivory Coast and Cape Verde. It stars Nina Melo (“Girlhood”), Han Chang (“Little Big Women”) and Ke-Xi Wu (“Nina Wu”).

Holly Jones Coinciding with its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Warsaw-based New Europe Film Sales has provided Variety with an exclusive peek at the trailer for Chilean writer-director Fernando Guzzoni’s (“Jesus”) thriller, “Blanquita.” Based on the young witness at the center of the Spinak case, a scandal involving Chilean pedophilia and prostitution networks that rocked the country, the film grapples with morality and the struggle towards justice for those without means. In the film, Blanca (Laura López) leads investigators, and the public, on a baffling journey as she plants herself at the center of a trial against powerful politicians.

Day 1 of the Creative Arts Emmys 2022 had a distinctive group of celebrities and creators that make up some of the best in television. They all gathered at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles to celebrate everyone involved in the creative process.

Carson Burton Amiah Miller and Bill Heck are rounding out the cast of Searchlight Pictures’ upcoming horror thriller film “Dust.” The film stars Sarah Paulson of “American Horror Story,” Annaleigh Ashford and Ebon Moss-Bachrach in a story set in 1930s Oklahoma. It follows a woman who, during the region’s increasingly perilous dust storms, is convinced that a sinister presence is threatening her family. The film is directed by Will Joines and Karrie Crouse, and Crouse penned the script. “Dust” commenced principal photography this week in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Miller previously starred as Nova in the 2017 film from 20th Century Studios “War for the Planet of the Apes” alongside Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson and Steve Zahn. In 2020, she was also seen in David Oyelowo’s feature directorial debut “The Water Man.”

EXCLUSIVE: Apple TV+’s Huey P. Newton series The Big Cigar has rounded out its cast, with Jaime Ray Newman (Dopesick), Noah Emmerich (Dark Winds), John Doman (City on a Hill), Chris Brochu (Zero Contact) and newcomer Breton Edwards Allen coming aboard in recurring roles. André Holland leads the cast, with Alessandro Nivola, Tiffany Boone, PJ Byrne, Marc Menchaca, Jordane Christie, Moses Ingram, Olli Haaskivi and Glynn Turman also set to star, as previously announced.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Sandro Fiorin’s Figa Films has snapped up international sales rights to Pavel Giroud’s “El Caso Padilla,” which, selected for the San Sebastian highly competitive Horizontes Latinos, bids fair to become one of the most notable Latin American doc features of 2022. Variety has also shared in exclusivity a first trailer to the film. The follow-up to Giroud admired 2015 fiction film “El Acompañante,” which won San Sebastian’s Co-Production Forum, “El Caso Padilla” turns on the so-called Padilla Affair. That climaxed with arrest on March 30, 1971 of Heberto Padilla, one of the most exquisite and trenchant of modern Cuban poets whose 1968 poetry collection “Fuera de Juego” constituted a scathing attack on the lack of liberties in Fidel Castro’s Cuba.