Michelle Rejwan Steps Down As SVP At Lucasfilm, Returns To Producing With Overall Deal At Lucasfilm & Walt Disney Studios

Faith Penhale, decorated TV drama producer and CEO of Gentleman Jack indie Lookout Point, is leaving the BBC Studios-backed outfit to head up Pathe Productions.

EXCLUSIVE: Will Kemp (The Christmas Waltz, Spinning Out) has signed a multi-picture overall deal, including exclusivity on holiday movies, with Hallmark Media.

Amazon Studios’ is shaking up the leadership of its TV programming operations under Head of Television Vernan Sanders, I have learned. Marc Resteghini is stepping down as US/Global Head of Development, sources said. He is negotiating a producing deal with Amazon Studios. Nick Pepper, Head of Studio Creative Content, and Laura Lancaster, Head of Series, are expected to divvy up Resteghini’s responsibilities and co-run development and production of TV content, reporting to Sanders. MGM TV’s operations remain separate and do not factor into the current executive changes. A rep for Amazon Studios declined comment.

Puck news was just taking Lucasfilm and its President Kathleen Kennedy to task today, basically asking what the hell is up with that studio and its lack of studio movies. The answer might be read as, especially in the face of tonight’s news, a lot of things they didn’t know.

Back in 2019, it was announced by the folks in charge at Disney that the “Star Wars” franchise would take a break on the film side of things after the release of ‘Rise of Skywalker.’ But even then, you have to assume the executives didn’t imagine we’d be waiting at least until 2025 for a new film in the galaxy far, far away. Continue reading Damon Lindelof & ‘Ms.

Rodolphe Belmer, the former Canal+ CEO on the verge of heading up French network TF1, has stepped down from the Netflix Board.

Forty-two years after first joining Disney Imagineering Bob Weis, the current Global Imagineering Ambassador and former President of Walt Disney Imagineering, announced today that he will retire at the end of the year.

EXCLUSIVE: Alexa PenaVega (Love in the Limelight, Taking a Shot at Love) and Carlos PenaVega (Love in the Limelight, A Midnight Kiss) have agreed to a multi-picture overall deal at Hallmark Media.

Michelle Williams will be honored with a Performer Tribute during the 32nd annual Gotham Awards, taking place live and in-person on November 28, at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. 

Meghan Markle, sped past a group of 60-something women who’d made the trek to Montecito to celebrate a milestone birthday. Teetering on the dusty cobblestone walkway in their wedges and kitten heels, the group stopped dead as Meghan waved and smiled from a golf cart delivering her to her Variety cover shoot. “Can you imagine?” said one of the women wistfully after the duchess had passed, perhaps talking about the life she has led thus far — an American woman meeting and marrying a handsome young prince beloved by all the world — or maybe, as we were there to discuss, the life she’s leading now.

The BBC turns 100 today and it appears the centenary is helping to build bridges between the UK public and the Conservative government — at least in the short term.

Mipcom, “Rapa” weighs in as a classic rural murder mystery which then tears up that sub-genre’s rule book. “Offworld,” another Movistar+ original, is a collective series written by some of Spain’s most talented screenwriters, with each episode, set in a world after a massive power outage, helmed by a different director.  Given its pedigree, you’d expect something different from “The Route,” however.

K.J. Yossman BBC Studios is set to wholly acquire Sid Gentle Films, the production company behind hits such as “Killing Eve” and “Ragdoll.” BBC Studios, the BBC’s commercial production and distribution arm, is intent on growing its portfolio of U.K. scripted labels. It already wholly owns Lookout Point (“Happy Valley 3”), Clerkenwell Films (“Somewhere Boy”), House Productions (“Sherwood”) and most recently Firebird Pictures (“Wahala”) and is the controlling shareholder in Baby Cow (“Chivalry”). In 2018 it acquired a 51% stake in Sid Gentle, which was founded in 2013 by Sally Woodward Gentle, with Lee Morris and Henrietta Colvin.

EXCLUSIVE: Bill Dubuque, the co-creator of Netflix’s Ozark, has signed an overall deal with Fifth Season.

“House of the Dragon” executive producer Sara Hess is going to continue developing original projects for HBO. The network announced Friday that Hess, who is also a writer on the “Game of Thrones” prequel series, is extending her overall deal for another two years.

House of the Dragon Executive Producer Sara Hess is staying put at HBO. The cabler has extended her overall deal for an additional two years. Hess also serves as a writer on the Game of Thrones prequel.

EXCLUSIVE: Barry writer-producer Jason Kim has signed a multi-year overall deal with 20th Television and Onyx Collective, under which he will develop television projects exclusively for both.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has beaten out other suitors to take one of the hottest movie packages off the table, striking a domestic deal and more for Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money from Black Bear Pictures.

EXCLUSIVE: Laura Neal, who was lead writer and exec producer of the fourth and final season of BBC America’s Killing Eve, is getting into business with MGM Television.