‘Murdaugh Murders’ Drama Series Based On Mandy Matney’s Podcast In Works At UCP

FOX Entertainment is taking on 2022 with TV shows on everything from country music to crime and cooking. Charlie Collier, the CEO of FOX Entertainment, detailed what's to come on the network, including the previously announced "Monarch," which will star Trace Adkins and Susan Sarandon.  The show is about "three generations of a country music family juggling life's rawest emotions — love and lust, hate and heartache, living in the shadow of your parents and coming-of-age," Collier described before previewing a clip of "Monarch." "MasterChef" Gordon Ramsay is set to debut his new competition show, "Gordon Ramsay's Food Stars," and will also have his series "Next Level Chef" premiere after the Super Bowl next February.  In "Food Stars," Ramsay will front $250,000 of his own cash to find the "next big culinary entrepreneur." "MasterChef" Gordon Ramsay is set to debut his new competition show, "Gordon Ramsay's Food Stars," and will also have his series "Next Level Chef" premiere after the Super Bowl next February.  (Jason Mendez/WireImage) On the crime front, Jamie Foxx and "The Blacklist" showrunner John Eisendrath, are teaming up for the police procedural, "Alert." The missing persons' drama "tells the story of a high-tech police unit whose job is to find the missing, the abducted or kidnapped and help them reunite with their loved ones before it's too late," Foxx said during the presentation.  FOX is also bringing a crime anthology series titled "Accused." The show hails from the creative minds behind "Homeland" and "24" as well as the creator of "House." Marlee Matlin and Billy Porter will direct the first two episodes.

EXCLUSIVE: Apple TV+ has ordered Eva the Owlet, a new animated kids and family series based on Rebecca Elliott’s bestselling Scholastic book series Owl Diaries.

Fox has given a straight-to-series order to Alert, a character-driven police procedural from The Blacklist showrunner John Eisendrath and Jamie Foxx. The pickup was part of Fox’s upfront slate announcement for the 2022-23 season.

EXCLUSIVE: Tia Napolitano (Cruel Summer) has joined CBS’ newly picked up drama series Fire Country as executive producer and showrunner. Her hire was already in the works when the network yesterday gave an official series order to the buzzy pilot, executive produced by and starring Max Thieriot.

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy winner Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife) is set to star opposite Idris Elba in Apple thriller series Hijack, from Lupin writer George Kay.

K.J. Yossman “Nanny McPhee” director Kirk Jones is set to take on Donald Trump in his first television series, “You’ve Been Trumped.”The drama, based on Anthony Baxter’s 2011 documentary, tells the story of a small Scottish village who took on the then-reality TV star when he tried to build a golf course in a nature reserve.

EXCLUSIVE: Rising Polish writer-director Natasza Parzymies (Control) has signed with APA for representation.

There’s a limited series based on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s  in the works from Jennifer Lopez‘s Nuyorican Productions, Skydance Television, and Concord Originals. The project is an original take on the musical to be written by Rachel Shukert (GLOW, The Baby-Sitters Club) who will also executive produce and serve as showrunner.

Syfy’s SurrealEstate will again see the light of day. The Canadian drama series, which was canceled last year, will return for a second season for premiere in 2023, Syfy has revealed.

FX continues to add some really interesting genre television projects with a revival of “Justified” on the way, Noah Hawley‘s “Alien” prequel series expected to begin shooting next year, and the “OA” creative team is reuniting for the murder mystery show “The Retreat.” Yet another high-profile genre show is on the way that will see the network reboot “Never Let Me Go.” According to Variety, FX is developing a series based on the dystopian sci-fi novel by Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro that focuses on three friends at an isolated boarding school that is revealed to have a dark secret.

EXCLUSIVE: Martin Starr is swapping out Silicon Valley for Tulsa, Oklahoma.

EXCLUSIVE: Jeremy O. Harris, the Tony-nominated author of Slave Play, has been named the presiding playwright for the 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize, one of the theater world’s most prestigious playwriting prizes. As the presiding playwright, Harris, a Yale alum, becomes a judging panel of one to select an emerging playwright to receive the annual prize.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO is developing Sula, a limited series based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s novel. The project comes from writer Shannon M. Houston (Station Eleven), who has an overall deal at HBO, and Stephanie Allain’s Homegrown Pictures, under the company’s first-look deal with Warner Bros. Television Group and HBO.

EXCLUSIVE: Andrea Savage is going from comedy to drama in her latest role – opposite Sylvester Stallone in Paramount+’s mob series Tulsa King from Taylor Sheridan.

Clayton Davis Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official awards predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis; Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders by television editor Michael Schneider (for Emmys) and Davis (for Oscars); Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly interview series with talent and an expert roundtable discussion; and Awards Circuit Video analyzes various categories and contenders by Variety's leading awards pundits. Variety's unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provide inside reports on all the contenders in this year's awards season races.

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is out with its list of nominations for the 49th annual Daytime Emmy Awards. The hardware will be handed out Sunday, June 24, with CBS airing the ceremony live at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT and Paramount+ streaming it.

Jeremy Strong, star of the critically acclaimed and award-winning drama “Succession,” is set to star in and executive produce a series for Amazon Studios revolving around Boeing’s contentious 737 Max airplanes. Coming off the heels of 2021 which saw Strong star in the third season of HBO’s darkly comedic family portrait, the actor is set to create this new series alongside Chris Terrio, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Argo,” and Plan B, the studio responsible for Adam McKay’s “Vice” and James Gray’s “Ad Astra,” amongst other titles.

EXCLUSIVE: Peter V. Brett’s international bestselling sci-fi horror fantasy novel, The Warded Man, is being developed for TV by Rush Hour and The Hustle producer Roger Birnbaum and Mark Kimsey under their Electromagnetic Productions (EMP).

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Max docuseries The Way Down: God, Greed & The Cult of Gwen Shamblin is set to be adapted as a scripted series.

EXCLUSIVE: More details about the creative overhaul of HBO drama series The Idol are starting to emerge.