Rod Aissa is leaving NBCUniversal after 11 years, most recently serving as EVP, Entertainment Unscripted Content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. He just informed his staff of his departure.
29.05.2023 - 08:51 / deadline.com
NBCUniversal has entered into a partnership with Indian streaming service JioCinema, owned by Viacom18, bringing thousands of hours of NBCU films and series to India.
JioCinema also recently signed a deal with Warner Bros Discovery for HBO, Max Original and Warner Bros content in India starting this month.
NBCU’s programming will streamed in a Peacock branded hub starting next month on JioCinema’s newly announced ‘JioCinema Premium’ SVOD tier.
The deal includes content from across Comcast NBCUniversal’s production entities and brands, including Universal Television, UCP, Universal International Studios, Universal Television Alternative Studio, Sky Studios, DreamWorks Animation, Universal Pictures, Focus Features and Bravo.
First run shows on offer to Indian viewers will include Young Rock, thriller The Lazarus Project; and dark romantic comedy The Lovers.
Indian audiences will also be offered Peacock Originals including Bel-Air, a reimagining of the ‘90s comedy series that starred Will Smith; Pitch Perfect: Bumper In Berlin, a spin-off series again starring Adam Devine; and The Calling, an investigative drama series from David E. Kelley, directed and executive produced by Barry Levinson.
Library titles include Downton Abbey, Suits, The Office, Parks And Recreation and The Mindy Project. Unscripted shows include The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills.
The deal also includes movies such as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish and M3GAN, as well as films in the Fast, Minions, Jurassic, Bourne, Shrek, The Mummy and Pitch Perfect franchises.
JioCinema, a streaming service launched by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries in 2016, was recently folded into Viacom18, a
Rod Aissa is leaving NBCUniversal after 11 years, most recently serving as EVP, Entertainment Unscripted Content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. He just informed his staff of his departure.
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” on June 30th makes it a particularly good time to binge every installment of the American action-adventure franchise that has come before. And we’ve got all the franchise streaming details.It all began over 40 years ago, in 1981, when “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” first hit theaters.
Tim Chan If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Buzz is building for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the fifth and final movie in the Indiana Jones franchise. The Harrison Ford-starring film hits theaters June 30, with tickets now available to pre-book online.
Naman Ramachandran Salman Khan starrer “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan” is set to have its streaming world premiere on ZEE5 Global. The film, a remake of 2014 Tamil-language Ajith Kumar hit “Veeram,” was released theatrically worldwide in April during the Eid holiday frame. Directed by Farhad Samji and produced by Salman Khan Films, “Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan” revolves around Bhaijaan (Khan) who has committed to live a bachelor’s life so that he can take care of his three younger brothers (Raghav Juyal, Jassie Gill, Siddharth Nigam). Meanwhile his brothers, who’ve already found their life partners, come together to find a perfect match for Bhaijaan. The story takes an unexpected turn when a beautiful woman (Pooja Hegde) walks into his life.
Harrison Ford is revealing the key to making “kicking ass” look good.
new world record by solving a 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube in just 3.13 seconds. The 21-year-old achieved the feat at an event in Long Beach, California over the weekend, according to Guinness World Records. The previous record was 3.47 seconds, set by China’s Yusheng Du in 2018, it said. “Before this, Max’s fastest single solve was 3.63 seconds, which put him in second place behind Yusheng Du’s 3.47,” read an article on Guinness World Records’ website. Park also holds the record for the fastest time to solve 4x4x4, 5x5x5, 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 cubes. Guinness World Records says Park has autism and his parents, Schwan and Miki, say cubing is a “good therapy” for him. “There was a time when Max couldn’t even open water bottles, but he showed interest in solving Rubik’s Cubes,” they were quoted as saying. In other recent Guinness World Records set, Hilda Baci completed the longest cooking marathon with a time of 93 hours and 11 minutes. “The 26-year-old Nigerian chef began on Thursday 11 May and continued through to Monday 15 May, cooking over 100 pots of food during her four-day kitchen stint,” Guinness World Records said, adding that the previous record was 87 hours and 45 minutes set by Lata Tondon of India in 2019. It reported that Baci launched the cooking marathon to “put Nigerian cuisine on the map” and “to inspire young African women to chase their dreams.” In April, it also was announced that a U.S.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent British actors Julia Ormond (“Ladies in Black”) and Lydia Page (“Blue Jean”) are set to soon appear in psychological horror movie “Home Education” directed by Italy’s Andrea Niada. Set in the scenic Sila plateau in Italy’s Southern Calabria region, “Home Education” revolves around a family that are followers of an esoteric cult and live in a secluded house deep in the woods. Warner Bros Entertainment Italia, Italy’s Indiana Production and BlackBox Multimedia are producing with support from the Calabria Film Commission. Germany’s SquareOne Productions is handling international sales. Warner Bros. Pictures will release the film in Italian theaters.
Despite the availability of stunt performers, many actors like to try their hand at the fights, flips, jumps and more for scenes. Most of the time, they are successful. Sometimes, things go wrong and production has to pause while a star recovers. Harrison Ford has had his share on of onset injuries throughout his career, something he does not quite wear as a badge of honor.
Selome Hailu Missing for the third week in a row from Nielsen’s weekly streaming rankings is “Citadel,” Amazon Prime Video’s $185 million spy series starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden. The May 8-14 viewing window marked the series’ second full week of availability and its third week with a chance at making the chart, as it premiered on April 28, meaning that viewership during its first three days of availability would have counted towards the April 24-30 charts. During that first window, Nielsen noted that “Citadel” just missed the streaming originals chart (not to be confused with the overall Top 10 chart) bringing in 306 million viewing minutes and losing out on the tenth place position to John Mulaney’s “Baby J.” Nielsen did not provide information regarding the series’ viewership for the May 1-7 or the May 8-14 windows.
Naman Ramachandran Renowned filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (“Bandit Queen,” “Elizabeth”) is planning a sequel to his 1983 directorial debut “Masoom,” Variety can reveal. The film is titled “Masoom… The New Generation.” Details of the plot, studio and cast are under wraps at the moment. Written by Gulzar (Oscar winner for “Slumdog Millionaire”), “Masoom” was an adaptation of Erich Segal’s 1980 novel “Man, Woman and Child.” It followed a happily married couple and their two daughters whose lives are disrupted with the arrival of a boy who is the man’s son from an earlier affair. The cast included Naseeruddin Shah (“Taj: Divided by Blood”), Shabana Azmi (“Halo”), Jugal Hansraj (“NRI Wives”), Supriya Pathak (“Tabbar”), Saeed Jaffrey (“The Man Who Would Be King”) and Urmila Matondkar (“Rangeela”).
Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot developments and surprises throughout “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” now playing in theaters. For months, the directors of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” had been working exhaustively on a critical sequence that launches the movie’s second act. For the first time in his life, the animated film’s hero — Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a.k.a. the Spider-Man of Earth-1610 — enters a different dimension: Earth-50101, a.k.a. Mumbattan, a dazzling amalgamation of New York City and Mumbai. Within minutes, Miles and his BFF from 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), encounter that world’s Spider-Man, Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni), an Indian teenager who received his powers not via spider bite, but through magic. The sequence launches them all through the vertiginously vertical metropolis, as they frantically try to stop the film’s villain, the Spot (Jason Schwartzman), from using Mumbattan’s supercollider to increase his dimension-hopping abilities.
Naman Ramachandran Netflix’s “Sacred Games,” Prime Video’s “Mirzapur” and SonyLIV’s “Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story” are the top three shows among the 50 all-time most popular Indian streaming series on Amazon’s online film database IMDb. The rankings are determined by the page views of IMDb customers in India between Jan. 1, 2018 to May 10, 2023. The list has representation from 12 platforms including Amazon’s Prime Video and miniTV, Netflix, SonyLIV, Disney+ Hotstar, YouTube, ZEE5, Voot, MX Player, JioCinema, TVF Play and ALTT. Crime drama is the most popular genre represented on the list, occupying 30 out of 50 slots, including the top four positions — “Sacred Games,” “Mirzapur,” “Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story” and “The Family Man.” Pankaj Tripathi played prominent roles in three out of the top 10 series on the list — “Sacred Games,” “Mirzapur” and “Criminal Justice.” Four shows released in 2023 — “Farzi,” “Taaza Khabar,” “The Night Manager” and “Rana Naidu” — made the most popular list.
Naman Ramachandran Bollywood star Bhumi Pednekar, celebrated for her films that advocate social change, has revealed ambitious goals for World Environment Day. Pednekar founded non-profit advocacy platform Climate Warrior – funded from her acting remunerations – through which she strives to neutralizing her and her family’s carbon footprint and making her own home sustainable and the organization also has larger goals. Initiatives include supporting an NGO called Healing Himalayas that clears pollution from the mighty mountain range after every tourist season; Mumbai beach cleaning drives; working towards plastic free film shoots; working with upcycling and recycling organizations and waste segregation initiatives across India; leading anti open defecation campaigns; marching for climate justice; supporting transformative companies that make ink from pollution and various other projects.
Universal Pictures has set the streaming premiere date for its Chris McKay-directed horror comedy Renfield, starring Nicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage, announcing that the film will bow exclusively on Peacock on June 9th.
Harrison Ford has opened up about an on-set conflict he had with Brad Pitt.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Indian streaming service JioCinema claimed a record for the number of concurrent viewers this week. It reported that 32 million viewers were simultaneously using its service to watch the IPL cricket final match between The Chennai Super Kings and the Gujarat Titans. The platform’s previous peak was 25 million. Chennai eventually won the rain-affected and one-day delayed match Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) has removed its bouquet of 14 channels from Indonesia’s TV largest platform, MNC, ending decades-long affiliate arrangements, Content Asia reported. The decision, confirmed by WBD, involves channels from HBO and Cartoon Network to Discovery and TLC, all of which came off air on May 12. The move is understood to be the culmination of a payments disagreement. In November last year, beIN removds its sports service from MNC. WBD content remains available on three smaller platforms in Indonesia, IndiHome First Media and Trans.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief NBCUniversal (NBCU) and JioCinema, Viacom18’s streaming service, have entered into a multi-year partnership bringing thousands of hours of NBCU films and TV series to India. Content is sourced from the Universal Television, UCP, Universal International Studios, Universal Television Alternative Studio, Sky Studios, DreamWorks Animation, Universal Pictures, Focus Features and Bravo brands. NBCU’s programming will live in a Peacock branded hub starting next month on JioCinema’s newly announced “JioCinema Premium” SVOD tier. While JioCinema has been making an audience impact with free-of-charge screenings of the ongoing IPL cricket tournament, the first content announced on the subscription tier hailed from another recent deal with Warner Bros Discovery.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The U.K.’s London Indian Film Festival and Birmingham Indian Film Festival will work together to present a two-city, two-part panoply of feature and short films, kicking off next month with “The Storyteller.” Directed by Ananth Mahadevan, “The Storyteller” sees Adil Hussain play a Gujarati businessman who believes that once physical wealth is accumulated, happiness will follow, but this proves not to be the case. Paresh Rawal plays the titular storyteller. The film is based on a story by the late, great Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray and contrasts the pursuit of material wealth with that of intellectual knowledge. Hussain, co-star Tannishtha Chatterjee and Mahadevan are expected to be on hand for Q&A sessions on June 22 at BFI Southbank and on June 23 at MAC Birmingham.
Historical feature film Lioness, starring Aditi Rao Hydari (Jubilee) and Paige Sandhu (Emmerdale), has been set as the first official India-UK co-production under a treaty signed in 2008.
Naman Ramachandran Korea’s Anthology Studios and India’s Panorama Studios have partnered for the remake of the Drishyam franchise in Korea. Panorama Studios is backed by producer Kumar Mangat Pathak, while Anthology Studios is founded by former Warner Bros. local Korean production head, Choi Jae-won (aka Jay Choi), “Parasite” actor Song Kang-ho and acclaimed director Kim Jee-woon. The trio previously worked together on 2016 film “The Age of Shadows.” Anthology’s “Cobweb,” directed by Kim, produced by Choi and starring Song, is premiering out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival on May 25. The two studios will join hands for the Korean remake of the Drishyam franchise. The announcement was made at the India Pavilion in Cannes on Sunday by the two studios with Pathak and Choi present.