Netflix Sets Multi-Year Series Partnership With ‘Scoop’ Director Hansal Mehta (EXCLUSIVE)

Telly, the smart TV start-up with a novel product (two screens instead of one) and an even more novel business plan (giving sets away for free in order to focus on ad revenue), has passed several new milestones.

Amblin Partners and Universal Pictures have set a new film partnership that builds on the companies’ longstanding creative collaboration. The new multi-year deal revealed Tuesday will continue to deliver Universal with first-look status on all Amblin theatrical film projects, while evolving Amblin’s film production model to give the company more creative and financial flexibility.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Raedio, the “audio everywhere” division of Issa Rae’s Hoorae Media, has announced a multi-year deal with Def Jam Recordings. The partnership will give Raedio the opportunity to sign, market, and distribute signed artists through Def Jam’s network, according to the announcement. It includes publishing, music supervision, music library, podcasts, digital content and events divisions. Raedio’s “symbiotic pipeline to Hoorae Media’s ecosystem of film, television production and talent management divisions provides a unique all-in-one infrastructure paving the way for a new, disruptive approach to music label models,” the announcement states.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Apple TV+ is bringing Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington back to the screen in a new four-part documentary “The Super Models.” The documentary from Imagine Documentaries and One Story Up is directed by Academy Award-winner Roger Ross Williams and Larissa Bills. The series follows the legends of the catwalk as they reveal how they began their careers and ended up dominating the modeling world. Archival footage and interviews provide unprecedented access. As the logline for the series reads, “‘The Supermodels’ travels back to the 1980s, when four women from different corners of the world united in New York. Already forces in their own right, the gravitas they achieved by coming together transcended the industry itself. Their prestige was so extraordinary that it enabled the four to supersede the brands they showcased, making the names Naomi, Cindy, Linda and Christy as prominent as the designers who styled them. Today, the four supermodels remain on the frontlines of culture through activism, philanthropy and business prowess. As the fashion industry continues to redefine itself – and women’s roles within it – this is the ultimate story of power and how four women came together to claim it, paving the way for those to follow.”

Bradley Cooper is teaming up with iHeartMedia.

iHeartMedia has announced a multi-year audio deal between iHeartPodcasts and Lea Pictures, a production company founded by Bradley Cooper in 2020.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter ESPN Films is working on a docuseries about the legendary Gracie family, Variety has learned exclusively. Titled “Gracie,” the series will delve deep into the family’s history and dissect how they became the founders of Brazilian jiu jitsu, which serves as a major cornerstone of modern mixed martial arts (MMA). The official description of the series states: “Featuring larger-than-life personalities, triumphs and tragedies, deep loyalties, passionate loves and deadly feuds, ‘Gracie’ will explore the essence of family, honor, legacy, and humanity’s innate desire to fight. Told through the eyes of key Gracie family members, the series will dive deep into an epic family saga that takes audiences from Scotland and Japan, to Brazil and America.”

Kaya Scodelario, fresh from wrapping Netflix’s Guy Ritchie series The Gentlemen, is sticking with the streamer for her next role.

K.J. Yossman In 2012, a Dutch company called Mars One announced grand plans to colonize the red planet. Over 200,000 people applied to participate in the effort and become the first humans in the universe to establish a permanent colony on Mars. Seven years later, Mars One collapsed into bankruptcy among accusations of mismanagement and the dream to send humans to live on Mars died. Now Ridley Scott Associates (RSA Films), the “Alien” director’s commercial production company, is set to make a documentary series about the enterprise after signing an exclusive access agreement with Mars One founder Bas Lansdorp, Variety can confirm.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “Sex Education” will now end with the upcoming Season 4 at Netflix. The final season of the popular series will debut on the streamer on Sept. 21. Netflix has also released the first teaser trailer for the new season, which can be seen below. Series creator, lead writer, and executive producer Laurie Nunn wrote in a letter to fans, “We are incredibly proud of ‘Sex Education’ and feel indebted to our brilliant writers, cast and crew who put so much heart into making every episode. They have worked tirelessly to bring you the final series, and we can’t wait to share it with you.”

The trauma of being in temporary housing left its mark on Lilly-Rose.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has signed a five-year deal with Japanese screenwriter Yuji Sakamoto, winner of the Best Screenplay award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Hirokazu Kore-eda’s competition title Monster. 

James Lafferty reflected on his “wild” first year of marriage with Alexandra Park — and teased how playing a TV couple added to the craziness of their “honeymoon” phase.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is in production on a documentary series about Paolo Macchiarini, a disgraced surgeon convicted of gross assault for implanting artificial windpipes in patients who later died.

Ryan Murphy is racing back to his old stomping grounds, and in the process of re-joining longtime collaborator Dana Walden under a new overall deal at Disney. The decision to reunite with Walden — now the co-chairman of Disney Entertainment — comes five years after Murphy ankled 20th Century Fox TV for a rich deal at Netflix that was reportedly valued at the time at between $250 million-$300 million. That deal came right before Disney acquired 20th Century Fox and Walden, who at the time was Fox Television Group chairman-CEO. There had been speculation that Murphy and Walden might join forces as partners in their own production venture, before Murphy moved to Netflix and Walden shifted over to Disney.

We’re getting the first look at the Straw Hats in One Piece, Netflix anticipated live-action series based on one of the best-selling manga titles of all time. Netflix dropped the first teaser Saturday during the show’s presentation at Tudum. Watch it above.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has unveiled a new teaser for “The Archies,” a coming-of-age, live action musical set in 1960s India based on the teenagers of Riverdale. “The Archies” is a feature film adaptation of the Archie comics, which are hugely popular on the Indian subcontinent. The teaser, released during Netflix’s Tudum fan event, reveals that the film is set in 1964 in Riverdale, described on a railway sign as a “hill station,” a term dating back to colonial time that refers to a town located at a higher elevation than the nearby plain. One of the transport links servicing the hill stations are small mountain railway trains running on narrow gauge tracks, known affectionately in India as “toy trains” and the teaser opens with a shot of top train puffing into Riverdale station.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Peacock and AEG have entered into a mutliyear agreement that will see major parts of LA Live in downtown Los Angeles renamed after the NBCUniversal streaming service. Starting July 11, the Microsoft Theater will be known as the Peacock Theater, while the Xbox Plaza outside will be renamed Peacock Place. The deal, which was brokered by AEG Global Partnerships, also makes Peacock the exclusive streaming partner of LA Live. “Like Peacock, L.A. Live is at the epicenter of premium original entertainment, exhilarating sports, one-of-a-kind experiences and extreme fandom,” said Kelly Campbell, president of Peacock and direct-to-consumer for NBCUniversal. “Through Peacock Theater and Peacock Place, we’ll have the opportunity to bring all the elements of our brand to life with the millions of fans who visit L.A. Live each year, while partnering with the incredible team at AEG to further cement Peacock as the ultimate destination for audiences.”

EXCLUSIVE: Hulu is expanding its unscripted slate with the addition of three new series featuring Big Boi, Rachael Ray and Bill Kurtis, along with a second season of house flipping series 50/50 Flip. All hail from A+E Networks’ factual production groups Six West Media and Category 6 Media and will premiere in 2023-2024.

SPOILER ALERT: These interviews contain spoilers from the Season 6 “Black Mirror” episodes “Joan Is Awful,” “Mazey Day” and “Beyond the Sea,” now streaming on Netflix. Back after a four-year hiatus, the long-awaited sixth season of “Black Mirror” opens — fittingly — with “Joan is Awful,” an exploration of the dubious inner workings of a fictional streaming service called Streamberry. Streamberry, which bears more than a passing resemblance to “Black Mirror’s” IRL producing partner Netflix, co-opts users’ lives to create AI-driven, CGI-rendered semi-fictional dramas without its subjects’ consent. Kind of like, say, “Inventing Anna” (which had the consent of the eponymous Anna Delvey, but not her erstwhile BFF Rachel Williams, who sued the streamer for defamation last year) or “The Crown” or “The Tinder Swindler” or “Narcos” or… you get the gist.