Peacock Lands on Meta’s Quest VR Headsets

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The new regime at Peacock has spent the past nine months preparing to take its baby bird to new heights. The number of big moves made by the NBCUniversal-owned streamer — from amping up its original content slate to livestream deals with Hallmark, Reelz and Big 10 college football to bringing NBC shows back into the fold for next-day viewing and eliminating its free tier for new users — is setting the stage for what executives hope will be a growth spurt in 2023. Peacock, which launched three years ago last month, will show of its brighter plumage Tuesday with its New Fronts presentation to advertisers. “It’s all coming together,” says Peacock president Kelly Campbell, who signed on in October 2021 after serving as president of Hulu. “We’re just seeing an increasing interest overall when it comes to inflow and engagement, and people are stickier than they were in the past.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Patrick Harris, after nearly 12 years at Meta and Facebook, has joined Snap as senior VP of partnerships, leading both ad-agency and partnership teams at the company. Harris, who most recently served as Meta’s VP of global channels, is based in New York and reports to COO Jerry Hunter, who previously was Snap’s SVP of engineering. “We are so excited to welcome Patrick to Snap to help us scale our global agency and partnerships businesses. His experiences across both advertising and partnerships made him the perfect candidate to unify and scale Snap’s impact in these areas.” In addition, Snap has hired David Sommer as head of verticals, overseeing the consumer packaged goods (CPG) vertical for the U.S. Also based in New York, Sommer hails from shopping app Fetch, where he was chief commercial officer, following almost 11 years at Meta as head of industry for CPG, retail partnerships and shopper marketing.

EXCLUSIVE: Following the success of Don’t Look Up, Netflix and Adam McKay are reuniting as the streamer has acquired Adam McKay’s new star-studded directorial feature, Average Height, Average Build. The film stars Robert Pattinson, Amy Adams, Robert Downey Jr., Forest Whitaker and Danielle Deadwyler. McKay, who has written the script, will direct and produce under his Hyperobject Industries banner with Kevin Messick.

BIG premiere, throwing one of the most-coveted bashes in recent weeks. Not to be outdone, Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival brought Zendaya back to the mic, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” actually took over a mile of Manhattan and “Citadel” stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden did the same in the heart of Westwood.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Aidy Bryant is set to star in “Lonely Hearts Club,” a dramedy series based on an episode of the Crime Junkies podcast, currently in the works at Peacock. “Beau Is Afraid” filmmaker Ari Aster is executive producing the project. Set in the late 1940s, “Lonely Hearts Club” is described as a darkly comedic true crime thriller about a lonely woman who falls in love with a dim but handsome con man. Together they form an unlikely “Loser-Bonnie-and-Clyde”-style partnership that ends in lies, murder and the electric chair. The show is based on an episode of Ashley Flowers’ Crime Junkie podcast entitled “Infamous: The ‘Lonely Hearts’ Killers.”

Peacock has already had a strong 2023 when it comes to original content, with “Poker Face” and “Mrs. Davis” winning over critics.

EXCLUSIVE: The highly-anticipated Gladiator sequel continues to add to its already impressive cast as sources tell DeadlineConnie Nielsen has closed her deal to return while Joseph Quinn is in negotiations to play Emperor Caracalla in the untitled pic for Paramount. They join Paul Mescal, who will star as Lucius, Barry Keoghan and Denzel Washington. Ridley Scott is returning to direct.

EXCLUSIVE: Robert Morgan’s Talaria Media has launched development on Arigato Tokyo, a new drama set in the world of women’s professional wrestling, after acquiring a feature pitch by Daytime Emmy winner Mark Blutman (Ghostwriter, Boy Meets World). Jamie Anderson is on board to direct the pic, with Morgan to exec produce.

“Twisted Metal” TV series based on the beloved PlayStation video game franchise, and while it’s merely a teaser, the vibes are definitely on point.Anthony Mackie stars in the live-action half-hour TV series adaptation, which follows a motor-mouthed outsider who’s offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Per the synopsis, “With the help of a badass axe-wielding car thief, he’ll face savage marauders driving vehicles of destruction and other dangers of the open road, including a deranged clown who drives an all too familiar ice cream truck.”Indeed that ice cream truck makes an appearance at the end of the teaser, offering a preview of the character Sweet Tooth played by Samoa Joe (and voiced by Will Arnett).The show is based on an original take by “Deadpool” writers Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick and is written by Michael Jonathan Smith (“Cobra Kai”).

McKinley Franklin editor Start your engines, because it’s time for yet another TV adaptation of a popular video game. Peacock has released the first teaser for its new action-comedy series “Twisted Metal,” which will premiere on the streamer on July 27 with all 10 episodes. “Twisted Metal” is based on PlayStation’s car combat video game series of the same name. In the games, players control deadly demolition derby vehicles and destroy each other in a hellish Twisted Metal tournament. The games include a cast of crazed characters, the most famous of which is a serial killer clown known as Sweet Tooth who drives an ice cream truck. In the trailer, he appears briefly at the very end. The first look gives fans a glimpse into the reimagined “Twisted Metal” landscape plagued set to Len’s “Steal My Sunshine.”

There’s lots of anticipation in Yorgos Lanthimos Land because the director has not one, but two films on the way: hopefully both of them this year. No word on if that will happen, but now audiences know “Poor Things” will at least reach theaters this year.  Searchlight Pictures has some first-look images from Lanthimos’ next feature, and they foretell a film as perplexing as spooky as anything the Greek director has made before.

Meghan Markle just made a big professional move.

Katy Perry has arrived in New York City ahead of the 2023 Met Gala.

Rihanna is about to be the only girl in the world. 

Peacock is quickly growing as a fan fave streaming service. They’ve been steadily putting out original content and there have been some renewal and cancellation updates over the past few months.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Comcast said it managed to boost profit during its fiscal first quarter even as it navigated a dip in media advertising and slowing growth among broadband subscribers, yet boosted U.S. subscribers to its Peacock streaming hub to 22 million. The Philadelphia owner of NBCUniversal, Sky and its large broadband and cable business said profit came to $3.83 billion, or 91 cents per share, compared with $3.55 billion, or 78 cents per share in the year-earlier period. Comcast reported earnings per share of 92 cents after adjusting for one-time items Revenue fell 4% to $29.69 billion, compared with $31.01 billion in the year-earlier period, thanks to comparisons with a quarter in 2022 that contained both the broadcast of the Super Bowl and the Beijing Olympics.

Comcast reported a 4% year-over-year dip in revenue in the first quarter, to $29.7 billion, but still exceeded Wall Street forecasts.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Amid broad cost-cutting moves, Meta is shuttering the Facebook Watch originals group, whose small slate of shows included the hit “Red Table Talk” hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith, Variety has confirmed. A Meta representative confirmed that the company is shuttering its originals group but declined to provide further comment. The news was first reported by Deadline. With the shutdown of Facebook Watch originals, Mina Lefevre, head of development and programing for the group, is leaving the company. Lefevre joined Meta (then called Facebook) in 2017, after serving as MTV’s head of scripted development. At Meta, Lefevre reported to Ricky Van Veen, VP of creative strategy.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta, parent of Facebook and Instagram, turned in better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter of 2023 — even as net income dropped sharply on a year-over-year basis. Overall, the company reported revenue of $28.65 billion, up 3% from the year prior, and net income of $5.7 billion (or $2.20 per share), down 24%. Analysts on average expected Meta to post revenue of $27.65 billion and EPS of $2.03, according to Refinitiv. Click here to sign up for Variety’s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial news and more. In announcing Q1 results, the company said Facebook averaged 2.04 billion daily active users in March, up from 2.0 billion the prior quarter. Across all its apps, Meta reported daily active users of 3.02 billion on average for March 2023, an increase of 5% year-over-year.

“Succession” star plays the “tormenter” once again in a new reality competition series inspired by James Bond, titled “007’s Road to a Million,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.“I got to see how ordinary people would cope with being on a James Bond adventure,” Cox, 76, said about his new role, according to the outlet. Cox will host as “The Controller” – AKA the emcee – and the one who decides the future of contestants on the new Amazon Studios game show.The series features two-person teams competing to win $1.2 million, shot in locations that are relevant to James Bond, such as the Scottish Highlands, Jamaica and Venice, Italy.