Aaron Kaplan Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

EXCLUSIVE: Glynn Turman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and Sonita Henry (Krypton) are joining the cast of Black Cake, Hulu’s drama from Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films, and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment.

ABC’s breakout new comedy series Abbott Elementary is carrying the flag for broadcast television at the 2022 Emmy Awards as the only network show to land a nomination in the Outstanding Comedy or Drama Series categories. While many creators gravitate toward streaming these days, Abbott Elementary creator/executive producer Quinta Brunson is happy to be doing her show for broadcast.

Lashay Anderson (Rebel Cheer Squad) and Faith Alabi (Industry) have been cast as series regulars opposite Adrienne Warren, Mia Isaac and Ashley Thomas in Hulu drama series Black Cake, from Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films, and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment. Additionally, Ahmed Elhaj (Grantchester) has been tapped for a recurring role in the project.

Ashley Thomas has been cast as the male lead opposite Mia Isaac and Adrienne Warren in Hulu drama series Black Cake, from Women of the Movement creator Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment.  Additionally, Zetna Fuentes (This Is Us) has been tapped to direct the pilot episode, replacing Andrew Dosunmu.

EXCLUSIVE: CBS has put in development JumpStart, a multi-camera comedy based on Robb Armstrong’s long-running comic strip. Wayne Conley (The Best Man) will pen the TV adaptation, which hails from Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and CBS Studios.

EXCLUSIVE: Comedy veterans Bill Martin and Mike Schiff have been named new showrunners of CBS’ popular sitcom The Neighborhood. The duo just opened the writers room for the upcoming fifth season of the series, starring and executive produced by Cedric the Entertainer, which comes from Cedric’s A Bird and a Bear Entertainment, Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, Wendi Trilling’s TrillTV and CBS Studios.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is opening a writers room for Dumped, a single-camera comedy from writer Heather Flanders, director Liz Friedlander and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, sources tell Deadline. This is part of the streamer’s development process since Netflix does not do pilots, even on the comedy side, so Dumped remains in development with an eye toward a potential straight-to-series order. A rep for Netflix declined comment.

EXCLUSIVE: Mia Isaac (Don’t Make Me Go) has been cast as the lead in Hulu drama series Black Cake, from Women of the Movement creator Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment. Up-and-comer Isaac is joining Tony winner Adrienne Warren in the project, written by Cerar based on the book by Charmaine Wilkerson.

EXCLUSIVE: Adrienne Warren is set as a lead in Hulu drama series Black Cake, from Women of the Movement creator Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment. Andrew Dosunmu (Where Is Kyra?) has been tapped to direct the pilot episode of the project, which landed at the Disney streamer with a straight-to-series order last fall.

EXCLUSIVE: Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, Crazy Rich Asians producer SK Global, Jeff Sagansky and Florence Sloan have teamed to launch Jaya Entertainment, a content company focused on developing, producing and financing premium international series. Top TV producer Kaplan, prominent media investor Sagansky, Sloan and SK Global (via Ivanhoe Pictures) previously partnered in a Mumbai-based venture that produces hit Hindi-language Netflix series Delhi Crime, which won the International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series and returns for a second season on the streamer later this year.

Elizabeth M. Daley, Dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, announced today that the school’s First Jobs program has cleared the 1,000 mark for number of recent graduates it has helped place in paid entry-level entertainment industry positions. (The tally is currently at 1,019.) Some 64 alumni already have been promoted from positions they were originally hired for and/or have been hired again with the same employer.

As its title suggests, Women of the Movement was conceived as an anthology chronicling the civil rights movement as told by the women behind it. ABC in 2020 greenlighted a six-episode first installment that tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley (Adrienne Warren), who risked her life to find justice after her son Emmett (Cedric Joe) was brutally murdered in the Jim Crow South in 1955.

Pivoting was a surprise cancelation at Fox after it emerged that the critically acclaimed comedy would not return for a second season.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterComedy “Pivoting” has been canceled after just one season at Fox, Variety has confirmed.The midseason single-cam sitcom starring Eliza Coupe, Ginnifer Goodwin and Maggie Q, concluded its 10-episode first season March 10.Set in a small, middle-class town in Long Island, NY, “Pivoting” follows close-knit childhood friends Amy (Coupe), Jodie (Goodwin) and Sarah (Q) as they cope with the death of the fourth member of their group. When faced with the reality that life is short, these women pivot, and alter their current paths, by way of a series of impulsive, ill-advised and self-indulgent decisions.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter“A Million Little Things” has been renewed for Season 5 at ABC.The drama series originally debuted on ABC back in 2018. The plot revolves around a group of friends who reconnect after one of them unexpectedly dies.

Selome Hailu “American Auto” has been renewed for its second season at NBC.From “Superstore” creator Justin Spitzer, Season 1 of “American Auto” debuted in December 2021. The series is a workplace sitcom set in Detroit, where Payne Motors has just hired Katherine Hastings (Ana Gasteyer), its first female CEO, who found huge success in big pharma but doesn’t know the first thing about cars — not even how to drive them.

NBC has picked up a second season of comedy series American Auto, Deadline has learned. We hear the order is for 13 episodes.

EXCLUSIVE: Starz has renewed breakout freshman series Shining Vale. Stars Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear and Mira Sorvino are slated to return for the second season of the horror comedy from Trial & Error co-creator Jeff Astrof, Divorce creator Sharon Horgan, Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television and Lionsgate TV. Season 2’s eight-episode order matches the size of Season 1, which wrapped its run on the Lionsgate network April 17.

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has taken in for development Confessions (working title), a drama series starring and executive produced by The Vampire Diaries alum Paul Wesley, I have learned. Written and executive produced by TVD co-developer, executive  and showrunner Julie Plec and Bradley Paul (Better Call Saul), the project, which is in early stages, is based on Jason Smith’s non-fiction 2015 article The Confessions Of a Drug-Addicted High School Teacher.

Showtime’s The Chi will be one cast member short when it returns in June. On Thursday, Jasmine Davis who appears as Imani revealed that she will not be in the series’ upcoming fifth season.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran TV executive Sandra Ortiz will be leaving Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment at the end of her contract in February 2023. Ortiz, who joined Kapital as head of business operations four and a half years ago, has been working remotely since returning to her home town, Albuquerque, NM, last year. She hopes to continue to consult for Kapital after she steps down from her full-time post next year as she scales back following more than 35 years in the media and entertainment business.

.The Season 5 cast includes Jacob Latimore, Alex Hibbert, Yolonda Ross, Shamon Brown Jr., Michael V. Epps, Birgundi Baker, Luke James and Curtiss Cook.Previously announced new guest stars include Nia Jervier and Carolyn Michelle Smith.

Showtime is heading back to the South Side this summer. The premium cabler said today that Season 5 of its Lena Waithe-created drama The Chi will premiere at 9 p.m. Friday, June 24.

Shining Vale co-creator Jeff Astrof said he was looking to squeeze comedy out of the horror genre when he joined stars Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear and Mira Sorvino for a panel about the Starz series at Deadline’s Contenders TV event Sunday at the Paramount Theatre.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran journalist and news executive James Goldston, former President of ABC News, has signed a producing deal with Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment to develop and produce companion scripted series and docuseries based on true events.

EXCLUSIVE: CBS is accelerating development of HSI: Puerto Rico, a drama from Roselyn Sanchez and Eric Winter’s Two for the Road Entertainment and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, where Two for the Road is under a deal. The network has set up a writers room led by the project’s writer/executive producer Lisa Morales (Queen Sugar), which will be generating five scripts and a season one bible for a potential scripts-to-series order.

EXCLUSIVE: Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment has promoted Dana Cox and Quincie Li to managers in the literary department.

EXCLUSIVE: Showtime is expanding its cast for The Chi, with the addition of Nia Jervier (Dear White People) and Carolyn Michelle Smith (House of Cards) who will take on recurring roles for the series’ upcoming fifth season.

Starz has released the official trailer for Shining Vale, its upcoming horror comedy starring Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear and Mira Sorvino.

EXCLUSIVE: Roselyn Sanchez and Eric Winter’s Two for the Road Entertainment has signed a deal with Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment. The pact is strictly for producing as the husband-and-wife duo both are series regulars on ongoing shows, ABC’s The Rookie and Fox’s Fantasy Island, respectively.

In “Watcher,” “It Follows” star Maika Monroe plays Julia, an actor who gives up her career to join her husband for in Romania for his new job. While he’s off at work, she often spends time alone.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterIFC Films and the AMC Network-owned digital platform Shudder purchased North American rights to “Watcher,” an eerie thriller that premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.IFC Midnight, the company’s genre division, plans to release the film in theaters and on VOD (beginning with the horror-centric streamer Shudder) in 2022. The exact date has not been set yet.Chloe Okuno directed “Watcher,” a suspenseful story about a young woman who moves into a new apartment with her fiancé gets the creepy sense that she’s being observed.

ABC has announced the midseason premiere dates for the return of original drama series “A Million Little Things” and “Big Sky.”“A Million Little Things” is back with new episodes of its fourth season starting Feb. 23 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

EXCLUSIVE: The legacy of Jamie Tarses will live on. FanFare, the production company of the trailblazing TV executive and producer who died a year ago at the age of 56, will continue to function with the help of Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and the support of Tarses’ family, honoring her lasting impact on the television industry.

EXCLUSIVE: Peacock is developing Triggered, a single-camera comedy from the 9JKL team of writer-producer Dana Klein, Wendi Trilling’s TrillTV and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment.

EXCLUSIVE: Former ABC head of drama Brian Morewitz and former ABC Signature head of comedy Melanie Frankel have joined Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment as Heads Of Creative. Morewitz and Frankel will both run the creative and work across comedy and drama, spearheading projects from inception through on-air run as executive producers.