Brian Grazer Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

EXCLUSIVE: Stephanie Sperber has stepped down from her post as President of Imagine Kids & Family after four years to focus on producing. In the interim, the label’s slate will be overseen by Karen Lunder, President of Imagine Features, and Kristen Zolner, President of Imagine Television.

EXCLUSIVE: Gersh has signed Kelley Kali, the filmmaker best known for co-writing, co-directing, producing and starring in the 2021 dramedy I’m Fine (Thanksfor Asking), which garnered her SXSW’s inaugural Special Jury Recognition for Multi-Hyphenate Storyteller upon its world premiere at the Austin, TX festival.

Tom Cruise was honoured for his nearly three decades of work as a producer, and “ Everything Everywhere All at Once ” solidified its status as the frontrunner for the best picture Oscar by taking the top prize at Saturday night’s Producers Guild of America Awards.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor The 2023 Producers Guild of America Awards are underway at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. A strong bellwether for the Oscars’ top prize, seven of this year’s best picture nominees are recognized by the guild in the film category: “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “Elvis,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “The Fabelmans,” “Tár” and “Top Gun: Maverick.” This marked the first year the PGA nominated four sequels, which also included “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” Actor-producer Tom Cruise will be honored with the David O. Selznick Achievement Award, which recognizes a producer or producing team for their extraordinary body of work in motion pictures. The Selznick Award has a distinguished history with past recipients including such legendary producers as Steven Spielberg, Barbara Broccoli, Mary Parent, Brian Grazer, David Heyman and Kevin Feige.

EXCLUSIVE: We hear thatSarah Rothschild, the writer of the Netflix movie Sleepover, will be writing the latest draft of Disney/Imagine/Free Association’s Splash remake.

USC School of Cinematic Arts alums Ryan Coogler (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Fruitvale Station) and Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip, Little) have joined the school’s Board of Councilors.

Filmmakers Ryan Coogler and Tracy Oliver are the newest and youngest members of the USC School of Cinematic Arts Board of Councilors.“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” director Coogler graduated from the program in 2011. “Girls Trip” writer Oliver is an alum of the Class of 2010.The Board of Councilors oversees strategic planning, development, and fundraising efforts for the film school.

Cue the menacing tuba. And the Imperial March. And the rousing Indiana Jones theme. Five-time Oscar-winning composer John Williams is getting the feature documentary treatment, and his half-century collaborator is among those wielding the baton.

EXCLUSIVE: Justin Wilkes, Chief Strategy Officer of Imagine Entertainment and President of Imagine Documentaries and Brands, has been promoted to President of the company, headed by Executive Chairmen Brian Grazer and Ron Howard.

Justin Wilkes, chief strategy officer of Imagine Entertainment and president of Imagine Documentaries and Brands, has been promoted to president. The company is headed up by Executive Chairmen Brian Grazer and Ron Howard.With Wilkes’ promotion, co-president of documentaries Sara Bernstein has been named president of documentaries, leading the division.

EXCLUSIVE: Beth Bednarski has been promoted to Chief Financial Officer of Imagine Entertainment, the award-winning global entertainment company of Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. The news comes following the amicable departure of Imagine Entertainment’s Presidents Tony Hernandez and Lilly Burns (from Jax Media), which we were first to report on.

A date has been set for the third and final season of Wu-Tang: An American Saga. The streamer will drop the first three episodes of the season on Wednesday, February 15 with new episodes following every Wu-Wednesday. The final episode will be available on April 5, 2023.

Tom Cruise, star and producer of “Top Gun: Maverick,” will receive 2023’s David. O Selznick Achievement Award from the Producers Guild of America.The Producers Guild of America’s Selznick Achievement Award recognizes a producer or producing team for their extraordinary body of work in motion pictures. Cruise will accept the honor at the 34th Annual Producers Guild Awards on Saturday, February 25, 2023 at The Beverly Hilton. Past recipients of the prize have included Steven Spielberg, Barbara Broccoli, Mary Parent, Brian Grazer, David Heyman, Kevin Feige, as well as Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner of Plan B.“Beginning with Mission: Impossible, Tom Cruise has developed a talent for producing to match his extraordinary talent as an actor.

Tom Cruise isn’t only a superstar actor who has the year’s No. 1 box office hit, Top Gun: Maverick, he also is a dedicated producer, and that aspect of his career is being recognized by the Producers Guild of America.

Coca-Cola, Imagine Entertainment and Amazon have partnered in Christmas Always Finds Its Way, a trilogy of short films that will launch today on Amazon Prime and promoted heavily through the holiday season.

EXCLUSIVE: Imagine Television is developing a thriller drama for Netflix based on The Washington Post story “A U.S. murder suspect fled to Mexico. The Gringo Hunters were waiting,” by Kevin Sieff.

Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Impact has closed $15 million in series B funding.The online professional network for film and TV crews targets challenges faced by industry productions.More to come …

Newly crowned Warner Bros Film Group Co-Chairpersons and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy will receive The Producers Guild of America’s 2023 Milestone Award.

Only Murders in the Building co-creator John Hoffman is taking on Siegfried and Roy for his next project.

Peacock has taken in for development Fear, a series based on the 1996 thriller film, from The Path creator Jessica Goldberg, Imagine Television and Universal TV, Deadline has confirmed.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Peacock is developing a series inspired by the 1996 film “Fear,” Variety has learned exclusively. Jessica Goldberg is set to write and executive produce the adaptation. Brian Grazer, who produced the film, is executive producing along with Ron Howard, Lilly Burns and Kristen Zolner, all via Imagine Television, which is also listed as an executive producer. Imagine Entertainment produced the original film. Universal Television is the studio behind the series, with Universal Pictures having distributed the film. Goldberg is currently under an overall deal at UTV. The official series logline states, “This modern series reinvention finds two young lovers in a psychological game of cat and mouse—but who’s the cat, and who’s the mouse? When David and Nicole first meet in Seattle, it feels like an epic, once-in-a-lifetime romance – but soon it becomes clear that the seemingly perfect couple is anything but. Told from conflicting points of view, the series wrestles with personal demons, hidden agendas and reframes the “he said she said” convention into a twist-filled suspense story about toxic relationships.”

BreAnna Bell Vinessa Shaw has signed on to join Apple TV+’s “Swagger” for Season 2, Variety has learned. Inspired by NBA champion Kevin Durant’s experiences as a kid, the sports drama takes viewers deep inside in the world of elite youth basketball clubs and follows the lives of the players, their families and coaches and “the game within the game.” Outside of the gym, the show offers a glimpse into what it’s like to grow up in America. The series is created by Reggie Rock Bythewood. Shaw joins the series playing Diane, the Chairwoman of the Cedar Cove Prep School Board and also the mother of one of the school’s basketball players who is very invested in her son’s performance on the court.

EXCLUSIVE: Apple is solidifying the cast for Season 2 of its sports drama Swagger. Orlando Jones (Winning Time) and Shannon Brown (Setup) have joined as new series regulars, and Christina Jackson and Sean Anthony Baker, who recurred in Season 1, have been promoted to regulars.

I want to do more of this.”Kasdan met with Imagine Entertainment, the production company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. When they asked him what he wanted to make, Kasdan told them that he wanted to do “a history of visual effects.” Imagine said that they already had a relationship with Disney+ and Lucasfilm and proposed, instead, a project that chronicled the history of Industrial Light & Magic. “That was like saying, you want to go back to your old high school because I really grown up there.

Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen joined the cast of their movie Thirteen Lives for the latest red carpet premiere!

ABC News Studios unveiled a slate of narrative non-fiction projects as part of its official launch, with three feature documentaries and 15 series and specials in production.

signed with Amazon in September 2021. The film is also a reunion between Murphy, Hudlin and the producing team after they worked together on Murphy’s 1992 comedy “Boomerang.” “Candy Cane Lane” comes from a spec script written by Kelly Younger (“Muppets Now”) and is inspired by Younger’s childhood holiday experiences, though specific plot details are being kept under wraps. Production will begin this winter in Los Angeles.

EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Murphy is set to star in Candy Cane Lane, a Reginald Hudlin-directed holiday comedy for Prime Video. Produced by Amazon Studios, Imagine Entertainment, and Eddie Murphy Productions, the comedy was acquired as a spec script written by Kelly Younger and inspired by Younger’s childhood holiday experiences. Production begins this winter in Los Angeles.

BET has signed comedian, actress and producer Patricia “Ms. Pat” Williams to a multi-year overall deal under which she will produce, write and perform in new series and other projects—both scripted and unscripted— across BET and Paramount Global.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSUN VALLEY, Idaho — The moguls have arrived.On Tuesday, dozens of titans of the business, media and tech worlds came out to play at the Sun Valley Lodge in Idaho for the start of Allen & Co.’s annual meeting of movers and shakers.The invitation-only conference will include three days of seminars and meetings that are held away from the prying eyes of the public, which kick off Wednesday morning. So today was all about meeting and greeting each other at the posh retreat in Idaho’s picturesque Sawtooth Mountains.Arrivals began at the Sun Valley Lodge around 11 a.m.

Marc Cherry’s anthology series Why Women Kill will not get a third installment. The drama was renewed for a third season in December and was firming up its lead cast with big-name actors in negotiations to star when the decision was made with production slated to start soon, sources said.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter“Why Women Kill” has been canceled at Paramount+ after two seasons, Variety has learned exclusively.The cancellation comes despite the fact that the show was renewed for a third season in December 2021. The show originally launched in 2019 when Paramount+ was still known as CBS All Access, with Season 2 airing between June and July of 2021.“Paramount+ has made the difficult decision not to move forward with Season 3 of ‘Why Women Kill,'” a Paramount+ spokesperson said in a statement to Variety.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefBrian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment is adding firepower to two industry and talent development programs in the Asia Pacific region.One is the third edition of the Impact Australia screenwriter accelerator event which will operate an eight-week program from September. The other is the first edition of Emerge, a 20-week development program intended to raise the game of premium Taiwanese TV series.Impact Australia was founded by Grazer and Howard and led by CEO Tyler Mitchell. The event is delivered by Gentle Giant Media, the Melbourne-based production company headed by former Village Roadshow Entertainment Group executive Greg Basser.

Wilson Chapman editorPrime Video has released the first trailer for the ripped-from-the-headlines drama “Thirteen Lives,” Ron Howard’s upcoming film about the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue.In June and July 2018, the members of a junior football team were trapped for 18 days in Thailand’s Tham Luang Nang Non cave, after heavy rainfall flooded the cave system and blocked their way out. As the team – who ranged in age from 11-16 years old – and their coach remained trapped for weeks, the situation attracted global interest and an international rescue team was assembled to locate them.

From childhood actor to famed director, Ron Howard has a few “go-to mottos” that he leans on in his Hollywood career, which has spanned over six decades.