Jennifer Maas Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “The Boys” Season 4 will pick up where “Gen V” Season 1 left off, just ahead of an in-universe presidential election. And from the looks of the first promo images released by Amazon for the new episodes of “The Boys,” the Vought supes led by Homelander (Antony Starr) are going to have a good Election Day, and Billy Bucher (Karl Urban) and The Boys are going to be left crushed by defeat.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav opened the company’s quarterly earnings presentation with remarks on the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, remaining “hopeful” that the work stoppage will end “soon” following the Hollywood studios’ move to adjust AI language in its “last, best and final offer” to the actors union. “We are hopeful we will reach a resolution to the SAG-AFTRA strike soon,” Zaslav said during WBD’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Nexstar reported its third-quarter 2023 earnings Wednesday, revealing TV ad revenue was down overall 23% for the July-September quarter. Meanwhile, the CW network made quarter-over-quarter progress on its path to profitability by narrowing its losses to $60 million. For the CW, which was formally acquired by Nexstar in October 2022 from Paramount Global and Warner Bros.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The Roots founders Questlove and Black Thought‘s have sold a significant stake in their production company Two One Five Entertainment to Peter Chernin’s content studio The North Road Company. Under the pact, North Road will finance future film, TV and other creative projects from Two One Five, which previously produced the Oscar-winning documentary “Summer of Soul,” “The League” and “Descendent.” The partnership will also see North Road helping Two One Five expand its scripted slate after years of mainly focusing on unscripted content.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Jon Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Rita Wilson and more stars performed as a tribute to U.S. veterans and their families at the New York Comedy Festival and Bob Woodruff Foundation’s Stand Up for Heroes event Monday. Held at David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the night included performances from musicians and comics, including Stewart, Springsteen, Wilson, Josh Groban, John Mellencamp, Tracy Morgan, The War and Treaty, Jimmy Carr, Ronny Chieng and Shane Gillis.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Episode 8 of “Gen V,” the Season 1 finale (“Guardians of Godolkin”), now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. Marie (Jaz Sinclair) survived her first semester at supe college Godolkin University — barely — but it doesn’t look like she’s going into a second one any time soon. As the Season 1 finale of “The Boys” spinoff “Gen V” concludes, Marie and her friends stuck inside some kind of hospital room with no doors and no clue how they got there. For now, “Gen V” co-showrunner Michele Fazekas is mum on what comes next.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer AMC Networks reported its third-quarter 2023 earnings Friday, revealing it had added 100,000 subscribes across AMC+ and its other niche streamers in Q3, following two straight quarters of declining subs. Streaming subscribers stand at 11.1 million as of Sept. 30, up 1% from where they ended at 11 million at the conclusion of Q2 in June.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Chip and Joanna Gaines‘ Magnolia Network is producing four unscripted series with a family-friendly focus for Max, including one called “Human vs Hamster” that, aptly, pits humans against hamsters in challenges. The unscripted projects, which are set to debut in 2024, are described as “ambitious large-scale competitions” and “out-of-the-box social experiments” that are intended to create a co-viewing experience on Max for parents and children.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “House of the Dragon” Season 2 will premiere next summer on HBO, network chief Casey Bloys announced during a press event Thursday. At the media presentation, the first trailer for the second season screened exclusively for members of the media, who are not allowed to report details about the contents of the footage. Bloys previously told Variety that HBO was targeting a Summer 2024 premiere for the second season.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer HBO and Max CEO and chairman Casey Bloys apologized to TV critics Thursday for using fake Twitter accounts to respond to negative reviews on HBO series, following a Wednesday report that revealed Bloys’ past behavior. “For those of you who know me, you know that I am a programming executive very, very passionate about the shows that we decide to do. And the people who do them and the people who work on them,” Bloys said Thursday morning at the start of a presentation at HBO’s New York headquarters, an event to promote HBO and Max’s upcoming slate of programming, which has been planned since Oct.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Disney Dreamlight Valley held its first-ever showcase presentation Wednesday ahead of the Gameloft game’s move out of its year-long “early access” phase into a global launch, unveiling plans for the life-simulation through late 2024 in two roadmaps: one for paid expansion content and one for free upgrades included with the cost of the base game. The streamed event came on the heels of last week’s reveal that Disney had scrapped plans to make the game free-to-play once it left its beta testing and instead set pricing tiers and an additional cost for the game’s first expansion, “A Rift in Time.” A number of updates about the future of Disney Dreamlight Valley were given, including the game’s upcoming launch on Apple’s subscription gaming platform Apple Arcade.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Bobby’s Triple Threat” has been renewed for a third season at Food Network. Hosted by Bobby Flay and featuring his three culinary “titans” — Tiffany Derry, Michael Voltaggio and Brooke Williamson — the show sees the trio go up against a new guest chef and mystery judge each episode, with each titan being responsible for one of three courses in the successive cooking competition with a $25,000 weekly prize. “Bobby’s Triple Threat” Season 2 debuted Aug.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief people and culture officer Adria Alpert Romm will retire at the end of June 2024, the company announced Tuesday. WPP’s global chief people officer Jennifer Remling has been named as the top HR exec’s successor and will join WBD in January.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer A “Fourth Wing” TV show based on Rebecca Yarros’ best-selling fantasy book series is in the works at Amazon MGM Studios. Amazon and Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society, which has an overall deal with the studio, have acquired the rights to not only “Fourth Wing,” but its follow-up “Iron Flame,” which will be released Nov.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Sony Pictures Television‘s longtime head of production Ed Lammi is retiring at the end of this year, following a 36-year run at the studio and 28 years in his current position. No details were immediately available regarding who will replace Lammi as executive vice president of production, a role he has held since 1995.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Episode 7 of “Gen V,” titled “Sick” now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. One week until the Season 1 finale of “Gen V” and Amazon’s college spinoff of “The Boys” has revealed just how tight the ties that bind it to its parent series are. In Episode 7, “Sick,” there are callbacks to storylines planted at the beginning of “The Boys,” and vital information relayed from characters on one show to another.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Disney Dreamlight Valley will leave its year-long “early access” phase Dec. 5.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Retail-focused sister streamers QVC+ and HSN+ are marking their second year of original holiday programming with a new TV movie starring Ashlee Simpson. Titled “The Recipe Files,” the holiday baking mystery — filled with cameos from QVC hosts and plenty of plugs for tie-in products and partner brands — is directed by Lindsay Hartley (“Passions,” “Days of Our Lives”) and will launch on QVC+ Nov.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Jet Lag: The Game” is refueled for Season 8 and bringing “Challenge Accepted” host Michelle Khare along for the ride. Streamy winner Khare has joined “Jet Lag” as the guest contestant on the new season of the hit web travel game show, which will be returning to the U.S. for its eighth season after several installments shot abroad in Europe, Japan and New Zealand, playing alongside usual competitors: Sam Denby, Adam Chase and Ben Doyle (the winner of Season 7).

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 sold more than 2.5 million copies in its first 24 hours of availability, making it PlayStation Studios’ fastest-selling game ever. That stat includes pre-order sales of individual units, as well as units bundled with PlayStation 5.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer You’d think that volunteering to go on a reality TV series based on a show about a deadly competition would mean you were prepared to at least fake die — but based on the new trailer for “Squid Game: The Challenge,” that thought didn’t occur to every contestant. In the new promo for the unscripted show, which debuts Nov.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Episode 6 of “Gen V,” titled “Jumanji” now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. This week’s “Gen V” came with a pleasant surprise for fans — and we’re not even talking about Thursday’s Season 2 renewal news that hit just before the episode arrived. The installment featured the much-teased cameo of Jensen Ackles’ “The Boys” supe Soldier Boy, who appears to Marie (Jaz Sinclair), Andre (Chance Perdomo) and Jordan (Derek Luh/London Thor) as they travel through Cate’s (Maddie Phillips) fractured mind while she’s breaking down from doing too much brain-wiping/un-wiping of her friends on behalf of Dean Shetty (Shelley Conn).

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Delicious Miss Brown” host Kardea Brown has signed a new exclusive deal at Food Network. Born and raised on the Sea Islands of Charleston, S.C., Brown grew up in a big family “with a love for food, especially the cherished recipes they passed down from generation to generation,” per Food Network. Currently in its ninth season, Brown’s Emmy-nominated “Delicious Miss Brown” is shot on-location in Charleston and “shares the family events, culture and recipes close to Kardea’s heart.” The eighth season of Brown’s daytime series reached more than 6.7 million viewers.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from the Season 7 finale of “Jet Lag: The Game” now streaming on Nebula and YouTube. The Season 7 finale of “Jet Lag: The Game” launched on YouTube Wednesday, giving all non-Nebula subscribers access to the Streamy-nominated online travel game show, and the big reveal of its latest winner. In an interview with Variety, “Jet Lag” stars Sam Denby, Ben Doyle (the victor of the “tag across Europe”-formatted Season 7) and Adam Chase broke down the making of their series, which is produced by Denby’s Wendover Productions and airs new episodes first on creator-community-focused indie streamer Nebula.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos says that “part “of the reason the streamer has long been tight-lipped about viewership data — even when it came to disclosing numbers to those creating the TV shows and films for the platform — is because of the talent’s own concerns about feeling “pretty trapped” by ratings and box office performance. “At the time we started creating original programming, our creators felt like they were pretty trapped in this kind of overnight ratings world and weekend box office world defining their success and failures,” Sarandos said during a prerecorded analyst interview that went live Wednesday, following Netflix’s report on its third-quarter financial results.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Netflix is increasing the price of both its basic and premium plans in the U.S., as well as in France and the U.K. Prices for the ads and standard tiers remain the same.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Netflix subscribers grew by 8.76 million in Q3, totaling 247.15 million by the end of the fiscal period Sept. 30.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer As he approaches his one-year anniversary as president of Roku Media, Charlie Collier is setting his first restructuring of the company’s leadership team, including naming Alison Levin head of global media revenue, upping Kristina Shepard to vice president of global advertising sales and partnerships, giving head of content David Eilenberg oversight of Roku’s Brand Studio segment and formally naming Joe Franzetta head of sports. Levin and Eilenberg will continue to report directly to Collier, while Shepard is under Levin and Franzetta is under Eilenberg.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Drew and Jonathan Scott are building up more (intellectual) property at HGTV. The massively popular home-reno and real estate siblings have set two new series with their longtime Warner Bros.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from the Season 7 finale of “Jet Lag: The Game” now streaming on Nebula and debuting Oct. 18 on YouTube. Seven seasons in and there are still surprises to be found on “Jet Lag: The Game,” the Streamy-nominated online travel competition show that follows an “Amazing Race”-esque format, if those players filmed themselves on iPhones and participated in more off-the-rails challenges.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Virgin River” fans looking for more while they await another season of the hit Netflix drama should consider the debut of The CW network’s “Sullivan’s Crossing.” Not only is it a fellow romance series, but it’s based on a book series written by the same author, Robyn Carr. So how do you know whether you’re a “Virgin River” viewer or a “Sullivan’s Crossing” viewer — or whether you’re both? Variety had Carr and “Sullivan’s Crossing” showrunner Roma Roth, who also is an executive producer on “Virgin River,” break down the similarities and differences between the two titles ahead of “Sullivan’s Crossing’s” U.S. premiere on Oct.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “The Boys” are back in town — and this time on campus. In Amazon’s new drama “Gen V,” a spinoff of its popular R-rated superhero series, we follow a new crop of humans with superhuman abilities. The show is set at Godolkin University, a college run by supe corporation Vought, the company that runs the superhero industry and boasts The Seven, featured in “The Boys,” as its team.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The strike is over, but the fight is not yet won. On Wednesday, as the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike formally ended after 148 days, Variety spoke with newly elected WGA East president Lisa Takeuchi Cullen and WGA East executive director Lowell Peterson about the end of the work stoppage at the East coast guild’s membership meeting to discuss their tentative three-year MBA agreement with the Hollywood studios.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Gordon Ramsay’s high-anxiety restaurant rescue series “Kitchen Nightmares” returns to Fox Monday after 10 years off the air. In that time, a lot has changed — not only in the restaurant industry, but also the broadcast TV food landscape, where Fox dominates with more culinary competitions than the other Big 4 networks. With foodie culture stronger than ever amid the popularity of “The Bear” and the surge of cooking videos splattered across TikTok, Ramsay decided now was the time to expand upon those first seven seasons of kitchen chaos.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Negotiations between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Hollywood studios continued into Friday night as questions swirled around town regarding whether a deal had been reached or if talks had once again broken down. There is no word yet on a potential deal, but insiders with knowledge of ongoings in the room say there is momentum on both sides to find a resolution that will end the 144-day writers strike. Friday’s talks are said to have begun at approximately 11 a.m.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Max fans who don’t relish the idea of coughing up $9.99 per month more to access the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streamer’s upcoming live sports tier might not realize that they’ve been making out like bandits with seemingly “free” sports content on other platforms for years, according to WBD global streaming chief JB Perrette.