Peter Berg Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

A tough lesson. Revealing her side of their relationship for the first time, Minka Kelly got real about how her romance with Taylor Kitsch affected her other relationships on the set of Friday Night Lights.

EXCLUSIVE: Reba McEntire‘s Untitled NBC Comedy pilot has added three to its expanding cast including Tokala Black Elk (Yellowstone), Rex Linn (Young Sheldon) and Pablo Castelblanco (Alaska Daily).

EXCLUSIVE: Three former Automatik execs are launching a new production company.

Gregg Goldstein Domestic distributor Bleecker Street is in negotiations to acquire rights to “Fackham Hall,” a British spoof of “Downton Abbey” and other costume dramas. Sales outfit The Veterans is pre-selling international territories. And as international buyers face a potential drought of Hollywood product due to strikes, the market is offering other promising presale titles.

EXCLUSIVE: Amid some uncertainty over the level of pre-sales business possible at Toronto and the AFM due to the strikes, a handful of packages are beginning to emerge.

New Yorker article, “The Family That Built an Empire of Pain” and Barry Meier’s book, “Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic.” It retells the opioid crisis from several different perspectives, including billionaire Richard Sackler (Broderick) and his team at Purdue Pharma (Sackler has denied responsibility for the crisis); Edie Flowers (Uzo Aduba), a lawyer working for the US attorney’s office in Roanoke who’s investigating the drug OxyContin; Glen Kryger (Taylor Kitsch), a family man with a small business who gets hooked on OxyContin after he’s injured at work; and Shannon Shaeffer (West Duchovony), a new recruit to the Purdue sales team who begins having doubts. “Back in 2003, I was working at the New York Times and we got a tip that there was this new drug called OxyContin that was running wild on the streets of all these small towns,” Meier, a consulting producer on the show, told The Post.

As of last year, over a million people have died of opioid overdoses in the United States. The central culprits, as outlined in Netflix’s latest miniseries, “Painkiller,” are Purdue Pharma and the “non-addictive” prescription drug they marketed to anyone with a pulse and a toothache: OxyContin.

Aramide Tinubu While Fentanyl now dominates headlines as the drug wreaking havoc on our society, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was OxyContin that led conversations about the impact of overprescribed opioids. Formulated, produced, marketed and sold by the family-run organization Purdue Pharma, Oxy quickly grew in popularity because it was marketed as a safe, “non-addictive” opioid. Oxy was then pushed onto patients through respected healthcare professionals who were misinformed about the drug and profited greatly from prescribing it.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Blake Griffin and Ryan Kalil’s film and TV production company, mortal media, has led an investment round for animation studio Swaybox Studios, Variety has learned exclusively. As part of the investment, Mortal Media will join Swaybox’s advisory board, while Griffin and Kalil have also put an untitled live-action/animation hybrid project into development with the studio. Swaybox was co-founded by Theresa Andersson and Arthur Mintz in 2013 in Shreveport, Louisiana.

How did the Opioid Crisis begin? Netflix’s upcoming series “Painkiller” looks at the origin of OxyContin and its resulting impact.

While professional football has always captivated American audiences with its gladiatorial drama and drive, it’s at heart a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, propelled by profits and ratings. But amateur football, especially at the high school level, is a galvanizing force for communities, both rural and urban. It brings hope and unity; it’s an escape and an outlet; and for some it’s a pathway out of poverty.

BreAnna Bell Tomorrow Studios has announced the promotion and hiring of Alissa Bachner and Josh Bratman. After joining the company in 2016, Bachner has been elevated to EVP of development where she will continue to oversee the production of the company’s slate of TV dramas and comedies. Bratman joins Tomorrow Studios as its new head of features. “As we continue our acquisition and development of unparalleled IP, and our work with the leading creatives in Hollywood, we want to maximize our storytelling ability for all formats and produce each project for the format that best tells its story, including opportunities for feature run/streamer double play,” said Tomorrow Studios CEO/Partner Marty Adelstein and President/Partner Becky Clements. “Josh brings a keen eye for developing feature films to the team, and Alissa’s instincts for television are consistently unmatched. We are excited for the greatness to come from them.”

EXCLUSIVE: Tomorrow Studios CEO/Partner Marty Adelstein and President/Partner Becky Clements have promoted Alissa Bachner to EVP, Development. With their expansion into feature film development, they have also hired Josh Bratman as Head of Features. 

In today’s episode of Bingeworthy, our TV and streaming podcast host Mike DeAngelo embraces the wacky side of faith and technology with Peacock’s newest series, “Mrs. Davis.” Created by Damon Lindelof (“Lost,” “The Leftovers” HBO’s “Watchmen”) and Tara Hernandez (“The Big Bang Theory,” “Young Sheldon”), the show follows Simone (Betty Gilpin), a nun who has been tasked with tracking down the Holy Grail by an all-knowing and possibly evil artificial intelligence, referred to by many as, “Mrs.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Ashland Hill Media Finance has launched a global sales company headed by industry veteran Tamara Birkemoe. Palisades Park Pictures is launching ahead of next month’s Cannes Film Festival, with operations in Los Angeles and London. The venture, which will soon unveil its inaugural slate of projects, comes a year after the launch of Ashland Hill, which was set up last May by Joe Simpson, Simon Williams and Jonathan Bross. Ashland Hill will continue its operations financing films, while PPP will board sales on a handful of Ashland Hill Media Finance titles in addition to a slate of third-party titles.

EXCLUSIVE: Range Media Partners on Monday announced its signing of award-winning actor, producer, writer and director Ben Foster for management.

Throughout the last decade-plus, movie audiences have tasted all sorts of different adaptations: video games, book-to-film, comic books, and the like. But a more uncommon adaption formula is the board game movie.

Throughout the last decade-plus, movie audiences have tasted all sorts of different adaptations: video games, book-to-film, comic books, and the like. But a more uncommon adaption formula is the board game movie.

EXCLUSIVE: Patrick Radden Keefe’s The Snakehead, a book described as a mix between The Godfather and Chinatown, could be heading to the small screen after A24 won the rights.

Player 54: Chasing the XFL Dream, the Peter Berg-directed 9-part docuseries will debut tomorrow on ESPN2, and Saturday on ABC before the league’s opening game between the Vegas Vipers and Arlington Renegades. The NFL season completed with the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory, it is time for the XFL and USFL to try and assert themselves as the off-season alternative for fans who can’t get enough of football.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who during their day job are the minds behind Nine Inch Nails, have announced they’ll be reteaming with director David Fincher for this fall’s “The Killer.” This is their fifth collaboration with Fincher after “The Social Network,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “Gone Girl,” and “Mank.”“The Killer” is currently cloaked in secrecy (this is a David Fincher project, after all), but it is based on the French comic book series by Alexis Nolent (aka Matz). The project stars Michael Fassbender as the title character (his first role since 2019’s regrettable X-Men romp “Dark Phoenix”) along with Charles Parnell, Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard and Sophie Charlotte in supporting roles.

EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) is set to star in and executive-produce Nar, a character-driven action-thriller, which WME International is launching for world sales ahead of next week’s AFM in LA.

EXCLUSIVE: The Michael Doneger directed documentary Fate of a Sport, which ESPN acquired ahead of the pic’s Tribeca Film Festival world premiere, will drop on ESPN+ on Aug. 29.

Taylor Kitsch’s Hollywood career is full of highs and lows. He started as the star of Peter Berg’s “Friday Night Lights” series on NBC and a teen heartthrob in 2006’s “Josh Tucker Must Die.” But his venture into blockbusters didn’t go well, as 2012’s “John Carter” floundered with critics and audiences alike.

EXCLUSIVE: Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak’s production company Pastel has hired Kiva Reardon as VP of Film, appointing Karolina Peysakhov as VP of Television. Both have already started working out of Pastel’s Los Angeles office.

EXCLUSIVE: Range Media Partners has signed award-winning visionary filmmaker Matt Ogens. Ogens new Netflix Original Audible was nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 94 Academy Awards. The documentary is an immersive coming-of-age story told from the perspective of Deaf high school students and communicated through sign language. He is currently in production on his follow up documentary film based on the viral Nigerian Ballet dancer internet sensation.

Hulu’s docuseries on Victoria’s Secret has been added to its summer slate. “Victoria’s Secret: Angels and Demons” will debut on the streamer in July.The docuseries dives deep into the brand and its former CEO, Les Wexner.

EXCLUSIVE:  WME has inked film and TV actor Taylor Kitsch.

EXCLUSIVE: Audio Up, the podcast studio behind series from the likes of Anthony Anderson and James Ellroy, is ramping up its moves into TV and film.

Teen drama crossover! Chace Crawford opened up about an old audition story that revealed Jason Street — and Nate Archibald — almost looked very different.

EXCLUSIVE: Matt Sand, the screenwriter best known for his contributions to the 2016 Mark Wahlberg thriller Deepwater Horizon, has signed with WME for representation.

Rick Rubin is expanding his film and TV ambitions by signing a new production deal.The producer, whose new documentary on Paul McCartney McCartney, 3, 2, 1 premiered yesterday (July 16) on Hulu, will push his famous Shangri La Recording Studios further into the silver and small screen worlds in a partnership with Endeavor Content.As Variety reports, the overall deal will pair Rubin with Peter Berg’s Film 45, the production company that Endeavor Content acquired in 2019, and Leila Mattimore will

Famed music producer Rick Rubin has signed a deal with Endeavor Content to further bring his Shangri La recording studio into film and TV.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeTimed to the release of Hulu’s “McCartney, 3, 2, 1,” legendary music producer Rick Rubin has sealed a partnership with Endeavor Content to push his famous Shangri La Recording Studios further into film and television. The overall deal will pair Rubin with Peter Berg’s Film 45, the production company that Endeavor Content acquired in 2019.

Netflix has set the main cast for the upcoming opioid crisis drama “Painkiller,” with Uzo Aduba and Matthew Broderick set to take on two of the lead roles.The drama, from director Peter Berg and “Narcos” showrunner Eric Newman, will tell the story of the opioid crisis in the U.S.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorNetflix’s coming-of-age documentary “Audible,” which world premiered this week at Hot Docs Film Festival, follows Maryland School for the Deaf high school athlete Amaree McKenstry and his close friends during their senior year.