Todd Garner Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

After launching the Strike Talk podcast with producer Todd Garner to give WGA strikers comfort in the early days of 2023’s labor unrest, Billy Ray is signing off. When you are an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, and a director and producer to boot, you’ve got to go back to work at some point. No one expected it to go 30 weeks, but Ray threw himself into each installment, from landing guests who demystified the process, and down to its editing. It’s as if he was making a weekly series episode or a movie. It was all for his love for fellow practitioners of the writing craft, and his need to sound an alarm on how a failed negotiation over wages, AI and the shrinking of writer rooms would endanger an ecosystem that has fueled brilliant writing on series and films for decades. Here, he teams with Deadline co-editor Mike Fleming Jr. to discuss what might happen going forward, with mergers still reshaping the Hollywood landscape, and a battle brewing just up the road with IATSE and Teamsters as their deals expire this summer. Deadline offers gratitude to Ray, and to Garner, for their selfless dedication to making this such a great ride.

Netflix has snapped up rights to Incoming, a comedy written and directed by The Mick creators Dave Chernin and John Chernin, in their feature debut.

Deadline Strike Talk is taking off today, for the first time in 28 weeks. Filmmaker Billy Ray will reunite with producer Todd Garner for the 29th and final installment of a program that each week covered the painful clashes between the signatories and the WGA and SAG-AFTRA with an insight honed by Ray’s experience as a member of the negotiating committee on the WGA team through several contract negotiations. Strike Talk has been quite a ride for all of us at Deadline. We will have a grand final installment day after Thanksgiving, when there will be plenty to be thankful for.

So the good news is that the half year double strike that ground Hollywood to a halt is over. The bad news is Billy Ray has just about come to the end of the road on Deadline Strike Talk, which to our mind has been superb and a light in the darkness. He will do one more episode or two to wrap up the lessons we hopefully learned from this labor discord, and then we will beg him to keep a podcast presence with Deadline. In sober and intelligent tones, and with a superb roster of guests, he has helped create an understanding of the intricacies, forces and history that went into the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. The hope is he, and his initial co-pilot Todd Garner, will want to continue together or separately an inside baseball dialogue with the industry that Deadline serves. That is a conversation for another day. Here, Billy Ray discusses the settlement that puts the industry back to work. And he is joined by California State Senators Anthony Portantino and Dave Min to discuss the role of state government in supporting the labor movement.

The beloved 2004 comedy, 13 Going On 30, is being brought back to life in a new way!

In the 15th installment of Deadline’s Strike Talk, the boys have put the band back together. Todd Garner, who launched the podcast with Billy Ray and then had to bow out to produce a film in Australia, returns after the SAG-AFTRA strike shut down production on his film.

Martyn Ford (“Shao Kahn”), Desmond Chiam (“King Jerrod”), Ana Thu Nguyen (“Sindel”), and Damon Herriman (“Quan Chi”) have been cast in the sequel to New Line’s hit 2021 action adventure “Mortal Kombat” based on the blockbuster video game franchise, New Line announced on Thursday morning.The new additions join a cast which include Karl Urban as “Johnny Cage,” Tati Gabrielle as “Jade,” and Adeline Rudolph as “Kitana.”The returning cast from “Mortal Kombat” includes Lewis Tan as “Cole Young”; Jessica McNamee as “Sonya Blade”; Josh Lawson as “Kano”; Tadanobu Asano as “Lord Raiden”; Mehcad Brooks as “Jax”; Ludi Lin as “Liu Kang”; Chin Han as “Shang Tsung”; Joe Taslim as “Bi-Han” and “Sub-Zero”; Hiroyuki Sanada as “Hanzo Hasashi” and “Scorpion”; Max Huang as “Kung Lao.”Simon McQuoid, who directed the 2021 film, is set to return. Jeremy Slater (“Moon Knight,” “The Umbrella Academy”) wrote the screenplay for the sequel.The previous film was a new adaptation of the popular video-game franchise that offered a grittier, more violent take on the material than the 1990s films.

New Line has rounded out its cast for Mortal Kombat 2, with Martyn Ford (Red Sonja), Desmond Chiam (Joy Ride), Ana Thu Nguyen (Suka) and Damon Herriman (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) coming aboard for roles.

Billy Ray and Todd Garner are back for Week 6 of the Writers Guild standoff on Deadline’s Strike Talk podcast. Click below to listen.

Billy Ray and Todd Garner are back for Week 5 of the WGA standoff on Deadline’s Strike Talk podcast. Click below to listen.

Billy Ray and Todd Garner are back for Week 4 of the WGA standoff on Deadline’s Strike Talk podcast. Click to listen below.

which TheWrap previously reported. Gabrielle is set to play Jade.Simon McQuoid, who directed the 2021 film, is set to return.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Mortal Kombat 2” will follow the example of its 2021 hit predecessor and film in Australia. But production will relocate to Gold Coast, Queensland, from Adelaide in South Australia. The New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures title is based on the iconic video game by Ed Boon and John Tobias. Filming will begin at Village Roadshow Studios from June.  “Mortal Kombat 2” is written by Jeremy Slater and will again be directed by Australian Simon McQuoid. The film will be produced by James Wan’s Atomic Monster and Todd Garner’s Broken Road Productions. 

Billy Ray and Todd Garner are back after the third week of the WGA standoff on Deadline’s Strike Talk podcast.

Since Deadline formed 14 years ago, we’ve never lost sight of the human struggles felt by writers and everyone else during labor standoffs. Today, we proudly launch Strike Talk with Billy Ray and Todd Garner, a weekly podcast dedicated to dissecting the issues that caused talks to break off between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, this week prompting the writers to trade their pencils for picket signs. A reckoning is upon us, as writers try to keep their place at a moment when studios and streamers struggle to impose economic efficiencies to show fiscal responsibility to their shareholders, and writers struggle with things like streaming deals that have no chance for backend compensation in success, and series that have far fewer than the 22 episodes that had been the norm on the traditional networks.

Paramount Pictures has renewed a first-look deal with Todd Garner. The head of Broken Road Productions first signed a production pact with the studio in 2018.

EXCLUSIVE: New Line has set Secret Headquarters filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman to direct Undo, from Will Simmons’ 2022 Black List screenplay. The action thriller is currently in development.

EXCLUSIVE: Operation: Kickboxer — a new series based on the Kickboxer action films — is in the works from executive producers Todd Garner (Mortal  Kombat) and Dimitri Logothetis (Jiu Jitsu). 

was first revealed in January.“Mortal Kombat” marked McQuoid’s feature directorial debut, and the film ended with a clear path forward for the franchise as the titular challenge does not occur within the events of the first movie. A post-credits scene also teased the inclusion of the character Johnny Cage in a sequel.The cast included Lewis Tan as Cole Young, Jessica MacNamee as Sonya Blade and Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion.“Mortal Kombat” (2021) was produced by Atomic Monster’s James Wan, Broken Road Production’s Todd Garner, Simon McQuoid and E.

EXCLUSIVE: After the most recent pic overachieved at box-office, New Line is ready to get back in to the arena on a new Mortal Kombat pic as sources tell Deadline, Simon McQuoid is set to return as director to the sequel to New Line’s hit 2021 action adventure. Mortal Kombat was McQuoid’s feature directorial debut and was released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max during the pandemic in April 2021.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterThomas Barbusca has joined the cast of “Incoming,” a high-school comedy from directors Dave and John Chernin.The project reunites Barbusca and the Chernin brothers, who worked together on the Fox TV comedy “The Mick.”“Incoming” follows four incoming freshmen as they navigate the terrors of adolescence at their first-ever high school party. The cast also includes “The Black Phone” actor Mason Thames, Bobby Cannavale and fellow “Mick” alum Kaitlin Olson.The Chernin brothers, also known for “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” are writing and directing in their feature filmmaking debut.

EXCLUSIVE: Dave and John Chernin’s Incoming has begun production in Los Angeles, we’ve learned, with an ensemble cast that includes 2x Primetime Emmy winner Bobby Cannavale, Primetime Emmy nominee Kaitlin Olson, Scott MacArthur as well as Raphael Alejandro, Isabella Ferreira, Ali Gallo, Loren Gray, Ramon Reed (13:The Musical) and Bardia Seiri.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterArtists Road has landed rights to “Incoming,” a high school comedy starring “The Black Phone” actor Mason Thames. The company, a new joint venture specializing in funny films, is co-financing with Spyglass Media Group.Dave and John Chernin, who have partnered on “The Mick” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” are writing and directing in their feature film debut.

Rebel Wilson is all smiles at a special screening of her new film Senior Year at The London West Hollywood at Beverly Hills on Tuesday (May 10) in West Hollywood, Calif.

here and above.“Senior Year” is directed by Alex Hardcastle and produced by Todd Garner, Rebel Wilson, Timothy M.

EXCLUSIVE: Following its premiere on Hulu this past weekend, 20th Century’s Vacation Friends has become the most the most watched original film in its opening weekend on the streamer to date. Deadline has also exclusively learned that writer-director Clay Tarver will return to write and direct Honeymoon Friends, a sequel that will reunite the main cast and producer Todd Garner.

EXCLUSIVE: More then 25 years after her star-making role in Clueless, Alicia Silverstone is ready to make her return to the high school comedy genre. She has joined the cast of Paramount Players’ Senior Year, starring Rebel Wilson. Justin Hartley, Angourie Rice, Sam Richardson, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland and Chris Parnell are also on board. Alex Hardcastle will direct.

Also Read: Simon McQuoid in Talks to Direct 'Mortal Kombat' RebootThe screenplay was written by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham, from a story by Oren Uziel and Greg Russo. James Wan, Todd Garner, Simon McQuoid, E.

Gary Barber's Spyglass Media Group, Ben Silverman's Propagate Content, Artists First and Off-Road Productions are joining forces for a new comedy film joint venture, Artists Road. The new venture will develop, finance and produce mid-budget feature comedies for worldwide distribution.