Producers Team To Form True Crime Body In The UK & Ireland

Beyonce appears to reacting to the accusations made against Lizzo.

Anti-government protests in Israel are raging after controversial legislation to weaken the Supreme Court was passed, and now the very future of the nation’s thriving TV sector feels under threat.

Addie Morfoot Contributor While corporate consolidation has led to smaller documentary production budgets and fewer indie doc sales, the demand for true-crime docus has skyrocketed over the last few years. That’s good news for documentary production companies like Dan Cogan and Liz Garbus’ Story Syndicate.

Welcome back, Insider. It’s been another breakneck week in entertainment. Jesse Whittock here guiding you through the most important TV and film stories.

J. Kim Murphy The morbid draw of true crime — vicariously experiencing other people’s tragedies by sifting through the elements that caused them — goes under the microscope in the kitschy whodunnit “Susie Searches.” Sophie Kargman’s feature debut, expanded from her short of the same name, plays on the dangers that come when voyeur becomes an interference, but the sort-of thriller doesn’t have the bite to investigate the provocative sympathy it has for its meddling antihero. An aspiring gumshoe, Susie is first introduced as a precocious grade schooler, sitting beside her mother, Anne (Jammie Patton) as the two read a detective novel — the nice kind that encourages adolescent curiosity and ends with a virtuous sleuth catching a mustache-twirling menace.

joined the WGA in taking strike action on July 13, after negotiations broke down with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), who represent major studios like Netflix, Disney, Apple, Amazon, Warner Bros. and others.Both unions are seeking better pay, streaming residuals and safeguards against the use of AI technology amid the rise of streaming services.The strikes look set to have a major impact on the release calendar of upcoming TV shows and films, with many shutting down production in solidarity.Screen Actors Guild national executive director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, recently said the strike could last until the early months of 2024.“I wouldn’t rule out January or February,” Crabtree-Ireland told the Sydney Morning Herald.

EXCLUSIVE: Entertainment company Madison Wells Live, LaChanze and Taraji P. Henson have joined the producing team of Manhattan Theatre Club’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, a world premiere play written by Jocelyn Bioh and directed by Whitney White heading to Broadway this fall.

SAG-AFTRA has granted more waivers in recent days that give permission to indie projects to shoot during the current strike, including the independent film The Summer Book starring Glenn Close. Other recent projects that will be allowed to shoot include the TV series Underdeveloped and Sight Unseen.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer The perils of artificial intelligence to the entertainment industry came to San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, with SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland joining a panel of voice actors organized by NAVA, the National Association of Voice Actors, to discuss the specific hazards AI is already posing to the profession. “We’ve got to reject the idea that this is just something that’s going to happen to us and we can’t say anything about it,” Crabtree-Ireland said at the outset of the panel, about whether AI could devastate the entertainment industry. “I think it definitely could, the question is whether we’re going to let that happen.”

Fans of K-pop superstar Jung Kook were left saying the same thing after he came to the UK to perform his new single on The One Show. The BTS member sang Seven from a secret London location in front of a specially-invited audience.

queer community, particularly gay men who frequented piano bars, like Townhouse and Five Oaks.  As HBO's gripping true-crime docuseries,, continues to recount what happened to these men, ET has an exclusive sneak peek of episode three, which focuses on the murder of Michael Sakara, who was last seen on July 30, 1993 at the Five Oaks bar in Greenwich Village. In the chilling clip, bartender Lisa Hall recounts a run-in with the man responsible for taking the life of her friend. «Michael and I were left at the bar.

Travis Scott, Bad Bunny and The Weeknd have joined forces for a catchy new track.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Abramorama has acquired North American distribution rights for the feature-length documentary “Billion Dollar Babies: The True Story of the Cabbage Patch Kids” from NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and Believe Entertainment Group. The film is directed by Andrew Jenks (“The Zen of Bobby V”) and charts the meteoric rise of the dolls that set in motion the modern day Black Friday craze. It is narrated and executive produced by Emmy- and Tony Award-winning actor Neil Patrick Harris.  “Billion Dollar Babies” includes the first interview with Cabbage Patch Kids’ creator Xavier Roberts in over 20 years, as well as sit-downs with journalistConnie Chung,and former Coleco marketing head Al Kahan. The film world premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Festival. Abramorama is planning a theatrical release for this fall.

Sophia Scorziello editor When director Anthony Caronna was pitched with making a series out of Elon Green’s 2021 book “Last Call,” about a string of queer-targeted murders in 1990’s Manhattan, he had some reservations. “I loved the book,” said Caronna. “But I passed on the project because I wasn’t interested at that time in doing true crime. My biggest concern was re-victimizing the community and possibly working against the community in a way.” True crime media is a true mixed bag. Each documentary, docuseries or podcast sits somewhere on a spectrum of educational and entertaining; while the latter might sound like a jarring way to describe the storytelling of real-life criminals and real-life victims, it’s not incorrect to say that some audiences find sensationalized crime stories enticing.

SAG-AFTRA soon will be signing “interim agreements” with truly independent producers that will allow many of them to start or continue production during the strike — as long as they are not affiliated with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and agree to be bound retroactively to whatever contract terms eventually are achieved with the AMPTP when the strike is settled.  

be joining Hollywood writers on the picket line beginning Friday, July 14.Negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), which represent the majority of actors in film and television, and major Hollywood studios, who are being represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), fell through after the Wednesday, July 12 deadline of 11:59 p.m. Pacific time passed without resolution.Actors will join writers on the picket line starting Friday morning. This will mark the first time the actors and writers will be striking at the same time since 1960.Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA, and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director/chief negotiator, made the strike announcement at a Thursday press conference following a national board meeting to approve the work stoppage. Crabtree-Ireland said talks with the AMPTP left the union «with no choice» but to move forward with a strike.«It came with great sadness that we came to this crossroads.

Naman Ramachandran Leading true crime specialist indies have teamed to launch the Association of True Crime Producers (ATCP) in the U.K. and Ireland. Avalon, First Look TV, ITN Productions, Monster Films, Peninsula Television, Phoenix Television, Rare TV, Revelation Films, Title Role and Woodcut Media, have formed the ATCP, a non-profit association, to establish best practice guidelines for the genre. They have set clear guidelines, which put victims and their families at the centre of the production process and aim to enhance current best practice in duty of care. The member production companies will meet regularly and have committed to ensure that all members conform to the highest ethical standards and support the continuing integrity and success of true crime production. The aims of the initiative are being communicated to the broadcast industry, victims’ groups, and other representative bodies to ensure that all parties involved in true crime content are aware of the association’s pledges.

EXCLUSIVE: Tony Award nominee Vanessa Williams has joined the lead producing team for the Broadway-aimed A Wonderful World, a bio-musical about jazz icon Louis Armstrong starring James Monroe Iglehart.

Warner Bros. Discovery UK & Ireland has revealed a raft of new and returning commissions, including Discovery+ shows Gwyneth vs Terry: The Ski Crash Trial and Peltz-Beckham vs The Wedding Planners.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The current backlash against queer and trans people, led by a vivified cultural right, may have come as a surprise to younger people who assumed their rights and protections wouldn’t backslide. For this potential audience most of all, “Last Call,” a rigorous yet emotionally vivid documentary series on HBO, will come as a startling depiction of all-too-recent history, and a call to stand united in the face of a world’s worth of threats. Produced by, among others, recent Oscar nominee Howard Gertler (“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”) and directed by Anthony Caronna, “Last Call” tells a set of stories that tend to begin at a piano bar. In the early 1990s, a cohort of gay men, often in culturally forced heterosexual marriages and living their true lives only after dark, frequented various drinking establishments in New York City; time and again, one of this set would turn up not merely dead but dismembered, in a sort of brutal testament to antigay feeling.