Skydance Television Bolsters Development & Production Team With Shelley Zimmerman & David Wolkis Hires

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Dave O’Connor is exiting production company Majordomo Media to take over the reins of Time Studios as president. O’Connor will report to Time CEO Jessica Sibley, who announced his hiring in a memo to staff Monday.

EXCLUSIVE: Following their collaboration on the Aaron Eckhart spy thriller Chief of Station, Bee Holder Productions and Concourse Media are partnering again with filmmaker Jesse V. Johnson for the action-packed political thriller, Raider, which follows a galvanizing Commander in Chief. 

EXCLUSIVE: Film Bridge International is launching sales at AFM on horror Xelter, whose producers include The De Laurentiis Company (Hannibal) and Head Gear Films (Talk To Me).

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter A musical adaptation of “Watcher in the Woods,” a supernatural horror story about two sisters, a missing girl and the creepy forest that surrounds them, is in the works. Producer Douglas Thompson is developing the stage show, based on the 1976 novel by Florence Engel Randall.

Saturday Night Live season 49 is back in its third week with a roller coaster of feels.

Amy Israel, the former Showtime exec, has officially been installed as President of Television at Peter Chernin’s The North Road Company.

Former Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea was seen reuniting with his former teammates, including captain Bruno Fernandes, at a popular brasserie in Greater Manchester earlier this week.

Peyton Manning, LeBron James and Michelle and Barack Obama are looking to team up with Netflix for an NBA docuseries modeled after Quarterback.

EXCLUSIVE: Heading into next week’s AFM, U.S. sales firm The Exchange has made multiple hires and promotions.

David De Gea has got Manchester United supporters calling for his return to Old Trafford on social media after his reunion with former teammate Bruno Fernandes.

The 2023 Billboard Music Awards is going digital. Dick Clark Productions and Billboard have teamed with Spotify on a reimagined show that will air on Sunday, November 19 across Billboard’s social media channels and on the awards show’s official website.  The show last year aired on NBC and previously aired on Fox, followed by ABC.

Phil Foden might have finally found his best position in the England set-up - and it's remarkably similar to his favourite position with Manchester City.

EXCLUSIVE: Ridley Scott’s Scott Free has appointed Elyse Seder as EVP and Head of Nonfiction and named EVP Marjorie Chodorov Head of Physical Production.

Skydance Animation has found a new home at Netflix, ending a lucrative distribution pact with Apple Studios. Skydance Animation, run by John Lasseter with president Holly Edwards, will now exclusively release its animated movies directly to Netflix in an arrangement that will span multiple years, with the studios’ existing slate also moving exclusively to the streamer.

Medyapim (“Mother”) and Ay Yapim (“Endless Love”), Madd is at Mipcom not only as Turkey’s top content exporter but also as an innovative industry driver thanks to a raft of deals that take the country’s booming TV business in new directions. The combined firepower of Medyapim that comprises several subsidiaries and partners including MF Yapim, Madd, and Mednova and has a library of more than 10,000 hours of TV content spanning from dramas and sitcoms to feature films and game shows, and Ay Yapım which produces a slew of Turkey’s most beloved dramas, accounts for over 400 hours of original programming per year.

Filmmaker Alexander Payne (“Sideways,” “The Descendants,”) recently held a Q&A session during the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France (via Variety), with Los Angeles-based French film journalist Didier Allouch overseeing that conversation. Payne gave the French audience a big tease about what he’s currently working on, which could allow him to tackle a dream film genre.

Saturday Night Live is back with season 49!

EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is staffing up its unscripted division.

Pop-up soundstage specialist Volume Global has teamed with White Owl Film Studios, an Indigenous-owned multimedia company representing Canada‘s First Nation community, on a new production facility in Wahnapitae First Nation territory.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Neom, the Saudi Arabian region on the Red Sea that is aiming to become a major film and TV production hub, has forged a strategic partnership with the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) to set up training programs for young Saudi content creators. The full-service Saudi production hub, which is becoming a major driver of the kingdom’s effort to build a film and TV industry almost from scratch, will be hosting courses held by The Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA), South Korea‘s top national film school.