Sony Pictures TV Game Show Head Suzanne Prete Upped to President

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Sony Pictures Entertainment is upping its head of television Ravi Ahuja to president and chief operating officer of the entire studio. While not explicitly stated by SPE chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra in his internal memo regarding Ahuja’s appointment to the No.

Three years after arriving to Sony Pictures, Ravi Ahuja, has been named President and Chief Operating Officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment, effective April 1.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Magnolia Pictures and Participant have partnered to jointly acquire North American rights to “The Grab,” a new documentary from “Blackfish” director Gabriela Cowperthwaite. The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, follows journalists from The Center for Investigative Reporting as they work high-profile sources and utilize a cache of secret data to uncover the money and influence being used by countries, corporations and members of the uber-elite to control the planet’s most vital resources.

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon Prime Video’s remake of British game show The 1% Club has found its host as well as a broadcast partner.

Actor, comedian, writer and presenter Matt Lucas has had a wide and varied career across TV and film. Saturday night (March 2) will also see him pop up as Star Guest Announcer on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, in what is the final series before the Geordie duo take a break from the show.

New York Dolls’ David Johansen, John Lyon and more.The lawsuit was in an effort to regain control of the artists’ masters, and has finally come to a settlement after years of closely-watched class-action litigation against major record labels over copyright law’s termination right.Announced in court papers last week, the agreement between the music label and the musicians will resolve a case which saw artists accuse Sony of unfairly rejecting their efforts to invoke termination – a federal law that’s supposed to let authors take back control of their works decades after they sold them away.Per Reuters, Johansen, Lyon and Paul Collins sued Sony Music back in 2019, accusing the label of barring their termination notices for their music and proceeding to sell it without permission. The case had ben on pause for settlement since 2021.The musicians based their claims off of a part of the Copyrights Act.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures and Picturestart won an auction and will pay mid-six against high six-figures for Yeti, a Peter Gaffney spec script that will be produced by Jon Silk through his first look deal at Picturestart.

“Wheel of Fortune” contestant won last night’s game but failed to correctly guess the bonus puzzle.After the episode aired, fans of the game show began rallying around the contestant, insisting that she had actually named the right answer to the puzzle but that host Pat Sajak had failed to recognize it.The contestant, a woman named Tamara, chose “What Are You Doing?” for the category for the final puzzle. After co-host Vanna White turned over both the letters the show traditionally provides and the ones Tamara chose, she was left with “___N_NG A B___ _L_B.”“Now pay attention what’s up there,” Sajak advised.

Korean content is having its moment, but Pyramid Game will be the only title from the country at next month’s Series Mania.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent In a milestone move, Sony Pictures Television has unveiled “La Academia,” its first Spanish-language scripted series filmed in Spain for Prime Video and 3Cat. “La Academia” is produced for Sony by Brutal Media, commissioned out of Sony Pictures Television’s international production group.

Caroline Brew editor Jay Pharoah, known for “Saturday Night Live” and “The Blackening,” will host “The Quiz with Balls,” a new Fox game show. Each episode will feature two families competing for $100,000 in a “battle of the balls,” combining a high-stakes quiz show with a large-scale physical competition. “When I got hit up about hosting an epic face-off between big brains and even bigger balls, I was like … ’I got this,’” Pharoah said in a statement.

Jay Pharoah (SNL, The Blackening) has been set as the host of Fox‘s new game The Quiz with Balls. The series is set to premiere this summer.

Disney has reached a licensing deal with Sony under which the latter’s home entertainment division will handle all Disney releases on DVD and Blu-ray as well as all physical media production.

The Avenue release Land of Bad, powered by Variance, grossed $1.8 million on 1,120 screens, landing in the top ten for the weekend as Variance noted strong word of mouth with Saturday grosses jumping 37% from Friday’ (not including Thursday sneaks). The estimate for the four days is $2.07 million.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Sony Pictures has bought international rights to “Materialists,” Celine Song’s follow up to “Past Lives” which is nominated for best picture and original screenplay at the Oscars. The worldwide deal for “Materlialists” excludes certain territories. A24 will handle the U.S.

Ellise Shafer Sony Pictures has acquired the worldwide rights to “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” a fantasy romance starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, in the first major deal of the European Film Market in Berlin. The film will be directed by Kogonada, who also helmed the TV series “Pachinko” and the sci-fi drama “After Yang.” “The Menu” scribe Seth Reiss penned the script. “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” marks Robbie’s follow-up role to “Barbie,” the $1 billion blockbuster that she also produced.

Chris Brown is claiming the 2024 NBA Celebrity All-Star Game is singing one of his most famous songs: Say Goodbye.

The 1975 star Matty Healy used a day off rocking out arenas with his band to support his actress mum Denise Welch who is also performing on stage here in Manchester this weekend. Denise is starring in the world premiere production of The Gap at the acclaimed Hope Mill Theatre in Ancoats.

Microsoft has confirmed that Diablo 4 will be the first Activision Blizzard title to come to Xbox Game Pass.Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was finally approved in October 2023 after being announced in January 2022 via a deal thought to be worth £50billion.Now the first of Microsoft’s new franchises is coming to its subscription-based Game Pass service. Head of Xbox Sarah Bond confirmed the news during an official Xbox podcast last night (February 15).Diablo 4 will be available to play via Game Pass from March 28 and is said to be the first of multiple Activision and Blizzard-developed titles coming to the service.Elsewhere in the podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer announced that Game Pass now had 34million “fully paid” subscribers compared to 25million in 2022.

Sony is rewarding its game show chief.