SonyLIV, Applause Entertainment Deepen Partnership With New Shows ‘Kafas’, ‘36 Days’ & Four Returning Seasons

Nicole Williams’ modelling career has come a long way since she dreamt of making it big in New York and posing for the cover of  Sports Illustrated — two things she crossed off her vision board.

The Jonas Brothers are stepping out for the night!

Have you watched season two of Sweet Tooth yet on Netflix? If not, what are you waiting for?!

Salma Hayek is honoring her mother, Diana Jiménez Medina. On Wednesday, Hayek shared a video on Instagram dacing with Medina with a touching caption. “How precious are the moments of connection with mothers, grandmothers, daughters, and sons,” she wrote.Una publicación compartida por Salma Hayek Pinault (@salmahayek)The USA, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Finland, Switzerland and Turkey are some of the countries that celebrate their moms on May 14. In Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, it’s on May 10.

EXCLUSIVE: Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions has entered into a strategic content partnership with fellow Indian production house, Sikhya Entertainment, founded by Guneet Monga.

Never Have I Ever is back for the final time!

Naman Ramachandran Indian studio Excel Entertainment has promoted business head Vishal Ramchandani to the newly created position of CEO. An MBA by qualification, Ramchandani joined Excel in 2008, in the marketing division. In 2013, he was entrusted with the duties of heading the division, where he spearheaded award-winning marketing campaigns for films such as “Fukrey,” “Baar Baar Dekho,” “Gold” and “Gully Boy.” In 2018, Ramchandani was elevated to the position of business head. In this role, he played a pivotal role in transforming Excel Entertainment from a creative production house to a studio that self-funds, markets and distributes its films. Under his leadership, the company’s distribution business diversified with the K.G.F. franchise, which became a nationwide blockbuster. He was also instrumental in Excel expanding into different verticals such as a talent division and co-production deals, as well as facilitating new media ventures.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Oscar nominated director Nicole Newnham (“Crip Camp”) was at Hot Docs with her latest film “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” a portrait of a feminist pioneer. The helmer was also in Toronto to participate in a Hot Docs Industry storytelling masterclass. During the hour-long talk Newnham revealed how she tackles three of the trickiest aspects of documentary filmmaking. How to make a subject feel comfortable: “Geeky curiosity is my authentic M.O. and that also is disarming to people. It puts them at ease. If you genuinely are fascinated by (a subject) and you aren’t after a soundbite, but just exploring, people realize that about you. I will say that in terms of embarking on complicated, long, multi-year documentaries with people, that’s a little different. In that case, I will usually try to get to know the person pretty well before filming or interviewing starts. I try to look for the Venn diagram overlap between what I’m interested in and what their interest in having the story told is, and I assure them of my partnership with them around that.”

India Amarteifio and Arsema Thomas sandwich in Corey Mylchreest while arriving for the Paley Center of Media screening of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story in New York City on Thursday (May 4).

Naman Ramachandran The Indian media and entertainment industry grew 20% to reach INR2.1 trillion ($26 billion) in 2022, 10% above pre-pandemic 2019, according to the annual EY report released during the ongoing Frames conference in Mumbai, organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. The report collates data from television, digital media, film, animation and VFX, out of home media, live events, music, radio, online gaming and print. Overall, the M&E sector is projected to grow 12% to reach $28.6 billion in 2023, the report says. While television remained the single largest component of the M&E sector in 2022 with a valuation of $8.6 billion, it shrank 1.5% from 2021 levels, despite advertising revenues growing 2% to reach levels just behind 2019. The reason for the shrinkage is that subscription revenue continued to fall for the third year in a row, reducing 4% due to a reduction of five million pay-TV homes and stagnant average revenues per user. Linear TV viewership declined 7% over 2021. Television is projected to grow slightly to $8.8 billion this year.

Naman Ramachandran Veteran Indian actor Anupam Kher (“New Amsterdam,” “Silver Linings Playbook”) will headline made-for-streaming film “Vijay 69” from leading Indian studio Yash Raj Films’ streaming production arm YRF Entertainment. “Vijay 69” will tell the story of a man, played by Kher, who decides to compete in a triathlon contest at the age of 69. It will be directed by Akshay Roy, who has previously directed “Meri Pyaari Bindu” for Yash Raj Films and who previously worked as an assistant director on Mira Nair’s “The Namesake,” Aamir Khan’s “Taare Zameen Par” and Deepa Mehta’s “Water.” It is being produced by Maneesh Sharma, who previously directed “Band Baaja Baaraat” and produced “Dum Laga Ke Haisha” and “Sui Dhaaga: Made In India,” all for Yash Raj Films. Sharma is currently directing “Tiger 3,” the next film in Yash Raj Films’ spy universe, starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Patrick Harris, after nearly 12 years at Meta and Facebook, has joined Snap as senior VP of partnerships, leading both ad-agency and partnership teams at the company. Harris, who most recently served as Meta’s VP of global channels, is based in New York and reports to COO Jerry Hunter, who previously was Snap’s SVP of engineering. “We are so excited to welcome Patrick to Snap to help us scale our global agency and partnerships businesses. His experiences across both advertising and partnerships made him the perfect candidate to unify and scale Snap’s impact in these areas.” In addition, Snap has hired David Sommer as head of verticals, overseeing the consumer packaged goods (CPG) vertical for the U.S. Also based in New York, Sommer hails from shopping app Fetch, where he was chief commercial officer, following almost 11 years at Meta as head of industry for CPG, retail partnerships and shopper marketing.

Great news, literature fans: Cormac McCarthy‘s “Blood Meridian” finally gets the cinematic treatment. Deadline reports that New Regency has an adaptation of the 1985 novel in development, with John Hillcoat set to direct.

Zendaya and Tom Holland shared a rare moment of PDA and fun this week! The couple attended Usher's Las Vegas residency show, jamming out to the 44-year-old performer's hits in the audience at The Colosseum.Zendaya documented part of the fun on her Instagram Stories, singing along to «Confessions Part II,» as she panned the camera over to Holland and then to some other friends.For the outing, Zendaya wore a tan halter dress, hoop earrings and oversized glasses. Holland, 26, rocked a green hoodie.Fans also filmed the couple hugging one another in the stands as they enjoyed the show.A post shared by tomdayaahub (@tomdayaahub)A post shared by ♡ Happy and in Love very ♡ (@lovefortomdayax_)The jet-setting pair have been traveling all over the world together, spending time in London, England, Mumbai, India, New York City, andParis, France, in recent months.Zendaya was in Vegas for the CinemaCon Big Screen Achievement Awards, which she attended on Thursday.

Sony Pictures Entertainment saw operating income dip by nearly $1BN for the fiscal year to March 31, 2023, as a lack of tentpole franchise launches bit.

Naman Ramachandran Indian streamer Sony LIV and production house Applause Entertainment have extended their existing partnership with two new series and renewals for four more. Among the new series, “36 Days,” produced in association with BBC Studios India is a suspense thriller, directed by Vishal Furia, featuring an ensemble cast including Neha Sharma, Purab Kohli, Shruti Seth, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Amruta Khanvilkar, Sharib Hashmi, Shernaz Patel, Faishal Rashid, Chahat Vig and Kenneth Desai. “Kafas” (“Cage”) is a social drama series starring Sharman Joshi, Mona Singh, Vivan Bhathena, Preeti Jhangiani and Mikail Gandhi in lead roles and directed by Sahil Sangha.

Viacom18 have revealed a multi-year agreement making JioCinema India’s new streaming home for HBO, Max Original and Warner Bros. content from May. The WBD content had previously been carried on the Disney-owned Star TV platform. But the deal with Star expired at the end of March. WBD sources have confirmed that, except for a handful of shows licensed to third parties, HBO content has been absent from Indian airwaves since the beginning of the month. The new deal is another major victory for Mukesh Ambani, one of India’s richest and most politically influential businessmen. His Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is behind Viacom18 and the JioCinema streaming platform, as well as India’s dominant cellular phone and broadband internet providers.

Shirley Halperin Executive Editor, Music Rocío Guerrero, global head of Latin music at Amazon Music, has collected many professional accolades over her career. If there’s a power list of women in the industry, she’s on it. Latin leaders? She’s there, too.

EXCLUSIVE: Rising Australian actress Olivia DeJonge (Elvis, The Staircase) has signed with Linden Entertainment for management.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent London-based Sideways Film has taken world sales on British director Carey Born’s “Cyborg: A Documentary” about a man who was born color blind and has an antenna embedded in his head to help contend with this condition. Filmed in the U.K., Spain, Denmark, Australia and across the U.S. in New York, Los Angeles, San Jose and New Jersey, the doc about the world’s first officially recognized cyborg premiered last month at the CPH:DOX festival in Copenhagen and was selected by the fest to screen online on its PARA:DOX platform. “Cyborg” centers on “cyborg artist” Neil Harbisson who was born with a rare condition called achromatopsia, which means he sees only in black and white. In 2003 Harbisson had an illegal operation. A so-called “eyeborg” antenna was implanted in the back of his head enabling him to “hear colour” as waves that are translated into sound frequencies and transmitted to his auditory cortex. Since then Harbisson started touring the world talking about being a cyborg.