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Katcy Stephan Emmy and Golden Globe winner Julia Garner is joining Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four” as Shalla-Bal, a version of Silver Surfer from the Marvel comics. She will star alongside Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm (aka the Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm (aka the Human Torch) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm (aka the Thing).

The Martian Adapted Screenplay nominee and The Cabin in the Woods filmmaker Drew Goddard has been set to write and direct a new Matrix movie at Warner Bros. with the franchise’s original co-scribe and co-director Lana Wachowski executive producing.

Livingston have blasted Celtic’s controversial Green Brigade ultras group for “wholly and utterly unacceptable” behaviour during their 3-0 win at the Tony Macaroni Arena on Sunday.

Livingston have hit out at Celtic ultras group the Green Brigade for their “wholly and utterly unacceptable” conduct at Sunday’s Premiership clash and accused them of going against club and police advice to unveil a pre-match tifo.

K.J. Yossman Disney is licensing a number of its original series to BBC Studios-owned broadcaster UKTV. Among the shows that are set to appear on UKTV networks are Anne Frank drama “A Small Light” and all seven seasons of “Sons of Anarchy.” “A Small Light” is heading to UKTV’s free to air network Drama in May while the complete series of “Brothers and Sisters” will go to UKTV Play this spring followed by “Sons of Anarchy” in the summer.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “Grey’s Anatomy” has been renewed for Season 21 at ABC, Variety has learned. The renewal extends the series’ record-breaking run as the longest running primetime medical drama in TV history, which it first became in 2019. It is also the longest running primetime scripted series in ABC history.

EXCLUSIVE: Keegan-Michael Key and his multi-hyphenate partner Elle Key, along with their Bigger Picture Media Group banner, have signed with Range Media Partners for management.

Katcy Stephan Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman will star in “The Roses,” a reimagining of the 1989 classic “The War of the Roses.” The dark comedy, which is currently in development, will be directed by Jay Roach (“Bombshell,” “Meet the Parents”) and is written by Tony McNamara (“Poor Things,” “The Great”), based on the novel by Warren Adler. The film follows picture-perfect couple Theo (Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Colman), who have successful careers, great kids an enviable sex life.

Alex Ritman In news likely to simultaneously delight and appall across the cinema world, a third instalment of IP-bludgeoning slasher ‘Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey’ has been confirmed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield and Scott Chambers of prolific horror banner Jagged Edge Productions. According to the producers, ‘Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3’ will have a bigger budget than the previous films and will introduce new characters from the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories, including Rabbit, the heffalumps and the woozles. All will no doubt be given sadistic, murderous twists.

Selome Hailu It appears that Season 13 of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” has achieved not only the series’ highest viewership ever, but the highest of the entire “Real Housewives” franchise since 2014, according to Multiplatform + 35 data. The first 16 episodes of Season 13 averaged 4 million viewers across 35 days of Bravo and Peacock viewership. Episodes 17-20 have yet to hit the 35-day mark, but performed strongly according to same-day data, outpacing several of the preceding episodes.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Neon, the indie studio behind “Parasite” and “Anatomy of a Fall,” has tapped the producers of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Jon Read and Allison Rose Carter, to lead their growing production arm. Read and Carter are the co-founders of Savage Rose Films.

Selome Hailu “The Studio,” Apple TV+’s upcoming half-hour comedy starring and produced by Seth Rogen, has added seven new cast members. Catherine O’Hara, Kathryn Hahn, Ike Barinholtz and Chase Sui Wonders have been cast as series regulars, while Bryan Cranston, Keyla Monterroso Mejia and Dewayne Perkins will play recurring roles. Per the official logline, “The Studio” follows “a legacy Hollywood movie studio trying to survive in a world where it is increasingly difficult for art and commerce to live together.” The project, which is now in production, was ordered to series in November of 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh off the success of his action pic The Beekeeper, David Ayer is continuing to stay busy. The director has signed on to helm Paramount Pictures’ Heart of the Beast. Damien Chazelle and Olivia Hamilton are producing under their Wild Chickens Productions banner as part of their first-look deal with the studio. Ayer and Chris Long will also produce under their Cedar Park Entertainment banner.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Arte has boarded “Reykjavik Fusion,” the first series produced by ACT4, an Icelandic banner launched by award-winning industry veterans, including Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (“True Detective”), Hörður Rúnarsson (“Black Sands”), Jónas Margeir Ingólfsson (“The Minister”) and Birkir Blær Ingólfsson (“Thin Ice”). The high-concept show will be distributed internationally by Wild Sheep Content, led by Erik Barmack, a former Netflix head of international.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Banijay Nordic’s banner Yellow Bird is set to produce “A Life’s Worth,” a drama series inspired by real events within the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s. The show is being produced by Arte France and Viaplay Content Distribution which will also handle global sales. “A Life’s Worth” is set in the fall of 1993, amid the devastating turmoil unfurling in Bosnia.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Comscore, Inc. has been granted accreditation by industry watchdog Media Rating Council for its national and local TV-audience measurement services for households and average audiences, a critical win that threatens to erode Nielsen‘s dominance of the field.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor A panel moderated by the European Audiovisual Observatory at Series Mania Tuesday looked at four key trends in series production in Europe. Warning Signs?Gilles Fontaine, EAO’s head of department for market information, said there were warning signs of a downward trend in the number of seasons being produced, first in the U.S.

EXCLUSIVE: JoAnna Garcia Swisher is expanding her lifestyle platform The Happy Place with the launch of her production banner THP Entertainment, which she will co-run alongside longtime business partner and co-founder, Kate Gordon.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Hulu has greenlit an unscripted series set in a Los Angeles marijuana dispensary. So, emphasis on the “green.” And the “lit.” This is fun. The TV-MA series, titled “High Hopes,” hails from executive producer Jimmy Kimmel as well ITV America.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Soo Hugh has signed a multi-year overall deal with Apple TV+ and Media Res. Under the deal, Hugh and her Moonslinger Productions banner will create, write, and produce content for the streaming service and the TV studio and movie production company. “For the last six years, I’ve been fortunate to call Apple and Media Res my creative family,” Hugh said.

Le Monde, local media reported that the French-Malian musician met with President Emmanuel Macron last month to discuss singing a song by iconic French artist Edith Piaf. Nakamura has racked up over 1billion views on YouTube for her 2018 hit ‘Djadja’, whilst Le Monde has dubbed her “the world’s most popular French-speaking artist”.Whilst these reports have not been confirmed by either Macron or Nakamura, the rumours caused significant fury with the far-right.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent French director Yann Gozlan is set to reunite with Pierre Niney, the French star of his two most successful movies “Un homme idéal” and “Black Box,” for his next film, “Gourou.” “Gourou” is being co-produced by Wassim Beji at WY Productions, the Paris-based company behind “Black Box and “Un Homme Ideal,” and Niney’s banner Ninety Films. While the plot is currently under wraps, the project is being teased as a deep dive into the world of coaching and follows the rise of a personal development guru who turns out to be toxic. One of France’s most bankable and busiest French actors, Niney won a Cesar Award for his performance as French fashion legend Yves Saint Laurent in Jalil Lespert’s biopic in 2015, and went on to work with Anne Fontaine (“Frantz”) and Michel Gondry (“The Book of Solutions”), among others.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Lupin” star Omar Sy, “Fast X” director Louis Leterrier and “Gangs of London” producer Thomas Benski have launched Carrousel Studios, a European independent production company with offices in Paris, London, Los Angeles and Senegal. The banner will finance and produce film and TV projects, with an emphasis on elevated action, thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy and comedy. The company will look to tap into tax credits, European incentives and brands to finance content.

A new rom-com is in the works with some major talent!

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Netflix has greenlit the limited series “Black Rabbit” starring Jason Bateman and Jude Law. The series was originally announced as being in development at the streamer back in October 2022. With the greenlight announcement, it is also confirmed that Cleopatra Coleman (“Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire”), Amaka Okafor (“Bodies,” “The Responder”), Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù (“Gangs of London,” “Slow Horses”), and Dagmara Dominczyk (“Succession,” “The Lost Daughter”) will all star in the series alongside Bateman and Law.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent CAA has signed Deal Productions, a European film and TV banner co-founded by actor-turned-filmmaker Désirée Nosbusch (“Bad Banks”) and Alexandra Hoesdorff (“High Fantasy”). Based in Luxembourg, the company handles development, financing, packaging and production of independently-produced films and TV worldwide. Nosbusch, a well-known actor whose recent credits include “Bad Banks” and “Sissi,” is now making her directorial feature debut with “Poison,” a drama starring Tim Roth and Trine Dyrholm.

Selome Hailu Mark Duplass was feeling insecure. At one point in his career, he would get greenlight after greenlight for the TV projects he pitched on behalf of Duplass Brothers Productions, the beloved indie banner he founded with Jay Duplass in the late ’90s, when the duo was focused on feature films. But recently, he and company president Mel Eslyn noticed a problem.

Protesters have covered the entrance to the Scottish Parliament in red paint.

Alison Herman TV Critic In some ways, the 96th Academy Awards had the hardest part of the job done for them. 2023 saw an abundance of films that were both creatively and commercially successful — the Holy Grail of a ceremony that aims to celebrate an embattled art form to the largest possible audience. Before anyone stepped foot in the Dolby Theater for Sunday’s celebration, producers had already been handed the gift of phenomena like “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” plus surprising crossover hits (“Godzilla Minus One”) and stone-cold masterpieces (“The Zone of Interest,” in this critic’s opinion).

Manchester United fans angered by the decision to relocate their season tickets at Old Trafford have announced a protest campaign in an attempt to stop the plans.

Alex Ritman Astral Projection, the production company set up by Oscar winner Rachel Weisz and British executive producer Polly Stokes (“American Honey,” “Wild Rose”) has signed a new first-look and development deal with Fremantle. The three-year deal will see Fremantle become the primary home for all TV and film projects for Astral Projection, which co-produced “Dead Ringers,” Amazon’s six-part psychological thriller in which Weisz played both lead roles in a gender-swapped reimagining of the 1988 David Cronenberg film. Stokes, a former creative executive at Film4, and Weisz have a long-standing relationship and are building a slate of projects with Rebecca Servadio as Astral’s literary consultant.

Annika Pham U.S. content management, financing and sales banner Cinetic Media has secured world rights to the life affirming doc “Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other,” about legendary photographer Joel Meyerowitz and his wife, artist and author Maggie Barrett. Rising filmmaking duo Manon Ouimet and Jacob Perlmutter of London-based Manon et Jacob are making their documentary debut, with Ouimet serving as producer alongside multi-Oscar nominated Danish producer Signe Byrge Sørensen of Final Cut Four Real (“Flee,” “The Look of Silence,” “The Act of Killing”).

Alex Ritman Production banner FlipNarrative, set up by Waleed Zuaiter — the BAFTA-nominated star of “Baghdad Central” and “Gangs of London” and Oscar-nominated producer of “Omar” — has optioned the rights to Shannon Chakraborty’s latest novel “The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi,” with plans to develop it into a multi-season series and gaming platform. The book — the first in a trilogy being published by Harper Voyager — is a swashbuckling high seas adventure following a notorious Muslim pirate captain who has survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands and an actual demon before retiring to a life of piety.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Studiocanal, the European powerhouse behind “Paddington,” has created a genre label dedicated to the development, production and distribution of horror, thriller, sci fi and action films and TV series. The company has hired Jed Benedict, a well-known executive who previously worked for the U.K. distribution banner Elysian Film Group, to run the new label.

Two-time Grammy Award winning singer and songwriter Gloria Gaynor will be the subject of a new biopic under the Robin Roberts Presents banner for Lifetime.

Jacob Rodriguez and Katherine Hughes are joining season 2 of the Hulu Original Series Tell Me Lies in recurring roles.