MGM Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Amazon MGM Studios is partnering with The Wonder Project to launch House of David, a straight to order series that will stream exclusively on Prime Video.

EXCLUSIVE: Rosa Salazar (Captain America: Brave New World) has booked the female lead in Play Dirty, Shane Black’s crime thriller for Amazon MGM Studios, also starring Mark Wahlberg and LaKeith Stanfield. Details as to her role are under wraps.

BreAnna Bell Amazon and Tastemade have signed a multi-year first look deal to produce unscripted lifestyle content. Their first venture together as part of the deal will deliver 15 new shows to Prime Video and Amazon Freevee audiences over the next few years.

Prime Video is to change its content strategy in Southeast Asia from a model based on original productions to one focused instead on licensing. As a result it has cut some jobs in the region. The move follows last week’s announcement of a restructuring and several hundred job cuts in North America at Prime Video and the Amazon-owned MGM. “Today we have made the decision to discontinue some programs and initiatives, and rebalance our international organization to focus on the countries and regions driving the most growth for our service.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook and podcast division, laid off about 5% of its employees, representing just over 100 staffers. The cutbacks come as other Amazon groups — including Prime Video, Amazon MGM Studios and Twitch — this week are pink-slipping several hundred workers. Audible CEO Bob Carrigan informed employees of the cuts in an audio memo Thursday.

EXCLUSIVE: We understand that Amazon Studios MGM Senior Production & Development Executive Sandino Moya-Smith was unfortunately part of the cuts made by the streaming/theatrical studio this morning.

EXCLUSIVE: Earlier this morning, Amazon revealed that it was letting go several hundred employees across Prime Video and Amazon Studios as part of a review of its business.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Amazon is laying off “several hundred” employees at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. “This is a difficult decision to make and one that my leadership team and I do not take lightly,” the company’s entertainment chief Mike Hopkins wrote in an email to staff Wednesday.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Awards Circuit Column: It’s decision time. After months of campaigning, festivalgoing, splashy premieres, magazine profiles and morning-show appearances, Academy voters will finally get their ballots this week (Thursday, Jan. 11).

BreAnna Bell Amazon MGM Studios has signed an exclusive first-look TV and film deal with “Lizzo’s Watch Out For the Big Grrrls” Director Nneka Onuorah, the studio announced on Tuesday. “Nneka has a track record of crafting stories that excite, intrigue, and inspire,” said Vernon Sanders, Amazon MGM Studios’ head of television. “This is a process we’ve been fortunate to experience firsthand, and we cannot wait to reignite our professional relationship under this formal deal.” Onuorah won the Primetime Emmy award for outstanding directing for a reality program for Prime Video’s “Lizzo’s Watch Out For The Big Grrrls” in September 2022.

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios has signed an exclusive first-look series and film deal with Emmy-winning director Nneka Onuorah.

Prime Video has given a series order to Criminal, a drama based on the multi-Eisner Award-winning graphic novel series created by Ed Brubaker, who writes the comic, and Sean Phillips, who illustrates it. Brubaker, who penned the pilot script, will co-showrun the TV series with crime fiction author Jordan Harper (Hightown).

There was a big party last night ahead of the Golden Globes!

Valerie Wu Intern Ernst Goldschmidt, member of the founding team of Orion Pictures and an international film executive, died Dec. 2 from heart failure in Badenweller, Germany. He was 92.

The indie box office busted out this year, hitting is stride post-Covid with an eclectic string of releases that made a splash artistically and financially.

Christmas Week rang in an estimated $281.4 million at the domestic box office, up 14% from the December 23-29 period a year ago ($246.4M), indicating that moviegoing remains healthy post-pandemic for a family-heavy yet diversified lineup of movies — this despite the lack of one big five-quad tentpole on marquees.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Timothée Chalamet retained his holiday season crown as “Wonka” topped the box office on Thursday. The family film, which looks at chocolatier Willy Wonka and his quest to open the world’s most fantastical candy company, earned $8 million, pushing its domestic gross to $110.6 million. “Wonka” carries an $125 million budget and has been a success overseas, where it has earned more than $180 million.

The first look at Jake Gyllenhaal‘s upcoming movie Road House has been revealed and his body is absolutely ripped in this new clip.

Marc Malkin Senior Editor, Culture and Events Jennifer Lopez admits not everyone in her camp initially supported the idea to document her romance with husband Ben Affleck in her upcoming “This Is Me…Now” album and companion film. “As artists, we have to follow our heart and this is me following my heart and doing something that maybe everybody didn’t think was the best idea, but I had to do it,” Lopez tells me. Lopez is set to drop “This Is Me…Now,” a new album that marks the 20th anniversary of “This Is Me…Then,” on Feb.

Michael O'Leary President & CEO, NATO As the holidays arrive and another year draws to a close, I have been reflecting on my first eight months of representing the exhibition industry. 2023 has been quite a year for theater owners and employees, and fans who love motion pictures on the big screen. From the highs of the global cultural phenomenon that was “Barbenheimer,” to the lows of a protracted labor impasse, this year has seen a little bit of everything.

Variety Staff Follow Us on Twitter Darryl F. Zanuck was a legendary figure in Hollywood known for leading a major studio, producing top films and assaulting aspiring actresses in the 1930s. That same decade, the term “casting couch” surfaced to describe the abuse of power by Zanuck and other high-powered men who were the gatekeepers of access to the big screen.

Tatiana Siegel 2024 can’t come fast enough. When the clock strikes midnight on Jan. 1, Hollywood will close the book on arguably the most tumultuous 12 months in a generation, with the town roiled by devastating strikes, the implosion of the superhero movie and deep divisions on everything from AI to Israel.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director George Clooney turned up as Bruce Wayne in the final moments of “The Flash,” but in no way does that mean he’s interested in playing Batman again. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight while promoting his latest directorial effort “The Boys in the Boat,” Clooney said the chances of him playing Batman again are less than slim to none. “I do not think there’s enough drugs in the world for me to go back,” Clooney said bluntly.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large While Netflix awaits Season 2 of its breakout hit “Wednesday,” the latest adaptation of the “Addams Family” franchise, it is already eyeing a way to expand that universe. Variety has confirmed that Netflix and producer MGM Television are indeed aiming to spin off “Wednesday” to focus on Uncle Fester.

Netflix is looking to spotlight other members of The Addams Family in a Wednesday spin-off.As reported by Bloomberg, the company is in early stages on a series about Uncle Fester, the paternal uncle of Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) played by Fred Armisen.It’s said Amazon MGM Studios, which owns the rights to The Addams Family and produced the Wednesday series, is also on board. The show, however, is in early development, with no script and contracts yet to be negotiated.As shown in Netflix’s new report of viewing figures, Wednesday was the fourth most-watched show on the platform in the first six months of 2023, racking up over 507million hours viewed globally.The show was renewed for a second season back in January.

Netflix is seemingly looking to expand their The Addams Family universe with a second series!

Searchlight Pictures’ Poor Things had a monster of an expansion, sewing up $1.3 million at just 82 theaters for a no. 10 spot at the weekend box office. American Fiction and The Zone of Interest, from, respectively, Amazon MGM Studios and A24, opened nicely as specialty films with original stories of all kinds are seeing traction with ticket buyers.

Marc Malkin Senior Editor, Culture and Events “The View” co-host Sunny Hoston is taking a little more time to enjoy the TV milleu. The multi-hyphenate is in the early stages of developing her first novel, “Summer on the Bluff,” as a television series for Amazon MGM Studios. The series will be produced Hostin’s Sunny Hostin Productions, Amazon MGM Studios and Octavia Spencer’s Orit Entertainment.

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios has tapped Taylor Chukwu (The Mysterious Benedict Society) to script The Truth About Mrs. Claus, a new film based on the same-name book by Meena Harris that is currently in development.

EXCLUSIVE: In a meet-up of Saturday Night Live alums, Pete Davidson has joined Eddie Murphy in The Pickup at Amazon MGM Studios. Tim Story is directing the comedy and producing through his The Story Company, alongside Davis Entertainment’s John Davis and John Fox, and Murphy and Charisse Hewitt-Webster via Eddie Murphy Productions.

Amazon MGM released a report today detailing the progress it has made in supporting increased diversity in front of and behind the camera for its TV series and films. It shows significant growth in representation of women and people of color in creative roles and onscreen gains for women, people of color and LGBTQIA+ talent.

Caroline Brew editor The American Cinematheque announced the honorees for the third annual Tribute to the Crafts, which include “Oppenheimer” for cinematography and editing, “Poor Things” for costume design and “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie” for song. The event will take place on Jan. 19, 2024, at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

Deadline on Tuesday launched the streaming site for Contenders Film: Documentary, its annual showcase of the year’s best nonfiction films that are in the running for the Documentary Feature Oscar.

Kitao Sakurai (Twisted Metal) is set to direct the pilot and an additional episode of Prime Video‘s Butterfly, a TV adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Arash Amel.

Netflix has announced its next live sporting event!

EXCLUSIVE: Prime Video has given a series order to Obsession, a drama based on Catherine Ryan Howard’s international bestselling novel 56 Days. It hails from James Wan’s Atomic Monster as well as Amazon MGM Studios, which earlier today landed its most ever Golden Globe nominations, 16, ten of them for television.