Partnership Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Netflix has renewed Indian cop drama Khakee: The Bihar Chapter for a second season and struck a wider creative partnership deal with the show’s creator, Friday Storytellers.

Demi Lovato is no longer working with Scooter Braun.

Thania Garcia YouTube has published a set of AI music principles and launched a new AI initiative with co-signs from artists, songwriters, and producers from Universal Music Group. Dubbed the AI Music Incubator, artists such as Anitta, Björn Ulvaeus, Juanes, Max Richter, Rosanne Cash, Ryan Tedder, Yo Gotti, and the Estate of Frank Sinatra, have been tapped to give their input.

breakup of the summer might be Justin Bieber and his high-powered manager, Scooter Braun.The pair haven’t spoken in months, several sources told Puck News in a report published on Thursday.Bieber, 26, and Braun, 42, have been working together since the Canadian crooner’s career began back in 2007.Bieber was just 13 years old when Braun discovered his videos on YouTube and became his manager, turning him into a global sensation. The insiders told Puck that the “Sorry” singer has been looking around for new management as he attempts to “clean house.”However, a conflicting report from Entertainment Tonight says the two are still together.Multiple sources allegedly told that outlet that “Justin and Scooter are still working together.

Priyanka Chopra is distancing herself from Sona, the New York City restaurant she helpedto  launch.

Nemanja Vidic has been impressed with Raphael Varane and Lisandro Martinez's partnership for Manchester United.

announced in October last year that it was terminating its long-running and very profitable alliance with West after his increasingly controversial racist and anti-Semitic statements made the partnership untenable.The sudden axing of the deal around West’s Yeezy fashion brand cut off a lucrative revenue stream for Adidas, and left the company with an awful lot of unsold stock.In May this year it announced it would start selling some of the Yeezy products sitting in its warehouses via its website and app.Keen to counter any criticism of it profiting from it’s former alliance with the still pretty controversial West, the sportswear firm said that it would donate some of the proceeds from the sale of the products to charities, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute For Social Change.At the time Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden said: “After careful consideration, we have decided to begin releasing some of the remaining Adidas Yeezy products. Selling and donating was the preferred option among all the organisations and stakeholders we spoke to”.Confirming the those sales had gone well in an update to investors, Gulden confirmed the company will “continue to carefully sell off more of the existing Yeezy inventory”, insisting that that approach is “much better than destroying and writing off the inventory”.A second round of Yeezy product sales is already underway with retail partners involved this time as well as Adidas’s own digital channels.The continued demand for the Yeezy trainers will help the company mitigate the commercial impact of terminating its partnership with West.

EXCLUSIVE: Former Legendary Television President and Starz CEO Chris Albrecht, and Jane the Virgin executive producer Jorge Granier have formed Rubicon Global Media, a firm designed to aggregate leading intellectual property from Latin America and Spain, transforming it into content with worldwide appeal. The company will also produce story-driven content for Latin American audiences. 

Piers Morgan Added To RTS Cambridge Lineup

Sabbatical Entertainment Sets Distribution Partnership With V Channels Media

Donna Langley elevated to NBCUniversal Studio Group chairman and chief content officer, overseeing the company’s film and television studios. “We’re excited to evolve our partnership with Steven and cement our creative legacy together that has resulted in so many iconic Universal films over the last half-century,” Langley said in a statement.

Just when we thought maybe, just maybe Kim and Kourtney Kardashian had squashed their beef, we get this.

Amblin Partners and Universal Pictures have set a new film partnership that builds on the companies’ longstanding creative collaboration. The new multi-year deal revealed Tuesday will continue to deliver Universal with first-look status on all Amblin theatrical film projects, while evolving Amblin’s film production model to give the company more creative and financial flexibility.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Raedio, the “audio everywhere” division of Issa Rae’s Hoorae Media, has announced a multi-year deal with Def Jam Recordings. The partnership will give Raedio the opportunity to sign, market, and distribute signed artists through Def Jam’s network, according to the announcement. It includes publishing, music supervision, music library, podcasts, digital content and events divisions. Raedio’s “symbiotic pipeline to Hoorae Media’s ecosystem of film, television production and talent management divisions provides a unique all-in-one infrastructure paving the way for a new, disruptive approach to music label models,” the announcement states.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent In a broad-based deal, Netflix and Germany’s Constantin Film, one of Europe’s biggest production-distribution companies behind the “Resident Evil” film franchise and TV series “Shadowhunters,” have struck an exclusive long-term partnership.  The powerful alliance sees Netflix acquiring pay distribution rights pay to Constantin Film’s theatrical productions in the German-speaking region. These include national and international original and co-produced films, as well as films acquired for cinema or straight-to-video (STV) release. German and international theatrical productions.  Titles will be made available to Netflix subscribers on an SVOD basis 10-12 months after their theatrical release. In return, Netflix will contribute significantly to the financing of these productions, Constantin Film announced this week. The new agreement grants Netflix licensed access to Constantin Film’s existing film and series catalog, it added. 

Shout! Factory and Aardman have entered a distribution agreement for the award-winning titles “Shaun the Sheep,” “Wallace & Gromit,” “Morph” and “Timmy Time,” the companies announced Monday. Exclusive home video, EST EST and TVOD rights and limited theatrical rights in the U.S. and Canada to four of Aardman’s properties will be granted to Shout! Factory per the agreement.  “We’re big fans of Aardman and these wonderful films and series and are very much looking forward to creating a release plan that excites dedicated fans and creates new ones,” said Melissa Boag, Shout’s executive vice president of kids and family. “Aardman’s worldwide reputation as an innovative home for compelling stories that captivate audiences make them an ideal partner for Shout! Factory.”

The Stockholm Film Festival has set SkyShowtime as its new official streaming partner in an agreement that will also see the streamer host the festival’s rising star award for new talent. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Universal Music Group has struck an agreement to acquire majority control of the second largest music catalog in Thailand, one of the fastest growing music markets in Asia. It is buying 70% of the music catalog of RS Group, a stock market-listed music distributor and artist management group. In its regulatory filing, RS group said that UMG is paying $45 million (THB1.61 billion) for the stake and that earn-out payments could lift this by a further $44.9 million (THB174 million). The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of the year. The music catalog will then form the core of a new partnership between UMG and RS Group with UMG becoming RS Group’s exclusive music service partner for new releases and new music repertoire worldwide. UMG will also receive exclusive rights of first refusal and matching rights to acquire new releases and repertoire. UMG will become the second-largest player in the Thai music market.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Puerto Rican superstar singer Ozuna has signed with Scooter Braun’s SB Projects, in partnership with his longtime manager Edgar Andino, CEO of Andino Marketing Group, the companies announced on Thursday. Ozuna, one of Latin music’s most popular artists, joins a roster that includes Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, The Kid Laroi and others. Colombian singer J Balvin signed with the company in 2020 but left recently. “We’ve been following Ozuna’s career for years and we’re excited to be bringing him into the family to work with him and Edgar. Ozuna’s music is unmatched.  His ability to work across genres including reggaeton, Latin pop, and more, is phenomenal. With unique songs offering fresh perspective and beautiful sounds, We’re thrilled to amplify his artistry with this partnership,” offered Jennifer McDaniels, President of Management, SB Projects.

Roku is moving into the sports world.

Netflix has responded to a report published about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

“First-look deals are a lot of kicking tires,” Idris Elba said today, as he revealed his high-profile partnership with Apple TV+ has run down following the launch of psychological thriller Hijack.

Naman Ramachandran Netflix has revealed a multi-year series partnership with Indian filmmaker Hansal Mehta. Mehta’s hard hitting crime drama series “Scoop,” his maiden venture for Netflix, bowed earlier this month and was a major success for the service. Inspired by crime reporter Jigna Vora’s book “Behind Bars in Byculla: My Days in Prison” and starring Karishma Tanna as crime reporter Jagruti Pathak, the series is set up as the first season of a franchise.  Taking this successful collaboration forward, Mehra will create multiple series for Netflix over the next few years.

If the warm vibes between Keke Palmer and Amazon Studio’s Global Head of DEIA Latasha Gillespie continue, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

It’s been promoted and pushed for weeks on teasers for The Kardashians. And now, we finally get to see it go down!

The Lifetime channel has extended its partnership with child safety activist Elizabeth Smart with the green light to produce a new film entitled “Abducted By My Teacher: The Elizabeth Thomas Story.”This new film comes after Lifetime’s success with “The Girl Who Escaped: The Kara Robinson Story,” a thriller movie based on the true crime story of Kara Robinson, who was abducted by serial killer Richard Evonitz. “Abducted by My Teacher” will tell the story of Elizabeth Thomas, who was groomed and kidnapped at the age of 15 by her high school teacher. The movie is set to star Michael Fishman (“Roseanne”) and Summer Howell (“Harland Manor”), and it will premiere on Saturday, Aug.

EXCLUSIVE: Hulu is expanding its unscripted slate with the addition of three new series featuring Big Boi, Rachael Ray and Bill Kurtis, along with a second season of house flipping series 50/50 Flip. All hail from A+E Networks’ factual production groups Six West Media and Category 6 Media and will premiere in 2023-2024.

Religion of Sports and Showtime Sports are teaming up on “Goliath,” a new three-part docuseries examining the life, career and impact of basketball icon Wilt Chamberlain from his emergence on the national scene as a high schooler in the 1950s through his death in 1999.“We are honored to team up with this group of talented filmmakers to bring the under-examined story of Wilt Chamberlain’s complex life to the masses,” Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza said in a statement. “Everybody knows Wilt for his legendary accomplishments on the basketball court — scoring 100 points in a game, averaging 50 points and 25 rebounds in a season — but there’s so much more to him than his stats.

Jenna Ortega joined some of this year’s most influential comedic actresses. Alongside Elle Fanning, Natasha Lyonne, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Ayo Edebiri and Devery Jacobs, Ortega sat at The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Comedy Actress Emmy Roundtable.

Neom, the Saudi Arabian region that is aiming to become a major film and TV production hub, and prolific Middle East-focused studio Telfaz11, have revealed a partnership. The deal will see the creation of up to nine television and film productions over the next three years and includes two feature films and one series that are currently in development. Telfaz11 will also open offices this year in Neom’s media hub, complementing its existing offices in Riyadh and Dubai. Neom plans to leverage Telfaz11’s new offices to diversify its industry learning activities and multi-disciplinary talent development programs in order to create a talent pool.

Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning production hub Neom has locked a partnership with the film and digital content production and finance company Telfaz11.

Thania Garcia Composer Nicholas Britell, who has scored films for Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight,” “If Beale Street Could Talk”) and Adam McKay (“The Big Short,” “Vice,” “Don’t Look Up”), as well as HBO’s “Succession,” has inked a new label services deal with Secretly Distribution. The Emmy-winning composer, pianist and producer collaborated with Secretly to release “Succession: Season 4 (HBO Original Series Soundtrack)” on global streaming services — just hours after the highly-anticipated series finale aired — via the composer’s newly launched Lake George Music Group imprint. “It has long been a dream of mine to release music through my own label, and I’m tremendously excited to have the final season of ‘Succession’ as our label’s first release,” said Britell in a statement. “Lake George Music Group is proud to partner with the team at Secretly.”

Only nine directors have ever won the Palme d’Or twice. Francis Ford Coppola did it in the ’70s with The Conversation and Apocalypse Now. Ruben Östlund joined the club last year after following The Square with Triangle of Sadness. But this year, there is a very real possibility that, at 86, Ken Loach may go above and beyond that by winning a third Palme for his new film, The Old Oak. Loach first won in 2006 with the historical Irish drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley, then doubled up in 2016 with I, Daniel Blake, a caustic study of Britain’s healthcare crisis. After that came Sorry, We Missed You, a no-less withering look at the punitive gig economy. Like the latter two films, The Old Oak is set in the North East of England and completes an unofficial trilogy, this time with a slightly more optimistic bent. Like all of Loach’s output since 1996, it was written by Paul Laverty, and the pair sat down with Damon Wise to discuss the film’s themes of humanity and social responsibility.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Live sports streaming service DAZN and social analytics firm Videocites have forged a partnership to fight rampant sports content piracy in the social media sphere. Dubbed “The Netflix of Sports,” DAZN is a leading premium live sports platform with a footprint comprising Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Japan, Canada, U.S. and the U.K. The company boasts that Videocities’ cutting-edge technology will now enable DAZN to automatically remove 98% of the thousands of pirated streams detected on social media within minutes with unprecedented efficiency, it said in a statement. NBA Equity is an investor in Videocites which has several offices around the world, including in Tel Aviv and one recently opened in New York.  

Naman Ramachandran Film and TV finance company FilmHedge has joined forces with Riveting Entertainment Group in a $25 million first-look financing production partnership to significantly expand Riveting Films. The companies will collaborate on a broad slate of feature length films with the first one planned to begin production within the year. The deal was revealed at the ongoing Cannes Film Market, where FilmHedge is a sponsor of the Producers Network and the International Film Finance Forum. In addition to the financing deal, film and TV production company Southbox Entertainment (“Collateral Data,” “Witch Hunt”) has the option to provide supplementary equity financing to the collaboration, as well as future productions from Riveting Films.

Naman Ramachandran Entertainment One (eOne) has solidified its collaboration with U.K. independent production company Hardcash Productions through an exclusive first-look agreement. Under the deal, brokered by Kate Cundall, eOne’s VP of acquisitions, and Robin Barty-King, Hardcash’s business affairs consultant, the partnership aims to develop and produce investigative factual content for the global market. eOne will handle international rights for all projects resulting from this collaboration. Previously, eOne and Hardcash worked together on the distribution of award-winning documentaries such as “Inside China,” “Fearless: The Women Fighting Putin” and “Outbreak: The Virus that Shook the World,” which have been sold to over 160 territories worldwide.