‘The Boys’ Season 4 First Look Teases a Rough Election Day for Butcher and Victory for Homelander

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The film adaptation of Alice Clayton’s rom-com novel “Wallbanger,” set up at Tosca Musk’s romance-focused streamer Passionflix, has rounded out its cast with “Love Island” star Roselyn Sánchez, “And Just Like That” actor Cathy Ang and four more supporting cast members. Based on Clayton’s 2012 New York Times best-selling book, “Wallbanger” is an irresistible tale of exasperation at first sight, according to the film’s official synopsis.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer For the holidays, you can’t beat home sweet home — and that’s exactly where Chip and Joanna Gaines‘ Magnolia Network is taking you with its new seasonal special, “Holiday Party With Andrew and Zoë.” Premiering Dec. 3 at 2 p.m. Magnolia Network, and streaming same-day on Max and Discovery+, this hour-long even is hosted by Magnolia Network staples “Family Dinner” star Andrew Zimmern and Zoë François of “Zoë Bakes” as they throw a mashup Christmas/Hanukkah party for mutual friends in their hometown, Minneapolis.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Even Meghan Markle can’t fathom what has made her old USA Network drama “Suits” pop off on streaming services this year, but she’s here for it. While walking the red carpet at Variety’s Power of Women event Thursday, Markle, The Duchess of Sussex, was informed by Variety’s senior entertainment writer Angelique Jackson that the legal drama has now crossed 45 billion minutes streamed on Netflix and Peacock combined, as of Nielsen’s latest weekly streaming report, released earlier Thursday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of “Gen V, titled “Guardians of Godolkin,” now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. As a member of the “Gen V” cast, Chance Perdomo has gone through many on-set experiences specific to those in “The Boys” franchise: being repeatedly covered in fake blood and bodily fluids, shooting scenes with giant genitalia, and saying some truly filthy lines coming out of a superhero’s mouth. But Perdomo has another surprising connection to “The Boys.” “I came into this as a fan of ‘The Boys,’ I actually had originally auditioned for Hughie, years ago.” I read it and I thought it was such a great script.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 1 finale of “Gen V, titled “Guardians of Godolkin,” now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. You’ve had a week since the “Gen V” Season 1 finale to theorize about where Marie (Jaz Sinclair), Andre (Chance Perdomo), Jordan (Derek Luh/London Thor) and Emma (Lizze Broadway) are at the end of “The Boys” spinoff’s cliffhanger episode. So, do you have a plausible explanation for the medical facility with no doors that the four supes are stuck in? It’s OK, we don’t either, and just like “Gen V” showrunner Michele Fazekas, star Luh is no help to us by keeping his lips sealed — even though he’s finally allowed to talk about the Amazon series after the SAG-AFTRA strike ended — and refusing to be the spoiler-ific Tom Holland of the Vought Cinematic Universe.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer NBCUniversal has laid off less than 50 employees across three divisions: Peacock marketing, NBCUniversal Entertainment and ad sales. The majority of these cuts, approximately 30 to 40, were made at Peacock as part of a restructuring under CMO Shannon Willett, a source within the company told Variety.

Following their surprise cameos in the season finale of The Boys‘ college-set spinoff Gen V, Prime Video has released first-look teaser art of Billy Butcher, portrayed by Karl Urban and Homelander, played by Antony Starr for the upcoming fourth season of The Boys. You can see it below.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav opened the company’s quarterly earnings presentation with remarks on the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, remaining “hopeful” that the work stoppage will end “soon” following the Hollywood studios’ move to adjust AI language in its “last, best and final offer” to the actors union. “We are hopeful we will reach a resolution to the SAG-AFTRA strike soon,” Zaslav said during WBD’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Nexstar reported its third-quarter 2023 earnings Wednesday, revealing TV ad revenue was down overall 23% for the July-September quarter. Meanwhile, the CW network made quarter-over-quarter progress on its path to profitability by narrowing its losses to $60 million. For the CW, which was formally acquired by Nexstar in October 2022 from Paramount Global and Warner Bros.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The Roots founders Questlove and Black Thought‘s have sold a significant stake in their production company Two One Five Entertainment to Peter Chernin’s content studio The North Road Company. Under the pact, North Road will finance future film, TV and other creative projects from Two One Five, which previously produced the Oscar-winning documentary “Summer of Soul,” “The League” and “Descendent.” The partnership will also see North Road helping Two One Five expand its scripted slate after years of mainly focusing on unscripted content.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Jon Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Rita Wilson and more stars performed as a tribute to U.S. veterans and their families at the New York Comedy Festival and Bob Woodruff Foundation’s Stand Up for Heroes event Monday. Held at David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the night included performances from musicians and comics, including Stewart, Springsteen, Wilson, Josh Groban, John Mellencamp, Tracy Morgan, The War and Treaty, Jimmy Carr, Ronny Chieng and Shane Gillis.

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains details of the Gen V Season 1 finale episode “The Guardians of Godolkin,” which debuted Friday on Prime Video.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Episode 8 of “Gen V,” the Season 1 finale (“Guardians of Godolkin”), now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. Marie (Jaz Sinclair) survived her first semester at supe college Godolkin University — barely — but it doesn’t look like she’s going into a second one any time soon. As the Season 1 finale of “The Boys” spinoff “Gen V” concludes, Marie and her friends stuck inside some kind of hospital room with no doors and no clue how they got there. For now, “Gen V” co-showrunner Michele Fazekas is mum on what comes next.

Gen V has proved to be one of the more successful spin-offs in recent years.Led by showrunners Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, The Boys spin-off follows the lives of super-powered students at the Vought International-owned Godolkin University.Gen V stars a fresh cast of relative newcomers, including Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo, Lizze Broadway, Maddie Phillips and Asa Germann.Amazon confirmed the show would return for another season on October 19. Check out the announcement video featuring the cast below.Attention all God U students, Gen V is officially coming back for Season ✌️ pic.twitter.com/cyUuAPq97k— GEN V (@genv) October 19, 2023“We couldn’t be happier to make a second season of Gen V,” Fazekas and executive producer Eric Kripke said in a joint statement.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Chip and Joanna Gaines‘ Magnolia Network is producing four unscripted series with a family-friendly focus for Max, including one called “Human vs Hamster” that, aptly, pits humans against hamsters in challenges. The unscripted projects, which are set to debut in 2024, are described as “ambitious large-scale competitions” and “out-of-the-box social experiments” that are intended to create a co-viewing experience on Max for parents and children.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “House of the Dragon” Season 2 will premiere next summer on HBO, network chief Casey Bloys announced during a press event Thursday. At the media presentation, the first trailer for the second season screened exclusively for members of the media, who are not allowed to report details about the contents of the footage. Bloys previously told Variety that HBO was targeting a Summer 2024 premiere for the second season.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer HBO and Max CEO and chairman Casey Bloys apologized to TV critics Thursday for using fake Twitter accounts to respond to negative reviews on HBO series, following a Wednesday report that revealed Bloys’ past behavior. “For those of you who know me, you know that I am a programming executive very, very passionate about the shows that we decide to do. And the people who do them and the people who work on them,” Bloys said Thursday morning at the start of a presentation at HBO’s New York headquarters, an event to promote HBO and Max’s upcoming slate of programming, which has been planned since Oct.

The Boys is one of the hottest shows on Amazon Prime Video!

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Disney Dreamlight Valley held its first-ever showcase presentation Wednesday ahead of the Gameloft game’s move out of its year-long “early access” phase into a global launch, unveiling plans for the life-simulation through late 2024 in two roadmaps: one for paid expansion content and one for free upgrades included with the cost of the base game. The streamed event came on the heels of last week’s reveal that Disney had scrapped plans to make the game free-to-play once it left its beta testing and instead set pricing tiers and an additional cost for the game’s first expansion, “A Rift in Time.” A number of updates about the future of Disney Dreamlight Valley were given, including the game’s upcoming launch on Apple’s subscription gaming platform Apple Arcade.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Bobby’s Triple Threat” has been renewed for a third season at Food Network. Hosted by Bobby Flay and featuring his three culinary “titans” — Tiffany Derry, Michael Voltaggio and Brooke Williamson — the show sees the trio go up against a new guest chef and mystery judge each episode, with each titan being responsible for one of three courses in the successive cooking competition with a $25,000 weekly prize. “Bobby’s Triple Threat” Season 2 debuted Aug.