‘The Boys’ Stars Jack Quaid and Claudia Doumit on Hughie and Victoria Neuman’s Premiere Twist

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterPaul Reiser was introduced as The Legend, the nickname of Vought’s former head of hero management, on last week’s episode of “The Boys” Season 3. But Reiser himself was introduced to the character and the show, in all its bloody, raunchy superhero glory, not long before the world saw him in the part, as the “Stranger Things” star was oblivious to the Emmy-nominated Amazon Prime Video series until showrunner Eric Kripke and co. reached out to him for the guest spot.“I knew precious little about the show.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterFormer HBO chief marketing officer Pamela Levine has been tapped as the new head of marketing for Disney Branded Television and National Geographic Content.Levine, who is replacing the recently exited Jayanta Jenkins, will lead an integrated internal agency across brand and creative marketing, strategy, publicity, media planning, digital/social, events, talent relations and awards, supporting content created for Disney+, as well as the Disney and National Geographic-branded linear networks, per Disney General Entertainment.In her new role, which she will begin June 27, Levine will jointly report to Disney Branded Television President Ayo Davis and National Geographic Content President Courteney Monroe. Levine’s direct reports include Chris Albert, executive vice president, Marketing and Publicity; Chris Spencer, executive vice president, Creative Marketing; Kristin Corrigan, senior vice president, Marketing Strategy; Jessica Bodaken, vice president, Marketing Production; Abby Ho, vice president, Social Media & Engagement Strategy; and Katie Morrow, vice president, Media Planning.

Going their separate ways. Johnny Knoxville has filed for divorce from his second wife, Naomi Nelson, after nearly 12 years of marriage, Us Weekly can confirm.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAmazon Prime Video’s “The Boys” is bringing another iconic character from the comics to the screen, this time with the help of Paul Reiser.The legendary actor will take on the all-important in-universe role of “The Legend,” which in the original “Boys” comics from Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson was a parody version of the late famed Marvel creator Stan Lee.According to Amazon, “Reiser will be introduced as The Legend in this week’s episode titled ‘The Last Time To Look On This World Of Lies,'” which is the fifth episode of “The Boys” Season 3.Prime Video’s “The Boys,” which is executive produced by “Supernatural” creator Eric Kripke along with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, didn’t provide a description for its version of “The Legend” beyond referring to him as “an iconic fan-favorite character fromt he original comic book series,” but the streamer did release a first look photo, which can be viewed above. New episodes of the eight-episode third season of “The Boys” premiere Fridays, with four remaining until the July 8 finale.“The Boys” has already been renewed for a fourth season by Amazon Studios, a decision that was announced soon after the impressive viewership for the Season 3 premiere weekend came in last week.“We’re just really excited.

Jessica Chastain adjusts the tie on her chic dress at the premiere of The Forgiven during the 2022 Tribeca Festival held at BMCC Tribeca PAC on Tuesday night (June 14) in New York City.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSince launching its mobile games offering to members seven months ago, Netflix has released a total of 23 titles. While the streamer has just debuted its “Queen’s Gambit” game and revealed plans to make titles based on popular Netflix IP — including “Shadow and Bone,” “Too Hot to Handle” and “Money Heist” — plus a unique “Exploding Kittens” franchise plan that will see both a TV series and new version of the hit mobile game come to the platform, the streamer still hasn’t given much in the way of details about its gaming future.But part of its strategy, for the moment, is not announcing its strategy.“We started in November of last year, so only a handful of months and we’re still intentionally keeping things a little bit quiet because we’re still learning and experimenting and trying to figure out what things are going to actually resonate with our members, what games people want to play,” Leanne Loombe, Netflix’s head of external games, said during a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival on Monday.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Glorious Five Year Plan,” the June 10 episodes of “The Boys.”The week’s episode of “The Boys” Season 3 was all about super powers — yes, more so than any standard episode of the Amazon superhero series. That’s because it delved into people getting them (Jack Quaid’s Hughie), people losing them (Karen Fukuhara’s Kimiko), people confessing they have acquired them (Karl Urban’s Butcher) and people showing off the bonkers new ones bestowed upon them by the Russians who experimented on them (Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy).Let’s start with Hughie, who upon learning that Butcher has been shooting up Temp V decided he needs to protect Annie (Erin Moriarty), despite the fact Starlight is more than capable of taking care of herself, and takes some of Butcher’s V and uses it to give himself some 24-hour super powers.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterOne week after exploding genitalia in its Season 3 premiere and increasing viewership by 17% from Season 2’s debut, “The Boys” has been renewed for a fourth season at Amazon.While “The Boys” star Karl Urban previously spilled the fourth-season beans when he said at Variety‘s SXSW Studio on March 12 that he was “shooting ‘The Boys’ through the end of the year,” well after production had already wrapped on Season 3, Friday’s renewal marks the official Season 4 pickup from Amazon.Of course, giving “The Boys” a fourth season was always a no-brainer for Amazon, as the Eric Kripke-created show is at the center of the streamer’s first real multi-series franchise, which now includes animated anthology spinoff “The Boys Presents: Diabolical”  and the currently in-production untitled spinoff, which is set at America’s only college exclusively for young-adult superheroes.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAmazon’s superhero series “The Boys” got a little more super(natural) in its Season 3 debut on Friday with the introduction of Jensen Ackles to the cast in the role of Soldier Boy. His arrival on the series marked a reunion for Ackles and “The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke, as Kripke is also the creator of The CW’s “Supernatural,” which starred Ackles and Jared Padalecki as brothers Dean and Sam Winchester throughout its 15-season run.So now that Ackles has made his way from one Kripke show to another, is there any chance we’ll see his on-screen brother drop by for a cameo either in the currently airing third season or the yet-to-be-picked-up-but-definitely-a-safe-bet Season 4?“I would love a Jared cameo! He’s always welcome on the show,” Kripke told Variety.

Harrison Wagner, the son of beloved “General Hospital” actors Jack and Kristina Wagner, has passed away at the age of 27.

Jack and Kristina Wagner are mourning a tragic loss. The stars' son, Harrison, died on Monday, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner said in a case report.

EXCLUSIVE: Shout! Studios has acquired North American rights to screen adaptation The Magic Flute, which is executive-produced by Roland Emmerich.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterZendaya made history in 2020 when, at age 24, the “Euphoria” star became the youngest actor to win the Emmy for lead actress in a drama for her role on the first sea- son of the HBO show. The victory was a highly celebrated upset that proved acclaim for a show centered on teens is possible when on the rare occasion it breaks through with older audiences.While “Euphoria” is still in the game, Showtime’s “Yellowjackets” has also buzzed its way into the awards conversation, and roughly 50% of that is thanks to the show’s younger stars.“‘Yellowjackets’ is so unique in showing just how complicated and messy humans are, never mind teenagers,” says Samantha Hanratty, who plays teen Misty vs.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe first season of Apple’s “Severance” concludes with a jam-packed finale that sees the Innie ver- sions of MDR employees Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower) and Irving (John Turturro) awaken in the real world for the first time during an escape attempt, which leads Helly to find out she’s actually the Lumon CEO’s daugh- ter, Mark to realize his wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman), is alive and Irving to discover Burt’s (Christopher Walken) Outtie has a part- ner, all in just a few scenes. Constructing the episode in which Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and Cobel (Patricia Arquette) realize what’s going on and then try to stop it, all while Dylan (Zach Cherry) is desperately trying to simultaneously hold the control room switches that will keep his friends awake, required more effort than the eight episodes that came before it.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Payback,” “The Only Man in the Sky” and “Barbary Coast,” the three episodes that are part of the June 3 launch of “The Boys” Season 3.Within the first three episodes of Season 2, “The Boys” blew up a whale by having Butcher (Karl Urban) crash into it with a speedboat. In the Season 3 premiere, the Amazon Prime Video show exploded a smaller, but much more graphic, object in an even more bizarre way.As “The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke previously promised Variety, within the first 15 minutes of the Season 3 premiere, a moment occurs that is “a thousand times crazier” than the whale scene: A superhero named Termite shrinks down and climbs into the urethra of his significant other in order to pleasure him from inside his penis.

Fans of Prime Video’s hit series “The Boys” know what to expect by now – crazy amounts of R-rated superhero action & gore covering an apt and scarily realistic look at modern America’s current political and social climate. Well, fear not, fans! Season three is here to crank the volume up on all of the above to wonderful effect.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe midseason finale of the sixth and final season of “Better Call Saul” grew 87% with three days of delayed viewership, according to Nielsen’s Live + 3 data.The May 23 episode, which is the conclusion of Part 1 of the “Breaking Bad” prequel’s final chapter, drew 2.2 million viewers including its initial linear airing on AMC, plus three days of mostly DVR viewing.According to AMC, viewership via streamer AMC+ was up 61% over the Season 6 premiere, and “Better Call Saul” currently stands as the top acquisition driver in the history of the SVOD.“The response to this final season of Better Call Saul, from viewers, critics, long-time fans and new arrivals to the series – on all platforms – has been everything we had hoped for,” said Dan McDermott, president of entertainment and AMC Studios for AMC Networks. “The series looks like nothing else on television, which is a tribute to the creative genius and excellence of Vince, Peter, Bob, Rhea, Giancarlo, Patrick, Jonathan, Michael, Tony, our partners at Sony and everyone else associated with this extraordinary effort.