‘The Lego Movie’ Producer Details His Fight With Warner Bros. to Keep Live-Action Scenes With Will Ferrell

Joe Otterson TV ReporterApple’s upcoming live-action series about Godzilla and the Titans has added its first five cast members, Variety has learned.Anna Sawai, Ren Watabe, Kiersey Clemons, Joe Tippett and Elisa Lasowski have all joined the untitled series, which hails from Legendary Television.In the show, following the thunderous battle between Godzilla and the Titans that leveled San Francisco and the shocking new reality that monsters are real, one family journeys to uncover its buried secrets and a legacy linking them to the secret organization known as Monarch.Sawai (“Pachinko,” “F9”) will star as Cate, a former schoolteacher and a G-Day survivor. She travels to Japan to settle family affairs but instead uncovers a family secret.

Apple TV+’s live-action Godzilla and Titans series has cast Anna Sawai (Pachinko), Ren Watabe (461 Days of Bento), Kiersey Clemons (Hearts Beat Loud), Joe Tippett (Mare of Easttown) and Elisa Lasowski (Versailles). The untitled project is a Legendary Television production based on Legendary’s Monsterverse franchise.

Robin Thede is staying in the Warner Bros. Discovery family.

The short story is narrated by one-half of a pair of bank-robbing twin sisters, who considers herself the face of the operation. But it is her sister Maggie who gets the heists done with her superpowers, which include telekinesis, super strength and invincibility.

EXCLUSIVE: Jeffrey Schlesinger, who was previously President, Warner Bros Worldwide Television Distribution, has invested in and joined the advisory board of online sales platform Vuulr.

Ryan Gosling is set to star as Ken in the "Barbie" live-action film due next summer, and the studio has dropped the first look at the actor in character.  A first look at Gosling’s character surfaced on Wednesday and the 41-year-old actor debuts Ken’s iconic platinum blonde hair in an all-denim outfit. "The Notebook" star shows off his abs as he posed in white underwear that says "KEN" along the waistband.

Warner Bros. Television Group adds to its growing roster of talent by signing a new first-look deal with writer/producer Bill Prady and Chris Sanagustin’s Pine Tree Entertainment. Under the terms of the deal, Pine Tree Entertainment will develop new scripted programming — including dramas, multi- and single-camera comedies, genre series, and more — for all platforms, including HBO Max, external streaming services, cable, and broadcast networks.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterBill Prady and Chris Sanagustin’s Pine Tree Entertainment has set a multi-year first-look deal with Warner Bros. Television.Prady is best known for co-creating the hit WBTV series “The Big Bang Theory” with Chuck Lorre, while Sanagustin got her start as a production assistant on a WBTV series.

Bill Prady, co-creator of The Big Bang Theory, is heading back to Warner Bros. Television.

EXCLUSIVE: Former Warner Bros. Development Executive Paul Perez has inked a production deal at the Burbank, CA lot.

Warner Bros Discovery is wasting no time in unveiling new leadership teams across the globe with the most recent structure outlined for Japan, Australia and New Zealand under James Gibbons, President and Managing Director of the region. This follows teams in EMEA, India, Southeast Asia and Korea being confirmed in the past 36 hours.

Blackwood’s departure was an expected step in the ongoing leadership shift at the studio under Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who is installing his own leaders and organizational structure.

Following the departure of Toby Emmerich as Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group Boss, his fellow associate, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group COO Carolyn Blackwood is leaving. This is all ahead of Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy coming in to run the motion picture group under Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterVeteran Warner Bros. executive and film division chief operating officer Carolyn Blackwood is parting ways with the studio, sources told Variety.Her resignation follows a week after word that her boss Toby Emmerich, chairman of the motion picture group, will transition to lot producer later this year. The regime changes come as Warner Bros.

Toby Emmerich had a meal with Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy at the Polo Lounge, a hub of deal-making and power lunches, in a move that was clearly designed to send a signal of solidarity to Hollywood. The bread-breaking, which went down as show business players like producer Donald De Line and CAA agent Joel Lubin dined nearby, came just a day after Emmerich announced that he will step down as head of Warner Bros.’ film studio. De Luca, who worked with Emmerich back in the day at New Line, and Abdy will soon join the company, though in a reduced role; they will oversee Warner Bros.

Toby Emmerich’s exit as chairman of the Warner Bros. Pictures group, and the ascension of former MGM film leaders Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, are just the latest instances of upheaval in what is already shaping up to be a tempestuous new era at the studio behind Harry Potter and Batman.Emmerich’s ouster has been gossiped about for years, dating back well before the company was sold to Discovery. Still, his decision to leave for a production deal stunned executives on the studio’s Burbank lot, many of whom had worked with Emmerich for decades.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterWarner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has finally committed to paper a new strategy for the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group.In a Wednesday memo to his staff obtained by Variety, Zaslav told studio employees that he will create “three distinct film segments around Warner Bros.

Below is Toby Emmerich’s departure note to staff at Warners:

announced they would exit their roles as Motion Picture Group chairman and president this summer after Amazon completed its $8.5 billion acquisition of the storied studio. The move is a homecoming for DeLuca, who joined Warner’s New Line Cinema as an intern at age 19 and rose to president of production.