Tubi Announces Casting for Coming-of-Age Comedy ‘Crushed’ (TV News Roundup)

Wilson Chapman editor“Pistol,” a new limited series about the career of “Sex Pistols” guitarist Steve Jones, will premiere on Hulu this May 31, FX has announced.Based on Jones’ 2017 memoir “Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol,” “Pistol” follows the brief but influential career of The Sex Pistols, a 1970s British punk band that only produced one album but are regarded as one of the most important acts in the history of rock-n-roll. The central viewpoint character for the series is Jones, who is portrayed by Toby Wallace. Anson Boon also stars as John Lydon, while Christian Lees as Glen Matlock, Louis Partridge as Sid Vicious and Jacob Slater as Paul Cook round out the rest of the band as featured in the show.

“CODA” has won best picture at the Oscars.

Wilson Chapman editor“Tom Swift,” a spinoff of the mystery series “Nancy Drew,” will premiere its first episode May 31 on The CW, the network announced Friday.The series, which was first announced in 2020, stars Tian Richards (“Burdin,” “Dumplin'”) as the title character, who was first created in the 1910 book “Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle.” Originally portrayed as a teen inventor, the series reimagines Swift as a Black, gay billionaire who is thrust into conflict with a mysterious global cabal following the sudden disappearance of his father. Richards first appeared as the character in Season 2 of “Nancy Drew.”Ashleigh Murray (“Riverdale,” “Katy Keene”) co-stars in the series as Swift’s best friend Zenzi.

Mystery Science Theater 3000” is returning for a 13th season, this time on a new indie streaming platform, Gizmoplex. Created by Joel Hodgson in 1988, the cult show “MST3K” follows a series of ordinary humans captured by mad scientists who subject them to a series of terrible B-movies. To keep their sanity, the humans create a series of companion robots to riff on the films they watch, which are presented on the show in their entirety.

Paramount Plus has released the official trailer for “The Offer,” the upcoming drama miniseries that chronicles the making of “The Godfather.”Set in the early 1970s, “The Offer” stars Miles Teller as Albert S. Ruddy, who is hired as the producer for the film adaptation of the best-selling novel “The Godfather,” written by Mario Puzo (played by Patrick Gallo). While the series faces typical behind the scenes tension between its director Francis Ford Coppola (Dan Fogler) and producing team, the filming grows more complicated when mob boss Joe Colombo (Giovanni Ribisi) signs on to help assist in the production.

Wilson Chapman editorThe final episodes of “Grace and Frankie” will premiere April 29, Netflix announced Tuesday.Created by Marta Kauffman and Howard J. Morris, “Grace and Frankie” stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as the title characters, two very different women who have disliked each other for years, even though their husbands Robert (Martin Sheen) and Sol (Sam Waterston) are law partners. When their husbands announce they’re in love and plan to divorce them to be together, Grace and Frankie find themselves roommates, and overcome their mutual animosity to become best friends navigating romances, business ventures and family drama together.The longest running show on Netflix, “Grace and Frankie” originally premiered in 2015 and has since run for seven seasons.

HBO has acquired the Oscar-nominated documentary short “When We Were Bullies,” which will premiere on March 30.“When We Were Bullies” focuses on director Jay Rosenblatt (“Human Remains,” “Phantom Limb”), as he tries to track down people from his 5th grade class to interview them about a severe bullying incident that occurred at their school 50 years ago. Using a mix of archival footage, animation and modern day interviews, Rosenblatt both reconstructs the event and comes to terms with his own sense of shame about what occurred.“Everyone carries pain,” Rosenblatt narrates in the trailer for the short that HBO released. “Yet through that pain, I can see yours.”In addition to directing, Rosenblatt wrote, produced and edited “When We Were Bullies.” The short is one of five nominees in the best documentary short category at the 94th Academy Awards.

EXCLUSIVE: Reid Miller (Joe Bell), Jonathan Silverman (Good Girls), Marguerite Moreau (Wet Hot American Summer) and Chris Mulkey (Twin Peaks) have signed on to star in the indie Feeling Randy, marking the solo directorial debut of veteran cinematographer Dean Lent.

When The Worst Person in the World premiered in competition in Cannes this year there was the sense of an arrival, notably in the case of its leading lady, Renate Reinsve, who won the festival’s award for best actress. In actual fact, the film was closer to a destination, being the third part of an unofficial triptych begun by Norwegian director Joachim Trier with his 2006 feature debut Reprise, about two young bohemian writers living in Oslo. He followed it in 2011 with Oslo, August 31st, in which Reprise’s star, Anders Danielsen Lie, by day a successful medical doctor, played a melancholic drug addict and Reinsve made her acting debut with just one line of dialogue (“Let’s go to the party!”).

Critics Choice Super Awards, which honors the greatest achievements in genre storytelling across television and film.“It’s an honor to showcase these incredible accomplishments in Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Comic Book films and television. The Super Awards will proudly continue to shine a brighter light on the talented people telling stories in these fields,” Critics Choice Super Awards branch president Sean O’Connell said in a statement.In the television categories, “Squid Game” and “Wandavision” led the winners, earning three awards each.

Tim Gray Senior Vice President“Audible,” an Oscar nominee for documentary short, features a winning combination: great filmmaking and a great subject matter.Director Matt Ogens had been waiting for 12 years to tell the story about the Maryland School for the Deaf and their championship football team. However, he doesn’t consider it a sports documentary: “It’s a coming-of-age story and some of it is unique, some of it is universal.”However, he had trouble getting funding: “We had a lot of doors shut in our faces by people thinking there wasn’t an audience for this.”During that time, Ogens would check in regularly with people at the school when he visited his family in the Maryland-D.C.

Gaslit,” its limited series that tackles the Watergate scandal. The show focuses on the perspective of Martha Mitchell (Julia Roberts), the wife of Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell (Sean Penn). “Gaslit” will debut on Starz’s digital platform at midnight on April 24, with a linear debut the same day at 8 p.m.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentA testament to her fearless nature and boundless determination, Croatian-American filmmaker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović was nine months pregnant when she traveled from New York to present her feature debut “Murina” at the Cannes Film Festival.At the end of the festival, Kusijanović tool a 12-hour road trip with her husband to her homeland in Croatia, where she gave birth to her first child Petrus, right before scooping Cannes’ Golden Camera award with “Murina,” a double feast which earned her newborn son a lifetime festival accreditation.Eight months later, she sat with Variety to tell us how her life has changed since winning the coveted award and looked back at her journey getting there. Vibrant, bright, restless and forceful like her first feature “Murina,” Kusijanović hasn’t wasted any time.

Naman Ramachandran Celebrated Israeli filmmaker Matan Yair, whose “Scaffolding” has had festival play at Cannes, Zurich and Singapore, is nearly ready with his new film, coming-of-age drama “A Room of His Own.”The film, which is in the work-in-progress strand of Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), follows 17-year-old Uri, who has botched his first army interview. Since Uri’s father moved out, his mother has been sleeping in Uri’s room.

Netflix announced Monday.Set in the private, elite secondary school Las Encinas, “Élite” follows an ensemble cast of students that constantly find themselves involved with various murder and police investigations. When they’re not running into trouble with the law, the mixed group of working class and wealthy teenagers navigate intense relationship dramas and the heavy workload of their demanding institution.Season 5 of “Élite” follows the students as they recover from the Season 4 finale, which saw Guzmán (Miguel Bernardeau) murder a man named Armando (Andrés Velencoso) and go on the run after his friends help cover it up. Season 4 cast members Itzan Escamilla, Omar Ayuso, Claudia Salas, Georgina Amorós, Carla Díaz, Martina Cariddi, Manu Ríos, Pol Granch and Diego Martín return for the new season, joined by new cast members Valentina Zenere, André Lamoglia and Adam Nourou.

One can almost hear Rob Gronkowski yelling once again, “Mom, where are my football pants?”

Tom Brady is un-retiring!

Wilson Chapman editor“WWE Evil,” the first WWE original series for Peacock, will premiere March 24, the streaming service announced Thursday.Created and hosted by WWE wrestler and actor John Cena, the eight-part docuseries examines the stories of notable “heels,” or villains, in the WWE’s history. Each episode dives into the career of a different heel, including Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Sasha Banks and Roman Reigns.The trailer previews all of the episodes of the series, showcasing both archival footage of notable events in the various performers’ WWE history, as well as interviews that dive into the psychology behind the people playing the heels.“I’m not playing the character, I am the character,” Roman Reigns says during a talking head interview included in the trailer.

Metal music, whether black or heavy, can be an acquired taste, but its passionate fan base is undeniable. Here and there will come a film that attempts to capture what it is about the genre that can pierce the heart.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorIn today’s podcast news roundup, Vince Vaughn teams up with two former NFL pros to launch podcast production firm Audiorama; media startup Puck is launching podcasts with Spotify’s The Ringer and Audacy’s Cadence13; Spotify’s 2022 Sound Up accelerator program is geared toward family podcasters; and more.Vince Vaughn (“Wedding Crashers,” “Brawl in Cellblock 99”), along with former Carolina Panthers players Greg Olsen and Ryan Kalil and venture fund Powerhouse Capital, this week launched Audiorama, a podcast network and production company centered on “transformative podcasts” that enlighten, entertain and inform. Mikey Fowler, formerly with Barstool Sports, is VP and GM of the newly founded venture.