What the Heck is ‘Heartland’? The 5th-Most Streamed Series of 2021, for Starters

Disney Plus powered to a strong year-end finish, with the media giant’s flagship streaming business blowing past expectations to hit almost 130 million users.At the end of 2021, Disney Plus had 129.8 million paying customers worldwide, gaining 11.8 million for the quarter ended Jan. 1, 2022.

Anthony Ramos is having a moment, for sure. Not only was he one of the stars of the recent musical hit, “In the Heights,” but he already had a big role in Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born” and is set to lead the cast of the new “Transformers” film arriving in 2023.

EXCLUSIVE: Joe Pickett, the Michael Dorman-fronted drama series, is returning for season two.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Roku Channel has picked up sci-fi adventure series “The Pact” from Qatar-based Katara Studios and Taipei- and Los Angeles-based Organic Media Group.The Roku Channel is the home of free and premium entertainment on the Roku hardware and software platform.The six-part show will be exclusively available on The Roku Channel in the U.S., U.K. and Canada from March 26, 2022, and release to the rest of the world in July.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterKorean zombie thriller “All Of Us Are Dead” has become Netflix’s fifth most popular non-English-language series debut, Variety has learned exclusively.On Tuesday, “All of Us Are Dead” debuted on Netflix’s all-time rankings, which tracks the streaming service’s Top 10 most popular non-English TV series based on hours viewed in their first 28 days on Netflix, in the fifth-place slot. Its entrance bumps “The Queen of Flow,” which was previously at 10th, off the list.At No. 1 on the list is still, of course, the Korean mega-hit “Squid Game,” which racked up 1.65 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days post-launch.

With the first full day of games tucked away, NBC posted some early numbers from the Beijing Winter Olympics and the glass seems to be half full.

Courteney Cox gushes to Graham Norton on his show about playing piano with Sir Elton John.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterAmazon has given a series order to “The Horror of Dolores Roach,” Variety has learned.The half-hour show, based on the Gimlet podcast of the same name, was originally given a pilot order at Amazon in June 2021.“We at Amazon Studios fell in love with this story along with everyone else as the podcast captured listeners,” said Marc Resteghini, head of development for Amazon Studios. “We couldn’t be more excited and fortunate to be working with such world-class creatives to bring Dolores Roach to screen in what is sure to be a captivating series.”In the series, Dolores Roach (Justina Machado) is released from prison after 16 years and returns to a severely gentrified Washington Heights with $200 and the clothes on her back.

Tegan and Sara are getting excited about their forthcoming “High School” TV series after the show began pre-production in Calgary last week.

Miles Teller is ready to tell the tale of The Godfather.

Selome Hailu Rawson Marshall Thurber will creatively oversee Entertainment One’s upcoming live-action “Dungeons & Dragons” series, a rep for eOne confirmed to Variety. Thurber will write and direct the pilot script and executive produce the series, which is based on the popular fantasy role-playing game franchise published by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro.The hourlong series will be one of the one of the first projects set in the “Dungeons & Dragons” TV universe that has been in planning stages at eOne since the indie studio was acquired by Hasbro in 2020.

EXCLUSIVE: The Berlin Film Festival and accompanying European Film Market may be all about the big screen but, over the past few years, the Berlinale Series has been growing in stature. Series Head Julia Fidel has watched as the barriers between film and TV have broken down and more and more stars, writers and execs behind the biggest movies have chosen to helm TV projects.

Canadian Firms Team For Animated Series

debuted at Sundance this week, unravels Lee’s bizarre story with actor Alan Cumming sitting in for the man himself by lip-syncing to Lee’s narration (Lee agreed to tell his story, but didn’t want to appear on camera). Director Jono McLeod, who knew Lee as a fellow student, tells the tale via interviews with his now-50-something classmates, animated sequences and snippets of old video. Cumming, who was originally attached to star in a now-defunct feature adaptation of the story, remembers the saga as a news bombshell in Scotland.

All drivers in the UK have been warned about listening to music in their car.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese video streaming firm iQiyi has teamed with Canada’s Wildbrain to jointly produce kids’ animation series “Jonny Jetboy.” The series was hatched by Keith Chapman, creator of “PAW Patrol” and “Bob The Builder” and will run to an initial forty 11-minute episodes.The story follows Jonny Jones, the youngest member of a family of heroes as he learns to become a superhero like his JetForce family. They are committed to protecting the high-tech city Calamity Canyon, from its many villains.

Cooper Hefner is defending his late father, Hugh Hefner, before the premiere of the new docuseries Secrets of Playboy.

almost – to make up for the fact that the story itself is something of a letdown.A classic unreliable-narrator doc, the film is always fun to watch. But unlike, say, Ramin Bahrani’s “2nd Chance” — a 2022 Sundance doc that is intricately constructed to take the viewer through the twists and evasions doled out by its own unreliable narrator — “My Old School” works hard to put a stylish spin on a story whose surprises are telegraphed from the beginning.It gets off to a promising start, as we see actor Alan Cumming sitting down at a desk in a Scottish classroom, with titles letting us in on the film’s central conceit: “The man at the heart of this story does not want to show his face, but you will hear his voice.

Naman Ramachandran Jaideep Sahni, screenwriter on acclaimed films “Chak De! India,” “Khosla Ka Ghosla,” “Company,” “Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year” and “Bunty Aur Babli” will create the next series from YRF Entertainment, Variety understands.YRF Entertainment is leading Indian studio Yash Raj Films’ streaming business, which was set up in 2021 with an initial investment of $67.1 million. As revealed by Variety, YRF Entertainment launched in Dec.