YouTube Names Games Industry Vet Leo Olebe New Head of Gaming

Veteran studio executives Peter Kujawski and Jason Cassidy will receive an Industry Tribute at the 32nd annual Gotham Awards ceremony, taking place live and in person at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Monday, November 28.

While we await the end of “Andor” and the continuation of “The Mandalorian” saga, the folks over at Lucasfilm have another new series on the horizon, which aims to be the “Star Wars” series most disconnected from the Skywalker Saga, titled “The Acolyte.” And with production now underway, Lucasfilm is willing to share some details about the new series.

Puck news was just taking Lucasfilm and its President Kathleen Kennedy to task today, basically asking what the hell is up with that studio and its lack of studio movies. The answer might be read as, especially in the face of tonight’s news, a lot of things they didn’t know.

Back in 2019, it was announced by the folks in charge at Disney that the “Star Wars” franchise would take a break on the film side of things after the release of ‘Rise of Skywalker.’ But even then, you have to assume the executives didn’t imagine we’d be waiting at least until 2025 for a new film in the galaxy far, far away. Continue reading Damon Lindelof & ‘Ms.

Less than gleeful relationships. Lea Michele made headlines in June 2020 when Samantha Marie Ware, who played Jane Hayward on season 6 of Glee, accused her of bullying.

Anna Marie de la Fuente The upcoming animated TV series “Lil’ Heroes” from Exile Content Studio is one step closer to being made. The studio has tapped Emmy Award-winning writer, author Kevin Shinick, best known for his stints as writer, producer and voice-actor on Adult Swim’s irreverent “Robot Chicken” and his best-selling YA novel, “Star Wars: Force Collector.” Shinick joins NBA star Carmelo Anthony who serves as an executive producer and voice actor on the upcoming series. Asani Swann, Anthony’s producing partner and co-founder of Creative 7, also executive produces. Launched in January this year, the “Lil’ Heroes” franchise started off as an NFT collection created by Spanish contemporary artist Edgar Plans, in partnership with Exile Content Studio, the film, television, audio, and digital production house founded by Isaac Lee and now a part of Candle Media.

What’s better than a true-crime series about a corrupt business? Well, how about when that business involves male strippers and stars none other than Kumail Nanjiani? Yeah, Hulu’s “Welcome to Chippendales” is a no-brainer.  As seen in the trailer for “Welcome to Chippendales,” Kumail Nanjiani stars as Somen “Steve” Banerjee, an Indian immigrant who comes to the US for the American dream. What starts as a modest dream to run a business turns into a desire to build an empire based on the fact that people like to see sexy dudes dancing around in bowties and cuffs.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor G4 is shutting down — again. Comcast Spectacor, the cable and entertainment giant’s sports and esports division, told G4 TV employees Sunday that the gaming network was shutting down effective immediately. The decision has resulted in 45 staff members of G4 TV losing their jobs. In a memo, obtained by Variety, Comcast Spectacor chairman and CEO Dave Scott cited low viewership and said the network had not achieved “sustainable financial results.” “Over the past several months, we worked hard to generate that interest in G4, but viewership is low and the network has not achieved sustainable financial results,” Scott wrote. “This is certainly not what we hoped for, and, as a result, we have made the very difficult decision to discontinue G4’s operations, effective immediately.”

New England Patriots team owner Robert Kraft and his partner Dr. Dana Blumberg married in a star-studded surprise wedding event in New York City on Friday night. The A-list guest list included the likes of former Patriots stars Tom Brady Drew Bledsoe, Randy Moss, Ty Law, Vince Wilfork.

Star Wars franchise.The actor currently plays She-Hulk’s (Tatiana Maslany) rival Titania in the Disney+ series, voiced Wonder Woman in DC League of Super-Pets and appeared in the Star Trek series Prodigy.Speaking at New York Comic Con, Jamil said: “It feels only natural that I should at least be allowed to do catering at ‘Star Wars’. Just as I’ve been referring to my nerd EGOT.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube’s popular “Tab Time” preschool series is coming back for Season 2, starring “America’s mom” Tabitha Brown — alongside celebrity guests including Liza Koshy, Terry Crews and Tamron Hall. The hybrid live-action/animated series, one of YouTube’s marquee kids originals, is hosted by Brown, an actor, vegan foodie, author and mother. Brown, or “Ms. Tab” as the kids call her, brings her skills as a cook, storyteller, mom, and motivational leader to teach children how to live their best life. YouTube’s renewal of the show for Season 2, from from Kids at Play and Scale Productions, was announced earlier this year. While YouTube has largely scrapped scripted original productions, it has maintained a slate of kids and family originals, select documentaries and programming through the YouTube Black Voices fund.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Tito Puente, the influential Nuyroican musician and entertainer, is being honored in a new animated Google Doodle. The animated doodle highlighting Puente’s musical career, illustrated by New York-based Puerto Rican artist Carlos Aponte, will be visible on the main page of the search engine throughout Tuesday (Oct. 11). The doodle coincides with U.S. Hispanic Heritage Month and also comes on the one-year anniversary of the unveiling of the Tito Puente Monument in New York City’s East Harlem. Puente was a percussionist, composer, songwriter, recording artist and bandleader whose career spanned five decades. Puente has been called “El Rey de los Timbales” and “The King of Latin music,” having recorded some 118 albums and being credited on dozens more — more than any other timbales bandleader to date.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube is finally going to give @uniquenames — that are comprehensible to human beings — to every single channel on the platform. On Monday, the video giant announced that it is introducing handles, which it described as “a new way for people to easily find and engage with creators and each other on YouTube.” The YouTube handles will appear on channel pages and Shorts, which will make it “simpler and faster to mention each other in comments, community posts, video descriptions and more,” the service explained. For every existing channel — YouTube says there are billions — the platform will create a matching URL (i.e., youtube.com/@handle) that will direct visitors to the channel page. Previously, only creators with 100 or more subscribers were eligible for a custom URL. For everyone else, the URL for their YouTube channel has been a hashed unique ID, comprising a random string of alphanumeric characters.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Spotify has appointed new managing directors for its Gimlet and Parcast podcast studios — Nicole Beemsterboer and Liliana Kim, respectively — coming amid the company’s cancellation of 11 original podcasts from the two divisions. Spotify elevated Beemsterboer (above left), a former longtime NPR exec who joined Spotify this year, to the role of Gimlet’s managing director. She takes over for Lydia Polgreen, who left Spotify this spring to rejoin the New York Times as an opinion columnist. Prior to joining as Gimlet’s head of news and knowledge in March, Beemsterboer spent more than 15 years at NPR as a producer where she led the creation and reorganization of the public media org’s first longform podcast unit, the Enterprise Storytelling Unit. At NPR, Beemsterboer worked on shows including “Embedded,” “Invisibilia” and “White Lies.”

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Bethenny Frankel says she’s had enough of scammers on TikTok using her voice, image or content to sell counterfeit products. The entrepreneur and star of “The Real Housewives of New York” filed a federal lawsuit against ByteDance’s TikTok, the hugely popular short-form video app, alleging that TikTok has ignored her requests to remove unauthorized content that misappropriates her likeness. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, demands unspecified monetary damages and a permanent injunction barring TikTok from misusing the “personas, voices, content and/or likenesses” of Frankel and other potential members of the class. “Despite demands on TikTok to remove and police this corrupt conduct, TikTok has ignored such demands, and even taken countervailing positions,” Frankel’s lawsuit says. “Aside from not being compensated, the reputation and brand of Ms. Frankel and Class Members are being damaged and tarnished through unauthorized associations with counterfeit goods and other products that they do not support.”