Fox 2023 Upfronts: Gordon Ramsay F-Bombs, Gronk Chucks Balls, ‘The Five’ Falls Short

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Gordon Ramsay’s team has been inundated with emails from C-suite execs at food businesses across the U.S. over the past week, following the premiere of his latest Fox competition series, “Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars.” With the unscripted series having already shot its first season in its entirety, these people are already itching to get on a potential second season of “Food Stars,” which, in a twist for Ramsay isn’t a show about how well you cook, plate or serve — it’s ultimately about how you play the business game. And the winner gets $250,000 investment from the celebrity chef himself. “As you know, 68% percent of businesses fail in the first 18 months. And so I have to judge this on the business acumen, but more importantly, the decisions and the quickness of how decisive they need to be in the cutthroat business world,” Ramsay told Variety ahead of Episode 2 of “Food Stars” airing Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Fox “So I need to get behind the character to understand the business. And then as always, stress test those businesses and look for weaknesses. I’ve made mistakes in business, but I’ve never made that same mistake twice. Everything I’ve learned and the restaurants I’ve opened, and the huge success and the issues I’ve had to deal with, across the whole sector, has gone into this shows. It’s been fascinating, because the feedback has been extraordinary. Just on LinkedIn alone, the amount of CMOs and CEOs and COOs in the first 24 hours that my team was inundated with, thousands of requests. It’s been pretty incredible.”

Selena Gomez makes for a charming presence in the kitchen. The singer and actress has been involved in “Selena + Chef” for four seasons, showing her willingness to learn and mess up when faced with some food prep.

Perez is making his way through all of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants in Las Vegas! @CaesarsPalace 

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Fox is serving up a new season of Joel McHale’s mystery baking competition “Crime Scene Kitchen” next week and bringing several celebrity new guest judges along for the ride. Variety can exclusively reveal that the lineup of Season 2’s famous faces includes “Real Housewives of Atlanta” alum NeNe Leakes, country music star Martina McBride, “Next Level Chef” (a Gordon Ramsay-led Fox food competition) and “Top Chef” star Richard Blais and NBA champ and “Special Forces” (yet another Fox competition) contestant Dwight Howard. Those guest judges will pop in during different episodes this season to join host McHale and full-time judges Curtis Stone and Yolanda Gampp in their evaluations.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Lionsgate has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to the the Biblical epic series “The Chosen.” Three seasons of “The Chosen” have been produced to date. Seasons 1 and 2 are available on Peacock and Amazon Prime Video, while Season 1 is also on Netflix. It is also availabile in France on Canal+, the Netherlands on NPO, Spain on MovieStar and Poland on TVP. A fourth season, from creator, director, and producer Dallas Jenkins and starring Jonathan Roumie, is currently in production. It has also pulled in $35 million at the box office in special event theatrical releases The Come and See Foundation will retain and manage licensing rights for all activities within the non-profit sector.

Gordon Ramsey, his wife Tana, and daughter Holly enjoyed a family trip out to the prestigious Savoy in London for a spot of lunch and to launch the renowned chef’s newly designed grill restaurant at the hotel. The 56 year old first teamed up with the Savoy back in 2003 in a bid to bring his culinary expertise and cut through the competition.

“This is not exactly the show we expected to do today,” said Warner Bros Discovery ad boss Jon Steinlauf in opening his company’s second Upfronts presentation as a merged company.

Gordon Ramsay's trademark wrath («idiot sandwich,» anyone?) isn't limited just to his contestants (real or fake ones). The world-renowned chef saves the same kind of intensity for those closest to him.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Disney’s annual upfront presentation leaned heavily on the company’s non-scripted programming, opening with nearly an hour of focus on ESPN and its sports offerings. The emphasis on live events, of course, comes as the writers strike continues and is expected to impact the fall TV season. In fact, around 100 Writers Guild members and other union supporters marched outside the Javits Center on Tuesday to remind Disney they are still looking for a deal with the company and the other studios. Among those seen on the picket line: Zach Cherry and Michael Emerson. Inside the Javits, sports and news stars from within Disney were out in force, while reality personalities like Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Jesse Palmer and Ryan Seacrest made appearances as well. Even WABC-TV New York anchors Sade Baderinwa and Bill Ritter got some time onstage.

Gordon Ramsay‘s Hell’s Kitchen is one of the most entertaining cooking reality TV competition shows out there today.

Fox News Media waved its banner during the Fox upfront Monday afternoon in New York, plugging a wide array of platforms but notably gliding past its main profit center in prime time.

Gordon Ramsay is ready to bring back Kitchen Nightmares!

It was standing-room only crowd at the Fox upfront — mostly because there was no place to sit. But there were cocktails and lots of f-bombs from Gordon Ramsay, who helped to keep the 55-minute presentation moving at NYC’s Manhattan Center Monday.

Jamie Foxx and his daughter Corrine Foxx are set to host a new musical celebrity game show, We Are Family.

Things aren’t looking great for Fox comedy Welcome To Flatch.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Fox Entertainment’s CEO addressed the decision to cancel “9-1-1” and the show’s subsequent move to ABC during a conference call with the press ahead of the network’s upfront presentation to advertisers in New York. “We look at shows in two different ways,” said Rob Wade, CEO of Fox Entertainment. “First and foremost from a creative lens and how much we like the creative. And the second thing is really the economics of that. I think we felt moving forward into what is really a new era of television, the economics weren’t going to pan out on this show for us. The decision was made there that the business model wasn’t right for us and that 20th TV would take the show back.”

Gordon Ramsay is getting back into the failing restaurant game.

Fox Entertainment will have its new CEO, Rob Wade, making his debut at the network’s upfront presentation today. In a sign of continuity, he will unveil the Fox content slate for the 2023-2024 television season but not a schedule. The network first broke with tradition by not presenting a fall grid at the upfront last year; Fox announced fall schedule and premiere dates June 6.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter For the second year in a row, Fox is not releasing a fall schedule ahead of its upfront presentation. Fox did the same thing in 2022, opting instead to announce their content slate for the upcoming broadcast season but holding off on announcing a formal schedule until a later date. Last year, the move came as the network was still waiting on decisions on the dramas “9-1-1” and “The Resident.” But with the latter show canceled and the former moving to ABC, this year’s move comes as the writers’ strike enters its third week. Networks like CBS and NBC have already announced their fall lineups, but whether or not any primetime scripted shows across all the networks debut as scheduled remains to be seen as the strike drags on.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Jamie Foxx and his daughter Corinne Foxx are expanding their relationship with Fox, with the duo set to co-host the music game show “We Are Family,” which has been ordered to series at the broadcaster. The series was announced just ahead of Fox’s upfront presentation to advertisers in New York. It comes as Jamie is still believed to be recovering from a “medical complication” that left him hospitalized on April 12. Most recently, Corinne stated that her father had been out of the hospital “for weeks,” as of May 12. Jamie is also the host of the Fox music game show “Beat Shazam,” with Corinne serving as the show’s DJ. Nick Cannon is currently serving as guest host with Kelly Osborne filling in as the DJ for the new season expected to air this summer while Jamie recovers. The new season of that show launched May 23. Jamie executive produces that show as well as the Fox scripted drama series “Alert: Missing Persons Unit.”