‘Game of Thrones’ Executive Producer Frank Doelger to Be Showrunner on Surveillance Drama ‘Concordia’

Award-winning producer Ben Feigin, who served as an executive producer on Schitt’s Creek, died Monday of pancreatic cancer. He was 47.

EXCLUSIVE: Maya Penn, the 22-year old award-winning animator, environmental activist and multi-hyphenate, has set her first directing project: the animated short film Asali: Power of The Pollinators. The short is an original project from Penn’s purpose-driven animation studio Upenndo! Productions and is set to be executive produced by Viola Davis, Julius Tennon and their JuVee Productions.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Cody Ryder has joined Park Pictures as senior executive producer for commercials and co-head of film and television. Ryder is the first executive producer at the company to serve in a dual capacity across its commercial and feature film divisions. Ryder previously served in the TV and branded content department at Plum Productions. There, she developed pitches and produced branded content until becoming a freelance line producer based out of New York. Ryder has been freelance ever since until she decided to join the ranks at Park in its Los Angeles office.   Ryder’s projects include the recently released Kendrick Lamar short film “We Cry Together”and the “We Matter Too” PSA produced with Common’s Imagine Justice organization. She has worked with brand clients including Coca-Cola, Old Navy, Verizon, McDonald’s, Chevy, Reebok, Instagram,and Kia, to name a few; and artists like LCD Soundsystem, Kanye West, Haim, Brandi Carlile and Questlove. Her feature film work includes “The Art of Self Defense,” “The Clovehitch Killer,” “Other People,” “Cop Car” and “Robot and Frank.”

Netflix has announced that it will be launching a new game development studio which will be led by Overwatch executive producer, Chacko Sonny.During the TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 event yesterday (October 18), Netflix’s vice president of games Mike Verdu shared the news of the new California studio, which is currently unnamed (via VGC).“We are starting another organic new studio in Southern California, this time around Chacko Sonny, who oversaw production on God of War Ascension for Santa Monica and oversaw a portfolio of their games, and then was executive producer of a little game franchise called Overwatch,” Verdu said.“He could have gone anywhere, he could have raised money, he could have done anything and he chose to come here. We are building a team around him and looking to him to reinvent what games can be.”Chacko Sonny left Blizzard Entertainment in September 2021 in order “to take some time off.” He worked at the company for five years from 2016 but didn’t become an executive producer on the Overwatch franchise until 2018.

EXCLUSIVE: Comcast NBCUniversal is excited to announce the exclusive premiere of the documentary film The Return from record-breaking film and Emmy-nominated TV producer Will Packer.

experiencing a career renaissance thanks to Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, which is allowing both fans (and the actor himself) to go back and consider those films he made back when he was a star the first time around. There’s been a lot of talk about Fraser’s time with The Mummy franchise, but the actor took a recent opportunity in the San Francisco bay area to apologize for something that went wrong while filming George of the Jungle, and in doing so made a brand new error. Fraser recently attended the Mill Valley Film Festival (via SFGate) where The Whale was set to be screened.

Frank Doelger is helming a surveillance drama set that counts broadcasters ZDF, MBC and France Télévisions and streamer Hulu Japan as partners.

“House of the Dragon” executive producer Sara Hess is going to continue developing original projects for HBO. The network announced Friday that Hess, who is also a writer on the “Game of Thrones” prequel series, is extending her overall deal for another two years.

Elliot Page has his next project lined up.

Charles Yu’s “Interior Chinatown” is headed to the small screen as a 10-part series with the author acting as showrunner and executive producer alongside Taika Waititi, who will direct the pilot episode for Hulu.“Silicon Valley” and “Crazy Rich Asians” actor Jimmy O. Yang is set to star.

Mark Ruffalo, better known for his role as The Hulk, has signed on to executive produce an upcoming docuseries that explores the fight against systemic injustice for Native communities. “Natives” aims to highlight the ground-breaking achievements of Indigenous activists and allies in what Ruffalo coins as “The Native Century” — an era in which younger and older generations of Natives can better get in touch with their cultural heritage. Ruffalo is a three-time Oscar nominee and two-time Emmy winner for performances in works like the 2015 film “Spotlight” and 2020 miniseries “I Know This Much Is True.” Earlier this year, he executive produced the documentary “Lakota Nation vs. United States,” which exposes the exploitation of Native people by virtue of colonization from the late 1400s to modern day.

Michaela Coel is planning to build a house in Ghana. The 'I Will Destroy You' actress was born in London but both of her parents hail from the West African nation and she now hopes to erect a property in her the village where her father grew up after falling in love with the country on her first visit and feeling an instant connection to her heritage. She told Vogue magazine: "I'd been to Africa before - Kenya and Uganda - but when I came here I was really seeing people who looked like me.

Coachella and its organisers Goldenvoice have filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Ghana-based festival Afrochella.According to the suit, which was filed in a California federal court on October 5, Goldenvoice claim that Afrochella (via Pitchfork) is “intentionally trading on the goodwill of well-known Coachella and Chella festivals and trademarks by actively promoting music events in the United States and in Ghana using the confusingly similar mark Afrochella”The suit continued: “Not simply content to imitate and attempt to trade on the goodwill of Coachella, Defendants even went so far as to apply in Ghana to register Coachella as their own trademarks.”“Despite repeated requests from Plaintiffs, Defendants have refused to adopt their own distinctive event name, and as a result, instances of actual confusion have already appeared on social media.”The lawsuit “seeks injunctive relief and damages for Defendants willful infringement in the United States and to protect the public here from confusion”Back in 2017, former Afrochella boss Edward “Deezy” Elohim took to Twitter to call the festival a “Coachella themed event”.Coachella first warned Afrochella in 2016. In the 30 page lawsuit filed against the festival organizers in Ghana, they add a screenshot of one of the organizers @deezydothis describing Afrochella as a "Coachella themed event" pic.twitter.com/EyAZCBiJK8— Ebenezer Donkoh (NY DJ) (@nydjlive) October 7, 2022Afrochella 2022 is scheduled to take place on December 28 and 29 at El Wak Stadium in Accra, Ghana.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Troy Kotsur, the Oscar-winning actor of “CODA,” has joined Mounia Meddour’s uplifting drama “Houria” ahead of its world premiere at the Rome Film Festival. Meddour’s follow-up to her Cesar-winning film “Papicha” tells the story of Houria, a gifted dancer with dreams of joining the Algerian National Ballet. To make ends meet, she bets in clandestine fights overnight. However after winning a final, Houria is violently assaulted by a man determined to get his money back. When she wakes up in a hospital, she no longer is able to speak and will certainly never dance again. Refusing to abandon her dream, she throws herself, heart and soul, into her physical recovery and meets at a rehab center other women damaged by life. Houria resolves to help them transcend their wounded bodies and stand tall by teaching them how to dance through a choreography inspired by sign language.

Craig Zobel, the Emmy Award-nominated writer, director and producer who was most recently responsible for the Kate Winslet-led crime drama “Mare of Easttown,” will direct and executive produce “The Penguin” for HBO Max. The series is a spin-off of Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” from earlier this year, with Colin Farrell once again starring as the waddling crime boss.Zobel is has established himself as one of the most dependable and artistically ambitious filmmakers working in both film and television.

BreAnna Bell Caroline Moore has been promoted to president of development and production at Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg’s production company The Js. Previously, Moore served as the company’s SVP of development and production. The elevation comes in light of her success as an executive producer on FX’s “The Patient,” which was released on Aug. 30. The series, co-created by Fields and Weisberg, is available for streaming exclusively on Hulu. The Js is currently adding to its development slate, working with a range of playwrights, novelists and television writers to create a host of entertaining stories as part of its overall deal at FX Productions.

K.J. Yossman Jemima Khan (“What’s Love Got to Do With It?”) and Jaime Ray Newman (“Dopesick”) have boarded Seemab Gul’s Oscar-qualifying short film “Sandstorm” as executive producers. A coming of age story, centering around a Pakistani schoolgirl called Zara, “Sandstorm” navigates the “tricky terrain of internet dating in a conservative Muslim society,” according to the logline as well as questions “the objectification of the female body and its relationship to honor in Pakistani culture.” In the short, Zara sends her virtual boyfriend a “sensual dance video” which he then uses to blackmail her. “Caught between his manipulative behaviour and the desire to experience love on her own terms, Zara searches for the strength to reject the confines of a patriarchal society,” reads the synopsis.