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EXCLUSIVE: George Gallo (The Comeback Trail) is teaming with Green Book Oscar winner Nick Vallelonga to produce The Accidental Gangster, a new thriller based on reformed gangster Orlando ‘Ori’ Spado’s bestselling autobiography of the same name. The former will also direct from a script by the author’s son Anthony Spado and David Steenhoek.

Three months after his hoped-for Broadway comeback Paradise Square closed amidst bad box office, legal battles, a Covid outbreak and allegations of a toxic work environment, producer Garth Drabinsky is suing Actors’ Equity for $50 million, accusing the union of waging “an intentional campaign of harassment and abuse” when it placed the Canada-based Drabinsky on its Do Not Work list last summer.

EXCLUSIVE: Coda producer Vendôme Pictures has made two appointments and launched a documentary division. 

Production is wrapping up on The Wheels of Heaven, a dramatic thriller starring Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), produced by Dessy Tenekedjieva’s Bulgarian-based Black Sea Film and co-produced by UK’s Goldfinch, an independent production house and financier.

EXCLUSIVE: Michelle Rejwan is leaving her post as SVP Live Action Development & Production at Lucasfilm. She is transitioning back to being a full-time producer and has signed an overall deal with Lucasfilm and Walt Disney Studios. She will continue to be based out of the Lucasfilm office and will develop for both Lucasfilm and Disney.

Zoe Saldana and Reese Witherspoon have teamed up for a new limited series on Netflix!

K.J. Yossman BBC Studios is set to wholly acquire Sid Gentle Films, the production company behind hits such as “Killing Eve” and “Ragdoll.” BBC Studios, the BBC’s commercial production and distribution arm, is intent on growing its portfolio of U.K. scripted labels. It already wholly owns Lookout Point (“Happy Valley 3”), Clerkenwell Films (“Somewhere Boy”), House Productions (“Sherwood”) and most recently Firebird Pictures (“Wahala”) and is the controlling shareholder in Baby Cow (“Chivalry”). In 2018 it acquired a 51% stake in Sid Gentle, which was founded in 2013 by Sally Woodward Gentle, with Lee Morris and Henrietta Colvin.

Selome Hailu Karis Jagger and Fabienne Toback have entered a first look deal with Lionsgate Television. Under the deal, they will develop and produce unscripted and documentary programming under their production banner Hey Sistah Productions. Lionsgate’s Pilgrim Media Group, which focuses on unscripted programming, will provide development support and serve as production services entity for sold projects.     Jagger and Toback are best known for producing “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America,” a Netflix documentary series based on Dr. Jessica Harris’ book of the same name. The series follows food writer Stephen Satterfield on a culinary journey alongside chefs, historians and activists that celebrates the courage, artistry and resourcefulness of the African American people.

EXCLUSIVE: Thirty years since the original film changed Asian and Asian American representation in cinema, a sequel to The Joy Luck Club is in development with author Amy Tan and Oscar winning screenwriter Ron Bass continuing from the former’s New York Times bestselling novel.

Did you know that Justin Timberlake is a longtime friend of Hallmark star Nikki DeLoach?

A documentary production company that specializes in videos of arrests and transportation crashes is taking legal action to obtain video through the California Public Records Act regarding the 2020 helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” concludes its inaugural season, Amazon Prime Video debuted a fiery new trailer for the season finale that promises “all will be revealed.”  The trailer — which first screened at New York Comic-Con on Friday, as part of Prime Video’s panel for “The Rings of Power” — was light on new footage from the finale, save for a telling glimpse at what appears to be Celebrimbor’s forge, where the titular Rings of Power will eventually be created. Otherwise, the trailer recaps many of the biggest developments through the first season, while promising that while Mordor is rising, at lease some heroes “will fall” — and Sauron’s true identity will finally be revealed.

EJ Panaligan editor Frederick Schneier, an entertainment industry veteran of more than 45 years, died on Sept. 15 in his Los Angeles home. He was 95. Schneier most prominently served as an executive at Viacom, where he helped to develop Showtime Networks in the 1980s and later became president and CEO of Viacom Pictures. Schneier was born on May 31, 1927 in Brooklyn, N.Y. He served in the U.S. Army and eventually attended New York University to study business with an emphasis on marketing. He met his wife of 67 years, Joyce, shortly after he graduated from NYU and the couple married in 1955.

The co-executive producer of popular US comedy series Scrubs has been charged with 18 counts of sexual assault. Eric Weinberg, 62, is said to have “relied on his Hollywood credentials” to lure young women to photo shoots where he is alleged to have assaulted them, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney.The charges stem from alleged incidents involving five different women in the years between 2014 and 2019.

"Scrubs" producer Eric Weinberg has been charged with sexually assaulting five women, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office.  Weinberg was arrested on Tuesday and released on $5 million bail.The arrest comes nearly a week after he was charged with 18 felony counts including rape, oral copulation, forcible sexual penetration, sexual battery by restraint, false imprisonment by use of violence, assault by means of force likely to cause great bodily injury and attempted forcible penetration with a foreign object, according to the district attorney's office. "The defendant relied on his Hollywood credentials to lure young women for photo shoots where he allegedly sexually assaulted them," District Attorney Gascón said, per the office’s press release.  This undated photo provided by the Los Angeles Police Department shows TV producer Eric Weinberg who was arrested Tuesday, Oct.

EJ Panaligan editor Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced on Wednesday that television producer Eric Weinberg has been charged with 18 counts of sexually assaulting five women between the period of 2014 and 2019. The “Scrubs” co-executive producer and writer is out of custody after posting a $5 million bond. The 62-year-old Weinberg was charged with six counts of sexual penetration by use of force, four counts of oral copulation, three counts of forcible rape, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count each of assault by means of force likely to cause great bodily injury, attempted sexual penetration by use of force and false imprisonment by violence.

Girl In Red has announced details of a new single, produced by The National‘s Aaron Dessner.The new track, ‘October Passed Me By’, was recorded with Dessner at his Long Pond studio in upstate New York and will be released on October 14, following the singer’s 2021 debut album. ‘If I Could Make It Go Quiet’.See the track’s autumn-themed artwork, a photo of Girl In Red at Long Pond with Aaron Dessner and full details of ‘October Passed Me By’ below.As Girl In Red writes in her caption, “the story continues…” – suggesting a link of sorts to her early single ‘Fell In Love In October’.A post shared by girl in red (@girlinred)Earlier this year, Girl In Red postponed her European headline tour at the advice of several medical experts.

NPR.The voting tech company argues that by questioning Pirro, it reaches the legal requirement in proving that Fox showed “actual malice” when it repeatedly broadcast and amplified rumors and lies made by Donald Trump, other right-wing personalities and far-right QAnon conspiracy theorists that Dominion tried to throw the presidential race to Joe Biden.“Discovery has revealed that…Fox News host Jeanine Pirro help[ed] spread the verifiably false yet devastating lies against Dominion,” according to documents filed Thursday in a Delaware court by Dominion lawyers. Pirro, however, is not being named as a defendant in the suit against Fox Corp.According to an Aug.

Anna Marie de la Fuente “Money Heist” star Alvaro Morte is attached to star in “Talkies,” from “Luis Miguel” producer Gato Grande, which will be presented at the Iberseries inaugural Co-Production & Financing Forum on Sept. 28. “Talkies” covers the period between 1930 and 1934, an unusual time when foreign-language versions were shot on the same sets where the original English-language films were shot before dubbing or sub-titling technology existed.  Helmed by “Money Heist” director Alex Rodrigo and co-developed with Catalonia’s Veranda (“Merli”), the 8 x 45” series centers on the making of Spanish-language ‘talkies’ some of which, like the Spanish version of Bela Lugosi’s “Dracula,” were considered far superior. Morte will play the actor Carlos Villarias, who took on the Dracula role in the Spanish version.

EXCLUSIVE: Maverick TV, the All3Media-backed production company behind series such as Netflix’s American Barbeque Showdown, is adding a new reality series to its roster and a new head of development.