Sony Pictures Television Kicks Off Its 2023 Diverse Writers Program With 10 Aspiring Scribes

EXCLUSIVE: Drift director Anthony Chen is gearing up to direct his first US-set project, Heartbeat: A New York Story, about the rarely-told experiences of the Asian gay community during the AIDS epidemic in 1980s New York.

The Price Is Right is on the move. The popular CBS daytime game show, produced by Fremantle, will leave Television City, where it has taped since its 1972 launch, and relocate to a new facility in Glendale, Haven Studios, in which Fremantle is the investor with a long-term lease.

Latin music icon Marco Antonio Solis has kicked off his 40-date Eli Buki World Tour and you can check out the set list right here!

filmmaking is a real honor. Thank you to Michael and Tom for embracing our story about flawed, complex human beings, who happen to be Asian American, just trying their best.

EXCLUSIVE: Enrico Colantoni and Mindy Cohn have been announced as key cast members in the Canadian dark comedy Mother Father Sister Brother Frank as it begins principal photography in Ontario.

Sony Pictures Classics has taken global rights to Randall Park’s feature directorial Shortcomings. The pic starring Justin H. Min (After Yang), Sherry Cola (Joy Ride, Good Trouble), and Ally Maki (Big Door Prize), Tavi Gevinson (Gossip Girl), Debby Ryan (Insatiable), Sonoya Mizuno (House of the Dragon), Timothy Simons (Veep), and Jacob Batalon (Reginald The Vampire) had its world premiere at Sundance back in January in the U.S. Dramatic Competition sector.

EXCLUSIVE: Abramorama and Giant Pictures have acquired North American rights to Nuclear Now, the latest documentary from 3x Academy Award winner Oliver Stone, which premiered (as Nuclear) at last year’s Venice Film Festival.  

EXCLUSIVE: Avalon, the production company behind HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and FX/Sky comedy Breeders, has hired Jenelle Lindsay as Executive Vice President of Television.

EXCLUSIVE: Dark Star Pictures has snapped up North American rights to the Stephen King documentary King on Screen, examining cinematic adaptations of the iconic author’s works, out of EFM. The film from actress-turned-director Daphné Baiwir, which bears King’s stamp of approval, will hit theaters in late summer, with a digital release to follow in the fall.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures and 21 Laps have enlisted Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man and the Wasp) as the screenwriters for their buzzy feature Gnomes, based on the breakout horror short from Dutch filmmakers Richard Raaphorst and Ruwan Heggelman, which remains in early development following Sony’s acquisition of film rights earlier this month, in a competitive situation.

Emily Longeretta With “When Calls the Heart” at Hallmark and “When Hope Calls” at Great American Family, Brian Bird is expanding his success with a partnership with UPtv. True Brand Entertainment, founded by Bird, Brandon Clark, Tai Truesdell and Darin Chavez, and the network have a multi-picture licensing agreement, creating a series of uplifting and values-friendly romantic comedies. The partnership began with “The Engagement Plot,” starring Trevor Donovan and Rachel Boston, which debuted in summer 2022 to record-breaking ratings for UPtv and its streaming service, UP Faith & Family. “The Happy Camper,” starring real-life married couple Daniela Bobadilla and Beau Wirick, premiered to strong ratings on February 5.

SZA is officially on tour!

EXCLUSIVE: Chandus Jackson has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Writers Program fellowship from CBS Studios/NAACP Production Venture and The Black List.

Pictures From Home (★★☆☆☆), Broadway’s lethargic family drama based on a book of photos.Between 1982 and 1992 photographer and college professor Larry Sultan took a bounty of photographs of his parents, Irving and Jean. He captured them in both candid, unrehearsed moments and in staged poses.The process was painstaking, both for him and his subjects, but it ultimately launched them all to a sort of stardom within the photography world. Sultan released the book to numerous accolades and, according to the New York Times, it has “become a definitive guide to narrative photography.”Playwright Sharr White was apparently so moved by the project, he decided to adapt the photos into a play.

EXCLUSIVE: Mandalay Television is continuing to ramp up its slate of book to series adaptations.

Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees gets under way Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. PT with 12 panels featuring some of the year’s biggest crowd-pleasing movies as well as its most artistic critical hits. This final round of Contenders events this Oscar season features virtual Q&A panels with the on-screen stars, creatives and craftspeople behind 12 of the films that will be going for gold at the Dolby Theater less than a month from now.

Zack Sharf HBO’s “The Last of Us” is one of the biggest shows of 2023 so far, so big that Sony Pictures Entertainment film chairman Tom Rothman is wishing the studio had gone ahead and turned the video game into a feature film. “The Last of Us” is based on the Sony Playstation game of the same name. “Yes,” Rothman answered when asked by Business Insider if he wishes “The Last of Us” was a Sony movie. “But I’m very happy for them and I think it’s better suited episodically. I’m jealous in the best way.” “The Last of Us,” starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, centers on survivors of a pandemic in a world where brain-eating fungus has decimated the human population. The show has been a ratings powerhouse for HBO, garnering over 7 million viewers in one night as of its fourth episode airing.

Sony Pictures Classics said it’s planning to release Sean Mullin’s documentary on baseball superstar Yogi Berra, It Ain’t Over, in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on May 12, expanding over following weeks.

A Compassionate Spy” and will release it later this year. Directed by two-time Oscar nominee Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”), “A Compassionate Spy” tells the story of Ted Hall, who at the age of 18 was the youngest physicist to work on the Manhattan Project with Robert Oppenheimer.

EXCLUSIVE: CNBC has ordered a new true-crime docuseries from Law & Order creator Dick Wolf.