Zachary Quinto to Lead NBC Medical Drama Pilot ‘Wolf’ From Producers Greg Berlanti, Andy Serkis

EXCLUSIVE: Another Good Girls alum has joined NBC’s Jenna Bans/Bill Krebs (fka Murder By The Book) drama pilot. Michael Weaver has been tapped to direct the pilot from Good Girls creator Jenna Bans under her Universal Television-based production banner Minnesota Logging Company. Good Girls executive producer Bill Krebs will pen the script with Bans.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Halcyon Studios has brought on Phil Abraham to direct and executive produce the series “Beverly Hills Noir,” Variety has learned exclusively. Halcyon, a division of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, is producing the show, which is based on “Gemstone” by James Ellroy. Per the official logline, the show “follows two female detectives as they are sucked into the vortex of power, greed, and cold-blooded conspiracy in one of the most aspirational cities in the world, Beverly Hills.” Ed Decter is writing the series and will also serve as executive producer and showrunner. Along with Decter and Abraham, Ellroy, Stewart Till, and Richard Potter also executive produce. No network or streaming service is currently attached to the project.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Sarah Shahi has been cast in the lead role of the ABC drama pilot “Judgement,” Variety has learned. The project was originally ordered to pilot at the broadcaster in December. Shahi will star in the role of Mia Bahari in the show, which is described as a high-stakes legal soap. Per the official character description, “We’ll meet Mia Bahari in two distinct periods of her life. In one, she’s a brilliant, successful Appeals Court judge being vetted for the U.S. Supreme Court…so long as her dark and painful secrets don’t derail the nomination. In another, she’s a young spitfire of an attorney, painfully awkward at times but ingenious when it comes to navigating the many nuances of the law. She’s also caught romantically between two feuding brothers who are at the root of the very things she’s trying to hide from her Supreme Court investigators.”

BreAnna Bell Joe Goldberg has climbed back to No. 1 on the Netflix Top 10 English TV chart with big twists, Easter eggs, and a climactic “Anti-Hero” moment as “You” Season 4, Part 2 opened on the list following its March 9 release date. The murder mystery had 75.8 million hours viewed during the March 6-12 viewing window and was in the Top 10 in 86 countries. On the English Films side, Idris Elba returned as detective John Luther in “Luther: The Fallen Sun.” The thriller, featuring Cynthia Erivo, Andy Serkis and Dermot Crowley debuted at No. 1 with 65.9 million hours viewed. Chris Rock’s live standup special “Selective Outrage” made its first appearance on Netflix’s Global Top 10 chart at No. 8 on the English titles list with 17.79 million hours viewed. Live from Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre, Rock’s first standup show following the infamous 2022 Oscar’s slap was one of several live offerings on Saturday as Netflix accompanied it with pre- and post-show coverage featuring appearances from Ronnie Chieng, Leslie Jones, Deon Cole and Arsenio Hall, among others, as well as appearances and commentary from Amy Schumer, Cedric the Entertainer, Ice-T, Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin Hart, Paul McCartney, Sarah Silverman and Wanda Sykes. The special first debuted in the US on March 4 and was previously not counted in the previous week’s global count as it wasn’t available in other countries.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic If they ever make a sequel to “The Celluloid Closet” — the landmark doc about the history of LGBT representation on screen — Lukas Gage should warrant at least two mentions. First, there’s the scene from the first season of “White Lotus” where Jake Lacy barges into the resort manager’s office, only to find Gage getting his salad tossed (a history-making moment for gay TV fans). And now there’s “Down Low,” an over-the-top, bottom-trawling comedy that wants to be for the gay community what “The Hangover” was to the mainstream — which is to say, wildly irreverent and incredibly wrong. Starring openly gay “Heroes” villain Zachary Quinto as Gary, a recently divorced, richie-rich zaddy hoping for a happy ending, “Down Low” doesn’t quite understand its own title — code within the Black and Latino community for men who consider themselves straight while having sex with other men — but that’s OK. “Down Low” is still light-years ahead of mainstream movies (including last year’s “Bros”) as debuting feature director Rightor Doyle delivers what an entire contingent of queer audiences have been asking for all their lives: namely, a comedy that’s as raunchy and inappropriate as the jokes they make between themselves. While nowhere near as extreme (or enjoyable) as 2009’s “I Love You Phillip Morris,” it’s still a rare enough occurrence to earn a dedicated following.

EXCLUSIVE: Actress, singer and author Sandra Bernhard, who most recently appeared in the 11th installment of Ryan Murphy’s FX series American Horror Story, has signed with The Rosenzweig Group for management.

Brent Lang Executive Editor “Down Low,” an outrageous new comedy that premieres this week at SXSW, starts with a failed attempt at a happy ending. And things go sharply downhill from there. The raunchy film is the brainchild of Lukas Gage, best known for being on the receiving end of Murray Bartlett’s, um, affections in “The White Lotus.” He wrote the film with Phoebe Fisher and stars as Cameron, a masseuse who is hired to get off Gary, a repressed millionaire played by Zachary Quinto. It’s an attempt at alleviating pressure that careens dangerously off the rails as Gary and Cameron destroy several lives over the course of one crazy day and night. Gage and Fisher were inspired to write the film after watching “Pretty Woman” and learning more about that rom-com’s original script, which was titled “3,000” and told a far darker tale about sex workers.

Late last month, news broke that Warner Bros. Pictures had a new multi-year deal in place with Embracer Group‘s Middle-Earth Enterprises for New Line Cinema to make more “The Lord Of The Rings” movies.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director New “Lord of the Rings” movies are officially on the way from Warner Bros., and Andy Serkis is the first original cast member to say he’s ready to return to Middle-Earth. Serkis gave an iconic motion capture performance as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s original trilogy and reprised the role in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” “Look, [producers] Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens are sort of a second family that I have become part of and have gone on to make so many films with,” Serkis told BroBible’s Post-Credit Podcast. “And — let me tell you — they are the best and most incredible people to work with. I think that there are so many other potential Middle-Earth projects which could come about, and if they’re doing them, I would, of course, jump at the chance to have that relationship rekindled.”

EXCLUSIVE: Tituss Burgess, Tommy Dewey and Siobhan Williams have been cast in NBC‘s upcoming drama pilot from Good Girls creator Jenna Bans and executive producer Bill Krebs.

You’s fourth season arrive this month.Created by Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, the psychological thriller series moved to London for its fourth season where Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) is masquerading as a university professor.This is the first time Netflix has split a season of You into two parts, with the first five episodes having arrived on the streaming platform on February 9.The remaining five episodes will be released on Netflix on Thursday March 9 at 12am PT in the US. For those in the UK, episodes will be available from 8am GMT. Netflix released a trailer shortly after the first part premiered on the platform – check it out above.The footage confirms Victoria Pedretti, who played Love Quinn in seasons two and three, will reprise her role in the coming episodes.

EXCLUSIVE: The hit CW series All American has added Darone Okolie (Winning Time) and Tre Hale (Platonic) to its Season 5 cast in recurring roles.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large As former The CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz gets back into the production business, he has sign on with CAA for representation, the tenpercentary announced on Thursday. Pedowitz has revived his shingle, Pine Street Entertainment, which is represented by CAA as part of the arrangement. Pedowitz announced his departure from The CW in October, following Nexstar Media Group’s acquisition of the network from its previous joint operators CBS and Warner Bros. (Those two entities maintain minority stakes in The CW, but Nexstar is now the majority owner and operator.) In reviving Pine Street Entertainment, Pedowitz is bringing back his independent production company that produced CBS’ “The Crazy Ones” (starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Robin Williams), as well as a number of development projects.

American actor Zachary Quinto was recently spotted enjoying a meal in a restaurant on the Isle of Skye.

Zachary Quinto is returning to the small screen in NBC’s medical drama series, Wolf.

Heroes star Zachary Quinto is returning to NBC as the titular character in NBC’s Wolf, a one-hour medical drama pilot from writer-producer Michael Grassi, producer-director Lee Toland Krieger and executive producer Greg Berlanti. The project comes from Warner Bros Television, where all three are under overall deals.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye will have his first starring role in a feature film that he wrote and is also producing. The picture, which is currently untitled and has been kept shrouded in mystery regarding its plot, genre and the like is being directed by Trey Edward Shults, the filmmaker behind “Waves” and “It Comes at Night.” Shults also co-wrote the movie and is executive producing it. We do know that it is shooting in Los Angeles, but aside from that the “logline is being kept under wraps.” Whether comedy or tragedy, action adventure or musical extravaganza, this impressively vague feature has lined up a top shelf cast. Beyond The Weeknd, a Grammy-winning recording juggernaut, the film also stars Jenna Ortega, the star of “Wednesday” and “Scream VI,” as well as Barry Keoghan, the Oscar-nominated actor from “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.”

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Apple has given a series order to the drama “The Last Frontier” with Jason Clarke set to play the lead role, Variety has learned. The series hails from creators Jon Bokenkamp, who previously created the hit NBC series “The Blacklist,” and Richard D’Ovidio, who previously worked with Bokenkamp on the 2013 film “The Call” as well as on “The Blacklist” and “The Blacklist: Redemption.” In the 10-episode series, Clarke will star as US Marshal Frank Remnick, the lone Marshal in the barrens of Alaska. Per the official logline, “Frank’ s jurisdiction is turned upside-down when a prison transport plane crashes in the remote wilderness, setting free dozens of violent inmates. Tasked with protecting the town he’s vowed to keep safe, he begins to suspect the crash wasn’t an accident, but the first step of a well-crafted plan with international political implications.”

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Margo Martindale and Chris Diamantopoulos have been cast in the lead roles of the upcoming Amazon series “The Sticky,” Variety has learned exclusively. The show was originally ordered at Amazon back in April 2022. As previously reported, the series is inspired by the true story of “The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist.” The real heist involved the theft of $18 million dollars (CAD) of of Quebec’s national maple syrup, which is more than 70% of the global maple syrup supply. Per the official logline for the half-hour comedy series, “‘The Sticky’ revolves around Ruth Clarke (Martindale), a tough, supremely competent middle-aged Canadian maple syrup farmer who’s had it with being hemmed in by the polite, bureaucratic conventions native to her country’s identity. Especially now that that very bureaucracy is threatening to take away everything she loves: Her farm, her comatose husband, and her right to freedom. With the help of Remy Bouchard, a local blockhead and Mike Byrne (Diamantopoulos), a low-level mobster, Ruth changes her fate—and transforms the future of her community with the theft of millions of dollars’ worth of maple syrup.”