Nat Geo Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeDana Walden is ready for this moment. On the heels of a shocking Hollywood management shake-up at Disney, the newly promoted chairman of Disney General Entertainment Content now oversees a massive portfolio that includes the programming arms of Hulu, FX, ABC, Freeform, Nat Geo, 20th Century Television, ABC Signature and more.Walden’s ascent at Disney is not a surprise, but the sudden departure of her predecessor and longtime boss, Peter Rice, surely was when the news surfaced on June 9 that Disney CEO Bob Chapek had fired him.Walden has the respect of the Hollywood community, the chops of having run (or co-run) two broadcast networks and multiple studios, plus deep relationships with towering creatives like a certain superstar producer (ahem, Ryan Murphy) who is, by all accounts, itching to reunite with her after a rocky run at Netflix.

Addie Morfoot ContributorHamptonsFilm has unveiled the lineup for its 14th annual SummerDocs series and it includes Sara Dosa’s “Fire of Love,” Daniel Roher’s “Navalny” and Jason Kohn’s “Nothing Lasts Forever.” Presented by Alec Baldwin with co-curation from David Nugent, artistic director of the affiliated Hamptons Intl. Film Festival, each screening will be followed by a conversation with that documentary’s director.The series will kick-off on June 25 with “Fire of Love.” Following a successful Sundance debut, National Geographic Documentary Films acquired the worldwide rights to the docu.

EXCLUSIVE: Marque Richardson has been cast as a series regular opposite Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo in the Onyx Collective comedy series Unprisoned, which will be streamed exclusively on Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ in all other territories.

Dog tags belonging to two members of the Band of Brothers, made famous by the 2001 Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks HBO epic, have been discovered in the UK 78 years after D-Day and are being spotlighted for a documentary for Dan Snow’s History Hit streamer.

There are so many animal shows on television right now, that you can count on having a favorite TV vet, outside of your pet’s own doctor.

Carson Burton The world is Nat Geo’s playground with the network’s newly announced slate of unscripted content.Ahead of Disney’s upfront presentation on Tuesday in New York City, National Geographic on Monday announced a new slate of six personality-driven series aimed to showcase various aspects of culture from around the world. The new shows will feature notable personalities Derek Hough, Kristen Kish, Jeff Jenkins, Indy Srinath and Christian Cooper — as well as high school competitors of a global science fair competition.Renowned dancer Derek Hough will guide viewers around the world on an exploration of dance history and trends in the new show “Dance the World With Derek Hough.” In each episode, Hough will team up with a celebrity guest to embark on a journey to uncover the global cultural traditions that shape dance.

Ahead of its Disney’s Upfront presentation Tuesday in NYC, National Geographic has announced greenlights for six new nonfiction series as part of its latest programming slate.

EXCLUSIVE: Nat Geo is developing a new season of explorer format Lost Cities With Albert Lin, with production switching from UK producer Blakeway Productions to The Tinder Swindler indie Raw TV.

Seeing superstar Will Smith visit remote locations on the planet was the hook for the National Geographic docuseries Welcome to Earth. Daniel Pemberton’s job was to provide Smith’s journey with a sound, and he said during a panel for the series at Deadline’s Sound & Screen concert event that he used some he’d never played before.

EXCLUSIVE: The team behind Gloria: I Will Survive, a feature documentary about the artist, has grown strong and learned how to get along.

EXCLUSIVE: BBC Studios is seeking an L.A. exec to help discover the next generation of unscripted formats and collaborate with UK headquarters on new shows for the U.S. market, Deadline can reveal.

Neon said Wednesday that it has come aboard Fire of Love, Sara Dosa’s documentary that world premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. That’s where Deadline boke the news that National Geographic Documentary Films acquired worldwide rights to the pic, which explores the lives and work of French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft through rare archival footage.

At Disney’s Investor Day in December 2020, Nat Geo revealed that season four of its anthology series Genius would focus on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

National Geographic has signed up BBC Studios’ Factual boss Tom McDonald, the exec and commissioner behind some of the UK’s biggest natural history series including Blue Planet II and Planet Earth II.

Amanda Warren has been tapped as the lead in the CBS drama pilot East New York.

Sasha Urban editorCBS police drama pilot “East New York” has cast Amanda Warren (“The Purge”) in the starring role of Regina Haywood, a serious street cop turned deputy inspector.“East New York,” written by William Finkelstein and Mike Flynn, was given a pilot order last month. No other cast members have been announced.The pilot’s executive producers are Finkelstein, Flynn, Mike Robin from Skyemac Productions, Christine Holder and Mark Holder from Wonder Street.

Archer Gray, a New York production and finance company known for backing projects like the Oscar-nominated Can You Ever Forgive Me?, is branching out into alternative formats and non-scripted programming.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefIn support of the Disney Plus streaming service, Disney has expanded its involvement in local production in Asia-Pacific. The company’s APAC head of content and development, Jessica Kam-Engle, gives the keynote presentation on the first day of Hong Kong FilMart.Ahead of her speech she gave a few pointers to Variety readers.Jessica Kam-Engle: From our extensive research, consumers across most Asian markets have a strong preference for local language entertainment content.

EXCLUSIVE: Welsh network S4C’s new Chief Content Officer has issued a call for collaboration to “global streamers and respected U.S. heavyweight broadcasters.”

EXCLUSIVE: XTR, the non-fiction studio behind projects such as Oscar nominated doc Ascension and Apple’s They Call Me Magic, has hired its first Chief Operating Officer.

Sasha Urban editorJay Ellis (“Insecure,” “Top Gun: Maverick,”) will host the inaugural Anthem Awards.The virtual awards, to be held Feb. 28, were created to honor individuals and organizations for their social impact work.“It’s a tremendous honor to host the first annual Anthem Awards,” Ellis said.

EXCLUSIVE: XTR, the non-fiction studio behind projects such as Darren Aronofsky co-produced doc The Territory and Apple’s They Call Me Magic, is bolstering its C-suite.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterNational Geographic announced a slate of more than a dozen upcoming original programs Monday, all of which are produced by the brand but will debut exclusively on Disney Plus — not on the Nat Geo cable channel. But despite the shift, Nat Geo content president Courteney Monroe promised that it’s not a sign that the Disney-owned brand has completely moved away from linear content.“I realize that all of my announcements today were for Disney Plus originals, but that in no way diminishes our focus and investment in National Geographic programming for the linear channel,” Monroe told reporters Monday during Nat Geo’s virtual presentation at the Television Critics Association winter press tour.

Big-budget non-fiction series from Will Smith, Darren Aronofsky, Jon Favreau, James Cameron and David Blaine make up Nat Geo’s latest slate for Disney+.

J. Kim Murphy National Geographic is sending Will Smith to both ends of the Earth.

Showtime is coming off the ratings success of two drama series – Yellowjackets and a Dexter sequel series.

EXCLUSIVE: Hostile Planet and Tiny World producer Plimsoll Productions is taking its Channel 4 carpentry format Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker to the U.S. as Channel 4 issues a rare double season order.

National Geographic Documentary Films acquired rights to the docu The Territory for low seven-figures. It’s their second deal, following a big one for Fire of Love. Nat Geo announced The Territory deal this morning.

EXCLUSIVE: National Geographic Documentary Films is closing a mid-seven-figure worldwide rights deal for Fire of Love, the Sara Dosa-directed documentary that opened the festival and created a stampede of bidders in what is the first deal on the virtual ground here.