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Exclusive: I May Destroy You producer Various Artists Limited (Val) has landed its latest BBC project, a drama series about a family holiday to Greece that turns into a nightmare.

Val is currently casting on Two Weeks in August, which comes from The Shrink Next Door writer Catherine Shepherd. ITV Studios is producing in association with and selling worldwide.

Two Weeks in August tells the story of a woman who goes on holiday with her family and friends to rediscover joy in her life. Zoe begins to act on her deepest desires and the holiday she hoped for becomes a reckoning for a group of adults who refuse to grow up. But when they discover they are trapped on the island, and become faced with real life-or-death situations, the group soon turn on each other to find out who is to blame.

Val is on a hot streak with the BBC,...

Ben Wasserstein has entered a first look deal at Richard Plepler’s Eden Productions.

Under the deal, Wasserstein will pursue and develop new comedy and drama series, limited series and films for Eden’s multi-year deal with Apple TV+. He will work alongside Heather Karpas, who joined Eden in 2020 after previously working at ICM Partners.

Before entering this role, Wasserstein had been working at HBO since 2016. He entered the company as vice president of original programming, eventually rising to senior vice president. During his tenure, he oversaw the development and production of comedy series including “Barry,” “The

Rehearsal,” “Somebody Somewhere,” “Los Espookys,” “Avenue 5,” “Veep,” “Divorce,” “Sally4Ever” and

“Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Before HBO, he worked at Fair Harbor Productions as vice president of development. There, projects under his purview included HBO’s “Looking” and “Bored To Death” as well as SundanceTV’s “The Red

Road.” And before Fair Harbor, he was a journalist,...

HBO’s Ben Wasserstein has inked an exclusive first-look deal with former HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler’s Eden Productions.

Wasserstein, who most recently served as HBO’s senior VP of Original Programming, has signed onto the three-year-old production company to develop comedy and drama series, limited series and films for Eden’s multiyear deal with Apple TV+.

The former SVP, who will be based on the West Coast, will work alongside Heather Karpas, who recently joined Eden from ICM Partners in 2020.

“Ben is one of the most talented creative executives of his generation,” Plepler said in a statement. “I’m thrilled he’ll be bringing his superb eye for talent and material to Eden.”

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Sam Neill Joins Peacock’s ‘Apples Never Fall’ Opposite Annette Bening

Prior to moving up the ladder as SVP of Original Programming at HBO, Wasserstein joined the company in 2016 and oversaw the...

Various Artists Limited (Val), the Emmy and BAFTA winning production company behind “I May Destroy You,” “Sally4Ever” and “Dead Pixels” has appointed Channel 4 commissioning editor Jack Bayles as head of comedy.

London-based Val was founded in 2017 by “Peep Show” co-creator Sam Bain and “Succession” showrunner Jesse Armstrong, together with producers and ex-Channel 4 commissioners, Phil Clarke and Roberto Troni.

Reporting into Clarke and based in London and Brighton, Bayles will join from August and will be responsible for overseeing Val’s comedy slate as well as developing new projects. He previously produced Channel 4’s hit comedy “Catastrophe” with Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney, and in 2017 was appointed commissioning editor for the channel, where he was responsible for BAFTA winning “Stath Lets Flats,” “Derry Girls,” Aisling Bea’s “This Way Up,” “Michell & Webb’s Back,” “The Curse” and “Hullraisers.”

Bayles said: “Channel 4 comedy is a vital and precious voice in British comedy,...

I May Destroy You and Sally4Ever producer Various Artists Limited (Val) has hired Channel 4 Commissioning Editor Jack Bayles as its Head of Comedy.

Bayles will take up the role from August and will be based in London and Brighton. He’ll be responsible for overseeing Val’s comedy slate and developing new projects. Val said the exec, who has 20 years’ experience in comedy, will provide “creative leadership and artistic vision to the role.”

The company was founded in 2017 by Sam Bain, his writing partner and Succession creator Jesse Armstrong and a pair of former Channel 4 commissioners, Phil Clarke and Roberto Troni. Bayles will report to Clarke.

Tanya Qureshi was Val’s previous Head of Comedy until March 2021 but left to join the BBC.

Prior to Val, Bayles produced Channel 4 and Amazon comedy Catastrophe with Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney, and in 2017 was appointed Commissioning Editor for the broadcaster,...

Troma Entertainment’s Lloyd Kaufman is as unique as his studio is independent. Ironic, sarcastic, or provocatively caustic, Uncle Lloyd has got something to say and gets his point across on several levels simultaneously. It’s more economical. The iconic studio is renowned for cult classics like Class of Nuke ‘Em High, Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, and Surf Nazis Must Die, but the low-budget auteur maintained a diverse career of almost 50 years of “reel independence.”

Troma was founded in 1974 by Yale film society buddies Kaufman and Michael Herz. Their movies were produced on tiny budgets and were proudly proclaimed to make only “the most offensive, tasteless films in the history of cinema.” Even the lowest of low budget studios aspire to the highest of standards, and those without any at all shoot for the moon.

Troma’s newest film disembowels the classics. #Shakespeare’s Shitstorm is a diarrhetic skewering of...

New Jersey’s first superhero is being recycled, and it seems like only the truest fans are going through the trash. Legendary Pictures is remaking Troma Entertainment’s 1984 superhero splatter comedy, The Toxic Avenger. Directed by Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman, who wrote the screenplay with Joe Ritter, the original is a campy and violent low budget B-movie which became a cult phenomenon after midnight showings at the West Village’s Bleecker Street Cinema. It spawned a franchise, a cartoon, a Broadway play, and a legion of dedicated fans. Legendary’s remake was first announced in 2019 with Peter Dinklage attached.

“The movie has been shot,” Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman tells Den of Geek. “I went over to Bulgaria, and it looks like they did a great job.” The co-director of the original, and co-founder of the iconic shoestring-budget Troma studio, found immediate improvements too.

“The Toxic Avenger reimagining script is...

Jesse Armstrong had a great year. The “Succession” showrunner saw the third season of his HBO show air to continued acclaim, and it was renewed for a fourth season. And after the success of “I May Destroy You,” Armstrong’s Various Artists Ltd. — which produced the Michaela Coel miniseries — doubled its profits, according to a year-end report filed by the company.

The report, filed by Various Artists earlier this month with the U.K. government, shows the company more than doubled its post-tax profit for the fiscal year ending in March. It reported a profit of £2.6 million, compared to £1.2 million the prior year. The document singles out the success of “I May Destroy You” as a key performance indicator for the company founded in 2017.

“In particular, ‘I May Destroy You’ was one of the most talked about and critically acclaimed television shows in living memory, winning awards including 5 BAFTAs, 3 Rts awards and 2 Emmys.

Exclusive: Julia Davis and Elijah Wood have joined Peter Dinklage and Jacob Tremblay in Legendary’s new Toxic Avenger movie. Taylour Paige and Kevin Bacon are also on board for director Macon Blair.

A contemporary reimagining of Troma Entertainment’s successful 1984 low-budget action comedy hit, The Toxic Avenger is steeped in environmental themes and subverts the superhero genre in the vein of Deadpool. When a struggling everyman is pushed into a vat of toxic waste, he is transformed into a mutant freak who must go from shunned outcast to underdog hero as he races to save his son, his friends and his community from the forces of corruption and greed. Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz will serve as producers.

The Toxic Avenger became successful after a long run as a midnight movie in New York City, leading to sequels The Toxic Avenger Part II, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie...

While HBO execs aren't tied to the ratings like regular commercial channels, they have to air programs that will keep viewers subscribed. Which of their shows will be cancelled or renewed? We'll have to wait and see.

Scripted HBO shows listed: Animals, Avenue 5, Ballers, Big Little Lies, Boardwalk Empire, The Brink, Camping, The Comeback, Crashing, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Deuce, Divorce, Eastbound & Down, Euphoria, Game of Thrones, Gentleman Jack, Getting On, Girls, Hello Ladies, Here and Now, High Maintenance, His Dark Materials, I May Destroy You, I Know This Much Is True, In Treatment, Industry, Insecure, Jonah from Tonga, The Leftovers, Looking, Lovecraft Country, Mare of Easttown, Mosaic, Mrs. Fletcher, The Nevers, The New Pope, The Newsroom, The Night Of, The Outsider, Perry Mason, The Righteous Gemstones, Room 104, Run, Sally4Ever, Sharp Objects, Silicon Valley, Succession, The Third Day, Togetherness, Tracey Ullman's Show, True Blood, True...

Netflix has for years touted its algorithm-driven TV and movie recommendations. Now HBO is taking a subtle swipe at the streaming rival and other services that push computer-generated content suggestions with the launch of “Recommended by Humans.”

HBO’s new marketing site is stocked with paid fan testimonials for around 50 shows, movies and documentaries that lets users sample them for free. “[T]he best recommendations come from real people,” HBO said Tuesday in announcing the site, available at humanreco.hbo.com.

The site lets users scroll through a canvas on a desktop or mobile browser to watch 36 video testimonials and more than 150 Twitter recommendations from HBO fans. Featured titles range from recent series like “Game of Thrones,” “Succession,” and “Chernobyl” to older shows like “Sex and the City,” “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

For the campaign, HBO issued a casting call for viewers “who were so excited about...

Here's the status of TV shows like Saints & Sinners, Sally4Ever, Sandman, Santa Clarita Diet, Schitt's Creek, School of Rock, Scream, Search Party, Second City, Secure and Hold, See, Sense8, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Seven Seconds, Sex Education, Shadowhunters, Shameless, The Shannara Chronicles, Sharp Objects, She’s Gotta Have It, Shogun, Shooter, Shrill, Shut Eye, Silicon Valley, The Sinner, Siren, Six, Slasher, Small Axe, Smilf, Snatch, Sneaky Pete, Snowfall, Snowpiercer, The Society, Solar Opposites, The Son, South Park, South Side, The Spanish Princess, Special, Spinning Out, The Split, Spotless, Stan Against Evil, Star Falls, Stargirl, Stranger Things, Strike Back, Stuck in the Middle, Succession, Suits, SuperMansion, Superstition, Survivor's Remorse, Swamp Thing, The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Swedish Dicks, Sweet Magnolias, Sweetbitter, Sydney to the Max, Taboo, Tacoma Fd, Tales from the Loop, Tarantula, Teachers, Team Kaylie, Tell Me Your Secrets, The Terror, That’s So Raven, This Close, This Functional Family,...

How do producers, broadcasters, streaming platforms and distributors best take advantage of what is commonly agreed to be a time of peak content creation for television? That is a question the keynote speakers at the Variety European TV Summit will attempt to address when they gather for a one-day conference on June 13 at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel in Bayswater.

Gareth Neame, the executive chairman of “Downton Abbey” and “The Last Kingdom” producer at Carnival Films, says that, thanks to new platforms and rising budgets, producers are freer than ever to create ambitious and novel-like dramas rather than the artificial, low-budget shows that used to characterize scripted TV.

“There are plenty more opportunities — but competition is massive. Everyone is in this space,” says Neame, referring to the growth in the number of production companies pushing into drama. He adds that rising budgets mean the “stakes are now very high” for drama producers,...

Phoebe Waller Bridge’s slinky thriller “Killing Eve” made its mark at the BAFTA TV Awards on May 12, taking home three prizes, including drama series, lead actress for Jodie Comer and supporting actress for Fiona Shaw.

Now airing its second season on BBC America, the series centers around a bored spy played by Sandra Oh who gets drawn into a game of cat-and-mouse with Comer’s obsessive contract killer.

The win is a significant boost for Comer, whose performance in Season 1 was often overshadowed by Oh’s, resulting in both a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for the latter.

HBO’s “Succession” also got a boost in its Emmy campaign, taking home the BAFTA for international series, edging out last year’s winner, Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

There were several other familiar faces for American audiences amongst the winners at the BAFTAs, including love for the...

Killing Eve and Patrick Melrose were the big winners at the BAFTA TV Awards in London.

The BBC America drama, which was created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, took home the best drama series award as well as for Jodie Comer as best actress and Fiona Shaw for best supporting actress. In the main drama category, it beat breakout BBC One terror hit Bodyguard, BBC/Amazon co-pro Informer and Sky sleeper hit Save Me.

Comer, who plays murderous lead Villanelle, beat her Killing Eve co-star Sandra Oh as well as Bodyguard’s Keely Hawes and Mrs Wilson’s Ruth Wilson in the lead actress category. Comer thanked her “inspiration” Waller-Bridge as well as Boardwalk Empire’s Stephen Graham, who helped her out early in her career, and her Nana Frances in the last award of the night.

Shaw, who plays MI6 agent Carolyn Martins, beat Keeley Hawes (Mrs Wilson), Billie Piper (Collateral...

Are you obsessed with the first season of the Sally4Ever TV show on HBO? As we all know, the Nielsen ratings typically play a big role in determining whether the TV show Sally4Ever is cancelled or renewed for season two. Unfortunately, most of us do not live in Nielsen households. Because many viewers feel frustration when their viewing habits and opinions aren't considered, we'd like to offer you the chance to rate all of the Sally4Ever season one episodes below.

An HBO co-production with Sky Atlantic, Sally4Ever stars creator Julia Davis alongside Catherine Shepherd, Alex Macqueen, Julia Davis, Julian Barratt, Felicity Montagu, Steve Oram, Joanna Scanlan, and Mark Gatiss. The British comedy centers on mid-level marketing executive Sally (Shepherd). After her longtime boyfriend, David (Macqueen), proposes to her, Sally panics and embarks on a torrid affair. Her new paramour, Emma...

Sally (Catherine Shepherd) is not the star of her own show — or her own life. When we meet her, she’s trudging through a job in marketing (tasked with making eggs “sexy” enough to appeal to teens) and a relationship with a fellow whose meek submissiveness is portrayed as something almost grotesque. He doesn’t realize, or chooses not to, that Sally sneaks out of their shared bed one night to go to a club and returns drunk and coated in glitter. There, she connects with Emma, an ultracharismatic woman whose lack of self-awareness is its own gift: It allows her to shamelessly grift her way through life, convincing the gullible, including Sally, to give her whatever she wants.

HBO’s co-production with the U.K.’s Sky airs after Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner’s “Camping” remake and shares DNA with the original “Camping,” another comedy of (bad) manners created by Julia Davis.

From writer/director Julia Davis, take a look at the new 'lesbian comedy' TV series "Sally4Ever", starring Davis, Julian Barratt, Sean Bean and Lee Byford , premiering November 11, 2018 on HBO:

"...for 10 years 'Sally' has lived a dull suburban life with 'David'. But on the night he asks her to marry him, Sally has a crisis...

"...embarking on a wild affair with 'Emma', a seductive, charismatic, boho actress, singer, musician, poet and author..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Sally4Ever"...

HBO is ready for a new romance. This week, the network announced the premiere date for their new TV show, Sally4Ever.

From Julia Davis, the comedy series stars Catherine Shepherd as Sally, a bored marketing executive who begins an exciting new affair with the charismatic Emma (Julia Davis). The cast also includes Alex Macqueen, Julian Barratt, Joanna Scanlan, Mark Gatiss, and Felicity Montagu.

Read More…...

In today’s TV News Roundup, Sanaa Lathan has joined Jordan Peele’s “Twilight Zone” reboot and “Upload” at Amazon adds two to its cast.

First Looks

Netflix has released the trailer for “Westside,“ a new unscripted series that looks into the journeys of nine L.A. musicians as they struggle to follow their dreams. Debuting on Nov. 9, each episode features original songs and music videos. Cast members include Sean Patrick Murray, Pia Toscano, James Byous, Arika Gluck, Austin Kolbe, Caitlin Ary, Leo Gallo, Alexandra Krekorian, and Taz Zavala. Assisting them along the way are a few industry giants, including music producer Philip Lawrence, acting coach Susan Batson, and music director Keith Harrison.

Casting

Sanaa Lathan has joined the first season of “The Twilight Zone,” a CBS All Access reboot of the original CBS television show. The series hails from Jordan Peele, who will also serve as the narrator. Lathan...

Sky and HBO are teaming again, this time for a documentary series about the Adnan Syed case, which inspired the popular ‘Serial’ podcast. Academy Award nominee Amy Berg (“Deliver Us from Evil”) will direct.

“The Case Against Adnan Syed” will run to four hours. Working Title TV and Instinct Productions are producing, and NBC Universal International Studios are distributing the follow-up to the case, which will play on the Sky Atlantic channel in the U.K. and in the U.S. on HBO.

The series will explore the 1999 disappearance and murder of 18-year-old Baltimore County high school student Hae Min Lee and the subsequent conviction of her ex-boyfriend, Syed. In production since 2015, the series will re-examine the events leading up to Hae Min Lee’s disappearance, the original police investigation, and the present day, when Syed awaits a new trial.

Sky said the series will present new discoveries and “ground-breaking...

Joseph Baxter Mar 27, 2019

Killing Eve Season 2 is set for more audacious bloodshed on BBC America.

Killing Eve impressed audiences with its stylistically subversive, thrilling, hilarious and terrifying spy story that also happens to be from a female perspective. BBC America obviously knew it had something special on its hands from the get-go, renewing Killing Eve for a second season before the first season even began airing!

Killing Eve showcases the dark, yet irreverent, rivalry between Sandra Oh’s unassuming MI5 pencil-pusher, Eve Polastri, and Jodie Comer’s psychopathic assassin, Villanelle — and it's been groundbreaking.

Indeed, the inagural season of the series reaped awards season accolades, nabbing a 2019 Golden Globes “Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama” win for Sandra Oh, as well as a “Best Television Series – Drama” nomination. Plus, it earned 2018 Primetime Emmy nominations for “Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series” for Oh, and “Outstanding...