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The murder of Gabby Petito captivated the nation back in 2021, and since then, there have been a number of documentaries and series chronicling the events that led up to her death at the hands of her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. Netflix recently got in on the action by way of a new true crime docuseries, American Murder: Gabby Petito, which comes from filmmakers Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro. Thus far, the series has managed to reignite the same social media buzz that first brought Petito's case into the limelight, but it's also coming under fire for recreating her voice with the help of AI.

Speaking with US Weekly, Nason and Gasparro discussed what went into creating their newest docuseries, which comes after a string of hits including LuLaRich (2021), Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal (2023), and Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets (2023). The duo said that the decision to use AI to...

Exclusive: Alysia Russo, who was Head of Docuseries at Amazon MGM Studios, is moving to Netflix.

It marks a rare senior executive moving directly between two rival studios.

Russo is understood to be working on feature docs at Netflix. While there are two executives from this team on maternity leave, Russo’s role is unrelated and is a temporary contract, thought to be 18 months.

Russo was behind Amazon docuseries such as LulaRich and its upcoming Glitter and Greed: The Lisa Frank Story, which comes from the producers of ID’s Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

Her move comes less than four months after a restructure within Amazon MGM Studios.

In May, Russo’s boss Lauren Anderson, who was Head of AVOD Programming and Studios Unscripted across U.S. Prime Video and Amazon Freevee, was named Head, Brand and Content Innovation, but continuing to oversee the AVOD originals team.

The Cinemart, the production company behind Amazon’s “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets” and Netflix’s “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal,” has signed an overall deal with Banijay’s Truly Original.

Under the new pact, The Cinemart will expand its development and production operations in premium documentaries and other genres of unscripted programming through Truly Original, a subsidiary of Banijay backed by co-CEOs Steven Weinstock and Glenda Hersh.

Run by co-CEOs and producing partners Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro, The Cinemart was founded by Nason in 2011. The production company’s programming lineup currently includes “Welcome to Leith” (PBS), “The Kalief Browder Story” (Paramount), “Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story” (Paramount), “Fyre Fraud” (Hulu), “LulaRich” and “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets” (Amazon), “The Pharmacist” and “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal” (Netflix), with numerous features and series in production and development.

Truly Original’s notable series include “Ink Master,...

Freevee isn’t going away, Amazon says.

With Amazon’s Prime Video launch of ads by default last month, rumors and speculation have heated up that the tech giant would no longer have a strategic need for Freevee — its free, ad-supported streaming service that is separate from Prime Video. A Feb. 21 report by Adweek, citing anonymous sources, said that Amazon will “sunset” Freevee, likely in the second quarter and possibly before the NewFronts in late April.

Asked for comment, Amazon said the Adweek report is inaccurate.

“There are no changes to Freevee,” the rep said in an email to Variety. “Amazon Freevee remains an important streaming offering providing both Prime and non-Prime customers thousands of hit movies, shows, and originals, all for free.”

Freevee is the name of the ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) service that was originally launched in January 2019 under the name IMDb Freedive and then rebranded as...

The scammy, salacious saga of George Santos’ fraudulent life and short-lived congressional career will soon get the documentary treatment.

According to The New York Times the project, which is already in the works, will be directed by self-proclaimed “scammer whisperer” and Fyre Fraud documentarian Jenner Furst — who has also already secured Santos’ participation in the film and plans to pay him an “archival materials fee.”

Furst is the award-winning director behind projects including Time: The Kalief Browder Story, LuLaRich, and the smash hit Hulu documentary Fyre Fraud, which chronicled the disastrous,...

PodcastOne (Nasdaq: Podc), a leading podcast platform and a subsidiary of LiveOne (Nasdaq: Lvo), which owns ~80% of the Podc outstanding common stock, announced today that is has acquired the exclusive distribution and sales rights to the critically acclaimed and award winning podcast, Was I In A Cult? from hosts Liz Iacuzzi and Tyler Measom who lend their own personal cultic experiences to the pod.

Named Best Podcast by multiple publications including Vulture and Good Housekeeping, Was I In A Cult? is a documentary-style podcast showcasing individuals who have been in, and most importantly, successfully left a cult. Told first-hand by the experiencer themself, these are raw, riveting and inspirational tales of what it means to be a survivor. Using levity and info-tainment, the show humanized the cultic experience and may leave some of our listeners asking themselves... "Wait... Was I In A Cult?" Guests have included the original male supermodel...

Christine Brown's distancing herself from LuLaRoe after the release of the documentary LuLaRich, which exposed the company's quality issues and pyramid scheme practices. Janelle and Kody Brown's relationship problems are a major storyline in Sister Wives season 18, and Janelle is considering couples' counseling with him. However, Christine's still in the spotlight. Christine's embracing a new life without Kody. She's focused on personal growth and happiness, including her new relationship with David Woolley. She values directness and emotional honesty, and may think that LuLaRoe's too shady.

Sister Wives star Christine Brown isn't affiliated with LuLaRoe anymore, and since the searing documentary LuLaRich aired, she may be trying to distance herself from the company. In season 18, Christine's reinventing herself. She left Kody Brown, and seems quite happy to be free of him. However, she does resent him at times, especially when he mistreats her close friend Janelle Brown. Christine's so...

Netflix has ordered a second season of the documentary series “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal.” Season 2 will premiere with all three episodes on September 20.

The series covers the true story of Alex Murdaugh, who was found guilty of the murder of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul in 2021. Season 2 will feature first-hand accounts from those who were there the days leading up to and following the murders, including the family’s former housekeeper Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson, Libby Murdaugh’s caregiver Mushelle “Shelly” Smith, Alex Murdaugh’s cousin Curtis Edward Smith and juror Gwen Generette. Returning voices from Season 1 include Paul’s ex-girlfriend Morgan Doughty, Paul’s friend Anthony Cook and Wall Street Journal reporter Valerie Bauerlein.

Season 1 of “Murdaugh Murders” debuted as Murdaugh’s trial was actively unfolding. It premiered on Feb. 22 and Murdaugh was found guilty of both murders on March 2. The attention on the case propelled the series to solid viewership numbers,...

“Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets” has had the biggest debut of any documentary series ever produced by Amazon Studios, Variety has learned.

The limited series investigates controversies surrounding the Duggar family, best known for TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” including Josh Duggar’s conviction for possession of child pornography and the family’s connection to the Institute in Basic Life Principles, a controversial Christian organization.

After premiering on Amazon Prime Video with all four episodes on June 2, “Shiny Happy People” reached more viewers in its first nine days than any Amazon docuseries, including high-profile titles like “LuLaRich,” the 2021 docuseries that examined the LuLaRoe pyramid scheme. (An exact tally of viewers for these series is unknown.)

Additionally, measured over the same nine-day period, the series has been responsible for the acquisition of more new Prime Video customers than any other Amazon docuseries. More than 60% of “Shiny Happy People” viewers have been women,...

The untold story of The Duggar family is being explored in a new docuseries.

Prime Video released the trailer for its upcoming “Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secret” docuseries from the award-winning team behind critically acclaimed hit series “LuLaRich”.

The four-episode series will explore the truth behind The Duggars, stars of the TLC series “19 Kids and Counting”, who were part of the radical religious organization The Institute in Basic Life Principles (Iblp).

Read More: Jessa Duggar Reveals She Suffered A Miscarriage With Baby No. 5 In Emotional Video

Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets – Photo: Prime Video

Jill Duggar, who broke away from the family and religion, is speaking out for the first time about her history and what she saw behind the curtain.

The official synopsis reads:

“‘Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets’ is a limited docuseries exposing the truth beneath the wholesome Americana surface of reality TV’s favorite mega-family,...

There are lots of fun little news tidbits today in the world of television.

There's truly a little something for everyone.

First up is Prime Video push by Amazon to get more eyes on their original content.

Variety reported that Amazon plans on sharing more than 100 titles with Freevee, Amazon's ad-supported service.

New shows marking their moment on the service include Reacher, The Summer I Turned Pretty, The Wheel of Time, A League of Their Own, and LuLaRich.

Beginning today, you can already watch some Prime Video originals on Freevee, including Bosch, Mozart in the Jungle, Troop Zero, and Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Grrrls.

Every month, Freevee will launch more Prime Video originals. May alone will bring The Terminal List, Goliath, Paper Girls, and The Vast of Night, a cool indie sci-fi mystery about a small town experiencing an unexpected alien event.

You'll have to wait a little...

Amazon is bringing more than 100 of its Prime Video originals to Freevee, the company’s ad-supported platform that’s home to new hit “Jury Duty,” this year. The deal marks the first time these titles will be available to view for free and with commercial breaks.

Among the slate of hit Prime Video shows and movies that will begin streaming on Freevee (while still remaining available for ad-free viewing on Prime Video) are “Reacher,” “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” “The Wheel of Time,” “A League of Their Own” and “LuLaRich.”

As of Monday, more than 50 of these originals are now available for streaming on Freevee, including “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” “The Grand Tour,” “Mozart in the Jungle,” “Bosch,” “Modern Love,” “Savage X Fenty,” “Sylvie’s Love,” “Troop Zero” and “Late Night.”

Additional Amazon original titles will launch each month on Freevee, with the first three episodes of “The Summer I Turned Pretty...

Amazon Freevee is expanding its lineup of hit Prime Video original TV series and movies that soon will be available to stream for free on the service, including Reacher, The Summer I Turned Pretty, The Wheel Of Time, A League of Their Own and docuseries LuLa Rich.

Starting May 26, the first three episodes of Amazon Original The Summer I Turned Pretty will be available for free exclusively on Amazon Freevee. It will be followed later by the entire first season of Reacher, starring Alan Ritchson, as well as the first full season of The Wheel of Time, ahead of its second season premiere this year on Prime Video.

Series also launching in May along with The Summer I Turned Pretty include the first three episodes of A League of Their Own, The Terminal List, and Paper Girls, plus the hit series Goliath and The Tick, full seasons of Homecoming and Upload,...

Directors Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason were never short on angles through which to investigate the crimes, casualties and collusions of the powerful Murdaugh family of South Carolina’s Lowcountry.

The most obvious one would have been to tell the story through Alex Murdaugh, a former solicitor who’s currently on trial for the 2021 murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul. Thanks to dozens of live feeds on YouTube, the ongoing courtroom drama has emerged as the trial of the year.

But once they were on the ground in the Lowcountry, the directors behind Netflix’s new docuseries “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal” were told there was only one place to start –– the 2019 boat crash that had killed Mallory Beach.

“I think what people don’t understand is that had there not been a boat crash years prior, and had Mallory Beach not died the way she did...

Amazon Studios is merging its Prime Video and Freevee unscripted teams under the oversight of reality TV vet Chris Castallo. Having previously focused on Prime Video fare, Castallo will now oversee unscripted for both outlets and report to Lauren Anderson, who was recently named head of AVOD original content and programming at Amazon Studios.

The move comes following a restructure inside Amazon’s ad-supported video on demand service. Earlier this month, Ryan Pirozzi was named head of Freevee, overseeing the business side of the streaming service, while Anderson was given oversight for programming, which includes development, production, licensing, scheduling, research and strategy for Freevee and Prime Video’s ad-supported Fast linear channels. Anderson and Pirozzi had formerly served as co-heads of content and programming for Amazon Freevee (the ad-supported video on demand service that had been known as IMDb TV).

Castallo previously reported to Marc Resteghini, the US/Global Head of Development at Amazon Studios.

Out of the bustling ecosystem of this season’s true crime dramas and docs, “The Dropout,” Hulu’s dynamic adaptation of the ABC News podcast about disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, has emerged as an innovative creation in the sub-genre of scam TV. But when she created the series, showrunner Elizabeth Meriwether didn’t see it that way at first.

“I never really thought of ‘The Dropout’ as a scam show,” she says. “I saw it as a character study.”

Meriwether accepts the placement of her series within the overall scam genre, which has never been more popular, but says there are more differences between the myriad projects than similarities.

“The quote-unquote scam that was committed is so different in each show, and I think that may be easy to lose sight of,” she says.

It’s impossible to name every possible flavor of schemes. As with “The Dropout,” the...

Last Year’s Winner: “Secrets of the Whales”

Still Eligible: No.

Hot Streak: Disney+ itself is not on a hot streak, having only won last year, and no other year since its existence. Disney as a whole though has won two years running, with ESPN winning in 2020 for the blockbuster docuseries “The Last Dance.”

Notable Ineligible Series: “The New York Times Presents”; “Biography”

This article will be updated throughout the season, along with all our predictions, so make sure to keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2022 Emmys race. The nomination round of voting will take place from June 16 to June 27, with the official Emmy nominations to be announced on Tuesday, July 12. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be given out over two consecutive nights on Saturday, September 3 and Sunday, September 4, with an edited presentation on the ceremonies to be broadcast on Saturday, Sept. 10, at 8:00 p.m.

In making “LuLaRich,” Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason both talk about how they came up with the idea of “true comedy.” “Everybody knows true crime, everybody knows true con and we called it a ‘true comedy.’ The reality is that we saw so many similarities with ‘Fyre Fraud,’ that we understood the language for telling a story like this,” Furst tells Gold Derby during our Meet the Experts: TV Documentary panel (watch the exclusive video interview above). He clarifies that the film doesn’t poke fun, laugh at people as a spectacle or in an exploitative way. “We’re ultimately laughing at ourselves because, in the end… we’re actually part of the problem and I think that all of our work has shown that.”

“LuLaRich,” which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, takes an in-depth look at the LuLaRoe women’s clothing company that was accused of being a pyramid scheme.

Deadline has launched the streaming site for its Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted event, which Saturday showcased 21 documentary and reality series along with the subjects and creators who make them tick. It now joins our scripted Contenders counterpart to provide a 360-degree view of the shows that are generating buzz this TV awards season.

Click here to launch the Contenders TV: Docs + Unscripted streaming site.

Overall, more than 60 cast and creators from 12 networks, studios and streamers took part in the all-day virtual event. Hulu, ABC, National Geographic, Showtime, Netflix, VH1, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Warner Bros Television, Comedy Central, Lifetime, A&e, TLC, HBO Documentary Films, MTV and Fox Television showed off series from The Kardashians and The Daily Show With Trevor Noah to The Masked Singer, We Need to Talk About Cosby and 90 Day Fiancé and all points in between.

Among the panelists who participated in the discussions were Kim Kardashian,...

Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason have become pioneers in a new genre within the true-crime category, something they call “true comedy.”

The directors/executive producers earned an Emmy nomination for their 2019 documentary Fyre Fraud, about the luxe music festival that turned hilariously bad. Their latest docuseries, LuLaRich, from Amazon Prime Video, takes a comedic look at the rise and fall of LuLaRoe, a clothing company known for leggings that featured pizza slice prints, grinning pineapples, bespectacled canines and other fanciful designs.

Contenders TV Docs + Unscripted — Deadline’s Complete Coverage

LuLaRoe was founded by DeAnne and Mark Stidham, a couple steeped in the ways of multi-level marketing – businesses set up like Amway and Avon that sell direct to consumers.

“They started in their garage and they had to keep expanding and expanding until they had all their inventory out in a parking lot, which led to it being infested by...

What does it take to get Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness to show up on time for shoots on their Emmy-winning Netflix series? “Tough love,” jokes fellow cast member Bobby Berk.

That’s one of the many revelations — humorous and otherwise — you can expect from Deadline’s all-day Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted virtual event, which gets underway Saturday at 9 a.m. Pt and takes you inside the hottest nonfiction series and films competing for honors this TV awards season.

Click here to sign up for and watch the livestream.

Among the 21 series and 60 stars, creators and showrunners being showcased in the all-day event, Lucy and Desi director Amy Poehler reveals how she uncovered the “human story” of television icons Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, mining a trove of never-before-heard audio tapes of the showbiz couple. W. Kamau Bell tells us about taking on a fallen TV icon, Bill Cosby,...

Fresh from the debut of The Kardashians on Hulu, Kim Kardashian joins our spectacular roster of talent for Deadline’s Contenders Television: Docs + Unscripted virtual event this Saturday.

Register here for this entertaining and informative showcase of the most buzzworthy nonfiction series and films competing for recognition this TV awards season. It all kicks off at 9 a.m. Pt.

Kardashian and executive producer Ben Winston talk about launching an entirely new unscripted series on a new platform after 20 seasons of E!’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

“I think it was really a scary jump,” Kardashian admits, “but the most exciting jump to work with a new partner.”

Coincidentally, Kim’s ex-husband is the subject of an acclaimed Netflix series taking part in our Contenders Docs + Unscripted event – jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy. Director-producers Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah reveal Ye’s current feelings about the three-part exploration of the rapper...

Amazon’s Prime Video is bringing back its in-person Emmys For Your Consideration pop-up space, after two years of virtual campaigning due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But this time, “The Prime Experience” is moving to a new home: A private mansion in the Hollywood Hills, which will be open for Emmy voters to explore from April 30 to May 21. Amazon previously spent three years at the Hollywood Athletic Club for its installation, starting in 2017 and continuing in 2018 and 2019. The pandemic, of course, put a stop to such an event in 2020 and again in 2021.

Amazon is first out with news of a return to an in-person FYC space. Netflix organized a similar activation for its shows (also with a public component) until the pandemic halted such pop ups in 2020; it hasn’t yet revealed when and where its FYC events will be held this year.

Prime Video didn’t reveal the exact...

The rumor that Amazon is rebranding its free streaming service IMDBtv has been making the rounds for the past six months but the move was given its first public airing with Amazon Studios chief Jen Salke revealing that the service would be renamed “soon.”

The service, which airs series including Alex Rider, Leverage: Redemption and Judy Justice, was originally launched in 2019 as IMDb Freedive before being rebranded as IMDb TV a few months later.

It’s now set for a third name as it was thought, with its six syllables, to be too cumbersome for customers to pronounce. Deadline understands that it’s in the final stages of choosing a name and is down to two possibilities.

Salke revealed the news during a keynote session at the virtual Realscreen, where she was talking up the company’s non-scripted ambitions.

“We are trying lots of things and now we’re expanding...

After their successful collaboration on the “LuLaRich” docuseries, Amazon Studios has greenlit an investigation from the same filmmakers, about the Institute in Basic Life Principles. That fundamentalist organization is associated with the Duggars, the famous reality TV family that has become the subject of scrutiny since it was exposed in 2015 that Josh Duggar had molested his sisters and other kids. Earlier this month, Duggar was convicted of possessing child pornography and faces years in prison.

After Duggar’s crimes were revealed in 2015, TLC canceled “19 Kids and Counting”­ — sort of. The show evolved into the spinoff “Counting On,” which ran for 11 seasons until Josh Duggar was arrested in April of this year. TLC announced in late June that it would “not be producing additional seasons of ‘Counting On,’” in order to “give the Duggar family the opportunity to address their situation privately.”

The untitled docuseries is currently in production, and...

Exclusive: A Slight Change of Plans, one of the breakout podcasts of the year, is being adapted as a television documentary series from the team behind docs including Fyre Fraud and LuLaRich.

The Cinemart, which is also behind Time: The Kalief Browder Story, has acquired the rights to the audio series from host and creator Dr. Maya Shankar and Malcolm Gladwell’s Pushkin Industries.

Shankar, who served as Senior Advisor in President Barack Obama’s White House, is a cognitive scientist who studies how and why we change and the series looks at how people navigate changes of all kinds.

The series, which was named as the best show of the year by Apple, featured the likes of Tiffany Haddish, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Riz Ahmed and Kacey Musgraves as well as those such as a young man who builds cancer detection tools and who finds himself in the throes of his own stage 4 diagnosis,...

Discovery Plus, in partnership with BuzzFeed Studios, will premiere “The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe” on the streamer on Dec. 13.

In a new investigation into the LuLaRoe clothing company — which launched tens of thousands of print leggings into the world — Discovery Plus promises previously unreported accounts about the multi-level marketing company. The documentary will feature BuzzFeed News’ Stephanie McNeal, who published an in-depth investigation into LuLaRoe in Feb. 2020.

Variety is exclusively premiering the trailer above.

“The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe,” according to the announcement, delves into “parts of the story that haven’t been heard before, including recent developments and first-hand accounts from sources who are speaking out for the first time.” Past employees — not only retail consultants who were scammed, but also warehouse workers and designers — will be featured in the documentary.

Among those interviewed in “The Rise and Fall of LuLaRoe” are Rick Ross, an expert in cults; Amanda Montell,...

Once again, we find ourselves already surprisingly further into a calendar year than feels appropriate. Even for those who don’t make it their sole mission to stay up-to-date with every new development in the TV world, the majority of the past year has brought with it a daunting number of series.

Some of those have been brand new shows, either the result of conscious release date delays or interrupted production schedules. Others have been series imports that enjoyed full runs in different parts of the world before getting a U.S. debut in 2021. And as the year continues to develop and the awards calendar switches over into its multi-holiday phase, we’ve also seen the return of established favorites.

We try our best to help sift through the steady stream of newcomers every month, but there still always seems to be more than any casual viewer can keep track.

Welcome to this week’s “Just for Variety.”

Wonder Woman approves of Robert Pattinson as the new Batman and Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman!

“Rob looks amazing,” Gal Gadot told me last night at Elle’s Women in Hollywood event at the Academy Museum when I asked if she had seen the new “The Batman” trailer. “I love his voice and I love the whole tone of everything.

“And I love Zoë. She looks incredible. She’s a sweetheart. She’s a talented woman,” she continued. “And I’m so happy to have another female as a comrade.”

So when does Gadot think we’ll see an all-female superhero movie with Wonder Woman? “That’s a good question,” she said. “We should ask [DC Films president] Walter Hamada.”

Gadot added with a laugh, “Actually, I’m going to write that in my notes to ask him.”

Unfortunately, former Catwoman Halle Berry...

It doesn’t take divine intervention to become the most-viewed streaming show of the week. It takes something a bit darker — or whatever “Lucifer” has, anyway.

Netflix’s “Lucifer,” the popular fantasy series that premiered its sixth and final season September 10, was the most-viewed original streaming show of the week by an impressive margin. The series was viewed for 1,588 million minutes, while Netflix’s “Clickbait” trailed in second place with 732 million minutes viewed, per Nielsen’s latest report on the most-viewed streaming TV shows. The company’s rankings were based on viewership data from from September 13 to September 19.

The rise of “Lucifer” should be a familiar story to those who follow ratings. After being revived by Netflix following its cancellation at Fox, “Lucifer” has long been a mainstay on Nielsen’s weekly rankings and regularly topped (or nearly topped) the reports when the show’s Season 5 premiered earlier in the year.

In its first week of eligibility — though for only its first three days of release — Netflix’s Squid Game didn’t crack the Top 10 on the Nielsen Streaming Ranking, though it is poised to leap onto the chart in the coming weeks.

The Korean thriller about 456 people lured into a series of deadly children’s games — which Netflix recently touted as its most sampled series launch ever — racked up 206 million minutes of viewing during the week of Sept. 13-19, though it didn’t even premiere until the 17th. It thus fell well shy of Nielsen’s latest overall Top 10 ranking,...

Lashae Kimbrough didn’t set out to be the scene stealer in Amazon Prime’s LuLaRich documentary series. She simply wanted to tell her side of the story as a former employee of DeAnne Brady and Mark Stidham, the frequently sued owners behind LuLaRoe who are accused of turning their women’s clothing company into a multi-million dollar pyramid scheme.

Then a funny thing happened. Kimbrough told her truth in the four-part docuseries, which is now streaming, and a lot of viewers became smitten with her. Now the Southern California native is trying to figure out what business opportunity to...

Amazon Prime’s docuseries “LuLaRich” is just as divisive as LuLaRoe, the multilevel marketing company that it covers.

With more than 3,000 Amazon reviews for its documentary series, 91% are five stars, 6% are one star and 2% are four stars. Both the three- and two-star categories have 0% of the votes at press time.

What’s that tell you? As a snapshot, it means viewers either loved the docuseries or they hated it. But with a controversial topic such as maxi-skirt and leggings giant LuLaRoe — which some have accused of operating like a pyramid scheme — the division of voting also just comes down to which side of that fence a voter falls on. More bluntly, in this case, is the voter a former LuLaRoe sales person or a current one?

At the time of this writing, the “Top positive review” read this way: “Excellent expose on an Mlm scheme. Gotta love the one star...

On Friday, Amazon Prime Video dropped “LuLaRich,” a four-part docuseries that exposes the misdeeds of clothing company/pyramid scheme LuLaRoe. In “LuLaRich,” directors Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason delve into the history of the company, leading up to its implosion when LuLaRoe’s runaway growth caused quality issues and supply chain meltdowns, among myriad other problems.

But stalwart LuLaRoe consultants — and they still do exist — have tried to weaponize Amazon’s five-star ratings system against “LuLaRich.” Using a Facebook group for retailers of LuLaRoe clothing, one LuLaRoe retailer posted, “If anyone wants to give it a one star review to bring down the ratings …” and then pasted a link to the reviews area for “LuLaRich.”

At the time of this story publishing, “LuLaRich” had gotten 1,699 global ratings, for an average of 4.6 out of five stars. Eighty-eight percent of the reviews are five stars and 9% are one star, with almost nothing in between.

Lately, it feels like documentaries are in a rush to capitalize on the next big scandal, whether it’s the mullet-cut world of Joe Exotic or the privileged attendees of the Fyre festival. The desire to create a guilty exposé of an unknown world can lead to stories where the scandal isn’t as obvious as the surrounding peculiarities. In other cases, like Amazon Prime Video’s “LulaRich,” a docuseries hits paydirt. Directors Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason — who, incidentally, directed Hulu’s “Fyre Fraud” documentary in 2019 — craft a thrilling, nightmarish story that combines elements of fashion, feminism, and fraud all in one beautiful package.

In 2018 the first major report on the multi-level-marketing company (MLMs), LulaRoe, was published in Bloomberg. The company, touting female empowerment through the selling of leggings and maxi skirts, was not only battling numerous lawsuits but several claims that they were a pyramid scheme. The...

Religious cults and convenience scams are siblings, united by charismatic leaders, credulous followers and ideological sleight of hand. They’re also unified in having seemingly been the subjects of every other longform documentary produced for streaming or cable in the past few years.

While some of the documentaries in this sphere have been set in the past — see Murder Among the Mormons, McMillion$ and various docs tied to Heaven’s Gate, Peoples Temple and more — the most burgeoning subgenre here seems to lurch haltingly and misleading from the internet, the primordial ooze where all human truth, and endless prevarications, find ...

The forensic breakdown of corporate greed may be the defining artwork of this historical moment.

From the dueling Fyre Festival documentaries of 2019 to the multiple filmed and written explorations of overweening founders like Adam Neumann (WeWork) and Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos), there’s a sort of giddy weightlessness in watching the mighty brought low, and seeing the plebes who worked for them elevated, for a moment, to star-witness status. At a moment in which inequality seems more pronounced, and more top-of-mind, than ever in Americans’ lifetimes, there’s potential for real analysis of the chaos of the global economy in each of these stories — but what people are tuning in for is the carnage.

So it is with “LuLaRich,” a new Amazon Prime Video series that makes a worthy addition to its genre. It serves up both a sense of what multilevel marketing does to those who participate in it and...

Though the summer movie season is winding down (if it ever really started this year), Amazon Prime’s list of new releases for September 2021 is chock full of worthwhile movie options.

For starters, Amazon’s library movie titles are quite good this month. September 1 sees the arrivals of heavyweights such as Apollo 13, Arachnophobia, Romeo + Juliet, The Descent, and The Social Network. And if that weren’t enough, the streamer is trying out some intriguing original movies as well. Cinderella, a modern update on the classic fairy tale, premieres on September 3. That will be followed by “exotic thriller” The Voyeurs (Sept. 10), musical adaptation Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (Sept. 17), and French thriller The Mad Woman’s Ball (Sept. 17).

Read more Movies How Arachnophobia Became the Perfect Creepy Crawly Horror Comedy By Jack Beresford Movies Quentin Tarantino Calls The Social Network the Best Movie of the 2010s By David Crow

Things...

Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason had only been working for a few months on “LuLaRich,” their docuseries about the clothing company LuLaRoe — which operates as a multi-level marketing company, a.k.a. a pyramid scheme — when they learned the company’s co-founders, DeAnne and Mark Stidham, were willing to sit down with them.

The project, which Furst and Nason directed for Amazon Studios, had been the idea of Cori Shepherd Stern and Blye Pagon Faust of Story Force Entertainment. Stern, who’s from Florida, had for years seen her friends from high school hawking LuLaRoe clothing all over her Facebook feed. “There were these cat leggings and pizza-print leggings — and not just one kind of pizza print, multiple pizza prints,” Stern recalled. “I was trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”

LulaRoe sold clothing — its signature item were the leggings Stern saw all over Facebook, oft-described...