New York City Declares April 14th As ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Day’

Michael J. Fox has been through hell, and not in the way you’re thinking. In the last few years, his mother died, his father-in-law died, and he had to put his beloved dog, Gus, a 120-pound mutt, to sleep after more than a decade of loyal companionship. And then there was an almost biblical series of health challenges, many of them indirectly related to his Parkinson’s disease. “I broke this shoulder — had it replaced. I broke this elbow. I broke this hand. I had an infection that almost cost me this finger. I broke my face. I broke this humerus,” Fox says, pointing to each part of his fractured body, before concluding with a wry snort. “And that sucked.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large BET will launch a new lower-priced ad-supported tier to its BET+ streaming service, which launched in September 2019. The “BET+ Essential” service will cost $5.99 a month, compared to $9.99 for the ad-free version, and will launch at 9 a.m. PT on June 25 — timed to the live 2023 BET Awards that night. BET president/CEO Scott Mills and BET+ exec VP/general manager Devin Griffin were set to announce the new tier on Thursday morning, as they and BET Media Group media sales president Louis Carr prepare to pitch it to advertisers. As part of that pitch, BET is revealing subscriber numbers for BET+ for the first time: More than 3 million. The company expects to grow that number, and although some users will migrate to the lower-cost tier, Mills said he expects to see a net gain.

Brent Lang Executive Editor David Schuster’s Gloves Up Entertainment and Dennis Latos’ Latos Entertainment have partnered to option David L. Bluder’s novel, “The Great Gamble.” They will also produce the psychological horror film, “It Comes Back” with Elise Finnerty set to direct.  Schuster (HBO’s “The Survivor”) and Latos (Tribeca winning short, “Leylak”) will develop and produce the projects jointly within each of their own respective banners. Additionally, the duo is developing several other high-profile projects and are expanding their catalogue of intellectual property in the film and television space. According to the official description: “‘The Great Gamble’ follows two FBI agents who embark on a classified operation as they begin uncovering the deceptive and corrupt universe of gambling and sports betting previously hidden from the eyes of fans in the United States.” The novel was published by Ice Cube Press in March 2020. 

Sharareh Drury administrator Starz has released the first trailer for “Outlander” Season 7, which will premiere June 16. The new season, inspired in part by Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” book series, will waste no time getting into action, picking up on the harrowing events of the Season 6 finale where Jamie (Sam Heugan) and Young Ian (John Bell) were racing to rescue Claire (Caitriona Balfe) before she was tried and wrongfully convicted for the murder of Malva Christie (Jessica Reynolds). In true “Outlander” fashion, nothing comes easy; the trailer depicts much hardship to come for the Frasers and those they love. The American Revolution is in full swing and the chaos that comes with an emerging nation means the land they once called home is changing. Will Jamie, Claire, Brianna (Sophie Skelton), Roger (Richard Rankin) and their loved ones be able to change with it is a key question this season.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor NBCUniversal’s efforts to broadcast the spectacle of the Olympics has long faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge: How to telecast sporting events that often take place in odd parts of the day? In 2024, the answer is easy: Just put them on when they happen. NBC plans to pre-empt at least nine hours of its daytime schedule each day of its broadcast of the 2024 Paris Olympics, slated to take place between July 26 and August 11, 2024. Paris time is six hours ahead of the U.S. eastern time zone, but NBC’s daytime coverage will feature the most opular events live in the morning and afternoon. The network will then deliver a three-hour primetime show that curates big events with behind-the-scenes coverage and inside looks at the athletes. The company’s Peacock streaming hub meanwhile, will stream every sport and event, including all 329 medal events, and will feature full-event replays; all NBC programming; curated video clips; virtual channels; exclusive originalprogramming; and more.

Mama June's daughter, Anna «Chickadee» Cardwell, is sharing an update with fans amid her battle with a rare form of cancer. A month after news broke of Anna's cancer, the mom of two took to Instagram to fill fans in on her treatment and offer a glimpse into her fight.

Whitney Port is once again opening up about talking to Hollywood playboy Leonardo DiCaprio. While at the Dear Media IRL summit, The Hills alum revealed that she and DiCaprio once crossed paths and he gave her his number. «I've talked about this before and on my podcast but I ran into Leonardo DiCaprio at a nightclub and we proceeded to exchange numbers and had like a text relationship for six months,» says Port. «We were at the nightclub and he had someone call me over. I immediately called my mom and stepped outside of the club.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Seeker Music has acquired the masters and publishing catalog of Charlotte Caffey, lead guitarist and a primary songwriter of pioneering all-female group and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members the Go-Go’s. Caffey co-wrote some of the group’s biggest hits and was the sole songwriter on its signature song, “We Got the Beat.” Since its release in 1981, the song has become the group’s most successful and most-covered track. She also had a hand in writing the group’s hits “Head Over Heels,” “Vacation,” “How Much More” and “Turn to You.” Beyond her work with The Go-Go’s, Caffey has also written songs covered by such artists as Keith Urban (the country hit “But for the Grace of God”) and her Go-Go’s bandmate Belinda Carlisle, as well as in the film and TV space, where she’s written several theme songs, including for the “Clueless” TV series.

Naman Ramachandran The governance of artificial intelligence (AI) is the subject of an ongoing debate in the U.K. with the government introducing a white paper proposing regulation in the sector in March this year. The U.K. parliament’s science, innovation and technology committee is conducting a series of hearings into the subject and providing evidence on Wednesday were Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, CEO, U.K. Music and Paul Fleming, general secretary of Equity, the U.K. trade union for creative practitioners. Fleming said that stable sources of income, such as radio advertisements, that allowed practitioners to work in the “more artistically fulfilling areas of the industry” like theater were increasingly taken over by AI and that the technology had already been replacing humans in crowd scenes in film and TV shows for some time. “That opportunity to earn is being reduced,” Fleming said.

Pregnant Lily Slater is set to have another secret uncovered by her parents Stacey Slater and Martin Fowler.

A Livingston teenager is hoping she’s racing towards a Formula One career - just a year after igniting a passion for the sport thanks to Netflix.

A popular Ayrshire takeaway has put on a unique tasty special to raise cash for a four-year-old battling cancer.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety has been given access to an exclusive clip from “Anselm,” the 3D documentary from the three-time Academy Award nominated director Wim Wenders. The film will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival as a Special Screening. HanWay Films is handling world sales. It will be released by Les Films du Losange in France and DCM in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

As the Cannes market heats up before the Cannes Film Festival starts next Friday, another film goes up for sale on the Croisette. Variety reports that Village Roadshow Pictures joins the market now with the epic romance “Eternal Return.” And the film has three intriguing actors as its leads: “Aladdin” breakout actress Naomi Scott, the legendary Jeremy Irons, and “Game Of Thrones” alumnus Kit Harington.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director By the time Cillian Murphy brought war veteran and gangster Tommy Shelby to life on “Peaky Blinders,” he had already starred in at least one horror classic (“28 Days Later”), a Cannes winner (“The Wind That Shakes the Barley”) and four Christopher Nolan blockbusters (including key supporting roles in “Batman Begins” and “Inception”). And yet, it was Shelby and the British gangster drama that ran for 6 seasons and 36 episodes that turned Murphy into an international star, the kind that gets recognized everywhere he goes. During a recent interview with Rolling Stone U.K., Murphy lamented over the explosive fame that “Peaky Blinders” ignited. The actor said such fame “can ruin experiences, because it fetishizes everything: you can be walking down the street and someone takes a picture like this is a fucking event. It kind of destroys nuance and human behavior, but that’s part and parcel of it. Fame evaporates with regularity.”

Angelique Jackson CAA has signed filmmaker Charlotte Regan for representation. Regan made her feature debut with “Scrapper,” which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, winning the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize. The Londoner wrote and directed the film, starring Harris Dickinson and newcomers Lola Campbell and Alin Uzun. “Scrapper” follows Georgie (Campbell), a dreamy 12-year-old girl who lives happily alone in her London flat, filling it with magic. Suddenly, her estranged father (Dickinson) turns up and forces her to confront reality. In Variety’s review, film critic Guy Lodge described the dramedy as a “sweet, pastel-colored spin on British realism.” He wrote: “Tracking the gradual but inevitable thawing of relations between Georgie and the estranged father who breezes back into her life, Regan’s debut rehashes a host of familiar elements from assorted kitchen-sink dramas and dysfunctional parent-child stories, painting them colorfully enough that audiences won’t mind the odd bit of rust.”

BreAnna Bell Scott Ly has signed on to join HBO’s “The Sympathizer” in a recurring role, Variety has learned. He’s attached to play Gunner Dao, a Vietnamese former soldier who escaped to the US and is part of the Recon squad. Ly joins previously announced cast members Hoa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan, Toan Le, Vy Le and Alan Trong, Sandra Oh, Kieu Chinh and Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen. Robert Downey Jr. is slated to play multiple supporting roles as the main antagonists. He also serves as an executive producer on the project. Based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel of the same name, “The Sympathizer” is an espionage thriller and cross-culture satire about the struggles of a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy during the final days of the Vietnam War and his resulting exile in the United States. Production recently wrapped and took place between Thailand and Los Angeles.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Drafthouse Films has acquired global distribution rights to Alex Winter’s documentary “The YouTube Effect.”The film, which made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2022, explores the ascension and potential fall of YouTube, the world’s most popular video-sharing website. In the docu, YouTubers, reporters, and experts weigh in on the platform, its algorithms as well as privacy and ethical issues the site presents.“The YouTube Effect” will open exclusively with Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas on July 7 before expanding to theaters nationwide on July 14. Several films directed by Winter, who starred alongside Keanu Reeves in the original “Bill and Ted” movie and its sequels, have played at Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas in recent years, including “Zappa,” “Panama Papers” and “Deep Web.”

Whoopi cushion. Whoopi Goldberg is done speaking about her fart incident on “The View,” claiming “there was never an issue” on Wednesday morning’s episode.“Before we get started, I want to put something to bed with the two of you [Sunny Hostin and Andy Cohen],” she said.

Kathleen Corradi as “rat czar” — and the city’s conservative borough of Staten Island — during its Weekend Update segment.“Kathleen Corradi was announced New York City’s first rat czar — a title that was formerly known as Miss Staten Island,” co-host Michael Che Campbell said.The camera then pans to co-host Colin Jost, a Staten Island native, who appears to utter under his breath, “loser.”Jost had famously teamed with fellow islander and SNL alum Pete Davidson to buy a decommissioned ferry and turn it into an entertainment space.The Sanitation Department’s latest ad campaign against filth also was the brunt of a separate joke in the segment.“The New York City Sanitation Department has launched its first campaign in 15 years with messages such as, `If you litter, you’re garbage’, which is actually dialed back from the original version, `Your litter belongs in the trash next to your whore wife,'” Jost ripped.Meanwhile, Adams anti-rodent zealotry will be featured in this Saturday’s satirical Inner Circle show put on by New York City journalists.In the spoof of “Batman Forever”, rodent-hating Adams will be lampooned as “Ratman,” opposite his press secretary Fabian Levy’s “Fobin” at the outlandish annual charity event at the Ziegfeld Ballroom.The SNL segment also waded into the culture wars, dedicating a portion of its Weekend Update segment early Sunday to condemn the anti-transgender legislation being passed in states around America.Molly Kearney — the skit show’s first non-binary cast member — dropped into the fake news desk via a harness to slam politicians trying to eliminate healthcare for transgender youth.   

“Phantom of the Opera” – Broadway’s longest-running show. “I grew up on his plays and the performances from ‘Phantom of the Opera.’ One of the longest-running performances is closing, but it gave us many years of just joy throughout the years,” gushed Adams outside the Majestic Theater on West 44th Street.“Phantom” will close this Sunday, April 16 after a 35-year-long run on Broadway. The show first appeared in London’s West End in 1986 before coming to New York in 1988.“But you have brought us so much joy, so much happiness.