‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Gets May Premiere Date at Disney Plus

Is Abishek “Shake” Chatterjee finally seeing the error of his ways? Or is love still a little “blurry” for the vet?

Jonathan Van Ness is a master when it comes to makeovers, but the 34-year-old Queer Eye star aims to do more than cut and color. He wants to shake up the status quo. 

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterIna Garten’s new Discovery Plus series, “Be My Guest With Ina Garten,” has been renewed for two additional seasons ahead of its launch on March 26.The show will launch with full episodes on Discovery Plus, to be followed by a “food-centric half-hour” airing on Food Network at 12 p.m. ET, along with the debut of a companion podcast.Season 1 consists of four episodes, rolled out weekly in the same manner as the premiere.“Be My Guest With Ina Garten” features Barefoot Contessa inviting friends old and new to her East Hampton home for a day of conversation, connection, food and fun visits to some of her favorite local spots.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterBon appetit! A cooking competition inspired by culinary legend Julia Child and featuring her “superfans” as contestants has been ordered at Food Network and Discovery Plus, Variety has learned exclusively.Based on the legacy of Child, who motivated generations of home cooks with her talent, enthusiasm and humor, “The Julia Child Challenge” will see eight top-notch home cooks compete in high-stakes culinary challenges to find out who has the fire, skill and passion to win the first-ever primetime competition series dedicated to all things Julia, per the show’s official description. The competitors, all Julia Child superfans, share personal stories about their hero, cook in a kitchen recreated in the likeness of where Julia herself cooked, using the same ingredients Julia used and are even guided by Julia herself through a larger-than-life television screen right in the middle of all the action.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Yellowstone” prequel “1883” has been renewed for Season 2 at Paramount Plus, and the ViacomCBS-owned streaming service has ordered another Taylor Sheridan-created origin-story show following the Dutton Family called “1932.” Yes, you guessed it — the show will follow a new generation of Duttons “during the time of western expansion, Prohibition and the Great Depression.”“1883″ stars Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Billy Bob Thornton, Isabel May, LaMonica Garrett, Marc Rissmann, Audie Rick, Eric Nelsen and James Landry Hébert.The show follows the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. It is a stark retelling of western expansion and an intense study of one family fleeing poverty to seek a better future in America’s promised land — Montana.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus will begin integrating Showtime content this summer, launching an in-app upgrade that includes access to the pay TV channel’s programming, ViacomCBS announced during its Tuesday investor event.“So let’s talk about how we’re helping subscribers access even more of our amazing streaming services, right there in the Paramount Plus app,” Tom Ryan, president and chief executive officer of streaming at ViacomCBS, said during the virtual presentation, which covered the company’s fourth-quarter 2021 results and forward-looking goals for this year. “Our existing bundle, of Paramount Plus and Showtime, has performed very well out of the gate.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus and Showtime topped a combined 56 million subscribers by the end of last year, ViacomCBS revealed Tuesday ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings presentation and investor event. That’s up 9.4 million from where it was in the previous quarter.At the end of Q3 of 2021, Paramount Plus (formerly CBS All Access) and Showtime OTT added 4.3 million global subscribers, raising their combined total to nearly 47 million.For comparison, HBO and HBO Max ended 2021 with 73.8 million global subscribers, Disney Plus closed the year with nearly 130 million worldwide, and Netflix reached 221.8 million total in Q4.ViacomCBS said last February it expects to reach 65-75 million global subscribers between Paramount Plus and Showtime by 2024.

Amber Dowling The L.A. Rams’ 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals at Super Bowl LVI scored a massive touchdown on Variety’s Trending TV chart for the week of Feb. 7 – 13, tackling this week’s other televised offerings with almost 805,000 engagements during its Feb.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterDiscovery Plus has ordered “Serving the Hamptons,” a spinoff of “Selling the Hamptons” following the “young, sexy restaurant staff” at a hot Hamptons restaurant and all of the drama they dish up on and off the clock, Variety has learned exclusively.Premiering on Thursday, April 7, the five hour-long episodes take viewers into one of the most exclusive enclaves in the world while showcasing the juicy lives of the staff at Southampton’s “it” destination for dining. The show brings viewers inside 75 Main Restaurant as its staffers hook up, argue and work together to make sure the clients come back for more, per the show’s official logline.To attract the best employees to serve his elite clientele of celebrities, politicians and the uber rich, 75 Main owner Zach Erdem provides his staff with a gorgeous beach house — provided they follow his rules and take care of his customers.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAMC Networks dropped a teaser during Super Bowl LVI Sunday featuring the first look at its Anne Rice series “Interview with the Vampire,” along with footage from the sixth and final season of “Better Call Saul,” the middle third of the 11th and final season of “The Walking Dead” and upcoming anthology “Tales of the Walking Dead,” the fourth and final season of “Killing Eve” and several other shows coming to AMC, streaming service AMC Plus or BBC America this year.A longer 60-second version of the TV spot was released online, which teased the upcoming series “61st Street,” “Dark Winds,” “Moonhaven” and “That Dirty Black Bag.”AMC’s “Interview with the Vampire,” adapted from Rice’s iconic novel of the same name, centers on the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (played by Jacob Anderson) as he relates the story of his life to a reporter, in particular how he was turned into a vampire and then mentored by Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid). The show is currently in production in New Orleans.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterAMC has finally set the premiere for the sixth and final season of “Better Call Saul” — as well as the second half of the sixth and final season of “Better Call Saul” — after teasing fans mercilessly with the information earlier this week. As an added bonus, the cable channel also revealed first-look images from the sixth season (see above) and unveiled upcoming digital series set in the “Breaking Bad” prequel’s universe.On Thursday, AMC announced that the seven-episode Part 1 of “Better Call Saul” Season 6 will premiere on April 18 at 9 p.m. ET.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, the new spin-off Star Wars series led by Ewan McGregor, has received a May premiere date at Disney+.The limited live-action series, which sees McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) reunite with his old Star Wars castmate Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker), will start airing on May 25.Obi-Wan Kenobi is set 10 years after the events of the 2005 Star Wars film Revenge Of The Sith, where Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi witnessed the downfall of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side as evil Sith Lord Darth Vader.With the premiere news comes a poster reveal, which you can see below.Obi-Wan Kenobi, a limited Original series, starts streaming May 25 on @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/XCV1xQZhDR— Star Wars (@starwars) February 9, 2022Last year Star Wars boss Kathleen Kennedy discussed the “incredibly emotional” reunion between McGregor and Christensen for the show.“The thing that was most exciting was being on the set and watching the two of them get excited,” Kennedy told Empire.She continued: “They hadn’t seen one another in a long time.“I was surprised at just how incredibly emotional it was for each of them to find themselves back in these roles, and just realising how important Star Wars was to each of them.

With Disney Plus' new series The Book of Boba Fett coming to an end on Wednesday, the streaming service revealed when the next Star Wars TV series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, will debut.Disney unveiled a new poster for Obi-Wan Kenobi, which brings back Ewan McGregor to reprise his roles from the Star Wars prequel movies, which also reveals the show will debut on May 25.That specific date has a lot of meaning for Star Wars fans, since it was on that date in 1977 that the very first Star Wars movie, A New Hope, debuted in theaters. Poster:With Disney Plus' new series The Book of Boba Fett coming to an end on Wednesday, the streaming service revealed when the next Star Wars TV series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, will debut Reprise:Disney unveiled a new poster for Obi-Wan Kenobi, which brings back Ewan McGregor to reprise his roles from the Star Wars prequel movies, which also reveals the show will debut on May 25The poster showcases Obi-Wan seemingly wandering through the sandy desert of Tatooine, though his destination is unknown.The story takes place 10 years after the final Star Wars prequel movie, 2005's Revenge of the Sith, where he failed to bring his best friend and apprentice - Annakin Skywalker - back from the Dark Side.

Today marked the finale of “The Book of Boba Fett,” and we now have official confirmation that “Obi-Wan Kenobi” is going to be the next big “Star Wars” event series. Scottish actor Ewan McGregor returns to reprise the role of the iconic Jedi with a story that takes place between years after “Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith” and many before “Star Wars: A New Hope.” Disney+ and Lucasfilm have officially announced the show will begin airing on May 25, a fitting month given that May 4 is Star Wars Day, and the month should be filled with promotional materials for various “Star Wars”-related projects.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek said during the company’s Wednesday earnings call that the next Star Wars Disney+ series, Obi-Wan Kenobi, will debut on May 25, the Wednesday before Memorial Day weekend.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek announced on today’s earnings call that the next Star Wars Disney+ series Obi-Wan will debut on May 25.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterKorean zombie thriller “All Of Us Are Dead” has become Netflix’s fifth most popular non-English-language series debut, Variety has learned exclusively.On Tuesday, “All of Us Are Dead” debuted on Netflix’s all-time rankings, which tracks the streaming service’s Top 10 most popular non-English TV series based on hours viewed in their first 28 days on Netflix, in the fifth-place slot. Its entrance bumps “The Queen of Flow,” which was previously at 10th, off the list.At No. 1 on the list is still, of course, the Korean mega-hit “Squid Game,” which racked up 1.65 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days post-launch.

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.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterHulu has delayed “The Orville” Season 3 premiere from March until June, but released the first few minutes of footage from the new season as fans’ conciliation prize while they wait even longer for the return of the former Fox show.“To all The Orville fans: Thanks for being so patient with us as we’ve navigated the production challenges resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” “The Orville” creator and star Seth MacFarlane said in a statement tweeted Friday. “As occasionally happens, our show has been repositioned amidst the ever-changing television schedule landscape, which means that the wait will be just a bit longer, and we’re now preparing for a June 2nd launch on Hulu.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Lucifer” star Tom Ellis has joined the cast of Hulu’s Sterling K. Brown-led “Washington Black” limited series in the role of steam-punk inventor Christopher “Titch” Wilde.Described as an epic nine-episode adventure series based on Esi Edugyan’s novel of the same name, “Washington Black” follows the extraordinary 19th-century adventures of George Washington “Wash” Black, an 11-year-old boy on a Barbados sugar plantation who must flee after a shocking death threatens to upend his life.

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterParamount Plus and Showtime are two separate subscription services owned by the same company in a market that is already overcrowded with streaming and pay-TV competition. But that’s the way it’s going to stay for the two ViacomCBS brands — for now at least — as Paramount Plus president of original scripted series Nicole Clemens says the young streamer continues to carve out its identity as the home of “big blockbuster originals” versus Showtime’s slightly “more coastal” audience.“I think they’re complementary and I think there’s going to be some overlap in a Venn diagram,” Clemens told Variety Tuesday, following Paramount Plus’ day of presentations at the virtual Television Critics Association winter press tour.