Josh Feldman: Last News

After a two-year in-person hiatus due to Covid, San Diego Comic-Con is raging back with a big footprint by streaming (Amazon Studios’ Prime Video, Apple, HBO Max, Paramount+), TV and, well, as far as big screen feature films, let’s just say they’re creeping back.

EXCLUSIVE: Horror-comedy Haunted Heist, which is set to star Lil Rel Howery (Get Out) and Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip), has added Andrew ‘King Bach’ Bachelor (The Babysitter), Karlous Miller (Wild ‘N Out), Brett Gelman (Stranger Things), Ari Dayan (Entitled), Tony Baker (One of Them Days), and newcomer Tara Terry.

EXCLUSIVE: Kelly Marie Tran (The Wedding Banquet) and David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil) are set to topline Kodak SuperXX, a psychological thriller marking the feature directorial debut of Auden Bui, which is going into production this year.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer When NBCUniversal kicks off TV’s traditional week of upfront presentations on Monday, picket-free sidewalks outside Radio City Music Hall will be a sight for sore eyes following last year’s noisy protests in the first weeks of what proved to be the nation’s “hot labor summer.” Hosting a programming presentation at a megawatt New York City venue like Radio City or Javits Center is stressful enough. Executives are eager to return to business as usual in wooing Madison Avenue.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor NBCUniversal hopes to create a new type of event when its coverage of the Paris Olympics kicks off in late July. You don’t have to be an athlete to participate. When viewers of the company’s Peacock streaming hub open Olympics coverage, NBC is likely to ask some of them if they’d like to order food or beverages.

William Earl Variety will return to the Riviera for three days of programmed interviews with leaders in the industry at the Variety Cannes Lions Interview Studio presented by Canva. The studio will take place from June 20-22 with all conversations moderated by a Variety editor. Kevin Hart, Will.i.am., Keke Palmer and Amanda Gorman are among the slate of speakers who will take part in the studio, as well as Kelly Campbell, president, Peacock; Claudine Cheever, VP of global brand and marketing, Amazon; Jeremy Zimmer, CEO, United Talent Agency; Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer, Mastercard; and Julia Goldin, chief product and marketing officer, LEGO.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Tammy Filler is jumping from making headlines at E! to figuring out new connecting lines at NBCUniversal’s ad sales division. Filler a longtime producer at NBC News’ “Today” who became editor in chief at E! News, will join NBCU’s advertising-sales unit as an executive vice president working on developing sponsorships and content integrations related to NBCU personalities and intellectual property. She will report to Josh Feldman, chief marketing officer for NBCU’s advertising and partnerships unit. Since joining E! News in 2019, Filler joined E! News in 2019 and has worked to develop content efforts across properties including Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. During her tenure, she has worked with the ad-sales division. Filler, who was won four Emmy Awards as a producer, over a ten-year period was executive producer of the fourth hour of “Today,” which she developed into a sub-brand of the franchise anchored by Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb.  

EXCLUSIVE: Lil Rel Howery (Get Out) will produce and topline The Mill — a majority solo performance sci-fi-thriller from 20th Digital Studio, Hulu Originals and Altar Rock Pictures, which will debut exclusively on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally later this year.

EXCLUSIVE: Keith Adams, the Deaf coach who made history leading an all-Deaf high school football team on 12 consecutive victories against all hearing teams, has inspired two major projects: a feature film and a documentary with the Project Power directors behind the feature film. Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman have signed on to direct the film with screenwriter Josh Feldman currently writing the screenplay. That film is based on the life of Coach Keith Adams, and his sons, Kaden and Trevin, quarterback and team co-captain.

EXCLUSIVE: Shoshannah Stern, star of Sundance Now’s This Close, the first major U.S. series to be created and written by deaf people, is back at AMC Networks.

EXCLUSIVE: eOne is developing a TV series based on the Paranormal Hitmen comic books from writer Brett Murphy and illustrator Wilson Gandolpho.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAdvertisers still want TV to deliver big audiences, but they are also increasingly demanding new abilities to find smaller ones.NBCUniversal on Tuesday used an annual technology conference to keep demonstrating new technologies that help Madison Avenue track all the discrete consumer niches that may be found within the broader audiences watching TV programs. One new effort, an artificial-intelligence engine known as a “harmonizer,” aims to help marketers “make sure we are finding consumers at the right moment based on specific behavior,” says Josh Feldman, global chief marketing officer of NBCUniversal’s ad-sales unit.Using NBCU’s data about how viewers watch programs on the company’s streaming site Peacock, he says, advertisers might be able to assign an ad specifically created to “welcome” a new subscriber to the service, or feed particular commercials to customers who often watch programming late at night — even if they are tuning in at other times of the day.