Michael Schneider: Last News

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Don’t cancel those Emmy campaign plans: As expected, the Television Academy has decided to keep its Phase 2 calendar intact, news confirmed on Thursday night during the org’s board meeting. That means final-round voting for the 75th Primetime Emmys will still take place between August 17 and August 28 (ending at 10 p.m. PT) as previously planned. But that also means that Phase 2 campaigning will have to continue without the presence of any of the nominated actors or writers, as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are ongoing. The strikes had led some awards pundits to wonder whether the TV Academy might push the Phase 2 window, given the inability of stars to campaign per SAG-AFTRA’s strike rules.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Melissa Grego, a former Variety reporter who brought new energy to the Hollywood Radio and Television Society as CEO and helped expand its membership base to the largest in its 76 year history, has extended her contract with the organization to 2025. The news comes as the HRTS, which provides programming, fellowship and other support for executives, aspiring industry leaders and others across the business, has announced a newly elected group of board members and advisory council members. The news was announced on Wednesday by HRTS president Odetta Watkins — whose day job is serving as head of drama series at Amazon Studios — and Grego. Grego, whose previous work as a journalist also included overseeing the TV trade Broadcasting & Cable as its editor, joined HRTS in 2017 and immediately began collaborating with its board (which also includes HRTS chairperson Dan Erlij, the senior partner and co-head of TV literary at UTA) to grow the org’s various programs and create some new ones.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast hosts Michael Schneider, Clayton Davis, Emily Longeretta and Jazz Tangcay gathered on Wednesday, just hours after the Television Academy announced this year’s Emmy nominations, to dissect the news — from the big winners like “Succession,” to the shocking omissions (no Harrison Ford or Elizabeth Olsen), and then the nice surprises (wow, “Jury Duty”!). The nominations were telling on a number of fronts — including the current assessment that we may very well see a beat “Succession”/”Ted Lasso” dominance. Did the voting procedural changes help bring in a wider group of nominees? No. And will voters pick straight tickets of “Succession” and “Ted Lasso” nominees? Quite possible. Who will win the “SNL”/”Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” smackdown? What are our favorite faceoffs this year? (How can one pick between birthday celebrations for Norman Lear and Carol Burnett, for example?)

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Remember AMC’s “The Walking Dead”? You know, the biggest series on TV at one time. Most-watched basic cable show in history, and I can guarantee that will never be topped. But yet, an Emmy dud. The series (which will live on via a frenzy of spin-offs) ended its run last November after 11 seasons… and it’s still ignored by TV Academy voters, failing to pick up a single nomination on Wednesday. And yet… this may have been the most successful year at the Emmys ever for “The Walking Dead.” That’s because two of the franchise’s most beloved actors, Steven Yeun and Jon Bernthal, picked up their first-ever Emmy nominations. Granted, it’s not for “The Walking Dead” — Yeun is nominated in lead limited/anthology actor for “Beef” and Bernthal is a comedy guest actor nominee for “The Bear” (which is about… Chicago’s “Beef” restaurant) — but at least it’s a belated victory for two actors that made a name for themselves by fighting zombies.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large The dark prince of the unscripted world is plotting his next chapter: Mike Darnell is exiting Warner Bros. Television Group after a decade with the studio, a move he decided to make after a restructuring would have altered his role at the company. Darnell, who had served as president of unscripted television for Warner Bros., and Warner Bros. Television Group chairman/CEO Channing Dungey were set to announce the change on Thursday. As part of the new structure, Darnell won’t be replaced; instead, the alternative and unscripted divisions that reported to Darnell will now report directly to Dungey. Darnell had a year left in his current contract with the studio.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large As expected, it was a good day for Casey Bloys. The chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content was celebrating his outlet(s)’ 127 Emmy nominations — not a record for the company, but nonetheless marking a dominant year. Whereas the HBO vs. Netflix horse race has been a headline in past Emmy years, it wasn’t much of a contest this year, as Bloys’ team outplayed the competition by 24 nods (with Netflix picking up a still-impressive 103). According to HBO, it was the 21st time that HBO had led the Emmy nomination tally. That haul included 27 nominations for outgoing drama “Succession,” which landed three nominations in the lead drama actor category (a first). And in picking up four drama nominations (which also included “The Last of Us,” “The White Lotus” and “House of the Dragon”), HBO pulled off something that had only been done twice before, by CBS in 1973 and NBC in 1992.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Filmmaker Clay Tweel (“Gleason,” “Finder’s Keepers”) has signed on to direct a new documentary based on the life of comedian Andy Kaufman. Produced by Ross Dinerstein’s Campfire Studios, Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia’s Seven Bucks Productions, David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants Incorporated and Fifth Season, the film reps the first doc authorized by the Kaufman estate. Fifth Season (“Being Mary Tyler Moore”) is fully financing the project, which will be overseen by Mary Lisio, executive vice president of non-scripted and documentary, and produced in partnership with the Andy Kaufman estate. “I’ve always loved Andy because he was able to elicit such emotional reactions to his performances by using both the poignant and the absurd to keep his audience off balance. I hope we can honor his legacy in that way with our film,” Tweel said. 

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large November or January? The Television Academy and Fox have been locked in a debate over when to air this year’s 75th annual Emmy Awards in the likely event that they’ll have to postpone the ceremony. The Academy would like to shift the show to November (something it also did in 2001), while Fox appears set on a January airdate. When the Television Academy announces this year’s Emmy Awards nominations on Wednesday, they’ll downplay — but still reference — show’s September 18 airdate. Nonetheless, almost everyone involved inside both the network and org know that it’s extremely unlikely that date will hold much longer.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Emmy-winning writer/producer/director Manny Coto, whose credits include “24” and its sequels “24: Live Another Day” and “24: Legacy,” as well as “American Horror Story,” “Star Trek: Enterprise” and “Dexter,” died Sunday in Pasadena. He was 62. News of Coto’s death was confirmed by a family representative. Coto died after a 13-month battle with pancreatic cancer, and passed away at his home, surrounded by family. Born in Havana, Cuba, Manuel Hector Coto was one of primetime’s most prominent Latino writers and showrunners. He shared the outstanding drama series Emmy in 2005 for Season 5 of “24,” and co-created “24: Legacy.” Coto also spend four seasons as exec producer of “American Horror Story,” and also exec produced two seasons of “American Horror Stories,” directing the 2021 episode “Feral.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large “A Transparent Musical” is heading to New York and Broadway. The show, the first stage play from Amazon Studios, premiered in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum in May — becoming the last show at the Taper for now, as Center Theater Group has canceled all shows at the stage following the close of “A Transparent Musical” on June 25. But whereas the Mark Taper is on hold, “A Transparent Musical” has big things in store. According to Amazon, the show’s producers “intend to bring the show to Broadway sometime in 2024.” The musical, or course, is based on Amazon Prime Video’s Emmy-winning series “Transparent,” created by Joey Soloway, who also wrote the book to the stage musical with MJ Kaufman. Faith Soloway wrote the music and lyrics to “A Transparent Musical.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large CBS’ “Tough As Nails” was a late addition to the Eye network’s summer schedule, as broadcasters continue to adjust their primetime schedules in light of the WGA writers strike. This time out, the competitive series — hosted and executive produced by Phil Keoghan (“The Amazing Race”) takes place north of the border for the first time. Variety has a first look at Season 5 of “Tough as Nails,” which premieres with a two-hour opener on Sunday, July 2 at 8 p.m. ET. The series will then continue to air twice a week, at 8 p.m. ET on Fridays and Sundays, on CBS and Paramount+. “To be completely honest, we didn’t see the launch of ‘Tough as Nails’ 5 happening so quickly but even with a short notice we are doing everything we can to make the most of this awesome opportunity,” Keoghan told Variety. “‘Tough As Nails’ appeals to people of all ages and a lot of our audience are early to bed early to rise so the early time slot is a chance to grab people like we did when we launched in the summer of 2020 as CBS’s highest rated new reality format in the last five years. We know there’s an audience in the summer who love our show and we are extremely excited to know we have something really special to share with them this season.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large MANILA — Anyone who lived in Hawai’i in the early 1990s remember the story of the pint-sized Elvis impersonator in a Waikiki revue named Bruno Hernandez. He wasn’t even in grade school yet when he appeared on the cover of the local Midweek newspaper (which we all still remember), dressed fully as the King, and it soon landed him a role as an Elvis impersonator in the film “Honeymoon in Vegas.” In Hawaii, local fame is a big deal. And before he even hit 10, Bruno was a bit of local celebrity. The cute kid already had the kind of style, performing chops and showmanship that some spend a lifetime trying to attain. Definitely not the kind of thing that even crossed my mind when I was in elementary school, living in the Philippines. Coincidentally, that’s where I was on Sunday night, watching Bruno Mars perform so effortlessly on stage at the Philippine Arena (in Santa Maria, Bulacan, about 30 km north of Manila, and about 75 km away where I once lived).

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large If this year’s Emmy ballots are any indication, the era of Peak TV may truly be over — which FX boss John Landgraf has of course been predicting for some time. There are 163 dramas, 95 comedies and 51 limited/anthology series that have been submitted — down from 171 dramas, 118 comedies and 61 limited/anthology series last year. That’s still a lot of TV, but with fewer contenders comes the possibility of more dark horses getting noticed.

William Earl Variety won 13 first-place awards Sunday night at the Los Angeles Press Club’s 65th annual SoCal Journalism Awards, more than twice as many as any other entertainment publication. The lucky 13 awards represented a historic high for Variety at the SoCal Journalism Awards, topping the previous best of 12 first-place prizes the magazine earned in 2018. Variety came into Sunday’s ceremony with a record 96 nominations, representing work published online and in print during the 2022 calendar year. The awards were handed out during a gala dinner attended by hundreds in the historic Crystal Ballroom at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Up until now, game shows that aired before 8 p.m. competed in a dedicated category at the Daytime Emmys (where “Jeopardy” has won six times over the past decade). Meanwhile, the Primetime Emmys lumped game shows that ran after 8 p.m. in with competition reality series like “Survivor” and “Top Chef.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large The decision to realign “variety talk” and “variety sketch” this year into “talk” and “scripted variety” didn’t do much to change that. If anything, it further narrowed the field, as perennial variety talk winner “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” has now been kicked over to scripted variety. As a result, my colleague Clayton Davis counts only 14 series eligible for the outstanding talk nomination. And it’s not much better in scripted variety, where just 10 shows appear to be eligible.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large “Law & Order” fans, you have Rob Lowe to thank for the entire franchise. As does Dick Wolf’s bank account. At least, Lowe says with his tongue a bit in cheek (but also with some accuracy). As the star of Fox’s “9-1-1: Lone Star” and Netflix’s “Unstable” recently told Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast, Lowe starred in Wolf’s 1988 feature flop “Masquerade.” It was just the kind of movie disappointment that would have sent Wolf back to TV — and two years later, “Law & Order” premiered. “I remember him saying to me how frustrated he was in the movie business, that he was going to write a pilot,” Lowe said. “And he wrote ‘Law and Order.’ And the rest is history. You’re welcome. Yeah, I’m happy to provide the bomb that powers your rise to dominance.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large We’ve all made the “Cop Rock” jokes. The Steven Bochco musical drama, which premiered in fall 1990, was a big swing: marrying original music with procedural storytelling. It was a colossal flop that we still talk about three decades later, and a reminder that musicals are hard. Music has been a part of the TV landscape going back to the 1950s and shows like “Your Hit Parade.” But few series have successfully integrated regular music performances into their storytelling: “The Monkees” and “The Partridge Family” worked in the 1960s and ’70s. “Fame” did it in the early ’80s. And then “Cop Rock” scared people off the concept.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Marc Maron’s recent HBO standup special “From Bleak to Dark,” yes, touches on subjects that might be considered bleak and dark. But of course, it’s much more than that. Sure, Maron opens the special by pointing out that society seems to be on a collision course with disaster, and there’s little that can be done about it. But, as the comedian, actor and podcaster tells Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast, he’s just being a realist. “There’s a truth to it,” he says. “And I think that the first 15 or 20 minutes of that special addresses a lot of things in in a fairly broad way, because I wanted it to have some longevity. The negative things I talk about aren’t going anywhere. But also framing the special like that, like ‘I don’t want to be negative, I don’t think anything’s ever gonna get better ever again,’ is an acceptance. If you have acceptance around that, it gives you a bit of freedom of mind. There’s a sort of ‘zero fuckness’ to it.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large “Dave” and Lil Dicky fans, the artist’s first new music in eight years is finally coming to streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music later this year. Dave Burd, the “Dave” star/exec producer and rapper also known as Lil Dicky, is compiling tracks, and expanding other music cues, from the first three seasons of “Dave” that he plans to release shortly. The album would serve somewhat as a “Dave” soundtrack but also as Lil Dicky’s first official release since 2015’s “Professional Rapper,” which was certified Gold and hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top Rap Albums chart. “I’ve been making music ever since then,” Burd said. “I realized this year, as I took a step back and looked at all the different music that’s made it into the first three seasons of the show, there’s enough here, a great body of work and a project that I can put out as a soundtrack. I think this is such a better representation of Lil Dicky the musical artist than, honestly, my first album even was. People are always like, ‘when can I get that song?’ I think this will be a cool thing for fans who have watched the show. And for people who have never even seen the show, I think they’ll enjoy listening to this as like a body of music.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Most of this year’s limited or anthology series Emmy frontrunners had several choices on where to compete. “Dahmer: Monster — The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” is part of a new “Monster” anthology series, but it could have gone drama. “Beef” might have found a home in drama or comedy, but landed in limited (same goes for “Mrs. Davis”). All of these series have a trailblazer to thank for the flexibility that comes with the limited/anthology category: HBO’s “From the Earth to the Moon.” It’s been 25 years since that landmark miniseries was an Emmy contender — and it’s remarkable to look back at what a controversial decision it was at the time to even call it a “miniseries.”