Kevin Hart teams with Netflix on a standup comedy competition / Sling offering one-day, weekend subscriptions / Park Chan-wook denies violating WGA strike rules
PLUS: Danielle Spencer, What’s Happening!! child star, dies at 60.
Kevin Hart teams with Netflix on a standup comedy reality competition series
Ten years after NBC’s Last Comic Standing ended its nine-season run, Hart wants to crown the next big name in standup comedy with a reality competition. "Guided by Hart and a crew of comedy titans, to be announced at a later date, the currently untitled eight-episode series is billed as an unfiltered, uncensored and unapologetic competition that will pull back the curtain on the gritty, hilarious and often unpredictable path of a stand-up career," reports Deadline's Matt Grobar. "Contestants from all across the nation will face rigorous tests that mirror the real-life journey of a comedian — from brutal open mics to bombed sets, rewrites and the pressure of big-stage performances. The competition will give viewers an unvarnished look behind the curtain of comedy’s darkest corners and brightest spotlights with the challenges inspired by comics’ actual career trajectories." For Hart's Hartbeat, "the comedy competition series marks the continuation of a mission to champion the next generation of comedic voices," says Grobar. "The company’s stand-up work includes the global comedy showcase Comedy in Color (featuring over 300 comedians from more than 30 countries); Hulu’s LOL Live, featuring both established and emerging talent; the recent revival of Comic View on BET; and producing stand-up specials for comics including London Hughes, Affion Crockett and the late David A. Arnold. Hart’s company also launched the career incubator program Women Write Now, designed to champion the next generation of Black women in comedy, both in front of and behind the camera."
Danielle Spencer, What’s Happening!! child star, dies at 60
Spencer died Monday in a hospital in Richmond, Virginia, after medial problems including a 2014 battle with breast cancer and 2018 emergency surgery to relieve bleeding on her brain, her co-star Haywood Nelson told The Hollywood Reporter. “She suffered for a very long time but did it with a great deal of courage,” Nelson said. Spencer played the smart-aleck Dee Thomas, who was best known for her catchphrase “Ooooh, I’m gonna tell Mama!," on the 1976-1979 ABC sitcom. After reprising her role in the 1985-1988 syndicated follow-up What's Happening Now!!, Spencer left show business behind and became a veterinarian in 1993. (She played a veterinarian in the 1997 film As Good As It Gets.) “She had a great love of animals, she was like Betty White in that way,” Nelson said.
Wednesday Season 2 matches Season 1 with 50 million views in five days
Season 1 debuted to roughly 50.1 million views in 2022. "Though Seasons 1 and 2 appear about even in terms of views, it should be noted that Season 1 premiered with all eight episodes at once, whereas Season 2 premiered with only four episodes — Part 2 will premiere on Sept. 3," explains Variety's Selome Hailu. "Therefore, not only will the currently available episodes continue to rack up viewership in the coming weeks, but another massive viewership spike can be expected next month."
Sling TV to offer one-day, weekend and full-week subscriptions
Consumers who are only interested in watching cable for one day, a weekend or a week won't have to pay the usual $45.99 per month. According to Deadline, "access for a single 24-hour period (the Day Pass) costs $4.99, with the Weekend Pass priced at $9.99 and access for a 7-day week at $14.99." The new subscriptons are timed in advance of the college football season.
King of the Hill revival has a big debut on Hulu
According to Disney+, the revival hit 4.4 million views in its first week, becoming Disney's biggest adult animated premiere in five years.
Dana White: UFC match at the White House is "definitely going to happen"
The UFC CEO said today on CBS Mornings he spoke with President Trump Monday night, he said, and plans to meet with Donald and Ivanka at the end of the month to finalize plans and review venue renderings. “When he called me and asked me to do it, he said, ‘I want Ivanka in the middle of this,'” White said. “So Ivanka reached out to me, and … I started talking about the possibilities.” The event, which. regularly fills stadiums and arenas, would likely need to be scaled down.
Park Chan-wook denies violating WGA strike rules while working on HBO’s The Sympathizer
The Writers' Guild of America revealed Friday that Park and Don McKellar had been kicked out for working on The Sympathizer during the 2023 strike. Park’s company, Moho Film, issued a statement to Maeil Business Newspaper in South Korea on Tuesday, stating that the scripts for the show had been completed and the show had been shot when the strike began on May 2, 2023. “At the time of the strike, The Sympathizer was in post-production,” the company said. “Editing does not constitute writing, so it was permitted under WGA regulations. “While editing, the two received a proposal from HBO to change some of the settings. They held a brainstorming session to see if the new settings could be implemented based on the footage. However, they were aware that new script writing was not allowed during the strike, so they did not rewrite or revise any of the existing scripts for any scenes. The new writing took place after the strike ended.” According to Variety, the WGA's action won't have an impact on Park's employability. Variety also reports that the dispute centered on whether Park and McKellar were performing "writing services" in post-production. "The question of what constitutes “writing services” is the source of a multi-decade dispute, with the WGA and the Directors Guild of America offering conflicting advice," says Variety's Gene Maddaus. "Under the DGA interpretation, members are allowed to do things like cut existing material for time or make minor adjustments in dialogue. The WGA sees those actions as 'writing' and forbids them."
HBO developing Craig Mazin-produced high-concept mystery thriller drama Blackout Room
The Chernobyl creator and The Last of Us co-creator is executive producing the drama series from Nine Days filmmaker Edson Oda that "takes place in a near future where every single moment of everyone’s life is streamed 24/7 to the rest of the world," per Deadline. "One woman becomes the object of global obsession when her son somehow disappears without a trace."
ESPN promotes Laura Rutledge to full-time Monday Night Football sideline reporter, extends Lisa Salters
Salters, the longest-serving MNF sideline reporter, will be joined this fall by NFL Live host Rutledge.
Beyoncé Bowl, Arcane and Love, Death + Robots
The Television Academy has announced winners in juried categories from animation, costume, emerging media programming and motion design.
Malin Akerman: First Lady Melania Trump inspired my Hunting Wives character
Akerman recalled to Vulture the creative team telling her that Margo Price is like the first lady in in that she "came into a marriage to this rich man as one woman,” then found new expectations placed on her once her husband became a political hopeful. “That was the only reference, really,” Akerman said. “Other than that, it’s just high society. I’ve mingled with aristocrats and high-society people and seen the games that go into it. For lack of a better word, I wouldn’t say ‘authenticity’ is how those people lead."
Travis Kelce admits his Hollywood jobs might have hurt his NFL game
Since dating Taylor Swift elevated his celebrity status, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end has hosted Amazon game show Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? and starred in Ryan Murphy FX thriller Grotesquerie. He also had a recent cameo in Happy Gilmore 2. “Win a Super Bowl is the only goal,” Kelce tells GQ. “It’s the only goal. It’s every goal. I think it might have slipped a little bit because I did have a little bit more focus in trying to set myself up. And opportunities came up where I was excited to venture into a new world of acting and being an entertainer. I don’t say this as ‘I shouldn’t have done it.’ I’m just saying that my work ethic is such that I have so much pride in how I do things that I never want the product to tail off, and I feel like these past two years haven’t been to my standard. I just have such a motivation to show up this year for my guys.”
Steve Martin feels up a corpse in Only Murders in the Building’s Season 5 trailer
Christoph Waltz, Renée Zellweger, and Logan Lerman join the Hulu series as "the new mob — AKA the billionaires — in Season 5, premiering Sept. 9.
Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey face off in HBO's Task trailer
Mare of Easttown creator Brad Ingelsby's new drama series, premiering Sept. 7, follows Ruffalo‘s Tom, an FBI agent in action as he’s put in charge of a task force to find the perpetrators of a string of violent home invasion robberies led by an unsuspecting family man, played by Pelphrey.
Netflix releases the trailer for With Love, Meghan Season 2
While the trailer for Season 2 was released one day after Netflix announced a new first-look deal with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Archewell Productions, the second season of Markle's lifestyle series was filmed before the Season 1 premiere in March. Season 2 features celebrity guests include Chrissy Teigen, Christina Tosi, Clare Smyth, Daniel Martin, David Chang, Heather Dorak, Jamie Kern Lima, Jay Shetty, José Andrés, Radhi Devlukia, Samin Nosrat and Tan France. Season 2 premieres Aug. 26.
Upload unveils its final season trailer
The Robbie Amell-led sci-fi dramedy returns with Amazon is calling a “four-part finale event" on Aug. 25.
Amazon's The Home Team trailer shows the emotional side of the New York Jets players and their wives and girlfriend
Premiering Aug. 21, The Home Team: NY Jets follows six current and ex-Jets players and their partners — including Quinnen and Maranda Williams, Alijah and Jessie Vera-Tucker, Allen Lazard and Camila Escribens, Tyler and Scottie Conklin, Chuck and Aysha Clark, and C.J. Mosley and Jamie Reiff — throughout the 2024-2025 regular season in the nation’s no. 1 media market.
Netflix's Unknown Number: The High School Catfish delves into a high school romance turned into a teen cyberbullying nightmare
The documentary, premiering Aug. 29, "follows a teenage girl and her boyfriend, who become the targets of relentless harassment from an anonymous phone number. As authorities dig deeper into the months-long ordeal, they uncover a secret that challenges everything they originally believed about the case," per Netflix.