Brian Grazer News

Rebecca Naomi Jones, Patrice Covington, Kimberly Hébert GregoryMalcolm Barrett, and Sanai Victoria are set to co-star opposite Cynthia Erivo in Genius: Aretha, according to Deadline. Erivo was previously announced to star as Aretha Franklin in the anthology series from National Geographic.

SHOWTIME Documentary Films today announced a new limited docu-series profiling notorious hip-hop artist Tekashi 6ix9ine, called SuperVillain. Inspired by the Rolling Stone feature “Tekashi 6ix9ine: The Rise and Fall of a Hip Hop Supervillain” by investigative journalist Stephen Witt, the three-part series will trace how a New York City deli clerk named Daniel Hernandez exploded into Tekashi 6ix9ine, the tattooed face of Gen Z and hip hop's prince of trolls, boasting 2.6 billion streams and 15 hits on the Billboard charts. Tekashi is currently in prison on federal racketeering and weapons charges and is awaiting release as early as the end of this year. Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment will executive produce. The series will be produced by Imagine Documentaries, Rolling Stone and Lightbox. The announcement was made by Vinnie Malhotra, Executive Vice President, Nonfiction Programming, Showtime Networks Inc. 

CBS All Access, CBS' subscription video on-demand and live streaming service, today announced the renewal of its original anthology series WHY WOMEN KILL for a second season. The first nine episodes of the darkly comedic drama created by Marc Cherry (“Desperate Housewives,” “Devious Maids”) are currently available to stream exclusively on CBS All Access. WHY WOMEN KILL's season finale will drop on Thursday, Oct. 17.

National Geographic, with Imagine Television Studios and Fox 21 Television Studios, announced today that Tony®-, Emmy®- and Grammy® Award-winning Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet,” Broadway's “The Color Purple”) will star as Aretha Franklin in the next installment of the Emmy-winning global anthology series Genius: Aretha. This upcoming season will be the first-ever, definitive and only authorized scripted limited series on the life of the universally acclaimed Queen of Soul. Filming will start this November for a spring 2020 premiere on National Geographic channels in 172 countries and 43 languages.

Paramount Network today launched its first original digital series, On Location, hosted by Josh Horowitz. Each episode includes Horowitz interviewing a filmmaker or actor of note - including Michael Mann, Zooey Deschanel, M. Night Shyamalan, Kevin Smith, Lance Reddick and Robert Patrick - at a memorable filming location from their iconic movies. The first episode is now available on Paramount Network's YouTube Channel with Lance Reddick walking the streets of Manhattan where he filmed his memorable scenes in the John Wick movies. Content from the series will also appear on Paramount Network's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Derek Theler, Beth Riesgraf, Usman Ally, Lamont Thompson, Artur Benson and Aaron Glenane join the cast of Paramount Network's new scripted comedic drama series 68 Whiskey from Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios. They join previously announced cast members Sam Keeley, Gage Golightly, Cristina Rodlo, Jeremy Tardy and Nicholas Coombe. Production on the first season of 68 Whiskey is underway with the series scheduled to premiere on Paramount Network in early 2020.

French actors Philippine Leroy Beaulieu, Lucas Bravo, Samuel Arnold, Camille Razat and Bruno Gouery have been cast as series regulars in Darren Star's newest scripted series, Emily in Paris, starring Golden Globe-nominated Lily Collins. Kate Walsh (The Umbrella Academy, 13 Reasons Why, Girls Trip and Grey's Anatomy), in a recurring role, will play Emily's (Collins) co-worker and mentor who still lives in Chicago. William Abadie and Arnaud Viard also join the cast in recurring roles. Previously announced Tony Award-nominated actress, Ashley Park, rounds out the list of series regulars in the 10-episode half-hour dramedy. The Paramount Network series is currently in production in Paris, France.

Actress, Playwright, Teacher, and Author, Anna Deavere Smith, will be formally announced as the Atlantic Council's first Artist in Residence at the tenth annual Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards.

Disney Plus gave a series order to On Pointe, a documentary series about the School of American Ballet, according to Variety.

Save the Children, the international humanitarian organization, announced today that award winning country music group Little Big Town will be performing at “The Centennial Gala: Changing The World for Children” gala in New York City on September 12. 

Deadline reports that 'Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band,' which will premiere tonight at the Toronto Film Festival, has been acquired by Magnolia Features.

Wife Swap, one of the most provocative, successful and talked-about social experiments of the reality TV era, is being renewed for a new season on Paramount Network with 20 new episodes. Wife Swap, a Banijay Group format, is produced by Banijay Studios North America.

Deadline reports that a comedy pilot led by Ms. Pat has landed at Hulu. J. Bernard Calloway will star opposite the comedian, while Lee Daniels and Brian Grazer executive produce. 'Fame' alum Debbie Allen directs the pilot.

Sam Keeley, Gage Golightly, Cristina Rodlo, Jeremy Tardy and Nicholas Coombe will star in Paramount Network's new scripted comedic drama series 68 Whiskey from Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios. Production on the first season (10 one-hour episodes) begins in September with the series scheduled to premiere on Paramount Network in early 2020.

Paramount Network's hit drama Yellowstone finished its record-breaking second season with a number of #1 ranks: the top summer series across all of cable TV among total viewers (5.1 million average); as well as the #1 scripted series in the key P18-49 (1.93 rating) and P25-54 (2.71 rating) demos among cable and broadcast; and cable's #1 summer series among total viewers.

Imagine Documentaries President, Justin Wilkes, announced today that the company has reached an exclusive deal with the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation to produce the definitive documentary on Jazz legend and beloved entertainer, Louis Armstrong. The deal comes with access to hundreds of hours of audio recordings, film footage, photographs, personal diaries and a life's worth of ephemera for exclusive use in the first significant documentary dedicated entirely to his life. In addition to Louis' prolific music and film career, Louis was an avid biographer and kept an almost daily audio diary from the early 1950's until the day he passed in 1971, all on reel-to-reel tape recordings and all organized meticulously “for posterity” by “Pops” himself.