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Exclusive: Strand Entertainment, the talent management and production company founded by Jeff Golenberg and Jason Shapiro, has brought in Monica Khan as Partner and Head of Digital.

Khan joins after almost two and a half years at Spotter, a company that provides upfront capital to YouTube creators in exchange for licensing their back catalog of content. In her newly created role, she’ll lead Strand Entertainment’s new digital division, Strand Digital, and spearhead creator management.

In leading Strand Digital, Monica will help Strand Entertainment to bridge Hollywood and digital to empower creators and traditional talent to thrive in today’s ecosystem, where creators are rewriting the rules of consumer engagement at every level. In her first week, she’s already signed clients including Sam Beres of Sambucha, a former Wall Street banker turned creator; Aaron Brown of Smokin’ and Grillin wit Ab, a former welder turned barbecue master; and Marina Mogilko,...

Derek and Hayley Hough have an incredible story of survival to share.

The married dancers are working on a documentary that will take a look back at the frightening moment when Erbert collapsed backstage while performing their Symphony of Dance tour in December.

The Voyeur Verite Presents documentary, which has no distribution yet, is directed by Jason Bergh (The Greatest Love Story Never Told) and produced by Bergh and Stephan Bielecki. EPs are Derek Hough, Jeff Golenberg and Courtney Carter. Dp is Matt Bass.

On Tuesday’s episode of Dancing with the Stars, Hough remembered the moment when he was waiting on stage for his wife to join him. Suddenly, the stage manager told him that Erbert was having full seizures and “essentially dying.”

Doctors later warned Hough that his wife may not survive her emergency craniectomy, and if she did survive brain surgery, she may not be the same...

Exclusive: Strand Entertainment, the L.A.-based management and production company launched earlier this year by Jeff Golenberg and Jason Shapiro, is launching a new digital division in partnership with Amazon Studios/Prime Video alum Lee Stimmel, Deadline has learned.

Through its new division, Strand will look to uncover, nurture and empowering social native creators across various industries. Through personalized guidance, strategic partnerships, and unwavering support, they aim to play a part in shaping the future of talent representation.

Recently starting his own talent-led branding company Giganticus Partners, unrelated to Strand’s new endeavor, Stimmel prior to that served as Head of Global Partnership Marketing for Amazon Studios/Prime Video, spearheading alliances between entertainment businesses, talent, brands, networks, and digital platforms. In 2020, he launched an Influencer Marketing department and created the company’s first-ever Prime Video Creator Community. Stimmel als o led a global social marketing team, overseeing digital marketing...

Exclusive: Strand Entertainment, the newly launched management/production company of industry veterans Jeff Golenberg and Jason Shapiro, has signed actress Robin Tunney.

Best known for leading roles on Fox’s Prison Break, CBS’s The Mentalist and The Fix, ABC’s legal drama co-created by famed attorney Marcia Clark, Tunney was most recently seen recurring opposite Connie Britton and Taylor Schilling on Jason Katims’ Apple TV+ drama series Dear Edward, based on Ann Napolitano’s novel of the same name.

The actress made her film debut opposite Brendan Fraser in 1992’s Encino Man and quickly rose to prominence with roles in cult classics like Empire Records, The Craft and Niagara, Niagara, for which she was nominated for Gotham and Independent Spirit Awards.

Most recently appearing on the film side in Jeff Baena’s film Horsegirl starring Allison Brie, Tunney continues to be repped by Gersh.

Golenberg and Shapiro earlier today...

Exclusive: After more than a decade, Silver Lining Entertainment, the management and production company founded by veterans Jeff Golenberg and Sam Maydew, is dissolving.

Golenberg and fellow Silver Lining partner Jason Shapiro have launched Strand Entertainment, a management and production company based in Los Angeles, bringing most of Silver Lining’s managers with them. Maydew has formed his own management/production company, 734 Media. The split we hear was amicable, with the former partners’ paths diverging, a process accelerated by the pandemic.

Joining Golenberg and Shapiro in their new venture are longtime colleagues Tarik Kanafani, Emily Rifanburg, Kaelyn Hutchins, and Aileen Lewis. Jeff’s brother, manager/producer Rob Golenberg, who was a partner at Silver Lining, has formed GoGi Entertainment, a new production company focused on international productions, with his former assistant Paulina Giron Velasquez. He also plans to continue to work alongside the Strand principals and their joint production entity,...

Netflix and Sony Pictures Television’s hit series “The Night Agent” has filled out its cast for Season 2 with Michael Malarkey (“The Vampire Diaries”) and Keon Alexander (“The Expanse”) as series regulars and Navid Negahban (“Homeland”) and Rob Heaps (“Station 11”) as recurring guest stars, opposite returning stars Gabriel Basso and Luciane Buchanan.

Based on the best selling novel by Matthew Quirk, the first season of the show followed Peter Sutherland (Basso), an FBI agent recruited to monitor a rarely used phone in the basement of the White House for the mysterious Night Agent program. When cybersecurity expert Rose Larkin (Buchanan) calls the number one night, they’re both pulled into a twisty conspiracy that reaches to the top echelons of the U.S. government.

Season 2 will follow Sutherland as he begins his career as a full-time Night Agent, while maintaining a relationship with Larkin.

Malarkey — who followed his role as Lorenzo “Enzo” St.

Exclusive: Kaelyn Hutchins has joined Silver Lining Entertainment as a Manager, the company announced on Monday.

Related Story Thruline Entertainment Names Talent Manager Ashley Franklin Partner Related Story 'American Gigolo's Sandrine Holt Signs With Silver Lining Entertainment Related Story Silver Lining Entertainment Expands Management Team With Two Key Hires

Hutchins comes to Silver Lining from Principal Entertainment LA, where she worked as a talent manager for almost nine years. She launched her career in representation as an assistant at the L.A.-based boutique Jordan Lee Talent beginning in 2014, prior to that serving as a Features Programmer for the Newport Beach Film Festival for a little over two years.

Notable clients joining Hutchins in her move to Silver Lining Entertainment include actresses Annie Gonzalez (Flamin’ Hot), Aziza Scott (Home Before Dark) and Maya Lynne Robinson (The Unicorn), to name a few.

Jeff Golenberg, Sam Maydew and Jason Shapiro...

Exclusive: Comedy biz veteran Reg Tigerman and Mike Jezusko are joining Silver Lining Entertainment as managers.

A fixture of the comedy business for over a decade, Tigerman comes to Silver Lining from Levity Live to head up the company’s comedy department, building on the dynamic and deep roster of writers and actors who are currently represented.

Tigerman was a manager and producer at Levity Live for the past 13 years where he worked with such as clients as Bert Kreisher and Whitney Cummings among others. He brings with him a roster of established and emerging comedians, writers, and actors including Vir Das, Ms. Pat (upcoming BET+ sitcom The Ms. Pat Show), Dulcé Sloan, Emma Willmann (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Jon Reep, Nimesh Patel, Allan Rice (Call Your Mother...

Noomi Rapace and Nicholas Pinnock are joining Matthias Schoenaerts in the star cast of “Django,” an English-language reimagining of Sergio Corbucci’s classic 1966 Western. Set in the Wild West of the 1860s and ’70s, the project marks one of the biggest high-end European series of 2021.

Star of “Prometheus,” “Sherlock Holmes” and “What Happened to Monday,” Sweden’s Rapace will play Elizabeth, who is described as a powerful and merciless enemy of John Ellis. Along with his fiancee Sarah, John Ellis is the founder of New Babylon, a city of outcasts which welcomes everyone from any background, race or creed.

British actor Pinnock — whose credits include movies such as “The Last Tree” and “Dark Encounter” as well as popular TV dramas “Counterpart,”“Fortitude,” “Marcella and “For Life” — takes the key role of John Ellis. Schoenaerts (“Bullhead”) plays the titular role of Django.

German on-the-rise star Lisa Vicari, Martha Nielsen in “Dark,...

A+E Studios has entered into a multi-year first-look television development and production deal with management and production company Silver Lining Entertainment Productions.

Silver Lining, led by partners Jeff Golenberg, Sam Maydew and Rob Golenberg, already has a number of projects in development at A+E Studios. The company has acquired the podcast and underlying rights for Soul Incarcerated, a project based on the musicians in the band Edge of Darkness and the album they recorded while incarcerated, Eyes of Love. Dorian Missick, Warren Ostergard and Jamie Pietras are attached to produce, and a search for a writer is underway. Silver Lining also has set up End Times, a comedy about the rapture and those left behind, from Black List writer Brit McAdams, and female-driven thriller Nightshade from up-and-coming writer Jessica Granger.

Abby Wike recently joined Silver Lining as Head of Scripted from ABC, where she served as Director of Drama...

Nicholas Pinnock, star of the ABC drama series “For Life,” has optioned the Dorothy Koomson novel “Tell Me Your Secret” for adaptation by his newly established Silver Milk Productions banner.

The British actor has launched Silver Milk in partnership with his longtime agent, Oliver Slinger at Independent Talent Group, manager Jeff Golenberg of Silver Lining Entertainment, and publicist Teal Cannaday of Bespoke Publicity. Silver Milk is based in London and Los Angeles and aims to develop narrative and documentary projects for TV and film.

“We’re excited to introduce new, diverse stories that engage viewers and challenge the way they think

about and perceive the world,” said Pinnock. “Silver Milk will support the works of new and established storytellers with distinct points of view; producing smart and thoughtful narratives across all platforms.”

The Silver Milk moniker is a nod to the centuries-old tradition of placing silver coins in milk to help keep it fresh.

George Pullar (l) and Ethan Panizz in ‘Playing for Keeps’ (Photo: Network 10).

For a guy who fell into acting after he badly injured one leg at high school in Brisbane, George Pullar is carving out an impressive career.

Now 22, Pullar made his screen debuts in Goalpost Pictures’ Fighting Season and Seven Studios’ A Place to Call Home straight after graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (Waapa).

Following that he played a star Afl recruit in Screentime’s Playing For Keeps, which Network 10 has renewed for next year.

Capping a memorable year, he was named among the Casting Guild of Australia’s 10 Rising Stars, together with Michael Sheasby, Harry Greenwood, Tess Haubrich, Markella Kavenagh, George Zhao, Milly Alcock, Kimie Tsukakoshi, Harvey Zielinski and Alexandra Jensen.

After he injured his leg when he was 16, requiring a cast, his mother suggested he take up drama classes. He did so...

Veteran TV packaging agent-turned-manager/producer Rob Golenberg has joined his brother Jeff Golenberg and his partners Sam Maydew and Jason Shapiro at Silver Lining Entertainment. Golenberg will be a partner at the management/production company, with a focus on building out a lit department and ramping up the company’s content production division.

Rob Golenberg brings with him over a dozen TV lit management clients, including Charlie Craig (Pretty Little Liars: Perfectionists), Alison Tatlock, Scott Williams (NCIS), Sonay Hoffman, John Beck & Ron Hart, and Jon Emerson & Annie Levine (Central Park).

Rob Golenberg, previously a packaging agent at William Morris, Gersh and Paradigm, left the agency business in 2011 after 20 years and, after a brief stint at Evolution, launched a production company, Scripted World, with Alon Aranya. They sold over two dozen network and cable projects, three of which...

Exclusive: After establishing footprint in drama and reality programming, AMC is focusing on expanding into comedy next. The network’s upfront slate, which will be announced later today, is expected to feature a number of half-hour projects, including two starring, written and executive produced by John Leguizamo and former The Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac. Drawing inspiration from Leguizamo’s real-life three best friends, the untitled John Leguizamo project follows a group of men in Queens, The Bronx and upper Manhattan wrestling with careers, relationships, family, ambition, and getting older. In addition to starring, Leguizamo is co-writing the script with Sal Stabile (Revenge). The two executive produce with Jeff Golenberg and Sam Maydew of Silver Lining Entertainment, which reps Leguizamo alongside UTA and Sloane, Offer. Recently seen in Ride Along, Leguizamo is attached to play Pablo Escobar in the Relativity feature and has his 5th HBO special, Ghetto Klown, coming up.

Exclusive: After an 11-year break, John Leguizamo is back at HBO for another comedy special. The pay cable network will tape Leguizamo’s latest one-man show, Ghetto Klown, on November 16 at the Victoria Theatre, Njpac for debut next spring. This is Leguizamo’s fifth one-man show, all of which have become specials on HBO. That includes Mambo Mouth (1991); Spic-o-Rama (1993); Freak (1998), for which he won an Emmy Award; and Sexaholic…A Love Story (2002). Ghetto Klown, for which Luguizamo received a Drama Desk Award, is a semi-authobiographical show about his path to stardom based on his memoir Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, And All The Rest Of My Hollywood Friends. Ghetto Klown was written by Leguizamo and will be directed by Fisher Stevens, who also directed the successful 2012 Broadway production and national tour. Arnold Engelman produced the live show and will take on producing duties for the taped version as well. The special is produced by Rebel Prods,...

Actors Dan Ewing and Lisa Gormley have signed with Us talent management company Silver Lining Entertainment.

The Los Angeles-based outfit represents Jai Courtney and Laura Wheelwright along with numerous English and American actors including Cat Deeley, David Morrissey, Emile Hirsch, Evangeline Lilly, Ioan Gruffudd, Jason Isaacs, John Leguizamo, Josh Peck, Martin Lawrence, Peter Stormare and Vincent D.Onofrio.

All four Aussies are with Mark Morrissey & Associates in Australia. Mark Morrissey accompanied Ewing and Gormley on a trip to La last week and introduced them to a number of management companies and agents.

Signing with Silver Lining is the first step towards gaining a foothold in Hollywood for Ewing and Gormley, who are regulars in Home and Away. Ewing plays Heath Braxton and Gormley is Bianca Scott.

Morrissey tells If that Gormley will head to the Us after she finishes a three-year stint on the soap in December. Ewing is contracted to the show until March.

Actors Dan Ewing and Lisa Gormley have signed with Us talent management company Silver Lining Entertainment.

The Los Angeles-based outfit represents Jai Courtney and Laura Wheelwright along with numerous English and American actors including Cat Deeley, David Morrissey, Emile Hirsch, Evangeline Lilly, Ioan Gruffudd, Jason Isaacs, John Leguizamo, Josh Peck, Martin Lawrence, Peter Stormare and Vincent D.Onofrio.

All four Aussies are with Mark Morrissey & Associates in Australia. Mark Morrissey accompanied Ewing and Gormley on a trip to La last week and introduced them to a number of management companies and agents.

Signing with Silver Lining is the first step towards gaining a foothold in Hollywood for Ewing and Gormley, who are regulars in Home and Away.

Ewing plays Heath Braxton and Gormley is Bianca Scott. Morrissey tells If that Gormley will head to the Us in late December after she finishes a three-year stint on the soap in December.

The separation of management/ production company The Collective has been completed. Founding partners, veteran managers Jeff Golenberg and Sam Maydew, have launched a new management/production company named Silver Lining Entertainment. Joining them is the entire film and TV management arm of The Collective that includes Matt Goldman, Christina Gualazzi and Jason Shapiro. The company has opened offices on South Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. The plan for Silver Lining is to continue to represent film and TV talent as well as continue to expand the roster of personalities, writers, directors and musicians. In management structure, Silver Lining will emulate the culture of Seattle entertainment software/technology company Valve, which has no hierarchy, with all staffers collaborating as peers. Golenberg and Maydew, along with Michael Green, started The Collective in 2005. Over the past eight years, the company grew to over 150 people and multiple businesses including Collective Digital Studios, which most...

ABC has picked up a pilot for an untitled John Leguizamo half-hour comedy, the network announced. Co-created by and starring Leguizamo, it is executive produced by David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Jeff Golenberg. It comes from ABC Studios and Mandeville. The pilot is based on the Broadway and film actor's life as a husband and father who feels like a fish out of water on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He balances a privileged wife, friends from back home in the Bronx, and a mother and grandfather "who try to keep him grounded...

ABC just ordered a third comedy pilot starring John Leguizamo in twelve months. The untitled multi-camera comedy is based on Leguizamo’s life as a husband, father and fish out of water on the upper West Side of New York as reflected in his one-person shows. Woven into this world are his privileged wife, his friends from his life back in the Bronx, his mother and grandfather who try to keep him grounded in his Latin roots, and his own kids who he worries are getting spoiled and losing touch with reality. Leguizamo co-wrote the story for the pilot with former Family Guy executive producer/co-showrunner Chris Sheridan. Sheridan wrote the teleplay and executive produces with Leguizamo, Leguizamo’s longtime manager Jeff Golenberg of the Collective, the company’s Sam Maydew as well as Mandeville’s David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Maria Crenna. The project has been in the works...

Days after ABC passed on comedy pilot The Kings Of Van Nuys starring John Leguizamo, the network has lined up another half-hour project toplined by the ER alum based on his life as a husband, father and fish out of water on the upper West Side of New York. Woven into this world are his privileged wife, his friends from his life back in the Bronx, his mother and grandfather who try to keep him grounded in his Latin roots, and his own kids who he worries are getting spoiled and losing touch with reality. Leguizamo will co-write the story for the untitled single-camera comedy with former Family Guy executive producer/co-showrunner Chris Sheridan. Sheridan will write the teleplay and will executive produce with Leguizamo, Leguizamo’s longtime manager Jeff Golenberg of the Collective as well as Mandeville’s David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman. The project has been in the...

Exclusive: So You Think You Can Dance judge Mary Murphy has signed with TalentWorks for theatrical and reality representation. Murphy has been on the hit Fox reality dance competition for most of its nine seasons. A former world-champion ballroom dancer, she continues to judge at major ballroom competitions in addition to guest-judging on international Sytycd shows; runs her own academy in San Diego; and created Mary’s Chance to Dance Program, a nonprofit organization that encourages schools to offer dance as a regular part of their curriculum. Murphy will be repped by Harry Gold at TalentWorks and continues to be managed by Jeff Golenberg at The Collective.

Dustin Ybarra has been cast as Rodney in the Us version of Only Fools and Horses. The ABC comedy show, which is based on the format of the British sitcom first launched in 1981, will follow brothers Del Boy and Rodney and their ageing grandfather as they devise get-rich-quick schemes in their quest to become millionaires. According to Deadline, Ybarra has been offered the part and will now work alongside writers Steven Cragg and Brian Bradley and executive producer Jeff Golenberg. His previous roles include We Bought a Zoo and Balls to the Wall. It was recently reported that John Leguizamo will take the role of Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses. (more)...

Here's a story to make you wonder whether it's Shrove Tuesday or April Fool's Day or indeed 'What The Cr#p?' Day. Yes, that's right: John Leguizamo has been cast as Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter in ABC's Us pilot of Only Fools And Horses.The '80s British telly staple is to be dusted off and given an American makeover. Leguizamo has taken the lead role as part of his new development deal with ABC, although there's no word yet on who'll be joining him behind the wheel of that Reliant (or Us equivalent) as Rodney.Scrubs writers Steven Cragg and Brian Bradley are charged with translating the references to Trevor Francis tracksuits and pot pourri into something Us-friendly. According to Deadline Hollywood, Leguizamo’s long-time manager Jeff Golenberg takes exec-producer duties.Question is: what have you got left when you strip away the '80s get-rich-quick, cushty cockneyisms,...

Exclusive: Just 10 days after actor-comedian John Leguizamo signed a development deal with ABC and ABC Studios, he has signed on to star in the ABC/ABC Studios multicamera comedy pilot Only Fools And Horses. Based on the British format, the multicamera comedy chronicles the misadventures of two streetwise brothers, Del (Leguizamo) and Rodney, and their aging grandfather as they concoct outrageous, morally questionable get-rich-quick schemes in their quest to become millionaires. Del, the older brother, is the leader of the team. He is an overly confident bon vivant and con artist who trades crap out of the back of his car, cheerful and oblivious to the fact that he is a lowlife scamster. Steven Cragg and Brian Bradley wrote the adaptation and will executive produce with Leguizamo’s longtime manager Jeff Golenberg of the Collective. As part of Leguizamo’s deal with ABC, if Only Fools And Horses doesn’t go to series,...

Exclusive: Actor-comedian John Leguizamo has signed a development deal with ABC and ABC Studios. Under the pact, Leguizamo will star in and executive produce a single-camera comedy inspired by his professional, personal and family life in New York City. This would be the first comedy series for Leguizamo who previously co-starred on ER and The Kill Point and toplined the 2006 CBS drama pilot Edison. Search is underway for a writer to pen the comedy project, which will likely be developed off-cycle given the timing of the deal. Leguizamo will executive produce with his longtime manager Jeff Golenberg of the Collective as well as Mandeville’s David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman. Leguizamo is re-teaming with Mandeville after working with the company on Edison. He is not obligated to do an ABC pilot this season but will be exposed to some and could do one. Leguizamo is currently touring the country with his fifth one-man show,...

Exclusive: Actor David Krumholtz has signed with Gersh. This marks Krumholtz’s return to the agency where he had been a long-time client. He was recently at CAA. Krumholtz co-starred on NBC’s short-lived drama series The Playboy Club and is already fielding new pilot/series offers following the period drama’s cancellation last week. Krumholtz previously starred on the long-running CBS procedural Numb3rs, a role he landed while at Gersh. On the feature side he will next be seen in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, reprising his role as Goldstein from the previous 2 movies in the franchise. Krumholtz will continue to be repped by Jeff Golenberg at The Collective and attorney Warren Dern.

Jason Shapiro, a 10-year UTA veteran in the agency's motion picture talent department, is moving to the management side of the representation business, joining The Collective. There he will work closely with partners Jeff Golenberg and Sam Maydew in the talent management group. At UTA, Shapiro worked with such clients as Emmanuelle Chriqui, Adrianne  Palicki, Margarita Levieva, Elizabeth Reaser, DJ Cotrona, Jason Clarke and Mary Kate Olsen. It is unclear who will take him on as a manager. Shapiro is the latest staff addition to The Collective which, over the past couple of years has hired former Wma agent Ashley Franklin, Todd Diener and Melody Hammer (formerly of Bep), Leonard Torgan (Leverage), Lisa Blum,  Max Burgos, Evan Weiss (Handprint), Steven Grossman (Icm) and Abbey Robertson (Generate).

Following his acclaimed stint on FX's The Shield, Oscar winner Forest Whitaker is reteaming with the cable network and the show's producer Fox TV Studios.

Whitaker is set to direct and executive produce a drama series project for FX. Also exec producing the untitled project, described as Sopranos set in the world of arms dealers, are Emmy-winning longform producer Cary Brokaw and veteran drama writer-producer Eric Overmyer.

The untitled project, now in development, is being penned by Jeremy Martin and Matthew Donlan, with Overmyer supervising the writing. Martin and Donlan will also serve as producers. FtvS, which produces The Shield with Sony Pictures TV, is on board to produce.

The FX project marks Whitaker's first major TV commitment since his recurring role on The Shield as ambitious internal affairs Detective Jon Kavanaugh.

Whitaker won a best actor Oscar this year for his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. His upcoming features include Vintage Point, Winged Creatures and The Night Watchman. He is repped by WMA and the Collective's Jeff Golenberg.

NEW YORK -- Patrick Swayze, Kris Kristofferson and Eddie Redmayne have joined Forest Whitaker, Jessica Biel and Ray Liotta in the ensemble drama Powder Blue.

In writer-director Timothy Linh Bui's film, several Angelenos meet on Christmas Eve through chance, tragedy and divine intervention. Swayze will play the sleazy owner of the strip club where Biel's character performs. Redmayne will portray a mortician who falls in love with her.

Kristofferson will play the head of a corporate crime organization who tries to convince his former employee (Liotta) not to seek vengeance on his former co-workers. Whitaker, who also serves as a producer on the film, will play a suicidal ex-priest. Newcomer Alejandro Romero will play a transsexual prostitute who shares an unexpected bond with the priest.

The Collective, which is handling the domestic sale of the indie, negotiated the financing with Eleven Eleven Films and Grosvenor Park. The executive producers are Collective's Shaun Redick and Jeff Golenberg, along with Bill Block and Kimberly Fox of foreign sales agent QED International.

He's been a grappler, a governor, an "extreme" football analyst, a social commentator and now ... a sitcom star? Sources say NBC is in talks with Jesse Ventura to star in a scripted comedy series. No deals have been finalized, but it's understood that Ventura, the one-time pro wrestler who served as governor of Minnesota from 1999-2003, is kicking around ideas and meeting with writers for a possible deal at the peacock. NBC declined comment. Sources said Jeff Golenberg and Michael Green of management-production outfit the Collective, which does not represent Ventura, approached him with the notion of starring in a comedy series targeted for NBC. It's understood that if a deal does come to fruition, Golenberg and Green would serve as executive producers on the show along with Ventura's managers, Michael Braverman and Barry Bloom. Ventura had a short-lived Saturday night series, Jesse Ventura's America, that ran for two months on MSNBC in 2003. He also was seen on NBC in 2001 as an analyst for the peacock's Xtreme Football League venture with World Wrestling Entertainment. Ventura also is repped by WMA and attorney Brad Small.

Roselyn Sanchez is returning to her native Puerto Rico for her next project. The actress will star in Yellow, which she also co-wrote and is producing. The film, which will be shot in Puerto Rico and New York, is produced by Steve J. Brown. Jeff Golenberg and Sam Maydew are executive producing. Directed by Alfredo De Villa, whose debut, Washington Heights, was a breakout indie hit on the festival and awards circuit, Yellow centers on a woman who is haunted by the death of her father. The cast includes Bill Duke, D.B. Sweeney, Sully Diaz, Jaime Tirelli and Manny Perez. The screenplay was written by Nacoma Whobrey, based on a story by Whobrey and Sanchez.

John Leguizamo has been tapped to star in CBS' untitled Diamond-Weisman drama pilot, while Jenna Elfman has closed as the lead in CBS' comedy pilot Everything I Know About Men. In other comedy pilot casting news, Jonathan Silverman will star in CBS' untitled Marsh McCall project, Darren Ritchie has landed the male lead opposite Tiffani Thiessen in CBS' untitled Yuspa-Goldsmith comedy pilot, Melinda McGraw has landed a lead role on ABC's Neighbors, Geoff Pierson has joined NBC's All In, Kurt Fuller has come aboard ABC's Joint Custody and veteran Martin Mull has been cast in NBC's Thick and Thin. The untitled Diamond-Weisman project, from 20th Century TV and Paramount Network TV, revolves around working parents -- a sports agent dad (Leguizamo) and a magazine editor mom -- who juggle domestic responsibilities. Leguizamo and his manager, Jeff Golenberg, will serve as producers.