News

As Mike Drucker explains in his new book, Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games, he’s the lucky guy who somehow forged a career out of his dual loves: comedy and video games. The guy who wrote for Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Bill Nye Saves the World talked to me about playing Wii Bowling with Jason Sudeikis, bonding with Fallon over Legend of Zelda and laughing at “Mike Drucker” as a sketch character when he interned at Saturday Night Live.

“I fell in love with stand-up when I started doing it. It’s such a hard, weird thing to get into comedy. And it’s almost a blessing and a curse to find out it’s the thing that you’re good at because then you’re like, ‘Now I’ve got to do this forever. I love...

Normal Gossip, Call Her Daddy and Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang are among the titles in contention for the podcast of the year at the 2025 iHeartPodcast Awards.

The high-profile category also includes the podcasts Three, Giggly Squad, Hysterical, The Telepathy Tapes, Who Killed JFK?, Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD and The Good Whale. Fans will vote on the winner starting Jan. 7 through Feb. 16.

New Heights, hosted by Jason and Travis Kelce, took home the prize of podcast of the year at the 2024 ceremony.

In addition to the 29 competitive categories, which span several genres, the iHeartPodcast Awards will also present three icon awards that honor podcasts and creators who have made groundbreaking contributions to the industry. Sarah Spain, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist and host of Good Game, will be honored with the 2025 Social Impact Award for her role in championing equity in sports coverage,...

Hong Kong’s One Cool Film group has announced five new movies, revealed through exclusive teasers and posters on the opening day of FilMart.

Upcoming films include “Love Lies,” starring Sandra Ng and M.C. Cheung Tinfu; “The Trier of Fact,” directed by Calvin Tong and featuring Louis Koo and Eddie Peng; “The Way We Talk,” produced, written and directed by Adam Wong, with Neo Yau, Chung Suet Ying and Ng Tsz Ho Marco in leading roles; “Good Game,” helmed by Dickson Leung, written by Lily He Xin and Sheng Ling Xiu Zhong, and starring Andrew Lam, Will Or and Yanny Chan; and “Behind the Shadows,” produced by Soi Cheang, directed by Jonathan Li and Chou Man Yu, and starring Koo, Chrissie Chou and Liu Kuan Ting.

“Love Lies,” which will premiere at the 48th Hong Kong Intl. Film Festival, tells the tale of an internet romance scam. Ng recommended Cheung,...

Exclusive: Singaporean reality gaming format Good Game has been optioned by Village Roadshow in the U.S. and ShinAwiL in the UK.

The deal was struck by Small World Ift, the boutique formats distributor led by Tim Crescenti, who discovered Dragon’s Den, and Colleen Crescenti.

Formats showrunner Jonathan Glazier created Good Game with Raiford Cockfield III and the show was first commissioned by Singapore-based tech startup yup.gg in 2019.

Good Game seeks Asia’s next big gaming content creator by putting them through their paces via challenges. Negotiations are in place over a second season of the Singaporean version along with local versions in Vietnam and Thailand, and a production hub location has been identified in Asia.

Taking advantage of the current penchant for e-sports, which has grown hugely in popularity and is now shown on networks such as the BBC, Village Roadshow will work up a U.S.

The retro-futurist setting of Atomic Heart's post-apocalyptic Soviet Union delves deep into the concept of human vs machine, and the Darwin Test is just another piece in the game's puzzle. As the player is trying to figure out what caused everything to go wrong, they will need to activate drill mode inside the museum. To do this, they will need to convince the passive, non-violent robot Tereshkova that they are human, and not a robot.

Tereshkova is a positive, cheerful hostess at the All-Soviet Exhibition Center's registration stand, unable to express the horror she feels at the violence and carnage surrounding her. Like many parts of Atomic Heart's plot line, she blurs the line between robot and human and is suspicious the player character does so as well. She will not obey the orders of a robot pretending to be human, so to advance the story the player needs to...

Exclusive: Paprika Steen (Okay), Isabella Crovetti (Colony), Glo Tavarez (Late Night), Jade Payton (Dynasty) and Connor Falk (Diary of a Future President) are set as series regulars opposite Lena Headey in Showtime dramedy pilot Rita, based on Christian Torpe’s award-winning Danish series. Torpe will pen the pilot and serve as showrunner. Rita is a co-production of Showtime and Platform One Media.

In Rita, Headey will play the title character, a headstrong, unconventional teacher and single mother who takes on every kind of authority – as well as her family – in a messy and unfiltered way. Josh Hutcherson, Curtiss Cook, Darren Pettie and Bryce Gangel also star.

Steen will play Ellen, a guidance counselor who runs the school with weaponized empathy. Crovetti will portray Rose, an overly ambitious student whom Rita is constantly at odds with. Tavarez will play Connie, a new and overly enthusiastic teacher at Rita’s school. Payton is Molly,...

CAA is continuing to build out its gaming contingency with the signing of popular YouTube channel Game Grumps.

The seven-year-old content brand, which is fronted by hosts Arin Hanson and Dan Avidan, comprises a YouTube channel (5.2 million subscribers) and other social platforms that count 11 million collective followers. CAA will rep the comedy and geek-focused content brand -- perhaps best known for its ‘Let’s Plays’ -- in all areas, including television, film, digital distribution and partnerships, endorsements, publishing, and more, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In addition to their video content, Game Grumps will embark on a nationwide tour this month that has already vended 30,000 tickets. Last year, they developed Dream Daddy, a gay dating simulator game that sold 300,000 copies. They also operate a robust merch business, per the Reporter, and produce an indie comic book with the Portland-based publisher Oni Press. In 2017, Game Grumps starred in a scripted YouTube...

Comedian Paul F. Tompkins, “Criminal Minds” actress Kirsten Vangsness and Angela Kinsey from “The Office” have joined the voice cast for Season 2 of the sci-fi comedy podcast “Voyage to the Stars.”

Set in the year 2263, “Voyage to the Stars” follows a misfit space crew tasked to investigate what lurks behind a wormhole. The crew is voiced by Colton Dunn (“Superstore”), Felicia Day (“The Guild”), Janet Varney and Steve Berg (“The Good Place.”)

Season 2 is currently in production and is set to come out in early fall.

Also Read: Does 'Dark Phoenix' Have a Post-Credits Scene?

Tompkins (“Bojack Horseman”) joins the series as an intergalactic Sherlock Holmes named Inspector LeStrauss. Vangsness will voice a lesbian space alien who falls into a love triangle with members of the space crew.

Kinsey will voice a pretentious hotel concierge named Burgeous.

Also Read: Barack and Michelle Obama's Production Company Signs Exclusive...

CW’s pilot “Glamorous” has cast two key roles and found its director.

Brooke Shields and Jade Payton have been cast in the pilot, while Eva Longoria has come onboard to direct, Variety has learned.

The pilot follows a gender non-conforming recent high school graduate who lands the gig of a lifetime interning at a cosmetics company whose products they panned on YouTube.

Shields will play Madolyn, described as a former supermodel who is no stranger to the covers of Vogue or the runways of Milan. She is the founder and CEO of one of the industry’s most respected and sophisticated cosmetics company. A canny businesswoman and entrepreneur, Madolyn is at the top of the game and will stop at nothing to stay there, including making a strategic hire to be her eyes and ears within the company.

Payton will play Venetia, described as an ambitious young clotheshorse who...

Alison Bell, Kodie Bedford and Niki Aken.

Screen Australia has announced it will support a delegation of 13 creatives to travel to New York in March to attend the Australian International Screen Forum and participate in professional development and networking opportunities.

“There is an increasing appetite for Australian stories in the USA, most recently evident at the Sundance Film Festival where our films were making substantial sales,” said Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason.

“Talent USA is an important opportunity to showcase and promote some of our best creative talent to the North American market and help elevate their projects to be in the best position to compete and be seen internationally.

“Attending the Screen Forum will give these delegates an opportunity to hear from key Us players on latest trends, challenges and opportunities in the current global market. This year the Talent USA delegation will also benefit from the Forum’s ambassadors Deborra-Lee Furness,...

Amanda Barclay.

YouTube Originals scripted development and current programming executive Amanda Barclay will tell attendees at the Screen Forever conference how the independent production sector can leverage opportunities from the global YouTube Originals platform.

The Us-based Barclay specialises in scripted development of new features and series in addition to maintaining day-to-day oversight of current productions.

Since joining the platform in 2015 she has shepherded the development of numerous series including 12 Deadly Days, Good Game,Youth & Consequences, Dallas & Robo and the upcoming Wayne and Champaign III.

Before she that she spent two years at MTV supporting the scripted and unscripted development teams as executive assistant to the president of programming and worked as an assistant at the Gersh Agency.

“YouTube Originals have been shaking up the status quo in the markets they land in by teaming with the independent producing sector on original programming. In the UK they have...