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Julia Louis-Dreyfus signs multi-year deal with Apple TV+
Julia Louis-Dreyfus had her greatest success since Seinfeld with HBO's Veep. After seven seasons of producing and starring in the hit show, she's moving onto new projects -- the actress signed a multi-year overall deal with Apple, according to Deadline. Louis-Dreyfus will serve as an executive producer and star in future Apple TV+ projects. Whether she'll be creating a TV series, movies or both isn't clear, but given Deadline's description of the "sweeping" deal, we'll probably be seeing plenty of content from one of the funniest women in media.
Netflix dominates Grammy comedy nominations
Netflix has long been establishing itself as the go-to place for stand-up comedy specials. In fact, it might lay claim to having the best ones around after dominating the Best Comedy Album category in this year's Grammy nominations.
Watch the first trailer for HBO's 'Avenue 5' sci-fi space comedy
Avenue 5, HBO's new sci-fi comedy, debuts in January, and HBO has released the first teaser to get you excited. The show is about the cruise ship Avenue 5, led by the acerbic Captain Ryan Clark, played by Hugh Laurie. All seems to be pleasant and delightful until an as-yet unforeseen disaster causes mayhem and panic that the crew scrambles to resolve.
Seth Meyers' Netflix special will have a button to skip Trump jokes
If you're a Seth Meyers fan who wants to catch the talk show host's stand-up special on Netflix, you're likely fine with whatever gags it includes about Donald Trump. Meyers doesn't exactly lay off from making jokes about the president on Late Night with Seth Meyers, after all. But if you're perhaps a little fatigued of such gags, you can skip the Trump-focused section of Lobby Baby with a dedicated button.
NBC is making a sitcom based on esports
The world of esports has exploded in recent times -- there are eye-watering sums of money involved, not to mention no end of gossip and drama -- so it was only a matter of time before it got its own TV show. According to Variety, NBC has picked up a show called The Squad – a multi-camera comedy about esports developed by Big Bang Theory star Johnny Galecki and executive producer Anthony Del Broccolo.
The ‘Silicon Valley’ season six trailer skewers the past year in tech
HBO released the trailer for the 6th and final season of Silicon Valley, and it feels like a real-life recap of the past year or so. Richard Hendricks, CEO of Pied Piper, testifies in front of lawmakers, mirroring Mark Zuckerberg's trainwreck appearances in Washington DC. And what would a parody of recent start-up culture be without a subplot focused on an ill-conceived festival?
What’s coming to Netflix in October: The 'Breaking Bad' movie
As you'd expect, Netflix is planning plenty of seasonal thrillers for October. The theme this year is that the kids are not okay. You'll meet Eli, a child with a mysterious illness who has to be secluded from the world and is battling "nightmares." Raising Dion is sci-fi look at the horrors of parenting. In Fractured, a man is searching for his daughter who vanished from an ER. In Daybreak, a teenage outcast is navigating a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies. Rattlesnake stars a single mother who will do anything to save her daughter, and In The Tall Grass -- based on a novella by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill -- stars a pregnant woman who gets lost in a field of tall grass when she tries to answer a boy's cry for help.
Netflix renews ‘Grace and Frankie’ for a seventh, 16-episode final season
Netflix has renewed Grace and Frankie, the comedy starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, for a seventh and final season. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show will end with 16 episodes, giving it a total of 94 episodes over its lifetime and making it the longest-running Netflix original in terms of total episode count. While Orange is the New Black also had a seventh season, it had just 91 episodes.
Netflix's fifth Dave Chappelle comedy special debuts August 26th
Dave Chappelle has enjoyed a fruitful relationship with Netflix over the last few years, having released four stand-up specials on the streaming service, picking up a hefty pay packet and Grammy and Emmy awards for them. The comedy icon is about to unleash his fifth set on Netflix when Sticks & Stones drops August 26th. It announced Chappelle's latest special with a Morgan Freeman-narrated trailer.
Netflix might pay Eddie Murphy $70 million for stand-up specials
Eddie Murphy might be better known these days for his work on the screen, but it was on the stage that he got his start. His stand-up specials Delirious and Raw are often ranked among the best ever, and Murphy has been open in recent years about wanting a return to live performance. Netflix might help him make the leap, as it's reportedly in talks with him for several stand-up specials.
Snapchat launches Creator Shows with Serena Williams and Kevin Hart
In the last year, the time spent watching Shows on Snapchat has tripled. The company wants to take advantage of that. Today, it announced Creator Shows, a new format that will deliver regularly published content from some of Snapchat's most popular stars. It's also adding a Highlights feature, which will let Creators add longer-lasting photos and videos to their profiles.
What’s coming to Netflix in June: ‘Black Mirror’ and the final 'Jessica Jones'
Netflix packed May with new movies like Wine Country, the animated series Tuca and Bertie, a Ted Bundy biopic and more. Now, it's bringing just as much new content and star power to June. In just the first half of the month, Netflix will release season five of Black Mirror -- a three episode run, which you can watch trailers for now -- and the third and final season of Jessica Jones.
Mindy Kaling’s awkward teen comedy is coming to Netflix
Mindy Kaling is bringing "relatable, awkward teen moments" to Netflix. She announced on Twitter that she and screenwriter Lang Fisher are working on a 10-episode comedy. Loosely based on Kaling's own childhood, it will portray the modern-day life of a first generation Indian American teenage girl.
Recommended Reading: What happens to your brain when you quit Facebook?
This is your brain off Facebook Benedict Carey, The New York Times The decision to quit Facebook is all the rage these days, especially following an ever-growing number of data and privacy revelations. The New York Times offers a detailed look at a study from New York University and Stanford that found Facebook users generally felt better after quitting the social network, and those who came back used it less. There are always caveats, of course, but the findings lend some credibility to the idea that health benefits accompany the "Delete Facebook" craze.
What we're listening to: Joanna Connor and 'Hilarious World of Depression'
In this month's installment of our audio IRL, we discover an amazingly talented guitar player from Chicago and a podcast where comedians, musicians and more open up about struggles with depression.
'Alexa, Improvise' is a comedy show that uses AI fails for laughs
It was 7:55 p.m. on a Saturday night, and I had just arrived at a small improv workshop and stage space in San Francisco's Mission District. Mere moments after I sat down, someone placed a stool in front of the stage, draped a red cloth over it and placed what would turn out to be an integral part of the evening's performance: an Amazon Echo. It wasn't there to tell jokes -- it's notably not a very good comedian. Instead, it was both prop and participant in a unique improv show called "Alexa, Improvise."
Can British comedy make a killing online?
For such a benign business, the language of comedy is violent, with acts describing their efforts to kill their audience on a nightly basis. Unfortunately, unless they're an A-list act with a huge following, that's likely to be the only killing that they make on a regular basis. In the UK, comedy is a lucrative gig for the winners and a grossly underpaid one for everyone else. And it's even worse in the digital sphere, as acts struggle to convince people to pay for their jokes.
Ellen DeGeneres' return to stand-up arrives on Netflix December 18th
Ellen DeGeneres hinted over a year ago that she'd return to stand-up specials through Netflix, and that revival is now close at hand. Netflix has announced that DeGeneres' comedy one-off Relatable will premiere on the streaming service December 18th. The teaser clip doesn't say much about what to expect, but it does have DeGeneres engaging in some tongue-in-cheek name-dropping as she confirms the premiere over and over again.
Apple lines up new comedy from 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' duo
Apple has signed on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia duo Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day for a straight-to-series comedy, according to a Variety report.
Netflix is bringing its stand-up comedy to SiriusXM radio
SiriusXM is adding another comedy channel to its satellite radio lineup: Netflix. Starting next January, the streaming service's radio station will play stand-up 24 hours a day, according to Variety. "Netflix is a Joke," the channel's working name, will also feature original programming from the service's ever-growing stable of signed comics, and things like David Letterman's talk show as well, apparently.
