News Analysis India

Tag: Netflix

  • Alia to make her Hollywood debut with Gal Gadot starrer Heart of Stone

    By Express News Service

    Alia BhattBollywood actor Alia Bhatt is all set to make her Hollywood debut with Netflix’s upcoming spy-thriller Heart of Stone. The film is headlined by Gal Gadot and Jamie Dornan.

    Netflix announced the news on its Twitter handle “Exciting News: Alia Bhatt will star alongside Gal Gadot and Jamie Dornan in their new movie Heart of Stone!” read the tweet.  Written by Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder, Heart of Stone is directed by Tom Harper. Plot details are currently kept under wraps. Yesterday, Gadot took to Instagram to announce that she has started shooting for the film.

    Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger are producing the film along with Mockingbird’s Bonnie Curtis and Julie Lynn and Pilot Wave’s Gadot and Jaron Varsano. Harper, Rucka also executive produce along with Patty Whitcher.

    Alia is currently in the limelight for her performance in the recently released Sanjay Leela Bhansali film Gangubai Kathiawadi. Notably, the film had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. Alia’s previous films like Gully Boy (2019) and Highway (2014) also premiered at the Berlinale. Gully Boy was India’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2020 Oscars. Meanwhile, Alia also has Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani co-starring Ranveer Singh and her maiden production venture Darlings in the pipeline.

  • Shonda Rhimes to produce White House set murder mystery ‘The Residence’ for Netflix

    By PTI

    LOS ANGELES: After the success of “Bridgerton” and “Inventing Anna”, Shonda Rhimes and her longtime Shondaland partner Betsy Beers are producing another show for Netflix, a mystery drama set inside the White House.

    Titled “The Residence”, the drama will use Kate Anderson Brower’s book “The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House” as a starting point to tell a new murder mystery, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

    The eight-episode drama is from showrunner and exec producer Paul William Davies, a Shondaland veteran whose credits include ABC’s “Scandal” and creating “For the People”.

    The official logline of the eight-episode series reads: 132 rooms. 157 suspects. One dead body. One wildly eccentric detective. One disastrous State Dinner.

    The Residence is a screwball whodunnit set in the upstairs, downstairs, and backstairs of the White House, among the eclectic staff of the world’s most famous mansion.

    The Residence will be produced in-house at Netflix via Shondaland’s overall deal as well as the multiple-year pact Davies has with the streamer. “Grey’s Anatomy” producer’s Netflix roster includes “Bridgerton”, and the Rhimes-penned prequel, “Inventing Anna” and anthology “Notes on Love”.

    “The Residence” is yet to have a premiere date. “Bridgerton”, a Regency-era romantic drama revolving around the children of a family, is among Netflix’s most successful shows and was praised for its colour-blind casting, while “Inventing Anna”, which has been dominating the streamer’s top-10 list, explores the life of Anna Sorokin, a Russian-German convicted con artist, and fraudster.

  • Netflix sets premiere date for ‘Russian Doll’ season 2

    By PTI

    LOS ANGELES: The second season of the American comedy-drama series “Russian Doll” will arrive on Netflix on April 20, the streamer has announced.

    Lead star Natasha Lyonne also returns as the showrunner and executive producer, reported Deadline.

    In the show, Lyonne plays Nadia Vulvokov, a game developer who repeatedly dies and relives the same night in an ongoing time loop and tries to solve it, leading to her finding Alan Zaveri (Charlie Barnett) in the same situation.

    The upcoming installment is set four years after Nadia and Alan escaped mortality’s time loop together.

    The Emmy-winning series, co-created by Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland, will continue to explore existential thematics through an often humorous and sci-fi lens.

    Alex Buono, Poehler, Headland, Lilly Burns, Tony Hernandez, Dave Becky, Kate Arend, Regina Corrado, and Allison Silverman also executive produce “Russian Doll”.

    The critically acclaimed series is also produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group. The first season of the show premiered on February 1, 2019.

  • Ukraine crisis: Netflix pauses all projects, acquisitions from Russia

    By IANS

    LOS ANGELES: Streaming giant Netflix has paused all future projects and acquisitions from Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine.

    The streamer had four Russian originals in the pipeline, including a crime thriller series directed by Dasha Zhuk, which was shooting and has been put on hold, Variety has learned.

    The 1990’s set series was Netflix’s second original series filming in Russia, following ‘Anna K’ which wrapped last year.

    A source close to Netflix said the company was assessing the impact of current events.

    ALSO READ | Netflix announces 4 upcoming Dave Chappelle comedy specials

    On Monday, the Walt Disney Company announced it will similarly be pausing all theatrical releases in Russia, including Pixar’s ‘Turning Red’, set to premiere in the country on March 10.

    A few hours after the announcement, Warner Bros. halted the release of ‘The Batman’ in Russia.

    Elsewhere in the film and TV industry, Russia has been barred from major festivals and award shows.

    The Cannes Film Festival announced on Tuesday that it will not welcome any Russian delegations or attendees with ties to the government, while Series Mania Festival and MipTV said there won’t be a Russian presence at their respective events, in accordance with the French government’s sanction against Russia.

    ALSO READ | Pamela Anderson announces new documentary set to release on Netflix

    On Monday, the Beinnale arts exhibition in Venice scrapped its Russian pavilion, as the Venice Film Festival continues to mull its response to calls for a boycott of Russian movies at the event.

    The Glasgow Film Festival in Scotland took a similar stance, decided to pull its two Russian titles this year: Kirill Sokolov’s ‘No Looking Back’ and Lado Kvataniya’s ‘The Execution’.

    Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival, on the other hand, announced it would show Russian films at its upcoming edition in August.

  • Pamela Anderson announces new documentary set to release on Netflix

    By IANS

    LOS ANGELES: Hollywood star Pamela Anderson is telling her story, her way, with a new documentary set to release on the streaming giant Netflix.

    Anderson announced the news on social media with a handwritten note on Netflix letterhead, which reads: “My life/ A thousand imperfections/ A million misperceptions/ Wicked, wild and lost/ Nothing to live up to /I can only surprise you /Not a victim, but a survivor /And alive to tell the real story.”

    Anderson’s son Brandon Thomas Lee, who serves as a producer on the project, reposted the note on his Instagram story emphasising the phrase, “The real story”, as did her younger son Dylan Jagger Lee, reports variety.com.

    Dubbed the “definitive documentary about the pop culture icon”, the film has been in the making for several years before landing at the streamer.

    Directed by Ryan White, the yet-to-be-titled documentary will feature exclusive access to Anderson, as well as archival footage and her personal journals.

    The film’s logline describes the project as “an intimate portrait embedded in the life of Pamela Anderson as she looks back at her professional and personal path and prepares for the next steps on her journey”.

    White will produce the project with Jessica Hargrave under their Tripod Media banner, alongside Julia Nottingham for Dorothy St Pictures and Lee. Josh Braun serves as an executive producer.

    News of the documentary comes amid renewed interest in Anderson’s life story, thanks to the Hulu series ‘Pam & Tommy’, which stars Lily James as Anderson and Sebastian Stan as Tommy Lee and fictionalises the story of the ‘Baywatch’ star and rocker’s whirlwind romance. The eight-episode miniseries concludes March 9.

  • Netflix announces 4 upcoming Dave Chappelle comedy specials

    By ANI

    WASHINGTON: Comedian Dave Chappelle is still very much on Netflix’s home team as the streamer recently announced four new specials with Chappelle after coming under fire for the comedian’s stand-up special ‘The Closer’.

    As per The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix on Friday announced the release of four upcoming comedy specials executive produced and hosted by the controversial comic.

    The series of specials is dubbed ‘Chappelle’s Home Team’, and each will feature a different comic introduced by Chappelle.

    The first to be featured is Earthquake (real name Nathaniel Martin Stroman), and his special, called ‘Earthquake: Legendary’. It will premiere on February 28. Another special will spotlight Donnell Rawlings. One similarity shared by all the featured comics is they’ve been in the stand-up game for at least 30 years.

    “I’ve been doing this a long time and comedians like Quake and Donnell are not only friends but have inspired my own career,” Chappelle said.

    He added, “Anyone in the comedy community knows these names and knows their time to shine is long overdue. I am proud to be a part of this moment.”

    ALSO READ: Dave Chappelle’s standup controversy sees Netflix hit with ‘unfair labour charge’

    The specials are directed by Chappelle’s go-to helmer Stan Lathan and executive produced by Chappelle, Lathan, Earthquake, Rikki Hughes and Jermaine Smith.

    Chappelle is a hugely popular name for the streamer. But his last Netflix special, ‘The Closer’, drew criticism from the media as well as from many of his fans for the comic’s lengthy discussion of the transgender movement, segments that were blasted as transphobic.

    Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos defended the special amid the backlash from some in the streamer’s own employee ranks and later admitted “I screwed up” by not being more sensitive to Netflix staffers.

    Still, Sarandos backed the program as “consistent with our comedy offering, it’s consistent with Dave Chappelle’s comedy brand and this is … one of those times when there’s something on Netflix that you’re not going to like.”

    At the time, ‘The Closer’ was billed as the last of a six-special package of Chappelle content for the streamer.

    Chappelle will also headline a performance at the Hollywood Bowl for Netflix’s Los Angeles-based comedy festival, ‘Netflix is a Joke’. 

  • ‘Stranger Things’ to end with fifth season on Netflix 

    By PTI

    LOS ANGELES: Netflix’s smash hit sci-fi drama series “Stranger Things” will conclude with its fifth season, the show’s creators Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer have announced.

    The creators penned an open letter to the ardent fans and followers of the series and also revealed that the upcoming fourth season has been divided into two parts.The first part will drop on the streaming platform on May 27, followed by the second part which will debut on July 1.

    “Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for ‘Stranger Things’.At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons.It proved too large to tell in four, but  as you’ll soon see for yourselves,we are now hurtling toward our finale.

    Season four will be the penultimate season; season five will be the last,” The Duffer Brothers wrote in the letter, which was shared on the show’s official Twitter handle.

    “There are still many more exciting stories to tell within the world of ‘Stranger Things’; new mysteries, new adventures, new unexpected heroes.

    But first we hope that you stay with us as we finish this tale of a powerful girl named Eleven and her brave friends, of a broken police chief and a ferocious mom, of a small town called Hawkins and an alternate dimension known only as the Upside Down,” they added.

    The creators said they are grateful to fans and followers for their “patience and support” all this while.Talking about the fourth season, Matt and Ross Duffer said it was the “most challenging” of all.

    “It’s been a little while.With nine scripts, over eight-hundred pages, almost two years of filming, thousands of visual effects shots and a runtime nearly twice the length of any previous season, ‘Stranger Things’ 4 was the most challenging season yet, but also the most rewarding one,” they said.

    uoos noʎ ǝǝs pic.twitter.com/pJ71dRgmo1
    — Stranger Things (@Stranger_Things) February 17, 2022

    “Stranger Things” is set in the 1980s and takes a look at the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, where a secret government lab accidentally opens a door to another dimension referred to as the Upside Down.The show features Winona Ryder, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Millie Bobby Brown, David Harbour, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery and others.

    The new season is set six months after season three’s Battle of Starcourt, which brought terror and destruction to Hawkins.

    “Struggling with the aftermath, our group of friends are separated for the first time and navigating the complexities of high school hasn’t made things any easier.In this most vulnerable time, a new and horrifying supernatural threat surfaces, presenting a gruesome mystery that, if solved, might finally put an end to the horrors of the Upside Down,” the official plotline reads.

    In 2020, the streamer had confirmed that Harbour’s Jim Hopper will return for the fourth season after the character had seemingly died towards the end of the third season, which premiered in July 2019.New cast members for season four include Jamie Campbell Bower, Eduardo Franco, Joseph Quinn, Robert Englund, Amybeth McNulty, Myles Truitt, Regina Ting Chen and Grace Van Dien.

  • Keri Russell to headline Netflix political drama 

    By Express News Service

    Actor Keri Russell has been roped in to headline Netflix’s upcoming political drama series titled The Diplomat. The eight-episode series is set to be written and show-run by Debora Cahn (best-known for West Wing, Homeland).

    The Diplomat centres on a career diplomat (Russell) who lands a high-profile job that puts her on the front lines of an international crisis. Notably, the series is the first project to be greenlit under Cahn’s new multi-year overall deal with Netflix. Cahn will also serve as an executive producer alongside Janice Williams and Russell.

    Russell is best known for playing Elizabeth Jennings in The Americans. Russel’s other popular titles are Mission: Impossible III (2006), Waitress (2007), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and Antlers (2021). 

  • Melissa Fumero to star in Netflix’s workplace comedy Blockbuster

    By Express News Service

    Brooklyn Nine-Nine-star Melissa Fumero will star in Netflix’s upcoming workplace comedy Blockbuster.Created by Vanessa Ramos, the ten-episode series is set in the last remaining bastion of the once-great titular video rental chain. Fumero will play Eliza, who works at Blockbuster after dropping out of Harvard to start a family, though her marriage is currently struggling as she fails to maintain the love she once had for her high school sweetheart.

    Fumero will star alongside Randall Park, who will play Timmy, the lone man in charge of the store. Ramos also executive produces the series. David Caspe and Jackie Clarke will serve as writers and executive producers. John Davis and John Fox will be executive producers through Davis Entertainment.

  • Young adult dramedy series ‘Eternally Confused and Eager for Love’ to debut on Netflix in March

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: Streaming service Netflix on Thursday announced that its latest series, “Eternally Confused and Eager for Love”, will premiere on its platform on March 18.

    Created and directed by Rahul Nair, the show features an ensemble cast of actors Vihaan Samat, Rahul Bose, Suchitra Pillai, Jim Sarbh, Ankur Rathee and Dalai.

    The show is Netflix’s first joint series with Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani’s Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby, the production banner from Reema Kagti and Zoya Akhtar.

    “Eternally Confused and Eager for Love” presents the story of Ray, an awkward young man who is navigating adulthood and the daunting world of romance in the 21st century.

    “He does this with the help of ‘Wiz’, a personification of Ray’s inner voice, who tells us what Ray cannot say out loud. In a quest to understand if he wants sex, love or a relationship, Ray goes through a series of work-life misadventures and indecisions, continually finding himself, ‘Eternally Confused And Eager For Love’,” the official logline read.

    “‘Eternally Confused and Eager for Love’ is a labour of love. Rahul Nair has been able to capture the reality and hilarity of what most of today’s young people deal with – it also has a lot of heart, and marks the beginning of our association with Netflix. We’re passionate about sharing our work with the service’s global audience,” Sidhwani said in a statement.

    Kagti said the show is quite relevant for the current generation. “‘Eternally Confused and Eager for Love’ is a fresh take on the daily struggles of Ray, a young adult, as he navigates the complexities of love, relationships and sex in a post modern world.

    “We are very excited to have collaborated with first-time director Rahul Nair along with Excel Entertainment and Netflix on a series which will definitely connect with the younger generation today,” she added.

    Monika Shergill, Vice President of Content at Netflix India, described “Eternally Confused and Eager for Love” as a “complex and hilarious exploration” of the dating lives of young adults.

    “Debutant writer and director Rahul Nair brings a distinctive voice to the series and has beautifully captured the day-to-day dilemmas of friendships, dating and relationships in these modern times. With this warm-hearted entertainer we mark the beginning of our association with the powerhouse storytellers, Tiger Baby and Excel Entertainment,” she said.

    The show is executive produced by Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akthar, Kagti, Kassim Jagmagia, Angad Dev Singh and Zoya Parvin.

    Kartik Shah serves as the creative producer.