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Mattel is getting a new CEO: The toymaker and media company announced that Roger Lynch, who’s been chief exec of Condé Nast for more than seven years, will become its next CEO.

Lynch will become chairman of Mattel effective Oct. 2 and will assume the role of CEO “effective on or before” Nov. 2. He succeeds Ynon Kreiz, who will step down as chairman and CEO effective Oct. 2, “to take a senior leadership position at another public company,” according to Mattel.

Lynch has served as CEO of Condé Nast since 2019, leading the publishing and media company through a period of major disruption.

“Roger is a visionary leader with a track record of growing global companies at the forefront of changing industry and consumer trends,” Mattel board member Judy Olian, who has led the succession process, said in a statement. “Throughout his service on the board, Roger has been an invaluable contributor to shaping the company’s direction in the midst of its expansion into entertainment and digital products.”

Regarding Kreiz, Olian commented, “The board is most grateful for Ynon’s eight years of transformational leadership, and wishes him every success in his new role. Ynon leaves an invaluable legacy of transitioning Mattel from a toy manufacturer to a leading IP-driven play and family entertainment company. Knowing Roger as we do, we are confident that he and the talented Mattel team will build on that powerful foundation, and continue to advance our strategy to leverage our iconic brand portfolio.”

Lynch said: “I am honored by the Board’s confidence in me and couldn’t be more excited to lead the incredible team at Mattel. Throughout my years on the Board, I have admired Mattel’s brands, its talented people, and unique culture. I am especially grateful to Ynon for his many years of outstanding leadership and service to the company. During his tenure, Mattel has leveraged the power of its world-class brands, attracted exceptional entertainment partners, and strengthened its balance sheet. The company is well positioned for its next phase of profitable growth and its exciting new chapter.”

Kreiz said: “It has been a privilege to lead Mattel, with a global team dedicated to its mission and purpose, and I am proud of all we have achieved together. Mattel is in a position of strength, with a world-class brand portfolio, product offering, and global capabilities. I am grateful to the Board, management team, and entire Mattel organization for their commitment and collaboration during the past eight years, and I have every confidence the company will continue to thrive under Roger’s leadership.”

Mattel credited Kreiz with boosting its market share across key toy categories, ranking No. 1 globally in dolls, vehicles, and infant, toddler and preschool segments. Under Kreiz, Mattel also has won new or renewed entertainment licenses, including Disney Princess and Frozen, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Toy Story, KPop Demon Hunters, and DC.

Mattel also pointed to Mattel Studios’ first theatrical release, “Barbie,” was the top global box office film of 2023 and Warner Bros. Pictures’ highest-grossing movie of all time.

With Lynch’s departure from Condé Nast, the company announced that Mike Perlis, current lead independent director of the board of directors, will step in as interim CEO.

Mubi has taken worldwide rights to two iconic series from Movistar Plus International, the overseas distributor of the biggest Spanish pay TV and SVOD operator: “La Mesias,” from “La Bola Negra” directors Los Javis, and “Riot Police,” the first premium TV series from “The Beloved” director Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

Further headlines: Nominated on Sept. 23 for an International Emmy, four-part “The Anatomy of a Moment,” from Alberto Rodriguez (“The Tigers”), has rolled out in further territories in Europe.

The in-all 33 new deals were unveiled during the first day of trading at Madrid’s mega-market and forum Iberseries & Platino Industria, where Movistar Plus has a large market presence led by screenings or presentations of top titles bound for October’s Mipcom.

On Tuesday, Movistar Plus International hosted a showcase, screening and cocktail of Spain’s sex trade chronicle “El Castillo,” a standout at San Sebastián; a screening of withering LOL Millennial comedy “Many People Have to Die,” marking out creator Victoria Martín as a major Spanish comedic talent; and a presentation of “Killing a Bear,” based crime drama turning on the deep social conflict surrounding the death of brown bear Cachou, found dead in a ravine in the Pyrenees in 2020. The “small, local story vividly illustrated the polarized world we live in,” creators Jorge and Alberto Sánchez Cabezudo have told Variety.

‘La Mesías’

A Movistar Plus Original, large scale “La Mesías” delivered a first instance of Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s full-on creativity, working with the budget they required, shooting each episode with different genre influences – psychodrama, sci-fi, procedural and musical – and a pop sensibility and varying formats across multiple timelines, all of which they have now repeated in “La Bola Negra.”

“La Mesías,” like La Bola Negra,” also explores legacy and repression, here the psychological trauma left by a messianic mother, who turns her family into a cult.

“The series talks about religion, but as a form of education and this is what makes it interesting,” told Variety on set in 2023.

Key territories for the Mubi deal were announced in exclusivity by Variety in July.

‘Riot Police’

World premiering at San Sebastián in 2020 and starring “The Beloved’s” Victoria Luengo, Riot Police confirmed Sorogoyen’s ability to bring a big screen punch to his first premium series.

A six part series “Riot Police” also underscored his ability to mix genre and social point, exploring the failures and fragility of the masculine psyche as a riot police squad become the subject of an internal police enquiry led by Luengo’s character after bungling an eviction. The series closed early deals with HBO Latin America and Canal+ in France.

“The series I’ve seen rarely evolve in style,”Soroyogen told Variety in 2020. But Riot Police does in the use of hand-held, anamorphic fisheye lense camerawork for the eviction moving to a 15 minutes sequence shot in final episode.

‘The Anatomy of a Moment’

Co-produced with Arte France, starring “Money Heist’s” Alvaro Morte, “The Anatomy of a Moment” delivers Rodríguez’s fictionalized vision of how three key figures of “Shakespearian stature,” Rodríguez has said– Spanish Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez, Spanish Communist Party head Santiago Carrillo and armed forces chief Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado – wrestled democracy for Spain over 1976-77and almost lost it in a 1981 botched coup d’état. New international distribution takes in pubcasters RTP (Portugal), RTS (Switzerland), RTV (Slovenia) and Cinob0 (Greece).

More Top Sellers: ‘Querer,’ ‘The New Years,’ ‘The Nameless’

A top best series Grand Prix winner at Series Mania last year, Alauda Ruiz de Azua’s’s marital rape series Querer,” part family drama, part courtroom thriller, she has observed, continues to roll out around the world. Already acquired by Arte, Querer has now been licensed to Cinobo Poland, Italy’s MyMoviesOne, Latvia’s Latvia’s Mobilais and South Korea’s LG Plus.

Movistar Plus International has closed Greece and Poland, both with Cinobo, and Latvia (Latvijas Mobilais) on Sorogoyen’s “The New Years,” on-off couple romantic saga that played Venice in 2024 alongside Alfonso Cuarón’s Cate Blanchett starrer “Disclaimer” for Apple TV+, and Thomas Vinterberg’s big StudioCanal play “Families Like Ours.

France’s Filmo, Media4Fun and South Korea’s LG Plus have bought “The Nameless,” a portrait of evil family horror series from Filmax (“[REC]”), Pau Freixas (“The Red Band Society,” “You Shall Not Lie”) and Pol Cortecans (“You Shall Not Lie”),

A Drill-Down on More Deals:

*Cinobo Greece has picked up two seasons of “Bellas Artes” plus “A 100-Million Reward.”

*Filmo has also licensed “La vida breve.”

*Flow, the big Argentine streaming service covering Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, has become one of the first operators to buy “Many People Have to Die,” as well as “The Center,” “La Caza. Irati” and doc “Bisbal.”

*”Riot Police” also sold to Media4Fun.

*Italy’s MyMovieOne has acquired global electricity power outage anthology “OffWorld,” including episodes by Sorogoyen, Rodríguez, Isaki la Cuesta, Isa Campo and Rail Arévalo.

*Poland’s TVP has taken “La Canción,” from “Hierro” and “Rapa” creators Pepe Coira and Fran Araujo, placing Spain’s stunning 1968 Eurovision win in Spain’s dawn-of-democracy later liberty. Further acquisitions take in Costa del Sol mob lawyer comedy “Marbella,” crime investigation thriller “La Caza.Irati,” from Banijay’s DLO Producciones and two seasons of Canary Islands-set murder mystery “Hierro.”

*South Korea’s LG, a streaming service, has licensed “El centro,” “La Caza. Irati,” two ‘Hierro’ seasons, “El dentista’,” and “La vida breve.”

Beta Film has unveiled a broad international sales footprint for “Rex – Vienna Calling,” the latest incarnation of the three-decade-old “Rex – A Cop’s Best Friend” franchise, as production gets underway on a second season.

The series has been sold to SBS in Australia, Rai in Italy and TV 2 in Denmark. Elsewhere in Europe, buyers include Alpha TV in Greece, HRT in Croatia, Planet TV in Slovenia, STVR in Slovakia, Nova in Bulgaria and TVR in Romania, while Baltic deals take in Duo Media Networks in Estonia, SIA Tet in Latvia and LNK in Lithuania.

Action Channel in Japan and SHANT TV in Armenia are also on board, with further sales under negotiation.

The deals come as the evergreen IP continues to find traction in an increasingly on-demand television market. Audience analytics firm PlumResearch describes mature streaming markets as shifting “from hits to habits,” with much viewing taking place across the long tail rather than being concentrated solely around new releases.

The longevity of “Rex” offers a case in point. Over its 30-year history, the police-dog franchise has spawned multiple local adaptations. Canadian remake “Hudson & Rex,” another long-running Beta title, was recently renewed for a tenth season.

“Rex – Vienna Calling” stars Maximilian Brückner (“War Horse,” “Cherry Blossoms”) as detective Max Steiner, who teams with German Shepherd Rex to tackle cases across Vienna. Six new feature-length episodes are currently shooting at some of the Austrian capital’s most recognizable locations.

The first season opened to almost 1.6 million viewers on Germany’s SAT.1, posting a 7% overall share and 9.9% among 14-49s. In Austria, the six feature-length episodes averaged 701,000 viewers and a 27% share on ORF, while the Italian premiere on Rai 2 drew more than 750,000 viewers and a 5.6% share, rising above one million once on-demand and catch-up viewing was included.

Produced by MR Film in co-production with SAT.1 and ORF, “Rex – Vienna Calling” is distributed worldwide by Beta Film. The series is backed by FISAplus, the Austrian Television Fund and the state of Lower Austria.

Top Bollywood star Ajay Devgn tells Variety he is confident “Drishyam 3: The Conclusion” clears the bar set by its predecessors, calling the psychological thriller’s twists unpredictable even for genre-savvy audiences accustomed to guessing outcomes.

Speaking ahead of the film’s Oct. 2 release, Devgn says the Hindi-language franchise ends definitively, unlike its open-ended Malayalam-language counterpart.

Devgn, who plays the protagonist Vijay Salgaonkar, watched the completed film on Tuesday and emerged reassured, despite what he describes as the pressure of following two successful predecessors, particularly the second installment, which he calls a difficult film to follow. He watched it alongside people whose judgment he trusts, and came away without the fear that audiences might feel it could have been better. He credits writer/director Abhishek Pathak and the writing team, saying the film is shot well and grips audiences throughout.

“You will not be able to guess,” Devgn says. “So, the twists and turns are a lot, and they are unexpected.”

The “Drishyam” franchise centers on a family man who covers up an accidental killing to protect his wife and daughters, then finds himself locked in a battle of wits with the police officer investigating the case.

The “Drishyam” story has traveled widely since Jeethu Joseph’s original Malayalam film starring Mohanlal opened in 2013. It was remade in Kannada as “Drishya” and in Telugu as “Drushyam,” both in 2014, and in Tamil as “Papanasam” in 2015, with Kamal Haasan in the lead and Joseph again directing. The Hindi version, starring Devgn and Tabu, also arrived in 2015, followed by a Sinhala remake and the Chinese adaptation “Sheep Without a Shepherd” in 2019. Joseph’s Malayalam sequel arrived in 2021, with Pathak’s Hindi “Drishyam 2” following in 2022. The Malayalam “Drishyam 3” opened earlier this year and has grossed INR239 crore ($25 million). Panorama Studios, which holds the Hindi and international remake rights, is now developing Korean, Spanish and English versions of the franchise, while limiting its own Indian-language output to Hindi.

On playing the character across all three films, Devgn says Salgaonkar has “become more calmer, I would say. He’s more prepared,” he says, noting the story picks up directly where “Drishyam 2” left off rather than showing a further gap in the character’s development, so there is limited room to trace additional emotional evolution beyond what the film itself depicts.

Devgn spoke to Variety on the sidelines of the FICCI-Frames Indian media industry conference in Mumbai where he was in conversation with Alok Jain, head – Hindi and English entertainment business (streaming, TV and studios), JioStar.

Despite the Malayalam “Drishyam 3” leaving its ending open, Devgn says the Hindi version takes a different approach entirely. “This is a completely different script altogether,” he says. “There is no comparison. There is nothing. And in our film, we’re not leaving any loophole or anything. We are finishing it. This is the conclusion.”

Devgn says his next release, the comedy “Golmaal 5,” is complete and will arrive in January. He has also wrapped an as-yet-untitled film carrying the working title “Ranger,” a Luv Ranjan production, and is preparing to start work on “Chauhan.”

Asked about further installments of the “Raid” franchise, Devgn says he would continue only with the right material. “Hopefully, yes, if we get a great script, because you don’t plan it,” he says, adding that a strong script is what would determine whether the franchise moves forward. The “Rudra” franchise remains on pause, a decision he says was intentional.

Devgn also addressed the Hindi-language film industry’s turnaround after a pandemic-era slump he attributes to audiences outpacing the industry’s output as international viewing habits reshaped expectations. He says the industry has since worked to catch up with a more evolved audience, with some films succeeding as a result. He adds that theatrical viewing endures in India in part because it remains one of the few affordable, communal entertainment options families can enjoy together, contrasting it with the shorter, costlier outings offered by restaurants. Once audiences have a good experience at the theater, he says, they tend to return.

Devgn says he is also developing a few scripts with an eye toward returning to directing, tentatively within the next two years.

On the broader evolution of Indian audiences amid a global shift toward AI-generated content, Devgn says viewers have become highly discerning, often able to judge from a trailer alone whether a film is worth watching, and says that instinct is right the vast majority of the time. He says a weak film struggles regardless of how strong its marketing is, since audiences can sense when they are being misled.

Asked about AI’s role in storytelling, Devgn, who owns generative AI company Prismix, says, “I think it is here to stay. I myself have an AI company,” he says, adding that the venture is performing well. He says full audience connection may take time, since viewers know AI-generated content isn’t real, but reiterates his belief that the format will endure.