Category: Entertainment

Jordanian director Zaid Abu Hamdan is set to launch the follow up to his female empowerment drama “Daughters of Abdulrahman,” the gritty crime thriller “Boomah,” set to soon bow from the Shanghai International Film Festival that is becoming an increasingly prominent launching pad for Arab cinema.

Shot in Jordan during an especially challenging period for the war-torn region, “Boomah” segues from Hamdan’s dramedy about four semi-estranged sisters who join forces to contend with the Jordanian patriarchy with what is being described in promotional materials as “a raw, emotionally charged crime thriller about survival, motherhood and the people society leaves behind” that captures a side of Jordan rarely seen on screen.

With “Boomah” the Jordanian helmer continues to explore the female empowerment space with this tale of a notorious and knife-savvy female gang member, the film’s titular character, who becomes embroiled in a power struggle between street thugs and religious extremists while battling the traumas of her harrowing orphaned past.

Leading “Boomah” is Jordanian actress Rakeen Saad, known for her central roles in Netflix hit original series “AlRawabi School for Girls” and “The Giza Killer” and who also has a part in Terrence Malick’s long-gestating biblical drama “The Way of the Wind.” Saad is joined by Majd Eid (“Once Upon a Time in Gaza”), Joanna Arida (“AlRawabi School for Girls”), and Hanan Hilo (“Daughters of Abdulrahman”).

“Boomah was born from very local wounds, but its heart is universal: the need to belong, the pain of being unseen, and what happens when survival and pain become a language,” said Zaid Abu Hamdan in a statement for Variety. “I was inspired by stories of real women in Jordan who were feared, judged, and misunderstood, but rarely truly seen. To have the film meet the world for the first time at the Shanghai International Film Festival is a profound honor,” he added.

“Boomah” is about people at the very bottom of the food chain, the ones society ignores until it needs them, uses them or punishes them,” noted the film’s producer Gianluca Chakra. “These are people surviving on the margins, trying to force their way into a system that was never built for them.”

“Crime here is not glamour. It is labour, currency and survival. What drew us to the film was not the violence, but the humanity underneath it. Beneath the crime thriller is a story about motherhood, belonging and people fighting to carve out a place for themselves in a world that has already decided they don’t matter. That is why the film travels beyond Jordan. These people exist everywhere,” Chakra continued.

“Boomah” was produced by Chakra’s Front Row Productions, the production arm of Front Row Filmed Entertainment, in collaboration with Bounce Productions. The film received support from the Red Sea Fund and the Royal Film Commission – Jordan. Front Row Filmed Entertainment holds global rights to “Boomah” and place to release the film across the MENA region in the fourth quarter of this year.

Sam Reich isn’t expecting an Emmy nomination this year. He isn’t expecting to lose, either.

For the CEO of Dropout, the indie comedy streamer’s first-ever FYC event at the iconic Laugh Factory was never about a single outcome. It was about getting in the room.

“All we’re trying to do is get a little better every year,” Reich tells Variety.

The venue seats roughly 150 people. Dropout’s RSVP list topped 900. But the biggest surprise of the night wasn’t the turnout. It was the appearance of former “Dance Moms” doyenne Abby Lee Miller.

“She told me she’s a ‘Game Changer’ fan,” Reich says. “My wife, Elaine, almost fell out of the bathtub when I told her she came.”

That balance between intimacy and ambition sits at the center of Dropout’s current moment. With 11 Emmy submissions spanning “Game Changer” and “Very Important People,” Reich is mounting a modest campaign in a landscape dominated by billion-dollar media companies.

“Streamers are trying to be everything to anyone,” Reich says. “We’re trying to be something for someone. When you’re paying seven bucks a month for Dropout, you’re probably hardcore about us.”

That loyalty has helped turn “Very Important People” into one of the platform’s defining shows. Hosted by comedian Vic Michaelis, the prosthetics-heavy interview series thrives on improvisation and absurd character work. Season 3 featured performers including Frankie Quinones and Chelsea Peretti, along with other Dropout cast staples.

Reich says Michaelis possesses an unusually rare comedic skill set, managing to be “both straight man and funny person in a way that I’ve never seen juggled in another comic.”

The hilarious show enters the revamped outstanding variety series race at a moment when the Television Academy is increasingly opening to internet-native programming. Reich points to creators like Sean Evans of “Hot Ones,” Brittany Broski and Michelle Khare as part of the same broader movement. A breakthrough for any of them, he argues, benefits all digital creators trying to break into traditional awards spaces.

Nonetheless, for Reich, the Emmy push also functions as a larger branding exercise. As he describes it, Dropout is evolving, moving from “unscripted alt comedy” to simply “alt comedy,” with ambitions that may eventually stretch into animation, horror and scripted storytelling, especially for its flagship Dungeons and Dragons-inspired series, “Dimension 20.”

“We’ve been loosely or vaguely threatening a ‘Dimension 20’ animated something for a while,” he teases of the tabletop RPG comedy show hosted by fan favorite and game master Brennan Lee Mulligan. “We have a couple of irons in that fire that are ‘medium’ to far along at this point.”

Still, Reich resists anything that would ever be deemed as “traditional.”

“I hope that we never produce something that’s recognizable because I always want what we do to be just that little bit avant-garde,” he says.

Most of Dropout’s Emmy hopes rests on “Game Changer,” the competition series Reich hosts himself. The show’s blend of elaborate game mechanics and psychological humor has turned it into a cult phenomenon, particularly after an episode orchestrated by Mulligan turned the tables on Reich himself and became one of the year’s most talked-about installments online.

Season 8, which premiered in May, includes what Reich describes as some of the show’s strongest episodes yet. “Roulette 2” revives a format he felt was too elegant to abandon, while an upcoming episode, titled “Count the Rice,” ranks, in his estimation, among the series’ top five best.

“If you’re asking me if it involves counting rice,” Reich jokes, “it surely does.”

He also exclusively teases to Variety a future episode titled “What’s the Catch,” loosely inspired by the classic game show “Let’s Make a Deal,” saying it’s a “top five”-ever episode of the franchise and one of his personal favorites of the series.

Then there’s the matter of “Survivor.” Reich is a longtime obsessive about the CBS reality franchise, enough so that Dropout once devoted an entire “Game Changer” episode to it.

And of course, how could we not talk about “Survivor,” Reich’s longtime obsession to which he dedicated an episode years ago? Asked about Aubry Bracco and her Season 50 win, he praises her timing:

“Aubry for sure would have been my vote of the final three. She peaked at the exact right moment. It’s so key to strategy; not emerging as clever too soon.”

For a comedy executive navigating the rise through the Emmy ecosystem, the observation is perfect.

Big TV is putting it all out on the field.

A number of top TV networks and streamers are making aggressive efforts to get advertisers to pay top dollar for sports even as Madison Avenue trims back the sizable sums it has given in the past to the usual fare, like dramas, comedies and reality programming. These negotiations take place as part of the industry’s annual “upfront” market, when U.S. media companies try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory ahead of their next cycle of programs.

Sports is of paramount importance this year, according to five executives familiar with current negotiations, because advertising budgets are down noticeably from last year’s haggle and games from leagues like the NFL and the NBA are one of the few things in which marketers see growing value. “There is not as much money as media companies wanted,” says one media-buying executive, who works on behalf of advertisers to secure commercial time. Another media buyer says many clients have cut upfront budgets by at least 10%, and in some cases by as much as 30% to 40%.

“There is really only one category that is up. All the others are either flat to down,” this buyer says. “Pharma is the only one that’s up — and not as up as everybody thinks.”

If the media companies want more dollars, they may have to offer concessions. Ad buyers say they are, once again, pressing for significant “rollbacks” on rates, particularly for streaming inventory that is supposed to represent the future of the medium. The supply of streaming ad time is huge, particularly with Amazon and Netflix in the market, the executives say, and much of it is not seen as high value to advertisers because consumers watch movies and shows on demand at times of their own choosing, That means the audiences at any given time are usually quite diffuse.

That is not the case for sports, which still bring large, live audiences all watching in a single block of time. Disney went to market this year initially seeking $10 million for a 30-second ad in its coming 2027 broadcast of Super Bowl LXI, a significant jump up from the price NBC initially sought last year for its broadcast of Super Bowl LX. Disney has since agreed to some deals for lower prices, according to the executives.

Amazon and Netflix have also grown bold about asking for top sports prices, according to buyers. Both companies are “overly aggressive on their sports,” says one buying executives.

Netflix, Amazon and Disney all declined to make executives available for comment.

“Sports are the darling of everything,” says one buying executive. “Where networks have sports and scarcity in supply, those are conversations we are having first. Places where there is no sports or less urgency and scarcity in supply, those conversations are slower.” Fox Corp., which has a large sports and news portfolio, but only a smaller amount of scripted entertainment, is likely to do well, buyers indicated, while owners of traditional cable networks focused on scripted fare may have a longer negotiation ahead of them.

NBCUniversal, Paramount Skydance, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment on the status of their upfront discussions.

Sports represent one of the few areas where the TV companies and streamers have leverage. The media companies have been able to strike deals for sports that typically call for mid-to-high-single-digit percentage increases in CPMs, a measure of the cost of reaching 1,000 viewers that is central in these annual discussions between TV networks and Madison Avenue. The higher increases are for NFL games, executives say, with other sports tucking in underneath the rates set for professional football.

Meanwhile, the rate increases for other types of programming are noticeably less. Networks have been able to notch deals for broadcast TV that call for CPMs that are flat with last year’s or up as much as 5% mid-single-digit percentage. Streaming inventory is in many cases going for CPMs that are flat with last year’s or down as much as 5%, according to the executives — and in some instances, more.

Advertisers and TV sales executives may be at an impasse over cable networks focused on entertainment. These networks are viewed with less enthusiasm in the age of streaming, because more consumers are abandoning their cable subscriptions in favor of streaming services. Media buyers have pressed for rollbacks in cable, and the media companies have resisted.

Their reasoning? New data added to Nielsen earlier this year has suggested that more people are watching cable than previously expected. With that as ballast, TV companies have refused to accept cable “rollbacks,” telling media buyers they will be happy to negotiate with them again later in the year in what is known in the so-called “scatter” market, when advertisers buy ad time much closer to when it needs to run.

No matter how they haggle, the media companies are fighting over a shrinking pile of money. Dollars committed to broadcast primetime in 2025 fell 2.5% to about $9.1 billion, according to Media Dynamics, an advertising consultancy, compared with $9.34 billion in the year-earlier period. Dollars committed to cable fell 4.3% to nearly $8.68 billion, compared with nearly $9.1 billion in 2024. Meanwhile, dollars earmarked for streaming rose 17.9%, Media Dynamics said, to $13.2 billion, compared with $11.2 billion in the 2024 upfront.

The companies are counting on sports to help them eke out something they can call a victory.

 

Disney has started to move Super Bowl commercial time in earnest, but only after a round of squawking that would have impressed Donald Duck.

After pressing advertisers to pony up $10 million for a 30-second spot as well as a $10 million “match” for other inventory tied to its 2027 broadcast of Super Bowl LXI, Disney has sold a significant chunk in deals that value half a minute in the Big Game at around $8 million, according to two people familiar with recent negotiations. Disney’s decision to agree to a lower price comes after intense pushback from advertisers and their representatives, according to three media buyers familiar with the matter, and suggests Madison Avenue will only pay so much for sports properties, no matter how popular they have become in the streaming era.

“We have seen strong early demand from emerging categories driving double digit units at $9 million each in addition to spending across Disney’s football portfolio,” Disney said in a statement. “Advertisers are leaning in early, recognizing the unmatched scale and cultural impact of the game with investment coming from seven major categories, led by A.I., finance, and pharma.”

Disney tried to set a floor at $9 million, according to media buyers, but those who bought more than 10 units at that price were largely “independents,” or advertisers new to the Super Bowl who do not enjoy a longer-term relationship with Disney or are represented by one of the U.S. advertising industry’s major media-buying agencies.

The company’s plans for the Super Bowl are ambitious. Disney’s rights deal with the NFL calls for the game to be telecast on both ABC and ESPN, with a separate “alterna-cast” led by Peyton and Eli Manning to appear on ESPN2. The telecast will take place on February 14, Valentine’s Day, and the Monday afterward is a federal holiday, President’s Day. Disney and the NFL may also have other ideas in store, according to two people familiar with the matter, that could include additional Super Bowl telecasts aimed at narrower audiences shown across other parts of the Disney media empire.

But the company’s plans for dealing with advertisers may have been equally driven. Disney’s ABC has not aired a Super Bowl since 2006, which means the company was able to contemplate a new process. Typically, the network airing a Super Bowl reaches out to what are known as “incumbents,” or advertisers who had positions in network’s previous Big Game telecast..The network hosting the Super Bowl typically gives these advertisers an early chance to buy in the next time it has the gridiron classic under its command. After offering them an opportunity, a network might also reach out to sponsors of the previous game.

Marketers who have multi-year deals with the NFL and often run commercials in the Super Bowl had begun to hear that they might not be able to have the usual positions they enjoyed in the ad lineup, according to media buyers, and made their outrage known. If Disney is going to award long-held positions to newer advertisers, says one media buying executive, “well, you’re going to get pushback from the marketplace.”

“There has been a bit of disarray,” says another media buyer.

Even so, one media buyer estimated Disney may have already sold at least 50% of its game-time inventory. Maybe Disney has gotten some of its ducks in a row.

.

Sony’s Santa Monica Studios has announced “God of War Laufey,” the latest entry into the “God of War” series.

The newly announced game will expand the action-adventure “God of War” franchise, focusing on Laufey, also known as Faye. Described as a legendary warrior and leader, the game will explore “the humanity, strengths and flaws of the person whose legacy was beloved in the minds of many,” per the company. 

“Death was supposed to be the end, but for Laufey (Faye), warrior and wife to Kratos, a new adventure is just beginning. Awakening unexpectedly in a strange land after her funeral, Faye discovers the plans she put in place to protect Kratos and Atreus are now at risk,” per the game’s logline. “To save the ones she loves, Faye must fight through the afterlife of the gods — the Everywhen — where ruthless gods from across mythology vie for power in a land overflowing with dangerous magic.” 

The game will be available soon on PlayStation 5 consoles.

NEWLY ANNOUNCED GAMES

The newly-announced sequel game “Until Dawn 2” will be available on PS5 in 2027.

“Until Dawn 2” is a standalone experience and will feature a brand new cast of ghost hunters along with a new world for players to explore as their decisions shape the story of who becomes a victim or a survivor.

Having just signed a deal with a big TV network, the new crew with complicated interpersonal relationships is shipped off to an abandoned tropical island for their first fully funded episode. They soon begin uncovering the island’s deadly, revenge-seeking secrets and are forced to make gut-wrenching choices, each small moment possibly setting off a butterfly effect.  

The enigmatic Dr Hill, played again by Peter Stormare will return for the game.

*

“The Lost Wild,” an upcoming survival horror game, will launch in 2027, Annapurna Interactive and developer Great Ape Games announced during PlayStation’s State of Play event. The game will be available for PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store.

In “The Lost Wild,” players will be pitted against dinosaurs as Saskia, a character who “wakes up on a mysterious island overrun by prehistoric creatures,” per the official logline. “To survive, Saskia must explore derelict research facilities nestled in a lush wilderness and be resourceful while evading and overcoming this unstoppable threat.” 

Throughout the game, players can create distractions and temporarily scare off the dinosaurs using non-lethal weaponry. They will also be able to acquire items to assist in their survival. 

“‘The Lost Wild’ is a survival horror experience unlike any other, one that is built around slow burn tension while players are hunted by intelligent dinosaurs. These are not monsters, these are wild animals that think of you as prey,” said Great Ape Games CEO Nick Gregory. “This idea has persisted in various forms and iterations over the years. What started as a shared passion for dinosaurs, curiosity and a love of games eventually grew into a fully fledged grassroots studio with over 25 talented people behind it. We now find ourselves in the incredibly fortunate position of building our dream dinosaur game, a true love letter to the genre, alongside one of the best publishers in the industry.”