Lionsgate Television said it extended its deal with Point Grey Pictures, the production company led by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Weaver.

Point Grey will continue to make scripted TV programming for Lionsgate, including The Studio, a half-hour comedy that will stream on Apple TV Plus.

Seth, Evan and James are the masters of subversive, renegade humor who make coming to work both fun and funny every single day,” said Lionsgate Television Group Chair & Chief Creative Officer Kevin Beggs. “From The Boys to Sausage Party, they are true trendsetters with their fingers on the pulse of what’s funny in entertainment. We began shooting their hilarious, wildly inventive half-hour comedy for Apple TV Plus and can hardly wait to see what they do next.”

Rogen will star, write, direct and executive produce The Studio. The cast also features Kathryn Hahn and Catherine O’Hara, with Bryan Cranston appearing as a guest star.

“Kevin, Sandra Stern and Scott Herbst are great partners who support our creative vision, have relationships with every platform in the world and still laugh at all of our jokes. Who could ask for more?” said Rogen, Goldberg and Weaver. “We look forward to continuing to push the creative envelope with them.”  

Ashley Morales negotiated the deal on behalf of Lionsgate Television.

Apple TV Plus comedy Platonic has received a season two order. Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen star and executive produce. 

Nick Stoller and Francesca Delbanco created the show and direct. Platonic premiered in May. 

The show follows a platonic pair of former best friends approaching midlife who reconnect after a long rift. The duo’s friendship becomes all-consuming and destabilizes their lives in a variety of ways.

“Since the first episodes of Platonic debuted on Apple TV Plus, global audiences have been charmed by the hilarious, wildly fun and relatable friendship that Rose and Seth have brought to life through their charismatic performances,” Apple TV Plus head of programming Matt Chernis said. “We can’t wait for viewers to see these characters encounter even more comedic mayhem in season two thanks to our partners at Sony and to the brilliant minds of Francesca and Nick.”

Apple TV Plus called Platonic one of the network’s best-performing comedies.  

“We’re so thrilled to have the opportunity to tell more stories with Seth, Rose and everyone at Apple TV Plus and Sony,” said Stoller and Delbanco. “Season two spoiler alert: Will and Sylvia won’t get together this time either.” 

Also in the cast are Luke Macfarlane, Tre Hale, Andrew Lopez and Carla Gallo. 

Platonic is produced by Sony Pictures Television, where Stoller’s Global Solutions has an overall deal. Byrne, Rogen, Stoller, Delbanco and Conor Welch executive produce.

Seth Rogen blasted The CW during the Critics Choice Awards, which was broadcast Sunday on The CW Network.

“I’m not saying The CW is bad,” Rogen said before presenting the nominees for the best comedy series. “What I will say is it is the one network to receive zero Critics Choice nominations. You’re saying it’s bad. We’re on your least favorite network. How did that happen?”

Rogen noted that the production appeared rushed and suggested it buy another hour of time. “Get another hour. It can’t be that expensive. You know how I know that? The show airs at 4 p.m. on The CW. That cannot be a pricey time slot from my understanding of how this all works.”

Rogen also said that he might be the first Jew to be seen on The CW.  “If you’re a normal viewer of The CW, this is a startling image to be seeing on your television right now,” he said.

The CW has in fact had Jewish actors in starring roles. Rachel Bloom starred in the series Crazy Ex Girlfriend and Ruby Rose played Batwoman, to name a few.

The CW was acquired last year by station group owner Nexstar Media Group, which changed the management of the network and is planning changes in its program lineup. ■

Prime Video is moving forward with an animated series based on 2016 movie Sausage Party, with much of the cast set to return. Film cast members Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, David Krumholtz and Edward Norton are on board for the TV series, called Sausage Party: Foodtopia. It is set to debut in 2024.

The animated movie was about a sausage living in a supermarket who discovers what happens when groceries are purchased, and sets out to help his food friends survive. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the screenplay with Ariel Shaffir and Kyle Hunter.

"The original Sausage Party was an incredibly hilarious, outrageous, one-of-a-kind entry into the world of animation," said Vernon Sanders, head of global television, Amazon Studios. "We are thrilled to collaborate again with Seth, Evan and their team at Point Grey, as well as our partners at Annapurna Television and Sony Pictures Television, to offer a new look into this world that will be brought to life so vividly for our global Prime Video customers."

Will Forte, Sam Richardson, Natasha Rothwell and Yassir Lester will also be in the voice cast.

"Film used to be the superior art form to television, and we humbly reached the pinnacle of what can be achieved with film in our remarkable opus, Sausage Party," said Rogen and Goldberg. "But now that film is completely dead and TV is the forever-king of entertainment, we’ve decided to continue the epic adventures of our culinary crew in the soon-to-be-legendary televised masterpiece Sausage Party: Foodtopia. It’s got all the heart, double the puns, and triple the food-on-food sex. In other words, it’s exactly what the world needs right now."

Sausage Party: Foodtopia is executive produced by Shaffir and Hunter, along with Rogen, Goldberg, James Weaver, and Alex McAtee via Point Grey Pictures. Conrad Vernon, who co-directed the film, returns as supervising director for the series and will executive produce alongside Annapurna Television’s Megan Ellison and Patrick Chu, and Andrew Millstein. Shaffir and Hunter are the showrunners.

Rogen, Goldberg, Shaffir and Hunter worked together on Hulu series Future Man. 

Sausage Party: Foodtopia is a co-production of Annapurna Television, Sony Pictures Television and Amazon Studios. ■

HBO Max premieres the film An American Pickle, starring Seth Rogen, Aug. 6. Brandon Trost directs the project, based on a Simon Rich novella that ran in the New Yorker called Sell Out. 

Rogen pays Herschel Greenbaum, a struggling laborer who immigrated to America in 1920 with dreams of building a better life. While working at his factory job, he falls into a vat of pickles and is brined for 100 years. He’s perfectly preserved and emerges in present day Brooklyn. 

When Greenbaum seeks out his family, he learns his only surviving relative is his great grandson Ben, who is also played by Rogen. Ben is a mild-mannered computer coder that Herschel cannot even begin to understand.

Sarah Snook, Jorma Taccone and Maya Erskine are also in the cast.

Nickelodeon will team with Point Grey Pictures’ Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Weaver to develop a new animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theatrical motion picture, the network said Tuesday.

“Adding Seth, Evan and James’ genius to the humor and action that’s already an integral part of TMNT is going to make this a next-level reinvention of the property,” said ViacomCBS president of Kids & Family Brian Robbins in a statement. “I’m looking forward to see what they do, and I know that Ramsey Naito and her team are excited to take the Nick Animation Studio into another great direction with their first-ever CG-animated theatrical.”

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theatrical motion picture will be directed by Jeff Rowe (Gravity Falls, Connected, Disenchantment) and written by Brendan O’Brian (Neighbors, Sorority Rising, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates).

Nickelodeon in 2012 created a new version of the franchise with the CG-animated series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and then re-imagined the Heroes with the 2D-animated series Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 2019.

Showtime has released the premiere episode of its freshman comedy series Black Monday across multiple platforms, the network said Friday.

The series — which chronicles the 1987 stock market crash and how a group of outsiders took on the old-boys club of Wall Street to cripple the world’s largest financial system — premieres on Showtime Jan. 10, but the first episode is currently available on YouTube,Facebook and SHO.com, said Showtime.

Black Monday, created by David Caspe and Jordan Cahan, stars Don Cheadle, Andrew Rannells and Regina Hall. Caspe, Cahan and Cheadle serve as executive producers alongside Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. 

If you’re looking for a series that boldly straddles the line between comedy and genre, that show may just be Future Man, which starts on Hulu Nov. 14. Josh Hutcherson of The Hunger Games plays a janitor by day/gamer by night who is recruited to travel through time to prevent the extinction of mankind.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg executive-produce. So does Ben Karlin, who said Future Man is far more than a spoof of time-travel fantasy. “We really take the genre part of it quite seriously,” he said.

The Future Manbrain trust has been wracking their brains, trying to come up with a TV series that balances comedy with genre elements, such as stunts and special effects. “I don’t think, in the history of half-hour television, anything like this has been attempted before,” Karlin said.

Formerly of The Daily Show, Karlin produced the cancer comedy film 50/50 with Rogen and Goldberg, and said the trio has made a habit of reading each others’ stuff. Karlin had a development deal with ABC that he describes as “challenging and frustrating.” Future Man is way more in his wheelhouse than broadcast comedies.

Hulu’s big win at the Emmys, with The Handmaid’s Tale snagging best drama, makes it a more attractive destination for producers. “It’s really nice to be able to come on after that,” Karlin said.

Touching quite a few different emotions than Future Man, Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders starts on SundanceTV Nov. 18. It is directed and produced by Joe Berlinger, and is an homage to Truman Capote’s iconoclastic 1966 bestseller In Cold Blood. “I’ve always been obsessed with his book,” Berlinger said. “It’s the first time I read a required book for school, then went back and read it again and again.”

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Berlinger, whose films include 1992’s Brother’s Keeper, about an alleged murder in central New York, said In Cold Blood motivated him to be a filmmaker. “I consciously try to evoke, in filmic terms, what Capote did in his book,” Berlinger said.

Cold Blooded is an intriguing close-up of both the Clutter family and the murderers, who met in prison. Berlinger said it took a lot of convincing for remaining members of the family to help out. The hustle paid off. “The family contributed photos and diaries that no one has seen before,” he said.

Watch SundanceTV's 'Cold Blooded' Trailer

Berlinger said he believes Serial, Making a Murderer and the rest of today’s true-crime standouts owe the same debt he’s paying. “They all trace back,” he said, “to an explosion called In Cold Blood.”

AMC takes a page out of the comic-book genre with the debut of drama series Preacher.

The series, based on a 1990s DC Comics title, follows Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper), an unconventional, conflicted preacher in a small Texas town who drinks and struggles with his own faith in God. His return to head his father’s church is met with some reluctance from a few of the locals, but he looks to make the best of an untenable situation.

When an inebriated Jesse gets arrested for assaulting a wife-beating parishioner, he considers throwing in the towel on his ministry.

Soon after however, Jesse is visited in his church by an alien entity that takes over his body and spirit, giving him a new vision for his ministry. Fans of the comic series will recognize Custer’s sidekicks in his ex-girlfriend Tulip (Ruth Negga) and Irish vampire Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) — as well as two outsiders searching for the creature itself — but viewers unfamiliar with Preacher will have to watch later episodes to figure out their relevance to the main character and to the storyline.

The pilot’s first scene leaves no doubts that Preacher is not for the squeamish. The same entity that takes over Jesse literally explodes through several other spiritual leaders around the world as it searches for its ideal host.

At the same time, the series tames down the bloody action long enough to allow for the character development of Jesse and those surrounding him to the point where viewers will begin to care what happens to them in future episodes as Jesse’s search for God and his desire to heal the sins of those around him takes the series on an unpredictable journey.

Part Breaking Bad and part The Walking Dead, the series — executive produced by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and Sam Catlin — will keep fans of both the drama and horror genres in the viewing spirit.