EXCLUSIVE: A major shake up is taking place at Arnon Milchan’s New Regency. Co-chairmen Bob Harper and Hutch Parker will not renew their contracts when they expire in December. I’ve confirmed with Harper that he and Parker are negotiating their exits. There had recently been a ripple of rumors about this, and there…

EXCLUSIVE: In its first major comedy buy this season, CBS has handed out a pilot production commitment to a multi-camera comedy from Bill Lawrence and Greg Malins. With its great pedigree, coming from Scrubs and Cougar Town creator Lawrence and former Friends and How I Met Your Mother executive producer Malins, the…

On the heels of Strike Back and Transporter, Cinemax is developing another action drama series, Sandbox. It centers on a group of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who return to the Coachella Valley to discover their hometown has been overrun by criminals. The men decide to use the skills they learned in combat to…

After a long search, newcomer John Boyega (Attack the Block) has landed the lead in HBO’s newly picked up drama pilot Da Brick, from Spike Lee, John Ridley, Doug Ellin and Mike Tyson. Boyega will play the central character, Donnie, in the ensemble drama, which was inspired in part by Tyson’s youth and explores what it…

UPDATE: President Barack Obama blinked in the staring contest with House Speaker John Boehner. Tonight, the White House agreed to move Obama’s speech to Thursday, the night of the opening game of the NFL season. The time of the televised address is TBD.  PREVIOUS: President Obama’s normally routine request to address…

EXCLUSIVE: After a long search process, 20th Century Fox and Bruce Willis have just chosen John Moore to direct Die Hard 5. The film will shoot in Russia, and the hope is to make it before Willis moves on to shoot a Red sequel for Summit Entertainment. In fact, Willis has just begun going through the same director…

EXCLUSIVE: The classic 1984 action-adventure romantic comedy Romancing the Stone is headed to the small screen. NBC has bought a TV series adaptation of the Robert Zemeckis movie, which was produced by 20th Century Fox and starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. The TV project, from 20th Century Fox TV and Shawn…

Greg Berlanti has taken a second project out this season, landing a second straight put pilot commitment. Following the sale earlier this month to Fox of a legal drama to be written by Berlanti’s frequent collaborator Marc Guggenheim, Berlanti and Chuck executive producer Nick Wootton have sold a police drama to CBS…

EXCLUSIVE: After Paul Lee rearranged his top programming executives in June, ABC and ABC Studios have now made more tweaks to their teams. The biggest one — Michael McDonald is being promoted to SVP drama development for ABC Studios and will head the studio’s drama department. The post had been vacant since June when…

EXCLUSIVE: Tobey Maguire’s Material Pictures has hired Focus Features executive Matthew Plouffe to be its new SVP Production. Plouffe, who has spent the past six years in the New York headquarters of Focus, will move to Los Angeles and start the job Oct. 1. Plouffe is currently Focus’ Director of Production and has…

The Telluride Film Festival kicks off its 38th edition Friday, marking the unofficial official launch of awards season, and for the fourth consecutive year it is getting help from the the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to do it: The Academy has granted $50,000 to underwrite the fest’s Guest Director…

NBC’s America’s Got Talent (3.0/8 in adults 18-49, 10.9 million viewers from 9-11 PM) was down 9% in 18-49 from last Tuesday but still topped the night in all key measures and led NBC to a nightly win. (Its lead-in, It’s Worth What? was up a tenth to a 1.2/4). Once again, a rerun of Wipeout (1.9/6) at 8 PM…