David Schwimmer is eyeing a return to the small screen. In his first major broadcast TV role since Friends, Schwimmer has signed on as the male lead in the ABC comedy pilot Irreversible, from Peter Tolan and Sony Pictures TV. Schwimmer also will serve as a producer on the project, based on the Israeli series Bilti Hafi…

ABC has given a pilot order to an untitled single-camera comedy from creator Brian Gallivan, Sony TV and Will Gluck‘s studio-based Olive Bridge Productions — the auspices behind another family comedy pilot this season, CBS’ The McCarthys. The ABC project, which had a high-seven-figure penalty, centers on an overworked…

The man whose animated holiday TV specials have touched generations of fans died Thursday at his home in Bermuda. Arthur Rankin Jr was 89. His death was reported by local newspaper The Royal Gazette. With his partner Jules Bass, Rankin mined popular Christmas songs to create enduring stop-motion TV classics including R…

In this week's podcast, Deadline’s executive editor David Lieberman and host David Bloom catch up on the many highlights from earnings season announcements, beginning with those by possible dance partners Comcast and Time Warner Cable and what their news might mean for Comcast's takeover bid. They also take the market…

Paramount will release MGM‘s Hot Tub Time Machine sequel wide on December 25, 2014, the studio just announced. Paramount came aboard in December as worldwide distributor for the pic, after MGM/UA released the first one in 2010 and grossed a so-so $50.3 million domestically (it scored better digitally and on-demand)…

Refresh for latest… The Prohibition-era drama Ezekiel Moss is moving forward, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams set to star and Philip Seymour Hoffman set to direct the pic written by Keith Bunin, whose script made the 2011 Black List. A Likely Story and Mandalay Vision, which secured the project back then, are…

Looks like Variety got carried away this afternoon with a story that says “several prominent exhibitors” are rejecting the National Association of Theatre Owners‘new voluntary guidelines calling for a two-minute cap on movie trailers. The site named two chains — Cinemark and AMC Entertainment — saying that their…

This morning’s César Award nominations set Twitter and the media ablaze in France, but not for the usual who’s in/who’s out debate. The reason for today’s increased gusto was that listed amongst the noms for the Césars, the local equivalent to the Oscars, is a supporting turn for Julie Gayet in Bertrand Tavernier’s…

What do you do when you have a show about what it means to be black in today’s society that is in a need of a showrunner? You turn to an expert. ABC’s untitled Anthony Anderson/Kenya Barris comedy pilot (formerly Black-ish) has tapped The Daily Show’s senior black correspondent Larry Wilmore as executive…

I’ve learned that Universal Cable Prods. VP Tom Lieber is leaving the company. Under UCP’s previous management structure, development was split to three areas — projects for USA, overseen by SVP Richard Rothstein, for Syfy, headed by Lieber, and for outside networks, run by SVP Maira Suro, who left a year ago. In the r…

EXCLUSIVE: This year's Sundance Film Festival is over but for three participants a whole new ride is about to begin. ICM Partners have signed up Special Jury Prize winners Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter's David Zellner and Nathan Zellner as well as Pierre Boulanger of God Help The Girl. The signings for the trio are in…

An advertisement for an unpaid internship that came through the Casting Society of America seems to go against federal labor laws, especially against the backdrop of a class action lawsuit winding its way through the court system over the case of two former interns that were treated as employees during their work on…