| HOW THE 'SNL UK' CREATIVE TEAM HAS BEEN GEARING UP TO WIN OVER A SKEPTICAL NATION |
Tomorrow, live from London, it will be Saturday night.
The UK version of the NBC format that has come to define late night television across five decades is about to launch. Saturday Night Live UK has been nearly five years in the making (Deadline first broke the news at Christmastime in 2021z). Its inception can be traced back to the Polo Lounge at the Beverley Hills Hotel, where a nervous James Longman sat down with the longtime producer Lorne Michaels.
“I was texting my mate asking what I should wear and in the end I went for a crisp white shirt,” says Longman, lead producer of SNL UK. “I remember talking to Lorne for an hour about L.A. traffic over a cup of tea. I went away thinking, 'Well if nothing ever happens, at least I’ve had that moment.' The only feedback I got was that he liked my crisp white shirt because no one in L.A. dresses smartly.”
Knowing his time exec-ing The Late Late Show with James Corden was nearly up, Longman had in fact been summoned by Michaels in order to sound him out about overseeing a British version of SNL. Fast forward two years and he had landed a dream gig. Fast forward another two and he's speaking with Deadline alongside his head writer and lead director about prepping for a career-defining debut. >>> "Like Speed Dating"
Related:
‘Saturday Night Live UK’ Extended To Eight Episodes On Sky
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Deadline Exclusives & Originals |
All Hail 'Mary' - A non-franchise movie is making waves at the box office and we’re talking about Amazon MGM Studios' Project Hail Mary. The previews for the Phil Lord-Christopher Miller directed sci-fi production are north of $11M, which takes us to a stratosphere above another non-franchise movie, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer ($10.5M). >>> Year's Best
Page To Screen - Krysten Ritter has teamed with writer-producer Steve Yockey (The Flight Attendant) and Berlanti Productions for Retreat, a series adaptation of her novel of the same name. Ritter is executive producing with the intention to star in the project. >>> Just Hit The Market
States Make A Statement - When California, New York and six other states sued this week to block a major broadcast merger between Nexstar and Tegna, one noted absence among the plaintiffs was the federal government. Attorneys General of those states are undaunted. >>>" We Will Step In"
Related:
Nexstar Says It Has Closed Merger With Tegna After Greenlight From FCC And Justice Department
Night Train Departs - Herbert L. Kloiber’s Night Train Media has sold its stakes in Curve Media, BossaNova Media and Eccho Rights to Germany’s Serafin Group. The Munich-based Serafin is now the main shareholder in the three European businesses, and has installed its own exec, Christoph Auer, as interim CEO of Eccho following its takeover. >>> Deal Quietly Struck
Gaggl Of Ambition - What happens when you take an evergreen format like Family Feud or The Price Is Right and hand it over to a new-school streamer or creator? TV tech firm Gaggl hopes you get a Boomer-meets-Gen-Z experience and that ‘creator-hosted TV’ will attract audiences and advertisers while handing TV distributors a fresh way to monetize their libraries. >>> International Disruptors |
Last night's episode of The Pitt deals with the issues and realities hospitals and medical staff are facing when members of ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, embed themselves in emergency rooms all over the country.
Producer John Wells spoke to Deadline about the episode, which he says was inspired by real-life events, and about the decision to tackle the controversial yet timely topic.
"We were just trying to get to this issue of why it’s important that immigration enforcement doesn’t happen in certain kinds of public spaces," says the veteran TV maker. >>>Q&A |
QUOTABLE
"Cool as hell" - Marlon Wayans on James Van Der Beek's willingness to revisit his 'Dawson's Creek' character for a small cameo in 'Scary Movie' |
ExclusiveFollowing the conclusion of Stranger Things, Maya Hawke is staying in the Netflix family as the star of The God of the Woods, its new drama series based on the New York Times bestselling novel by Liz Moore.
ExclusiveKirsten Dunst has joined the cast of the untitled Minecraft Movie sequel from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary. Dunst will play Alex, one of the primary avatars available to players of the Minecraft video games.
ExclusiveThe upcoming fifth season of Apple TV’s The Morning Show is getting a buzzy new addition: actress-singer Reneé Rapp. She has been tapped for a major recurring role, playing Samantha, a young rising star in the UBN news division determined to make it in media on her own terms.
ExclusiveFive new recurring stars have been booked for Fox's new Baywatch series, including Ashley Moore, Kylar Miranda, Luke Eisner, Nadia Gray and Charlie McElveen.
ExclusiveApple TV's untitled series from Philip Kerr’s globally bestselling book series Berlin Noir, has added seven to its cast: Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning Baby Reindeer breakout Jessica Gunning, along with BAFTA nominees Maxine Peake, Daniel Mays and Sam Riley, Roger Allam, Liz Kingsman and Carys Daniels.
ExclusiveEdward Berger has added two more to the cast of The Riders, his new A24 film based on the novel of the same name by Tim Winton: Lara Pulver (MobLand) and Kimonas Kouris (Tehran). |
BY THE NUMBERS
719M - Number views for the 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' trailer in its first 24 hours online, a record |
MORE NEWS
📺 CBS News announced a new round of layoffs this morning, the latest for the news division under the network’s new parent, Paramount Skydance. The cutbacks will reduce staffing by about 6%, a source tells Deadline. ✍️ Artists Equity, the artist-led indie studio founded by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Gerry Cardinale, has announced a new Writers Room program that will inform its development of original screenplays. The initiative invites writers to pitch film ideas across a range of genres, with rooms launched around selected ideas.
💡 Fox-owned streaming service Tubi has teamed with TikTok to help the latter’s talent pool develop long-form series. The companies have launched an incubator for TikTok creators' original shows, which will premiere exclusively on Tubi.
💥 A British reporter from Russian state broadcaster RT narrowly escaped serious injury or death when an Israeli missile landed just meters away from his reporting position.
🇮🇳 Prime Video India has unveiled a massive slate of original TV shows, feature films and licensed content, as leading international execs at the streamer outlined ambitions commensurate to the content. |
| OBITUARIES
🕯️ Chuck Norris, the colorful martial arts expert and star of Walker, Texas Ranger, has died at the age of 86. He passed away suddenly yesterday morning, according to a social media post from his family using his Instagram account. Norris had been hospitalized on Thursday in Hawaii. 🕯️ Peter Thompson , who was the foremost West End stage publicist for four decades and the man who orchestrated publicity for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and his other hits, died Wednesday night. He was 81. 🕯️ Jordan Wright, a former ITV reality star who appeared on The Only Way Is Essex and MTV’s Ex on the Beach, has died. He was 33. 🕯️ Ed Bernard , a series regular on such hit series Police Woman and The White Shadow, has died in Northridge, CA, his family has announced. He was 86. 🕯️ 2026 Deaths Photo Gallery |
| ON THE RADAR
Fri - Rep. Anna Paulina Luna on Maher
Sat - Saturday Night Live UK debuts
Mon - NewFronts: Google
Tue - NewFronts: Tubi, TikTok |
Red Carpet 'Ready' - Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kathryn Newton attend the UK Special Screening of Searchlight Pictures' Ready or Not 2: Here I Come in London. |
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