Welcome back to WeHo. Three popular Melrose Place original cast members, Heather Locklear, Laura Leighton and Daphne Zuniga, are reuniting for a followup to the 1990s staple. A Melrose Place reboot, with the trio attached to star, is in development at CBS Studios and is currently being shopped to networks and streamers.
CBS Studios’s joint venture with the NAACP is developing a new daytime drama about a Black family that is expected to air on the CBS Television Network. The series, The Gates, will be co-produced by P&G Studio, a division of big advertiser Procter & Gamble.
CBS Studios and NBCUniversal’s Universal Studio Group have suspended a new round of overall deals due to the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike.
Exclusives
The expected alignment of CBS Studios, Paramount TV Studios and the Paramount+ scripted originals team is happening, and it is resulting in staff cuts. The latest round of Paramount Global layoffs is impacting fewer than 30 people, all on the West Coast. According to sources, the majority of them are at CBS Studios and Paramount TV Studios, with handful of employees at CBS also let go.
Kristen Hall is exiting Amazon and returning to CBS Studios in the role of executive vice president of communications. Hall had previously been at CBS Studios for 14 years before leaving to join Amazon in 2018. She returns in the role previously held by Lauri Metrose, who left CBS Studios in June.
Lauri Metrose is exiting her post as EVP communications at CBS Studios for a new opportunity outside the entertainment industry. Metrose, who will leave at the end of June, has spent virtually her entire career at CBS, going from a rising-star junior publicist to one of the most accomplished and respected TV communications executives in town. Search for her replacement is expected to begin this week.
CBS Studios Announces BIPOC Casting Fellowship, Sets Second Cohort For Leadership Pipeline Challenge
Anthony Morina , the executive producer of The Young and the Restless allegedly made repeated advances toward actress Briana Thomas, commented on her body, offered her a “private acting lesson” and had her fired when she rebuffed him, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday against Morina and Sony Pictures Television.
The broadcaster’s production arm is venturing into foreign-language programming with the German spy show Ze Network, a dark comedy starring Hasselhoff that will debut next year on TV Now, a video-on-demand platform that is a unit of Germany’s Mediengruppe RTL.
Once again, Judge Judy finds herself on the other side of the bench with a new breach-of-contract complaint filed against the top TV judge and CBS. While the jury-trial seeking suit from Kaye Switzer and the trust of the late Sandi Spreckman doesn’t specify damages, it does state that the plaintiffs are owed $4.75 million from the $95 million sale of Judge Judy to CBS in August.
Constance M. Burge, the creator of the supernatural drama Charmed has sued CBS Studios claiming she was cheated out of millions of dollars from the long-running series due to faulty accounting.
