Streaming Round-Up (2/17/21): Paramount Plus Gives Colbert’s ‘Tooning Out the News’ Second Season
The satire “Tooning Out the News” is getting a second season at Paramount+. It’s also getting a rebrand: “Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News.” Launching March 4, the day CBS All Access morphs into Paramount+, the show runs March 8 with new segments and weekly thereafter.
“We are so excited for season two of ‘Tooning Out the News,’ which will feature even more incisive questions, unrelenting egomania, Freudian projection, shameless brand integration, tasteful nudity, unapologetic slander and flat-out lying,” said Colbert.
Here’s a look at other deals and upcoming projects:
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“GENERA+ION” will debut on HBO Max on March 11 with three episodes. The Lena Dunham-produced 30-minute series, comprised of eight episodes, is about high-school students exploring all aspects of love, sexuality and the definition of family in their conservative community.
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Chiwetel Ejiofor is the lead in “The Man Who Fell to Earth” series, in the works at Paramount+. It is based on two sources: Walter Tevis’ 1963 novel and the 1976 Nicolas Roeg film starring David Bowie. In the TV version, a new alien character (Ejiofor) arrives on Earth at a critical point in human evolution. Ejiofor was nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his role in the film “12 Years a Slave.”
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“Blood Moon” will be the season two finale of Blumhouse’s TV “Into the Dark,” which streams on Hulu. Megalyn Echikunwoke and Yonas Kibreab lead the cast. “Blood Moon” follows Esme (Echikunwoke) and her 10-year-old son, Luna (Kibreab), who move to a small desert town to start over, but soon attract dubious attention. She’s got to act before the next full moon.
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“Attack of the Murder Hornets” on discovery+ is a doc launching this spring by filmmaker Michael Paul Stephenson. It centers on beekeepers and scientists who are working together to protect the Washington community from the threat of the Asian giant hornet, infamously known as the “murder hornet.” One of the big dangers is to the honeybee — a single hornet can behead 20 bees a minute, while a small group can destroy a hive of 30,000 bees. That destruction impacts the U.S. food supply, as bees are a key pollinator of food crops.
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“Impractical Jokers” stars Joe Gatto, James “Murr” Murray, Brian “Q” Quinn and Sal Vulcano signed a first-look deal with WarnerMedia. Also, their truTV series has received an early Season 10 renewal. As part of the deal, the quartet will develop and produce original unscripted and scripted programming for TNT, TBS and truTV, as well as HBO Max.
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“Armas De Mujer” premieres on Peacock later this year. It’s the creation of the team behind Telemundo’s hit “La Reina del Sur.” After the police arrest their husbands for being linked to the same criminal cartel, four pampered wives join forces just to survive.
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Cinedigm has acquired the ad-free subscription horror streamer Screambox. The service costs $4.99 a month or $35.88 for the full year — and Cinedigm will use its horror website, Bloody Disgusting, to help drive additional subscribers. Screambox will also be bundled with Cinedigm’s fandom streaming service, CONtv. Cinedigm expects Screambox to reach a subscriber amount in the “seven figures” within the first 36 months under its ownership.