Tracy Morgan’s plan to star in an FX comedy series is back on track now that writer-actor Jordan Peele and John Carcieri have signed on to write a pilot for the former “30 Rock” star.

Morgan’s life was up-ended 18 months ago by a car crash that came two months after he signed a straight-to-series pact with FX Networks.

The new project will see Morgan playing a career criminal who struggles to reintegrate into society after serving a 15-year prison sentence.

Peele and Carcieri will write the pilot and exec produce with Eric Tannenbaum and Joel Zadak, an alum of Peele’s Comedy Central sketch series “Key and Peele.”

“What an unbeatable combination – Tracy Morgan and Jordan Peele – two exceptional comics joining forces with a great team of writers and producers to create and produce this pilot for FX Networks,” said Nick Grad, president of original programming for FX Networks and FX Prods. “We’ve been committed to Tracy from the start and are thrilled that Jordan, John, Eric and Joel are joining him in developing this new project.”

Morgan’s deal with the cabler in 2014 called for him to work with the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” gang — Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney — on an unspecified concept for a comedy to air on FXX. It’s unclear whether the new pilot will be bound for FXX or the mothership FX.

Morgan suffered brain injuries and broken bones after his SUV was rear-ended on the New Jersey turnpike in June 2014. The crash killed another passenger in the car, Morgan’s longtime friend and fellow comedian James McNair.

The severity of his injuries forced the former “30 Rock” star to endure a long recuperation period. He began a slow return to the public eye last summer with emotional appearances on the Primetime Emmy Awards telecast and a hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live,” his alma mater.

Morgan at present is headlining a national comedy tour dubbed “Picking Up the Pieces” that is set to run through May. He also just wrapped work on the Weinstein Co.’s biopic “Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said?,” in which he plays comedian Redd Foxx opposite Mike Epps in the title role.

Peele is coming off a five-season run on the much-praised sketch comedy “Key and Peele.” He was in the ensemble of the 2014 edition of FX’s “Fargo,” and he’s recently had recurring roles on CBS’ “Life in Pieces,” and Netflix’s “Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp,” among other projects.

Carcieri’s credits include HBO’s “Eastbound & Down” and “Vice Principles.”

As public launches go, the AT&T Audience Network’s new series, simply referred to as “Audience Music” (at least for now), couldn’t have set the bar higher than Thursday night’s performance byCeeLo Green and Friends at the Theater At Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

The larger-than-life multi-talent, who most people know from his judging stint on NBC’s “The Voice” and his trademark kaftans, astounded with the depth and breadth of his set, performing a range of recent and classic material from his oeuvre, as well covering everyone from Frank Zappa to Lou Reed to Supertramp. But it was the format that was especially refreshing, with the singer/songwriter-rapper-producer powered by a world-class nine-piece, jazz-oriented band — including three backup singers — that would have done the late singer-provocateur Gil Scott-Heron proud. The prevailing fashion statement was robes.

The affair was dubbed the “Open Heart Acoustic Show,” but CeeLo described his accompaniment as “more jazz than acoustic — it’s cool.” It indeed was cool but also hot, with the singer’s fine-grit tenor in soaring form throughout, whether previewing songs from his recent “Heart Blanche” album, such as the smooth-jazz inflected “Sign of the Times, or dipping into the archives with “Crazy,” his hit with Gnarls Barkley, or his incendiary “Forget You” (the song’s G-rated title). He also covered Supertramp’s “Logical Song” and Reed’s “Perfect Day” in inspired fashion. Jazzman Marcus Anderson’s nimble accompaniment on flute and saxophone helped make this a show for the ages.

The weekly, Friday-night Audience series, which is premiering today on DirecTV & U-verse (available in 26 million homes) with multi-platinum artist Jason Derulo, is loosely structured, geared toward the guest rather than shoehorning the artist into a built-in format. (Other artists scheduled include Kelsea Ballerini, on Feb. 26, and Peter Frampton, on March 4.)

That said, the Derulo show will be done more in the vein of AT&T’s previous “Guitar Center Sessions,” which kicked off in 2010, producing more than 100 episodes and featuring such performers as Buddy Guy and Billy Idol. That series usually consisted of a combination of live music and interview footage.

But for the new initiative, anything goes. “It can be a straight performance, it could be interview, it could be documentary, it could be acoustic,” said Bart Peters, AT&T’s VP of development and production.
“Sometimes there will be an audience, sometimes there won’t. It’s not a rigid format. We just wanted to work with the artist and be able to deliver content to the customer that is unique, and curated every week.”

“Audience Music” is part of a range of music-oriented shows being filmed in ultra high definition 4K that AT&T is developing, including the documentary series “The Pursuit of Tone,” billed as delivering stories “behind the sonic evolution of music’s most influential guitarists”; and “At Guitar Center,” being filmed at that Sunset Blvd. emporium’s Vintage Room, and focusing on emerging artists, said Peters, who added that it will be “very stripped down.”

As for the Ace venue, the refurbished United Artists Theatre originally built in 1927 in grand Spanish Gothic style and considered one of L.A.’s most lavish converted movie palaces, Peters said the series could very well return there for another show. (As he kicked off his performance, Cee-Lo said “When I design my dream home I want it to look like this.”)

“How could you not want to shoot there again,” Peters asked rhetorically. “It’s iconic. Very rarely do you find venues you can walk into and just put light on it.”

Production has been temporarily shut down on HBO’s highly anticipated drama “Westworld,” sources tell Variety.

The ambitious project, which doesn’t have an official premiere date, was shuttered for two months so executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy can catch up on the final four scripts. Sources say production, which was originally scheduled to wrap in November, is now set to resume in March.

“As we head into the final phase of production on ‘Westworld,’ we’ve made the decision to take a brief hiatus in order to get ahead of the writing,” said HBO in a statement.

Sources tell Variety the shutdown is temporary and that HBO is confident that the series will make its targeted premiere date. HBO has yet to specify a date beyond saying it will air in 2016.

The one-hour drama, inspired by the 1973 film starring Yul Brynner, is described as “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin.” The series stars Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden and Thandie Newton.

When “Westworld” was first... to series in November 2014 (the pilot was greenlit in 2013), HBO was targeting a 2015 premiere date, which it promoted with several Vines:

The production has faced earlier questions about graphic sex scenes, when background actors employed on the production were required to sign a document agreeing to possibly “perform genital-to-genital touching.” HBO issued a statement placing blame on an external casting agency, and resolved the issue with SAG-AFTRA by revising the document.

The project hails from Warner Bros. TV, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions and Jerry Weintraub Productions. Abrams and Bryan Burk also executive produce.

Netflix’s sci-fi anthology series “Black Mirror” has tapped two actresses for lead roles, the streaming service announced Sunday at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif.

British star Gugu Mbatha-Raw (“Beyond the Lights,” “Concussion”) and Canada’s Mackenzie Davis(“Halt and Catch Fire,” “The Martian”) will star in one of the episodes of the upcoming Netflix original series, to be directed by Owen Harris (“Kill Your Friends”).

Created and written by Charlie Brooker, “Black Mirror” is produced by House of Tomorrow, with Brooker and Annabel Jones serving as executive producers. Netflix previously ordere...w episodes last September.

The Netflix iteration is based on the hit British series of the same name, which gained popularity Stateside after Netflix acquired exclusive streaming rights for the original seven episodes. The most recent installment of the British version starred “Mad Men’s” Jon Hamm in a Christmas special which aired in Dec. 2014.

The U.K. episodes were also executive produced by Brooker and Jones, with Brooker penning all previous installments.

“It’s all very exciting — a whole new bunch of ‘Black Mirror’ episodes on the most fitting platform imaginable,” said Brooker in a statement at the time of Netflix’s acquisition. “Netflix connects us with a global audience so that we can create bigger, stranger, more international and diverse stories than before, whilst maintaining that ‘Black Mirror’ feel. I just hope none of these new story ideas come true.”

Said Cindy Holland, Netflix’s VP of original content, “Charlie has created a one-of-a-kind series with an uncanny voice and prescient, darkly comedic vision.”

At last night’s New York premiere for “Vinyl” — HBO’s upcoming series about the 1970s New York music industry — P.J. Byrne, who plays the wildly-groomed music lawyer Scott Leavitt, toldVariety that he has very strict requirements for the roles he accepts.

“I like to work with a minimum of two icons before I show up on set,” he said with a smile, referring to the show’s executive producers. “To have the great Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, andTerence Winter — who, if he’s not an icon now, will be one shortly — those guys were a wealth of knowledge.

“Growing up in the ’70s in New Jersey, New York was this scary place of dreams,” he added. “And now to be a part of this world and tell that story is exciting. And also to have mutton chops.”

Scorsese directed the two-hour premiere that screened with his signature full-throttle flourish, and he, Winter and Jagger certainly don’t skimp on the sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll or violence. “Vinyl” has been in production for close to a decade, and at the premiere, which was held at the Ziegfeld Theatre, showrunner Winter told Variety that there was “an overlap” between the start of this series and the end of his previous show, “Boardwalk Empire.”

“I got involved in 2007. I got a call from Martin Scorsese, who said, ‘I’m working on this music project with Mick Jagger. Do you want to be involved with it?’ And I said, ‘uh, yeah, I do.'”

According to Winter, “Vinyl” started life as “a sweeping epic that spanned over 40 years, and it was a three-hour epic period piece, and timing wasn’t right. We had our project up and running around 2008, and suddenly the economy collapsed, and the appetite to do a massive period piece set in the music business sort of waned,” Winter explained. “And we thought, ‘well, we already have ‘Boardwalk Empire’ going, why don’t we try reinventing it as a series?,’ and that worked so much better. It gave us much more real estate to work with.”

“Vinyl” stars Bobby Cannavale, Olivia Wilde, Juno Temple and Ray Romano, and revolves around the world of American Century, a record label that’s on the verge of collapsing due to Cannavale’s character’s drug problems. Viewers get an inside look at how to cheat artists out of their royalties, cook the books and other classic music industry malfeasance. And as with Winter’s previous work — he was a head writer on “The Sopranos” and wrote the script for “The Wolf Of Wall Street” — the often toxic masculinity is neither explicitly celebrated nor condemned.

“I’m just honest in the storytelling. I’m not trying to make it seem one way or another or clean anything up,” Winter said. “I’ve had the same policy in everything I do; I present the facts and let audiences decide what they think is good or bad. I don’t take a position on any kind of behavior. This is the actual reality of how it was, and you make of it what you will.”

Getting into character was not an arduous task for Temple, who plays Jamie Vine, an assistant at American Century’s A&R Department who is hungry to find a career-making star. “I listened to great music, tried on some great wardrobes, read some great books, like (Legs McNeil’s) ‘Please Kill Me.’ I did all the things I’d want to do in my real life. This didn’t feel like research. This felt like the most enjoyable experience ever.”

Though books about the ’70s scene, like Stephen Davis’ Led Zeppelin tell-all “Hammer of the Gods,” often depict the era’s women as groupies and prizes to be won, Temple says “Vinyl” has a more equitable and progressive take.

“To me, I feel like the female characters on the show are unbelievably strong, and that’s another reason why I signed on to it. In the pilot, she felt really fearless and brave,” she said. “She felt like she was going to make a difference. I think Terry is going to be really wonderful about that, and the arc with all of the female characters throughout the show, is just as important as the male characters. I think it’s an even balance.”

After the premiere, the cast and celebrity guests including Danny McBride, Steve Buscemi and Peter Dinklage attended the afterparty at Cipriani’s, where they were served beverages and small hot dogs and other finger foods by a waitstaff attired in Aerosmith, the Doors, the Ramones and other classic rock T-shirts, while a DJ played era-appropriate hits with a heavy emphasis on the late David Bowie.

Lauren Cohan has joined the cast of the Tupac Shakur biopic “All Eyez On Me” and will portray an early mentor for the iconic musician.

The cast of the Morgan Creek movie, currently shooting in Atlanta, includes Danai Gurira, Kat Graham, Jamie Hector and Demetrius Shipp Jr. in the lead role.

“All Eyez on Me” chronicles the life and legacy of Tupac Shakur, including his rise to superstardom as a hip-hop artist and actor, his imprisonment and his time at Death Row Records

Cohan will play Leila Steinberg, who met Shakur in 1988 when he was 17 and became his first manager. The two later founded the Microphone Sessions writing workshop.

“All Eyez on Me” is directed by Benny Boom. The film’s title is taken from Shakur’s fourth studio album, which was released in early 1996.

The film is produced by James G. Robinson and David Robinson of Morgan Creek Productions along with LT Hutton. Shakur’s mother, Afeni Shakur, serves as executive producer. The film will be distributed by Open Road.

Cohan is best known for portraying Maggie Greene on AMC’s “The Walking Dead” and recurring roles on “The Vampire Diaries” and “Supernatural.”

With FX’s 10-hour dramatization of the O.J. Simpson trial premiering in February, one might think an ESPN documentary of equal length — due to air this spring, but getting a preview at the Sundance Film Festival — would represent serious O.J. overkill. That would be a misconception. “O.J.: Made in America” takes its title to heart, adding rich contextual layers to the case, including a dive into the history of Los Angeles race relations that played such a central role in his acquittal. Having previewed three of five chapters, there’s an abundance of highlights between the kickoff and end zone.

Writer-director Ezra Edelman has been provided an enormous canvas, one that allows him to cut back and forth between the football star’s seemingly charmed life and the world that surrounded him. He has responded with, even in the annals of ESPN’s “30 for 30” docs, what feels like a master opus — one that deals with the nexus of race, celebrity and sports, and the strange juxtaposition of a figure who prided himself on transcending color, yet ultimately relied upon it when charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole, and Ronald Goldman.

The time afforded the filmmakers allows them to go well beyond the surface, drilling into Simpson’s breakthrough success at USC, record-setting NFL career and seamless segue to the role of product pitchman, racing through airports in those ubiquitous Hertz ads. “His Horatio Alger story was based on him being a pleasing person to white people,” one whose closest associates are described as “super-wealthy, powerful white men,” as journalist Robert Lipsyte notes.

Yet Simpson also achieved fame in the 1960s, in a city where the police department, under chiefs William Parker and, in the late ’70s through the early ’90s, Daryl Gates, was viewed in African-American neighborhoods as an “occupying force.” Edelman proceeds to methodically chronicle events that strained relations and diminished trust in the justice system, from the 1965 Watts Riots to the 1991 Rodney King beating, and including the killings of teenager Latasha Harlins that year by a store owner, and Eula Love by the police, the latter 1979 incident precipitated by an overdue gas bill.

Simpson, it’s noted, steered clear of these societal issues even when they collided with sports. At a time when other athletes were speaking out — including Muhammad Ali’s conscientious-objector status and John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s silent “black power” protest at the 1968 Olympics — sociologist/activist Harry Edwards recalls Simpson saying, “I’m not black. I’m O.J.”

“Made in America” leaps back and forth among these various threads, and occasionally directly connects them, such as footage featuring Bob Hope lauding Simpson at a USC rally in ’68 (he refers to the school, as “OJU”), intercut with the King and Kennedy assassinations that also happened that year. There is also, inevitably, a dissection of the increasingly toxic arc of O.J. and Nicole’s relationship (including 911 calls stemming from incidents of domestic abuse), coupled with tidbits about his post-football endeavors, including those in Hollywood — he desperately wanted the Coalhouse Walker role in the 1981 movie adaptation “Ragtime,” which seems ironic with the benefit of hindsight.

Because Simpson has been a public figure for so long, there is no shortage of footage to document all of this, augmented by insider-ish material like recordings from his trial, where during jury selection, he complains, “The system has forced me to look at things racially.” As journalist/author Jeffrey Toobin (whose book provides the spine of FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”) observes, while Simpson’s case was transformed into a spectacle by his celebrity, the proceedings became “a weird referendum on the LAPD.”

Long-form crime has of course become all the rage of late, from HBO’s Robert Durst docu-series “The Jinx” to Netflix’s “Making a Murderer.” With “O.J.: Made in America,” ESPN doesn’t have the luxury of people being unfamiliar with the outcome. Nevertheless, in terms of a compelling production that tackles far more than just one man’s guilt or innocence, Edelman appears to have delivered a documentary that gives both of those acclaimed projects a run for their money.

Sony is developing a reboot of “Labyrinth,” the final movie directed by Jim Henson, and has closed a deal with the Jim Henson Co. to produce the film with Sony’s TriStar division.

Lisa Henson of the Henson Co. will produce the project. “Guardians of the Galaxy” co-writer Nicole Perlman will write the script.

The original musical fantasy movie, released in 1986, starred a 15-year-old Jennifer Connelly as the protagonist who has to navigate a maze to save her infant brother, who had been kidnapped by a goblin king — played by David Bowie, who recorded five songs for the film.

Most of the characters in the film were played by puppets produced by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. George Lucas executive produced and Monty Python member Terry Jones wrote the screenplay.

“The Labyrinth” carried a $25 million budget and underperformed at the box office, grossing less than $13 million for TriStar, but became successful in home video and DVD. “Labyrinth” was a disappointment for Henson, who had seen success with the first three Muppet movies and “The Dark Crystal.”

Tri-Star’s Nicole Brown will oversee the new “Labyrinth” for the studio. Perlman is writing “Captain Marvel” with Meg LeFauve (“Inside Out”).

Perlman is repped by CAA and Management 360. The news was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

NBC has ordered three comedy pilots, including projects from exec producers Amy Poehler andRashida Jones, Variety has learned.

An untitled comedy from Poehler and Charlie Grandy follows Karl, who after years of partying that earned him the “black sheep” label, returns home to compete with his brother for the family throne. Grandy (“The Mindy Project,” “The Office”) is writer on the project and will exec produce with Poehler, her producing partner Brooke Posch and Dave Becky of 3 Arts, which is producing the single-camera comedy (formerly titled “Dumb Prince”) with Poehler’s Paper Kite shingle. Universal TV is the studio.

Poehler’s former “Parks and Recreation” co-star Jones is also staying in business with NBC, as she has an exec producer credit on comedy pilot “Good Fortune,” hailing from writer/exec producers Craig Gerard and Matt Zinman (“How I Met Your Mother”). The multi-camera ensemble comedy focuses on a hyper-structured young woman whose life is upended when she starts taking advice from a mysterious fortune teller. Jones’ Le Train Train production company partner Will McCormack, who’s co-writing the “Toy Story 4” screenplay with her, is also an exec producer on “Good Fortune.” 20th Century Fox is the studio.

NBC has also ordered “The Trail,” a serialized comedy following a young big-city lawyer and his oddball defense team during a high profile murder trial in a small southern town. The single-camera comedy hails from Barge Productions and Good Session Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television, and is created by writers Jeff Astrof (“The New Adventures of Old Christine,” “Angie Tribeca”) and Matt Miller, who created the short lived fan-favorite series “Forever.”

All three pilot pickups come moments after NBC picked up two drama pilots on Friday, marking the network’s very strong push into pilot season early on — especially in the comedy realm.

NBC’s comedy count now totals at nine pilots in contention for 2016-17 — plus a straight-to-series sitcom “Good Place” from Mike Schur, starring Ted Danson and Kristen Bell — with Grandy and Poehler’s untitled prince project; “Good Fortune;” “The Trail;” “Imaginary Friend” from Sean Hayes’ production company; DC Comics workplace comedy “Powerless;” a project from Matt Hubbard; another from Tracey Wigfield; a vehicle for Marlon Wayans; and Dan Fogelman’s birthday ensemble dramedy.

Fox has ordered a pilot for “The Exorcist,” based on William Blatty’s 1971 novel, which inspired the iconic 1973 horror film of the same name.

The one-hour drama pilot is described as a modern reinvention inspired by Blatty’s book — a propulsive, serialized psychological thriller following two very different men tackling one family’s case of horrifying demonic possession, and confronting the face of true evil.

The project hails from 20th Century Fox Television, in association with Morgan Creek Productions, and was written by Jeremy Slater, who also executive produces alongside James Robinson, David Robinson and Barbara Wall.

This development season, diversity is a high priority for Fox — the broadcaster has already ordered a pilot for a “24” spinoff with a non-white lead; Dan Fogelman’s female baseball drama “Pitch,”starring Kylie Bunbury; and Lee Daniels’ untitled music drama, starring Queen Latifah, which is centered around the making of a girl group. The network has also picked up event series “Shots Fired,” starring Sanaa Lathan, which aims to reflect recent racial tensions and the string of police shootings making headlines, and the hotly-anticipated return of “Prison Break” with original stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell on board.

On the comedy side, along with the already-ordered animated series “Son of Zorn,” voiced by Jason Sudeikis, Fox has picked up a pilot for a time-travel comedy from Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who also executive produce “The Last Man on Earth” for the network.

Kevin Smith has wrapped production on “Hollyweed,” a half-hour comedy produced by FremantleMedia North America and StarStream Media, Variety has learned.

The project, written, directed by and starring Smith, is set in a Los Angeles cannabis dispensary. It follows two potheads, played by Smith and Donnell Rawlings (“Chappelle’s Show”), who battle a neighboring cookie magnate played by Kristin Bauer van Straten (“True Blood”) and enlist the help of a charming porn star played by Frankie Shaw (“Mr. Robot”), to help them navigate the ups and downs of managing a small business in their quest for profits and the perfect bud.

The half-hour episode was shot on spec with financing from FremantleMedia and five firms with ties to the booming cannabis industry: Weedmaps.com, a social media community for medicinal marijuana users; G-Pen (Grenco Science), a manufacturer of portable vaporizers; DNA Genetics, a pot seed company; ACME Elixirs, an organic cannabis oil company; and RAW, maker of RAW Natural Rolling Papers.

Smith and FremantleMedia opted to shoot the project on spec because there are a number of pot-based projects in the works at present. The partners intend to shop the completed episode to TV buyers in the near future. It may be sold as a one-off or as a pilot for a potential series, depending on the level of interest. The sponsor financing gives FremantleMedia some flexibility in that regard. It’s not entirely clear how active the cannabis firms will be in the production going forward should the project land a mainstream TV home as a series.

The unconventional path to production for “Hollyweed” is in keeping with Smith’s reputation as a showbiz maverick.

“When I wrote ‘Clerks,’ I wrote the role of Randal to play myself. But as we got close to shooting, I got scared and chickened out of trying to act with dialogue, opting to play Silent Bob instead,” Smith said. “Two decades later, the universe, StarStream and FremantleMedia are giving me the chance to play a clerk with dialogue that I wrote. The fact that it’s a dispensary instead of a convenience store makes it even better.”

The show also features appearances by Adam Brody, Chloe Dworkin, Jason Mewes, Hina Abdullah, Ralph Garman and Pete Pietrangeli, as well as Smith’s daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, who plays his character’s daughter.

“Hollyweed” exec producers include Smith, StarStream’s Pietrangeli, Kim Leadford and Dan McCarney, as well as Jana Edelbaum and Rachel Cohen. Liz Destro and Jordan Monsanto headed up production.

The growing world of legal marijuana is becoming fertile ground for TV series. Among the other pot-centric laffers in the pipeline:

• Chuck Lorre is shopping an untitled comedy co-written with David Javerbaum that’s set in a legal marijuana dispensary in Colorado.
• Amazon is developing “Highland,” starring Margaret Cho as an addict who, after a court-ordered rehab, has to move in with her family members who now run a pot dispensary.
• NBC has given a script commitment to Adam and Naomi Scott’s “Buds,” also set in a Colorado dispensary.
• HBO previously ordered six new episodes of Vimeo webseries “High Maintenance,”centered around a pot dealer and his clients.

NBC has solidified its spring scheduling plans, setting premiere dates for three new series and the return of comedy “The Carmichael Show.”

“Carmichael,” which showed some ratings promise when it aired briefly last summer, will be paired with new comedy “Crowded” (from the exec producers of “Hot in Cleveland”) as part of a new comedy hour on Sundays at 9 starting March 13. “Carmichael” will come aboard that night with a pair of episodes, and “Crowded” has its debut on March 20. Both shows will follow the new series “Little Big Shots,” hosted by Steve Harvey, which premieres March 13.

Both comedies will get special preview episodes following episodes of “The Voice,” which returns to the network’s lineup in at the end of February. The “Carmichael” preview is on tap for Tuesday, March 8 at 10:30 p.m., and “Crowded” will get an hourlong preview on Tuesday, March 15.

NBC will also call on “The Voice” to provide sampling for new medical drama “Heartbeat.” The character-driven series, which follows the professional and personal life of renowned heart transplant surgeon Dr. Alex Panttiere (Melissa George), will preview Tuesday, March 22 at 9 p.m. and then bow in its regular timeslot the following night at 8. “The Mysteries of Laura,” currently airing Wednesdays at 8, will have wrapped its 16-episode second season on March 2.

New drama “Game of Silence” is set to air on Thursdays at 10 p.m. starting April 7, taking the timeslot currently occupied by “Shades of Blue.” The series revolves around four best friends who harbor a dark secret they thought was buried 25 years ago.

“The Carmichael Show, inspired by the life of comedian Jerrod Carmichael, received strong reviews last summer. Jerrod Carmichael, Nick Stoller, Ravi Nandan and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel serve as executive producers. The series is co-produced by Twentieth Century Fox Television and Universal Television.

“Crowded,” an empty-nester multi-cam comedy starring Patrick Warburton and Carrie Preston, is produced by Universal Television and Hazy Mills Productions. Suzanne Martin serves as writer and executive producer. Sean Hayes, Todd Milliner and James Burrows also executive produce.

Inspired by the real life and achievements of Dr. Kathy Magliato, “Heartbeat” is executive produced by Jill Gordon, Amy Brenneman, Brad Silberling and produced by Universal Television.

“Game of Silence” is executive produced by Carol Mendelsohn, David Hudgins, Julie Weitz, Tariq Jalil, Timur Savci, Deran Sarafian and Niels Arden Oplev (pilot). The series is produced by Sony Pictures Television and Universal Television.

“Concussion” actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw has joined Jessica Chastain in the EuropaCorp thriller “Miss Sloane,” sources confirm to Variety.

Alison Pill and Michael Stuhlbarg are also on board with John Madden directing. FilmNation is partnering with EuropaCorp on the film, with both producing.

First-time screenwriter Jonathan Perera wrote the film, which centers on a lobbyist’s efforts to push through tighter federal laws regulating guns. In the wake of the mass shootings across the country, the issue of gun violence is at the forefront of the national debate.

Mbatha-Raw will play a gun-control lobbyist.

Ben Browning will produce for FilmNation and Patrick Chu will be the executive producer. EuropaCorp will fully finance the film and handle distribution.

Mbatha-Raw next stars opposite Matthew McConaughey in “Free State of Jones,” the Civil War drama written and directed by Gary Ross that STX is releasing May 13, and she will follow that up with Disney’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast,” which bows on Mar. 17, 2017.

She is repped by CAA, Authentic Talent and Literary and the U.K.’s Curtis Brown Group. The news was first reported by the Hollywood Reporter.

Sundance Film Review: ‘Yoga Hosers’

‘Straight Outta Compton’ Star Corey Hawkins to Topline Fox’s ’24’ Spinoff

January continues to be a good month for Lifetime original movie premieres, with the network’s Saturday night debut of “Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart” becoming ad-supported cable’s top-rated movie in key demos in one year.

In Nielsen’s preliminary national estimates, “Unbreak My Heart” averaged 3.6 million viewers, including 1.7 million adults 18-49 (1.3 rating) and 1.8 million adults 25-54 (1.5 rating). It stands as cable’s No. 1 original movie with adults 25-54, women 25-54 and women 18-49 since the January 2015 premiere of “Whitney” (1.7 rating in 18-49, 4.5 million viewers overall), also on Lifetime. The most-watched original cable movie of the past year is Disney Channel’s “Descendants” from last summer (6.55 million).

Lifetime’s top-rated movie of the last few years came in January 2014 with “Flowers in the Attic” (1.9 rating in 18-49, 6.1 million viewers overall).

Immediately after the movie at 10 p.m., the special “Beyond the Headlines: Tony Braxton,” drew 2.8 million viewers for Lifetime, including 1.3 million adults 18-49 and 1.4 million adults 25-54. It featured interviews with Toni and her family, L.A. Reid, Babyface, record producer David Foster and songwriter Diane Warren.

“Unbreak My Heart,” based on Toni Braxton’s popular memoir, follows the singer’s ups and downs through severe chronic illness, financial troubles and divorce while navigating her son’s autism and family struggles. It stars newcomer Lex Scott Davis as the seven-time Grammy Award-winning R&B icon.

Joining Braxton as executive producers on the film were Craig Baumgarten, Erik Kritzer and Marcus Grant, with Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds a producer. The script was penned by Susan McMartin, with Vondie Curtis-Hall directing.

Many shows do terrible jobs of depicting the lives of teenagers, and quite a few programs avoid the topics of addiction and recovery, except as parts of exploitative storylines designed to get media attention or goose ratings. Given all that, it’s even more possible to appreciate the modest yet solid accomplishments of “Recovery Road,” the second drama from Freeform since the network changed its name from ABC Family. Thanks to a strong performance in the lead role and storytelling style that capably blends the conventions of teen soap operas with the difficulties of sobriety, “Recovery Road” usually hits its chosen targets. If “Recovery Road” continues to progress on the trajectory it lays out in its first three installments, it may leave both teens and those in recovery feeling that, for once, a TV drama hasn’t patronized them.

“Recovery Road” opens with Maddie (Jessica Sula) hitting bottom, though it takes her some time to realize that is what transpired on a particularly reckless night. Her guidance counselor, on the other hand, quickly figures out what Maddie has been up to after (and during) school, and almost before she realizes what’s happening, the teen is ensconced in a sober living house and beginning to confront the addiction spiral that got her there. That descent may have started with the death of her father a few years earlier, though “Recovery Road” is smart enough to understand that addiction never has one clear-cut cause.

That refreshing tendency to allow ambiguities to permeate otherwise conventional stories buys “Recovery Road” a certain amount of goodwill, as does the generally capable work of the cast. Just as Maddie’s addiction can’t be neatly tied to her mourning, neither is her mother, Charlotte (Sharon Leal), portrayed as a monster for being extremely committed to her job. In that sense, “Recovery Road” continues the worthiest traditions of ABC Family/Freeform dramas like “Switched at Birth” and “The Fosters,” which have their occasionally overwrought moments but are often quite willing to go to complex and difficult places with all kinds of family dynamics.

“Recovery Road” gains real traction over the course of its first three episodes as Maddie begins to face the extent of her dependency on drugs and alcohol, and as she gets to know the other residents of the house. There are the expected types — the brooding handsome guy, the quirky lady, the wannabe reality star — and not all of them made a distinct impression in early episodes, but Daniel Franzese (“Mean Girls”) brings real heart to his role as Vern, a gay man who serves as something of a ringleader and role model to newcomers.

Maddie’s old friends at high school are either bland or thinly drawn mean girls, and thus her struggle to shed or change those friendships isn’t very engrossing, especially because it’s obvious that her new housemates are a better collection of human beings, whatever their personal issues. That said, the show, an adaptation of the Blake Nelson Y.A. novel adapted by executive producers Bert V. Royal and Karen DiConcetto, by does a good job ofincorporating one of the most reliable standbys of night-time dramas — secret-keeping — into responsibly told yet soapy stories about dependence, honesty and denial.

“Recovery Road” accept as givens the ideas that teens are not just smart and complicated, but good at lying and covering their tracks. It also acknowledges that sometimes adults are even better at concealing unpleasant truths, and that entrenched family patterns can make working the twelve steps difficult. There’s also an interesting subtext about how addicts use flirtation and romance as substitutes for addiction, and it’s no surprise that Wes (Sebastian de Souza), the handsome brooding guy of the recovery house, figures into that generally thoughtful storyline.

Some of the plots travel in expected directions, and you won’t mistake this brightly lit show for something on AMC, but there’s sincerity and some grit to “Recovery Road.” There’s one painful speech in the third episode that Sula nails with wonderfully modulated intensity, and she makes the road Maddie travels seem realistically frustrating for her mother and herself. Maddie continues to make bad choices even as she struggles build a life not based on short-term coping strategies and self-destruction (and honestly, how many adults would cope well if they had to live as Maddie does — with a curfew and no smartphone?).

Sula plays a wide variety of emotional notes well, and the writing never turns her character into the kind of annoyingly one-dimensional teens that can be found all over TV. “Recovery Road,” unlike many addicts, doesn’t have to make amends, given that it neatly sidesteps many of the pitfalls in its path.

Controversy magnet Shia LaBeouf earned big laughs Thursday playing a demented military General whose fear of fluoride leads to armageddon in a raucous Live Read of the 1964 classic “Dr. Strangelove.”

Returning to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art following last month’s sojourn to downtown L.A., the event was introduced by Film Independent’s curator Elvis Mitchell, who compared the characters in Stanley Kubrick’s absurdist doomsday comedy with modern politicians like Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin.

The script was selected by filmmaker Mark Romanek, filling in for Live Read founder Jason Reitman, who was seated in the audience for the performance. Romanek, who helmed “One HourPhoto” and “Never Let Me Go,” called the black comedy “my favorite I can think of.”

No stranger to Kubrick’s work, Romanek is attached to direct a prequel to the 1980 horror masterpiece “The Shining.” As in the past, the reading was performed exclusively for those present in the theater, and no recordings of any kind were permitted.

Before introducing the cast, Romanek explained that the Oscar nominated screenplay for “Dr. Strangelove” was originally conceived as a serious drama, but Kubrick lightened its tone when the paradox of mutually assured destruction struck him as morbidly funny. Satirical author Terry Southern, whose comic novel “The Magic Christian” Kubrick greatly admired, joined the project as co-writer.

To bring the script’s outrageous characters to life, Romanek selected a group of performers with impressive comedy chops.

Seth Rogen read the role of General ‘Buck’ Turgidson, originally played by George C. Scott in the film, and Olivia Wilde performed the role of Turgidson’s secretary and mistress, Miss Scott.

Using a delightfully silly British accent, actor and comedian Josh Gad voiced Royal Air Force Captain Lionel Mandrake, one of three characters played by Sellers in the movie. His Monty Pythonesque line deliveries scored major laughs throughout the reading.

In another role originated by Sellers, SCTV alumni and improv legend Catherine O’Hara portrayed beleaguered American President Merkin Muffley, who finds herself sequestered in the War Room with a group of squabbling advisors. At times, the script’s masculine pronoun caused confusion among the cast, who alternately referred to her as “Mr. President” and “Madam President,” depending on who was speaking.

In perhaps the riskiest casting of the night, LaBeouf read the role of Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, unforgettably played by Sterling Hayden in the movie. The “Transformers” star, whose off-screen antics include wearing a brown paper bag on his head at the Berlin Film Festival, proved to be an inspired choice for the part. Barking his lines with a gruff, vaguely Southern accent, the actor imbued General Ripper with a tough exterior masking a deranged psyche. In a nod to Hayden’s cigar-chomping performance, LaBeouf lit a cigarette on stage, much to the amusement of his fellow actors.

Playing bomber pilot T.J. ‘King’ Kong, “Jackass” star Johnny Knoxville took the stage dressed in a full military flight suit, with a comically fake mustache glued to his upper lip. As portrayed by Slim Pickens in the movie, the character is well known for the cowboy hat he dons halfway through the story. Switching things up a bit, Knoxville produced a Roman gladiator helmet instead, and wore it for the entire reading.

Croaking his dialogue like a wheezing Werner Herzog, Sir Patrick Stewart was gleefully unhinged as the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove. Whether strangling himself on stage, or punctuating his lines with Nazi-inflected outbursts, Stewart stole the show with his maniacally funny performance.

Rounding out the cast were Fred Willard as the script’s authoritative narrator, Colin Hanks as Colonel “Bat” Guano and P.J. Byrne as Soviet ambassador Alexei de Sadeski.

Romanek read the script’s stage directions himself.

Though none of the performers were given the script beforehand and no rehearsals were held, the cast found their rhythm rather quickly, and an unmistakable chemistry developed between them. LaBeouf and Gad, in particular, formed a unique bond during their scenes together. Like a seasoned comedy duo, the pair fed off each other’s manic energy, bringing their characters to life with hilarious results.

Highlights included General Turgidson’s extended monologue about getting the jump on “the Russkies,” Captain Mandrake begging a telephone operator to allow him to make a collect call to The White House, and Catherine O’Hara’s exasperated delivery of the President’s iconic line “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”

In a surprise appearance at the end of the reading, Grammy-winner Fiona Apple walked on stage and delivered a lovely a cappella rendition of the 1939 standard “We’ll Meet Again,” which accompanies a montage of nuclear explosions at the climax of the film.

Halfway through her song, however, Johnny Knoxville tossed a whipped cream pie in her face, mirroring the movie’s original pie fight ending, which Kubrick wisely cut at the last minute.

Stifling laughter, and covered in cream, Apple continued singing as the entire audience joined in with her, reading the lyrics off a giant screen behind the stage.

Kubrick himself couldn’t have planned a funnier ending.

For those who love the writing of Amos Oz, the Israeli storyteller’s autobiographical “A Tale of Love and Darkness” illuminates his reasons for picking up the pen in the first place, pointing to his relationship with his doting (and long-suffering) mother above all. It’s perfectly obvious why Oz felt compelled to honor his mother Fania’s memory in print, but not necessarily as clear to understand why Natalie Portman felt so fiercely drawn to the character — to the degree that she spent years developing Oz’s melancholy memoir to be her feature writing-director debut, appearing as the beatific Fania herself. Most likely, it was simply a case of her being touched by Oz’s work and wanting to share that emotional experience with others, though her drearily empathetic film lacks whatever universality has made “Tale” such an international phenomenon, and will rely on Portman’s name to attract interest beyond Israel.

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Audiences often fool themselves into thinking they know a movie star by her work, as if the roles reveal an actress’ inner soul. When the alchemy is right, they often do, although Portman has remained strangely enigmatic on this front — a clear consequence of her versatility, which ranges from her star-making theatrical role as Anne Frank to the inscutable wax effigy that is Queen Padme Amidala, which brought her the greatest international exposure. Here, in a project drawn from someone else’s autobiography, we glimpse her most personal work: a portrait of the artist as a young man that doubles as a reflection of its director’s formative influences as well.

Like Oz, Portman was born in Israel, surrounded by the stories of her immigrant family’s past, and with this film, told entirely in Hebrew, she illustrates how those ingredients come to define an artistic identity: specifically Oz’s, though we’re free to speculate upon Portman’s own attachments to the material as well. As a child, Amos (played by Amir Tessler) couldn’t imagine himself ever becoming a writer — that was the vocation practiced by his overly serious father (Gilad Kahana). “I’m not sensitive,” Amos insists, swearing that he’s more cut out for work as a farmer, or maybe a dog-killer. But one isn’t always free to decide such things for oneself. When it comes to art, certain feelings demand to be expressed.

Amos may be the film’s main character, but its focus feels firmly turned toward his parents. Theirs is a strangely loveless marriage, the sort in which Fania (Portman) never could have imagined herself. She was a romantic, raised within a certain degree of privilege in Poland, who’d pictured her life one day resembling the stuff of the literature she devoured, only to marry a second-rate writer.

In brief fantasy interludes, we glimpse the handsome partner she would have preferred: a strong, strapping lad who couldn’t be more different from the man she married. At other points, she regales Amos with stories from the old country (or, on occasion, spun from whole cloth), their endings invariably tragic, heavy with regret and the weight of wrong choices.

Portman dramatizes these tales, inserting them into a more direct re-creation of Oz’s childhood, circa 1945 — two years before the establishment of Israel’s statehood, during the window when Jerusalem was still under British mandate — and forward into the violence and turmoil that followed its independence, setting the course for the unrest that still taxes the nation today. While that historical context functions mostly as backdrop to the more intimate family story, these anecdotal glimpses into Israeli’s past are among the film’s most interesting qualities, at least as far as export is concerned.

So often, films from Israel and Palestine concentrate on the conflict between these two cultures, rather than life as it is experienced on the ground — that is, struggling to find some normalcy amid shootings and bombs. As Israeli coming-of-age tales go, though, “A Tale of Love and Darkness” lacks the vivid detail and spark of Nir Bergman’s 2010 treasure, “Intimate Grammar” (adapted from David Grossman’s novel), opting instead for a more somber portrayal of life in Jerusalem, one whose virtually monochromatic color palette has been pushed toward the dolorous blue end of the spectrum.

Whereas “Grammar’s” unique conceit was the fact its protagonist had hit a sort of pre-pubescent wall, then stopped growing, there’s no explaining why Amos doesn’t age in Portman’s film. Over almost half a decade’s time, he’s played by the same wide-eyed but somewhat wooden young actor, most likely for continuity’s sake. Then, skipping forward nearly a decade to his years in the Kibbutz Hulda, the film has him played as a young man by a striking lookalike. Portman, on the other hand, changes radically in her demeanor over the course of the film. Fania died at age 38, the narrator informs us early on, and in those last years, we see her glowing energy fade to loneliness and despair, as if the cinders burning inside her were slowly being extinguished.

With no affection from her husband — and nothing but direct hostility from her mother-in-law — Fania comes to view Amos as perhaps her only reason for living. She lavishes affection on the boy, curling up beside him in bed and telling her stories, or better yet, giving him guidelines that will serve him later, when he starts to invent his own. If Amos should ever choose to lie about someone, she instructs him, he must remember to be generous. Oz has clearly taken this advice to heart in the reverential way he later depicts Fania, now old enough to be her father. Her woes might just as easily have driven him to therapy, but in this telling, she’s a source of inspiration to him — and clearly to the writer-director-star who was so determined to play her.