EXCLUSIVE: Comedy Central, long one of stand-up’s most important institutional launchpads, is returning to talent incubation with the launch of Comedy Central Stand-Up Selects, a new series of short sets from 14 comics that will tape in August and launch exclusively on the Comedy Central Stand-Up YouTube channel this fall.

Following up Comedy Central Stand-Up Featuring, the digital short-form series that kicked off in the 2010s, Comedy Central Stand-Up Selects‘ inaugural edition will feature stand-up from both newer and more established talent: Adam Ray, Daniela Inés Calvo, Fumi Abe, Ian Edwards, Jay Jurden, Jeremiah Watkins, Jessie “Jetski” Johnson, Joey Cerone, Katherine Blanford, Leslie Liao, Mandal, Ryan Goodcase, Sammy Mowrey, and Skyler Higley.

The series is being produced in partnership with Hoff Studios. Tickets to tapings can be secured here.

Building on Comedy Central’s legacy of championing emerging comedians, while reestablishing the brand as a producer in the digital space, Stand-Up Selects is the latest in a long line of stand-up showcase formats from Comedy Central, which has been more or less dormant as a champion of new stand-up for some time, as live stand-up comedy company Don’t Tell Comedy has taken over the emerging stand-up scene.

Comedy Central became one of TV’s most reliable stand-up farm systems beginning in the 1990s, implementing a mix of showcases, half-hours, roasts, late-night blocks and festival tie-ins to elevate the medium. In the process, they helped launch or accelerate the careers of everyone from Dave Chappelle and Amy Schumer to Kevin Hart, Ali Wong, Hannibal Buress and many others.

Comedy Central gave a vast generation of rising headliners their first half-hour televised solo special with formats like Comedy Central Presents before transitioning to the likes of Stand-Up Featuring, which featured tighter sets from emerging and mid-career comics, built for the internet age. Generating over 143M views to date across social platforms, Stand-Up Selects‘ predecessor, Stand-Up Featuring, showcased more than 200 comics, providing them with a nice calling card and career stepping stone that is more difficult to come by these days.

While Comedy Central has been missed in the last decade so as a go-to destination for new stand-up — with the rise of Netflix and YouTube specials and the proliferation of unrelated comedic social media content — what the Stand-Up Selects launch represents for Comedy Central as a whole, post-Paramount/Skydance merger, is not yet clear.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO has ordered The Trial of Louise Woodward, a five-episode limited series based on a true story, starring two-time Emmy nominee Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus).

Created by Matthew Barry (Industry), who is also showrunner, writer and exec producer, The Trial of Louise Woodward tells the shocking true story of how, in 1997, an 18-year-old British au pair was accused of shaking to death a baby left in her care by her American host family, setting off an international media firestorm as the trial unfolds in full view of both the British and American public.

The project brings Fahy and Barry back to HBO following their work on The White Lotus and Industry, respectively. It also marks a reunion for Fahy and Susanne Bier, who exec produces and directs all episodes, on the heels of the Netflix mystery thriller The Perfect Couple.

Barry told us, “The trial of Louise Woodward raised profound questions about childcare, working mothers, class, and the role of an emerging 24/7 media. Thirty years later, those questions feel more urgent and relevant than ever. I’m grateful to be working with Susanne and our partners at HBO to bring this story, in all its complexity, to the screen.”

Exec producers on The Trial of Louise Woodward, in addition to Barry, include Big Light Productions founder Frank Spotnitz, Emily Feller, Tobi de Graaff, and Antoine Douaihy. Production kicks off in August for an expected 2027 release.

Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming, Head of HBO Drama Series and Films, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Matthew Barry and Susanne Bier on this new series and to welcome Meghann Fahy back to the HBO family. Matthew’s compassionate approach to this gripping true story, paired with Susanne’s powerfully distinct directorial vision and Meghann’s exceptional talent, has brought together an extraordinary creative team whose work we’re excited to share with our audience soon.”

Most recently seen starring in Netflix’s Sirens, opposite Julianne Moore, and the Universal thriller Drop, Fahy’s upcoming slate includes limited series The Good Daughter, an adaptation of the Karin Slaughter bestseller for Peacock, where she stars opposite Rose Byrne. Additionally, there’s the Amazon MGM romance You Deserve Each Other, based on the novel from Sarah Hogle, where she stars opposite Penn Badgley. She is represented by WME, Anonymous Content, and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.

Barry is a writer-producer whose credits include Industry, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and EastEnders, to name a few. He is repped by The Agency and WME.

In television, Bier has most recently worked on The Perfect Couple, as well as The First Lady for Showtime and The Undoing for HBO. More recently, she directed Practical Magic 2, starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, which Warner Bros. releases September 11. She is repped by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Jackoway Austin Tyerman.

In Vertical’s upcoming The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton’s 1940s children’s novels get a modern makeover, and one that director Ben Gregor, as well as stars Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, say brings the author’s messages around adventure and family to a modern audience. 

“Simon [Farnaby] made it really relevant. He made it about kids of today, but with all the values and excitement of the adventures of Enid Blyton. He brought the two worlds together in this amazing, tender, warm, funny way,” Gregor told The Hollywood Reporter while discussing the work of the film’s screenwriter at the New York premiere on Wednesday night. “It’s not a preachy thing, but it does say go outside and climb a tree and have some fun. Get off the screens. And Simon, he’s a master of warmth. It’s like having a big hug watching this movie.”

The second story in the Faraway trilogy, the film and book follow three siblings who move to the English countryside and discover a magical tree and its fantastical inhabitants. All are able to visit various lands in the sky, including one known as the Land of Goodies. “It’s kind of like a candy land,” Gregor explained about what audiences will see adapted for the film. “We made an edible set. The kids came and just ate it. I really wanted them to do this in the old school way of making films where things are really there and things they can see, feel and touch. That’s how we made this.”

Garfield and Foy portray Tim and Polly, the parents of Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy), Joe (Phoenix Laroche) and Fran (Billie Gadsdon), who, in this modern iteration written by the Paddington 2 scribe, move their family out of the city. That’s after Polly loses the company-owned flat after quitting her job as an electronic engineer, unwilling to continue working on a smart fridge that gathers data on its owners. 

“I think it needs to be reinvented, these stories — sometimes because they exist in a world that we no longer live in,” Foy said of the film’s changes from the book. “To bring them up to date and to allow a larger audience in is really important, and that’s what Simon Barnaby did.”

“What Simon has done is he’s made it incredibly modern and rightly so. To make a film about this, what it’s like to be a kid now and what it’s like to be a parent now, it feels really important,” Garfield told THR. “I think we’re all craving some kind of reconnection to ourselves, some kind of reconnection to nature.”

The movie reunites Foy and Garfield onscreen nearly a decade after their leading turns in 2017’s Breathe. “We must have worked together 10 years ago. It was very different times of our lives,” recalled Foy at Wednesday’s event. “It’s amazing to be in this industry and continue to work with people that you’ve worked with before. One, it’s lovely. It’s seeing an old friend again, but also it’s nice that you get to build those relationships. This was a completely different project, completely different approach. It’s a kids’ film. We were just along for the ride really, and that felt so amazing.”

The Magic Faraway Tree also serves as Garfield’s first foray into the family film space. “Reuniting with Claire is always a joy to me, whether it’s as friends or as collaborators. She’s such a great actor, and she’s such a playful, fun person to work with. Just a great hang,” Garfield said. “And these kids, it was so easy to create a dynamic with them because they’re not only brilliant actors, they’re just brilliant human beings. They’re such sweet, kind, funny, thoughtful, sensitive, beautiful people. And we just kind of hung out. It just happened very, very naturally.”

“There’s a hunger for adventure and the nostalgia of a big family film and the sense of escapism,” said Gregor. “Andrew, he really gravitated to it, and he felt like it’s a story he really wanted to tell.”

Foy and Garfield are joined onscreen by not only their young co-stars but also a notable adult cast, including Nicola Coughlan, Nonso Anozie, Dustin Demri-Burns, Jessica Gunning, Oliver Chris, Michael Palin and Dame Judie Dench. It was an ensemble, the film’s director said, that Garfield’s presence helped amass. 

“Everyone started following — more and more people, legends like Michael Palin and Judi Dench, who plays a fridge,” Gregor told THR, explaining how the film snagged several actors after Garfield signed on. “Once you got Judi Dench as a fridge, you’re off. People just gravitated to the story and Simon Farnaby’s writing. They wanted to be part of something that Simon had written.”

“Simon is such a great writer. He’s so full of heart and very, very genuinely funny,” Garfield added. “Table reads are usually really bad; our table read was one of the best table reads I’ve ever had. Everyone was crying. Everyone was laughing. It was so joyful.”

The Magic Faraway Tree hits theaters Aug. 21.