Madelyn (00:05)
Hello, happy Monday. Welcome to the Unscripted Files. My name is Madelyn Cunningham. I'm a development producer in the unscripted industry and I'm joined by Emily be giving us the latest headlines in unscripted industry news and we're gonna try to fit them all in today. A lot's happened in the last two weeks. Welcome, Emily.

Emily Wilson (00:21)
keep having me back. So much is going on right now.

Madelyn (00:25)
I feel like we need to close the loop or at least have a continuous conversation about the bachelorette former lead, Taylor Frankie Paul. The latest news is that her most recent DV charges have been dropped. So while she had the incident in 2023, that's the video everyone saw, her most recent charges have been dropped. But there's a lot of speculation

about whether she's actually going to return to Mormon Wives. People is reporting that she could still make an appearance on the season if she wants to rejoin and everything kind of seems up in the air. So they're kind of keeping us hanging here. What are your thoughts?

Emily Wilson (01:11)
who knows, she's deactivated her social media accounts right now so I can imagine the attention and the understandable backlash that she is receiving from all angles is becoming a lot. So it really has to be two sided whether she does want to continue being on those shows and in the public eye

Madelyn (01:31)
Yes, and then her, the father of her child, Dakota Mortenson,

He filmed on Vanderpump Villa with several of the other Mormon husbands with Dad Talk, and apparently Hulu has made the decision to cut their portion from that show altogether. So there is a, what you could consider maybe to be an equivalent balancing of the scales here by taking him out of that show, We also have an update with the Warner Brothers Paramount deal. Tell us more about that.

Emily Wilson (02:01)
We do. So the shareholders have officially approved the company's takeover by Paramount Skydance with an overwhelming majority. So it looks like that will be going through and is well supported by those shareholders.

Madelyn (02:18)
interesting as this came out there was an open letter

against the merger that was supported by celebrities like Florence Pugh and Pedro Pascal, who don't want this merger to go through right as the shareholders are approving it. So obviously, there's absolutely some friction here with the stars who drive Hollywood and the shareholders who fund it.

Emily Wilson (02:42)
$110 billion, which is $31 per share.

Madelyn (02:46)
Insane insane Hulu had an event this past week where they announced a really really robust Reality slate we were just talking Mormon wives so we can go ahead and discuss their latest spinoff Which is going to be the secret lives of Mormon wives Orange County

This is totally taking me back to the Hills days. I have to be honest with you. I mean, mean, this franchise has done really well. We know this. It was, it felt inevitable, right? That it was just going to spin off in this way. I mean, what, are your thoughts here? You think it's going to hit the same?

Emily Wilson (03:20)
everyone wants to be the Real Housewives franchise. So it's not surprising and I don't think it will be the last.

Madelyn (03:27)
agree with you, I'm hearing some chatter of New York.

Whitney is now there. I'm hearing some chatter of Arizona where there is a huge concentration of LDS communities and influencers. So this particular OC spinoff is gonna have influencers Aspen Ovart, Bobby Althoff, Avery Woods,

whether any of these individuals actually have any roots in the religion I think remains to be seen. I think we're really reaching at this point, but the Banner franchise holds so much power. So, you know, it'll be really interesting to see this one. Another exciting one, you know, from their sister network, ABC, is a Dancing with the Stars spinoff. Tell me about this.

Emily Wilson (04:09)
Yeah, so Dancing with the Stars, the next pro. It's amazing. We were just speaking about how they haven't done this before. It's going to be hosted by Robert Irwin, who just won the mirror ball, and featuring 12 up-and-coming dancers who will move into one house and compete through a pooling audition process, all trying to become a pro dancer on the next season.

Madelyn (04:33)
I am really excited about this. This does feel like the natural evolution of the show. And with it having so much success in this last season, I'm incredibly interested in how they choose their everything comes back to Utah, especially because of very high concentration of pros. I don't know if you know this, are from Utah, have an LDS Mormon background. So there's a really, some really interesting overlap here, Emily.

with just the focus on that community. Looks like Hulu has also announced a project, Runway with a new season with Heidi Klum coming in July. We were just talking about team moms with EP Kim Kardashian with her sister Chloe has now come out with The Girls, which is going to follow her and her friends, Khadijah, Malika, and some other friends as they...

allow us access into their real life bestie inner circle. Another thing happening in the Kardashian family, we've got a documentary film about Travis Barker. And then a competition format that's really interesting hosted by none other than Parker Posey from White Lotus. Tell us about the mob.

Emily Wilson (05:46)
So the MOBS is coming from Studio Lambert, which is well known for the traders by now, but a series following celebrities in an Italian villa where they will win up to $250,000 and tackle MOBS movie-inspired jobs to survive.

Madelyn (06:01)
Yeah, it looks like we've got some kind of the casting is really interesting here Demi from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives who is kind of estranged from the entire cast right now. Maria Georgiouz who was on Joey season of The Bachelor and really made a significant splash and some other Chelsea from Selling Sunset don't know. I'm listen.

fresh format. I love the world building and Studio Lambert's just brilliant as we know and so I am super excited for this. Another couple things on Hulu Slate. We've got a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Runway show

And then House of Stassi. So Stassi Schroeder from Vanderpump Rules and Vanderpump Villa is going to be the star of a new unscripted series that is focusing on her and her husband, Bo, her friends from Vanderpump, Katie Maloney, and following her in her everyday life.

Emily Wilson (06:51)
massive slate just to go through that.

Madelyn (06:53)
It's

huge and they're doing a lot and really have again built their own universe with their particular stars. I mean, the way you can't lie, look, they are fertile ground for new reality, celebs like, and we see that with the cast of Mormon wives, with Stasi, with these other stars. So I think they'll continue to build out that big universe of talent as we're gonna see.

Emily Wilson (07:17)
you were telling me about the Summer House audio investigation, which was a story that I hadn't heard about.

Madelyn (07:23)
Yeah, so the Summer House reunion was being filmed this week, highly anticipated because we have a significant betrayal in the cast with Amanda Pachula secretly hooking up with Wes Wilson, who is the ex of her best friend, Sierra Miller. And...

highly anticipated reunion. It was filmed for 12 hours and someone leaked the audio from it. And Andy Cohen is unhappy, Olive Bravo is unhappy, and it's, you know, can seem to some like a silly leak, but ultimately there's a couple of things here. It's a huge violation, not only for the privacy of the cast, not all of what they say during this reunion is going to be actually televised, right? It's going to be edited down. We don't know if

this piece of information was going to be or supposed to be out into the world.

It undercuts the hard work of not only the cast for putting themselves out there, but also the crew and the network for putting the work in to make these things happen, to try and keep these things exclusive. But it looks like action has been taken against a member of the production team. It was not a member of the cast or anyone else.

so interesting that the stakes have gotten so high in reality TV, the anticipation has gotten so high that we have a member of production willing to take a risk like this. it's a signal of just how...

invested we've all become in the events in other people's lives and enough to put your job in jeopardy. It's pretty unbelievable.

Emily Wilson (08:57)
I think these reunions are always somewhat edited and we know there's a ton of input that goes into that. We had quite a scandal in the UK just over the weekend where the I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here reunion because they pre-recorded the series. It all happened live. You had contestants storming off the stage because of the arguments that was breaking out. So doing it recorded like this is...

The way that you keep all of that sustained, so for someone to leak that is very fascinating and as you said, their job in jeopardy but they must have felt that there was something really important in that recording that could have been added about and they thought should be out there.

Madelyn (09:41)
Yeah, and I believe there was some sensitive details around...

videos and things like that. it may or may not have gotten out there and the information was very sensitive. And I was convinced when I saw it, it was a cast member who was trying to sway public opinion potentially in their favor. And the fact that it turns out that's a member of the production was really disappointing for sure.

Let's wrap it up. There's some news of, you know, the BBC and NBCUniversal announcing they're moving forward with a format that was part of a competition they put on to find the next great format, right? Tell me more about this. This is exciting.

Emily Wilson (10:17)
Yeah, so there was a long process that they have decided that Expectation and Plagazoid have been the successful candidate for the brand new unscripted development opportunity. It's to focus on an innovative and compelling twist on a studio-based game show and comes after the success of NBCU and BBC collaborating on The Traders and Destination X.

Madelyn (10:42)
I love that there's a quote here in the press release that says, want to thank all the companies that took part in this opportunity and demonstrated once more that British creativity truly is the best in the world. And I love that. it's, you know, it's kind of undeniable, so many of our favorite shows come out, you know, from British creatives. And so it's really incredible to see and very much looking forward to this. Well, thank you so much, Emily. we really didn't even cover it all, but a lot

going on here and of course we will keep you updated on all the ongoings of the Warner Brothers and Paramount merger as well as all of the secret lives drama and much much more so thank you so much for coming on and of course you can follow Emily on LinkedIn where she gives you unscripted industry updates every single Friday and you can subscribe to her sub stack Unscripted TV News to get it delivered right to your inbox. Thank you so much Emily.

Emily Wilson (11:34)
here.