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As Billie Eilish treated herself to a bowl of soup the day after her headlining performance at the first weekend of Coachella 2022, she learned that Donald Glover was looking for her.

“I was on some management call, and I remember being told, ‘There’s this show, but it’s during a period of time where you’re not available. It’s a pass,”’ she says about the first time she heard about Amazon Prime Video’s “Swarm.” “I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the fuck are you talking about? This is my dream!”’

The daughter of actors Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell, Eilish grew up acting in plays, but as her pop music stardom grew, she shelved those ambitions. “I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t wanna do this anymore.’ I did, but it’s always been a deep thing that I’ve been reluctant to talk about because...

“Atlanta” creator Donald Glover has often flirted with surrealistic horror on his Emmy-winning FX series. But with his bold, new limited series “Swarm” on Amazon’s Prime Video, he and cocreator Janine Nabers found a new way to depict the modern Black experience through genre storytelling.

Following a pop idol-obsessed fangirl named Dre (a remarkable Dominique Fishback), “Swarm” dramatizes her slow descent into homicidal madness — and the thriller’s production designer Sara K White was on hand to help bring this deeply original look at a troubled mind to life.

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“Seeing this character, even written on the page, was so exciting because you just don’t get the opportunity to showcase a young Black woman in a really challenging place like this,” White, no stranger to telling stories about complex women with TV credits like “The Flight Attendant” and “Mrs. Fletcher,...

When “Swarm” co-creator Janine Nabers went to Amazon Prime Video with her hit horror limited series, she told the streamer she wanted an all-Black writers’ room.

As soon as “Swarm” hit Prime Video, buzz about the thriller show, well, swarmed. The BeyHive-inspired series centers on a violently obsessed fan (played by Dominique Fishback) who stops at nothing to see her favorite superstar artist. The idea for the series was a co-creation between Nabers and Donald Glover.

“When we approached the idea for ‘Swarm,’ it was really about how can we as Black people tell a story from a Black woman’s perspective that gives it that cinematic lens,” Nabers said in the latest installment of TheWrap’s “How She Did It,” sponsored by Prime Video.

While working together wasn’t new for Nabers and Glover as the pair previously worked together on FX’s “Atlanta,” coming together to pitch the unique,...

The buzz around Amazon Prime Video's "Swarm" was nearly impossible to escape when the Donald Glover and Janine Nabers-created series premiered on March 17. If viewers weren't talking about Dominique Fishback's spirited performance as serial killer stan Dre or Chlöe's viral sex scene, they were definitely captivated by all those undeniable Beyoncé references - and trust, there were many.

"Of course, it had the fun parallels of certain things where you're like, 'Is this not who we think it is?'"

"Swarm" follows Fishback's Dre on a cross-country quest to meet her favorite obsession singer of all time, a mega-pop star named Ni'Jah who bears an awful close resemblance to Queen Bey. Viewers were definitely convinced that "Swarm" purposely alluded to Beyoncé and any reference to her life, aesthetic, and real-life scandals for shock factor. Almost every episode of "Swarm" was even prefaced with a disclaimer: "This is not a work of fiction.

“When they told me about the role [of Dre] they initially wanted me to play Marissa, who is the role that Chloe Bailey plays,” admits “Swarm” actress Dominique Fishback. “I was too excited by Dre’s journey. I felt that there were some ‘Monster’ opportunities, like Charlize Theron, and some ‘Boys Don’t Cry,’ Hilary Swank, and even some ‘Joker.’ I’ve always admired those performances. They told me about it and in my mind I was like, ‘Man, I can’t play Marissa, I gotta play Dre.'” Watch our video interview above.

“Swarm” tells the story of Dre (Fishback), a young woman obsessed with a pop star named Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown). Her fandom takes a dark turn as Dre’s traumas from her past come to the surface. The seven-part Amazon Prime Video limited series was created by Donald Glover and Janine Nabers and began streaming March 17, 2023.

See Dominique...

In Donald Glover and Janine Nabers’ “Swarm,” a highly-detailed dedication to all-things Beyoncé and her “Bey Hive” fanbase is key to the show’s menacingly satirical look at obsessive fandom turned murderous.

Credit “Swarm” production designer Sara K White with taking its creators’ ideal of singing sensation Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown) to nuanced extremes, while folding “The Swarm” and its greatest devotee Dre (Dominique Fishback) into Glover’s dreamlike “Atlanta” universe.

“I knew ‘Swarm’ was a sister to ‘Atlanta,’” said White of Glover’s beloved FX series. “What I wanted to evoke, then, was their shared interest in authenticity and irreverence to the point of whimsy.”

To heighten these qualities within Dre’s hardcore obsessions, “Ni’Jah and food”, production designer White — with set decorator Laura Wallgren, costume designer Dominique Dawson and cinematographer Drew Daniels — had to make Ni’Jah’s world palpable.

“I was given the first episode in December 2021, developed a look-book,...

Swarm, created by Donald Glover and Janine Nabers, is the newest psychological thriller television show on Prime. Swarm follows the story of Dre (Dominique Fishback) who is obsessed with pop star Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown), which causes her to go off the deep end.

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Just as the title card on the first episode reads, “any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is intentional,” the awkward one-night stand scene from the show was based on real life.

According to Nabers, “Donald told this very funny story about a girl who he really liked, and how after they hooked up, he was standing there with a bowl of cherries, just being like, ‘Hey.’ She was like, so not into it because it’s so weird to hook up with a guy that you barely know and then wake up with him holding a bowl of cherries.

Murder, like everything else, just hits different on film. Prime Video series “Swarm” — co-created by Janine Nabors and Donald Glover — creates rich visual contrasts that amp up the awkwardness and obsessiveness of Dre (Dominique Fishback), a superfan of a Beyoncé-esque pop singer who is more than willing to kill in the name of her idol. Fishback’s performance allows us to glimpse how Dre’s innate strangeness and years of trauma inform what she does, but there’s always an essential wrongness to her and a brutal, unglamorous messiness to her kills. That wrongness comes from the image itself, and cinematographer Drew Daniels knew he could only convey that by shooting on film.

Daniels, who shot six of the show’s seven episodes (Gabriel Patay shot Episode 6’s mockumentary tangent), had strong initial instincts for how the story should look and feel. He wanted to avoid the easy excitement...

Janine Nabers, co-creator of Amazon Prime Video’s new thriller series “Swarm,” tells TheWrap how her fear and fascination of stan culture and fandom helped mold the idea for her and Donald Glover’s new buzzy BeyHive-inspired series.

Nabers says there’s fans, and then there’s people like Dre (Dominque Fishback), the main character in her new show, which is centered on the aloof, calculated and creepy superfan of the Beyoncé-esque R&b singer Ni’Jah. Despite having never met her, Dre feels there’s no wrong that Ni’Jah can do, as in her eyes she is the epitome of perfection, and if you express otherwise it could be the last breath you ever take.

While murder isn’t the option most fans would take to defend their favorite celebs, the show highlights the darkness, obsessiveness and sometimes jarring behavior stan and fan culture exhibits. Nabers says...

“Swarm” goes to great lengths to ground its story about toxic internet fandom within the real world — even when Donald Glover and Janine Naber’s horror-satire exploration turns as wild and conspiratorial as, well, toxic internet fandom. But key to that was creating a pop diva worthy of Dre’s adoration, someone whose career was wide-ranging and lengthy enough to inspire a murderous cross-country road trip in her name. Someone like, say, Beyoncé — but definitely not Beyoncé. In the Prime Video series, it’s Ni’Jah.

The task of creating memorabilia and press coverage for the decades-long multiple Grammy-winning career of a music icon who isn’t not not Beyoncé fell to production designer Sara K White and her props and graphics teams. For a superstar at Ni’Jah’s level, the team needed so much period-specific stuff that generating it all started even before White officially joined the project.

The former First Daughter Malia Obama is already receiving praise as a first-time screenwriter for her work on the Prime Video show Swarm.

Janine Nabers, the co-creator of the thriller series with Donald Glover, said some of Obama’s pitches were “wild as hell” and demonstrated her ability as “an incredible writer.”

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Obama collaborated with Nabers on the fifth episode, “Girl, Bye,” which follows a young woman named Dre (Dominique Fishback) who becomes obsessed with a fictional R&b star (Nirine S. Brown).

Obama included a dig at former President Donald Trump in the screenplay. It contains a real-life clip of CNN host Don Lemon listing several of Trump’s scandals and his belief that “only criminals plead the fifth.” This was in reference to his civil fraud investigation last year where the former president pleaded the fifth over 400 times.

Nabers also stated that Obama was...

Los Angeles, March 19 (Ians) Donald Glover’s project about a ‘Beyonce-like figure’ has been raising curiosity and rumours in Hollywood for at least two years. And while no one involved will say Knowles’ name – though Glover has called out the Beyhive and co-creator and showrunner Janine Nabers has spoken about “a certain pop star from Houston” – that series is finally here.

‘Swarm’ stars Dominique Fishback as Dre, an emotionally stunted superfan of a singer named Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown), who is a bit unhealthily obsessed with her own sister, Marissa (Chloe Bailey), reports Variety.

When a fight between the sisters separates them for a night, Dre goes out to celebrate Ni’Jah’s surprise album drop while Marissa discovers that she’s being cheated on by her boyfriend, Khalid (Damson Idris). Unable to reach Dre for support, she dies by suicide.

Showrunner Janine Nabers spoke to Variety, and said:...

Spoiler Alert: This interview contains spoilers for all episodes of “Swarm” on Amazon Prime Video.

Rumors of a Donald Glover project about a “Beyoncé-like figure” have been swirling in Hollywood for at least two years. And while no one involved will say Knowles’ name — though Glover has called out the Beyhive and co-creator and showrunner Janine Nabers has spoken about “a certain pop star from Houston” — that series is finally here.

“Swarm” stars Dominique Fishback as Dre, an emotionally stunted superfan of a singer named Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown), who is a bit unhealthily obsessed with her own sister, Marissa (Chloe Bailey). When a fight between the sisters separates them for a night, Dre goes out to celebrate Ni’Jah’s surprise album drop while Marissa discovers that she’s being cheated on by her boyfriend, Khalid (Damson Idris). Unable to reach Dre for support, she dies by suicide.

The following contains spoilers from the full season of Swarm (now streaming on Prime Video).

Rabid fandom takes a deadly turn in Prime Video’s wildly entertaining satirical horror series Swarm.

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Dominique Fishback (Judas and the Black Messiah) stars as Dre, an obsessive fan of the fictional pop star Ni’Jah (played by Nirine S. Brown...

“Beyhive, don’t kill us,” Donald Glover said, with just a hint of nerves in his voice, at the Los Angeles premiere of “Swarm,” his latest series for Amazon’s Prime Video. “It’s not that bad. It’s actually, like, pretty cool.”

The quip came at the end of Glover’s remarks on Tuesday night as he introduced the show, which is now streaming. The buzzy, immersive special screening followed the show’s debut as SXSW’s opening night TV offering on March 17.

At this event, though, Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon and MGM Studios, and Vernon Sanders, head of global TV, introduced Glover, which was appropriate since “Swarm” marks his first project under their lucrative overall deal with the “Atlanta” creator and star.

“We’re really in the hive here,” Salke began, going on to praise the show as an “incredible, original vision.” Added Sanders: “When we...

The Beyoncé-inspired thriller series “Swarm” comes with an EP carrying songs from Childish Gambino, Kirby and the show’s fictional star Ni’Jah.

If you didn’t love Beyoncé enough, now there’s a show that seems to be inspired by her and the singer’s enormous fanbase, the BeyHive. Dominique Fishback leads the eight-episode series, as obsessive and crazed fan Dre, who will go to violent lengths to defend her favorite Queen Bey-like R&b pop star Ni’Jah.

The show dropped on Amazon’s Prime Video on Friday and features six new tracks from some of Hollywood’s biggest music talents, including the show’s co-creator Donald Glover.

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“Donald did a lot of work on songs,” “Swarm co-creator Janine Nabers told TheWrap. “There’s a lot of really incredible people who gave their voices...

Donald Glover is finally back with new music — kinda — releasing a new EP tied to the world of his new horror series about an obsessive pop fan, Swarm.

The five-song Swarm EP is “credited” to Ni’jah, the fictional pop star portrayed by Nirine S. Brown in the show, but the songs were primarily written and performed by the singer-songwriter Kirby. Glover executive produced the project and has a co-writing credit on the opening track, “Something Like That”; he also guests under his Childish Gambino moniker on the closer, “Sticky.

“Who’s your favorite artist?” asks Dre (Dominique Fishback) of the characters she meets along her journey in “Swarm,” Prime Video’s clever and fiendish horror satire. She poses the question with a cheerful lilt that belies the menace behind it, much like Ghostface when he conducts targeted phone surveys about the slasher genre in the “Scream” franchise. Dre’s respondents don’t know how high the stakes are, nor that there’s a correct answer: Ni’Jah, a messianic pop princess who bears striking similarities to Beyoncé, right down to the cultish following with zero appetite for dissent.

Dre lives a mostly unexamined life in pre-pandemic Houston, fumbling through her 20s without much direction aside from whatever will get her closer to her favorite singer’s inner circle. Her roommate, Marissa (Chloe Bailey), is just as enamored of Ni’Jah, but is hustling as a hair and makeup artist...

Amazon Prime’s new show “Swarm” terrifyingly reveals how far one super fan will go to meet their idol.

The show is produced by Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover, and Janine Nabers. Starring Dominique Fishback as Dre, who is “a young woman obsessed with the world’s biggest pop star who sets off on an unexpected cross-country journey.”

The pop star, named Ni’jah—played by Nirine S. Brown-holds an uncanny resemblance to Beyoncé. Bey notoriously refers to her fans as the Beyhive, and the trailer for “Swarm” doesn’t hold back on the bee references.

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However, the show is a broader commentary on all severely obsessed fandoms.

“She is not like everybody else,” Dre says. “She knows what we’re thinking and she gives it a name. She’s a goddess.”

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Exclusive: Black Lightning and Sistas actor Kelvin Hair joins the season 2 cast of Tyler Perry’s Ruthless in a recurring role. Hair will recur as Lewis, an ex-con who is now a member of the Rakudushi Cult. He has worked his way up to become a loyal and trusted servant to Dikahn, the second in command of the Rakudushi’s. Ruthless, which is a spinoff of Tyler Perry’s The Oval on BET, was renewed for a second season in 2020. Ruthless revolves around Ruth (Melissa L. Williams), who kidnaps her young daughter to join her in the dark underworld of a fanatical religious cult. Matt Cedeño, Lenny D. Thomas, Yvonne Senat Jones, Baadja-Lyne Odums, Jaime Callica, Nirine S. Brown, Blue Kimble, Stephanie Charles, Hervé Clermont, Anthony Bless, and Bobbi Baker also star. Hair will also appear as Sam Cooke in the upcoming Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect, starring Jennifer Hudson. His additional credits include Royal Heights,...

Exclusive: Ruthless star Melissa L. Williams has signed with Buchwald for representation.

Williams drew praise for her role as Ruth Truesdale on Tyler Perry’s The Oval on BET, which was renewed for a second season earlier this year. Her performance led her to the starring role in spinoff Tyler Perry’s Ruthless on BET+, where she reprises her Ruth Truesdale character. Ruthless revolves around Ruth (Williams), who kidnaps her young daughter to join her in the dark underworld of a fanatical religious cult. Matt Cedeño, Lenny D. Thomas, Yvonne Senat Jones, Baadja-Lyne Odums, Jaime Callica, Nirine S. Brown, Blue Kimble, Stephanie Charles, Hervé Clermont, Anthony Bless, and Bobbi Baker also star.

Williams previously had guest starring roles on The Game, If Loving You Is Wrong and Rosewood.

Williams continues to be repped by Vault Entertainment and Morris Yorn.

Tyler Perry's Ruthless is ready to return with the second half of its first season. The first 12 episodes of the season finished airing on June 4th. The next dozen episodes kick off on November 26th with three new installments.

The BET+ drama series follows the members of a cult, and it began in a backdoor pilot during The Oval. Melissa L. Williams, Matt Cedeño, Lenny D. Thomas, Yvonne Senat Jones, Baadja-Lyne Odums, Jaime Callica, Nirine S. Brown, Blue Kimble, Stephanie Charles, Hervé Clermont, Anthony Bless, and Bobbi Baker star in the drama, and they will be joined by several new faces during the remaining episodes of the season.

Read More…...

The cast of Tyler Perry’s Ruthless on BET+ is growing and has set a date for the midseason premiere. Stevie Baggs, Jr., Colin McCalla, Samantha L. Thomas, Michelle Nunez, Alise Willis, and Jael Pettigrew are joining the drama as series regulars while three episodes will exclusively premiere on November 26 on the streaming platform with new episodes launching every Thursday.

As the season continues, many of the faithful followers have begun to uncover the evil that exists beneath the surface of the Rakudushis movement. Armed with this knowledge, Ruth and several new fearful cult members try to take control of their individual destinies. The attempts will prove to be almost impossible for anyone who does not have allies they think they can trust. Viewers will see more sex, lies, and murder in this cult that is living up to its fate. Being aware of false prophets has never reigned more true.

Does Tyler Perry have another hit on his hands? Bet+ just announced the premiere date for Perry's new TV show, Ruthless, Deadline reports.

A spin-off to The Oval, the drama series "tells the story of a woman named Ruth who kidnaps her young daughter to join her in the dark underworld of a fanatical religious cult." The cast includes Melissa L. Williams, Matt Cedeño, Lenny D. Thomas, Yvonne Senat Jones, Baadja-Lyne Odums, Jaime Callica, Nirine S. Brown, Blue Kimble, Stephanie Charles, Hervé Clermont, Anthony Bless, and Bobbi Baker.

Read More…...

Ruth may be presumed dead on Tyler Perry’s The Oval, but that isn’t stopping the polarizing character from leading her own Bet+ spinoff — and soon.

Ruthless, which stars Melissa L. Williams in the title role, will kick off its 24-episode first season on Thursday, March 19, our sister site Deadline reports. Several episodes will be available to stream immediately, while subsequent installments will premiere on a weekly basis. This marks Perry’s first original series to stream on Bet+.

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Bet+ has set Thursday, March 19 for the premiere of Tyler Perry’s Ruthless, a spin-off of the hit series Tyler Perry’s The Oval. Multiple episodes of the 24-episode one-hour drama, Perry’s first new original series to stream on Bet+, will be available to stream with new episodes launching every Thursday.

Tyler Perry’s Ruthless tells the story of a woman named Ruth who kidnaps her young daughter to join her in the dark underworld of a fanatical religious cult. Melissa L. Williams, Matt Cedeño, Lenny D. Thomas, Yvonne Senat Jones, Baadja-Lyne Odums, Jaime Callica, Nirine S. Brown, Blue Kimble, Stephanie Charles, Hervé Clermont, Anthony Bless, and Bobbi Baker star.

Tyler Perry’s The Oval and Tyler Perry’s Sistas have continued to drive strong ratings on Bet. Both series’ January 22 midseason finales hit series highs in the P18-49 demo for the network.

The Oval stars Ed Quinn,...

After just three airings, Tyler Perry‘s The Oval has proven such a success for Bet that the network has ordered a spinoff for its streaming service, our sister publication Variety reports — and even faithful fans of the over-the-top series may be surprised by which storyline the new show will focus on.

The spinoff, titled Ruthless, will follow the exploits of cult member Ruth (Melissa L. Williams), “as she’s forced to play nice with a scandalous religious cult of powerful sex-crazed fanatics in the hopes of freeing herself and her daughter,” according to the official logline.

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Tyler Perry is expanding his partnership with Bet Network with two new series, “Bruh” and “Ruthless” for the network’s streaming service, Bet Plus, Variety has learned exclusively.

“I’m so grateful for the millions of fans who have been watching the new shows on Bet. And this is only the beginning. I’m excited to bring these two new dynamic series to the Bet Plus family and continue to tell stories of high stakes drama with emerging talent,” Perry said in a statement.

The first series to complete production, “Tyler Perry’s Bruh” will chronicle the lives of a group of 30-something Black men as they explore the world of dating, careers and friendship in a present-day society. Additionally, viewers can expect the show to tackle some of the stereotypes faced by African American men. Barry Brewer (“Games People Play”), Mahdi Cocci (“The Gifted”), Phillip Mullings Jr. (“American Soul...