Related: Upfront Central
Ahead of its May upfront presentation, CNN has ordered two more original series and plans to roll out five films in 2016.
The news cabler has ordered United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, where he will explore the far corners of the United States and its various groups and subcultures. CNN’s other new series is Believer, from author and scholar of religious studies Reza Aslan. The series will feature Aslan participating in endurance worship, spellbinding rituals, and unusual rites of passage to learn about rarefied worlds that have been molded by faith and tradition.
CNN Films is planning to roll out five films in 2016, including Alex Gibney’s Steve Jobs bio The Man in the Machine. The doc will have its worldwide debut on Saturday, March 14 during SXSW in Austin, Texas. Other films set to roll out are Janet Tobias’ medical doc Unseen Enemy, which follows virus hunters and bio-surveillance experts; Sunshine Superman, about Carl Boenish, considered “the father of basejumping”; an untitled film about self-help guru James Arthur Ray; and another untitled film about chef Jeremiah Tower.
CNN’s 2015-16 slate of new series includes the April premiere of High Profits, which gives viewers access to a Colorado couple poised to be the first ever “moguls of marijuana,” and its follow up to The Sixties miniseries, The Seventies. On Monday, the network ordered political docuseries Race for the White House with Kevin Spacey.
