Richard Plepler has held talks with former Vice News boss Josh Tyrangiel about a job at his Eden Productions, sources with knowledge of the situation tell The Hollywood Reporter.
Plepler, the former HBO chief who struck out on his own in 2019, is said to be eyeing the news veteran to lead the documentary arm of his production company, which has a five-year deal to make programming exclusively for streaming service Apple TV+. The discussions are still preliminary, the sources cautioned, noting that a formal agreement may not materialize.
Such a move would reunite Tyrangiel with Plepler after the pair forged a strong relationship while in their previous jobs. Plepler was a champion of HBO’s decision to expand its deal with Vice Media to include newsmagazine Vice as well as daily news show Vice News Tonight, which Tyrangiel oversaw. Plepler announced his departure from HBO in February, and a few months later HBO canceled Vice News Tonight, effectively ending its relationship with the media company and prompting Tyrangiel to leave the media company. (HBO had previously canceled Vice.)
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Under Tyrangiel’s watch, Vice News Tonight won five News & Documentary Emmys in three years. Prior to joining Vice, Tyrangiel was the editor at Bloomberg Businessweek.
Plepler inked a deal with Apple at the start of the year to produce projects for its three-month-old TV+ service, which currently offers original fare like the Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston drama The Morning Show, epic drama series See and anthology series Little America. The company is expected to make programming that spans scripted series, feature films and documentaries. Apple, which last year hired Molly Thompson to run its doc division, has also been building out an unscripted slate with such projects as Visible: Out on Television, Home, Beastie Boys Story and a forthcoming Billie Eilish project.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news of the talks between Tyrangiel and Plepler.
