Month: February 2019

In a personal Instagram post, Sarah Paulson announced that Rosanna Arquette is joining the cast for Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series, “Ratched.” Paulson wrote that there will be a “multi-episode arc for” Arquette, whom she called an “extraordinary actress.” Paulson also said she was affected by Arquette’s statement that she struggled to get jobs after she
0 Comments
February 4, 2019 1:33PM PT “Glass” star Anya Taylor-Joy will play one of the leads in Edgar Wright’s next film, “Last Night in Soho,” sources tell Variety. Wright and “Penny Dreadful” writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns penned the script for the movie — a Focus and Working Title co-production. Described as a psychological horror-thriller, exact plot details are unknown
0 Comments
Google parent Alphabet delivered a better-than-expected holiday quarter earnings report Monday, but investors nonetheless sent the company’s share price down in after-hours trading on fears of lower operating margins. Alphabet generated revenue of $39.3 billion during the fourth quarter of 2018, compared to $32.3 billion during the same quarter a year before. The company’s net
0 Comments
Michael B. Jordan and his Outlier Society Productions banner have signed a first-look television deal at Amazon. As part of the deal, Amazon Studios and Outlier Society projects will contain an inclusion rider, stipulating inclusive and representative hiring for cast and/or crew. “It’s an exciting moment for Outlier Society,” said Jordan. “On behalf of myself
0 Comments
Demi Lovato deleted her Twitter Sunday following backlash over a tweet she shared about rapper 21 Savage. During the Super Bowl, Lovato tweeted, “So far 21 Savage memes have been my favorite part of the Super Bowl,” which resulted in a number of tweets criticizing the singer for being insensitive to the rapper’s detainment. 21
0 Comments
Netflix is nearing deal for U.S. rights and some international territories for Zac Efron’s Ted Bundy drama “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.” The deal cost about $8 million, sources confirmed to Variety. “Extremely Wicked” premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and follows the crimes of Bundy from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth
0 Comments
FX Networks CEO John Landgraf is preparing for a big transition in the coming weeks as Disney completes its purchase of 21st Century Fox. Landgraf told the crowd at the winter Television Critics Assn. press tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Monday that he expects FX’s mandate to produce distinctive high-end programming stay the same even
0 Comments
The producers behind “Fosse/Verdon” are not concerned that the still-living subjects of their upcoming FX limited series will be so upset over their depiction they will respond with a lawsuit, as Oliva de Havilland did after “Feud: Bette and Joan.” “We’re incredibly careful when we talk about living people and it’s not our desire to
0 Comments
In a different era, Budweiser and Bud Light never needed help during the Super Bowl. So powerful was the beer’s owner, Aneheuser-Busch, that in 1992 its executives pressured CBS to run one of its commercials a second time because family scion August Busch III noticed a technical glitch while watching Super Bowl XXVI from Florida,
0 Comments
AR/VR pioneer and Hololens co-inventor Avi Bar-Zeev left Apple last month, Variety has learned. Bar-Zeev had been working on Apple’s augmented reality headset, which the company has been developing in secret for a possible 2020 launch. Bar-Zeev confirmed his departure when contacted by Variety, saying: “I left my full-time position at Apple in January. I had
0 Comments
Electronic comic book publisher Madefire brought its app to the Magic Leap AR headset Monday, enabling Magic Leap owners to explore comic panels in a spatial environment. “I think of it as a new stage for storytelling,” said Madefire CEO Ben Wolstenholme during a recent interview with Variety. The partnership between the two companies was
0 Comments
When Berlin Film Festival chief Dieter Kosslick launched the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2003, he probably couldn’t have imagined the impact it would go on to have. Now called Berlinale Talents, the festival’s development program for emerging filmmakers has seen 5,673 “Talents” pass through its doors — many of whom have gone on to forge
0 Comments
A group of well-known Hollywood communications experts have formed a new company that Kevin Hart and James Gunn would have run to a year ago. Paul Pflug, Melissa Zukerman, and Hans-Dieter Kopal of Principal Communications have teamed with leading cyber research and security firm Edgeworth to form Foresight Solutions Group — a “reputation-management” entity that
0 Comments
February 4, 2019 10:27AM PT Chris Evans, Brie Larson, and Awkwafina have been announced as presenters for the Academy Awards, along with Daniel Craig, Tina Fey, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Lopez, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Amandla Stenberg, Charlize Theron, Tessa Thompson, and Constance Wu. Oscar producers Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss will continue to reveal presenters
0 Comments
Despite a tepid halftime performance and a 10-year low in ratings, Sunday night’s Super Bowl telecast was still a healthy one for top music publishers and record labels, many of whom saw overall volume and revenue on par with 2018’s record year of activity. Among publishers, Sony/ATV secured seven synch licenses in national brand commercials, followed
0 Comments
If last year’s Oscar race revolved around genre-bending movies (stick with me on this), this year’s contest has a decidedly international flavor. Alfonso Cuaron used his clout after winning two Oscars for “Gravity” to make “Roma,” a deeply personal story about his childhood maid in Mexico City. He figured the movie, shot in black and
0 Comments
One of the major winners at last year’s Berlin Film Festival — and widely distributed worldwide — was a quiet, intimate Paraguayan drama, “The Heiresses,” one of the latest fruits of the World Cinema Fund, a program nurtured by festival chief Dieter Kosslick. Kosslick is being honored at the Berlin Film Festival with Variety‘s Achievement
0 Comments
Composer and lyricist Marc Shaiman will be honored with the Icon Award at the 9th annual Guild of Music Supervisors Awards, taking place Feb. 13 at the Theatre at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles. The “Hairspray” and “Smash” tunesmith will be performing “The Place Where Lost Things Go,” the “Mary Poppins Returns” ballad he co-wrote with
0 Comments