Month: April 2019

“Avengers: Endgame” directors Joe and Anthony Russo spent their weekend gobsmacked over the record-obliterating opening weekend of Marvel’s biggest film to date. “We were definitely surprised. We knew the movie was good but you can never predict something like this,” said Anthony Russo, speaking at a keynote conversation with CNBC anchor Julia Boorstin at the

April 29, 2019 11:23AM PT BRON Studios has partnered with Good Fear and Kituufu Films to develop and produce “Sabrina,” the story of NFL superstar DeAndre Hopkins’ mother, Sabrina Greenlee, as a feature film. “My mom has always put everyone before herself and sacrificed things unimaginable. Now it’s time for people to see her true

Fresh off the record-obliterating opening weekend of “Avengers: Endgame,” directors Joe and Anthony Russo waded into the ongoing debate about the arms race over streaming platforms. Discussing the similarities between the tentpole film business and the huge-spending streaming content marketplace, Joe Russo spoke plainly about who is leading the charge for the latter. “The closest

April 29, 2019 11:18AM PT “X-Men” star Nicholas Hoult is set to join Angelina Jolie the wilderness thriller “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” sources tell Variety. Insiders add that Tyler Perry has also joined the cast in an undisclosed role. Taylor Sheridan is directing the movie, which is based on Michael Koryta’s novel about 14-year-old

April 29, 2019 10:57AM PT The Cannes Film Festival has announced the full jury for the 2019 edition. Joining president Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu will be actresses Elle Fanning and Maimouna N’Diaye (“Gardens in Autumn”) as well as Oscar-nominated filmmakers Yorgos Lanthimos, whose last film “The Favourite” earned Olivia Colman a best actress Oscar, and Paweł

April 29, 2019 10:16AM PT Writer-director John Singleton, a pioneering African-American filmmaker and TV producer, will be taken off of life support today, nearly two weeks after he suffered a debilitating stroke. Singleton’s family issued a statement Monday citing the “agonizing decision” to remove him from life support at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los

Veteran actor Matthew Modine is running for president of SAG-AFTRA as the head of the ticket for the  Membership First faction of the performers union. Modine was first elected as a member of the SAG-AFTRA national board in 2017. He’s the first candidate to announce for the presidency. Current president Gabrielle Carteris, who won a

Indie Sales, the French international sales boutique behind the Oscar-nominated “My Life as a Zucchini” and Ziad Doueiri’s “The Insult,” is set to branch out with the launch of Best Friend Forever (BFF), a new Brussels-based outfit dedicated to festival-driven world cinema. Best Friend Forever is kicking off with the acquisition of Juris Kursietis’ sophomore

The making of “Apocalypse Now” wasn’t easy for director Francis Ford Coppola. In fact, it seemed doomed from the start. During a talk on Sunday for the Tribeca Film Festival, Coppola sat down with director Steven Soderbergh for the film’s 40th anniversary to chat about the setbacks, which started with “everybody saying it was a

Kino Lorber, in association with blockchain-powered TVOD platform Breaker, has acquired North American rights to Beniamino Barrese’s documentary “The Disappearance of My Mother,” which had its world premiere at the Sundance Festival earlier this year, Variety has learned exclusively. The deal was announced Monday at the Hot Docs Canadian Intl. Documentary Film Festival. It was negotiated by

The words “away with the fairies” tend to be used pejoratively, though if you applied it to Ragnhildur “Ragga” Jónsdóttir, she’d calmly and cheerfully accept at least part of the phrase. It’s the “away” bit to which she’d object: In Jónsdóttir’s view, she’s very much present with the elves, trolls and sprites who make up

April 29, 2019 6:03AM PT Gravitas Ventures has picked up U.S. rights for the documentary “Inside Lehman Brothers,” which chronicles the story of the whistleblowers who paid the price for exposing the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, Variety has learned exclusively. Gravitas announced the deal, which includes digital and TV rights, on Monday at the Hot Docs Canadian

Inside Out, Canada’s largest LGBTQ film festival, distributor, and booster of LGBTQ content, has unveiled to Variety the 10 feature projects and eight international executives participating in its third annual Finance Forum. “There’s a great variety to the projects this year,” Inside Out executive director Andria Wilson said before the official Finance Forum announcement. “We’ve got docs

Muhammad Ali’s bark was as formidable as his bite, and “What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali” pays tribute to both, allowing the three-time heavyweight champ to narrate his own story via a combination of audio and video archival material. Directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day,” “The Equalizer”), this 165-minute documentary uses copious interview soundbites to highlight

Last year, for the first time in its 25-year history, the Hot Docs film festival achieved gender parity in its slate, at a time when many other large cinema organizations were just signing – or still working towards – their versions of 50/50 by 2020, the influential gender equality model for film funding launched by