Month: November 2019

Call it the Shianaissance (or don’t, we would understand), but Shia LaBeouf is igniting an indie box office revival. LaBeouf further proved his on-screen bankability last weekend as his autobiographical drama “Honey Boy” kicked off above expectations, garnering $288,824 from four venues in New York and Los Angeles. That haul marks one of the best

Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson sat down for a chat for “Variety Studio: Actors on Actors.” For more, pick up the Actors on Actors issue on Nov. 12, tune into PBS SoCal on Jan. 2 or stay tuned right here at Variety.com. When Scarlett Johansson first sees Chris Evans at our photo shoot, she lets

Costume designer Sandy Powell has over 50 credits to her name and has won three Academy Awards. She has worked with Todd Haynes, Jean-Marc Vallée, Rob Marshall, Stephen Frears and Martin Scorsese. “The Irishman” marks her seventh time collaborating with Scorsese, but this was an epic. The film spans five decades from the 1950s to

November 11, 2019 6:34AM PT Jim Gianopulos will continue to oversee film operations following Viacom’s merger with CBS, the companies confirmed on Monday. The move was expected and comes as the media marriage is being wrapped up. Gianopulos’ title will be chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures. His mandate will continue to be calling the

Netflix continues to push into local content, producing its first Dutch film, war drama “The Battle of the Scheldt,” in partnership with local broadcasters and other backers. Alain de Levita is producing the Dutch-Belgian picture through his Levitate Film banner. It will be in movie theaters in the Netherlands in November 2020, and on Netflix

Kristin Scott Thomas will be honored at this year’s British Independent Film Awards with the Richard Harris Award for her contribution to British film. Thomas will join a celebrated list of former honorees including Judi Dench in 2018, and Daniel Day-Lewis, Emma Thompson and Chiwetel Ejiiofor in years past. Thomas’ film work includes “Four Weddings

We’ve all seen couples like Gota and Chika Yanagida — some of us may even be in one. In writer-director Shin Adachi’s “A Beloved Wife,” the Yanagidas bicker constantly, turning their near-constant state of marital conflict into a kind of public performance, sucking friends and strangers alike into the typhoon of their discomfort. Are they

The Mediterranean island nation of Malta has long been attracting international film and TV productions mainly for tales with either a strong marine or biblical element, and often for limited portions of the overall shoot. Now Malta is trying to make a quantum leap to lure a wider scope of productions for longer stays. And

China’s Joy Pictures — previously a buyer, marketer and distributor best known for bringing “La La Land” to China — is now turning towards the production and sale of animation, and is at AFM for the first time this year as a seller. So far a hot title has been one of Joy’s few live-action

It isn’t rare to see a love-it-or-hate-it movie; every awards season brings one or two of them. Last year we had “Green Book,” this year we have “Joker.” (I’m tempted to say, in the case of both those films, that millions of moviegoers love them and 197 media people hate them, but that’s another story.)

Responding to French actress Valentine Monnier’s accusation of rape, a lawyer for Roman Polanski has issued a statement saying that the filmmaker denied the allegations and was considering suing the newspaper that published Monnier’s story. In an article in Le Parisien on Friday, Monnier alleged that Polanski raped her violently at a ski chalet in

“Terminator: Dark Fate” faced another rocky weekend in theaters as the sixth entry in the sci-fi saga scraped together $29.9 million from 53 international markets. Though the film is nearing the $200 million mark globally (worldwide ticket sales are currently at $199.4 million), “Dark Fate” still stands to be a major money loser for Paramount,

Oliver Laxe’s “Fire Will Come” won the top prize, the Golden Alexander, at the 60th Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival on Sunday, as well as the best actor award for Amador Arias, playing an arsonist who returns to his family home in the mountains. The film, described in its Variety review as “a rustically beautiful rural

Nikolay “Nick” Sarkisov is the co-founder and head of Blitz Films, a production and financing company he founded in 2018 with his father, Sergey.  With headquarters in Los Angeles and Moscow, Blitz Films focuses on pursuing unique storie. Blitz has partnered with first-time filmmakers such as cinematographer Svetlana Cvetko’s  “Show Me What You Got” and

Frakas Prods., the Belgian independent company behind Julia Ducournau’s “Raw,” is collaborating with another promising filmmaker, Christophe Hermans, on his feature debut, “Hive,” which a teenage-driven psychological thriller. The film, which just wrapped shooting, is headlined Ludivine Sagnier opposite Sophie Breyer, Mara Taquin and Bonnie Duvauchelle, as well as Romain Guillermic. Adapted from Arthur Loustalot’s

Barcelona-based studio Filmax has acquired international sales rights to Avelina Prat’s feature-debut “Vasil,” which is currently in pre-production. Filmax also handles Spanish distribution. “Vasil” is produced by Barcelona-based Distinto Films, which backed Patricia Ferreira’s “The Wild Children,” in co-production with Bulgaria’s Activist 38, which made Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova’s “Uncle Tony, Three Fools, And

Stars like Jason Statham, Gerard Butler, Liam Neeson and Ben Affleck have brought a semblance of stability to an unsettled American Film Market this week. The boom in streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon along with the emergence of new services from Disney, Apple and Warner Bros. has disrupted the traditional business model for

While most of the action onscreen in “Midway” involves Americans and Japanese, most of the money behind the movie is Chinese. Starlight Entertainment, which put up 45% of the $98 million budget, sees itself as an ally of the independent movie scene. The Hong Kong stock market-listed firm first came to attention when it struck