David Blaine, in his first live stunt in nearly eight years, soared above a desert in Arizona to an altitude of 24,900 feet — about 4.7 miles — piloting more than four dozen helium balloons. It’s believed to be the highest that anyone has flown using only a cluster-balloon rig. The stunt, launched Wednesday from
Month: September 2020
Altavod, a new platform pledging to help indie filmmakers more easily distribute and profit from their movies, launched Wednesday. The company’s founders say that it will allow moviemakers to cut out third parties who they usually turn to in order to find distribution platforms. With Altavod, they can upload films themselves and keep more than
The Venice Film Festival stuck to its guns in promising a physical 2020 festival amid a global pandemic, and somehow, it’s pulled it off. While recent COVID-19 shockwaves in Europe made the undertaking even more precarious, the early days of this year’s edition are so far meeting the expectations of its largely European delegates. Elisabetta
Utopia Distribution has acquired “Turning Point,” a documentary that follows researchers in their quest to develop treatments for Alzheimer’s. It will premiere on Altavod, Utopia’s new distribution platform on Sept. 21 before being made available on other streaming platforms such as Amazon and iTunes a day later. The release is being tied to World Alzheimer’s
Check out the new exclusive featurette for Tenet starring John David Washington! Let us know what you think in the comments below. ► Buy Tickets to Tenet: https://www.fandango.com/tenet-219762/movie-times?format=imax&cmp=CSYT_YouTube_Desc Want to be notified of all the latest clips and behind the scenes footage? Subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to stay up to
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have set their sights on streaming: The royal couple has signed a deal with Netflix, Variety has confirmed. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who moved to California earlier this year, had been pitching movies and TV plans around Hollywood, Variety previously reported. Under their new, multi-year deal at Netflix,
She’s still in her late teens, but with three studio albums already under her belt and a starring role on the dishy, family-oriented Facebook talk show “Red Table Talk,” it’s no surprise that veteran singer-actor Willow Smith has chosen to spread her real estate wings in a very adult starter home. Perched atop a knoll on
The Academy of Country Music Awards announced the third major leg of the talent lineup for the September telecast Wednesday morning, revealing a slate of artists that will be performing from the Grand Ole Opry stage, in addition to those who were unveiled last week as doing their performances from the Ryman Auditorium or Bluebird
Ian Mitchell, bassist for the Bay City Rollers, has died at the age of 62, according to a post on the group’s Facebook page. With hits including “Saturday Night” and “Bye Bye Baby,” the tartan-clad Scottish group were a pre-punk 1970s phenomenon in the U.K. and enjoyed several hits in the U.S. “We are deeply
Attorneys Leron E. Rogers (right) and John T. Rose (left) are joining the firm Fox Rothschild where they will lead the entertainment and sports division out of Atlanta; the former as a partner, the latter as an associate. They arrive from Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith and bring with them clients Rick Ross (who recently
WarnerMedia has acquired the rights to new animated show “Master Moley,” starring Warwick Davis and Gemma Arterton, for its children’s platform Boomerang in more than 100 countries across Europe, Middle East and Africa. “Master Moley” is based on original stories written by British entrepreneur James Reatchlous, who spoke to Variety about how it came to
Mexican actress-producer Kate del Castillo, already busy with a number of upcoming new series, including season three of Netflix’s “La Reina del Sur” and “Armas de Mujer,” a new dark comedy for NBCUniversal’s Peacock, is planning a docuseries about the wonders of tequila that will be shot in and around Jalisco and Guadalajara. Speaking online
ABC wants to get out the vote ahead of the 2020 presidential election. The network will air hourlong special “VOMO: Vote or Miss Out,” created by online media outlet ATTN:, on Monday, Sept. 14. Billed as a nonpartisan comedy event, comedian Kevin Hart is set to emcee the special featuring comedic bits, stand-up acts and
“Dancing With the Stars” has revealed its full lineup for the 2020 season, featuring contestants such as Carole Baskin of “Tiger King” fame, rapper Nelly, “One Day at a Time” star Justina Machado and more. Announced on Wednesday, the rest of the lineup includes “Backstreet Boys” member AJ McLean, Netflix’s “Cheer” head coach Monica Aldama,
Top Productions, the Paris-based outfit behind international hit TV series “The Bureau” and “The Oligarchs,” is looking to expand into the Spanish-language scene, according to its executive producer and co-founder Alex Berger. As befitting the executive producer of an intelligence show, the media entrepreneur gave his online keynote at Spain’s Conecta Fiction event from a
The Q&A and Human Re Sources team has launched Homebase, which it describes as a “virtual collective of global creators on TikTok.” According to the announcement, “Homebase seeks to foster community digitally, while uplifting a global group of TikTok creators to take their hustle to the next level.” As a part of the launch, TikTok
In February, “Mission: Impossible 7” was forced to halt production in Italy days before its planned shoot in Venice, as the country contended with one of the highest coronavirus death rates in Europe. Cut to September. The Venice Film Festival is the first top-tier fest physically taking place, and Tom Cruise is expected back in
Few countries in Latin America, and indeed the world, can boast such positive results from health and safety decisions made in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic. In total, Uruguay has seen only 1,611 confirmed cases, plateauing at 200 active cases for several weeks now. As a result, travel restrictions are close to none.
While the Venice Film Festival is taking on strong symbolic significance as a catalyst to help restart Italy’s film industry, cameras are already rolling on sets across the country just as a fresh crop of completed movies is raring to make a splash by launching from the lagoon. Below is a compendium of standout Italian
Striking an upbeat note as Conecta Fiction hit full stride on its second day of proceedings, ViacomCBS Intl. Studios (VIS) announced on Wednesday that it has returned to production in Latin America, rolling in Mexico on season two of “Backdoor, Humor Where You Don’t Expect It.” A YouTube phenomenon which VIS describes as one of
PAMPLONA — No presentation at Conecta Fiction is as important as its CoPro Pitching Sessions, packed this year with 12 scripted series projects from Latin America and Europe. 2020’s hybrid edition – with Spanish producers and creators pitching in Pamplona, Latin Americans mostly online – is proving no exception. Following, a drill down on the
Indian media conglomerate Zee Entertainment Enterprises has announced a premium VOD service Zee Plex. The platform makes it likely that more top film titles will bypass cinemas and release directly online, at a time when Indian cinemas remain shuttered due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Zee5 platform was one of the first to announce a
British double Olympic gold medalist boxer Nicola Adams is set to make history by being the first contestant to be part of a female same-sex dance team on BBC’s ballroom show “Strictly Come Dancing,” the format known as “Dancing With the Stars” in many international markets. The identify of her dance partner is yet to
SiriusXM and The Tim Bergling Foundation have announced “BPM Presents: Avicii Birthday Tribute for Mental Health Awareness” on SiriusXM’s BPM channel. The special will kick off on Tuesday, September 8 — Avicii’s birthday, and during Suicide Prevention Week. Avicii (real name: Tim Bergling) died in 2018 of a suspected suicide. “BPM Presents: Avicii Birthday Tribute for Mental
The boffo global box office for “Tenet” is proof of the public appetite for Christopher Nolan’s abilities as a filmmaker, but as the film opens in more countries and, gradually, the United States, familiar questions are being raised about the director’s idiosyncratic approach to sound, and its impact on how much — or how little
TrustNordisk has closed a raft of deals on Christoffer Boe’s “A Taste Of Hunger,” the Danish romantic drama starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (“Game Of Thrones”) and Katrine Greis-Rosenthal (“A Fortunate Man”). The movie, now in post-production and set for a Feb. 25 release in Denmark, has inspired a virtual reality experience “A Taste of Hunger –
Beta Nordic Studios, a subsidiary of Jan Mojto’s Munich-based production-sales powerhouse Beta Film, has acquired a 25% stake in Sagafilm, the thriving Icelandic production banner behind the Cineflix-repped series “The Minister” (with Olafur Darri Olafsson, pictured). Sagafilm will now form part of Beta Nordic Studios, an unbrella group launched in 2019, comprising Patrick Nebout’s Swedish
The U.K.’s preeminent film bodies, the BFI and BAFTA, have produced a report that identifies innovations across five key areas to reduce carbon emissions in film production, with a view to zero emissions by 2050. The report, titled “A New Screen Deal: A Route Map to Sustainable Film Production,” identifies the areas of improvement as
Norway is the latest stop for Tom Cruise’s peripatetic “Mission: Impossible” franchise, with the production hiring two ships from Norwegian cruise line Hurtigruten, according to local media reports. Hurtigruten has confirmed to Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang that they have rented out two of their ships, MS Vesterålen and MS Fridtjof Nansen, for a month, beginning
Disney’s Chinese-themed “Mulan” will hit mainland Chinese theaters in just a few days time, and only one week after “Tenet.” According to Chinese exhibitors “Mulan” will open in theaters on Sept. 11. They said that they received notification Wednesday from China Film Corp., though official websites have not yet been updated to reflect the date