Month: February 2021

Eve is set to play a leading role in the ABC drama pilot “Queens,” Variety has learned. The pilot is about four estranged and out-of-touch women in their 40s who reunite for a chance to recapture their fame and regain the swagger they had as the Nasty Bitches – their ’90s group that made them legends
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Los Angeles-based film and TV production house Wayfarer Studios has made two key hires in scripted and unscripted content. Founded by actor and producer Justin Baldoni and entrepreneur Steve Sarowitz in 2019, the company has brought on Tracy Ryerson as senior vice president of scripted development and production and Endyia Kinney-Sterns as senior vice president
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System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian is no stranger to backlash, death threats, making enemies with various governments and even being labeled a spy on his quest for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and his work to bring true democracy to his homeland. The documentary “Truth To Power” lifts the veil on Tankian’s
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Film history is filled with notable directors who made a Western after establishing themselves in other genres. That list includes Robert Altman (“McCabe and Mrs. Miller”), Charlie Chaplin (“The Gold Rush”), Ethan and Joel Coen (“True Grit”), John Huston (“The Unforgiven” 1960), Louis Malle (“Viva Maria”), Alejandro G. Inarritu (“The Revenant”), Sydney Pollack (“Jeremiah Johnson”)
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Walt Disney-owned 20th Century Studios has added four new creative executives to its roster under production president Steve Asbell. Asbell, who succeeded Emma Watts in the top job last March, welcomes a slew of pedigreed creatives to his team including Sarah Shepard, Brian Dukes, Rashonda Joplin and Catherine Hughes. “They are all stellar executives, and
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To capture the essence of Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton, “Judas and the Black Messiah” director Shaka King couldn’t just read a few history books. He had to put boots on the ground. King traveled to Chicago to speak with the real-life players from the Illinois chapter of the party and to find out what
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The gifted and mercurial Lee Daniels, director of “Precious,” is one of the only filmmakers I can think of who would dare to drop a badass-diva moment of Billie Holiday violently slapping her spouse into the middle of an otherwise giddy celebrity-singer-on-tour montage. In Daniels’ “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” Billie, played with glamorous,
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Rachel McAdams and Abby Ryder Fortson have been cast in “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” an adaptation of Judy Blume’s beloved coming-of-age book. Fortson will play Margaret Simon, a sixth-grade girl who is going through puberty and searches the universe for any answers she can find. McAdams is portraying Margaret’s mother, Barbara. The
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Charlize Theron and Kerry Washington have joined the cast of Paul Feig’s upcoming Netflix movie, “The School for Good and Evil.” Based on the young adult fantasy novel by Soman Chainani, the story follows best friends Sophie and Agatha as they are kidnapped to the School for Good and Evil. After their fortunes are reversed, their
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It’s hard to imagine now, but “Queer As Folk” wasn’t immediately embraced in all corners of the LGBT community. “I remember when we went to film on Canal Street — it’s the gay quarter in Manchester — and there were bar owners who objected to the title,” “Queer” creator Russell T Davies tells me from
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This week marks the return of one of Spain’s most popular global TV hits with Amazon Prime Video, The Mediapro Studio and Atresmedia Studios’ reboot of “El Internado: Laguna Negra” as “El Internado: Las Cumbres.” Shot in the historic Monastery of Iratxe in Navarre, the series follows a group of troubled students living and learning
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WarnerMedia has appointed Miranda Higham as senior VP and head of communications for international. Higham will serve as the lead communications executive for the company’s global presence outside of the U.S. She will report into Christy Haubegger, executive vice president, communications and chief inclusion officer. She will lead both internal and external corporate communications for
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Post-apocalyptic adventure series “Tribes of Europa,” which bows Friday on Netflix, is the latest sci-fi/fantasy show out of Germany, where the genre is heating up. Created by Philip Koch and produced by Wiedemann & Berg Television, the company behind Netflix hit “Dark,” “Tribes of Europa” follows three siblings as they struggle to survive in a
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The abuse allegations against Marilyn Manson have taken a new turn with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department stepping into the case. “The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Special Victims Bureau is investigating allegation(s) of domestic violence involving Mr. Brian Warner also known as ‘Marilyn Manson,’ who works in the music industry,” the Department said
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“The Metamorphosis of Birds,” which premiered in the Encounters sidebar of the Berlin Film Festival and won the FIPRESCI prize from the international critics’ jury, has been sold in multiple major territories, including the U.S., the U.K., China, Italy and Spain. Portuguese director Catarina Vasconcelos’ “beautifully pensive, lyrical debut feature,” in the words of the
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Leading South Korean film sales firm Finecut has boarded “Toxic,” a fact-based drama-thriller about a mysterious outbreak that killed thousands. The firm, which is also representing Hong Sang-soo’s Berlin competition title “Introduction,” will unveil the new title to buyers at next month’s European Film Market. The film is the dramatization of events between 1994 and
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Films Boutique has acquired Marc Bauder’s cinematic documentary “Who We Were,” which is set to world premiere in the “Berlinale Special” section of the Berlin Film Festival. “Who We Were” observes the current state of the world and postulates about the future through intense encounters with six intellectuals and scientists, including the astronaut Alexander Gerst,
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Coronavirus has again cast its long shadow over the annual CineEurope exhibitor convention, and the event is now postponed to October. The pandemic forced the 2020 confab, normally held physically in Barcelona, to move online. There were plans to return to a physical event this year, but the glacial pace of vaccinations in Europe have
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Though there haven’t been a lot of movies about it, the tentacles of Italy-based organized crime duly reach above Scorsese territory to the even-more-frequently-Frozen North. If not for the French dialogue, however, you wouldn’t necessarily know “Mafia Inc” were taking place in Quebec, or even Canada, so familiar and insular is the brutal syndicate business
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