Month: June 2021

Sean “Diddy” Combs has signed with WME in all areas and will launch “The Excellence Program,” a virtual development program and resume database for aspiring entertainment executives hailing from underrepresented communities. The Excellence Program, created in partnership with Endeavor, will debut on July 12. The six-week program will be free for eligible students looking to
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As the overall director of photography on National Geographic’s “Race to the Center of the Earth,” Joshua Gitersonke was responsible for not only for the visual storytelling of the adventure race competition series, but also maintaining consistency across four crews as each team started in a different corner of the world. Previous experience on “The
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“Legendary,” the HBO Max Original ballroom competition series emceed by veteran voguer and “Pose” actor Dashaun Wesley, will sashay into Season 3 at the WarnerMedia streaming platform. The reality TV competition show, which has garnered a 91% certified fresh critics score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, will return along with celebrity judges Leiomy Maldonado (“Pose”),
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Women in Animation (WiA) has released a featurette during Annecy Film Festival highlighting the valuable work of its mentorship program. The 14-minute video sees testimonies from both mentors – including animation writer Aydrea Walden, Alice Goldstone of Sony Pictures Animation and Pixar Animation’s Becki Tower – and mentees, many of whom have built portfolios and
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“iCarly,” a late-2000s gem on Nickelodeon that was on the cutting edge of YouTube video culture, has returned with a new series on Paramount Plus, featuring familiar goofy, slapstick humor. But it’s added a more adult edge to target our modern influencer-obsessed way of life. Some 14 years after “iCarly” first premiered, web-show host Carly Shay (Miranda Cosgrove)
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Last month, Robert and Michelle King, creators of the supernatural thriller “Evil,” were anticipating that CBS would announce at its upfront  that the show’s COVID-19-delayed second season would be on the network’s fall schedule. Then there was a sudden change in plans: Instead, “Evil” would move to Paramount Plus, ViacomCBS’ rebooted streaming service. David Stapf,
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Add “podcast host” to Elizabeth Banks’ multihyphenate résumé. Banks has inked a multi-project development and first-look deal with Audible. The actor-producer-writer-director has set up two exclusive podcast projects with Audible under the pact: “My Body, My Podcast,” hosted by Banks, above sex, motherhood and more; and “Fugly,” a scripted ensemble comedy. The six-episode “My Body,
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Berlin-based sales agency M-Appeal has picked up Hungarian drama “Wild Roots,” which will world premiere at an A-grade film festival later this year, and will have a market screening at the Pre-Cannes Screenings next week. “Wild Roots,” a drama about a lonely, ex-con bouncer who is reunited with his wild child daughter, won the Works-in-Progress
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Netflix and Aardman Animations, the U.K.’s best-known stop-motion studio, have released a new image and teaser from their upcoming musical holiday special “Robin Robin” during a panel at Annecy Animation Festival. The charming half-hour short, which features the voices of Gillian Anderson and Richard E. Grant, tells the story of a baby robin (called Robin)
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Films Boutique (“Charlatan,” “Dear Comrades!”) has boarded international sales rights to “Mi Iubita, Mon Amour,” the feature debut of actor-turned-filmmaker Noémie Merlant. The movie will world premiere in the Special Screenings section at Cannes. Merlant, who gained critical acclaim with her performance in Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” will also be in
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As previously reported by Variety, Imran Majid and Justin Eshak officially have been appointed Co-CEOs of Universal Music Group’s legendary Island Records label, effective Jan. 1, 2022. Eshak and Majid will join Island from Columbia Records, where they were previously co-heads of A&R. The appointment, effective January 1, 2022, marks a return to UMG for Majid
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James Cameron’s movies have banked more than $6 billion at the box office worldwide. Now, the director behind blockbusters including “Avatar,” “Titanic” and “The Terminator” will teach his first-ever internet class on filmmaking — available on e-learning site MasterClass as part of the site’s $180 annual membership starting today. In his class, Cameron promises to
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The Beatles’ forthcoming film “Get Back” — a Peter Jackson-directed documentary culled from the footage from the 1970 “Let It Be” film — will premiere as a Disney+ original documentary series over the Thanksgiving holidays. Because of the wealth of tremendous footage Jackson has reviewed, which he has spent the past three years restoring and
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“Evolver-Prologue,” a music-filled immersive film executive produced by Edward R. Pressman (“The Crow”) and Oscar-nominated Terrence Malick (“The Tree of Life”), is set to be partly unveiled at Cannes by France’s Orange. The first nine minutes of “Evolver – Prologue” will be teased on July 8 during a private screening hosted by Orange at their
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Universal Music France and Mediawan’s Method Animation (“The Little Prince,” “Miraculous”) are joining forces on “Jam,” a animated music anthology which will showcase the greatest talents in both music and animation. Co-developed with Universal Music France’s original contents department, the 15-part series will be directed by Michael Gracey, the revered helmer of “The Greatest Showman,”
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With the horrible specter of COVID still hanging over the world, the folks at the Frontières co-production market were a little concerned that their genre submissions would be heavily virus-centric. However, they needn’t have worried. The lineup for the 2021 market, organized by the Fantasia International Film Festival in collaboration with Marché du Film –
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Cannes Film Festival jury president Spike Lee is the star of the event’s 2021 poster. Organizers released the image for the festival’s 74th edition on Thursday, listing the various reasons as to why the acclaimed director — whose 2020 appointment as jury president carried over to 2021 — was chosen as the face of the
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It’s official: Denis Villeneuve’s hotly anticipated “Dune” reboot will world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September. As first anticipated by Variety, the fest has announced that the big budget sci-fi epic toplining Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya will world premiere in Venice out-of-competition on September 3. The film is adapted from Frank Herbert’s seminal science
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Disney EMEA hosted its annual Studio Focus at this year’s Annecy Animation Festival, lamentably pre-recorded for the second edition in a row, where the company announced a pair of new African series, the sci-fi anthology series “Kizazi Moto: Generation of Fire” led by “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” co-director Peter Ramsey, and a musical kids show
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Bloomberg Media has tapped British broadcaster and journalist Emma Barnett for a new weekly interview show on their social news network Bloomberg Quicktake. Barnett is currently the host of BBC Radio 4 show “Woman’s Hour” and presents the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme “Newsnight”. She will continue to work on both shows in addition to
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In the past year, there’s been countless stories and documentaries made from inside retirement homes. These usually aim to inform the public on how COVID-19 impacts elder people’s mental wellbeing as much as their physical health, touching upon themes of isolation and loneliness. The context of a global pandemic has indeed pushed many people –
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Oscar-nominated Danish director Lone Scherfig (“An Education”) will be making her return to television with “The Shift,” an emotional series set in a contemporary maternity ward headlined by Danish star Sofie Gråbøl (“The Killing,” “The Undoing”). The prestige eight-part series starts shooting this week, commissioned by Danish commercial channel TV2 and TV2 Play, and is
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Disney has tapped top toon talents from across the African continent for “Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire,” a Disney Plus Original anthology of animated films set to premiere on the Mouse House’s streaming platform in late 2022. Inspired by the continent’s diverse histories and cultures, the 10-part anthology brings together a slate of rising animation talents
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