Month: July 2021

Tragic singer Amy Winehouse, who died 10 years ago this month, will be honored in a new MTV International documentary, “Amy Winehouse & Me: Dionne’s Story,” the network announced today. Told through the eyes of Winehouse’s goddaughter Dionne Bromfield, who is also a singer, the doc will feature never-before-seen archival footage of Bromfield with Winehouse,
0 Comments
When Chris Nee, the creator of the Disney hit “Doc McStuffins” last spoke to Variety earlier this year, she raved about the “fairy-tale” vision of artistic freedom that Netflix had offered her under an overall deal. “I was looking at the Shonda Rhimeses and the Ryan Murphys and wondering why somebody couldn’t take that active
0 Comments
Starz has promoted Superna Kalle to president, international networks. The executive previously served as executive vice president, international digital networks at Starz when she joined in 2018 to lead the international expansion of streamer Starzplay. Starzplay is now available in 58 countries globally. Reporting directly to Starz president and CEO Jeffrey Hirsch, Kalle oversees the
0 Comments
Giant Leap Accelerator has officially launched its first 12-week developmental program that will focus on cultivating new Asian/Pacific American (APA) stories, Variety has exclusively learned. Over the course of the 12-week program, eight emerging AAPI writers will be mentored by seven television and film writing veterans. Each writer will meet with their dedicated mentor once a
0 Comments
Starlings Entertainment and StoryFirst have partnered for a drama and family entertainment development fund, with Starlings also taking a financial stake in StoryFirst. The joint venture will enable the companies to mutual select drama, family entertainment and possibly even non-scripted projects currently in development to move forward. As part of the deal, which was announced
0 Comments
Zack Snyder would like to formally introduce the Army of Thieves. The director shared first-look photos from the upcoming comedic heist film, a prequel to Snyder’s 2020 zombie thriller “Army of the Dead.” In the new film stills, Matthias Schweighöfer, returning as German safecracker Ludwig Dieter, appears alongside a squad of would-be bandits, a mismatched
0 Comments
*NSYNC’s Joey Fatone, Backstreet Boys members AJ McLean and Nick Carter and Boyz II Men’s Wanya Morris are teaming up for a nostalgic four-night engagement at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas in August. The musicians will unite in the intimate Sands Showroom for “The After Party,” an interactive show which will see the crooners perform
0 Comments
Fangoria, the genre film magazine, is getting into the moviemaking business. Under the newly launched production shingle Fangoria Studios, the company is developing a feature-length film titled “Sitora.” Inspired by a lost Malay 1964 horror film “Sitora Harimau Jadian,” the upcoming creature feature “Sitora” centers on a tyrannical shaman who puffs up the threat of
0 Comments
A trio of hot young stars have been set for director Roxanne Benjamin’s “Fall Into Darkness,” an English-language reboot of the 2014 Spanish thriller “La Cueva.” “Servant” star Nell Tiger Free, “Gossip Girl” reboot breakout Thomas Doherty and “One Upon a Time in Hollywood” actor Lorenza Izzo have joined the cast. This re-imagined version was
0 Comments
Leading arthouse sales company The Match Factory has pre-sold Austrian director and screenwriter Sebastian Meise’s second feature “Great Freedom,” which plays in Un Certain Regard at Cannes on Thursday, to Paname Distribution in France. The Match Factory has debuted the teaser and the poster for the film, which was created by Vasilis Marmatakis, the designer
0 Comments
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired “The Son,” Florian Zeller’s follow up to his Oscar-winning feature debut “The Father,” which will star Vanessa Kirby, Laura Dern and Hugh Jackman, Variety has learned. SPC, which previously worked with Zeller on “The Father,” acquired rights for North America and a string of international territories in Asia and Eastern
0 Comments
Sundance title “Captains of Zaatari” has sold into Utopia for the U.S., where it will get a theatrical release this fall. London-based sales agent Dogwoof secured the movie with Robert Schwartzman and Cole Harper’s fledgling distributor Utopia, which is planning a day-and-date release in cinemas on Nov. 19 in New York and Los Angeles, alongside
0 Comments
The Mediapro Studio is teaming with “The Department of Time” and “Isabel” creator Javier Olivares to develop a new bio-series about former Spanish King Juan Carlos I in the style of Netflix’s “The Crown,” according to a report by Spanish paper El País and confirmed to Variety by The Mediapro Studio. No channel or platform
0 Comments
On-screen texts bookending “Dachra” claim this thriller is “inspired by true events,” and that “in North Africa hundreds of children are victims of acts of witchcraft.” Nonetheless, one might be forgiven for assuming this purported first-ever Tunisian foray into horror cinema is drawn less from local crimes or superstitions than from the familiar genre tropes
0 Comments
Dilip Kumar, one of the biggest stars of Indian cinema, died in Mumbai on Wednesday after being hospitalized for breathlessness. He was 98. The star had been ailing for several months and was in and out of hospital prior to his death. Born Mohammed Yusuf Khan in Peshawar, British India, in 1922, Kumar debuted in
0 Comments
Italian genre outfit Minerva Pictures has teamed with New Zealand’s Black Mandala Films to co-produce and launch international pre-sales at Cannes on horror/slasher “What the Waters Left Behind: Scars,” to be co-directed by Argentine helmers Nicolas Onetti and Matías Salinas (“Omen”).  Shooting is set to start in Argentina in September. Pic is a sequel to
0 Comments