Month: August 2021

In a competitive situation, Amazon Studios has landed the rights to the pitch “Coyote Blue.” The action film will be written by Derek Kolstad, the screenwriter behind “John Wick” and “Nobody,” with “This Is Us” Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown attached to star. Hanelle M. Culpepper (“Star Trek: Picard”) will make her feature directorial debut.
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Roberta Kaplan, a prominent lawyer who co-founded Time’s Up, has resigned from the organization after she was named in the New York Attorney General’s investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment allegations. Her resignation comes after a group of former Time’s Up staffers and Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund clients published an open letter to
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Serbian director Srdjan Dragojevic, best known for Thessaloniki awarded “Pretty Village, Pretty Flame” and Berlin prize-winner “The Parade,” is at the Locarno Film Festival with dark comedy “Heavens Above,” which is in the International Competition lineup. He speaks to Variety about the film, which has Pluto Film attached as its sales agency, and looks ahead
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Earlier this spring, I had the privilege of moderating a panel with the always joyful cast of one of my favorite recent comedies, “Superstore.” But the timing was unfortunate: Just days beforehand, NBC had announced that the show was ending its run. You would have excused the cast for not exactly being on cloud nine
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Two years after R. Kelly was jailed on multiple sexual assault and misconduct charges, his trial in New York begins with jury selection after months of Covid-related delays. The multi-platinum-selling and Grammy-winning singer and producer, who has been accused of abusing multiple women since the early 1990s, is also awaiting trial in his home state
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Despite the best-laid plans of Hollywood studio and cinema operators, the movie theater business is still struggling to mount a recovery from COVID-19. For a while, the box office looked poised for a comeback, with a string of pandemic-era record opening weekends, including “A Quiet Place Part II” ($48 million), “F9” ($70 million) and “Black
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Kanye West has apparently removed a remix of his song “Nah Nah Nah” featuring DaBaby from streaming services. The remix, which was released last year and also featured 2Chainz, was disappeared from Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal over the weekend and was first reported by HotNewHipHop. DaBaby is entering a third week of negative reaction
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ANIMATION Legendary U.K. animation studio Aardman (“Chicken Run,” “Wallace & Gromit”) is teaming with filmmaker Gurinder Chadha (“Bend It Like Beckham”) on a new feature film project for family audiences. Described by the company as an “exuberant, warm-hearted musical,” the currently untitled Bollywood-inspired feature will follow Bodhi, a young Indian elephant from Kerala who dreams
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Currently shooting “Sisi” for the RTL Group and Beta Film, Germany’s Story House Pictures has added N’Gone Thiam to the core writing team of six-hour suspense drama “Mozart/Mozart,” another powerhouse IP production, currently in development, which it will unveil an Series Mania. “We’re super proud to have a young German writer of African heritage writing
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Expansive Paris-based media group Mediawan has picked up international sales rights to the Jerusalem-set ultra-orthodox drama “The Rabbi,” which participates in this year’s Series Mania Forum at its Co-Pro Pitching Sessions. Abuses of power aren’t unique to any one nationality, gender, sexual orientation or religion. With “The Rabbi,” celebrated filmmaker Eytan Fox proposes a fictionalized
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Described by Spain’s San Sebastian Festival as “one of contemporary cinema’s most talented and versatile actors,” American actor Johnny Depp will receive San Sebastian’s highest honor, its Donostia Award, in a ceremony taking place on Sept. 22 at the festival’s Kursaal Auditorium. Depp is already one of San Sebastian’s favorite sons, having figured as one
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Eminent British director and producer Ridley Scott (“Gladiator,” “Blade Runner,” “Alien”) will receive the inaugural Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker award at the 78th Venice International Film Festival (Sept. 1 – 11). The award is dedicated to a personality who has made a particularly original contribution to the contemporary film industry. The ceremony for Scott
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In an unprecedented move, multi-Oscar nominated American composer and pianist Philip Glass (“The Hours”) has contributed key music to Mexican documentary “Cartas a Distancia” (“Letters from a Distance”) by Juan Carlos Rulfo. Credit goes to Glass’s decades-long friendship and collaboration with the documentary’s lead composer and music producer Leonardo Heiblum, whose notable list of film
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Musicians Ed Sheeran, Annie Lennox, A.R. Rahman and Mick Jagger are joining Steven Spielberg and a galaxy of Bollywood stars in supporting the We For India fundraiser for post-COVID relief relief work in India. Celebrities lending their name to the initiative include music group Sister Sledge ft. Sledgendary, Grammy-winning composer Nile Rodgers, Lebanese singer and
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Leading Latin American animation studio Ánima has launched a dedicated adult-young adult division and announced that later this year it will begin production on “El Santos,” a serialized version of the company’s 2012 comic book-inspired feature “El Santos vs la Tetona Mendoza.” The star-studded, landmark film established Ánima as not only a regional powerhouse of
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SPOILER ALERT: Do not read until you have watched “Rick and Morty” Season 5, Episode 8, “Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort.” After giant incest babies, turkey transformations, and massacres in the name of saving the planet, this week’s “Rick and Morty” finally gets back into the overarching swing of things. (To be fair, the
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Warner Bros. Pictures is considering legal action against “Line of Duty” showrunner Jed Mercurio over his new graphic novel “Sleeper.” Warner Bros., via their subsidiary DC Comics, own the rights to another graphic novel called “Sleeper,” written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Sean Phillips. It was released in 2003 and has been considered for
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