Month: August 2021

Justin Simien has signed an overall deal with Paramount Television Studios. Under the deal, Simien and his Culture Machine banner will develop premium television series for the studio for broadcast, cable, and streaming platforms. Aaliyah Jihad, who joined Culture Machine in 2019, will serve as creative executive. During ‘Dear White People’s’ incredible four season run,
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Video from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s wedding served as a reference for the single-take opening sequence of Leos Carax’s new film “Annette,” reveals cinematographer Caroline Champetier. Bowing Aug. 6, “Annette” centers on Henry (Adam Driver), a standup comedian who falls in love with Ann (Marion Cotillard), a world-renowned opera singer. It’s a rock opera of sorts, with
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Lior Raz is ready to take Hollywood by storm. Over lunch at the Sunset Marquis, the Israeli actor-cum-co-creator of “Fauda,” the high-octane thriller focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is primed for what comes next. Most specifically he’s focused on his recently-launched Faraway Road Productions and nine-part crime drama “Hit and Run,” which bows Aug. 6
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Tiffany Haddish has joined the National Comedy Center’s advisory board of the directors. She fills the seat formerly held by the late Carl Reiner. The announcement coincides with Lucille Ball’s 110th birthday. The center is located in Ball’s hometown of Jamestown, New York. “Comedy is a true art form — its artists deserve to be
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After unveiling it during a performance at Boston’s Fenway Park on Tuesday, Guns N’ Roses have released “Absurd,” their first official new song since their 2008 album “Chinese Democracy.” However, to call the song “new” is a relative term: The song, formerly called “Silkworms,” has been knocking around for two decades and was reportedly written
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Bertelsmann’s Luxembourg-based media giant RTL Group has declared its 2021 half-yearly results and is projecting revenues at its content arm Fremantle to grow to €3 billion ($3.52 billion) by 2025 after a pandemic-affected 2020. The RTL Group has interests in 67 television channels, 10 streaming platforms and 38 radio stations. The group’s content business, Fremantle,
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The list of what surprises Gale Anne Hurd in the entertainment business is a very short one, and the backlash to the legal battle between Scarlett Johansson and the Walt Disney Company certainly isn’t on it. Hurd has been a driving force behind some of the biggest films ever made (“The Terminator,” “Aliens” and “Armageddon”) and
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Highly-anticipated mainland Chinese film “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” which was due to have been released later this month has been postponed to an unspecified date. The move, announced late on Thursday, was caused by a recent resurgence in COVID-19 cases in China. The film is a Korean War epic that is co-directed by Chen
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French director Axelle Ropert makes an unwise shift from sprightly comedy (“Miss and the Doctors,” “The Apple of My Eye”) to faux-naive artificiality with “Petite Solange,” a tiresome divorce drama seen through the eyes of an adolescent girl. Though clearly meant as a refreshing, femme-centric throwback to a style of filmmaking that petered out in
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Most fans have a favorite Beatle, but there’s not much debate about which Beatles solo album is the best: George Harrison’s epic “All Things Must Pass.” Released in November 1970, just seven months after the group’s breakup was belatedly confirmed, it has become synonymous with the concept of suppressed brilliance. Since he first landed a
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Warner Bros. International Television Production Germany (WBITVP Germany) has acquired the exclusive international rights to bestselling Icelandic author Ragnar Jónasson’s “Dark Iceland” series of crime novels and will co-produce with Herbert L. Kloiber’s Night Train Media. The “Dark Iceland” series comprises six novels — “Snowblind,” “Blackout,” “Rupture,” “Whiteout,” “Nightblind” and “Winterkill” — published between 2010
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24 companies, all but five launched last decade, descend on Locarno from Aug. 6, mostly in person, to present their production slates. Every market in international is its own story. So the projects they bring run a huge gamut. Following, a quick drill down on the companies and their banner titles. A second article, published
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Stefan Ruzowitzky, who won an Oscar for “The Counterfeiters,” is at the Locarno Film Festival on Friday for the world premiere in the iconic Piazza Grande venue of his crime thriller “Hinterland.” He speaks to Variety about the film, which Beta Cinema is selling worldwide. “Hinterland” centers on a former Austrian prisoner of war, Peter
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Fast emerging as a go-to company for high-profile Chilean and women director titles, Buenos Aires boutique agency Meikincine has swooped on “My Brothers Dream Awake,” ahead of its world premiere at Switzerland’s Locarno Festival on Saturday. Competing in Cineasti del Presente, a section reserved for emerging filmmakers from around the world, “My Brothers Dream Awake”
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