Month: January 2022

The Walt Disney Co. has named longtime J.P. Morgan media analyst Alexia Quadrani as head of investor relations. In her new role as senior vice president, Quadrani will serve as Disney’s information liaison to the investment community and serve as a key advisor for company’s senior management team. She succeeds Lowell Singer, the Disney veteran

The family of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer who was shot and killed on the set of “Rust” in October, has taken the first step toward filing a wrongful death lawsuit. A Santa Fe, N.M., attorney, Kristina Martinez, filed a petition on Wednesday to be appointed as the personal representative of Hutchins’ estate. Martinez is seeking

“Aquaman” star Jason Momoa is set to join the “Fast” family. Variety has learned that Momoa is in talks to star opposite Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and the “Fast and Furious” crew in the upcoming 10th installment of the high-octane franchise. Directed by Justin Lin, the film is tentatively titled “Fast and Furious 10,” with

When one is asked to picture those who are are most impacted by global warming, the imagination flashes to Inuits on a melting ice floe or Maldives natives threatened by rising tides, not Bolivian shepherds who graze their livestock on the Altiplano, nearly 12,000 feet above sea level. But the residents of these remote highlands

Chilean filmmaker Roberto Doveris’ “Phantom Project” vies for the top Tiger prize at the Rotterdam film festival’s online edition this year and leads a robust Chilean delegation in other sections of the festival. Co-produced by Doveris’ Niña Niño Films and Aura Sinclair’s Agencia Rekia (“La Isla de las Gaviotas”), “Phantom Project” (previously titled “Ghost Project”)

BBC has acquired “Trom,” a crime drama set in the Faroe Islands, which will have its international premiere at the Berlinale Series Market Selects. A Viaplay Original, “Trom” is produced by REinvent Studios with Kyk Pictures and Truenorth. REinvent International Sales represents worldwide rights. “Trom” will premiere on Viaplay on Feb. 13 Based on Jagvan

Coming back to Rotterdam Film Festival where he presented his short “A Bright Summer Day” only two years ago, Chinese director Lei Lei is ready to expand his audience, he tells Variety. Combining audio narration with animation and archive footage, in “Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish” – sold internationally by Asian Shadows and previously known

“Fitness advice, gig economy, binge watching Danish crime series, sustainability, sex when the kids watch cartoons, mobile bank ID, personal development 5:2 diet, anti-aging cream, Adobe updates, climate friendly travel, body activism,” Anders rants quietly to the camera, as he walks from his car to home in the equivalent of white picket fence Sweden at

Italy’s True Colours has taken international sales on “Perfect Strangers” director Paolo Genovese’s new movie, a comedy drama titled “The First Day of My Life.” The Rome-based sales company will be launching pre-sales at the upcoming online EFM market on Genovese’s latest concept pic, which has echoes of Frank Capra’s classic “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Strong-willed audiences who didn’t tap out of the “Ice Age” franchise after the first two films were rewarded with the memorable introduction of swashbuckling one-eyed weasel Buck Wild in “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.” The heroic and humorous Indiana Jones-esque character was a breath of fresh air for the series and its well-established group

Things like drinking games and “RiffTrax” were invented for movies like “In the Forest,” which are very bad but need a little participatory help to become so-bad-they’re-good. This quasi-horror tale of bickering vacationers running afoul of disturbed locals strings together various well-worn clichés with a notable lack of suspense, plausibility and style, while excelling in

Bettina Brokemper of Cologne-based Heimatfilm, the German co-producer of Lars von Trier films including “Melancholia” and “Antichrist,” has boarded “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” the third feature from rising Georgian filmmaker Elene Naveriani, which was selected for the Rotterdam Film Festival’s CineMart co-production market. Based on the novel by Georgian author and feminist activist Tamta Melashili, the

If endless sequels, prequels, reboots, spin-offs, teamups, callbacks and shout-outs have put you off the idea of the “shared cinematic universe,” you haven’t been spending enough time in Karatas, world cinema’s smallest, wildest, weirdest crossover microcosm. The fictional village in rural Kazakhstan, populated exclusively by the clueless, the cowardly, the comic and the corrupt has

At the same moment Disney-critical documentary “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales” was premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, the media giant’s controversy du jour involved the treatment of dwarfs in its upcoming live-action “Snow White” remake. “Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho!” as the lyrics go. “We dig up diamonds by the score / A thousand rubies,

The Japanese theme park, based on the works of the Miyazaki Hayao-led animation firm Studio Ghibli, has set Nov. 1, 2022, as the date for its official opening. Having previously teased ‘Fall 2022’ as the park debut, Studio Ghibli announced the confirmed date in a simple tweet alongside an image of its Totoro character. 「ジブリパーク」の開園日が発表されました。