+ Audio Up, home to such audio programs as Stephen King’s “Strawberry Spring,” Michael Cohen’s “Mea Culpa” and the just-released Audible exclusive “Maejor Frequency,” is bolstering its executive ranks with the hiring of music supervision trailblazer PJ Bloom and label marketing veteran Christine Kauffman. Bloom (pictured at left) will serve as co-president of music, alongside
Month: February 2022
The Television Academy just added two more heavy hitters to its executive committee. Channing Dungey, the chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group, and George Cheeks, the president and chief executive officer of CBS and chief content officer, news and sports at Paramount Plus, have both been appointed to the group. The news was announced Tuesday
A new but familiar voice is coming to Los Angeles’ Alt 98.7. Starting Feb. 1, KROQ veteran Stryker is joining the station’s Chris Booker for “ALT Afternoons with Booker and Stryker,” airing weekdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Stryker (pictured at right and below) left KROQ in June 2021 and his amicable parting came
The CMT Music Awards, which agreed to move their date and venue when the 2022 Grammy Awards announced their relocation to Las Vegas, have unveiled the new date and venue for their inaugural broadcast on CBS: The show will now broadcast live from Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium on Monday, April 11, from 8 p.m – 11
The race for mayor of Los Angeles has hardly begun, but Karen Bass has already taken a commanding lead among Hollywood donors. Candidates filed their contribution reports on Monday, when showed that Bass has spent much of the last few months winning over the creative community. Donors to her campaign include stars like Jennifer Aniston,
ViacomCBS hopes to revive its “MTV Unplugged” series of acoustic concerts, all with the help of a new energy drink that shares part of its name. PepsiCo’s new Rockstar Unplugged is a different sort of energy beverage, one the company hopes will create good vibes with ingredients like hemp seed oil, B vitamins, spearmint, and
Country artist Mickey Guyton will sing the National Anthem, R&B singer Jhene Aiko will perform “America the Beautiful,” and gospel act Mary Mary will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” accompanied by the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, as part of the pre-game ceremonies for the Super Bowl on Feb. 13, the NFL announced on
Graham Nash and India Arie are the latest music artists to announce they are following in the footsteps of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell by removing their music from Spotify. Nash said in a statement that he “completely agrees” with his Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmate Neil Young after “having heard the COVID disinformation
A24 has released the official trailer for “After Yang,” the sophomore feature of “Columbus” filmmaker Kogonada, releasing in theaters on March 4. Based on the short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang” by Alexander Weinstein, “After Yang” is set in a world where robots are purchased as live-in babysitters for children. Married couple Jake (Colin Farrell)
Canadian media giant Corus Entertainment has made a rare production investment, buying a majority stake in “The Breadwinner” and “Raising Expectations” producer Aircraft Pictures. Founded in 2005 by Canadian producers Anthony Leo and Andrew Rosen, Aircraft was Oscar-nominated for 2017 animated feature “The Breadwinner,” about an 11-year-old girl living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan in
You’re never too old to believe in magic. That’s the guiding philosophy behind writer-director Kate Tsang’s “Marvelous and the Black Hole,” which tells the story of a young delinquent who forms an unlikely friendship with an older magician. FilmRise has given Variety exclusive access to the trailer for the film (above), which opens in select
J Dilla — a.k.a Jay Dee, a.k.a. James Dewitt Yancey — was a pioneering hip-hop producer who never worked on a “hit” record, although his discography includes collaborations with or remixes of songs by greats like D’Angelo, A Tribe Called Quest, the Roots, Common, Busta Rhymes, the Pharcyde and many others. He died in 2006 of
Jessie Buckley, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps have signed on to star in “Hot Milk,” the debut directorial feature from “Colette” screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz. The film is based on Deborah Levy’s best-selling novel about a mother and daughter, Rose and Sofia, who travel to a Spanish clinic in the hoping of finding a cure for
The reign of Sony’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” atop the U.K. and Ireland box office has finally ended with Universal’s animation sequel “Sing 2” claiming the throne. “Sing 2,” directed by Garth Jennings and featuring a stellar voice cast of Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and Taron Egerton among many others, debuted in pole
Hologic has been around for 36 years, but it’s only just getting around to using TV commercials. And its first TV ad will debut on the media’s biggest stage. “Go big or go home,” says Jane Mazur, the company’s vice president of communications. The medical-technology company will take to Super Bowl LVI on NBC with
Eiffel Mattsson, the producer behind Netflix’s upcoming miniseries “The Playlist” (“Spotify Untold”), has joined Nordic Drama Queens, the up-and-coming Scandinavian company backed by Endeavor Content. Nordic Drama Queens was launched in Sept. 2021 by a trio of well-respected female executives (pictured), Josefine Tengblad, Sandra Harms and Line Winther Skyum Funch. The banner focuses on developing
Munich-based world sales company Global Screen has closed further deals in major territories for the family entertainment adventure “School of Magical Animals,” the most successful German film at the local box office last year. Global Screen will also be selling the sequel, it announced Tuesday. Deals have been closed for China (A-Quest Culture Media), Japan
Kirill Serebrennikov, the iconoclastic Russian filmmaker behind Cannes competition titles “Petrov’s Flu” and “Leto,” is reteaming with French banner Charades on his next daring movie, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife.” Serebrennikov, who is under a three-year travel ban, sheds light on the tumultuous relationship between Pyotr Tchaikovsky, the most famous Russian composer of all time, and his wife
The BBC’s Natural History Unit has partnered with transformational charity Moondance Foundation to launch a campaign inspired by David Attenborough series “The Green Planet.” The #OurGreenPlanet campaign will work alongside conservationists and digital influencers to highlight the role that plants and green habitats play in biodiversity in order to inspire behavioural change and ecosystem restoration.
AT&T announced that its board has decided to spin off the telco’s interest in WarnerMedia — rather than structure the media conglom’s divestiture as a split-off. The transaction will spin off 100% of AT&T’s interest in WarnerMedia to AT&T’s existing shareholders in a pro-rata distribution, followed by the merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery to form
U.K. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries opened the virtual Creative Coalition Festival on Tuesday with a rallying speech about the creative industries, but stayed quiet on all matters relating to the future of broadcasters Channel 4 and the BBC. In what appeared to be a pre-recorded segment, Dorries talked up the music sector as examples of
Amcomri Entertainment has come on board as financier and producer, alongside Ireland’s Studio Atlantic, on Victorian-era thriller “The Gates.” The film stars John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli the dwarf in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Amcomri’s 101 Films Intl. will handle global sales. The film is set in London in the 1890s. Serial killer
Actors Ariana DeBose, Harris Dickinson, Lashana Lynch, Millicent Symonds and Kodi Smit-McPhee are the 2022 nominees for the BAFTA EE Rising Star Award. The nominees were announced by 2021 Rising Star winner Bukky Bakray (“You Don’t Know Me”) and presenter Edith Bowman on Tuesday. The five actors have been selected for demonstrating “exceptional talent in
Leonine Studios has secured all German and Austrian rights for Lionsgate’s upcoming film slate, including Keanu Reeves’ “John Wick 4” and its spin-off “Ballerina,” starring Ana de Armas. The deal, which extends Lionsgate’s existing relationship with Leonine, also includes culture-clash comedy “About My Father” from stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco (“The Irishman”) starring opposite Oscar-winner Robert
Beta Film has acquired world sales rights to “Estonia,” an ambitious Finnish series telling the true story of Europe’s deadliest maritime disaster of the 20th century. The eight-part event drama will reteam “Bordertown” creator Miikko Oikkonen (“Bordertown,” “Helsinki Syndrome”) and helmer Juuso Syrjä (Bordertown), who will split directing duties with Måns Månsson (“Snabba Cash”). Finland’s
HBO Max is continuing a steady roll-out in Europe with its second wave of countries. The WarnerMedia-owned streaming service is launching in an additional 15 nations on March 8, this time targeting Central and Eastern Europe. This covers Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia,
If you asked a random group of Israelis and a random group of Palestinians to describe the events that surrounded the founding of Israel in 1948 (chief among them the War of Independence, which lasted close to a year), you’d probably come about as close as you could get to a world political “Rashomon.” The
Meat Loaf songs are filled with parenthetical clauses, so it feels appropriate to use one in the service of explaining what happened with his 1977 “Bat Out of Hell” album on the new Billboard 200 chart: In 2022, following his death, it soared to its peak position to date. (But actually reach the top 10?
“The Battle at Lake Changjin II” lived up to its blockbuster billing with a more than $75 million box office haul by lunchtime on Tuesday, its opening day in mainland Chinese theaters. The film, aka “Watergate Bridge” had grossed RMB87 million ($76.5 million) by 1.30 pm, according to online ticketing agencies Maoyan and Alibaba’s Beacon
France’s Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas kicks off Feb. 1 with a gala screening of Iranian auteur Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s 2001 Cannes winner “Kandahar” and will conclude on Feb. 8 with Kazakhstan filmmaker Yerlan Nurmukhambetov’s “The Horse Thieves. Roads of Time.” The guest of honor at the festival’s 28th edition will be Japanese filmmaker