Month: May 2022

Ryan Gosling is tipped to star in “The Fall Guy,” a feature film adaptation of the iconic 1980s TV series, that will shoot in Sydney, Australia. The original series, which ran 1981-1986, was created by Glen A. Larson and starred Lee Majors as a Hollywood stunt man. To make ends meet, he has a side

Bleecker Street has bought the U.S. rights for writer-director Frances O’Connor’s directorial debut, “Emily,” which tells the story of author Emily Brontë’s real-life romance in the lead up to her seminal novel, “Wuthering Heights.” Bleecker Street is planning a 2023 theatrical release Stateside, while Warner Bros. will open the film wide in U.K. cinemas. Promotional

Amber Heard claims that Warner Bros. “didn’t want to include me” in the upcoming “Aquaman” sequel due to the fallout of her divorce from Johnny Depp. The actor said during her defamation trial against Depp that she was “actively scheduling timing for filming” the second “Aquaman” movie until Depp’s team called her a liar regarding

With “Final Cut,” Oscar-winning filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius has to convince audiences that he’s a very bad director. At least for the first 20 minutes or so of the movie within a movie. You see, “Final Cut,” a remake of the 2017 Japanese cult favorite, “One Cut of the Dead,” initially unspools as a low-budget zombie

Barcelona-based Film Factory Entertainment has acquired international sales rights to horror-thriller “El Cuco” (“The Cuckoo’s Curse”), the latest film by “The Photographer of Mauthausen” and “Two” producer-director Mar Targarona, set up at top Spanish genre auteur house Rodar y Rodar. Vicente Canales’ Film Factory, one of the biggest sales forces in the Spanish-speaking world, is

John Woo’s “Silent Night” recently wrapped principal photography in Mexico City. The film is the first U.S. action movie directed by the iconic helmer Woo in more than a decade. In “Silent Night,” Godlock (played by Joel Kinnaman) is a father on a mission to avenge his young son who was tragically caught in the crossfire

Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage,” which premieres in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, has debuted its first clip exclusively with Variety (below). MK2 Films is handling international sales. Ad Vitam will distribute the film in France. “Corsage” stars Vicky Krieps, who broke out in the Oscar nominated “Phantom Thread.” Last year, she

As the global film industry emerges from the worst of the pandemic — and wide-ranging consolidation in the U.S. puts studio and streaming strategies in disarray — representatives for CAA, UTA and WME Independent say international distributors are more important than ever to their businesses. That claim will be put to the test at this

U.K.-based sales firm 101 Films Intl., part of Amcomri Entertainment, has secured worldwide distribution rights to apocalyptic thriller “Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist,” the recently completed sequel to 2014’s “Left Behind,” which featured Nicolas Cage. The movie is available for the first time at the Cannes Film Market this week. In “Left Behind: Rise

“The Boy Who Belonged to the Sea,” the multiple award-winning 2001 novel by Canadian author Denis Theriault, has been acquired for film adaptation by fledgeling U.K. outfit the White Lotus Picture Company. Set on the rugged north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, the novel tells the story of two lonely boys united

Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov and producer Denis Ivanov are teaming up again after their last collaboration, the ‘90s-set crime drama “Rhino,” premiered in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons sidebar last year. The new feature, “Shining World,” centers on a mother and her young son living in a small American town in the 1960s. Described by

Tom Hanks, Jodie Comer, Olivia Colman, David Cronenberg and Richard Linklater head projects at a Cannes 2022 pre-sales market that looks like the most buoyant in recent years, while also ushering in what is being hailed as a new era in global rights licensing. “We’re very optimistic, expecting a pretty busy market with a lot

WestEnd Films has closed a series of new deals on “Out of the Blue,” an upcoming thriller that brings together Neil LaBute and Diane Kruger. Rights for the film, which LaBute writes and directs, have gone to Australia and New Zealand (Kismet Movies), France (Metropolitan Filmexport), Germany (Koch Films), Spain (A Contracorriente Films), Italy (Eagle

British director Michael Winterbottom will start shooting his long-gestating “Promised Land,” a thriller set during the leadup to the 1948 partition of Palestine and the subsequent creation of the state of Israel, this fall in Italy. U.K. actors Douglas Booth (“The Dirt,” “That Dirty Black Bag”) and Harry Melling (“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”) and

Filmax has swooped in on one of Spain’s most awaited fiction feature debuts of 2022, Alex Lora’s “Unicorns” (“Unicornios”). Pic is produced by Inicia Films’ Valerie Delpierre, producer of director Carla Simon’s debut, “Summer 1993.” Due to be completed by the fall, “Unicorns” is made with Valencia’s Jaibo, the shingle behind Chema García’s Locarno hit

As the war in Ukraine approaches a grim, three-month mile marker, and the Russian military continues its relentless onslaught, the harsh crackdown on domestic opposition by the Putin regime has left a beleaguered film industry pondering its next steps. Many Russian filmmakers fear they’ll have no choice but to toe the party line, or to

Malaysia is set to increase the value of its location-based incentives from the current 30% to 35%, the government is expected to announce this week in Cannes. The Film in Malaysia Incentive (FIMI) was launched in 2013, around the time that the Iskandar Malaysia studios were opened in the south of the country, and is