Month: May 2022

Leading arthouse sales company The Match Factory has acquired distribution rights to murdered Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravičius’ documentary “Mariupolis 2,” ahead of the film’s premiere next week at the Cannes Film Festival as a Special Screening. Kvedaravičius was captured and murdered by the Russian army in Mariupol, Ukraine in early April. The film was co-directed
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Independent Entertainment will launch international sales at the Cannes Film Market on Jerrod Carmichael’s Sundance winner “On the Count of Three.” The film is the directorial debut of comedian, actor and filmmaker Carmichael and he also stars alongside Christopher Abbott (“Possessor”), Tiffany Haddish (“The Card Counter”), JB Smoove (“Spider-Man: No Way Home”) and Henry Winkler
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Billionaire Elon Musk’s plans to buy social media platform Twitter are on hold for now, he said on Friday. “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk posted on Twitter. Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts
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Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has closed sales on Berlin Panorama title “Concerned Citizen” – Idan Haguel’s satirical feature on privilege and prejudice set in Tel Aviv – for several additional territories. Distribution in the U.K. and Ireland will be handled by Peccadillo Pictures; Arti Film will be distributing the film in Benelux, with a nationwide
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Miguel Bernardeau, Guzmán in Netflix smash hit “Elite,” and Mexico’s Renata Notni will head the cast of “Zorro,” a reboot series from Los Angeles-based Secuoya Studios and John Gertz that will stream in exclusivity on Amazon’s Prime Video in the U.S., Latin America and Spain.  The flagship series at Secuoya Studios, “Zorro,” a modern take
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Spare parts of high school comedies from “Peggy Sue Got Married” to “Mean Girls” and beyond have been torn asunder, then sewn back together to create “Senior Year.” In other words, this vehicle for producer-star Rebel Wilson isn’t organic even as a genre homage; its Frankensteinian assemblage always feels more imitative than inspired. Nonetheless, if
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In the ’70s and early ’80s, the era that defined him, Stephen King came up with a whole lot of horror-story metaphors for anger. There was Carrie, the angry telekinetic nerd-turned-pranked-prom-demon, and Christine the angry car, and Cujo the angry dog, and the novel that was the greatest of King’s rage mythologies — “The Shining,”
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Kendrick Lamar’s fifth solo album, “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers,” finally arrived on Thursday night — his first full-length in five years. The 18-track album includes guest appearances from Summer Walker, Ghostface Killah, Kodak Black, Sampha, Baby Keem, Beth Gibbons of Portishead and a deeply emotional performance from Taylour Paige on the harrowing “We
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Buckle up, because Season 5 of “Carpool Karaoke: The Series” is set to premiere on May 27 and the lineup includes some of this year’s biggest stars, Variety can reveal exclusively. The new season of the Emmy-winning Apple TV+ show will feature the groupings of “Shang-Chi” star Simu Liu and “The Matrix Resurrections” actor Jessica
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Norm Macdonald may now be in the running for a posthumous Emmy. Netflix pulled a May surprise on Thursday, revealing that a final stand-up special from the legendary comedian, who died in September, will launch on May 30. The streamer confirmed that the special will be submitted for consideration, presumably in the outstanding variety special (pre-recorded)
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Leading Japanese indie studio Gaga Corporation is launching suspense thriller “#Manhole” next week at Cannes. Being directed by Kumakiri Kazuyoshi (“My Man,” “Sketches of Kaitan City”), from a screenplay by Okada Michitaka (“Masquerade Hotel”), the film depicts a promising young man, with everything going for him, who falls to the bottom of a deep manhole
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Florence Welch and the Machine appeared on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” on Wednesday night to promote the band’s new album “Dance Fever.” But before the singer performed her danceable new single “My Love, Welch joined Jimmy Buffet for a surprise duet of his 1977 classic, “Margaritaville.” Fallon, of course, couldn’t help but jump
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Dominique Fishback holds her own opposite Samuel L. Jackson in Apple TV+’s “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” and she says that was inspired by the strength of the character. “I wasn’t really nervous because Robyn is not nervous of Ptolemy,” she tells Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast. “She’s not intimidated by him. So therefore, I’m
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Rafael Kapelinski’s drama “Budapest Diaries” wrapped shooting in Budapest this week. The Polish-Hungarian coproduction is set in 1981, when the political and economical crisis worsened in Poland, and many people travelled to Hungary where the repression was less severe, according to Film New Europe. Kapelinski is a London-based writer-director, a graduate of the U.K.’s National
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