Taylor Swift will earn more than $100 million from Spotify in 2023, according to calculations based on her leading number of streams for the year posted by the streaming giant in its year-end “Wrapped” tally. Based on the 26.1 billion streams she has accumulated since the beginning of the year, and using an average of
Month: December 2023
In Todd Haynes’ Netflix drama “May December,” the subject of a decades-old tabloid sex scandal is visited by a famous actress set to portray her in a film. Julianne Moore plays Gracie Atherton-Yoo, who was 36 years old when she was caught having sex with Joe, a 13-year-old boy who worked with her at a
Following in the footsteps of U.S. guilds, French TV crew members are poised to go on strike amid a battle with producers over minimum wages. Labor union CGT-SPIAC has sought a 20% increase on basic salaries for crew members working in production and post-production of TV shows, documentaries and unscripted content in France. But after
An Illinois appeals court has upheld the conviction of Jussie Smollett, the former “Empire” star who orchestrated a hate crime against himself nearly five years ago. Smollett was convicted in December 2021 on five felony charges of disorderly conduct and was later sentenced to 150 days in the Cook County jail. The hoax — in
Julianna Margulies has apologized for offensive comments she made about Black and LGBTQ supporters of Palestine, including that Black people have “been brainwashed to hate Jews.” “I am horrified by the fact that statements I made on a recent podcast offended the Black and LGBTQIA+ communities, communities I truly love and respect,” she said in
The year is coming to end, but not without some major original films debuting on Netflix, Prime Video and more top streaming platforms. Whether it’s potential new holiday classics (Prime Video is launching the Eddie Murphy holiday comedy “Candy Cane Lane” this month) or potential new franchises (Zack Snyder returns to Netflix for the start
Prime Video Sports has greenlit a feature-length documentary about NFL star wide receiver DeSean Jackson, the former Philadelphia Eagles great and three-time Pro Bowler who announced his retirement from the league earlier this week. The untitled documentary is based around footage that DeSean Jackson’s brother, Byron Jackson, began filming 30 years ago. “It started as
Check out the official trailer for Godzilla Minus One directed by Takashi Yamazaki! ► Buy Tickets on Fandango: https://www.fandango.com/godzilla-minus-one-2023-233115/movie-overview?cmp=Trailers_YouTube_Desc Subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to be notified of all the hottest trailers: http://bit.ly/2CNniBy US Release Date: December 1, 2023 Director: Takashi Yamazaki Synopsis: Set in a post-war Japan, Godzilla Minus One
Since founding Nonstop Management at her kitchen table in 2017, Jaime Zeluck Hindlin’s boutique management company for songwriters and producers has become a stealthy power player in the music business. Getting the right people in a room is Hindlin’s specialty, but her range of clients contributing to three songs from the Hitmakers 2023 Top 25
The third edition of the Red Sea Film Festival, taking place in Jeddah between Nov. 30 – Dec. 9, will be the culmination of a highly successful funding cycle for the Red Sea Film Foundation. Created in 2019 following the lifting of Saudi Arabia’s 30-year cinema ban, the foundation aims to support the local and
“Reverence,” an upcoming thriller from writer-director Kyle Kauwika Harris (“Out of Exile”), has started production in Oklahoma. The film began principal photography this week, with a logline reading: “‘Reverence’ is a dark and moody missing person’s thriller about a traumatized father coming to terms with his violent military past, while searching for his missing daughter
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then John Woo‘s wordless action movie “Silent Night” is worth at least a thousand gunshots. Woo returns to Hollywood for the first time since 2003 to quietly deliver “Silent Night,” a blood-soaked, Christmas-themed revenge tale with zero spoken dialogue. It employs the same style of fast-paced, R-rated
What is a TV “comedy” in 2023? In an era of blurred genres, it’s not so cut and dry anymore. Opening Variety’s “A Night in the Writer’s Room,” Variety’s Michael Schneider asked the nine comedy writers on stage to raise their hand if their show features a death. Most did. He followed up by asking,
Another season of “The Upshaws” is coming to Netflix, Variety has confirmed. Production on the 10-episode season is scheduled to start in 2024. As with Season 2 (which was split into two parts consisting of eight and six episodes, respectively), Season 3 was also split into two parts with the first eight episodes arriving on
Victoria Monét has long been considered an underdog. As far back as 2009, when she first chased her dreams of becoming a musician from Sacramento to Los Angeles, she’s spent much of her time out of the spotlight and confined to album liner notes as a songwriter, lending her pen to Ariana Grande and Chloe
Few artists ever have had a year on the scale of Morgan Wallen’s 2023. The crossover country star broke multiple streaming and radio records — such as having his smash “Last Night” become the longest-running solo No. 1 in Billboard Hot 100 history, with 16 weeks atop the chart — all while picking up the
In its never-ending effort to try to reach younger news consumers, CNN has launched CNN Shorts — a new vertical video player on its website designed for smartphones. CNN already produces vertical-video news briefs for platforms including TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. Now it sees a growing opportunity for CNN Shorts on its owned-and-operated
The intensity of the screams rumbling within the imposing Red Sea Mall could mean only one thing: there is a Bollywood star in Jeddah. The star in question is Ranveer Singh, one of the honorees at this year’s Red Sea Film Festival. The star accepted his award from actor Sharon Stone on the stage of
With Lionsgate’s “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” looking to continue its reign at the top spot of the box office, it’s time to consider the most sonorous secret to its success: its original, bluegrass-tinted song selection, including a theme written and produced by Dave Cobb (with lyrics from “Hunger Games” author
Season 2 of “The Last of Us” will commence on Feb. 12. Showrunner Craig Mazin disclosed the production start date during A Night in the Writers’ Room, a panel featuring writers from popular drama series moderated by Variety‘s senior TV features editor Emily Longeretta. The other panelists included Charlotte Stoudt of “The Morning Show”; Nathan
HGTV designer Hilary Farr is leaving “Love It or List It” after 258 episodes on the home makeover/real estate series. She was featured on the show for 17 seasons alongside real estate agent David Visentin, with whom she had a friendly rivalry. On the show, Farr and Visentin competed to win over homeowners with their
Country music star Walker Hayes is getting the the small screen treatment. The musician, who earned the Sync of the Year award from Variety‘s 2021 Hitmakers event for his song “Fancy Like,” will be the inspiration behind a scripted drama in development from Untitled Entertainment. Untitled has acquired the life rights of Hayes, who will also
For the first time in its history, the Red Sea Film Festival opened with an Arab film, the world premiere of Yasir Al-Yasiri’s fantasy epic “HWJN.” Speaking with Variety the morning after the film’s glitzy world premiere at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Jeddah, Yasiri described the premiere as a “surreal” experience. “When I went up
It’s probably not unprecedented but certainly rare for an artist to have two hits songs in one year as drastically opposite as SZA’s in 2023: one about killing an ex-lover, another about being so in love she’d kill for them. But such is the duality of SZA: “Kill Bill” and “Snooze,” No. 2 and No.
Several months after the Hollywood Critics Association rebranded itself as the Hollywood Creative Alliance, the org has also given its signature awards shows a new name. The HCA announced Friday that its various HCA awards will now be known as ‘The Astra Awards.’ That means the HCA Film Awards, HCA TV Awards and HCA Creative Arts Awards
Blac Chyna was among the highest earners on OnlyFans, reportedly making millions per month on the adult-content-friendly creator subscription platform. But the model, rapper, TV personality and influencer, whose real name is Angela White, quit OnlyFans earlier this year — saying at the time that it was a “dead end” for her and that she
It’s remarkable enough that Republic Records has been Hitmakers label of the year four out of seven times — but they exceeded themselves in 2023 with 12 of the top 25 songs on our chart. Yes, country superstar Morgan Wallen held six of those slots, including No. 1 (with “Last Night”), but there are also two
Linda Rene once proved instrumental in weaving blue-chip advertisers like Anheuser-Busch and General Motors into a fledgling CBS reality competition called “Survivor.” Two decades later, she is planning to get off the island. Rene, an advertising-sales veteran who has worked at CBS for more than four decades, helped expand an industry practice known as product
Chelsea Handler is set to return as the host of this year’s Critics Choice Awards, which will air live on the CW on Jan. 14. This marks Handler’s second consecutive year hosting the ceremony, which celebrates the best in film and television. TV nominations are set to be announced on Dec. 5, while the film
Marking the end of its reign, Netflix has released the trailer for Part 2 of the sixth and final season of “The Crown,” premiering on Dec. 14. The series’ final six episodes will focus on Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton) and Prince Charles (Dominic West), in addition to the now-older William and Harry, portrayed by