Month: January 2025

A new investigative podcast series about mystery drone sightings, “Obscurum: Invasion of the Drones,” is set to launch Feb. 11, Variety can exclusively report. The series, produced in partnership with Imagine Entertainment, iHeartMedia and Lenners Entertainment, comes on the heels of the public’s recent fascination with mysterious drone sightings over New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania
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Jinkx Monsoon walked the orange carpet at the Season 2 premiere of “Sketchy Queens” Tuesday night in Hollywood. The Broadway star and”Drag Race All Stars” winner responded to Donald Trump’s transgender military ban saying, “This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to make it illegal to be us, and we’re still here.” Late Monday night,
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Oscar nominee Lesley Manville and Tim McMullan are set to return in “Marble Hall Murders,” the third and final installment of Anthony Horowitz’s Susan Ryeland mystery series, which has been commissioned by Masterpiece on PBS and acquired by the BBC. The new adaptation follows the success of “Moonflower Murders” and “Magpie Murders,” with Eleventh Hour
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Given everything happening in the world, the Grammy Awards have signaled that the 2025 ceremony will be different, and a series of special performances featuring a dozen newly announced performers will highlight the show, the Recording Academy revealed Wednesday. These will include the annual In Memoriam segment, a star-studded salute to the life and legacy
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Ashley Walters — the trailblazing British actor and star of “Top Boy” and “Missing You” — has started production on his directorial feature debut and unveiled his main cast. “Animol” — written by Nick Love (“The Football Factory,” “A Town Called Malice”) — draws on Walters’ own experiences and is described by the filmmakers as a “searing
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The U.S. Copyright Office declared Wednesday that the use of artificial intelligence tools to assist in the creative process does not undermine the copyright of a work. The announcement clears the way for continued adoption of AI in post-production, where it has become increasingly common, such as in the enhancement of Hungarian-language dialogue in “The
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Banijay Live is expanding with the strategic acquisition of Lotchi, a creator of live immersive experiences whose debut show “Luminiscence” has attracted more than 350,000 spectators across France. Spearheaded by former Banijay France CEO François de Brugada, Banijay Live was launched in 2023 following Banijay Entertainment’s acquisition of Balich Wonder Studio, and investment in The
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Dungeons and Dragons-actual play TV series “Dimension 20” is about to expand its world of intrepid heroes beyond its home streaming service Dropout with an upcoming webcomic set at Webtoon Entertainment. Per Dropout and Webtoon’s description for the “Dimension 20” project, “‘Fantasy High‘ follows a group of misfit teens as they navigate the high-stakes drama
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David Field has stepped down as Audacy‘s president and CEO and as a member of the board, after 27 years leading the radio broadcaster and audio company and its predecessor. The board has appointed Kelli Turner, current Audacy board member, as interim president and CEO, effective immediately. The board has commenced a search for a
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Meryl Streep‘s nephew Abe revealed in a New York Magazine report that the Oscar-winning actor had to a cut a “car-size hole” in her fence in order to evacuate the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this month. Streep was one of the numerous celebrities forced to flee home amid the destruction. “My aunt Meryl Streep received
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Prime Video has set the global launch date for its premium Swedish show “Paradis City,” a fast-paced dystopian actioner, based on “Snabba Cash” scribe Jens Lapidus’ eponymous stand-alone novel. The six-part series, due to launch March 7 exclusively on Prime Video, is being showcased as a works in progress today Jan. 29 at Göteborg’s TV Drama
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Bollywood hitmaker Sooraj Barjatya is making his entry into digital entertainment with the series “Bada Naam Karenge,” launching on streaming platform SonyLIV. The move was driven by the platform’s unique request for family-centered content, a genre traditionally seen as counter to contemporary online viewing trends. The filmmaker’s illustrious career includes directing some of Indian cinema’s
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Cynthia Erivo, Teyana Taylor, Marla Gibbs and Raamla Mohamed will be honored at this year’s Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards, kicking off a series of Oscars weekend events. Already an Emmy, Grammy and Tony Award winner, Erivo recently earned her third Oscar nomination for her performance in “Wicked.” Similarly, Taylor is a multifaceted award-winning
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Sales, finance and production outfit Protagonist Pictures will handle worldwide sales alongside Augenschein Sales for Jan-Ole Gerster’s thriller “Islands,” starring Sam Riley (“Control,” “Firebrand”), Stacy Martin (“The Brutalist,” “Nymphomaniac”) and Jack Farthing (“The Riot Club,” “Spencer”). The film will have its world premiere at the Berlinale as part of the Berlinale Special Gala section. “Islands”
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Shooting is underway in Rome on Anton Corbijn’s thriller “Switzerland,” starring Helen Mirren as American crime novelist Patricia Highsmith, with Alden Ehrenreich (“Oppenheimer”) and Olivia Cooke (“House of the Dragon”) confirmed to have joined the cast. The hotly anticipated film – which takes its cue from Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels – marks the first feature in
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Madonna has called out Donald Trump‘s administration for “dismantling all the freedoms we have been fighting for.” In a new post on X, the queen of pop accompanied a selfie with the caption: “It’s so sad to watch our new Government slowly dismantling all the Freedoms we have been fighting for and WON over the
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“The Girl with the Needle” stars Trine Dyrholm and Vic Carmen Sonne are slowly readying for the Oscar campaign. But following the U.S. election, the film – set in the early 20th century and dealing with unwanted pregnancies – feels increasingly timely, they say.  “Since Trump’s inauguration at the White House it has been hard
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In China’s rapidly modernizing metropolis of Chongqing, where traditional matchmaking parks coexist with towering skyscrapers, dating coach Hao is on a mission to help the country’s surplus of single men find love. His story anchors “The Dating Game,” a timely documentary from Emmy-winning filmmaker Violet Du Feng that has been drawing overflow crowds at this
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‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ a three-hour epic adventure adapted from Alexandre Dumas’s literary classic, is leading the race at the Cesar Awards, France’s equivalent to the Oscars, with a whooping 14 nominations. ‘Beating Hearts,’ Gilles Lellouche’s sprawling crime romance, follows shortly with 13 nominations. While a favorite in the Oscar race, Jacques Audiard’s ‘Emilia
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“Recording Evil,” a landmark documentary project exposing the largest spy operation in World War II, has started filming across three continents. The documentary was commissioned by Israel’s Public Broadcaster, KAN 11, to mark the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Told through tens of thousands declassified British intelligence documents,
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Since Stan Lee and Steve Ditko first created Spider-Man more than six decades ago, the character has been one of the most enduring superheroes in popular culture. From comics to animated series and a slew of live-action films (as well as 2018’s animated, Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”), Peter Parker and his alter-ego have been
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It’s surprising more contemporary zombie films haven’t been thinly-veiled metaphors for the COVID-19 pandemic. In that vein, Meera Menon‘s bleakly amusing “Didn’t Die” has the right idea — one of several remarkable conceptual instincts— though its end result is somewhat scattered. The movie follows sardonic Indian American podcast host Vinita Malhotra (Kiran Deol) through romantic
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