“You and I,” the lead single and video from the soundtrack to the Amazon original sci-fi film, “Bliss” starring Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek, premieres exclusively on Variety today, one week ahead of the film’s Feb. 5 release on Prime Video. The song is written by the film’s composer, Will Bates, and features the unmistakable
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In today’s Global Bulletin, Alex de la Iglesia is back on set with “El cuarto pasajero,” Laurine Garaude departs Reed Midem, Chinese video app Kuaishou stuns investors in Hong Kong, Tencent finalizes its Universal Music Group share increase, Mopar Studios hire Jessica Pope as creative director and Pluto TV launches six new networks in Latin
A surge of buying in stocks including AMC Entertainment and GameStop — triggered by activist investors on Reddit and other social platforms — overwhelmed no-fee investment app Robinhood’s ability to cover the frenzied trading. After Robinhood suspended buying of shares in AMC, GameStop, BlackBerry and 10 other volatile stocks Thursday, the company raised an emergency
A record 500 delegates have signed up for Scandinavia’s leading TV drama confab, TV Drama Vision, which is set to unspool online over Feb. 3-4, parallel to Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival. Next to honorary guest – Danish writer-helmer Susanne Bier (“The Night Manager”, “The Undoing”), 30 keynote speakers will share their insights, business and creative
Lead writer Cilla Jackert’s “Thin Blue Line,” a fresh take on a police procedural, is Sweden’s contender for the Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize at 2021’s Göteborg Film Festival. Produced during a tumultuous time for police all around the world, the show quickly establishes itself as an intimate portrayal of the lives – both
Steve McQueen, currently riding a wave of global acclaim for his BBC/Amazon anthology “Small Axe,” will executive produce two Black-themed documentaries for the BBC. “Black Power,” which originated from an idea McQueen had while filming “Small Axe,” will examine how the Black Power movement came into being in the late 1960s and fought back against
Indian actor Manoj Bajpayee will star in investigative thriller film “Despatch,” directed by Kanu Behl and produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP. “The film unfolds in the world of crime journalism and Bajpayee plays a character who finds himself sucked into the murky underbelly of business and crime. Bajpayee, one of India’s most respected actors, has won
Leading Finnish streamer Elisa Viihde Viaplay has ordered financial thriller “The Invincibles” from “Cargo” creator Matti Kinnunen. The series is produced by “Black Widows”’ Moskito TV. Director and head-writer Kinnunen will co-pen the show with Mikko Reitala (“Blind Donna”). Currently in development, the eight-part TV show is set in the turbulent Finnish banking crisis of the early
As the Brazilian audiovisual sector prepares to return to shooting movies and shows after being halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, new health and safety guidelines are being implemented to prevent further spread of the disease and to protect those involved in production. To ease the burden on already hard-hit producers, Show Me The Fund, a
Picture Tree International has acquired international rights to Danish director Lisa Jespersen’s feature debut, the comedy drama “Persona Non Grata” (Hvor Kragerne Vender), and will introduce the film to buyers at the upcoming Nordic Film Market, after its launch in Nordic Competition during the online edition of Goteborg Film Festival this week. Variety has been
BAFTA-winning “X-Men” actor James McAvoy, “Star Wars” actor Daisy Ridley, musician Dizzee Rascal and Little Mix singer Jade Thirlwall are among the luminaries participating in a celebrity version of hit show “The Great British Bake Off.” “The Great Celebrity Bake Off” is in aid of the Stand Up To Cancer charity and will air on
The premise of Prano Bailey-Bond’s Sundance Midnight selection opener is so strong that it’s little wonder the film can’t quite live up — or perhaps down — to it: In a Thatcher’s Britain riven by tabloid-fueled “video nasty” hysteria, a young woman working for the national censorship board is assessing a horror flick, when it
In “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” which opened the Sundance Film Festival tonight on a note of heady historical exuberance, we see images from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, and they’re like dream visions of a promised land. An ocean of Black faces, stretching back like something out of
The overloaded Thai equivalent of one of those YA weepies where terminally ill teens scramble to fulfill their bucket lists before expiring at a young age, all-the-feels buddy movie “One for the Road” is determined to leave audiences both shaken and stirred. Your mileage may vary as director Baz Poonpiriya (“Bad Genius”) packs this concoction
Apple tapped director Lulu Wang to showcase the cinematic features of the tech company’s latest iPhone. Wang, who wrote and directed 2019 feature film “The Farewell,” directed a new short for Apple in celebration of Chinese New Year, “Nian,” which puts a fresh twist on a well-known Chinese folktale. (Watch above or at this link.)
Amin Nawabi is not the real name of the Afghan refugee introduced in the Sundance movie “Flee,” nor is that his real face, which has been distorted by animation to protect his identity. As “Flee” unfolds, you may also start to question whether the story Amin shares is even real, doubling back and contradicting itself
Watching “CODA,” the tender, lively, funny, and beautifully stirring drama that opened the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, I had the most out-of-body movie-viewing experience I’ve had in the year since movie theaters closed down. I watched the film at home, on a link, late at night, by myself. But I’ve been going to Sundance since
Will the students at Jerry Garcia High get in trouble for smoking weed? For now, the question remains a hypothetical, but following a controversial vote by the San Francisco School Board on the evening of Jan. 26, Garcia is reportedly under consideration for one of 44 new school name vacancies. In opting to strip dozens
An endangered musician in a Syrian town controlled by ISIS must sell his beloved piano in order to escape the country in the gripping drama “Broken Keys.” It marks the feature debut of Columbia U.-trained, Lebanese writer-director Jimmy Keyrouz. Inspired by real events, the feature is an expansion of his 2016 Student Academy Award-winning short
Now that we’re a year into the pandemic (and have a presidential administration that’s forging a sane response to it), the time feels right for taking stock — for looking back, in a big-picture way, at how the crisis unfolded, the ways it was mismanaged, and how we can learn from the vast pileup of
A Delaware judge has allowed CBS stockholders to sue over the 2019 merger of Viacom and CBS, finding a reasonable claim that former CBS chief Joseph Ianniello “sold” his support for the deal to Shari Redstone in exchange for a $125 million payout. Ianniello was president and chief operating officer under former CEO Les Moonves,
Award season is setting in and it’s time to pick the frontrunners for the Golden Globes’ best picture nominees. Variety editors Jenelle Riley and Clayton Davis surveyed the contenders for Awards Circuit, presented by HBO, selecting who will go home with the globe and who is disqualified, critically acclaimed Lee Isaac Chung’s drama “Minari” is
America doesn’t have a system of knights or dames, as Britain, Australia and New Zealand do. If there were such a system, Cicely Tyson would have undoubtedly been honored. But Tyson, who died on Thursday, a month after her 96th birthday, didn’t need any government-sanctioned titles: Admirers such as Ava DuVernay, Tyler Perry and Shonda
Cicely Tyson’s co-stars and admirers shared their remembrances of the late Emmy and Tony-winning actor, who died Thursday at 96. Viola Davis, who starred opposite Tyson, playing mother and daughter for six seasons on “How to Get Away with Murder,” shared a lengthy tribute to the legend alongside a photo from the set. “I’m devastated.
If you’re one of those people who think music has lost its dangerous edge, Sacha Baron Cohen had the cure for that in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” Taking on two levels of disguise in the 2020 sequel, Cohen again played his fictional Borat character, who in turn disguised himself for a key sequence in the movie
Miya Ponsetto, infamously known as “SoHo Karen,” is off the hook for one of her arrests last year — the one at the Peninsula Hotel in Bev Hills … before she made national headlines. The 22-year-old caught a break during her hearing Thursday in L.A. County Court, when her case was dismissed. Prosecutors decided to
Emmy- and Tony-winning actress Cicely Tyson, who distinguished herself in theater, film and television, died on Thursday afternoon. She was 96. “I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing,” her manager, Larry Thompson, said in a statement. “Cicely thought of her new memoir as a
George Clooney is heading to the 25th century. Through his production company Smokehouse Pictures, Clooney has signed on to executive produce a new limited series for Legendary based on the classic sci-fi character Buck Rogers, Variety has confirmed. Clooney will executive produce with partner Grant Heslov. A rep for Clooney says the actor-director is only
SAG-AFTRA, the Producers Guild of America and the Joint Policy Committee have jointly agreed to lift their recommendation to pause commercial and independent production in Southern California, effective Monday, Feb. 1. The three organizations, which together represent thousands of actors, producers, commercial advertisers and ad agencies, had first recommended a temporary production halt on Jan.
In today’s TV news roundup, Paramount Plus announced the series premiere date for “Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years,” and Hulu released the new trailer for Blumhouse’s Valentine’s Day special “Into the Dark: Tentacles.” DATES ViacomCBS announced that the “SpongeBob SquarePants” spinoff series “Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years” will premiere alongside “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on