DaBaby is the latest artist slated to perform at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. Though he was nominated for Song of the Summer last year with “Suge,” this will mark the rapper’s first time performing at the awards show, with his star having risen considerably with “Rockstar,” one of the blockbuster songs of this
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Samantha Bee is on a Zoom call from her home on the East Coast, where she’s been shooting her hit TBS political talk show “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee.” “This room is awful,” she says, looking back at a dimly lit room with not much furniture in sight. “It’s my guest room. My dad sleeps
Ben Affleck will don the cape and cowl once again, returning as Batman in Ezra Miller’s “The Flash” for Warner Bros. Director Andy Muschietti revealed the news in an interview with Vanity Fair. He told the magazine that Affleck got the script last week and agreed this week to join the project. Affleck starred as
Visar Morina’s “Exile,” a tense psychodrama about a Kosovan pharmacologist in Germany who becomes increasingly paranoid over a series of menacing events, won the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival, earning the Kosovo-born German director the Heart of Sarajevo. The award ceremony took place online Thursday night, with Morina winning top honors from a
Carlos Portugal is developing the one-hour mystery drama “Miss NG” at HBO Max, Variety has learned exclusively. The series is set in the small town of Nuevo Guerrero, where nothing is more important than the annual Miss Nuevo Guerrero beauty pageant. But when last year’s winner goes missing, her former best friend, her arch-rival and her
“Tosh.0” will end its run on Comedy Central after its upcoming twelfth season. The cancellations comes despite the fact that Comedy Central picked the show up for four mores seasons back in January. Series host Daniel Tosh signed an overall deal with the network at that time, but it is unclear if he will remain
Quick on the heels of news they’re expecting their third child — and as they search for an even larger family home in Los Angeles — A-list celebrity power couple John Legend and Chrissy Teigen have slapped a $23.95 million pricetag on their current main residence, a boxy contemporary mansion high in the mountains above
WarnerMedia has launched an investigation into the production of “Justice League,” a source with knowledge at the company confirmed to Variety. The decision comes after repeated public statements by one of the film’s stars, Ray Fisher, alleging misconduct by filmmaker Joss Whedon and producers Geoff Johns and Jon Berg while making the film. There have
Grayson Stroud, an independent film producer and director, pleaded guilty on Monday to defrauding lenders out of $550,000. Stroud — who was charged under his legal name, Troy Rustill Stroud — admitted that he moved money between various shell companies in order to dupe lenders into believing that he was engaged in legitimate business. Stroud
R&B singer-songwriter SZA is one of the most popular new artists to emerge in the past five years, with nine Grammy nominations for her debut full-length “Ctrl,” her work on the Kendrick Lamar-helmed “Black Panther” and a duet with The Weeknd and Travis Scott, among several high-profile features. While the features — most recently with
J.C. Chandor, the director behind Netflix’s action adventure “Triple Frontier,” is in talks to direct Sony’s “Kraven the Hunter.” The movie, hailing from Sony’s universe of Marvel characters, is based on Spider-Man’s formidable foe. Matt Tolmach and Avi Arad are producing the film, and Richard Wenk (“The Equalizer”) is writing the screenplay. “Kraven the Hunter” will
If wearing face masks out in public will be a part of our standard operating procedure for the foreseeable future, we might as well do it in style. We’ve been matching our masks to our makeup and matching our masks to our looks. Several designers started making reusable masks early on the pandemic. Now Burberry
It’s amazing what one hit song can bring you. In the case of rapper 25-year-old Arizona Zervas, whose independently released and maddeningly catchy “Roxanne” lament topped charts and streaming platforms around the world last year, it led to a label bidding war and a major deal with Columbia Records, the kind that countless other musicians could only
Sandra Mansour’s job is turning dream worlds into dresses. She pulls clouds down to earth via billowing tulle; she sews dawn dew from gardens into glass-beaded gowns. It’s a gift, as they say, but it comes with a cost—like, literally—because the hand-crafted pieces by the Swiss-born, Beirut-based designer are roughly (and rightly) the cost of
Whoopi Goldberg, Lee Daniels, Marvel executive Victoria Alonso and more Hollywood heavyweights are on board for a new virtual conversation series from the the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The series, titled “Academy Dialogues: It Starts With Us,” is part of the group’s Aperture 2025 equity and inclusion initiative. Topics will include race,
MGM is re-launching its Orion Pictures as a mean to amplify underserved voices and has hired veteran executive Alana Mayo as president of the label. The studio announced Thursday that Orion will concentrate exclusively on underrepresented voices and authentic storytelling in film with a focus on developing, producing and acquiring feature films that amplify underserved
Dylan O’Brien’s “Love and Monsters” will skip theaters to head straight to premium video on demand on Oct. 16. Paramount Pictures’ science-fiction adventure had been scheduled to open theatrically on Feb. 12, 2021. Paramount made the announcement on Thursday amid ongoing uncertainty over the gradual reopening of movie theaters in North America after being mostly
STXfilms has bought the KJ Apa and Sofia Carson-led pandemic thriller “Songbird” for release in North America and the United Kingdom. The film recently wrapped production after shooting entirely in Los Angeles during lockdown. “Songbird” is produced by Michael Bay, Adam Goodman and Andrew Sugerman’s Invisible Narratives, and Catchlight Films. “Songbird” producers announced on July
Universal has selected participants for the studio’s 2020 Writers Program, a paid initiative that spotlights up-and-coming scribes. Universal’s Global Talent Development and Inclusion, the division that runs the program, said 1,500 people applied, making it the biggest applicant pool since the program started six years ago. Jennifer Coates, Angela Delgado, Satinder Kaur and Larry Santana
Paramount Pictures is receiving financial aid from New Republic Pictures on a pair of Tom Cruise projects — “Mission: Impossible 7” and “Top Gun: Maverick” — and eight other movies. New Republic, led by veteran producers Brian Oliver and Bradley Fischer, announced Thursday that it had closed a co-financing deal that will also include “The
Netflix has apologized for and withdrawn a poster for its upcoming coming-of-age drama “Cuties.” The artwork for the French-language film depicted four adolescent girls wearing revealing cheerleading outfits and posting provocatively, drawing backlash on social media for “sexualizing” little girls. The Parents Television Council implored Netflix to remove the film, rated M, from its site. “It
Showtime is up for some astronaut antics. The cable network has picked up half-hour comedy series “Moonbase 8,” starring Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker, and John C. Reilly, for six episodes. “Moonbase 8,” which has been in the works at A24 since 2018 and is slated to launch sometime in the fall, is described as a
Breakout TikTok star Sarah Cooper is developing a single-camera comedy at CBS inspired by her book “How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings.” In a competitive situation with a penalty attached, Cooper is attached to co-write and executive produce the potential series, with Cindy Chupack onboard as co-writer, executive producer, and showrunner. Nina Tassler,
Anyone who believes the old adage that boys will only watch TV shows with male leads, while girls will watch shows with male and female leads clearly hasn’t been paying attention to the teen drama landscape lately. Current series including Netflix hits “Never Have I Ever” and “The Baby-Sitters Club” as well as stalwarts such
Susan Lewis is joining ABC Signature as senior vice president and head of drama development. Lewis will officially join the studio on Aug. 31 and will report to Tracy Underwood. She takes over the role from Patrick Maguire, who exited the studio amid the recent restructuring that saw ABC Studios and ABC Signature combine under
WarnerMedia has yet to install a new president of ad sales but in the meantime, it has given some new duties to one of its senior ad-sales executives. Joe Hogan has temporarily been given oversight of media sales at Xandr, the ad-tech unit that was operated separately from WarnerMedia’s ad sales efforts until April, when
The Rolling Stones’ wide-ranging 2018 deal with Universal Music Group will have an interesting new outlet next month when a Stones-themed “world exclusive flagship store” will open on London’s Carnaby Street on Sept. 9. The store’s location — at 9 Carnaby Street in the city’s Soho district — is in itself a historic Stones reference,
Just like the first page of a novel, a series’ or episode’s opening 10 minutes acts like a door. If executed successfully, it will make viewers want to run through that entrance, not just walk through it. Those 600 seconds have to not only grab hold of a viewer, but they also have to set
Show business has often proven to be fertile ground for humor, and this year’s Emmy comedy series race is no different. Several of the shows up for the top TV prize in that genre this year offer a funny look inside different aspects of the industry. So what is it that makes entertainment so entertaining?
“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” has implemented several new perks for its weary staff, including increased paid time off and a liberal medical leave policy, following a dramatic address from the daytime host on Monday. Staffers will receive five paid days off to use at their discretion, birthdays off, and paid time for doctors appointments and