Movies

After recovering from coronavirus, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have offered their blood to help develop a vaccine for coronavirus. In early March, the couple tested positive for COVID-19 while in Australia for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic, in which Hanks is starring. They returned home to Los Angeles at the end of March after

Premiering Saturday, April 25 and running through May 2 at the digital edition of the Visions du Réel documentary festival, Swiss director Daniel Kemény’s “Sòne” is the autobiographical tale of a filmmaker who realized that sometimes you can go home, even if it’s not the home you remember. 20 years after moving away from Pietrapaola

Its central characters jaded club youth who just happen to be vampires — and seem not to have developed any depth or maturity no matter how long they’ve been doing this undead thing — “Bit” seems likewise content to act cool in the shallow end of the pool. Brad Michael Elmore’s feature flirts with various

In today’s film news roundup, Blue Bug Entertainment makes a 15-title slate deal, production on “Tom, Dick and Harry: The Christmas Movie” is halted and Women in Media and Impact24 PR are staging a series of behind-the-scenes panels. SLATE DEAL Blue Bug Entertainment has partnered with American Content Media for the worldwide distribution of Blue Bug

“System Crasher,” Nora Fingscheidt’s social drama about a troubled young girl, swept the 70th German Film Awards on Friday, winning a total of eight Lolas, including best film, director, actress and actor. Forced to revamp this year’s ceremony due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the German Film Academy did away with its traditional gala event

Paradigm President Greg Bestick will be retiring from the agency effective immediately. Sources say that Paradigm has not yet named a replacement. Prior to becoming president, Bestick was COO of the agency and began working there in 2009. “Greg played a vital role in the agency’s growth and successes. I am forever grateful to him.

Stanley Kramer’s executive secretary Leah Bernstein died on Thursday of complications from coronavirus at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement home in Woodland Hills in Los Angeles. She was 99. She is the sixth MPTF resident to die of coronavirus complications in the past two weeks, beginning with John Breier on April 7 followed by Allen

Sony Pictures has pushed back its two untitled “Spider-Man” sequels for several months as Hollywood studios continue to revamp their release schedules due to the coronavirus pandemic. The studio announced Friday that Marvel-Sony’s “Spider-Man Far From Home” sequel had been moved from July 16, 2021, to Nov. 5, 2021. Sony Pictures Animation’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”

Ryan Reynolds has come aboard to star in and produce an untitled time-travel movie at Skydance with Shawn Levy directing. Skydance is planning a fourth-quarter shoot. Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger will produce along with Reynolds and Levy. Reynolds will star as man who must travel back in time to get help from

Brooklyn-based Zero Chill has boarded “Off the Road,” joining Mexican producer Daniela Silva at Mexico’s production collective Tardígrada on a title which will bow from April 25 at the now totally online Visions du Réel Nyon Intl. Film Festival. Primed by financing from Mexico’s Imcine film agency, tapped from its Foprocine investment fund, “Off the

A handful states are starting to reopen for business, but theaters around the country remain closed. The major chains are not expecting to open until July at the earliest. But in Oklahoma, one theater is making plans to open well before then. Gov. Kevin Stitt — who stirred controversy in March when he posted a

It’s hard to imagine now, but once upon a time, there was no such thing as the elaborate, lights-and-lasers pre-game spectacles and music-heavy player introductions popularized by the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls of the 1980s and 1990s. Players would simply jog off the bench and into a formation with their teammates as their names were

MGM has enacted a round of companywide layoffs, Variety has learned exclusively. The studio’s marketing and distribution arm United Artists Releasing has also furloughed one third of its staff. Around 50 people, roughly 7% of MGM’s 750-person workforce, was eliminated on Friday, insiders said. The cuts impacted the entire operation, including scripted and unscripted television

When “Wake Up on Mars” director Dea Gjinovci read a 2017 New Yorker article about a pair of teenage refugees suffering from a mysterious coma-like condition, the young director knew she had to make contact. Though the article had already prompted a significant share of media interest from more established institutions, Gjinovci intuited different shades

Switzerland’s Close Up Films, producer of the Participant Media-backed Toronto-premiered “Sing Me a Song” and co-producer of high-profile Cannes title “The Swallows of Kabul,” is developing a new production, “The Gift” (“Faiseuse de Secret”). Set to be presented on Saturday April 25 as part of an RTS Prize: Documentary Perspectives showcase at Visions du Réel

SAG-AFTRA has told 160,000 members that its staff is working with employers to determine the specifics of how television actors are going to be paid — if at all — during the production shutdown caused by the cononavirus pandemic. The union posted a message late Thursday on its website as a “COVID-19 Update” — admitting

“Robert the Bruce” sounds like it could be the title of a Mel Brooks parody of a rousingly high-minded chain-mail-and-Lochaber-axe medieval hero epic. (It’s a sword clank away from something like “Bruce the Lionhearted.”) I don’t mean to come off as ignorant or disrespectful, since Robert the Bruce was, of course, the 14th-century Scottish king

In today’s film news roundup, Maisie Williams’ “The Owners” and crime thriller “Chameleon” get acquired and Adam Alleca’s sci-fi project “Singular” is in the works at Netflix. ACQUISITIONS  RLJE Films has acquired the North American rights to the thriller “The Owners,” starring Maisie Williams (“Game of Thrones”), Jake Curran, Ian Kenny, Andrew Ellis, Sylvester McCoy

There are more “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” Original director André Øvredal, Guillermo del Toro, and writers, brothers Dan and Kevin Hageman, are all returning for a sequel. Paramount Pictures and Entertainment One will co-finance “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 2.” The second installment will be based on a story by

“Straight Outta Compton” star Jason Mitchell was arrested in Mississippi on Wednesday on four felony drug and weapons charges, according to the Harrison County Sheriff’s department.  The 33-year-old actor was charged with two counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, plus two counts of possession of a weapon by a felon.

California Film Commission chief Colleen Bell says state officials are making progress on hammering out details for the resumption of film and TV production following industrywide shutdowns in light of the coronavirus pandemic. But they’re moving forward cautiously as the process is complicated, to say the least. “We are having daily conversations about the protocols,”

Paramount Pictures has tapped Steve Conrad to pen a film about the Adewumi family, who fled Nigeria after being threatened by Boko Haram, sources tell Variety. Trevor Noah will produce through his Day Zero Productions banner, with State Street Pictures’ George Tillman Jr. and Bob Teitel. The drama will tell the story of a Nigerian

Jonny Campbell, who recently directed Netflix’s “Dracula” series, will helm Paramount’s “Cold Storage,” an adaptation of veteran screenwriter David Koepp’s first novel. Koepp became the go-to screenwriter for blockbusters, having worked on features like “Jurassic Park,” “Angels and Demons”, “Panic Room,” and “Mission: Impossible.” When he brought his debut book to the market in 2018,

Film Constellation, the London-based production, finance and sales company, ventured into new grounds amid the coronavirus crisis, and hosted the first online industry premiere for Gabriel Range’s young David Bowie origin film “Stardust” last week. The movie, which was supposed to debut at Tribeca, gathered more than 300 buyers and select press for its online

Premiering worldwide at Visions de Réel and looking for wider distribution, Mo Scarpelli’s “El Father Plays Himself” will stream April 25 to May 2 to a limited audience of 500 as the Swiss festival handles the almost ontological dilemmas that come with the pandemic. Produced by Rake Films, Ardimages U.K. and La Faena Films, in

Toward the end of “Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story,” former state prosecutor Preston Shipp considers his shifting thoughts on the notion of justice. It’s shouldn’t be about alleging rule violations, he says, but about trying to achieve the right outcome in each case. In other words, for all the rigors of law and

Paris-based company Charades has come on board to handle worldwide sales on three films from distribution company Neon, “Spaceship Earth,” The Painter and the Thief,” and “She Dies Tomorrow.” Charades and Neon will provide distributors with a marketing package and a replicable model to adapt on their own markets. Both outfits have already enlisted Non

Richard Lechartier, the former CEO of French producer and distributor Marco Polo, has launched new U.K. film distribution company ILY Films, with Bruce Willis actioner “Open Source” as its first acquisition. ILY Films is focused on acquiring film rights for digital download releases. Lechartier tells Variety that ILY Films will concentrate on buying English-speaking commercial,

The BBC is leading nominations for the 2020 Rockie Awards, a juried competition organized by Canada’s Banff World Media Festival to celebrate achievement in television and digital media from around the world. The BBC was nominated for 27 Rockie Awards, followed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with 13 noms, Sky with eight noms, National Geographic

The road to recovery for much of Europe’s exhibition sector may still be an ambiguous prospect, but Vue International, one of the continent’s largest cinema chains, hopes to jumpstart business by mid-July. The exhibitor, which operates close to 2,000 screens across 10 countries including the U.K., Italy, Germany, Denmark and Taiwan, has shuttered all 228