With his perverse (and some might say perverted) look at the early life of Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King, Winnipeg-born, Montreal-based multi-hyphenate Matthew Rankin proves himself far more than simply the artistic heir to fellow Canuck Guy Maddin. His low-budget, high-concept recounting of political life in the Dominion of Canada circa the
Movies
Universal Pictures is teaming with “Aquaman” director James Wan on a horror/thriller inspired by Universal’s monster legacy. Details of the untitled project are sparse. Wan is set to produce the project, and a director has not yet been set. Friday’s announcement comes a week after the better-than-expected debut of the Universal’s “The Invisible Man,” a
Alexandra Codina got involved with filmmaking right after college. Following her job as a production assistant in New York, she began working with the Miami Film Festival in 2002, where she learned to further pursue a career in the filmmaking industry. Codina ran the community programming and outreach areas of the festival until 2005, when
Disney-Pixar’s fantasy film “Onward” will cast a spell on North American moviegoers this weekend, opening with $38 million to $40 million at 4,310 locations, early estimates showed on Friday. The figure is slightly below pre-release forecasts, which had pegged “Onward” for a launch in the $40 million to $45 million range. The movie centers on
Contract talks between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will begin March 23. The WGA West and WGA East and AMPTP will be working on a tight timetable against a May 1 contract expiration deadline at a time when the industry is bracing for the possibility of
Several Middle East markets have banned Disney/Pixar’s family adventure movie “Onward” due to the film’s reference to a lesbian relationship. The movie centers on a pair of teenage elf brothers — voiced by Chris Pratt and Tom Holland — on a quest to resurrect their dead father, who had arranged for them to receive a
March 6, 2020 11:57AM PT “Gift of Fire,” a major new film about Japan’s attempt to build an atomic bomb in the waning days of World War II, has completed principal photography and is now in post, producers revealed Friday. Best known internationally among the cast is Yuya Yagira, who won the Best Actor prize
March 6, 2020 11:53AM PT ArcLight Cinemas is upping its food and drink game with a new year-long program designed to “redefine the popcorn experience.” Partnering with restaurants and emerging culinary brands across the country, ArcLight will offer new popcorn flavors, cocktails, menu items and events. The theater chain, which now has locations in five
Deep in the heart of the mountainous kingdom of Lesotho, the arrival of new settlers has upset the balance of power. These economic migrants from China have called old laws and gods into question, and in the uncertainty over what new way of life will emerge, only one rule holds true: eat or be eaten.
“The Journalist,” Michihito Fujii’s drama about a young female reporter who investigates a scandal that extends to the highest reaches of Japanese politics, won the Best Picture prize at the 43rd Japan Academy Awards ceremony, held in Tokyo Friday. Due to concerns about the spread of coronavirus, no guests were invited and no media were
“Papicha” filmmaker Mounia Meddour was awarded the 2020 Academy Gold Fellowship Award for Women from the AMPAS during a luncheon hosted by French actress Juliette Binoche in Paris. The luncheon was part of a two-day event jointly organized by the French film promotion org UniFrance and the AMPAS to celebrate the achievements of women in
March 6, 2020 10:35AM PT Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani, the stars of Paramount’s upcoming comedy “The Lovebirds,” will not attend the film’s world premiere at the SXSW film festival next week, insiders told Variety. While Nanjiani has been vocal on social media this week about avoiding crowds, sources said the official decision came down
March 6, 2020 10:20AM PT China’s Midnight Blur Films has sold the rights to Chinese arthouse title “Wisdom Tooth” to French firm ASC Distribution, which will release it theatrically in France later this year. The deal also includes theatrical, video and TV rights for Belgium, Switzerland and the French overseas departments and territories. The debut
Phillip Boutte Jr., assistant costume designer for Mattel and Netflix’s upcoming “Masters of the Universe,” has worked tirelessly for well over a decade to establish himself as a concept artist whom costume designers and studios are eager to work with. With credits such as “Black Panther,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Captain Marvel,” to name just three, Boutte has
It would be a great mistake, sight unseen, to pigeonhole Ulrike Ottinger’s “Paris Calligrammes” as just another nostalgia-filled personal documentary about how amazing life was in Paris in the 1960s. Where others self-servingly wax lyrical about being in the nexus of the Left Bank’s Golden Age of hipness and activism, Ottinger takes us through this
Plans for transforming a former factory site in East London into Dagenham Studios, a state-of-the-art facility for film and TV production, are back on track. Be First, Barking and Dagenham Council’s regeneration organization, has submitted a planning application and new designs. The council’s planning committee is expected to consider these in July. In March 2018,
Franco-German TV network Arte has boarded high-profile doc “Fellini of the Spirits” exploring Italian director Federico Fellini’s lifelong interest in everything metaphysical and featuring Oscar winners Damien Chazelle and William Friedkin among talking heads. The project, now in post, is directed by Anselma Dell’Olio whose “Marco Ferreri: Dangerous but Necessary,” about eclectic Italian auteur Marco
German director Uli Edel (“The Baader Meinhof Complex”) is set to direct “Heisenberg,” an adaptation of Richard von Schirach’s historical book “The Night of the Physicists: Operation Epsilon: Heisenberg, Hahn, Weizsäcker and the German Bomb,” about the team of German physicists who tried to develop the atom bomb for Germany during World War II. Munich-based
The movement for an effective childcare infrastructure for workers in the U.K. film and TV industry is taking a major leap forward with the opening of the first dedicated, on-site childcare facility at a U.K. studio. Variety can reveal that Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, home to the forthcoming “Wonder Woman 1984,” will open a nursery
“Man, you get beat up a lot,” an aspiring boxer tells the eponymous punching bag/pulp-fiction private eye Mark Wahlberg plays in “Spenser Confidential.” “And I’ve noticed every single time you get your face pushed in, you come back with just a little bit more information.” That’s a pretty apt description of Spenser’s modus operandi, and
Two of India’s leading media industry events have taken contrasting approaches to the spread of coronavirus in the country. The annual Frames media conference, organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), had announced Italy as their country partner for the 2020 edition due March 18-20 in Mumbai. The conference will
March 5, 2020 8:02PM PT Starring Daniel Radcliffe as a jailed anti-apartheid activist, this true-life prison-break thriller is stronger on genre mechanics than political nuance. “You are the white Mandela,” says a ham-faced warden, all but spitting in the face of anti-apartheid activist Tim Jenkin upon his arrival at Pretoria Local Prison in 1978. It’s
March 5, 2020 7:04PM PT A psychiatric patient’s convoluted backstory drives this intriguing if overloaded indie genre exercise. One of three directors who first won attention with 2007’s excellent three-part thriller “The Signal” (not to be confused with another enterprising sci-fi-tinged indie of that title from 2014), Dan Bush has made several interesting genre features
In today’s film news roundup, Pearl Jam teams with Abramorama, “Bloodshot” get an Immersive Cinema Experience release, Philip Kaufman is honored, the Doc10 Festival unveils its slate and “Testament” gets rolling. RELEASE DATES Pearl Jam and Abramorama have scheduled the “Gigaton Listening Experience” for March 25 in more than 200 Dolby Atmos-equipped theaters in 20
On her last day of filming “The Way Back,” Janina Gavankar says Ben Affleck had a funny, if awkward, question for her. “He didn’t know how to ask me this, but he was like, ‘Where did you…? Where did you…?’ And I finished his sentence. I was like, ‘Where did I come from?’” Gavankar told Variety.
Leslie Odom Jr. and Freida Pinto make sympathetic, easy-on-the-eyes lovers in “Only,” an absorbing post-catastrophe drama, in theaters and on demand March 6. Consider “Only” a variation on the “What would you do in this horrid situation?” subgenre. Only it’s more a “What would we do?” which can be an exponentially more challenging proposition. (Hard
Ozzy Osbourne is the latest to cancel appearances at the SXSW conference and festival, following companies like Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, Neflix and Apple, due to concerns over the coronavirus. He was scheduled to attend the Austin conference, which runs March 13 to 22, to support the world premiere screening of A&E’s forthcoming “Biography: The Nine
CinemaCon will take place as planned, but the exhibition trade show held annually in Las Vegas will increase health and sanitation measures in wake of coronavirus. The National Assn. of Theatre Owners, the organization that puts on CinemaCon, issued a memo Thursday to assure its members and participants that the four-day event will still occur
March 5, 2020 1:40PM PT [embedded content] Janelle Monae is dealing with a time-traveling nightmare of slavery in Lionsgate’s latest trailer for the horror film “Antebellum.” In the footage released Thursday, Monae portrays modern-day author Veronica Henley, shown explaining how women are the future: “We’re expected to be seen, not heard. But we are the
BORDEAUX, France — French directors Zabou Breitman and Éléa Gobbé-Mévellec, Belgian distributor Lumière and French production outfit Xilam won Tributes Awards at this year’s Cartoon Movie, Europe’s biggest animated feature co-production and sales forum which closed today in the French port city of Bordeaux. Breitman and Gobbé-Mévellec’s “The Swallows Of Kabul,” which world premiered at the