Movies

Emma Watts has resigned as president of production at Twentieth Century Studios, ending a two decade-long run at the film company. The move comes after mutterings that Watts was unhappy about not being given more to do at Twentieth after the company was acquired by the Walt Disney Company in 2019. In her resignation letter,

The Berlin Film Festival has suspended its Alfred Bauer Prize following revelations that the award’s namesake and the Berlinale’s first director was much more closely affiliated with the Nazi Party than previously known. Bauer, a film historian, was appointed to head the festival in 1951 following its inception by Oscar Martay, a film officer in

It’s not that the knives were out, exactly. It’s just that the faint whiff of lame duckishness has hung over the Berlin Film Festival since the announcement of longtime director Dieter Kosslick’s 2019 departure, an impression that intensified during the last two editions, which were generally regarded as among the weakest the festival has recently

Days ahead of Sunday’s BAFTA awards, “The Morning Show” star Gugu Mbatha-Raw has spoken out about a “stark lack of inclusivity” at high-level awards shows. Taking the stage at the annual Newport Beach UK Honors event in London, in association with Variety, on Wednesday night, where she was named a Breakthrough Artist, Mbatha-Raw said the

Spend on film and high-end television production in the U.K. was the highest ever recorded in 2019, hitting £3.62 billion ($4.7 billion), an increase of 16%, according to British Film Institute figures. The growth was driven by high levels of international production investment in the U.K., which topped the £3 billion ($3.9 billion) mark for

Since “Sons of Denmark’s” world bow at Rotterdam in 2019, Danish writer/director Ulaa Salim and producer Daniel Mühlendorph have enjoyed invites to 50 world festivals, and won nine awards – including best director at Seattle – and distribution in eight territories, negotiated by New Europe Film Sales. Those take in China (Huanxi Films), the U.K./Ireland

January 30, 2020 12:37AM PT A marital separation pains the husband protagonist of Robert Machoian’s stark, stripped-down but empathetic indie drama. Opening on what appears to be the verge of its titular act, Robert Machoian’s “The Killing of Two Lovers” then steadily pulls back from what sounds like a noirish potboiler of marital infidelity and

NENT Group’s streaming service Viaplay has ordered a second season of the Swedish crime drama “The Truth Will Out” which will be headlined by Robert Gustafsson, the star of “The 101-Year-Old Man Who Skipped Out on the Bill and Disappeared.” The story of the second season, which is based on an idea by renowned Swedish

LevelK has boarded the Icelandic gay vampire movie “Thirst” which will be world premiere at the Goteborg Film Festival and screen at the Nordic Film Market. “Thirst” directed by Gaukur Úlfarsson and Steinþór Hróar Steinþórsson, takes place in a small town where evil is lurking around and strange crimes and brutality frequently occur. The film

One of these days, somebody should (and probably will) make a documentary about Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea. An essential chapter of it would, of course, be about how when he came to power in 2011, after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il (who had ruled the country since 1994), just

It took four movies before Lee Isaac Chung was ready to tell the kind of story first-timers so often rush to share straight out of the gate. Not a coming-of-age movie so much as a deeply personal and lovingly poetic rendering of his Korean American childhood — specifically, how it felt for his immigrant family

In today’s film news roundup, Jodie Foster is directing a Mona Lisa movie, Sony buys a sci-fi script for Jake Kasdan, Lionsgate signs a deal with Kristin Burr and “The Color Purple” is returning to theaters. PROJECT LAUNCH Jodie Foster has come on board to direct an untitled drama about the 1911 theft of the

There is a Robert Frost poem called “Escapist – Never” which provides a frequent refrain in Greg Barker’s deeply admiring but drawn-out biopic of Brazilian diplomat and U.N. leading light Sergio Vieira de Mello. “It is the future that creates his present,” runs the penultimate line, and the handsome, heroic, charismatic de Mello (played with

“The Last Shift,” a fast-food tragedy written and directed by Andrew Cohn, is a gut punch with a side of anguish. In this wonderfully sad small-town drama, the ever-empathetic Richard Jenkins plays Stan, a former high school athlete who took the graveyard shift at local chain Oscar’s Chicken and Fish in 1971 and never left.

#BAFTAsSoWhite was not the hashtag that BAFTA brass was hoping would trend on Twitter within minutes of nominations being announced. Yet there it was: an incensed public response to a slate that, for the fourth time in a decade, yielded all-white nominees in the four top acting categories, including two apiece for actresses Margot Robbie

For any awards pundits reading the BAFTA nominations as tea leaves for the impending Oscar race, 2020’s nomination slate held relatively few surprises. Unlike in certain years when BAFTA has piled nominations upon wildcard contenders (“Drive” in 2012, for example), this year’s top selections in the major categories more or less align with their perceived

“Charm City Kings,” directed by Angel Manuel Soto and written by Sherman Payne, is an earnest coming-of-age story about a Baltimore 14-year-old named Mouse (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) torn between joining the Midnight Clique, an extreme dirt bike crime gang in stormtrooper-esque shiny white breastplates, or becoming a veterinarian. While that setup might make eyes roll,

Norway’s Sara Johnsen has won the 2020 Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize for her writing on NRK’s “22 July,” a six-part painstaking – and often inevitably pained – reconstruction using fictional composite characters but often meticulously recreated scenes of how Norway reacted to its 2011 terror attacks. The award, for outstanding screenwriting, was presented

At the Jan. 3 AFI Awards, Mel Brooks interrupted his speech about the American Film Institute’s women directors program to praise Taika Waititi for Searchlight’s “Jojo Rabbit.” However, he joked, the filmmaker “did not ask my permission to use Hitler!” It got a big laugh (as Brooks usually does) for the reference to his 1968

Jason Statham and Kevin Hart are in talks to star in action comedy “The Man From Toronto,” which Sony Pictures will release on Nov. 20. Patrick Hughes, who directed “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” and “The Expendables 3,” will direct”The Man From Toronto” from a script by Robbie Fox, from a story by Fox and Jason Blumenthal.

January 29, 2020 11:02AM PT Magnolia Pictures is wrapping up a low-seven-figure deal for distribution rights to the moving documentary “The Fight,” insiders told Variety. Premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the project is directed by Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, and Eli Despres. CAA and Submarine are brokering the deal on behalf of financiers.

Next month, Hulu will ring in Valentine’s Day with some counterprogramming. The streaming service will debut its original series “High Fidelity,” a gender-swapped reimagining of Nick Hornby’s novel of the same name. Previously, the book was adapted into a 2000 movie from Stephen Frears starring John Cusack. Zoë Kravitz stars as Rob Brooks, a music-obsessive

Wes Anderson’s star-studded comedic drama “The French Dispatch” will debut in theaters on July 24, Searchlight Pictures announced Wednesday. “The French Dispatch” is set in Paris during the 1950s and follows a group of journalists at an American newspaper bureau. The ensemble cast includes Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Lea Seydoux, Frances McDormand,

“Hillary,” a four-hour docuseries about the life and career of Hillary Clinton, has sold to Sky for U.K. distribution rights, Variety has learned. Clinton sat down for 35 hours of interviews with director Nanette Burstein (“On the Ropes”). The project premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to strong reviews, for offering an honest portrait

Quentin Tarantino’s earliest memory of Los Angeles was as a young boy visiting Grauman’s Chinese Theater, standing in the courtyard and looking at the handprints of John Wayne and Roy Rogers. He recollects the Mold-A-Rama machine outside that dispensed a souvenir wax pagoda if you inserted a quarter. The director had toyed with re-creating that

Harriet Frank Jr., who collaborated with her husband, Irving Ravetch, on the Oscar-nominated screenplays for “Norma Rae” and “Hud,” died on Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 96. Her nephew Michael Frank announced her death to the New York Times. Frank and Ravetch worked on 17 features together after meeting while writers at

In February, “To Kill a Mockingbird” will make history. It will become the first Broadway play to be presented at Madison Square Garden, the sprawling sports complex best known for hosting Knicks and Rangers games, as well as Billy Joel concerts. Don’t try to get tickets. Like most performances of the smash production, this Feb. 26,

It’s a wonder that Stephanie Patrick makes it to the end of “The Rhythm Section” alive. Normal people tend not to survive the kind of sophisticated revenge mission that snaps Stephanie out of her depression and into action-hero mode in Reed Morano’s dark, broody and unexpectedly human payback thriller, which stars Blake Lively as a

January 29, 2020 6:05AM PT [embedded content] Paramount gave an early look at its “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” tv spot that will debut ahead of the Super Bowl. The new clip has everything from fast cars and flashbacks to Snoop Dogg and Keanu Reeves. The animated movie sees SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick

In the midst of a whirlwind press tour for her Sundance biopic “The Glorias,” activist icon Gloria Steinem reflected on the state of women’s reproductive rights in Hollywood and beyond. Attending the Variety interview studio with director Julie Taymor, the 85-year-old Steinem said Americans have yet to realize that controlling reproduction is the top priority