Paul Feig has signed on to write, direct, and produce the monster movie “Dark Army” for Universal. The studio released no plot details about the project other than comparing it to the upcoming Blumhouse-Leigh Whannell remake of “Invisible Man,” which is set to be released Feb. 28 and stars Elisabeth Moss and Oliver Jackson-Cohen. “Instead
Movies
Lupita Nyong’o is a zombie-attacking schoolteacher in the newest trailer for Hulu’s upcoming “Little Monsters.” The slasher-comedy follows washed-up musician Dave (Alexander England), who volunteers to chaperone his nephew’s elementary school field trip after developing a crush on his fearless kindergarten teacher Miss Caroline (Nyong’o). However, when Dave attempts to win over Caroline from another
September 12, 2019 12:29PM PT Lionsgate is in final negotiations for the action-drama “Shadow Force” with Kerry Washington and Sterling K. Brown attached to star in and produce. Simpson Street’s Pilar Savone will also produce alongside Indian Meadows Productions’ Danielle Reardon and Stephen “Dr” Love, who is producing through his Made With Love Media company.
Amazon has acquired “Sound of Metal,” Variety has learned. The drama looks at a heavy metal drummer who is beginning to go deaf, and features a bravura performance from Riz Ahmed. It marks the feature film directing debut of Darius Marder, who also penned the script. Olivia Cooke co-stars. Reviews were strong after the film
Netflix has entered into an overall deal with Kuku Studios to produce a host of animated films and TV shows for the streaming titan. Under the new pact, Alex Woo, Stanley Moore, Tim Hahn, and Erik Benson will serve as executive producers on exclusive cartooned projects. The creative animation team previously worked on hits including
September 12, 2019 11:36AM PT Participant has extended David Linde’s contract as chief executive officer with a multi-year deal, four years after the veteran executive joined the company. Participant founder Jeff Skoll, who launched the company as Participant Media in 2004, made the announcement Thursday. “David has done an exceptional job taking Participant to new
Mitchell Travers wonders if anything can really prepare a costume designer for working on a movie in which G-strings, double-sided tape and 8-inch platform heels comprise a complete outfit. But from the moment he began to read the script to “Hustlers,” he was in. “From the third page, I said I didn’t care what [any of the
Mexico’s Arturo Ripstein, who began his career as an A.D. on Luis Buñuel’s 1962 “The Exterminating Angel,” is back, bringing his latest collaboration with screenwriter Paz Alicia Garciadiego, a black and white film that picks up on most all of the director’s hallmarks. A weighty drama, “Devil Between the Legs” dives from the get-go into
Rolf Moser, managing director of Bavaria Media, is leaving the business he founded more than 30 years ago. He will pass the baton to Marc Lammek. Bavaria said that Moser is leaving at his own request and will exit at the end of this month. Lammek steps up from COO. He joined the company in
September 12, 2019 10:00AM PT In the past two decades, economic incentives such as tax credits have drawn a significant portion of U.S. film and TV production away from Southern California. But many of the cities that now serve as centers for the entertainment business have something in common with Los Angeles — beachfront real
Boat Rocker Media has acquired Platform One Media, the TV production and sales arm launched two years ago with backing from Liberty Global and private equity giant TPG. Platform One CEO Katie O’Connell Marsh will become founder and chairman of Platform One, and she will also take on a leadership role at Toronto-based Boat Rocker.
WarnerMedia has formally announced its mega-deal with J.J. Abrams, the “Lost” creator and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” filmmaker who set off an intense courtship across Hollywood as he searched for a new studio home. The pact will see Bad Robot, the production company that Abrams runs with his wife and co-CEO, Katie McGrath, make
Rob Zombie, the risk-taking musician, writer and director of notoriously gory thrillers, is back for more with his latest movie “3 From Hell,” which opens next week through Fathom Events for three nights from Sept. 16-18. “3 From Hell” expands on the notoriously brutal cinematic slayings inflicted on civilians by the crazed “Firefly” family. Over
Bryn Mooser is taking a new run at the documentary space with XTR, a nonfiction film and TV studio backed by Hollywood and business figures including David Arquette and Christina McLarty Arquette, Lyn and Norman Lear, and former AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. Mooser is the co-founder and former CEO of RYOT, the immersive-entertainment studio acquired
There’s no room in Hollywood. Unprecedented low vacancy rates in the single digits equals a competitive race from soundstages to Class A creative office space from the Valley to the Pacific. “The occupancy around town is at 97%, an all-time record,” says Jones Lang LaSalle’s Carl Muhlstein, an international director with the real estate and
September 12, 2019 4:48AM PT Marko Škop‘s sophomore fiction feature “Let There Be Light” has been selected as Slovakia’s candidate for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award in the best international feature film category. The Slovak/Czech co-production had its world premiere in the main competition section at Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival,
September 12, 2019 2:50AM PT Joerg Pohlman is stepping down from the management board of Germany’s ARRI, one of the world’s leading movie camera and lighting manufacturers. The board will now consist of two people: Michael Neuhaeuser and Markus Zeiler. For the past eight years, every best picture Oscar winner has been shot on an
The tale of a young folk deity who flies around on wheels of fire has defied audience and industry expectations about the commercial potential of animation in China to become the country’s second-highest-grossing film of all time. “Nezha” has earned $674 million (RMB 4.81 billion) since its July 26 release, putting it behind only 2017’s
The term “space case” may as well have been invented for Lucy Cola, a fictional astronaut loosely inspired by Lisa Nowak, who famously (if not entirely factually) donned adult diapers and powered her way cross-country to confront a romantic rival at the Orlando airport, where she was arrested for what amounted to attempted kidnapping and
September 11, 2019 11:26PM PT “To the Ends of the Earth,” directed by Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa has added a handful of international distribution deals. The Uzbekistan-set drama had festival premieres in recent weeks in Locarno and Toronto. Rights were licensed by sales agent Free Stone Productions to mainland China’s Hugoeast, and by AV Jet for
Screenwriter Mardik Martin, a frequent collaborator with Martin Scorsese on films including “Raging Bull,” “Mean Streets” and “New York, New York,” died Wednesday in Los Angeles at 82. Born in Iran to an Armenian family and raised in Iraq, where he worked for a film distributor as a teenager, Martin moved to the U.S. to
Shia LaBeouf is telling all. Sort of. The actor both wrote and stars in “Honey Boy,” which tells the story of his turbulent childhood under the care of his alcoholic and drug-addicted father. LaBeouf wrote the screenplay while in rehab after sharing some of his writing with his director and friend, Alma Har’el. “I was just
In today’s film news roundup, Lamorne Morris is starring in “Death of a Telemarketer,” Wonderfilm has attached a director to “Greco’s Game” and Fantastic Fest will host the U.S. premiere of “I Lost My Body.” CASTINGS Lamorne Morris, Jackie Earle Haley, Alisha Wainwright and Haley Joel Osment are starring in the independent comedy-drama “Death of
September 11, 2019 4:38PM PT A young woman In a provincial town in Senegal is caught in a fight between her father, a religious leader, and his fundamentalist brother. Power dynamics wrapped in religious intolerance drives a wedge between two brothers in Mamadou Dia’s engrossing feature debut, “Nafi’s Father.” While presenting two competing visions of
September 11, 2019 3:44PM PT Viacom has become the frontrunner to buy a stake in Miramax Films while Lionsgate has dropped out of the process, informed sources said Wednesday. The developments were first reported by Bloomberg, which said talks are ongoing about a possible deal for at least $100 million. The companies did not respond
From the beginning, there’s something disconcerting about the exuberance of Lendita Zeqiraj’s feature debut “Aga’s House.” We’re immediately plunked down into the middle of a circle of women sitting on a remote Kosovan hillside in the sunshine exchanging salty anecdotes while preparing food. They laugh, bicker and throw cruel little jabs at one another, referring
Oscar-winning screenwriter Tom Schulman has issued a strong endorsement for David Goodman for re-election as president of the Writers Guild of America West. In an email to WGA West members Wednesday, Schulman took issue with the claim by the opposition Writers Forward Together slate that they have never seen the Guild so divided. He noted that
“Haunt,” an early Halloween arrival that traps its collegiate protagonists inside an all-too-fatal holiday attraction, delivers a satisfying quantity of creeps and frights that more than compensate for the occasional lull. A step up from found-footage horror pic “Nightlight,” Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ last directorial collaboration, this latest isn’t a beacon of conceptual originality, either.
The feature continuation of “Downton Abbey” reunites the cast and much of the crew of the period TV series with a mandate to deliver more of the glamour, drama and just plain kindness that prompted millions of viewers on both sides of the Atlantic to fall under the spell of the sprawling Crawley family. “We wanted
Sony Pictures Classics has picked up rights to “Lyrebird,” the directorial debut of billionaire businessman Dan Friedkin, Variety has confirmed. The pact is for North American rights and marks one of the only sales at an acquisitions market that could be charitably described as moribund. That could change if, as rumored, a deep-pocketed buyer ponies