Movies

In today’s film news roundup, CIM Group sells Hollywood & Highland but retains the Dolby Theatre, “The Matrix” gets re-released and the comedy “Straight Up” gets bought. PROPERTY SALE CIM Group has sold the Hollywood & Highland retail-entertainment center to Gaw Capital and DJM while retaining ownership of the Dolby Theatre, site of the Academy

At some point, pretty much everyone who’s owned a dog has stared into the creature’s soulful brown eyes and wondered what it was thinking. Director Simon Curtis’ decade-in-the-making “The Art of Racing in the Rain” is a simple-minded yet skillfully manipulative answer to that question — featuring the bare-feet-in-loose-gravel voice of Kevin Costner as Enzo,

Kerry Brougher, the director of the long-delayed Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, is leaving his post. The move comes just weeks after the Academy postponed the museum’s opening date again, pushing it to sometime in 2020. In a statement, the Academy Museum Board said that Brougher would “return to his roots in the art world.”

In the late 1970s, Roger Corman was looking to produce a high school-themed movie. Knowing that one of his young directing proteges had a bent for music, the head of New World Pictures had an idea. As Allan Arkush remembers Corman telling him: “I’ve been thinking, since ‘Grease’ and ‘Saturday Night Fever’ are hits, why don’t

SAG-AFTRA’s funds held in trust for others have increased by 6.6% to $214.8 million since last year, according to the union’s latest filing with the federal government. Those funds have been at the center of a long-running dispute, dating back to a 2007 suit filed by Ken Osmond (“Leave It to Beaver”) over how foreign

August 5, 2019 2:24PM PT Andy Serkis is set to direct Sony’s “Venom 2,” a sequel to last year’s superhero box office smash starring Tom Hardy. Serkis was among a handful of filmmakers that met earlier this month, a group that included “Bumblebee” helmer Travis Knight and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes’” Rupert

August 5, 2019 2:15PM PT “Crazy Rich Asians” star Gemma Chan is in talks to join Marvel’s “The Eternals” sources tell Variety. Chan would join previously announced cast members Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Brian Tyree Henry, Salma Hayek and Kumail Nanjiani. Earlier this year, Chan portrayed Minn-Erva in “Captain Marvel,” but its unknown if she

August 5, 2019 1:59PM PT “Season of the Witch” is featured in the just released teaser for “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” It’s not just Quentin Tarantino invoking the musical spirit of the late 1960s. Lana Del Rey has covered Donovan’s 1966 “Season of the Witch” for a film set in 1968, “Scary

Independent movie theater chain Alamo Drafthouse has had its Downtown Los Angeles doors open for barely a month, but it’s already become a vital part of the outdoor entertainment space called the Bloc. With locations in markets like Austin and Brooklyn, the chain run by CEO Tim League has always enjoyed a brand of casual

Darrell Hammond’s documentary “Cracked Up” is set to hit theaters on Sept. 13. The doc, captured by director Michelle Esrick, portrays the ‘Saturday Night Live’ star’s decades-long struggle with substance abuse, self-harm and misdiagnoses as he rose to fame on the iconic sketch show. Known for his iconic impersonations of Sean Connery, Regis Philbin and

August 5, 2019 12:33PM PT [embedded content] Cannes-based Fizz-e-Motion, headed by Yannick Rudynski and Luke Corradine, has picked up sales rights to Australian crime thriller “Locusts.” Directed by Heath Davis, the film stars Ben Geurens (“Reign”) and Jessica McNamee (“Meg,” “Battle of the Sexes”), and is produced and written by Angus Watts. The pic centers

August 5, 2019 12:03PM PT Village Roadshow Pictures has optioned David Grossman’s prize-winning novel “A Horse Walks Into A Bar” to develop into a feature film. The company will produce the project with Veritas Entertainment Group. The short novel is about the life of a stand-up comic, as revealed in the course of one evening’s

It’s the 20th anniversary of “The Sixth Sense,” a success that took everybody by surprise, including the filmmakers. Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan had made only two films, “Praying With Anger” and “Wide Awake,” which barely made a ripple in theaters. However, Variety reported Aug. 9, 1999, “In a surprise ending to rival the film’s twisty plot,

This summer has proved a stark reminder that Hollywood studios can’t always bank on recognizable brands. Despite hailing from well-known properties, audiences weren’t all that interested in seeing new chapters from franchises including “X-Men,” “Godzilla” and “The Secret Life of Pets.” So it was still a bit of a gamble for Universal to see if

Lena Waithe is producing Radha Blank’s comedy “The 40-Year-Old Version,” Variety has learned. Blank is directing from her own script about a down-on-her-luck New York playwright who decides to reinvent herself and salvage her artistic voice the only way she knows how — by becoming a rapper at age 40. This film follow its protagonist

August 5, 2019 8:03AM PT The Tribeca Film Festival is getting a new corporate director. A consortium led by James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems will acquire a controlling stake in Tribeca Enterprises, the company behind the iconic film festival and other events. Lupa is buying the stake from The Madison Square Garden Company, Tribeca Film Festival

August 5, 2019 7:00AM PT Late night show hosts Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert as well as Nicole Byer, host of Emmy nominated Netflix baking competition “Nailed It!” are among the list of names set to headline the 2019 New York Comedy Festival. “Nothing beats being able to perform stand-up comedy in New York to

China has replaced North America as the largest export market, by admissions, for European movies, according to Europe’s Audiovisual Observatory. Research results released Monday show that China accounted for 37% of all admissions to European films outside of Europe itself. At the same time, the number of tickets sold to European movies in North America

iPic Entertainment, the luxury theater chain that helped popularize the concept of dine-in moviegoing, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It hopes to restructure its debt and has engaged investment banker PJ Solomon to pursue a possible sale. Last month, the company warned investors that it might be file for bankruptcy after it missed a

The Locarno Film Festival, a longtime beacon of the international indie filmmaking community, is being shaken up a bit by new artistic director Lili Hinstin, who is the Swiss event’s second female chief since its founding in 1946 and one of the few women to head an A-list fest around the world. The event’s 72nd

Paris-based Still Moving has dropped a first international teaser-trailer for Maya Da-Rin’s “A Febre” (The Fever), which world premieres this week in main International Competition at the 2019 Locarno Intl. Film Festival. One of two Latin American Locarno Golden Leopard contenders, with Maura Delpero’s Argentine-Italian “Maternal” (“Hogar”), “The Fever” marks one of the latest productions

Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” his eagerly awaited mobster film starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, will close the BFI London Film Festival. The long-in-the-works Netflix drama will have its international premiere in London on the fest’s final night Oct. 13. The cast members are expected to attend, as is Scorsese. “This picture

Celebrities from across Hollywood are demanding more gun control following two mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. “When I went to bed last night hundreds of @MomsDemand volunteers were marching in DC following the horrific shooting in #elpaso,” wrote actress Julianne Moore. “When I woke up, there had been another tragic shooting

Universal’s “Fast & Furious” spinoff “Hobbs & Shaw” was firing on all cylinders this weekend, generating $120 million at the international box office. The high-octane standalone vehicle, starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, kicked off in North America with $60 million for a global start of $180 million. That haul marks the fifth-highest grossing global

Universal’s “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” crossed the box office finish line in first place, debuting with $60.8 million from 4,253 North American locations. The big-budget spinoff, starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham, is expected to be an even bigger draw overseas, where the action franchise is hugely popular. “Hobbs & Shaw” kicked

D.A. Pennebaker had already been making documentaries for 12 years when he got a historic assignment in 1965 to document Bob Dylan at his most mercurial. Once “Don’t Look Back” was released in 1967, followed a year later by “Monterey Pop,” Pennebaker’s path as popular music’s preeminent documentarian was set — or at least the

D.A. Pennebaker, a director and cinematographer known for his documentaries, including the classic “Don’t Look Back” (1967), “Monterey Pop” (1968) and “The War Room” (1993) and “Elaine Stritch at Liberty” (2002), died Thursday night of natural causes, Variety has confirmed. He was 94. Pennebaker’s many other films included the 1973 David Bowie concert film “Ziggy

What was Kathy Griffin thinking when she posed for a portrait holding what looked like the severed head of Donald Trump? That’s the question the comedian’s fans most want to hear answered in her self-produced feature, “Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story,” which is her courageous attempt to soldier on after her career got

In today’s film news roundup, “El Norte” has been set for re-release, “A Dark Place” finds a home and Nazneen Contractor has joined the cast of the “Saw” reboot. ANNIVERSARY RELEASE Fathom Events and Lionsgate have set a 35th anniversary release on Sept. 15 for “El Norte,” Gregory Nava’s drama about the dreams of immigrants

Universal’s “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” is speeding to No. 1 at the domestic box office with a projected $60 million opening weekend. After earning $23.7 million in Friday ticket sales, the film is now on par with early estimates, placing it above weekend holdovers “The Lion King” and “Once Upon a Time