Movies

Kevin Spacey stunned museum-goers in Rome on Friday with a bizarre reading of Italian poet Gabriele Tinti’s poem, “The Boxer.” It’s unclear what Spacey was hoping to accomplish with the stunt. The actor’s career flamed out in 2017 after he was accused by more than a dozen people of sexual assault. He did get a

August 2, 2019 9:14PM PT The Filipino Aswang legend is spun into a proto-feminist tale of colonial-era rape and revenge in this atmospheric but turgid fantasy. Prolific Filipino helmer Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr.’s latest big-screen endeavor “Mystery of the Night” is a supernatural folktale so beautifully atmospheric that one can almost overlook its escalating problems

August 2, 2019 8:46PM PT Top animation directors Yasuhiro Takemoto and Futoshi Nishiya were among the talent killed by last month’s arson attack on Kyoto Animation, city police have confirmed. Revealing the names of 10 of the 35 victims of the fire that ravaged the three-story studio, police also said that veteran animator Yoshiji Kigami

One of “The Farewell’s” most emotionally poignant scenes revolves around food. Billi (played by Awkwafina) and members of her extended family take turns plucking off morsels from shared family-style platters while debating the merits of growing up in the United States versus China.  Billi’s father (Tzi Ma) recalls one story from Billi’s childhood in the

Elvis is in the building on Oct. 1, 2021, the date set by Warner Bros. for Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley biopic. The studio announced the date on Friday, three weeks after setting Austin Butler as the star. The studio tested with a handful of actors in full hair and make-up at the end of

August 2, 2019 3:54PM PT Endeavor Group Holdings’ initial public offering will take place later than expected. The IPO for the talent agency and entertainment giant will not occur until September at the earliest, people familiar with the situation confirmed to Variety on Friday. Endeavor, which was formed in 2009 by the merger of William

Shaggy Manhattan auteur Onur Tukel’s latest film isn’t entirely new: Originally conceived as an ongoing TV series, “Black Magic for White Boys” premiered at Tribeca a couple of years ago as several preliminary episodes. But when prospects didn’t pan out in that format, he shot additional footage to create the current feature. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the

“The Art of Racing in the Rain” star Milo Ventimiglia is a big Disney lover, so Thursday night’s premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood was a dream come true for more reasons than one. “I feel like finally Disney’s recognizing that I can work for them, seeing as how they wouldn’t hire me

Shia LaBeouf agreed to star in “The Peanut Butter Falcon” before ever reading the script. “I knew I was in immediately,” LaBeouf said at the Hollywood premiere Thursday night, explaining that the movie’s star, Zack Gottsagen, was the main reason he knew he had to be part of the project. “He’s been acting longer than

August 2, 2019 2:09PM PT Miguel Llanso’s second feature is an inspired mashup of vintage exploitation tropes and pure absurdism. Some of the more obscure guilty-pleasure subgenres familiar to fans of international psychotronic cinema get thrown in a blender to create Miguel Llanso’s second feature. The resulting concoction is a witch’s brew of cheap 1960s

Phil Lord and Chris Miller have signed a first-look deal with Universal Pictures. The pair recently won the best animated movie Oscar for “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which they produced. Additionally, the series originated by the duo, including “21 Jump Street,” “The LEGO Movie” and “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” have grossed more than

Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham are showing solid drawing power as “Hobbs & Shaw” heads for about $57 million in its opening weekend in North America, early estimates showed Friday. That’s slightly below forecasts, which had been in the $60 million range for the first spinoff from the Fast & Furious universe, which has generated

Jim Carrey has finally responded to criticism surrounding his forthcoming “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie, the opening of which was pushed back three months after fans mocked the design of the title character. “Sometimes you find that the collective consciousness decides it wants something and then when it gets it, it goes, ‘OK, I don’t want

August 2, 2019 11:54AM PT “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” has started with a solid $25 million in 54 markets in its international rollout on Wednesday and Thursday from early opening days and previews. Universal Pictures has been forecasting that the first spinoff of the “Fast & Furious” franchise, starring Dwayne Johnson and

Paradigm today announced the appointment of Lori Feldman as Chief Marketing Officer for the agency, where she will oversee Paradigm’s marketing and branding initiatives across all business units. In this newly created role, Feldman will lead brand partnerships and marketing efforts for clients in the music area and will focus on enhanced brand and partnership opportunities

Funa Maduka, Netflix’s director of international original films and acquisitions, is to leave the streaming giant Friday, Variety has confirmed. Her acquisitions included films that brought the company early awards recognition, such Houda Benyamina’s “Divines,” a Cannes Camera d’Or winner and Golden Globes nominee, and Ildiko Enyedi’s “On Body and Soul,” a Golden Bear winner

August 2, 2019 9:59AM PT Cate Blanchett is in talks to star opposite Bradley Cooper in Guillermo del Toro and Fox Searchlight’s adaptation of “Nightmare Alley.” The production is eyeing a shooting start at the top of 2020. Del Toro will direct the pic and co-wrote the script with Kim Morgan. “Nightmare Alley” is being

Cinematographer Jack N. Green is proof that nice guys sometimes finish first — even in Hollywood. Born in 1939, the San Francisco native traveled a long-rising arc in his career, which includes distinguished stints shooting aerial sequences for documentaries and some of the most iconic films of the 1960s, eventually becoming director of photography on

Milo Ventimiglia has dreams of being a superhero. At least he did earlier this year when Warner Bros. was searching for a new Batman. The “This Is Us” star threw his name in the Gotham ring for the much-coveted role. “Do I see myself in a cape and cowl?” Ventimiglia asked when talk turned to

“The Sixth Sense” was almost a serial killer film inspired by “The Silence of the Lambs.” In the original draft of the thriller by director and writer M. Night Shyamalan, Bruce Willis’ character was a crime photographer (instead of a therapist) with a son who experienced visions of the victims. Ten drafts later, Shyamalan morphed

Netflix has debuted a trailer for its latest documentary, “Léa & I,” which follows the lives of Léa Moret, a young woman diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, and her friend, Camille Shooshani. After graduating from college in Los Angeles, the two women take off across Latin America in search of a cure for Moret’s disease outside

MADRID — James Franco’s “Zeroville,” Louise Archambault’s “And The Birds Rained Down” and José Luis Torres Leiva’s “Death Will Come And Shall Have Your Eyes” will compete for San Sebastian’s Golden Shell, the Spanish festival announced Friday. Further new main competition titles unveiled take in Guillaume Nicloux’s “Thalasso,” Ina Weisse’s “The Audition,” Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s “A

Didar Domehri’s Paris-based company, Maneki Films, is on board to produce “Memory House,” the feature debut of young Brazilian director João Paulo Miranda Maria, whose short films have played in Cannes and Venice. The director started developing the script of “Memory House” in 2015 as part of the Next Step Program, a workshop created by

In today’s film news roundup, the Gotham Awards have been set for Dec. 2, “The Twentieth Century” and “Feast of the Seven Fishes” are acquired and The Writers Lab selects a dozen participants. AWARDS DATE The Independent Filmmaker Project announced that the 29th IFP Gotham Awards will take place this year at Cipriani in New

You can never quite predict what will happen when parents intrude on their kids’ lives, no matter what their ages — a fact of life that has inspired a rich subgenre of such films as “She’s Out of Control,” “Mother,” “The Guilt Trip” and last year’s surprisingly sweet “Blockers.” Based on the novel “Whatever Makes

Lee Pace didn’t know much about John DeLorean when he signed on to play the late automobile mogul in the new biopic “Driven.” He was aware of the DeLorean car that was immortalized in “Back to the Future” and, he says, “I had a sense of a scandal.” That scandal was DeLorean’s downfall in the

August 1, 2019 5:39PM PT Ben Affleck and Ana De Armas are in negotiations to star in the erotic thriller “Deep Water” with Adrian Lyne directing and New Regency fully financing. If the deals are signed, production would start in November with a release through New Regency’s deal with Fox. Zach Helm and Sam Levinson

August 1, 2019 4:40PM PT The trailer for Christopher Nolan’s next movie, “Tenet,” made a surprise debut in theaters Thursday night. A 40-second teaser screened ahead of preview showings of “Hobbs & Shaw,” sources tell Variety. The trailer has not yet hit the web, and it’s currently unclear when it will. According to social media

SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris and seven of her supporters are threatening to file a lawsuit against their opponents over recent allegations of misconduct by Carteris. United Screen Actors Nationwide, which Carteris heads, issued the threat Thursday against presidential challenger Matthew Modine and 19 of his allies running on the Membership First slate, including Ed Asner,

August 1, 2019 2:00PM PT Everardo Gout, who recently helmed several episodes of Nat Geo’s “Mars” series, has come on board to direct Blumhouse Productions, Platinum Dunes and Universal Pictures’ next installment in “The Purge” franchise. Following the success of 2018’s “The First Purge,” which became the highest-grossing film in the horror series, franchise creator