In today’s film news roundup, a Bella Thorne crime drama is shooting, Cinepolis is expanding in the US and Bill Duke’s “The Killing Floor” is acquired. PRODUCTION START Bella Thorne’s crime drama “Southland” has begun production in Oklahoma with Joshua Caldwell directing from his own script. The story follows two young lovers who rob their
Movies
IPic Entertainment warned investors on Friday that it is facing a cash crunch that could push the theater chain into Chapter 11. In public filings, the company said it had not been able to get the funds it needed to pay a $10.1 million interest payment to the Retirement System of Alabama (RSA) and the
July 26, 2019 3:58PM PT Newcomer Stephanie Cayo is set to join Mel Gibson and Kate Bosworth in the action movie “Force of Nature” with Michael Polish directing. Emile Hirsch is also on board to star. Producers are Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films CEOs Randall Emmett and George Furla with Luillo Ruiz. Tim Sullivan and Alex Eckert are
Lionsgate chief executive officer Jon Feltheimer received $6.6 million in compensation for the fiscal year ended March 31, down 54% from the $14.4 million from the previous year. The figure was disclosed Friday as part of the company’s proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for its annual meeting on Sept. 10 in
Mark Wahlberg will star in the true-life canine adventure story “Arthur the King” for Paramount Players. The project is based on the 2017 book “Arthur: The Dog who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home,” written by Mikael Lindnord, the captain of a Swedish adventure racing team. Lindnord met the wounded stray dog during a
July 26, 2019 2:24PM PT With “Spider-Man: Far From Home” crossing the $1 billion worldwide box-office milestone, Sony is now looking to get the “Venom” sequel off the ground and executives recently met with a handful of new directing candidates. Sources tell Variety that Andy Serkis, “Bumblebee” director Travis Knight and Rupert Wyatt are among
Variety has been given exclusive access to the international trailer for Vaclav Marhoul’s “The Painted Bird,” which world premieres in competition at the Venice Film Festival, and screens at the Toronto Film Festival in the Special Presentations section. The cast, led by Petr Kotlar, includes Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgard, Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands, Barry Pepper,
“The Lion King” is still ruling at North American multiplexes with about $80 million this weekend while Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is heading for a solid $40 million opening, early estimates showed Friday. Disney’s photo-realistic remake of “The Lion King” raked in a massive $192 million during opening weekend — the
July 26, 2019 11:31AM PT A Los Angeles billboard for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has been hijacked to replace the faces of stars Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio with those of Roman Polanski and Jeffrey Epstein, respectively, blasting “Pedowood” in place of Hollywood. The billboard, located at Pico and La Cienega,
July 26, 2019 11:23AM PT Mexican director, producer and screenwriter Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is to receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo Award at the 25th Sarajevo Film Festival. The honor is given “in recognition for his exceptional contribution to the art of film.” “It gives us great pleasure to honor this distinguished auteur who keeps
Naomi Watts is on a career high. The two-time Oscar nominee’s name is buzzing all over the industry thanks to her recent starring roles on film and TV, like Showtime’s “The Loudest Voice” and HBO’s upcoming “Game of Thrones” prequel. “I’m super thrilled,” Watts told Variety at the premiere of her latest film “Luce” about
Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy, Ava DuVernay, Greg Berlanti, Mark Boal and John Wells are among the notable showrunners and screenwriters who have signed an open letter urging the WGA to move toward a negotiated settlement to end the impasse with Hollywood’s largest talent agencies. The signatories are throwing their support in the upcoming WGA West
In the early 2000s, Robert Rodriguez’s office called negative cutter Mo Henry, who had worked on all the director’s movies, starting with a pro bono job on his scrappy debut, “El Mariachi,” with bad news: There would be no negatives to cut on his next pic, “Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams,” because
July 26, 2019 9:43AM PT Disney’s live-action “Aladdin” is crossing the $1 billion worldwide box office mark, becoming the 41st title do so, Disney announced Friday. It’s also the fifth Disney-branded live-action release to do so alongside “Beauty and the Beast,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and the second and fourth “Pirates of the Caribbean” films. “Aladdin”
Quentin Tarantino movies may be a nightmare for some in the scoring community — who’d be out of work if every other director adopted his approach of almost exclusively using existing songs and score — but they’re a dream for just about anyone else who loves music. From Steelers Wheel in “Reservoir Dogs” to the
British actor Emrhys Cooper has set “The Shuroo Process” with Fiona Dourif as his feature directorial debut. Zachary Quinto (“Star Trek”) is on board as exec producer. Dourif (“When We Rise”) will play Parker Schafer, a successful young New York journalist. Addled with drugs and alcohol, she heads to a four-day retreat in the Catskills
“The Descendants” star Sofia Carson is taking the lead role in Netflix’s dance movie “Feel the Beat.” Carson will portray a dancer who, after failing to find success on Broadway, returns to her small hometown and is reluctantly recruited to train a misfit group of young dancers for a big competition. Principal photography began July
Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has opened with a solid $5.8 million at 3,318 North American locations in Thursday previews. Sony’s much-anticipated comedy drama, starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt, will expand to 3,659 sites against the second weekend of Disney’s blockbuster remake of “The Lion King.” “Once Upon a Time” is
Meryl Streep will receive the Toronto International Film Festival’s Tribute Actor Award during this year’s festivities. “Meryl Streep is undoubtedly one of the most talented and versatile actors of her generation,” TIFF co-head Joana Vicente said in a statement. “Her tremendous contribution to cinema, television, and the stage spans five decades; from her early roles
“It wasn’t a plan, but I always knew,” Baz Luhrmann, that great Australian muse of technicolor maximalism, said slyly on the red carpet of Broadway’s “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” his 2001 cult-classic finally shepherded (or can-canned?) to the Broadway stage. Catherine Martin, his production designer (and wife) who put the rouge in the “Moulin Rouge”
This weekend marks the 35th anniversary of the release of “Purple Rain.” But talking to the film’s writer-director Albert Magnoli, it seems like yesterday — at least in terms of the level of detail that he brings to his recollections of the development and production of Prince’s masterpiece. Not only does the filmmaker remember all
MADRID — Marking its eighth quarter of consecutive growth in pay TV clients, Movistar Plus, the pay TV/SVOD division of Telefonica, Europe’s third-biggest telecom, punched 11,300 net additions in customers from April to June. The figure is 49% up year-on-year in terms of net adds, and takes Movistar’s total pay TV sub count in Spain
Vivendi saw its half-year revenues rise by 13.6% to €7.3 billion ($8.1 billion) during the first half of 2019, bolstered by the continued growth of Universal Music Group (UMG) which helped offset the losses at Canal Plus Group. Canal Plus, whose subscriber base in mainland France had been going down, is preparing to downsize its
July 26, 2019 1:36AM PT A censor working in a Turkish prison becomes obsessed with an inmate’s mysterious wife in this capable, low-key thriller debut. In Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation,” Gene Hackman played a surveillance expert who insists that curiosity is beyond the purview of his job, only to become obsessed with the mystery
Borne on the back of a juvenile performance of remarkable intelligence and spontaneity, Vardis Marinakis’ fine-boned “Zizotek” has an uncanny shimmer to its storytelling: It slips unnoticed from genre to genre like a quiet child moving between rooms trying not to disturb the adults. Starting out as a family drama of parental neglect and abandonment,
“Queer Japan,” a documentary about the LGBTQ community as it exists today in Tokyo and several smaller (but still major) Japanese cities, is a movie that makes you realize that liberation movements have become more global, in spirit and in fact, than anyone might have expected. The director, Graham Kolbeins (who also co-shot and edited
“Thor: Love and Thunder,” the fourth part of Marvel’s superhero franchise, will shoot in the Disney-owned Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia. The film is set to receive more than $16.7 million (A$24.1 million) in subsidies from the Australian federal government and the New South Wales state government. The announcement, made Friday by NSW minister for
July 25, 2019 8:14PM PT Fans remember”Fast Times at Ridgemont High” for its raunchy humor, loaded soundtrack and clever storyline, but an underlying subplot involving underage sex and abortion often flies under the radar — and that might be a good thing. According to screenwriter Cameron Crowe, the film’s abortion side-story wouldn’t hold up with
Veteran script supervisor Karen Golden, best known for her work on “Transformers,” died Tuesday after a seven year battle with Alzheimer’s. She was 78. Golden spent her career working alongside a long list of major film directors, including Michael Bay, John Huston and Ron Shelton. She collaborated with Bay on scripts for “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor,”
July 25, 2019 6:33PM PT This debut feature by Chinese stop-motion animator Shengwei Zhou is as accomplished and inventive as it is conceptually bizarre. The recent demise of American animator Suzan Pitt reminded many that there had been nothing quite like her relatively few screen works — particularly 1979’s “Asparagus.” That 20-minute riot of ominously