Movies

Mattel and MGM have partnered to develop a live-action motion picture based on Mattel’s American Girl line of books and dolls. Mattel Films, MGM, and PictureStart’s Erik Feig will produce the film. Cassidy Lange, MGM’s co-president of production, and Robbie Brenner, Mattel Films’ executive producer, will oversee production. American Girl characters were first introduced in

February 15, 2019 2:18AM PT Turner Asia Pacific has signed an MOU to formalize a partnership with Beijing-based animation company UYoung Culture & Media to develop new IP, the company has announced. The signing occurred earlier this week at the Kidscreen Summit in Miami. Details of any new IP won’t be revealed until later in

February 15, 2019 12:45AM PT Live Action Role-Playing is therapeutic for a woman from a troubled family in this handsome but somewhat unrevealing doc. The surprise Oscar nomination of impressionistic “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” suggested a broadening of acceptance towards documentaries well beyond standard “Just the facts, ma’am” territory. Still, juggling style and

Editors Guild President Alan Heim has joined the chorus of dissent to the Academy’s plans to present four Oscar categories during commercial breaks and air the moments in condensed form later in the telecast. In an email sent Thursday night to the 8,100 members of the Motion Picture Editors Guild, Heim voiced his union’s opposition

In today’s film news roundup, Miramax has set up the comedy “Silent Retreat,” sci-fi romance “Clara” and “Cold Case Hammarskjold” get distribution and Olivia Wilde is honored for directing “Booksmart.” PROJECT UNVEILED Miramax has set up the comedy “Silent Retreat” with “Isn’t It Romantic” director Todd Strauss-Schulson attached to helm from a script he co-wrote

Cinematographers opposing the decision to curtail four Oscar presentations on the telecast have blasted the Academy’s latest attempt to assuage concerns about the move. The group responded Thursday to officers of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ board of governors, sending a letter Wednesday night to its membership, asserting that no award category

In many ways, “Velvet Buzzsaw” never should have happened for Zawe Ashton. A literal art house movie, Dan Gilroy’s latest explores the intersection of art and commerce as members of the L.A. art scene, from Jake Gyllenhaal’s critic to Rene Russo’s gallery owner, find themselves haunted by a series of paintings. Trippy and original, with

February 14, 2019 3:38PM PT Skydance Animation head John Lasseter and his CEO David Ellison have named longtime executive Holly Edwards as president of the division, Variety has learned. Edwards replaces outgoing president Bill Damaschke, and will serve as Lasseter’s right hand in business dealings, as the former Pixar head sets his creative goals, an

February 14, 2019 3:32PM PT Ivanhoe Pictures, which produced “Crazy Rich Asians,” has partnered with Jeffrey Sharp and Sharp Independent Pictures to finance and co-produce “The Baccarat Queen” about Chinese gambler Cheung Yin “Kelly” Sun. The project is inspired by Michael Kaplan’s article “The Baccarat Machine,” published in Cigar Aficionado, about Sun amassing millions of

February 14, 2019 3:00PM PT “Aquaman” star Jason Momoa is in negotiations to join Legendary’s “Dune” reboot. If a deal closes, he would join a cast that includes Timothee Chalamet, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Josh Brolin, Oscar Isaac, and Zendaya. Momoa will portray Duncan Idaho, a swordmaster in the house of

Sebastian Stan is starring in Netflix’s backwoods drama “The Devil All the Time” after Chris Evans had to depart due to scheduling conflicts. Stan will appear alongside Tom Holland, Jason Clarke, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, Riley Keough, and Bill Skarsgard. The film is an adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s 2011 novel and set in a

February 14, 2019 1:40PM PT Stephen Rivkin, president of the American Cinema Editors organization, has issued a statement denouncing the Academy’s plans to present four Oscar categories during the commercial breaks and air the moments in condensed form later in the telecast. The Academy’s plans “will not amount to enough running time to save more

The organizers of this year’s Oscars don’t plan on trimming any of the speeches that will air on the telecast on Feb. 24. In an interview with Variety, Academy Awards producer Donna Gigliotti pushed back against the notion that the show would be condensing some of the remarks made onstage at the Dolby Theatre. “If

February 14, 2019 12:19PM PT Steven Poster, national president of the International Cinematographers Guild, blasted the academy’s decision to shorten four awards from the live Oscar broadcast, including the cinematography prize. Poster, whose union represents more than 8,000 members, said the decision is “humiliating” for the winners. He joins a growing chorus of opposition, including high-profile

February 14, 2019 11:59AM PT Marius Olteanu’s debut amounts to a powerful, minutely observed three-part study of a loving marriage threatened by socially taboo and mutually painful revelations. “The trick is to keep breathing,” says Dana (Judith State) as she takes a drag off the first cigarette she’s had in years, grinding it out after

February 14, 2019 11:44AM PT “Roma” actor Jorge Antonio Guerrero has finally received an American visa in time to attend the Oscars on Feb. 24. Guerrero made the happy announcement on his Instagram on Wednesday, thanking the Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles, the U.S. embassy, his Talent on the Road management, Netflix and his

February 14, 2019 11:35AM PT An aspiring musician chases his Hollywood dreams under the tutelage of composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco in Adam Cushman’s modest drama. The expert in question in “The Maestro” is famed composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Xander Berkeley), who over the course of his career contributed to more than 200 movies, many as a “ghost

Gilles Lellouche’s “Sink or Swim,” Mikhaël Hers’s “Amanda,” Louis-Julien Petit’s “Invisibles” and Eva Husson’s “Girls of the Sun” are set to screen at the 24th edition of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema showcase which is co-organized by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and UniFrance. After world-premiering out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival,

The airplane runs into turbulence, the seatbelt announcement sounds, and Yaojun (Wang Jingchun) and his wife Liyun (Yong Mei) automatically clutch hands. The rough air passes, the craft steadies and their hands unclasp. “Isn’t it funny,” says Liyun, whose hair is finally graying at the temples, but whose unlined face has been made somehow more

It’s called the Dream Factory for a reason. Hollywood has been churning out movies about dreamers for decades, and this year’s best picture contenders follow that cinematic tradition: Dreamers abound on screen and behind the camera. Cleo, the indefatigable domestic at the center of Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” seems to yearn for her own family while

February 14, 2019 11:07AM PT Netflix has acquired the worldwide rights to the short documentary “Ghosts of Sugar Land,” which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Bassam Tariq directed the pic, which he also co-wrote with Thomas Niles. The doc is set in Sugar Land, Texas, and follows a group of young Muslim American

Finding the identity, the heart of a character can be an enormous task for an actor, whether depicting a real person or creating an individual out of whole cloth. The obstacles actors face can often be intellectual or emotional, forcing them to find ways of getting inside that character’s headspace and perspective to make their

In its continued bid to invest in Spanish film production, Sony Pictures International Productions has pacted with Enrique López Lavigne’s Apache Films to co-produce “Adios” by Spanish writer-director Paco Cabezas, who marks his return to Spain with the crime drama. Cabezas has been building a notable international portfolio that includes “American Gods,” “Penny Dreadful,” “The

Grammy- and Golden Globe-nominated composer Clint Mansell has signed a long-term, worldwide music publishing deal with Decca Publishing. Mansell is best-known as the composer of such acclaimed Darren Aronofsky films as “Requiem for a Dream,” “Black Swan” and “The Fountain,” but rose to prominence as frontman of Pop Will Eat Itself, which scored 11 top-40

Bright-eyed Australian director Damon Gameau set out in his previous movie, “That Sugar Film” to challenge everyday thoughtlessness about the dangers of our modern lifestyle — and became profoundly sick while doing so. In his new film “2040,” which plays in Berlin’s Generation Kplus section and which he styles as a “hybrid feature documentary,” Gameau

Netflix is closing in on a deal for Antonin Baudry’s “The Wolf’s Call” (“Le Chant du Loup”), an anticipated big-budget French submarine thriller, for multiple territories. The streaming service is in advanced negotiations to pre-buy “The Wolf’s Call” from Pathé International for North America, Latin America, Spain and Scandinavia, as well as for France, where

February 14, 2019 4:27AM PT Most web series and online films in China must register with the government and report their budgets and actor salaries starting from this Friday, the country’s media watchdog has decreed, in a further tightening of official oversight of the entertainment sector amid an uproar over talent pay. All live-action and

The Chinese city that is home to the world’s largest film studio has released lists of its top registered taxpayers in 2018, revealing the payments by major production companies and movie stars at a time when new tax regulations have upended the industry. In years past, the small city of Dongyang in coastal Zhejiang province

“A First Farewell,” which debuted this week at the Berlin Film Festival, has secured its first sale and looks set to have a promising festival career. The movie is the first in nearly 30 years at the Berlinale to have been shot in Uighur, the language spoken in the vast western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

February 14, 2019 3:15AM PT BAFTA-nominated director Stephen Fingleton has been cleared of sexual assault. The case came to a close in a London court on Wednesday, with the jury finding the Northern Irish director not guilty. He had been accused of sexually assaulting an actress – who was in her 20s and cannot be