Movies

January 24, 2019 7:37AM PT Dua Lipa today dropped a new song and video called “Swan Song.” The singer, who is nominated for two Grammys and was honored at Variety’s Hitmakers event last fall, releases the song and video ahead of the Twentieth Century Fox film “Alita: Battle Angel” an action-adventure film from producers James Cameron and Jon Landau and

It would be one thing if “Polar” were director Jonas Åkerlund’s satirical send-up of American hyper-stylized, hyper-violent exploitative genre pictures. But it’s not — or at least it arrives a decade too late to register as such. What’s clear is that this abhorrent actioner (an adaptation of Victor Santos’ graphic novel “Polar: Came From the

Think of it as MoviePass 2.0. The beleaguered ticketing service is trying to shake off its troubled image as a subscription company in a perpetual state of chaos and near collapse with a new marketing campaign and a fresh array of offerings that are being rolled out this month. The campaign, which includes print ads

January 24, 2019 6:00AM PT Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway are left adrift in this silly, soggy island noir. Shortly after the publication of his short story “The Vane Sisters” – in which a plot twist is revealed through a hidden acrostic message in the final paragraph – Vladimir Nabokov quipped that the narrative trick

The Sundance Film Festival is all about independent film — but is it really? In between screenings and late into the night, Park City is actually Party City. From intimate cocktail soirées to musical performances, this year’s film festival has something for everyone. Here is Variety’s ultimate party guide for Sundance 2019… Thursday, Jan. 24 Lyft &

January 24, 2019 4:08AM PT A new documentary component means that the work-in-progress section of this year’s Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum will double from 10 to 20 projects. The selection includes Ruby Yang (“The Blood of Yingzhou District”) and Hou Hsiao-hsien (“The Assassin”) as documentary producers, and Brillante Mendoza (“Kinatay”) as producer

Three-time Oscar winner Thelma Schoonmaker, best-known for her editing work on Martin Scorsese movies such as “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas,” will receive the British Academy of Film and Television Arts’ highest accolade, the BAFTA Fellowship, at the EE British Academy Film Awards on Feb. 10. The BAFTA Fellowship is given to an individual in recognition

January 23, 2019 11:38PM PT Singaporean actor Aloysius Pang died Wednesday of injuries sustained while on military training in New Zealand. He was 28. Pang was best known for his appearance in movies “Young & Fabulous” and “Timeless Love.” He also had a string of credits in Singapore TV series. Pang was involved in an

Alibaba Pictures Group, the film business arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has struck a strategic cooperation deal with leading film studio Huayi Bros. The deal includes a $103 million (RMB700 million) loan to Huayi. Alibaba Pictures said the agreement was part of its recently announced strategy to be involved in major movies aimed for

January 23, 2019 8:45PM PT Netflix has added to its roster of Mandarin-language content with the acquisition of rights to Taiwanese dark comedy “Dear Ex.” The award-winning film will play out from Feb. 1. The story involves a recently bereaved widow and a gay man fighting over a dead man’s inheritance, with the woman’s teenage

In today’s film news roundup, Pearl Studio and UCLA start a “Say Yes!” scholarship in memory of Audrey Well; Gina Lollobrigida and Claudia Cardinale are honored; and the “General Magic” documentary gets bought. SCHOLARSHIPS UNVEILED China’s Pearl Studio has made a gift of $100,000 for endowed scholarships to the UCLA School of Theater, Film and

There’s a good reason that much of Hollywood braves the thin mountain air each year to make the trek to the Sundance Film Festival, and it’s not to check out the nearby ski slopes. The annual launch of the indie film gathering brings with it the possibility of discovering the next big thing in moviemaking.

With nominees like “Black Panther,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and “A Star Is Born,” the 2018 class of movies proved the Oscars don’t need a popular films category to recognize movies that also made bank in theaters. But now that the academy has selected this year’s crop of awards hopefuls, is there any green left to squeeze

January 23, 2019 4:42PM PT A24 has bought the North American rights to Tilda Swinton’s romance-drama “The Souvenir – Part 2,” closing the deal on the eve of the Sundance Film Festival. “The Souvenir” is set to make its world premiere at Sundance on Jan. 27, followed by playing in the Panorama section of the

When actor Chiwetel Ejiofor optioned the rights for the 2009 best-seller “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” penning the screenplay for a feature directorial debut that world-premieres in Sundance and then appears in the Berlin Film Festival before being released globally by Netflix this spring, colleagues floated the idea of shooting the Malawi-set film in tried-and-tested

The escalating cost of awards campaigning may reach an all-time high this season as heavyweights such as “Roma” and “A Star Is Born” battle for Oscar gold. The quest for an Academy Award has always been expensive, but Netflix’s hunger to nab its first best picture win, coupled with the presence of legitimate studio contenders

“The Wizard of Oz” is returning to theaters this weekend for a special limited engagement marking the 80th anniversary of the film’s Hollywood premiere. Fathom Events, TCM, and Warner Bros. are re-releasing the beloved family film in select theaters across the country beginning on Sunday, Jan. 27, with additional dates on Tuesday, Jan. 29, and Wednesday

January 23, 2019 12:20PM PT Jonas Mekas, the Lithuania-born filmmaker who started Film Culture magazine and the organization that became New York’s Anthology Film Archives, died Wednesday. He was 96. Anthology Film Archives wrote on Instagram, “He will be greatly missed but his light shines on.” He made works such as 1962’s “Guns of the

Sue Naegle has been named chief content officer at Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures. Naegle joined the company as head of television in 2016, and will now oversee development and production in film, TV, video games, and the company’s fledgling theater division. As part of the reorganization, Ivana Lombardi has been named president of film, a

January 23, 2019 11:59AM PT “Black Panther” and “Creed II” star Michael B. Jordan has signed a first-look deal with Warner Bros. for his production company Outlier Society. The deal was announced Wednesday by Toby Emmerich, chairman of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group. The studio noted that the alliance marks a continuation of their partnership

January 23, 2019 11:46AM PT Sandra Bullock is re-teaming with Netflix to produce the science-fiction movie “Reborn” for the streaming service. Chris McKay has been signed to direct the comic book adaptation. “It” producer Vertigo Entertainment is also on board to produce. Bullock starred in the Netflix movie “Bird Box,” which has been viewed in

It’s not entirely surprising that portrait documentaries dominate this year’s Sundance nonfiction lineup. Two of the biggest nonfiction films of 2018 – “RBG” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” – are profile films that premiered at last year’s Sundance and later made the Oscar docu shortlist. The success of both docs could help explain why

Warner Bros. is looking to breathe some new life into its long-in-development “Bobbie Sue” pic, as it has set Gina Rodriguez to star in the title role with Charles Stone III directing. While the studio viewed the project as a priority since acquiring it in 2008, it was looking for the right actress for the

Imagine the scenario: A grandmother is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. What would her family do next? Maybe for many Americans, relatives would gather to say their goodbyes and discuss her final arrangements together. In Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” a Chinese family does it their own way: they keep the diagnosis secret from the grandmother

Amid the calls for leadership diversity at film festivals, Sundance director John Cooper did something about it: promoting feature programmer Kim Yutani to become the fest’s director of programming in May. Aside from her Asian-American heritage and gender, this appointment makes Sundance the first major film festival with two LGBT leaders. Yutani and Cooper previously

January 23, 2019 11:10AM PT “BlacKkKlansman,” Spike Lee’s crime drama about a black detective who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan, is heading back to theaters after picking up six Oscar nominations. The film will be re-released in 168 theaters across the country this weekend. “BlacKkKlansman” will play in over 30 states, including New York, California,

Zac Efron underwent a grueling physical transformation to play serial killer Ted Bundy in “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” a drama premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this week. “I lost 13 pounds,” Efron says. To prepare for the biographical role, he rode a stationary bike for an hour in the mornings while binge-watching

Over the course of two hit sitcoms, a couple of best-selling books and some scene-stealing turns in Hollywood blockbusters such as “Ocean’s 8” and “Inside Out,” Mindy Kaling has cultivated an image as a kinder, gentler and more relatable star than most. On Instagram or Twitter, where she routinely shares parenting anecdotes and restaurant recommendations,

London-based sales and financing house Film Constellation has added Alfred George Bailey’s feature documentary “Show Me the Picture: The Story of Jim Marshall” to its Berlin market slate, ahead of the film’s SXSW premiere. Submarine Entertainment is handling distribution in North America. The film charts the life of American photographer James Joseph Marshall, whose work

French actor-turned-director Gilles Lellouche’s “Sink or Swim” and Xavier Legrand’s feature debut “Custody” lead the race for this year’s Cesar Awards, France’s equivalent of the Oscars, with 10 nominations each, including best picture and best director. “Sink or Swim” (“Le Grand Bain” in France), a star-driven dramedy about a men’s synchronized swimming team, world-premiered at