Salzgeber has acquired the German rights for Berlin Film Festival competition title “The Ground Beneath My Feet” from sales agent Picture Tree International. Variety has been given exclusive access to the film’s trailer. Salzgeber will release the film, directed by Marie Kreutzer, mid-May. [embedded content] Trailer for Berlin Film Festival competition title “The Ground Beneath
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In today’s film news roundup, Glenn Close gets an honor, AFI names its Directing Workshop for Women participants and Teri Polo gets cast in a Christmas drama. CLOSE HONOR Glenn Close will be honored on Feb. 21 by the US-Ireland Alliance at the 14th Annual Oscar Wilde Awards, held at J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot in
January 15, 2019 4:58PM PT Sony Pictures is getting the wheels in motion for the next installment in the “Ghostbusters” franchise, and it knows who it’s going to call to direct: Jason Reitman. Sources tell Variety that Reitman, whose father, Ivan, directed the first two “Ghostbusters” movies, will direct the latest pic in the famous franchise.
January 15, 2019 2:55PM PT Danny Glover has joined the cast of Sony’s “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” sequel. His role is being kept under wraps, as is the storyline. Glover will star opposite Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan, all of whom are set to return. Awkwafina is in final negotiations
January 15, 2019 2:30PM PT DJ Khaled has rounded out the cast of Sony’s upcoming “Bad Boys” sequel “Bad Boys for Life,” joining returning stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Khaled will also join series newcomers Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Jacob Scipio, and Paola Nuñez. Joe Pantoliano is on board to return as
No plot twist here: M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller “Glass” will dominate the domestic box office. As this weekend’s lone wide release, “Glass” looks to be the de facto choice for moviegoers during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Now the only question is: how big of an opening can “Glass” pull off? Mediocre reviews don’t
The cinema of Iran has often been marked by stylistic qualities of delicacy and restraint. It has found ways to speak loudly with a whisper. But “Sheeple,” the traumatically explosive closing-night selection of 1st Iranian Film Festival New York, amounts to a rather spectacular counterexample. It’s a drama set in the lower depths of society
The Sundance Film Festival is launching a new program to offer industry mentoring to under-represented and indie creators, the festival announced Tuesday. Based out of Park City, Utah’s Kimball Art Center, the program will include focused mentoring for filmmakers, writers, producers, and beyond, as well as keynote events with “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler and
January 15, 2019 12:04PM PT The Directors Guild of America has selected Aisha Tyler to host its 71st annual DGA Awards on Feb. 2 at the Hollywood & Highland Center’s Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles. “We’re excited to have Aisha on board for the 71st annual DGA Awards,” said DGA president Thomas Schlamme. “She
January 15, 2019 11:32AM PT Caleb Landry Jones will co-star with Ralph Fiennes, Rebecca Hall, and Mark Strong in “The Forgiven.” John Michael McDonagh is directing the film, which is an adaptation of the novel by Lawrence Osborne. It deals with the reverberations of a random accident on the lives of an English couple, their
January 15, 2019 11:30AM PT Apple has officially entered the feature film world. Apple and A24 have teamed up on their first film under their recently formed partnership with “On the Rocks,” Sofia Coppola’s next pic, reteaming her with her “Lost in Translation” star Bill Murray along with Rashida Jones. Coppola will direct from a
January 15, 2019 10:30AM PT Toni Collette will star opposite Anna Kendrick in the sci-fi thriller “Stowaway.” The movie marks the second feature from Joe Penna and Ryan Morrison, the duo behind “Arctic,” a survival film that premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. “Stowaway” will be directed by Penna, who will co-write the script with
January 15, 2019 9:18AM PT Corey Stoll and Billy Magnussen are set to join the ensemble of the “The Sopranos” movie prequel, “The Many Saints of Newark.” They join Alessandro Nivola, Jon Bernthal, and Vera Farmiga, who had previously been added to the cast. More players from the “Sopranos” lore are expected to be coming on
The furor that has flared around virtually every major Oscar rival this year has turned the ongoing awards season into a particularly ugly one. As the proceedings continue to devolve into a fit of collective rage aimed at any and all, it’s worth a recap. Just before the season kicked off at the Venice and
January 15, 2019 8:30AM PT Final Draft announced the honorees for the screenwriting software’s 14th annual Final Draft Awards Tuesday. Academy Award winning screenwriter Callie Khouri (“Thelma & Louise”) will receive the Hall of Fame Award for her prolific contribution to the art of screenwriting and devotion to writers and the writing community. Khouri also
The Visual Effects Society announced nominees for the organization’s 17th annual awards on Tuesday. Leading the way in the film and TV fields, respectively, were Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and Netflix’s “Lost in Space.” Each picked up six nominations. Pixar’s “Incredibles 2” received the most nominations among animated feature contenders with five. “Ready Player One”
PARIS — Lisa Azuelos’ tender drama “Sweetheart” follows single mom Heloise (Sandrine Kiberlaine) as she gets ready to bid adieu to her college age daughter, Jade (Thaïs Alessandrin). Facing her soon-to-empty-nest with bittersweet apprehension, Heloise tries to capture every last moment on camera, with her trusty iPhone never too far from her side. In that
January 15, 2019 8:03AM PT Korean pop band BTS is on track to set another big-screen record with their latest concert film, “BTS World Tour Love Yourself in Seoul,” which will have the widest event cinema release in history. The film will hit 3,800 cinemas across 95 countries as part of a one-day release on Saturday,
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Olivia Wilde, and Henry Winkler have been added as speakers at the South by Southwest Conference. Wilde, Endeavor exec Bozoma Saint John, and Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger are part of the keynote lineup. Ocasio-Cortez and Winkler are featured speakers, along with A$AP Rocky, Pamela Adlon, Neil Gaiman, Sen. Mazie Hirono, Jeffrey Katzenberg,
Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated producer Steven Cantor’s Stick Figure Studios is producing a documentary about Venezuelan rebel helicopter pilot and former police officer Oscar Perez. On Jan. 15, 2018, Venezuelan government forces killed the renegade pilot and his team after cornering him at his hideout. A former police officer with movie-star looks, Perez has since become
“Black Panther,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” “The Death of Stalin,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and “Leave No Trace” have received nominations for the USC Libraries Scripter Award for best movie adaptation. Due to a tie, six noms were announced on Tuesday in the television category for episodes of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace:
January 15, 2019 7:22AM PT John Boyega will executive produce South African crime thriller “God Is Good” and oversee the movie’s soundtrack through his recently minted UpperRoom Records label. The project will be produced by former Sony International exec Josephine Rose’s Bandit Country. Billed as “Prisoners” meets “City of God,” the movie is set in
January 15, 2019 2:59AM PT SF Studios has unveiled the international trailer for “Amundsen,” the high-profile Norwegian historical drama about Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen which is directed by Espen Sandberg (“Kon-Tiki,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales”). Now in post-production, “Amundsen” is headlined by Pål Sverre Hagen (“Kon-Tiki”) who stars as Amundsen,
The New York Asian Film Festival, which takes place every summer, is launching its first winter showcase. The 15-title season runs Feb. 1-10 and claims ‘Crazy Broke Asians’ as its theme. “The showcase offers an alternate perspective on the continent with films that range from pure entertainment to profound introspection, stories about the 99% and
For 18 months, the U.K. entertainment industry — along with everyone else in the country — has anxiously awaited the outcome of the British government’s divorce negotiations with the European Union. The matter comes to a head Jan. 15, when Prime Minister Theresa May takes the withdrawal deal hammered out with the EU to the
January 14, 2019 10:40PM PT Opening on Wednesday (Jan. 9), Korean drama “MAL-MO-E: The Secret Mission” debuted on top of the South Korean box office. The Lotte Cultureworks release earned $8.96 million from 1.19 million admissions between Wednesday and Sunday, including some $6.16 million collected over the weekend. Set in the 1940s when Korea was
January 14, 2019 10:34PM PT Paramount Pictures Animation president Mirielle Soria called a town hall meeting for her staff on Monday, to address angst over John Lasseter’s hire to the top of Skydance Animation, insiders familiar with the meeting told Variety. Soria’s largely female team met on the studio lot to discuss the shock of
New film pitches by Jun Robles Lana, Barbara Wong, Ryuskue Hamaguchi and Tom Lin are among a line-up of 23 projects selected to appear at the Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF). The event also sees an expanded roster of prizes and partnerships. HAF will be held March 18-20, 2019 in Hong Kong.
January 14, 2019 6:49PM PT Shawn Seet’s adaptation of Colin Thiele’s treasured Australian children’s novel is fine family entertainment. Colin Thiele’s 1963 children’s novel about a boy and his beloved pelican receives tender and touching treatment in its second film adaptation. Adding a contemporary wrap-around story to the 1950s-set tale, and wringing well-judged changes to
In today’s film news roundup, the “Just Dance” video game is in development as a movie; Capstone Entertainment hires a key exec; the Writers Guild Initiative promotes an exec; and Metrograph Pictures launches. PROJECT LAUNCH Sony’s Screen Gems has acquired the motion picture rights for a film based on Ubisoft’s video game “Just Dance.” Ubisoft