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
Movies
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
January 14, 2019 5:44PM PT The Agency for the Performing Arts has named three executives to the top of motion picture and television literary departments. Sheryl Petersen and Ryan Saul will serve as co-heads in motion picture, the agency announced on Monday, and Lindsay Howard Parker will take TV. “Sheryl, Ryan and Lindsay have done
January 14, 2019 4:27PM PT The final days of filming writer-director Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of James Baldwin’s “If Beale Street Could Talk” were dedicated to moments that foreshadowed its entire plot: Having run into the recently incarcerated Daniel (Brian Tyree Henry) on the streets of Harlem, the struggling artist Fonny (Stephan James) invites his friend
January 14, 2019 2:27PM PT KiKi Layne is on a roll. Not only has she received rave reviews with her feature film debut in “If Beale Street Could Talk,” but she’s following up the Barry Jenkins-directed movie with a big-screen adaptation of “Native Son.” Directed by Rashid Johnson from a screenplay by Suzan-Lori Parks, “Native
Steven Spielberg has cast 17-year-old high schooler Rachel Zegler as Maria in his remake of “West Side Story.” She will make her film debut opposite Ansel Elgort as Tony. Broadway veteran Ariana DeBose has been cast as Anita and David Alvarez as Bernardo. Theater performer Josh Andrés Rivera has been cast as Chino. Spielberg has
January 14, 2019 1:39PM PT Incoming Skydance Animation head John Lasseter was grilled for over an hour and a half on Monday by concerned staffers who wanted to know more details about the allegations of sexual harassment that cost him his job Disney. The animation guru also fielded blunt questions, many of them from younger
Skydance’s decision to hire John Lasseter to head its animation division has put Paramount Pictures in a bind. The studio was not consulted about the decision to bring Lasseter on board, according to insiders. This omission is remarkable because Skydance has a distribution pact with Paramount and the two companies are pairing on a number
The Killers have released the new track, “Land Of The Free,” with a video by Academy Award-winning director Spike Lee, that condemns President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico and his anti-immigration stance. The “BlacKkKlansman” director filmed the video over a few weeks toward the end of 2018, traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border to
Fandango is exclusively vending tickets to “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” early-access screenings taking place nearly three weeks before the DreamWorks Animation movie hits wide theatrical release. The “How to Train Your Dragon 3” pact is all in the family: NBCUniversal owns both Fandango and DWA (which is housed within Universal Pictures).
January 14, 2019 11:22AM PT Dan Trachtenberg, who broke out with “10 Cloverfield Lane,” will direct Sony Pictures’ adaptation of the hit video game “Uncharted.” Trachtenberg replaces Shawn Levy, who had to depart the project due to scheduling conflicts. Sony has been hoping to work with Trachtenberg since “10 Cloverfield Lane” opened in 2016. “Uncharted”
SAG-AFTRA is accusing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of intimidation in trying to limit actors from presenting on awards shows other than the Oscars. The union leveled the accusation on Monday, asserting that AMPAS is using “extraordinary and unwarranted pressure” on actors, adding that it is “outrageous” that SAG-AFTRA members are being
January 14, 2019 10:20AM PT The Merc with a Mouth is officially coming to China. Or at least, a Merc with a somewhat washed-out mouth. Fox is releasing a PG-13 reimagining of “Deadpool 2” in the Middle Kingdom on Jan. 25, Variety has confirmed. The Mandarin Chinese title translates to “Deadpool 2: I Love My Home,”
Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Louis Garrel’s critically acclaimed drama “A Faithful Man,” which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI award. Sold to Kino Lorber by Wild Bunch and CAA Media Finance, the movie also played at the New York and San Sebastian film
Hollywood publicists have selected nominees for the best publicity campaigns of 2018. On the film front, Disney’s “Black Panther,” Fox’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Paramount’s “A Quiet Place,” Sony’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” Universal’s “Halloween,” and Warner Bros.’ “Crazy Rich Asians” received nods for the Maxwell Weinberg award for top movie publicity campaign of 2018. Nominated for
“The Upside,” a feel good film about the bond that forms between a wealthy quadriplegic and his caretaker, scored a surprising box office victory last weekend. The movie had to overcome a series of obstacles and setbacks before it topped charts. In the weeks leading up to the drama’s release, star Kevin Hart had been