Movies

Jeff Bridges grew up with show business in his veins. His father, the late Lloyd Bridges, was a gregarious sort who not only loved the making of movies, but the selling of them as well. He would encourage his children to give it a go. “This is a great life,” he would tell them. Still,

Warner Bros. has bought the RatPac-Dune Entertainment library, consisting of 15% to 25% stakes in each of 76 films that the RatPac co-financed, including 2017’s “Wonder Woman” and 2013 Oscar winner “Gravity.” The library was generated by RatPac with the studio through a five-year slate deal. Other notable titles included in the deal include “It,”

2018’s movie business hit all-time benchmarks of $11.9 billion in North America and $41.7 billion globally, with Disney taking in nearly a fifth of that figure. ComScore announced the official 2018 final figures Wednesday with Disney taking in $7.33 billion globally last year — the second-biggest year for a studio in industry history, behind only

[SPOILER ALERT: The following interview contains some details about the end of “Transformers” prequel “Bumblebee.”] Christina Hodson could be one of the busiest young screenwriters in Hollywood. Her “Transformers” prequel “Bumblebee” has generated $157 million at the global box office during a crowded holiday frame. After fears of franchise fatigue for a saga that seemed

Cuban-born musician Arturo Sandoval is well known as a top trumpeter and recording artist in the jazz world. Now, at 69, he’s thinking of changing careers, and hopes his score for Clint Eastwood’s “The Mule,” based on the story of an elderly Midwestern horticulturist who stumbles into a job transporting cocaine for the Mexican cartel,

It will be difficult to top 2018’s banner year at the box office. A number of overperforming blockbusters, combined with a healthy crop of surprise hits, propelled the domestic market to record heights. It’s safe to say this year has its work cut out for it. Fortunately, an intrepid lion cub, a demonic dancing clown

Nearly three decades after “The Simpsons” became a fixture on Fox, Bart Simpson is still 10 years old. Call it “the Peter Pan effect”: a never-grow-up miracle in which hand-drawn characters defy age in a way that flesh-and-blood actors find impossible. And then there’s DreamWorks Animation’s “How to Train Your Dragon” series, which has taken

Kevin Smith has launched pre-production on his long-promised  “Jay and Silent Bob” reboot with Jay Mewes and producer Jordan Monsanto. Smith, who first announced the project in August, 2017, made the announcement in Jan. 1 tweet: “Spent the first day of 2019 having a #JayAndSilentBobReboot pre-pre-production meeting.” Smith and Mewes made their film debut in

Nearly all regional film critics groups (36 so far) have chimed in with picks for the best of 2018 cinema. So it’s time for a cross-section before the industry continues weighing in with guild announcements this week and next. Critics have singled out 11 films as the year’s best, but one stands above the rest.

January 2, 2019 5:08AM PT “Absolutely Fabulous” star Joanna Lumley has been tapped to host the BAFTA Film Awards ceremony for the second consecutive year. Lumley will reprise her emcee role at the Feb. 10 gala in London’s iconic Royal Albert Hall. “We’re thrilled that Joanna has agreed to return as our host for a

Spain’s box office dipped slightly last year, edging down 1.9% in theatrical revenues and 2% in admissions, according to a Comscore report published Wednesday. In all, Spain’s B.O. gross came in at €585.7 million ($673.1 million), with 97.7 million cinema tickets sold. “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” from Universal Pictures Intl., which dominated last year in

China’s total box office revenue grew 9% in 2018 to $8.87 billion (RMB60.98 billion). But the rate of expansion was slower rate than the year before, when it rose 13.5%, state media and government reports said. Nevertheless, the country met its government-set 2018 box office target of RMB60 billion yuan in ticket sales on December

Theatrical box office in Hong Kong grew by nearly 6% in 2018. Gross takings hit HK$1.96 billion, compared with HK$1.85 billion in 2017, in local currency terms, according to data from Hong Kong Box Office Ltd. As the Hong Kong dollar is closely pegged to the American currency, most of that gain can be translated

Director Bi Gan’s dreamy pseudo-noir “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” defied the odds stacked against art house fare at China’s commercial-leaning box office to take in a whopping $37.9 million on its opening day December 31. That beat even superhero blockbuster “Venom” in both pre-sales and first day mainland box office tallies. The haul — achieved

How much difference a year makes! Early last December, around the time critics’ groups do their annual awards voting, if you’d asked me to make a list of the 10 best Netflix original films of 2017, I could’ve named two contenders — Sundance winner “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore” and Noah

January 1, 2019 1:15PM PT Like many people on New Year’s Eve, Tiffany Haddish had a night she’d probably like to forget. While performing to a sold-out audience at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Haddish reportedly bombed so hard on Monday night, several fans got up and walked out of the comedy show.

“Aquaman” capped off 2018 in style. DC’s superhero adventure will cross the $200 million mark at the domestic box office just a few hours after the ball dropped on the year. Its total now stands at $199.5 million. “Aquaman” — directed by James Wan and starring Jason Momoa — topped the charts in North America

On December 28, when Barack Obama posted a list of his favorite movies of 2018 (there are 15 films on it, listed alphabetically), you could see, hear, feel, and just about touch the paroxysm of rapture it set off within the film-critic community. To an extraordinary degree, he had validated their tastes. Obama, in that

There may not be any more eggnog to drink or mistletoe to stand under, but don’t despair — Hulu is coming in clutch with over 200 new titles arriving to the streaming service next month. Ease into the new year by rewatching classics like “Beetlejuice,” “Heathers” and “Rain Man,” or snuggle up with a bowl of

December 31, 2018 2:10PM PT The French Revolution gets a stultifyingly formulaic treatment in this star-filled re-creation of the momentous years from the fall of the Bastille to the death of Louis XVI. It’s impossible to imagine a more ploddingly old-fashioned account of the French Revolution than “One Nation, One King,” a film desperate to

The holidays might be over, but Netflix has a quick fix for the back-to-work blues. Sing along to your favorite Beatles songs in “Across the Universe” or laugh along with the Joker as he tries to thwart Batman in “The Dark Knight” when both arrive to the streaming platform next month. A couple classics are

“…the curious feeling swam through him that everything was beautiful there, that it would always stay beautiful there…” At one point in Francesco Rizzi’s coolly assured, impressive debut “Cronofobia,” which picked up a first feature competition jury prize in the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, a raspy but sonorous voice reads out Charles Bukowski’s poem “Nirvana”

Don Lusk, an animator behind “Alice in Wonderland,” “Peter Pan,” and many more classic animated Disney movies, died Sunday morning, according to a Facebook post by Ed Asner’s daughter, Navah Paskowitz-Asner. He was 105. Lusk’s 60-year career touched countless classic works from Disney, where his career began in 1933. There he worked his animation magic

December 31, 2018 10:53AM PT Simon Lereng Wilmont’s deservingly Oscar-shortlisted doc evocatively filters Russo-Ukrainian conflict through the shifting perspective of a pre-adolescent boy. There’s rueful misdirection in the title “The Distant Barking of Dogs,” even if it isn’t strictly inaccurate: For much of Danish docmaker Simon Lereng Wilmont’s stoically compassionate fly-on-the-wall wartime portrait, a steady

December 31, 2018 9:00AM PT Variety will honor actress Emily Blunt at the Palm Springs International Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 4 as part of their annual brunch with the festival at the Parker Palm Springs. The brunch is presented by AT&T. The “Mary Poppins Returns” star will receive the annual Creative Impact in Acting

Alfredo Calvino’s Habanero Film Sales has snapped up two dramas by Bolivia’s Gory Patiño, “The Goalkeeper” and “Pseudo,” after spotting them at Ventana Sur. “Habanero’s motto is ‘Awesome stories from Latin American & Caribbean filmmakers.’ We are always looking for films anchored in great storytelling; fresh and unusual perspectives that touch on important issues that

MADRID —  “I was six-years-old when they came for my mother. People from the town, Franco supporters,” narrates an old lady, the white-haired, black-dressed Maria Martín, nearly 80 years later, as she is filmed at the beginning of “The Silence of Others” laying simple flowers by the side of a country road. Executed during Spain’s

New local Chinese titles beat Hollywood heavyweights “Aquaman” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” at the box office this weekend, with a remake and a panned sequel leading the pack. Meanwhile, expensive Bollywood flop “Thugs of Hindostan” failed to redeem itself in China, with a weak opening weekend marking the first Aamir Khan flop in China

Film-score buffs had a bonanza of riches to choose from in 2018 — notwithstanding the fact that the soundtrack business is almost unrecognizable from what it was even a decade ago. Instead of farming out their new scores to the traditional soundtrack labels, most studios now retain them for their own in-house labels and generally

With its jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Nadine Labaki’s “Capernaum” made history, and with its current Golden Globes nod for best foreign language motion picture, the film is on its way to marking further milestones. “Capernaum” is on Oscar’s shortlist for foreign-language film, with nominations to be unveiled Jan. 23. The Globes ceremony