Movies

Celebrated Indian filmmaker Anurag Kashyap (“Gangs of Wasseypur”) and his partners the directors and producers Vikramaditya Motwane (“Bhavesh Joshi Superhero”,) Vikas Bahl (“Queen”,) and producer Madhu Mantena (“Trapped”,) have dissolved their seven-year partnership at Phantom Films. Phantom recently produced the series “Sacred Games” for Netflix, with Motwane as showrunner and also co-directing with Kashyap. Motwane

October 5, 2018 5:52PM PT Longtime Screen Actors Guild member Ada Lynn died Aug. 23, her daughter confirmed. She was 90. A member of SAG since 1937, Lynn was one of the organization’s earliest members. She also served as a board member of the Dallas-Fort Worth branch for more than 25 years, and was the oldest

October 5, 2018 5:00PM PT A slate of 15 restored Mongolian films will be launched on blockchain-powered rights platform Cinemarket. The restoration and sales project is the initiative of France’s Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas. Vesoul – whose founders Martine and Jean-Marc Therouanne were honored Thursday at the Busan International Film Festival for

In today’s film news roundup, Michael Moore gets a lifetime achievement award, “Hotel by the River” gets a domestic release, and “Dawn Wall” is set for a one-night re-release. LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT Michael Moore has been selected as the recipient of the Critics’ Choice Lifetime Achievement Award and will receive the honor at the third annual Critics’

Audrey Wells, the screenwriter behind movies including “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “The Hate U Give,” which premieres in limited release on Friday, died on Thursday after a long battle with cancer. She was 58. UTA announced the news on Friday. In a statement, her husband, Brian, said, “Over the last five and half years,

It’s not as if there’s ever a particularly good time for rose-tinted character studies of morally dubious men, but even with that caveat in place, “Richard Says Goodbye” hasn’t exactly picked its moment. At a time when unresolved abuse allegations against Johnny Depp have placed his star image in flux, watching him play a college

In its 62nd year the BFI London Film Festival saw a new management team face one of the festival’s biggest challenges, the absence of its flagship venue. Despite this, the 12-day event returns (Oct. 10-21) with a packed and vibrant lineup of 225 features representing 77 countries, including 21 world premieres and a program that

After a relatively fallow 2017, European sales companies at Busan’s Asian Film Market, which runs Oct. 6-9, appear to be headed back to the halcyon days of 2016, despite the damp weather conditions. Statistics from European Film Promotion (EFP), a constant presence at the market since 2006 via their Europe Umbrella business hub for European

“For the past decade, Next Entertainment World has continuously challenged itself whenever there was an opportunity,” said Kim Woo-taek, chairman of Next Entertainment World. Indeed, NEW, celebrating its 10th anniversary at Busan, has come a long way in a short time, developing itself from a second mover in the industry into a total entertainment company,

In the fan-made feud between “Venom” and “A Star Is Born,” the real winners are movie theaters. Tom Hardy’s “Venom” is heading for a robust $70 million-plus opening weekend and Lady Gaga’s “A Star Is Born” should score impressively with around $45 million, early estimates showed Friday. Both titles are coming in at the top

October 5, 2018 12:30PM PT Janelle Monae has joined Disney’s live-action adaptation of “Lady and the Tramp.” She is set to voice Peg, one of the dogs Lady meets when she is taken to the pound. Meanwhile, Tessa Thompson is on board to play Lady and Justin Theroux will voice the Tramp. Thomas Mann nabbed the role

Oscar-nominated actress Margot Robbie is attached to star in “Barbie,” Mattel’s feature film based on its globally recognized doll. Robbie is also on board to produce through her production banner Lucky Chaps. The film was previously set up at Sony, but after the option passed, Mattel took back the rights. Though previous reports state that

Wildlife Directed by Paul DanoThe directorial debut of prolific actor Dano, “Wildlife” centers on a 1960s Montana couple (Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal) who’ve reached a turning point in their marriage. The emotionally complex narrative pivots on how their 14-year-old son, played by Ed Oxenbould, processes the changes in the dynamics of his parents’ relationship.

Peter Dinklage remembers when Hervé Villechaize’s star began to rise in Hollywood. “I felt like everybody did — especially somebody of my size — to be honest, as a young, angry gentleman, I was in judgment of the man. Why would he take these roles that sort of seem to be side-kicky and demeaning?” Dinklage

New cinema is, as always, the centerpiece of the Mill Valley Film Festival, which celebrates its 41st iteration Oct. 4-14 in and around the Marin County city. This year’s lineup of narrative and documentary films includes awards-season hopefuls, select arthouse pics and classic titles from years past. Opening the fest are two powerhouse dramas —

October 5, 2018 8:25AM PT Patricia Joseph joined Primary Wave Entertainment as vice president of creative synch, the company announced this week. She will be based in New York and report to senior vice president of creative/head of synch Marty Silverstone. “I’m very excited that Patricia has joined the Primary Wave team, Silverstone said. “Her experience and relationships

Tom Hardy’s “Venom” earned an impressive $10 million at 3,543 North American locations on Thursday night — the top October preview number of all time. Lady Gaga’s musical drama “A Star Is Born” launched with a solid $4.6 million in previews, with $3.2 million from Thursday and $1.4 million from sneak showings on Tuesday and

Tom Hardy lunges onto megaplex screens this weekend as the super-powerful title character in “Venom.” So we thought it might be a good time to rank the award-winning actor’s Top 10 earlier screen performances, to better appreciate his prodigious talent and impressive versatility. CREDIT: Warner Bros/Kobal/REX/Shuttersto 10. Inception (2010) In Christopher Nolan’s fantastical sci-fi thriller

Hollywood’s allure, insatiable ambition, and the price of fame are at the center of one of the most oft-told stories in show-biz history: “A Star Is Born.” The latest edition, with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, is the fourth to be made, and the third to be music-centric. Variety has already written many articles about

In a pre-American Film Market move, Buffalo 8 has launched a new distribution division with digital distribution veterans Sean Thomas Flanagan and Jake Coburn. The company’s new division will oversee distribution, aggregation and strategic consultation for filmmakers with finished projects who are seeking to enter the market place. Flanagan and Coburn were previously with Visual

October 5, 2018 6:00AM PT Talk about having character. Variety has exclusively learned that Joe Morton, Jessica Walter, Joe Pantoliano, M. Emmet Walsh, James Cromwell, and Bruce Greenwood will be honored at this year’s Carney Awards. Named in honor of the late Art Carney, the Carney Awards were launched four years ago by radio personality

Sony’s “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” starring Claire Foy as avenging heroine Lisbeth Salander, is set to world-premiere at the Rome Film Festival, which announced a strong lineup Friday mixing crowd-pleasers with esoteric titles. The festival also boasts an impressive roster of speakers who will hold onstage conversations, including Martin Scorsese, Sigourney Weaver and

“Safety is our first and foremost issue,” Yun Kim, head of the BIFF’s publicity department, told Variety. As Typhoon Kong-rey is about to hit the city of Busan, the festival earlier announced that outdoor events that had been originally set at the BIFF Village on the Haeundae Beach have been moved to Dureraum Square outside

Roughly 400 buyers will be getting a taste of new Italian and, more broadly, European TV skeins, movies, and docs at Rome’s new concept MIA market which has assembled a discerning display of potentially hot high-profile content in various stages, set to attract a copious contingent of top-level international execs.  In line with its stated

Stanley Kwan and Hong Kong star actress Sammi Cheng spoke Friday at the Busan International Film Festival of the physical pain of performance. The director and co-star of “First Night Nerves” reminisced about Kwan’s previous Busan title “Everlasting Regret,” some 13 years ago. “Last time I was here, I was quite sick. I think I

First unveiled on the festival circuit in 2012, “CinemAbility” has been around long enough that at least eight of the participants have since died. The interviews may be a bit old, but that doesn’t make the film itself outdated. If anything, the cultural conversation seems to be catching up with director Jenni Gold’s enlightening look

This year, the Busan International Film Festival dedicates its signature Korean Cinema Retrospective special program to  filmmaker Lee Jang-ho. Eight of his films are screening at the festival, including his directorial debut, “Heavenly Homecoming to Stars,” and his latest, “God’s Eye View.” By the time a 29-year-old Lee made his debut feature, “Heavenly Homecoming” in

Macedonian actor and producer Labina Mitevska has called for gender parity in film festival programming. Speaking at a press conference to introduce the Busan New Currents jury, juror Mitevska said, “When art is good, its good, no matter if it is male or female. We need to have more female programmers, most of them are

Will Vinton, an Oscar-winning master of Claymation who coined the term, has died. He was 70. Vinton’s children announced his death in a Facebook post, writing that he had been battling multiple myeloma for 12 years. Educated at UC Berkeley, Vinton met future collaborator and clay animator Bob Gardiner in the early ’70s. The pair

In today’s film news roundup, surfing documentary “Momentum Generation” heads to HBO, Fox sets up “Spy School” and Jack Whitehall is hosting the Britannia Awards. ACQUISITION HBO has acquired the U.S. and Canada television rights to Jeff and Michael Zimbalist’s surfing documentary film “Momentum Generation,” which Robert Redford executive produced. The film made its world