Movies

“The Post,” which starred Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, was set in old the Washington Post building on L Street, NW, circa 1971. To recreate the location, the production found an aging AT&T office tower in White Plains, N.Y., that was run down and slated for demolition. Twentieth Century Fox is now embroiled in litigation

September 27, 2018 4:07PM PT Maximum energy meets zero originality to numbing effect in a horror-action-comedy mishmash. Horror-action-comedy hash “Nekrotronic” has mankind menaced by soul-sucking demons who’ve invaded the internet. A little bit “Tron” meets “Blade,” with a whole lot of other stuff thrown in, this cartoonish Aussie fanboy missive from the brothers Roache-Turner mashes

September 27, 2018 2:30PM PT An unresolved disappearance haunts protagonists but tests viewer patience in this glum, undercooked debut feature. There’s a whole lot of digging, but not much suspense or interest dug up in “The Dig.” This first feature for sibling directorial duo Andy and Ryan Tohill follows several shorts, and probably should’ve been

September 27, 2018 2:04PM PT The first glimpse at Tom Hanks in costume as beloved children’s television show host Fred Rogers was released on Thursday. The Oscar winner dons Rogers’ signature red sweater, along with a dress shirt and tie, tan slacks, and sneakers. Variety first reported in January that Hanks would play Rogers in TriStar Pictures’

Sony Pictures is getting back in business with Seth Rogen, as the movie star will play a pickle maker in his next big role at the studio. Cinematographer Brandon Trost, who has worked on a number of Rogen’s projects, is in talks to make his directing debut on the film, with Simon Rich penning the

Director Sebastien Pilote’s ongoing study of Quebec lives running out of options continues apace with “The Fireflies Are Gone.” This third feature (his first in five years) is, like its predecessors “The Salesman” and “The Auction,” a neatly observed character portrait in a well-detailed small-town setting. But in contrast to the middle-aged protagonists of his

September 27, 2018 11:36AM PT A teen suspects his seemingly squeaky-clean dad of being a serial murderer in this creepily understated thriller. There’s nary a drop of blood, but a squirm factor of 10 to much of “The Clovehitch Killer.” This first theatrical feature for director Duncan Skiles, working from a strong screenplay by his

Mary Elizabeth Winstead landed her first TV gig when she was 12 years old, appearing in an episode of “Touched by An Angel.” Since then, she has spent the last 20 years in films that scaled large and small, portraying a wide range of complicated, fully realized women. Many of these performances deserved attention on

Participant Media is hiring veteran media executives Jim Hu and Melinda Arons as senior vice presidents to bolster its executive team, Variety has learned exclusively. The company, which made the announcements Thursday, is also promoting Shelly Hance to senior VP to lead its human resources department. Participant Media scored recent festival wins for Alfonso Cuarón’s

September 27, 2018 10:33AM PT Forty years after narrowly escaping Michael Myers wrath, Laurie Strode is heading back to theaters to face off against the creepy masked murderer once again. Universal’s R-rated slasher, which was produced by Blumhouse and Miramax, is eyeing a start around $45 million when it opens on Oct. 19, though that

September 27, 2018 10:31AM PT Clint Eastwood’s “The Mule” will come out in time for Christmas. The Warner Bros. thriller will open on Dec. 14 in wide release. Eastwood stars in the film and directs. “The Mule” will face off against Universal’s pricey sci-fi fantasy “Mortal Engines,” STX’s Jennifer Lopez rom-com “Second Act,” and Sony’s

September 27, 2018 10:14AM PT [embedded content] We’re far from the shallow now. You know that song that’s been stuck in your head; the one that Lady Gaga belts out when Bradley Cooper brings her up on stage in the trailer for the upcoming musical drama “A Star Is Born?” It’s called “Shallow” and it

Kent Jones has never liked rejecting films submitted for the New York Film Festival. But now that he’s written and directed “Diane,” NYFF’s director likes it even less. “Diane,” his narrative film debut, revolves around a selfless widow (Mary Kay Place) struggling to help her drug-addicted son (Jake Lacy). The film debuted at this year’s

Since 1992, virtually all New York Film Festival opening night films have been North American or, since 2012, world premieres. But this year’s choice, “The Favourite,” crossed an unofficial line in the sand by getting a North American premiere at Telluride before opening the 56th NYFF on Sept. 28. The only exception — 2009’s French

Say what you will about rarefied Japanese enviro-auteur Naomi Kawase, but there are relatively few filmmakers whose work can be identified from its image system alone, and she is firmly in that club. It takes mere seconds for “Vision” (her tenth feature, and her first to be shot partially in English) to announce itself as

The Ink Factory and Marc Platt Prods. are joining forces to adapt “We Were Never Here,” the highly anticipated novel from Lara Prescott based on events surrounding the publication of Boris Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago.” The project sets up a high-caliber partnership between The Ink Factory, the team behind BBC and AMC series “The Night Manager”

Michael Ovitz’s personal calendar boasted 30 years of lunches at the Grill on the Alley, red carpet premieres, and the kind of ruthless, corporate fighting that once made him the most powerful man in Hollywood. Those days are long past him. The now 71-year old former super agent is semi-retired, and struck a diminutive and

SAN SEBASTIAN — Omar Zúñiga Hidalgo’s debut feature “Los fuertes” screened for the first time to potential industry partners at San Sebastian’s Films in Progress competition this week. Zúñiga’s short “San Cristóbal” took a Teddy Award at the 2015 Berlin Festival. Zúñiga, Dominga Sotomayor and Catalina Marín are co-founders of Cinestación Producciones, the Santiago-based production

SAN SEBASTIAN — Scenes Isabel Coixet’s romantic, historical drama “Elisa & Marcela” were sneak peeked at the San Sebastian Festival on Tuesday, along with further details,. The feature will be released by Netflix in 2019. A Netflix original – produced by Barcelona-based Rodar y Rodar, A Coruña’s Zenit TV and Córdoba’s Lanube Películas in co-production with

The second edition of the Pingyao International Film Festival will kick off next month with a screening of “Half The Sky,” in which five female directors approach the subject of womanhood and femininity by telling the stories of different women. The film is directed by Daniela Thomas, Elizaveta Stishova, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Liu Yulin, Sara

Production is under way on “The Whistleblower,” one of the biggest Australian-Chinese co-production movies ever made. The film is a thriller about a Chinese expatriate who discovers a conspiracy at the firm he is working for. The film is directed by Chinese woman director Xue Xiaolu, who achieved a critical breakthrough in 2010 by putting

Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp has appointed Régis Marillas to the position of interim deputy CEO. Marillas was previously the company’s chief COO. In his new role, Marillas will assist Besson, the chief executive chairman, until the appointment of a new management team as part of the financially struggling banner’s current restructuring. Marillas joined EuropaCorp in 2005

September 27, 2018 1:49AM PT Slovenian youth run amok in Darko Stante’s dynamic if not always pointed gay-themed debut feature. “Consequences” is a somewhat daring enterprise for Slovenia in that it doesn’t judge its characters for their bi or gay sexuality. Indeed, their simultaneous extreme machismo and party-hearty vibe seem designed to impress younger viewers

Like a crafty Casanova who masks his true intentions while assiduously charming his latest prey, “Mademoiselle de Joncquieres” takes a stealthy and slow-burn approach before fully revealing its true colors as a shrewdly choreographed roundelay of scheming, seduction and revenge in the spirit of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses.” Freely adapted from the same section of Denis

SAN SEBASTIAN — Smart genre, zombies and throwbacks to the ’70s and ‘80s are some of the current trends in genre cinema, according to some specialists in the field. It’s a cyclical dynamic now offering meaningful box office hits such as Corin Hardy’s “The Nun” or Ari Aster’s “Hereditary.” Genre cinema always attracts the attention

SAN SEBASTIAN  — In one of the banner deals at this year’s San Sebastian, Vicente Canales’ Film Factory Ent, the sales agent on “Wild Tales,” “The Clan” and now Argentine Oscar entry “El Angel,” has pounced on world sales rights to “La Llorona,” which stars the female leads of Bustamante’s Berlin awarded debut “Ixcanul.” Deal

SAN SEBASTIAN — Carving out a reputation in Basque cinema as a regarded left-of-field short filmmaker over 20 years moving into features with “Ghost Ship,” essay on fiction and commoditization of pleasure, Koldo Almandoz takes a partial step towards the mainstream in his fiction feature debut, “Oreina” (Deer), which world premiered Tuesday at San Sebastian.

It’s Jean Grey’s turn to get her own X-Men Universe film, and the first trailer for “X-Men: Dark Phoenix” promises to deliver it, with Sophie Turner starring as the supremely powerful mutant. The trailer shows Grey’s progression from a unwitting child who accidentally causes a car accident to a conflicted, tumultuous young woman who seeks

Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke made it clear on Wednesday that big changes are coming to the company’s struggling film business. Less than a week after Dan Fogelman’s “Life Itself” flopped, the executive moved quickly to stabilize her film team and to encourage the faltering division to start developing more commercial fare. As part of

The late 1990s were a goldmine for independent cinema, with financiers and distributors willing to gamble on diverse material in the wake of “Pulp Fiction’s” breakout success earlier that decade. “Smoke Signals,” marketed by Miramax as “the first feature film written, directed, and produced by Native Americans,” was a critical success and crowd favorite from