Movies

RTL Group has reached a deal to sell RTL Nederland, the leading Dutch commercial TV group and owner of the local streaming service Videoland, to DPG Media, a multimedia company active in Benelux and Denmark. The sale of RTL Nederland is subject to regulatory approvals and a consultation with labor unions. The all-cash pact, which

“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” movie has cleared multiple stages of approvals and will release in mainland Chinese theaters on Dec. 31. The announcement, foreshadowed by Variety earlier this month, was made at 1.13pm (or 13.13) on Friday in China, a reference to Swift’s birth date and lucky number. That date puts the concert film’s

“Oppenheimer,” followed closely by “Barbie” and “The Killers of the Flower Moon,” collected the most nominations for the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) International Awards. The AACTA International awards recognize global, not only Australian-made, film and TV productions from the current year and are voted on by Australian professionals. The separate AACTA

Would it have killed him to quit sit-ups for a few months? Maybe load up on some Häagen-Dazs? Famously, Mark Wahlberg wakes in the wee hours for a 3:30 a.m. workout — perhaps he could have treated himself to a five o’clock lie-in? Whatever the case, the star has made no concessions to dadbod reality

Ninety-four songs and 149 scores have been deemed eligible in the music categories for the 96th annual Academy Awards, Variety has learned. Voting began this morning, with 390 members of the Academy music branch eligible to vote in this year’s competition. And for the first time in years, there appear to be no surprises or

George Clooney and Adam Sandler will team up in a new Noah Baumbach movie for Netflix that’s still untitled, Variety has confirmed. Baumbach co-wrote the script with actor Emily Mortimer, who also created the series “Doll and Em.” Baumbach is producing with Amy Pascal and David Heyman. Under his exclusive deal with Netflix, Baumbach has

IATSE has taken the rare step of suing the producers of “That’s Amore,” alleging that the production has failed to pay $570,000 in wages to 77 union workers. “That’s Amore” is a romantic comedy starring John Travolta and Katherine Heigl, which is written and directed by Nick Vallelonga, who won two Oscars for “Green Book.”

While it’s hardly news that most of us are under some form of surveillance any time we’re in public, the extent of Big Brother’s activities still has the capacity to astound. That’s nowhere truer than in the People’s Republic of China, whose efforts to monitor its citizens’ every action (public or otherwise) would make Orwell

From “Kramer vs Kramer” to “Marriage Story,” Hollywood has offered no shortage of compelling tales about how divorce has a way of souring relationships — how, by their very nature, divorces dredge up the ugliest in people, making petty marital grievances balloon into resentful chasms that risk making the very process unbearable in ways both emotional

The Georgia film and TV tax credit creates 34,354 jobs per year, according to a new state audit of the program — about half the figure reported by an industry-funded study last month. The audit also concluded that the credit — which increased to a record $1.3 billion last year — returns just 19 cents

EuropaCorp CEO Axel Duroux, the French-Swiss executive who joined the Paris-based company in 2020, has stepped down from his position. Luc Besson, who co-founded EuropaCorp in 1999, will act as the interim CEO for a limited period starting immediately, EuropaCorp said in a release. Duroux will remain a shareholder and will continue to work closely

Timothée Chalamet was supposed to cameo in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” movie alongside their “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” star Saoirse Ronan, but he never found out what the director had planned for her former collaborators. Scheduling conflicts prevented Ronan and Chalamet from appearing in “Barbie,” which became Warner Bros.’ top-grossing film in history and the

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences branches began voting today to determine the shortlists in 10 categories for the upcoming 96th Academy Awards. These categories, along with the number of films to be named, are: documentary feature (15), documentary short subject (10), international feature (15), makeup and hairstyling (10), sound (10), original score

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for David Fincher’s “The Killer,” now streaming on Netflix. The next few months will be stacked with conversations about the year’s best film performances, but we’d be remiss to let 2023 go dark without mentioning one of its most exciting turns: Kerry O’Malley in David Fincher’s “The Killer.” A

After “Barbenheimer” rocked the 2023 theatrical release calendar, what will keep the moviegoing momentum pushing forward next year? Consumers gave some indication in an annual survey from online ticketing giant Fandango, whose users voted on their most anticipated films of 2024. The ranking discusses films at large and drills down into genres and individual performances.

The American Cinematheque announced the honorees for the third annual Tribute to the Crafts, which include “Oppenheimer” for cinematography and editing, “Poor Things” for costume design and “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie” for song. The event will take place on Jan. 19, 2024, at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Celebrating individuals in 15 categories across

Director Abdulelah Alqurashi sat down with Variety’s senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay at Variety’s Artisans Screening Series to break down his film “Alhamour H.A.,” Saudi Arabia’s official Oscars submission. The film is based on the true story of one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest con artists, a former security guard named Hamed who grows rich by

International Film Festival Rotterdam has revealed its selection of 16 feature film projects for the 41st edition of CineMart, running Jan. 28-31. In “Another Journey Without Women” six chain-smoking know-it-alls embark on a tragi-comedic polar expedition in Greenland in 1918. The film is directed by Illum Jacobi, whose “The Trouble With Nature” appeared at IFFR

Bradley Cooper is struggling to remember the name of the film for which he unsuccessfully auditioned in the early aughts, and Spike Lee, the director who rejected him, isn’t much help. The two men are discussing “Maestro,” Cooper’s penetrating look at the marriage of musical genius Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre (played by a note-perfect

European Film Promotion has revealed the 10 emerging actors who will take part in the 27th edition of European Shooting Stars program, which promotes European acting talent. Past Shooting Stars have included Carey Mulligan, Alicia Vikander, Maisie Williams and Riz Ahmed. From Feb. 16-19, the actors will be presented to the international press and industry,

In “Downwind,” a documentary executive produced by Matthew Modine, directors Mark Shapiro and Douglas Brian Miller chronicle the lethal effects that nuclear testing on American soil has had on U.S. citizens. The Oscar hopeful reveals that from 1951 to 1992, Mercury, Nevada, was the site for the testing of 928 large scale nuclear weapons. Wind

When Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” came out in 2008, Zac Efron was two movies deep into the Disney Channel’s “High School Musical” franchise, in which he played singing, dancing basketball phenom Troy Bolton. He’d been the swoony romantic lead in the movie musical “Hairspray,” opposite John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer, was shortly to play opposite

Cate Blanchett and Coco Francini, who are business partners behind Dirty Films, are collaborating with Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative to launch the Proof of Concept Accelerator Program. With support from Netflix’s Fund for Creative Equity, the program aims to identify filmmakers who promote the perspectives of women, trans and

Films starring Saoirse Ronan and Justice Smith are set for Berlin Film Festival‘s Panorama section. Panorama announced its first 11 titles on Thursday, seven of which are world premieres. The lineup includes Nora Fingscheidt’s “The Outrun,” which stars Ronan as an antihero who must embark on a journey to find herself. “After years of excess

Emmanuelle Debever, the first actor to have accused Gerard Depardieu of sexual assault, died in an apparent suicide after jumping from a bridge into the Seine river in Paris. Her death was announced in the media on Dec. 7, the day that a bombshell investigative documentary about Depardieu aired on French broadcaster France 2. An

Production has wrapped on the wartime coming-of-age feature film “The Collaborator,” based on the international bestseller by Kashmiri novelist Mirza Waheed. The story is set in the 1990s on the Indian side of the Line of Control that separates Indian Kashmir from Pakistani Kashmir. The 17-year old protagonist known only as the “Boy” is forced

The growing pantheon of films and TV series inspired by podcasts continues apace with such noteworthy spinoffs as “Homecoming,” “The Dropout” and “WeCrashed” leading the pack.  It doesn’t seem so common in the Spanish language but Spanish podcast producer TrueStory is hoping to change that. The award-winning three-year-old company, operating from the U.S. and Spain,

Parallax, one of the few indie film sales firms in China has picked up two of this year’s best performing mainland Chinese movies. Ahead of the winter festival and markets season, Parallax has taken on comedy-drama “Post Truth” and family-oriented comedy-fantasy “Five Hundred Miles.” Directed and co-written by Dong Chengpeng (aka Da Peng), “Post Truth”

SF Studios has unveiled the trailer for its animated film and TV series based on Arnie Alligator, one of the Nordics’ most popular children’s brand luring 300 million views on Youtube. SF Studios is producing the animated feature and TV series with See You Later! and will release the movie in the Nordics early next

“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” star Walker Scobell has become a top contender among fans to play Link in Nintendo’s live-action “Legend of Zelda” movie. But how does the 14-year-old actor feel about the idea of portraying the hero of Hyrule? “Actually, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’d be interested in playing Link,”