Movies

UPDATED: NBCUniversal content chief Donna Langley has vowed that the top executives involved in contract negotiations with SAG-AFTRA will devote the time it takes to reach a new deal. But two hours after Langley spoke, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said it would “suspend” talks with SAG-AFTRA, saying that the sides are

Jeff Burr, director of “Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III,” “From a Whisper to a Scream” and “Straight Into Darkness,” has died. He was 60. Director-writer Jim Wynorski shared the news of Burr’s death on Facebook, writing that he “passed away last night [Oct. 10] in his sleep.” Burr helmed New Line’s “Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel opened Bloomberg Media’s Screentime conference Wednesday evening with a strong condemnation of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that he left the country vulnerable to the heinous terrorist attacks that began Oct. 7. “A morally corrupt Bibi Netanyahu exposed Israel to rape and beheadings of babies, children,” Emanuel said in measured

Taylor Swift is bringing her “Eras Tour” to the big screen a day earlier than planned. The concert film was originally scheduled to open on Friday the 13th (to coincide with her lucky number), but the singer has announced a surprise shift in release to a day earlier, with showtimes beginning Thursday at 6 p.m.

Netflix’s animation unit and the film slate in controls will undergo a restructure, resulting in job cuts and the shutdown of two films currently in pre-production. As a result of the reorg, the streamer is looking to recruit outside producers to keep its animated content volume consistent. Final headcounts on pink slips were not immediately

Godfrey Reggio, creator of the Qatsi trilogy, has been down this road before. The obsessions are familiar — nature’s innocence corrupted by industry, technology and the atomic age — but the audience is presumably different. This time, it’s younger. Now in his 80s, the avant-garde filmmaker who, in collaboration with composer Philip Glass, found a

Horror master John Carpenter told the Los Angeles Times that he’s heard about the negative reaction to Universal and Blumhouse’s “Exorcist” reboot, which currently sits at a paltry 23% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and opened to under $30 million at the box office. Universal spent $400 million on rights to the franchise

Near the beginning and near the end of Mirlan Abdykalykov‘s beautifully made but tough-minded, enraging “Bride Kidnapping” there are literally mirroring shots of the main character, 19-year-old Umut (Akak Berdibekova). At the start, she gazes at her reflection in modest pleasure as she gets dressed: a lovely young woman, with a ready, dimpled smile, looking

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Gather round children and listen to my lecture about the importance of physical media. Sometimes, when a person loves a show or movie so much the only way to show that love is by

Time is the slasher genre’s ultimate villain. As final girls like Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott slow down with age, the masked killers who relentlessly pursue them never lose a step. Rather than heal all wounds, time’s inexorable passage wears down the surviving heroes of “Halloween,” “Scream” and other enduring franchises while their injuries (not

Lionsgate‘s adaptation of the Judy Blume novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” has been submitted for the Golden Globes in the comedy/musical categories, Variety has learned exclusively. With the expansion from five to six nominees this year, the movie will compete for recognition against Warner Bros’ “Barbie,” Searchlight Pictures’ “Poor Things” and Focus

Jada Pinkett Smith revealed to People magazine that she has not spoken to Chris Rock since the night of the 2022 Oscars, when Will Smith slapped Rock across the face after the comedian made a joke about Jada’s bald head onstage. Rock’s joke was divisive because of Jada’s alopecia. “No, I haven’t talked to Chris…[Do

When writer-director Chloe Domont sat behind an audience watching her debut film, ‘Fair Play,’ at the Sundance Film Festival in January, her eyes were locked on the 80-something-year-old man sitting in front of her. “There’s no way he’s the target audience,” she thought. “I hope I don’t give this man a heart attack.” It’s not

Disney+ has released the first trailer for the upcoming short film “The Shepherd,” premiering on Dec. 1. The story follows Ben Radcliffe as Freddie Hooke, a young Royal Air Force pilot flying home across the North Sea on Christmas Eve. He finds himself in peril when his radio and electricity cut out, leaving him stranded

Let’s not be quite so declarative as to insist there are only two types of cinephile, but among the many varieties that exist, there are those who have never managed to connect with Hong Sang-soo‘s ongoing movie project, and those who can watch a minutes-long sequence of Kim Min-hee petting and feeding an already portly

New-made furniture, scuffed to look vintage, rarely convinces as anything other than pastiche. Portraits painted as closely as possible to resemble the photographs on which they’re based are a similarly strange phenomenon: admiration for the painter’s skill is undercut by the sense of creative constraint. For the same reasons “The Peasants,” on which married directors

The daughter of Stan Lee is launching a new legal fight against POW! Entertainment, the company that holds the rights to her father’s name, likeness and intellectual property. In a lawsuit filed in L.A. Superior Court on Tuesday, J.C. Lee alleges that a series of “suspicious transactions” have diluted her stake in the company. The

Taylor Swift‘s “Eras Tour” concert film is projected to open to $100 million at the domestic box office, but the final weekend number will likely be much bigger. The movie, a cinematic rendering of the pop star’s record-breaking, three-hour stadium tour, looks to generate up to $125 million from approximately 3,850 theaters in North America,

Range Media Partners has signed filmmaker Kat Wood for representation. The U.K.-born and L.A.-based director and screenwriter was a BBC broadcast journalist before making her mark on Hollywood. Wood, who was named to Screen International’s “Stars of Tomorrow” list, has shown her proficiency as a screenwriter, setting up a high-profile genre feature every year for

Anonymous Content, whose recent productions include Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan’s film “Foe” for Amazon Studios, is looking to expand its international footprint, with new ventures planned in Poland, Germany and Australia, top execs announced on Wednesday. Speaking at a panel held at the MIA Market in Rome, Anonymous Content international president David Davoli and

In 1937, Walt Disney was desperate to find a way to make “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,”the first feature-length animated movie ever made, actually feel like a feature-length movie. He’d been doing his best to ignore the naysayers who christened the very idea of the film as “Disney’s folly.” But they did trigger a

Why did it take five months? That’s the vexing question that entertainment industry insiders are wrestling with even as they cheer the end of the Writers Guild of America strike. Union leaders said it again and again all summer — that Hollywood’s system for collective bargaining was “broken.” Turns out they were right. The economic

Brainstorm Media has acquired North American rights for “Cora Bora,” a millennial comedy starring “Hacks” breakout Megan Stalter and “The Good Place’s” Manny Jacinto. The film, directed by Hannah Pearl Utt (“Before You Know It”) and written by Rhianon Jones, will be released in theaters sometime in February 2024. It follows a struggling musician named

Philippe Bober’s Coproduction Office, whose recent films include Jessica Hausner’s Cannes Competition title “Club Zero” and Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness,” has kicked off international sales on Gust Van den Berghe‘s “The Magnet Man.” The Paris and Berlin based production and sales outfit is attending this week’s MIA Market in Rome. Van

Brussels-based co-production and financing powerhouse Umedia — the backer of recent festival sensation “How to Have Sex” and French Oscar submission “The Taste of Things” — is branching out. Complimenting co-production, tax shelter fundraising and VFX services through subsidiary UFX Studios, Umedia has now launched a development branch to bring in-house productions to the screen.

BÉLA TARR GETS EUROPEAN FILM HONOR Legendary Hungarian director Béla Tarr will receive the Honorary Award from of the Academy President and Board at the European Film Awards on Dec. 9. “With this award the European Film Academy wishes to pay special tribute to an outstanding director and a personality with a strong political voice,

ROME  — Film Factory Ent. – a sales agent on “Wild Tales,” “The Clan,” “Close Your Eyes” and “The Kings of the World” – has boarded “Jokes & Cigarettes” (“Saben Aquell”), the latest movie from Spain’s David Trueba which is fast-emerging as one of Spain’s late year Goya Award contenders after a San Sebastian sneak-peek and

Some twenty aspiring film projects have been selected to participate in the inaugural edition of the Qcinema Project Market (Nov. 18-19) that this year represents and expansion of the QCinema Film Festival in The Philippines’ Quezon City. The selected titles include development projects by several of East Asia’s better known independent and art-house directors and

Universal’s “The Exorcist: Believer” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £1.6 million ($2 million), according to numbers released by Comscore. In its second weekend, in second place, Disney’s “The Creator” collected £1 million for a total of £4.1 million. Also in its second weekend, in third position, Lionsgate’s “Saw X” scared up

John Tilley, a longtime distribution exec and advocate for independent film at companies including United Artists Classics, Cinevista and Strand, who was instrumental in introducing the films of Pedro Almodovar to U.S. audiences, died Sunday in New York City. He was 75. “John was always a consummate encyclopedia of knowledge of the industry, and his