Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences
Movies
Veteran film executive Paul Davidson has acquired the remake rights to “Electric Dreams,” the 1984 film written and produced by Rusty Lemorande. Davidson — who previously ran The Orchard and IDW Entertainment — struck the deal with Lemorande (“Yentl,” “Caddyshack”), who retained the rights to the film after its release nearly four decades ago. Brian
Jonathan Dolgen, the former head of Viacom Entertainment and a former top 20th Century Fox executive, died Oct. 9 of natural causes in Los Angeles. He was 78. For a decade, from 1994 until 2004, the hard-charging Dolgen led Viacom’s film, television and amusement parks, as well as Simon & Schuster and its music publishing
In a conversation with fellow auteur Gregg Araki for Interview Magazine, Richard Linklater revealed that he hopes to shoot a movie in French, shot on location in Paris. Araki said to the director, “I saw Ruby Rich last night. She did the Q&A for our ‘Nowhere’ screening at IFC Center. And she was saying that you’re
Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling‘s combined star power helped power “Barbie” to $1.4 billion in worldwide ticket sales, an all-time high gross for distributor Warner Bros. The studio is clearly hoping to duplicate this success with its upcoming “Ocean’s 11” prequel movie, which is set to reunite Robbie and Gosling on the big screen. The
Taylor Swift always knew her record-breaking Eras Tour wouldn’t be confined to the mega-sized stadiums she was selling out. And she was right: Her accompanying concert film — which brings the epic, three-hour show to its widest audience yet — enters theaters on Oct. 13 as the highest-grossing in history. It has already earned $100
The Sundance Institute and Sandbox Films announced eight projects selected for the 2023 Sundance Institute | Sandbox Fund. The filmmakers selected receive nonrecoupable grants totaling $325,000 for their projects in the stages of development, production and post-production. In addition to the grants, the fund offers mentorship for independent artists looking to explore the relationship between
Netflix and Shondaland have acquired worldwide rights to “Black Barbie,” a documentary that dives into the history of the first Black Barbie doll — which debuted in 1980, 31 years after the original Barbie — and three Black women at Mattel who advocated for the toy. Directed by Lagueria Davis, “Black Barbie” debuted at this
Lowell Peterson‘s tenure as executive director of the Writers Guild of America East was destined to be bookended by strikes. After 15 years at the helm, Peterson will step down from his post as of Nov. 15 when his current three-year contract expires. WGA East leaders credited Peterson with nearly doubling the size of its
Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s new self-help book and memoir “Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life” recalls the crazy things he had to do to pull off his most iconic film roles. Most wildly, he reveals that he bit into a real, dead vulture while filming takes for 1982’s “Conan the Barbarian.” Schwarzenegger writes that the film’s director,
Bertrand Bonello‘s “The Beast,” a dystopian romance drama starring Lea Seydoux (“No Time to Die”) and George MacKay (“1917”), has been bought by distributors in all major markets following its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival. Represented in international markets by Kinology, “The Beast” has sold to the U.K. (Vertigo Releasing), Italy
The most appreciative audience for “Dicks: The Musical” may be the Venn-diagram overlap between viewers who think the envelope for raunchy language in R-rated comedies doesn’t get pushed nearly hard enough and people who saw “Les Miserables” on Broadway three times. In other words, the warning not for every taste has never applied more. But
Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences
Guillermo del Toro revealed he had to drop out of directing the sequel to his 2013 kaiju blockbuster “Pacific Rim” due to scheduling conflicts with “The Shape of Water.” The director walked away from 2018’s “Pacific Rim Uprising” as a result of significant delays caused by a producer’s late payment on Toronto soundstages, Del Toro
On Thursday’s episode of the “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast, “Dicks: The Musical” director Larry Charles opened up about why he steers clear of working on big-budget movies. “I try to make things like ‘Dangerous Comedy’ or this movie [‘Dicks: The Musical’] — this movie’s a very low-budget movie,” Charles said of the raunchy A24 musical. “Politically for
For us dazzled foreigners, it’s easy to forget that South Korea — land of superfast internet, glossy K-Pop, state-of-the-art foldable phones and “Squid Game” — is not in every respect the utopia of hypermodernity its recent global cultural boom might lead one to suspect. The nation actually lags some way behind other developed democracies in
“Barbie” director Greta Gerwig discussed how Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” dance sequence came to be during her Screen Talk at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday, revealing that she was asked in a “big meeting” if the scene was necessary. “It just said in the script, ‘And then it becomes a dream ballet
Sri Lankan auteur Prasanna Vithanage is back at the Busan International Film Festival with thriller “Paradise,” which is in the Jiseok competition. The film follows Indian couple – streaming content producer Kesav (Roshan Mathew, Sundance 2023 series “Poacher”) and blogger Amritha (Darshana Rajendran, “Hridayam”) – who are on vacation in Sri Lanka during the country’s
“The Exorcist: Believer,” a reboot in the legacy horror franchise, summoned the No. 1 spot at the domestic box office charts despite falling short of expectations. The R-rated film, from Universal and Blumhouse, collected $27.2 million from 3,663 North American venues over the weekend, below estimates that suggested a debut closer to $35 million. These ticket
Distribution in Indonesia was the subject of a lively debate at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents and Film Market. With 277 million people, Indonesia has one of the largest populations in the world. However, geographically it is an archipelago and for its population, the country is under-screened with just 2,300 cinema screens. Despite
Ali Kalthami’s satirical drama “Mandoob” (“Night Courier”) examines the class divide in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, telling the story of a hapless delivery man and the desperate avenues he takes to make money. Comedic actor Mohammed Aldokhei plays Fahad, who finds himself in a precarious situation after he is fired from his day job
The enduring popularity of the Asian LGBT and horror genres and the relationship with giant streamer Netflix were among the topics of discussion at a lively panel focusing on distribution at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents and Film Market. “I hate the fact that all the producers want to work with Netflix, it
The Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) has added a 5% cultural bonus incentive to the existing 20% cash rebate that is part of the Film Location Incentive Program (FLIP), it was revealed at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents and Film Market. The cultural bonus will apply if the project showcases Philippines
Director Karan Tejpal’s feature film debut “Stolen” is a nail-biting thriller about two privileged, big-city boys who unwittingly embark on a harrowing adventure as they help an impoverished young woman find her kidnapped baby in rural India. The film, which is produced by Gaurav Dhingra’s Jungle Book Studio, is also a commentary on the alarming
Bradley Liew of Epicmedia Productions (Philippines), Stefano Centini of Volos Films (Taiwan/Italy) and Singapore’s Huang Junxiang have reunited to launch two genre projects at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Contents and Film Market. The trio previously teamed on Sundance Midnight hit, “In My Mother’s Skin” by Kenneth Dagatan, which was recently ranked number six
After his fiction feature debut, the absurdist satire “Eeb Allay Ooo!,” Indian filmmaker Prateek Vats is readying political comedy “Chronicles of a Confession.” The film is a selection at the Busan International Film Festival‘s Asian Project Market. “Eeb Allay Ooo!” won big at the Mumbai Film Festival and went on to play at the Berlinale,
Berlin-based sales agent ArtHood Entertainment has picked up world rights, outside of much of East Asia, to “Salli,” a film which has its world premiere this week in the Busan International Film Festival’s A Window on Asian Cinema program. The Mandarin-, Taiwanese-, English- and French-language film follows a lonely middle-aged chicken farmer Hui-Chun, who doesn’t
The renaissance in Indonesian cinema is being celebrated at the Busan International Film Festival this year with 15 films, shorts and series being showcased. Hilmar Farid, Director General of Culture at Indonesia‘s Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, is leading a 50-strong delegation of filmmakers, committee members and media to the festival. Variety spoke
Vietnam-based sales agent Skyline Media has unveiled five new titles for sales and distribution at the ACFN market that accompanies the Busan International Film Festival. They range from horror films to gay rom com series. “The Soul Reaper” is adapted from director-producer Thao Trang’s best-selling horror novel “Lunar New Year in Hell Village” (Tet O
Korean sales agency Finecut has struck a raft of rights sales on upcoming fantasy-romance “Secret: Untold Melody.” The film, which will premiere at the upcoming Hawaii International Film Festival, tells the tale of a man whose promising piano career is cut short by a wrist injury. He returns to Korea and falls in love with