Movies

Just who is the Equalizer? Despite a hit TV show in the 1980s and another with Queen Latifah still running, that title has become synonymous with Denzel Washington, who returns as government-assassin-turned-vigilante Robert McCall. Billed as the final chapter in a trilogy, “The Equalizer 3” sees McCall finding community in a picturesque part of Italy

The upcoming Woodstock Film Festival will kick off with Chloe Domont’s “Fair Play” and present a lifetime achievement award to James Ivory. The 24th edition of the fest, which runs from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1 in New York’s Hudson Valley, about 100 miles north of Manhattan, features a lineup of world, U.S. and New

Triple Oscar nominee Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border,” which will premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, before going onto Toronto Film Festival and New York Film Festival, has sold to multiple territories. Variety has been granted access to an exclusive clip from the film, and Holland’s notes on the production, which we quote from

External investigators hired by Johnny and Associates, the Japanese talent agency whose founder, the late Johnny Kitagawa, is accused of sexually abusing his young clients, have called for the resignation of company president Julie Fujishima. Published Tuesday, the report said that the company must accept that the claims of abuse are true, apologize and make

Indian cinema A-lister Allu Arjun is delighting in his best actor win at India’s National Film Awards for “Pushpa: The Rise – Part 1.” Directed by Sukumar and produced by Mythri Movie Makers, the film traces the rise of Molleti Pushpa Raj (Arjun), a labourer who rises through the ranks of a sandalwood smuggling syndicate

Martin Scorsese is set to be the official patron of the upcoming Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops. The revered filmmaker is a Marrakech festival regular — he notably presided over its jury in 2013 and presented an honorary tribute to Robert De Niro in 2018. Launched in 2018, the Atlas Workshops are an initiative

‘PERFECTION’ SETS LOCAL LAUNCH “Lost in Perfection,” the second film by journalist-turned-filmmaker Sung Hsin-yin (“On Happiness Road”), has set Oct. 27 as the date of its commercial release in Sung’s native Taiwan. Ahead of the Taiwan release, the film is expected to have its world premiere at a major festival. The film is a psychological

Italy’s Fandango Sales will launch international distribution at the Venice Film Festival on Tommaso Santambrogio’s “Oceans Are the Real Continents,” set and shot in a run-down contemporary Cuba. The film opens the festival’s independently run Venice Days section. Variety is debuting the trailer exclusively. The timely drama shot in black-and-white is Santambrogio’s first feature but

A documentary about musician Pete Doherty will have its world premiere at this year’s Zurich Film Festival in the Sounds section. Described as “an intimate film portrait of his scandalous rockstar life,” “Peter Doherty — Stranger in My Own Skin” is helmed by Doherty’s wife, Katia deVidas. Doherty will present the film in-person, and also

An estimated 8.5 million people went to the movies this Sunday on National Cinema Day, a 5% increase in attendance from last year’s inaugural event. On National Cinema Day, hosted by the Cinema Foundation, all showtimes in every format (including Imax and Dolby) were $4 at participating theaters. Even with heavily discounted tickets, the box

The Toronto International Film Festival is using Ticketmaster to book seats this year, and even though opening night is more than a week away, tickets for high-profile films are already going for more than ten times their face value. Festivalgoers are not happy about the high resale prices already popping up. Opening night film “The

Negotiations between the Writers Guild of America and the major studios remained in limbo on Monday, after a week of public sparring failed to result in forward movement. The sides have not formally met since Aug. 18, when the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers rejected the WGA’s Aug. 15 counter offer. Four CEOs

A feature length documentary about the 2021 fatal overdose of TV relationship expert Dr. Laura Berman’s teenage son is in production via Steven Cantor’s Stick Figure Entertainment and Rubber Ring Films. Berman’s 16-year-old son, Sammy Chapman, died after taking a pill he bought through Snapchat that was laced with fentanyl. A synthetic opioid that is

“Three years ago today, I experienced a singular pain at the news of Chadwick Boseman’s death,” Lupita Nyong’o wrote in a new tribute to her late “Black Panther” co-star. Boseman passed away Aug. 28, 2020 from colon cancer, a diagnosis he never discussed publicly. Nyong’o added that “the confusion” over Boseman’s death “was so profound that

Zendaya is hoping to get evil in the near future. During a video interview for Elle magazine, the Emmy winner said she would like to play a villain role in the future. Zendaya noted that the majority of her output as been playing “the good guy,” which is a trend she wants to break. “I

Director Ira Sachs and lead Franz Rogowski discussed their film “Passages” at an exclusive screening in London on Friday. The screening was the first of a series of exclusive Q&A events curated by Variety in partnership with brand and culture consultancy BSBP targeted at BAFTA and AMPAS voters as well as key players in the showbiz community in

Paul Mescal said in an interview with Esquire UK (conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike) that he did not get in contact with Russell Crowe regarding Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator 2.” Mescal is headlining the upcoming sequel to the 2000 historical epic, which won Crowe the Academy Award for best actor. Crowe’s character, Maximus, dies at

Emmy and DGA award-winning director Richard Shepard (“Ugly Betty,” “Girls,” “The Perfection,” “Welcome to Chippendales”) has announced his latest project, a documentary titled “Film Geek,” which will premiere on Sept. 22 at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles. “Film Geek” is inspired by Shepard’s experiences growing up in New York City as a young kid

Work in Progress project “Patio de Chácales” (“A Yard of Jackals”) by Chilean editor-turned-director Diego Figueroa swept the 12th Sanfic Industria awards Saturday where a slew of development prizes was doled out to multiple participants across the various sections of the forum.  Equeco’s upcoming “Germain, the Black Angel” proved a big winner, grabbing three awards in

Madrid-based sales house Latido Films and indie distributor-producer  #ConUnPack are joining forces to handle international distribution rights to Tribeca Festival’s hit “One Night with Adela,” the feature debut of Spanish writer-director Hugo Ruiz snagged Tribeca’s best new narrative director award. An audacious family drama, lensed using a single-shot technique, the film marries concepts of religion

Pulsar Content has secured international rights on “Pacific Fear,” a French survival horror film which has started filming in French Polynesia. The movie is directed by Jacques Kluger, who previously directed the Belgian horror movie “Play or Die,” and is produced by Nolita, whose recent credits include the Netflix hit action franchise “Lost Bullet.” Darklight

Visual effects crews at Walt Disney Studios have taken a significant step to unionize after filing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for an election to unionize. A supermajority (over 80%) of the 18 in-house VFX crew members at Walt Disney Pictures signed authorization cards signaling their desire to unionize. The historical move is

Fathom Events and  Roadside Attractions are teaming up to release Madeleine Gavin’s Sundance award-winning documentary “Beyond Utopia.” The film takes viewers on a harrowing journey as one family risks everything to escape from North Korea. The pact comes after the film made its world premiere in the U.S. documentary competition section at this year’s Sundance

Director and screenwriter Sofia Alaoui has signed with WME for representation in all areas. She continues to be represented by Jerome Duboz of Ithaka Media. Born in Casablanca and raised in China, Alaoui is a French-Moroccan artist with an aim to create cinema that spans across borders and bends genres in new ways. After premiering

David Ayer appeared on the latest episode of Jon Bernthal’s “Real Ones” podcast and cited “Suicide Squad” as his biggest heartbreak in Hollywood. The director has been vocal over the last several years about the 2016 theatrical cut of “Suicide Squad” not being his preferred version of the film. That cut was widely panned by

Paula Hernández’s “A Ravaging Wind” (“El viento que arrasa”) has debuted a poster and trailer ahead of its premieres at Toronto and San Sebastian.  Based on the novel by Selva Almada – and written by Hernández and Leonel D’Agostino – “A Ravishing Wind” will play Toronto’s Centrepiece program, before opening San Sebastian’s Horizontes Latinos, a

Dusseldorf Germany-based Patra Spanou Film has snagged psychological suspense-thriller “Delirio” by Alexandra Latishev, a co-production between Chile’s Cyan Prods and Linterna Films of Costa Rica. Backed by Costa Rica’s El Fauno fund and the Ibermedia program, the drama turns on 11-year-old Masha who, with her mother Elisa, moves into her ailing grandmother’s house. While everybody believes Masha’s

Brazil’s Raccord Produções, Chile’s Araucaria Cine and France’s Nord-Ouest Films are teaming to produce acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Gabe Klinger’s feature drama project “Okonomiyaki.” “Okonomiyaki” will topline celebrated Brazilian actor-helmer Leandra Leal (“A Wolf at the Door,” “The Oyster and the Wind”), Yuki Sugimoto, star of Disney+ series “Mila in the Multiverse,” and Marco Pigossi, of

The Venice Film Festival will host a Ukrainian Day on Sept. 6 with a series of panels and meetings to support war-torn Ukraine and its film industry. With this event, which follows an analogous initiative on the Lido last year, the fest’s parent organization, the Venice Biennale foundation, “reaffirms its solidarity with the Ukrainian people

The sheer popularity of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is leading to its expansion this year, while sister event Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest content market, will have a focus on new technology, one of the country’s top film officials has revealed. The Indian government-backed events run in parallel in Goa in November