Variety has promoted Dawn Allen to Senior VP of film, recognizing the instrumental role she plays in driving sales for the entertainment industry’s most-read source of business news. Since joining Variety in 2006, Allen has built and maintained strong relationships with studio executives, driving the brand’s awards marketing activity to unprecedented heights. An expert in
Movies
In November, Austin Butler was in Cincinnati on the set of Jeff Nichols’ film, “The Bikeriders.” He was shooting a scene with co-stars Tom Hardy and Michael Shannon that involved Shannon delivering a two-page monologue. Butler found himself lost in the moment, watching his fellow actor. “Jeff called cut and Mike walks away,” Butler recalls.
Dawn Porter is a filmmaker whose latest project “The Lady Bird Diaries,” an all-archival documentary about Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of the United States, will debut at the SXSW Film Festival. Her four-part docuseries “Supreme” explores the history of the United States Supreme Court and the legal battles that have shaped America. Porter’s
Michael B. Jordan came face to face with one of his high school bullies during a recent “Creed III” premiere event. “The Morning Hustle” radio show host Lore’l revealed on a recent episode of her “Undressing Room” podcast that she attended high school with Jordan and was one of many students who teased the then-aspiring actor for
The eighth annual Icon Mann Honors dinner will salute “The Woman King” filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood, “Sidney” director Reginald Hudlin and Uzodinma Iweala, CEO of the Africa Center NYC and author of the New York Times bestseller “Beasts of No Nation.” Icon Mann partnered with Sony Pictures for the event, which has a “Reimagining African Diasporic
It stands with good reason that if any scene made you cry in “Top Gun: Maverick,” it was the emotional reunion between Tom Cruise’s Maverick and Val Kilmer’s Iceman. Kilmer had not acted in years after losing the ability to speak due to undergoing throat cancer treatment in 2014, but the actor returned for an
The Voices Behind ‘Naatu Naatu’ Kaala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj are the singers who brought composer M.M. Keeravaani’s Golden Globe-winning and Oscar nominated song “Naatu Naatu” from S.S. Rajamouli’s “RRR” to life. Featuring lyrics by Chandrabose, the energetic song, shot against the backdrop of the Mariinskyi Palace in Kyiv, Ukraine, shows stars Ram Charan and
“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” took a sizable hit in its sophomore outing at the box office. Ticket sales for the third Marvel movie starring Paul Rudd’s subatomic hero were down 69% from its $105 million debut, resulting in the biggest second-weekend drop in the franchise’s history. That fall has inspired plenty of debate among
Netflix’s presentation of the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards show garnered more than 1.1 million views on Sunday for the livestream on YouTube. The total comprises views tallied by YouTube for the 2023 SAG Awards’ main feed (865,000 views) and the audio descriptive feed (248,000 views) within 10 hours of the broadcast’s conclusion. The SAG Awards
In his bold 1990 interpretation of Luigi Pirandello’s “Henry IV,” the late and legendary Irish stage, screen and music star Richard Harris utters the immortal lines, “Woe to him who doesn’t know how to wear his mask.” Even before his breathtaking big-screen triumph 60 years ago as the rugby ruffian Frank Machin in Lindsay Anderson’s
Renowned theater practitioner Pravesh Kumar’s feature film directorial debut “Little English” will release in U.K. cinemas and go on a tour across the country from March 17. The film is set amidst a dysfunctional Punjabi family in the pressure cooker life of a terraced suburban home in Slough. Newly arrived from India, naive Simmy has
Lyricist and composer Paul Williams will be honored by the 13th annual Guild of Music Supervisors awards with the 2023 Icon award at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles on March 5. The awards show will also be posthumously honoring former Sony Pictures Entertainment senior VP and music supervisor, Pilar McCurry. Williams’ standards have been
LevelK has boarded “Adventures in the Land of Asha,” a Canadian family film which marks the feature debut of Sophie Farkas Bolla. The film is produced by Hany Ouichou (“I’ll End Up in Jail”) and Kim O’Bomsawin (“Je m’appelle humain”). It will have its world premiere at Montreal International Children’s Film Festival and its International
“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the most nominated film at the Oscars, won the most SAG Awards ever with four. Final voting begins on Thursday, March 2, and it’s no longer a question about whether the A24 sci-fi comedy will win best picture but how many statuettes it will take home. Probably a lot. Michelle
A24 just swept the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Thanks to “Everything Everywhere All At Once’s” massive showing throughout the night (the multiverse movie took home four wins at the 2023 SAG Awards ceremony) and Brendan Fraser’s victory for “The Whale.” Thus making this the first time in history that a studio has captured every major
Ke Huy Quan, the comeback star of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” has been the feel-good story of the awards season — and he just made history at the Screen Actors Guild Awards with his win for best performance by a male actor in a supporting role. While on stage accepting his award, an emotional
“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” held on to top spot at the South Korean box office. But the overall market continued to soften despite a slew of new release titles. Nationwide theatrical grosses totaled just $7.26 million. That made it the slowest box office weekend in over three months. “Quantumania” collected $2.0 million between Friday
The SAG-AFTRA Foundation is set to break ground next month on a 15,000-square-foot facility at the union’s mid-Wilshire headquarters that will be a central hub for the foundation’s educational, career development and event activities in the Los Angeles area. The Meryl Streep Center for Performing Artists will be built on the 10th floor of SAG-AFTRA’s
The Screen Actors Guild Awards are back to honor the year’s best acting performances, subsequently giving key insights into the Oscars race as awards season heats up. Before the televised ceremony, SAG announced that “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Stranger Things” had won outstanding action performance by a stunt ensemble in a motion picture and television
There’s a film in the Oscar best picture race that has younger Academy voters and a new generation of film critics excited, while their older peers in both camps appear more what one might call agitated. It’s a fairly neat generational split. The film’s anarchic spirit and unorthodox mix of genre filmmaking and biting social
“Avatar: The Way of Water” is a sequel, but the VFX team had a mandate far beyond supplying “more of the same.” The follow-up to the 2009 original “Avatar” had many new demands — and these jaw-dropping innovations have helped make the film one of the top box-office films of all time. Joe Letteri, heading
Gordon Pinsent, a prolific Canadian actor who gained international recognition in 2006 for his performance alongside Julie Christie in Sarah Polley’s drama “Away From Her,” died Saturday. He was 92 years old. Pinsent’s death was confirmed to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation through a statement released by his family. No further details about his death are
Sounds like the sequel to “Freaky Friday” is close to being greenlit — if it hasn’t been already. While a reunion of Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan hasn’t been officially announced, Curtis offered the ultimate tease when we chatted Saturday at the Producers Guild Awards. “It’s going to happen,” she said. “Without saying there’s
Costume designer, production designer and producer Catherine Martin and her collaborators helped bring her husband, Baz Lurhmann’s, visually grand story “Elvis” to life, building the iconic sets in Australia, including Elvis Presley’s mansion Graceland. She also built more than 90 costumes for Austin Butler’s Elvis, a mix of re-creations and fictionalized outfits, and over 9000
Universal’s horror-comedy “Cocaine Bear” blew past box office projections, earning an impressive $23 million from 3,534 North American theaters in its opening weekend. The blood-splattered animal adventure landed in second place on domestic charts behind Disney’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which all but collapsed in its sophomore outing. “Ant-Man 3” managed to remain in first
After the Roald Dahl text editing controversy that erupted in recent days, it is now the turn of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels to be rewritten. A report in U.K. newspaper The Telegraph reveals that ahead of the reissue of the Bond novels in April to mark 70 years of “Casino Royale,” the first book
“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” has picked up another award on its march to the Oscars, nabbing the feature prize at the 50th Annie Awards, presented by ASIFA-Hollywood, on Saturday evening. In addition to being named the top film by the animation industry, “Pinocchio” led the winners’ list with five trophies overall, including the award for
Gina Prince-Bythewood addressed the lack of Black representation among this year’s Oscar nominees during the red carpet for the NAACP Image Awards on Saturday evening. “The Woman King” director penned an essay in The Hollywood Reporter after her historical drama found itself completely shut out of the Academy Awards, despite landing several precursor noms across
Will Smith won the NAACP Image Award for outstanding actor in a motion picture for his performance in “Emancipation” on Saturday night, marking his first award win since his infamous incident at the 2022 Oscars in which he slapped Chris Rock onstage. Smith was not present at the ceremony to accept his award in person.
Angela Bassett has simply done the thing once again. After being name-dropped by Ariana DeBose in a rap that opened the BAFTA Film Awards, the “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” star tells Variety that she reached out to DeBose in the aftermath to check in on her. “I DM’d her last night. I did. It was