When “Everything Everywhere All At Once’s” visual effects artist Evan Halleck was working on the rock universe scene, he brought in cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools from Runway — such as the green screen tool that removes the background from images. “It was cutting things out better than my human eye was, and it gave me
Movies
Keanu Reeves is well known for performing as many of his own stunts as humanly possible, which is why he spent nearly three entire months just training for “John Wick: Chapter 4.” Each installment of the Lionsgate-backed action franchise is known for upping the ante, and the case is no different for “Chapter 4.” “It’s
“The Flash” is set to blaze through CinemaCon 2023, where Warner Bros. Pictures will screen the superhero blockbuster at the annual convention of movie theater owners in April, multiple sources told Variety. Showing the film in this capacity is yet another sign of Warner Bros.’ passionate support of the project, one that has been saddled
A former MoviePass executive was arrested Tuesday on charges that he embezzled $260,000 from the company to pay for a party at Coachella Music Festival. Khalid Itum, 42, was indicted on two counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering. The charges allege that Itum submitted sham invoices to MoviePass to pay for
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences CEO Bill Kramer confirmed in an interview with Time magazine that the organization has implemented a new “crisis team” for the upcoming 2023 Oscars in order to quickly navigate any potential real-time emergency. The creation of a crisis team is a response to the 2022 Oscars, where Will
Sometimes it takes more than a pair of global blockbusters to shake off the lingering impact of a devastating public health crisis. Quarterly sales and profits fell at Imax despite the commercial success of “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The big screen company recorded revenues of $98 million, a 10%
From “All Quiet on the Western Front” sparking tears for Colin Farrell to “Triangle of Sadness” making Brian Tyree Henry laugh so hard he cried, this year’s Oscar hopefuls spoke with Variety‘s senior culture and events editor Marc Malkin at the annual nominee luncheon about which film most recently brought them to tears. For Farrell
This article first appeared as part of Jenelle Riley’s Acting Up newsletter – to subscribe for early content and weekly updates on all things acting, visit the Acting Up signup page. Charlie Mackesy always thought Tom Hollander would make a great mole. More specifically, the artist who wrote and illustrated the bestselling 2019 book “The Boy, the Mole,
The producers of “Rust” announced Wednesday that they will complete the film at the Yellowstone Film Ranch in Montana, with production set to begin this spring. Alec Baldwin is still on board in the lead role, despite facing a charge of involuntary manslaughter in New Mexico for the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The filmmakers
Film Independent has partnered with the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts to present a live reading of “Triangle of Sadness.” Oscar-nominated director Ruben Östlund will helm the reimagined and recast stage reading at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts’ Bram Goldsmith Theater on Feb. 27. The cast will be led by
Warner Bros’ “The Batman” leads the film nominees for the third annual Critics Choice Super Awards, honoring superhero, sci-fi, fantasy, horror and action movies and series in entertainment. Matt Reeves’ superhero film earned six nominations including best superhero movie, three individual best actor in a superhero movie mentions for Robert Pattinson, Colin Farrell and Paul
Investigators spent more than a year sorting out blame for the death of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed on the set of “Rust.” In the end, two agencies came to two sharply different conclusions about Alec Baldwin’s level of responsibility as a producer of the film. Prosecutors charged Baldwin for firing the gun that killed
Ahead of its world premiere at SXSW, RLJE Films and its sister brands under AMC Networks have acquired the North American rights to the horror/thriller, “The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster.” Those brands include Shudder and AllBlk, all of which share a parent company. The horror-thriller is debuting in the Austin-based festival’s “Visions” category,
A galaxy of A-list talent will participate in SXSW’s inaugural South Asian House initiative. Panel discussion Creating South Asian Content for a Global Audience, will feature actor Rizwan Manji (“Schitt’s Creek”), Emmy-winning executive producer for Vice, Falguni Adams (“Dateline NBC”), and Apoorva Bakshi, producer of International Emmy-winning series “Delhi Crime,” moderated by CEO of Jingo
Evelyn Wang’s hot dog fingers from “Everything Everywhere All at Once” can soon be yours. A24, the indie studio behind the Oscar-nominated film, is auctioning off the props from the zany sci-fi adventure for charity. Fans will be able to bid on the original decor, wardrobe and set pieces from the multiversal “Everything Everywhere All
Veteran auteur Mario Martone, whose Naples-set drama “Nostalgia” launched last year from Cannes, has quite a lot in common with Massimo Troisi, Italy’s beloved late comic actor-director who is best known internationally as the star of Oscar-winning film “Il Postino.” Which is why Martone was well-suited to direct the multi-layered doc about Troisi’s legacy “Somebody
When Jimmy Warden was a kid growing up in Chicago, he wound up watching “a lot” of horror movies when he was, he says, “far too young.” “I became used to seeing people get their guts eaten or torn out of their bodies, stuff like that,” he says over Zoom with a wry chuckle. “So
In time, stories like “20,000 Species of Bees” will come to feel as commonplace within the coming-of-age genre as tales of first love or heartbreak: a young girl, unhappy in her skin and at odds with her family, finally recognizes her gender over the course of one pivotal summer, and persuades others to recognize it
Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival will be back this year after being put on hiatus in 2022. Organizers have announced that the prominent Arab fest’s 6th edition will take place in the Red Sea resort town Oct. 13-20, while the fest’s industry arm the CineGouna Platform, will run Oct. 15-19. The fest, which was launched
Steven Spielberg, director of countless blockbusters, delivered a blockbuster speech accepting the Golden Bear for lifetime achievement at the Berlin Film Festival. The filmmaker said that despite directing for six decades, directing “Duel” and “Jaws” felt like “last year.” “I know a lot more about moviemaking than I did when I directed my first feature
In 1995, Alex de la Iglesia directed his second feature, “The Day of the Beast,” which marked a milestone in Spanish cinema, yoking full-on U.S. genre tropes – a bloody against-the-clock search for an Antichrist – with a bathetic but very grounded Spanish reality, featuring a downbeat boarding house, a local metalhead and the tawdry
Three-time Grammy winner Cécile McLorin Salvant will team with French studio Miyu Productions and Belgian animator Lia Bertels on “Ogresse,” a wry and irreverent fairytale inspired by a narrative performance piece the musician has toured since 2019. Described as a murder ballad set to a jazz tempo, the animated musical will hit tragicomic notes as
Italian auteur Vittorio De Sica triumphed at the Berlin Film Festival when his 1971 masterpiece “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” claimed the Golden Bear, on its way to the best foreign-language Oscar in 1972. “Finzi” also earned Italian film and TV star Fabio Testi an Italian Golden Globe for best breakthrough actor. A half-century later,
Bethlyn Hand, who served as senior vice president of advertising and administration for the Motion Picture Association of America, died Feb. 14 of Alzheimer’s disease. She was 85 years old. Hand joined the Hollywood trade organization shortly after Jack Valenti began his 37-year tenure as MPA president in 1966. “She was by my side at
Agatha Christie’s “Murder is Easy” is set to be adapted into a two-part film by BBC One, iPlayer and BritBox International. Set in the sleepy English village of Wychwood under Ashe in 1954, “Murder is Easy” tells the story of Luke Fitzwilliam who finds himself on the trail of a serial killer after meeting Miss
Ernie Hudson said during a recent interview on “The Howard Stern Show” (via IndieWire) that “Ghostbusters” studio Columbia Pictures “selectively pushed [him] aside” during the making and marketing of the 1984 supernatural comedy classic. Hudson starred in the film opposite Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd as fellow ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore, but he was
When James Gunn and Peter Safran unveiled the new DC Universe slate in January, the lineup included a “Wonder Woman” prequel series titled “Paradise Lost” that is set for HBO Max. Not much about the series is known other than it’s a “‘Game of Thrones’-ish story” set on the island of Themyscira before the birth
The cast of Ava DuVernay’s latest film, inspired by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” is now complete with the addition of Blair Underwood, Finn Wittrock, Victoria Pedretti, Isha Blaaker, Leonardo Nam, Donna Mills and Emily Yancy. The seven actors join Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis, who was previously announced as
How can trees be racist? That’s the question explored in a new documentary, “Racist Trees,” about a historically Black neighborhood called the Crossley tract in Palm Springs, Calif., whose residents suspected a dense row of tall tamarisk trees might have been planted decades ago to segregate them from the adjacent golf course. While putting a
Amazon Studios has picked up the rights to “Daring to Live,” produced by DeVon Franklin’s (“Breakthrough”) Franklin Entertainment. Previously set up at Paramount Players, the project is now in development at Amazon Studios. The film is inspired by Sheri Hunter’s 2020 memoir “Daring to Live: How the Power of Sisterhood and Taking Risks Can Jump-Start Your