Movies

Austin Butler will not sound like Elvis in “Dune: Part Two,” and he will soon not sound like Elvis in real life. The 31-year-old Oscar nominee announced on an episode of BBC One’s “Graham Norton Show” (Entertainment Weekly) that he is getting rid of the accent that has mystified, confused and enthralled social media for

Dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been released from Tehran’s Evin prison, his wife Tahereh Saeidi has announced in an Instagram post. Panani was released on Friday two days after announcing he was going on a hunger strike to protest still being incarcerated after Iran’s supreme court had overturned a six-year sentence issued against the

Sarah Michelle Gellar confirmed during a recent visit on “Watch What Happens Live” that 2002’s live-action “Scooby Doo” movie shot and cut a “steamy” gay kiss between her character, Daphne, and Linda Cardellini’s Velma. The film also starred Matthew Lillard as Shaggy and Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred. Gellar said all four actors signed onto

Sundance has been over for a week, but the market for many of the films that premiered at the festival is still chugging along. On Friday, Sony Pictures Classics announced that it landed North American rights to the Sundance award-winning film “The Persian Version.” The film was written, directed and produced by Maryam Keshavarz and

Director M. Night Shyamalan’s newest twisty thriller “Knock at the Cabin” is barging into its opening weekend with $1.45 million in previews at the domestic box office. The previews came from from 3,000 domestic theaters, and the film will expand to 3,643 locations on Friday. Shyamalan’s most recent movie, 2021’s “Old,” opened slightly higher with $1.5 million

Taylor Lautner said on a recent episode of “The Toast” podcast that his relationship with Robert Pattinson was “definitely” impacted by the rivalry between their “Twilight” characters, the vampire Edward Cullen (Pattinson) and the werewolf Jacob Black (Lautner). The “Twilight” fandom created a massive frenzy over the rivalry, with “Team Jacob” and “Team Edward” merchandise

Nino Rota’s soundtrack for Federico Fellini’s 1976 film “Il Casanova,” which is getting a re-release via Italian record label CAM Sugar, has been a favorite of Alexandre Desplat’s ever since the Oscar-winning French composer first listened to it at 15 years old. The magnificently staged film stars Donald Sutherland as the legendary 18th-century Venetian adventurer

Amazon disclosed that its spending across TV, film and music content jumped 28% in 2022 — thanks in large part to pricey deals for the NFL’s “” and fantasy epic series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” The ecommerce company’s total expenses for video and music for 2022 were $16.6 billion, up

Stephen Fry has joined the cast of “Iron Box,” a multi-generational comedy about a New York businesswoman who journeys with her father to Poland in an effort to explore their roots. The film is being directed by Julia Von Heinz, best known for her work on “And Tomorrow the Entire World” and “Isolation.” Principal photography

The theatrical market across the Nordics recovered in 2022 without reaching pre-pandemic levels, driven predominantly by U.S. fare, such as “Top Gun: Maverick,” the biggest hit in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, “Minions: The Rise of Gru” No 1 in Iceland, and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” No 1 in Norway.  As always Danish movies secured the

India’s Reliance Entertainment, a producer on Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” has pacted with T-Series and Anubhav Sinha’s Benaras Mediaworks to distribute Sudhir Mishra’s “Afwaah,” Sinha’s “Bheed” and Hansal Mehta’s “Faraaz” internationally. First up is Mehta’s hostage drama “Faraaz,” starring Zahan Kapoor, Aditya Rawal, Juhi Babbar Soni, which releases Feb. 3. The film, which had its

The Joburg Film Festival defiantly went ahead with a screening of Ousmane Sembène’s “Black Girl” on Thursday, refusing to bow to political pressure after South Africa’s Film and Publications Board (FPB) denied it permission to hold a public screening of the Senegalese director’s groundbreaking debut. In a decision that shocked festival organizers and many of

Andrew Gumpert is departing his role as COO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Studios. CEO and president Brian Robbins confirmed the news in a memo to staff on Thursday night, writing that Gumpert has “decided to leave” the studios. “Since joining Paramount as COO in 2017 and expanding his responsibilities to include Nickelodeon last year,

“” stars Alison Brie and Danny Pudi, who recently reunited for rom-com “Somebody I Used to Know,” are ready to get started on the sitcom’s much-anticipated film extension. At the “Somebody I Used to Know” premiere on Wednesday, Brie told Variety she hopes the film shoots this year. “I’m clearing that schedule,” Brie said. Pudi

“The fortune you’re looking for is in another cookie,” reads one of the many custom fortune cookie messages featured in “Fremont,” a lovely, low-budget mood piece with a hypnotically deadpan temperament, which flew largely below the radar at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. While Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali’s easygoing fable-like movie serves up such oracular

“The Locksmith” has the right elements for a crime thriller: an ex-con seeking revenge and being chased by a vengeful cop while trying to protect his family. Ryan Phillippe plays the title character, Miller, introduced in the middle of a robbery. Things go wrong and his cohort gets killed. Flash forward 10 years, and he’s

Ben Aldridge came out as gay not even three years ago with a post on Instagram. “The journey to pride was a long one for me,” he wrote alongside vintage photos of gay rights protests as well as a video of him playfully kissing another man on the cheek. “I love the LGBTQ+ community and

“Both mother and baby are doing well,” claim so many birth announcements — an innocuous flash of good news that, in all too many cases, proves to be a bit premature. The baby may be fine after weathering the ordeal of entering the world; the mother might not yet be out of the woods. The

As a producer on Amazon Prime Video’s “The Boys,” Seth Rogen has a hand in one of television’s most popular comic book properties. In a new interview with Total Film magazine, Rogen admitted that “The Boys” would “not exist or be interesting” without the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that doesn’t mean he watches Marvel movies.

In order to make it as a showrunner, you should be able to bear loneliness for longer periods of time, said “Skam’s” Julie Andem at Göteborg’s TV Drama Vision. “To this day, I don’t really know what a showrunner is. Or does. But the most important thing is to have the strongest vision of the

It’s not Andrea Riseborough’s fault that zero Black women were nominated for best actress this year. Still, with no such representation for the second consecutive year, the “To Leslie” star’s surprise inclusion is far more pronounced. Through a grassroots effort made up of predominantly white acting peers, Riseborough’s managing and publicity teams orchestrated a concentrated

Yellow Veil Pictures announced it has boarded world sales on Larry Fessenden’s upcoming horror film “Blackout,” and also released the film’s first teaser poster. The film, which is currently in post-production, will begin the festival circuit later in 2023 after finishing its photography in Hudson Valley, New York this past fall. “Blackout” depicts a painter

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced that it will present eight awards at the annual Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony on Feb. 24. 19 individuals will be awarded in the event’s first in-person ceremony since 2019. Iain Neil will also receive the Gorden E. Sawyer Award at the event, honoring his

During the peak of COVID, as movie theaters were struggling to stay open and blockbusters were getting delayed again and again, Hollywood tightened its wallet for expensive Super Bowl spots. Why spend a casual $6 million — or more — to promote a film that may not see the light of day any time soon?

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The book written by Paul Rudd’s character Scott Lang in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” will be published as a real book — and it’s available to pre-order on Amazon starting today. Marvel announced

Xavier Legrand, whose 2017 feature debut “Custody” won two prizes at Venice and swept four Cesar Awards, is back with “The Successor.” The anticipated sophomore outing has been boarded by mk2 films (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”) which will launch sales at the European Film Market. “The Successor” will star Marc-André Grondin (“C.R.A.Z.Y.”) as

James Cameron teased in December he had performed a scientific study to prove once and for all that the ending of “Titanic” made sense. Fans have debated for over two decades whether or not Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack could have survived by floating on the makeshift door raft with Kate Winslet’s Rose. The scientific study is

HanWay Films is launching worldwide sales at the upcoming European Film Market (EFM) at Berlin on gothic horror film “Virtue.” The film stars Emmy-winning actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (“Game of Thrones”) and BAFTA nominated Romola Garai (“Becoming Elizabeth”). It is directed by Joanna Coates, who won best British feature at the Edinburgh Film Festival for “Hide

The cringe-inducing rushes comprising the documentary portrait “Rewind and Play,” carefully stitched together from a decades-old French TV interview with American jazz pianist Thelonius Monk, are supposed to make your skin crawl with discomfort. And it’s supposed to not fit inside the neat little pre-packaged format box for consumer-ready documentaries.  In his 65-minute film which

Since premiering his last film “An Officer and a Spy” in competition at Venice in 2019, Roman Polanski has fallen from grace in France. But he’s now back with a new movie called “The Palace” that could make a surprise splash on the festival circuit. Polanski, who fled the U.S. in 1978 after pleading guilty