Movies

An indie film set to premiere at this week’s Sundance Film Festival has been pulled from the lineup by its financier, Variety has learned exclusively. The backer says the movie’s director made a secret new cut of the film, one used to enter global film festivals and court critics without its owner’s knowledge. “Blknws: Terms

Almost anyone who grew up with the Beatles knows a few key things about their manager, Brian Epstein, the subject of the new biopic “Midas Man.” You might know that he ran a popular record store in Liverpool when he first saw the Beatles perform at the Cavern Club and realized that it was his

Indian actor Kani Kusruti has nabbed IMDb‘s “Breakout Star” STARmeter Award, riding high on the heels of her critically acclaimed turns in Cannes winner “All We Imagine as Light” and Sundance-winning “Girls Will Be Girls.” The laurel, determined from IMDb’s monthly traffic of over 250 million visitors worldwide, signals Kusruti’s meteoric rise on the platform’s

In description, “Inheritance” sounds like one of those movies that’s about the gimmickry of its own making: A spy thriller shot entirely on iPhone, with many scenes staged in public without permits for added urgency and spontaneity. But this latest feature from Neil Burger (“Divergent,” “Limitless,” “The Illusionist”), who co-wrote the script with spy novelist

The Mediapro Studio’s North American division has tapped former Apple TV+ creative exec Francesca Ricagni for its newly created position of Head of U.S. Hispanic Content as it ramps up its operations in the region. Founded last year, the studio’s new Los Angeles-based operation, led by JC Acosta, has been bolstering its English-language content. Ricagni

Gov. Kathy Hochul offered an array of sweeteners on Tuesday to the New York film and TV tax incentive, as the state looks to combat a sharp decline in production. Hochul proposed a new $100 million pool for independent films, as well as a 10% bonus on top of the 30% base credit for companies

Justin Baldoni‘s legal team released a series of video takes from “It Ends With Us” on Tuesday as they continue to push back on Blake Lively‘s sexual harassment claims. Lively sued Baldoni, the film’s director and co-star, earlier this month for harassment and retaliation, accusing him of a series of inappropriate and offensive interactions during

Robert Pattinson admitted in an interview with Vanity Fair that he nearly convinced himself that cinema was dying and it was time to maybe stop acting as Hollywood struggled in the wake of the COVID pandemic and two major labor strikes. But then came a few movies like Oscar contender “The Brutalist,” directed by his

UPDATE: The seventh annual American Black Film Festival (ABFF) Honors ceremony has pivoted in the wake of the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles to include a special tribute to the community of Altadena, celebrating its residents and their extraordinary contributions to Black history and culture. In addition to saluting the evening’s special honorees — Keke

The Force is with Ryan Gosling. The “Barbie” and “La La Land” star is in negotiations to star in an untitled “Star Wars” movie to be directed by “Deadpool & Wolverine” filmmaker Shawn Levy. Screenwriter Jonathan Tropper (“This Is Where I Leave You,” “The Adam Project”) has been writing the screenplay for the film, which

Naomi Watts revealed on “Live With Kelly and Mark” (via Entertainment Weekly) that she nearly quit acting before she met the late David Lynch, who cast her as the lead in 2001’s “Mulholland Drive.” The film’s critical acclaim and global success turned Watts into a star after “10 years” of “flunking auditions.” Lynch died on

Cineverse has announced that “The Toxic Avenger,” a darkly comedic reimagining of Troma Entertainment’s 1984 cult classic of the same name, is headed to theaters in 2025. Directed by Macon Blair (“I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore”) and starring Peter Dinklage, “The Toxic Avenger” reboot will premiere as an unrated wide release

William Shatner and the “Back to the Future” cast are some of the honorees that will be recognized at the 52nd Saturn Awards, which will incorporate fundraising for California wildfire relief efforts. The awards, hosted by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, take place Feb. 2 at the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City

This year’s Academy Award nominations are set to be announced Thursday, after being delayed due to the devastating Los Angeles fires. As such, the annual Golden Raspberry Awards got to get ahead of the Oscars on Tuesday with their own crop of nominees, highlighting what its members believe to be the worst in film for

In the year without a frontrunner, the doors are still wide open. I’m predicting three films will tie for the most nominations with 10 each: “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez” and “Wicked.” Jacques Audiard’s crime musical “Emilia Pérez” is poised to dominate, and if it can tack on a tech nom or two, the Netflix film could

Actors Moon Choi and Sukku Son are set to star in the indie feature “Bedford Park,” which will mark the directorial debut of writer and editor Stephanie Ahn. The film revolves around an accident that “brings together the lives of a Korean American woman, struggling between her loyalty to her family and the pull towards

Provocative French filmmaker Bertrand Blier, who scored hits with transgressive comedies featuring Gerard Depardieu and Isabelle Huppert such as “Going Places” and “Get Out Your Handkerchiefs,” has died. He was 85. Blier died on Monday night at his home in Paris surrounded by his wife and children, his son Leonard Blier told French news agency

The deleted scenes also includes an extended version of “Popular,” with a full minute of Glinda teaching Elphaba the art of tossing her hair. But first, Elphie must get a little “pep in her step,” so Glinda urges her to stand on the bed and “bounce” to loosen up. “I’m not really a kind of

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., has partnered with Italy’s prestigious Cineteca Di Bologna on a curated film screenings’ series called “Stories That Matter” that will launch with Oscar-shortlisted documentary “Daughters.” The powerful Netflix doc, which follows four girls as they head toward a special daddy-daughter dance date with their imprisoned fathers, will

An unprecedented co-production between Vietnam, Chile and Spain, “The Meeting” has found its director. The project was first announced at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2023. Arantxa Echevarría, winner of Spain’s Oscar equivalent, a Goya, for her feature debut “Carmen and Lola” and whose €8.3 million ($8.6 million) box office with political thriller “Undercover”

Latido Films, who’ve previously bet on high-success Latin arthouse cinema in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beasts” and Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s breakout, “Lullaby,” have acquired international sales rights to Colombian filmmaker Gala del Sol’s debut feature “Rains Over Babel” (“Llueve sobre Babel”) ahead of its Sundance world premiere. Latido’s Juan Torres brokered the deal and told

The world can’t seem to get enough of Dori Media’s “Power Couple.”  The hit unscripted format is poised to launch for the first time in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway and renew in Brazil, Germany and India among numerous other territories in 2025. The relationship series is now in more than 20 territories worldwide, with

Shout! Studios is adding to its Western portfolio with “Guns of Redemption,” a gritty frontier drama featuring a cast led by Casper Van Dien, Jeff Fahey and Sean Astin. The film, from director Brian Skiba (“The Gunslinger”), will ride into theaters and hit digital platforms on March 7. The revenge-fueled tale centers on Luke (Van

Endemol Shine Boomdog, the producer of Max Limited Series “Like Water for Chocolate,” has joined forces with Brazil’s A Fábrica to launch A Fábrica Mexico & U.S. Hispanic. Both are part of Banijay Americas. The new label will focus on producing scripted content for the Mexican, Latin American and U.S. Hispanic markets, and is set

Sean Hu’s “Ocean Elegy: The Tragedies of Mudan and Ryukyu,” a seven-years-in-the-making documentary exploring a pivotal 1870s incident that reshaped East Asian geopolitics, will world premiere as the opening film of Japan‘s Cinema at Sea – Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival. New Zealand director Miki Magasiva’s “Tinā” is set to close the festival with its

Jules Feiffer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who also wrote occasionally for the stage and screen,  including Mike Nichols’ film “Carnal Knowledge” and Robert Altman’s “Popeye,” died on Jan. 17 at his home in upstate New York. He was 95. Feiffer’s wife confirmed to the Washington Post that he died of congestive heart failure. Feiffer was

U.K.-based film programmers Omar Ahmed and Ranjit S. Ruprai are set to debut The Cloud Door, a new boutique label dedicated to bringing South Asian cinema to global audiences, with Kamal Swaroop’s influential cult film “Om Dar-B-Dar” (1988) as its inaugural release. The launch addresses a persistent void in the home video market, where South

Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon,” starring Ethan Hawke and Margaret Qualley, and Michel Franco’s “Dreams” with Jessica Chastain are slated to compete at the 75th edition of the Berlin Film Festival. This year’s jury will be presided over by “May December” filmmaker Todd Haynes. “Blue Moon,” which also stars Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott, is a

Picture Tree Intl. has picked up the international sales rights for “Old White Man,” a satirical dramedy by Simon Verhoeven, director of box office hit “Welcome to Germany.” “Old White Man” stars Jan Josef Liefers, Nadia Uhl and Elyas M’Barek, and is produced by Quirin Berg, Max Wiedemann and Kirstin Winkler from Wiedemann & Berg

Multiple award-winning Indian director Hansal Mehta (“Scam 1992,” “Shahid”) is diving into the production game, launching True Story Films with producer Sahil Saigal in a strategic partnership that includes investments from industry heavyweights Vinod Bhanushali and Parag Sanghvi. The newly minted banner, which represents a significant expansion of Mehta’s creative footprint, is launching with an