“Avatar: The Way of Water” stayed atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £4.1 million ($5.1 million) in its fifth weekend for a running total of £63.5 million, according to numbers from Comscore. Universal’s “M3gan” and Disney’s “Empire of Light” opened strongly in second and third places with £2.3 million and £1.7 million respectively.
Movies
Jennifer Coolidge held court while eating ice cream and Julia Roberts, Thuso Mbedu and Cate Blanchett were among the stars working the room to say their hellos. The stars were out Sunday to celebrate the Critics’ Choice Awards, except for those who had COVID. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star Jamie Lee Curtis, “The Banshees
Welcome to this week’s “Just for Variety.” Is NTR Jr. inching closer to joining the MCU? As I first told you in last week’s “Just for Variety,” the “RRR” star says he’d love to do a Marvel movie. Well, I am doing my part to make this happen. I introduced NTR Jr. to top Marvel
I wasn’t sure if “Everything Everywhere All at Once” could win best picture, but I might be convinced now. The A24 multiverse comedy had a fantastic night at the Critics’ Choice Awards, winning five statuettes including best picture, supporting actor for Ke Huy Quan, director and original screenplay for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert and
Greta Scacchi, daughter Leila George and Sam Corlett will next week start production on “He Ain’t Heavy” a West Australia-set drama by first time feature director David Vincent Smith. Inspired by true events, “He Ain’t Heavy” follows a desperate sister who kidnaps her beloved brother to save him from addiction. George is a fast-rising star.
Kevin Spacey took the opportunity to praise his manager Evan Lowenstein in a passionate speech Monday, receiving a lifetime achievement award prize prior to holding a master class at Italy’s National Museum of Cinema in Turin. The occasion was Spacey’s first speaking engagement in more than five years, during which the Oscar-winning actor has been
Singaporean director Anthony Chen’s English-language debut “Drift” world premieres in the Premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 22. Chen, the producers, and Cynthia Erivo, the film’s lead actor and one of producers, talk to Variety about the movie. Starring Erivo (“Harriet”) and Alia Shawkat (“Arrested Development”), the film is from the producer
Lucy Walker, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker of “Waste Land,” is working on her next ambitious documentary, “The Great Oven” shedding light on a grassroots food movement in the Middle East and South America. The initiative, which was created in 2019 by James Gomez Thompson and Beirut-born Nour Matraji, has allowed for giant ornate ovens to be
“The Woman King” won the top prize at this year’s African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) awards, taking home the award for best picture. The Sony Pictures film was up against “Till,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”; each feature ended up winning at least two awards. Along with best
Bill Nighy has not seen his latest feature, the Sony Pictures Classic release, “Living.” In fact, he hasn’t seen any of his films. “It’s not because I’m vain,” the actor says. “I gave up watching myself very early on because it undermined me to such a degree, that it made it harder for me to
The Berlin Film Festival has revealed the 28 titles selected for its Forum strand and the 26 projects at the Forum Expanded platform. In the Forum strand, documentaries stand alongside personal essay films, while the films and installations that make up the Forum Expanded program revolve around political and personal legacies. The festival takes place
Angela Bassett, Kerry Washington, Effie T. Brown and Debra Martin Chase have been named special honorees at the 2023 Black Reel Awards. The Black Reel Awards — also known as “The Bolts” — are an annual awards ceremony hosted by the Foundation for the Augmentation of African Americans in Film (FAAAF) recognizing the “excellence of
Kaleidoscope Film Distribution has acquired international sales rights for all-female drama “Tell That to the Winter Sea” and will represent the film at Berlin’s European Film Market (EFM) in February. Directed by Jaclyn Bethany “The Invisible Girl”), who also co-wrote alongside lead actor Greta Bellamacina (“This England”), the film follows bride-to-be Jo and her first love, Scarlet,
VFX powerhouse MacGuff is using its proprietary tools Face Engine and the new Face Creative Engine, in conjunction with traditional CGI, on a slew of French and international projects for streamers and French broadcasters. France is one of the world’s biggest VFX hubs, leveraged by its TRIP scheme, that enables foreign shoots to tap into
Tributes are pouring in for Gina Lollobrigida, one of Europe’s biggest movie stars, who died on Monday at the age of 95. A global sex symbol during the 1950s and ’60s, Lollobrigida worked with Hollywood heavyweights such as Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Errol Flynn and Rock Hudson. Sophia Loren was one of the first people
Named one of Unifrance’s 10 Talents to Watch for 2023, rising star Nadia Tereszkiewicz is set to breakout. After stepping onto the international stage thanks to her work in Monia Chokri and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi’s 2022 Sundance and Cannes titles “Babysitter” and “Forever Young,” the Franco-Finnish actor will next step into the spotlight, hitting the French
Top stars feature in an 18-strong Tamil-language film slate that will bow on Netflix after theatrical release. Several of the titles will also be made available on the service in the Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi languages. Dream Warrior Pictures has “Japan,” starring Karthi, directed by Rajumurugan, Studio Green has “Thangalaan,” starring Vikram, directed by Pa. Ranjith and
The Austrian film and TV industry has moved quickly to distance itself from Austrian actor Florian Teichtmeister, who was charged Friday with possession of child pornography. Teichtmeister is the male lead in Austria’s official Oscar submission, “Corsage.” Meanwhile, the film’s producers and its director-writer have released a statement on what they knew and when. Austria’s
Ravi Srinivasan, senior manager of festival programming at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), died over the weekend. He was 37. Born and raised in Sarnia, Ontario, with Indian and Filipino cultural roots, Srinivasan studied film and English literature at Wilfrid Laurier University and film production at Sheridan College. He was an international programmer at
Netflix has launched its second documentary talent fund for emerging filmmakers in the U.K. – and this year the streamer is extending applications to Ireland. The fund will again be produced by Elisabeth Hopper with support from supervising producer Georgie Yukiko and assistant producer Daisy Ifama. Open to everyone – even those with no experience
If the title “Our Father, the Devil” rings a bell, that’s probably because the previously under-the-radar Franco-American co-production received a Spirit Award nomination for best feature in late 2022. Ellie Foumbi’s debut feature premiered a few months earlier at the Venice Film Festival and is still seeking U.S. distribution. While calling it one of the
It had been nearly 15 years since Todd Field released a film when his critically acclaimed drama “Tár” hit festivals last fall. Now running the gauntlet of the awards circuit, Field has opened up about the difficulties he’s encountered in realizing his projects, including the obstacles that faced his debut feature, 2001’s “In the Bedroom,”
The Palm Springs International Film Festival announced the juried winners of the 34th edition Sunday, with “Saint Omer,” directed by Alice Diop, receiving the FIPRESCI prize for foreign film from the jury of international film critics. The courtroom drama is France’s Oscar submission. “To Kill a Tiger” took the documentary award, while “The Damned Don’t
Richard E. Grant is set to host the 2023 BAFTA Film Awards ceremony, the awards body announced Monday morning. The actor joins a panel of newly announced hosts around the event, which includes presenters Alison Hammond and Vick Hope, as well as film critic Ali Plumb. Hammond will host a new BAFTA Studio, offering viewers
Who says adults aren’t going to the movies? Well, the numbers don’t exactly lie: Movies aimed at older audiences have majorly struggled at the box office in COVID times. For the most part, they aren’t going to the movies. But Sony’s “A Man Called Otto,” a heartfelt drama starring Tom Hanks as a cranky widower,
Director Albert Serra will follow up his 2022 breakout “Pacifiction” with “Afternoons of Solitude,” an impressionistic documentary that will explore bullfighting from the tormented perspective of the man in the ring. The filmmaker is also developing his first English-language feature, Variety has learned. “Bullfighting is one of the most excessive examples of the primitive
A preview of Patrick Boudet’s documentary “Nicole Kidman – Eyes Wide Open,” produced by Valérie Montmartin at Little Big Story and ARTE France, generated significant buzz at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous With French Cinema in Paris. Boudet has written and directed drama and documentaries for France Télévisions, Arte, M6 and radio, and his previous project was
Watching Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon,” in all its superficially titillating, occasionally exciting and mostly exhausting wretched excess (the orgies, the elephant poop, the contempo actors overdoing it as dawn-of-cinema stars, the general air of cynical performative effrontery), I thought to myself: We’ve been here before, so many times. You sit down to watch a movie by
Movie theater operators owe a debt of gratitude to the Na’vi and the new queen of artificial intelligence. January tends to be a slow time of year at the box office. Yet James Cameron’s blockbuster sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water” and Universal’s viral horror movie “M3GAN” continue to slay in North America, prevailing over
Michael Bay is fighting back against a widely-seen report that said he was charged in Italy for killing a pigeon during production on the 2019 Netflix film, “6 Underground.” The filmmaker called the report “false, reckless and defamatory,” and says he was never charged with killing an animal. In a legal letter, obtained by Variety,