Movies

January was a heady time for the Secret Network. The two-year-old platform had launched a cryptocurrency – SCRT – and was preparing to make a big splash in Hollywood. Teaming up with Quentin Tarantino, the network was preparing to auction an NFT based on the screenplay for “Pulp Fiction.”  In the network’s Telegram chat room,

Variety‘s Power of Women issue celebrates the importance of giving back — no matter what obstacles you face. And this year’s slate of honorees do that with grace, dignity and guts. Elizabeth Olsen, who inhabits the character of Marvel’s most complicated superheroine, has, for six years, spent her off-hours volunteering at Stuart House, a program

The Islamic Scholarship Fund will launch its inaugural Muslim Centered Writers’ Lab. The organization says the initiative is designed to give more opportunities to Muslim screenwriters to be at the center of their stories. It will take place from Nov. 11 to Nov. 13, 2022, and was made possible with support from Extracurricular and The

Tubi released the official trailer for original movie “Hot Take: The Depp/Heard Trial,” a fictionalized retelling of this summer’s closely followed defamation trial involving actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. The ripped-from-the-headlines film is set to premiere Friday, Sept. 30, on the free, ad-supported Tubi service. “Hot Take” stars Mark Hapka (“Parallels,” “Days of Our

MetFilm is expanding into distribution with the acquisition of U.K. distribution company Republic Film Distribution (“Brittany Runs a Marathon”). Republic, which is run by former Icon Films exec Zak Brilliant, will be re-branded as MetFilm Distribution. Brilliant will take on the role of head of MetFilm distribution and MetFilm sales, working with the existing sales

Bassam Tariq has exited his role as director of Marvel Studios’ “Blade,” Variety has confirmed. Tariq’s departure comes as a shock, as production was set to begin in November on Marvel’s upcoming feature about the iconic comic book vampire slayer. The film is set to star Mahershala Ali in the title role, alongside a cast

“A lot of this really happened,” teases the opening card of David O. Russell’s unruly ensemble comedy “Amsterdam,” a loony early-’30s social satire that goes cartwheeling through a little-remembered episode in American history when fascists tried to overthrow the U.S. government. Russell clearly sees parallels between this alarming chapter of the nation’s past and our

Paramount has removed its untitled “Star Trek” sequel from its upcoming film slate. The project, produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, had been dated to hit theaters on Dec. 22, 2023. The rather inevitable news comes roughly one month after director Matt Shakman exited the “Star Trek” film, which was nominally set to be the

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has appointed journalist and TV presenter Natasha Kaplinsky OBE as its new president. She will replace long-time leader Patrick Swaffer, who steps down after 10 years. Formed in 1912, the BBFC is an independent, non-governmental and not-for-profit organization that is tasked with classifying films, video tapes, discs and

Looking back at the poor box office performance of her 2019 “Charlie’s Angels” reboot, Elizabeth Banks has some regrets about the film’s marketing. “I wish that the movie had not been presented as just for girls, because I didn’t make it just for girls,” Banks told The New York Times. “There was a disconnect on

Francesca “Kitten” Natividad, the go-go dancer who became a cult pop culture figure when she was cast by sexploitation film director Russ Meyer in “Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens,” died Saturday of kidney failure after suffering from cancer at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, according to her friend Siouxzan Perry. She was 74. “She

“Smile” is a horror film that sets up nearly everything — its highly effective creep factor, its well-executed if familiar shock tactics, its interlaced theme of trauma and suicide — before the opening credits. In an emergency psych ward, Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), a diligent and devoted therapist, is speaking to a woman who

Hugh Jackman will be back as Wolverine in “Deadpool 3,” Ryan Reynolds announced on his social media Tuesday afternoon. “Deadpool 3” also has an official release date: Sept. 6, 2024. “Hey everyone, we’re extremely sad to have missed D23, but we’ve been working very hard on the next ‘Deadpool’ film for a good long while

“Blonde” director Andrew Dominik has previously said he was unfamiliar with Marilyn Monroe’s filmography before adapting Joyce Carol Oates’ book about the late actor. Now, Dominik says Monroe starred in a “whole lot of movies that nobody really watches,” calling her famous romance film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” a movie about “well-dressed whores.” Dominik’s comments were

Tom Hanks has acted in nearly 100 movies but thinks only four of them are “pretty good,” he said in a new interview with People. Which ones? Well, that’s a mystery. “No one knows how a movie is made — though everyone thinks they do,” Hanks said. “I’ve made a ton of movies (and four

As a horror filmmaker, Rob Zombie has fostered an impassioned following over the past two decades, with a body of work characterized by its black humor and unvarnished violence, made all the more engrossing by the perverse but productive sympathies the director has for his movie monsters. Now, Zombie has completed his most shocking venture

MoviePass was founded on a lie, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a complaint filed on Monday night. The company introduced its $9.95-a-month, all-you-can-watch subscription plan in August 2017. According to the complaint, executives Theodore Farnsworth and Mitch Lowe knew that the offer was just a “marketing gimmick” and that the price was unsustainably

Connie Nielsen is set to star in the psychological thriller “Follow Me” from Catalyst Studios. The “Gladiator” and “Wonder Woman” star will play the lead role in the film, directed by auteur Siri Rødnes (“A Gambler’s Guide to Dying”). Sam Hunt (“Chicago PD,” ”Empire”) and Stef Dawson (The Hunger Games trilogy, “The Dust Walker”), will

Russell Hornsby has signed onto Searchlight Pictures’ “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can Eat,” joining the film’s starry lead trio of Uzo Aduba, Aunjanue Ellis and Sanaa Lathan. Based on Edward Kelsey Moore’s 2013 bestselling novel, “The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat” is set to be directed by Tina Mabry from a script by Gina Prince-Bythewood, with

Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode confronts Michael Myers head on in the final trailer for David Gordon Green’s “Halloween Ends.” A follow-up to 2021’s “Halloween Kills,” the newest installment of the storied franchise picks up four years later with Laurie living with her granddaughter Allyson and finishing her memoir. But a string of nearby violence

Paramount+ has unveiled the first look at the upcoming family sports comedy “Fantasy Football,” set to premiere Nov. 25 on the streamer. Starring and produced by Marsai Martin, the sports fantasy film follows Callie A. Coleman (Martin), who discovers that she can magically control her father’s (Omari Hardwick) performance as a running back for the

“Bros” is another R-rated, envelope-pushing look at a man in a state of arrested development from Nicholas Stoller. It’s the kind of look at male neurosis, usually the kind of mania the pops up a decade shy of mid-life crisis time, that has been the director’s stock in trade in comedies like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,”

More than 90 film professionals in Romania have requested that the head of the Romanian Film Center (CNC), Anca Mitran, steps down, after an interview in which she said that in recent years Romanian filmmakers have been making art films instead of films for the audience, and that documentaries are not meant to be screened

Malala Yousafzai — activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner and film and TV producer — is in production on her first project for Apple, Variety can reveal. Her production company Extracurricular has partnered with indie studio A24 for a still-untitled feature documentary on the legendary “haenyeo” society of fisherwomen, who live on South Korea’s Jeju Island.

Malala Yousafzai has unveiled her first slate of film and TV projects for Apple TV+ through her production banner Extracurricular. The Nobel Laureate struck a programming deal with Apple TV+ last year, and appointed former Berlanti Productions executive and “The Flight Attendant” producer Erika Kennair as president of production at Extracurricular. The resulting projects reflect

Alongside her work through Extracurricular and Malala Fund, Yousafzai is throwing her weight behind Pillars Artist Fellowship, which supports emerging Muslim directors and screenwriters. The program is timely, given shocking new data from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that reveals Muslims comprised only 1.1% of characters in popular television series from 2018 to 2019, despite

Russia will not be sending an official Oscar candidate for the upcoming international feature film race, Variety has confirmed. The news, which was reported by the news outlet AFP, was announced by the Russian film academy on Monday evening (Sept. 27). The decision appears to be an act of boycott against the Academy Awards, reflecting

Documentary festival IDFA will host the international premieres of Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s music film “Personality Crisis: One Night Only” and Barbara Kopple’s “Gumbo Coalition” as part of its Masters program, as well as the world premiere of Coco Schrijber’s “Look What You Made Me Do.” The selection includes the work of several renowned

European training program School of Film Advancement (SOFA), which aims to strengthen regional film industries across Europe with a focus on Eastern partnership, has launched its ninth edition and 2022-2023 project selection. The first SOFA workshop, running through Sept. 30, kicked off on Sunday outside the Polish capital of Warsaw. After two virtual years, the

Propstore has revealed details of its annual live action auction of film and TV memorabilia, with the items on offer expected to fetch in excess of $12.6 million. Over 1,500 lots will be sold during the auction. Top items to be sold at the auction – with estimated sale prices – include: • Superman’s (Christopher