Movies

The Walt Disney Company is parting ways with Geoff Morrell, its head of corporate affairs, after a series of public relations debacles. Morrell, ousted after less than four months on the job, joined Disney in January from a post as the executive vice president of communications and advocacy at oil and gas company BP. But

Blake Lively is making her feature directorial debut with an upcoming film adaptation of the graphic novel “Seconds” for Searchlight Pictures, Variety has confirmed. Created by Bryan Lee O’Malley and released in 2014 by Random House imprint Ballantine Books, “Seconds” follows the story of Katie Clay, the owner and head chef of the titular restaurant. One

In collaboration with Hot Docs 2022, Chiledoc announced that the Toronto-based festival will showcase seven Chilean documentaries as part of its Made In Chile strand.  Screening from April 29, the selections highlight the burgeoning global impact of Chile’s spirited documentary film initiative, encompassing diverse and bold perspectives from new voices nationwide. As North America’s largest

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Quality film trilogies are hard to come by. In the more than 10 years since the “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was first released, spawning two nearly-perfect sequels in “Dawn of the

Marvel Studios productions “The Marvels” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” are swapping release dates, Disney announced Friday. “The Marvels,” the sequel to 2019’s “Captain Marvel,” was originally due to open in theaters on Feb. 17, 2023, and “Quantumania,” the third movie in the “Ant-Man” series, was set to open on July 28, 2023. Instead,

The curtain has closed on CinemaCon, and this year’s gathering of movie theater owners managed to come and go with nary a mention of the exhibition industry’s persona non grata, Netflix. The streaming giant is usually a punching bag as Hollywood studios and film operators spend a week in Las Vegas to wax poetic about

Neal Adams, the legendary comic book artist who drew Batman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, the X-Men, the Avengers and countless more superheroes, has died, his daughter confirmed to Variety. He was 80. Adams was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, one of the highest honors in the comic book industry, in 1998.

It was a year of plague, mergers and mega-paydays for the moguls who run some of the largest media companies in the world. In 2020, there were CEOs who made a show of forgoing their base salaries in solidarity with their workforces, many of which had to undergo furloughs or layoffs as the pandemic shuttered

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month arrives on Sunday, and Ella Jay Basco is celebrating with “Bubble Tea,” the latest single from her upcoming album. Best known for her role as Cassandra Cain in the 2020 superhero film “Birds of Prey,” Basco got her start as a child actor in show’s like “Grey’s Anatomy”

Curiously unadventurous for a sex-positive teen romantic comedy, Sammi Cohen’s “Crush” centers its premise on an age-old recipe: an emotionally bemused heroine desperately pursues her supposed soul mate, when her ultimate the one has been right under her nose all along. Still, predictability isn’t the real deficit of this well-meaning and progressive Hulu original that

Canvas Media Studios and MarVista Entertainment have hammered out a six-film slate deal that will be focused on identifying diverse, first-time and up-and-coming writers and directors. The agreement will involve fully financed completed titles with a pre-buy distribution commitment from MarVista Entertainment, which will also oversee global distribution for all films produced under the partnership.

Atlas Entertainment, which scored a box office hit this year with Sony Pictures’ “Uncharted,” has taken legal action to block a crypto firm from marketing a new coin tied to the movie based on the hit PlayStation video game. Atlas Entertainment insiders were shocked last month to see online references to an “Uncharted” coin with

“The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power” star Simon Merrells and “We Hunt Together’s” Hermione Corfield will lead the sci-fi thriller “A Million Days.” Signature Entertainment (“Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts”) will introduce the film to buyers at next month’s Cannes Film Festival as part of its international sales slate. The film is the

Alex Winter (“Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”) and Patton Oswalt (“Young Adult”) are set to appear in martial arts drama “Absolute Dominion” for Netflix. “The Porter’s” Oluniké Adeliyi, “Better Call Saul’s” Julie Ann Emery and “Jerry Maguire’s” Reagan Gomez will also star in the project. Helmed and written by stunt-woman turned director Lexi Alexander (“How

Irish director Frankie Fenton explores the movement of global activists who believe nuclear power is our best hope to fight climate change in “Atomic Hope: Inside the Pro-Nuclear Movement,” which world premieres May 3 at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Paris-based documentary specialist Java Films, which is handling world sales on the film,

First look images have been unveiled of Nikki Amuka-Bird in upcoming survival thriller “Jericho Ridge.” The film tells the story of North Washington county sheriff Tabby (Amuka-Bird), who finds herself alone in the sheriff’s office one night while her colleagues are out on patrol. But she soon finds out they’ve been set up by a

The Hot Docs Canadian Intl. Documentary Festival marked its long-awaited return to cinemas last night, opening its 29th edition in the historic Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema with the world premiere of Canadian filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal’s “Into the Weeds: Dewayne ‘Lee’ Johnson vs. Monsanto Company.” Sphere Films (formerly WaZabi Films) has worldwide sales rights (excluding

Film producer Ma Aeint has been sentenced to three years of jail, with hard labor, by a court in Yangon, Myanmar. Ma Aeint is the producer of the film “Money Has Four Legs,” which was directed by Maung Sun and began screening at festivals in 2020 before Myanmar suffered a military coup in early 2021.

Charlotte Rampling starrer “Juniper” has been picked up by distributor Parkland Entertainment in the U.K. and Ireland. In “Juniper,” Rampling plays Ruth, a “funny, rude, fearless, flirtatious” grandmother who unexpectedly descends on her grandson Sam and his father after Sam is suspended from boarding school. For Sam, who is already struggling with suicidal thoughts, the

José Luis López Linares’ “Goya, Carrière and the Ghost of Buñuel,” a portrait of French film great Jean-Claude Carrière, captured breaking down the paintings and personality of painter Francisco de Goya, has been acquired for international sales by Reservoir Docs. In its earliest sales, the doc feature has closed the two biggest markets in Europe

Animayo Gran Canaria, Spain’s foremost Canary Islands-based animation festival, is venturing deep into the metaverse with experts in artificial intelligence, virtual reality and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) joining leading voices in animation from major studios, including DreamWorks, Walt Disney, Skydance, Sony Pictures and Platige Image. Some 23 guests will be participating across 14 master classes, three

New Europe Film Sales has announced the first sales for Cannes Un Certain Regard-selected “Godland,” directed by Iceland’s Hlynur Pálmason. The film was picked up in France by Jour2Fete, and the movie was also acquired by three distributors that worked on Pálmason’s Cannes Critics’ Week title “A White, White Day” – Benelux rights were sold

Spain’s J.A. Bayona, director of “The Impossible” and “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” is close to wrapping production on the Spanish leg of Netflix’s “Society of the Snow,” (“La sociedad de la nieve”), one of the Spanish-speaking world’s most ambitious upcoming features for 2023. Turning on a 1972 air crash in the Andes that forced its

Remember how you learned in school about “man’s inhumanity to man”? If the director Gaspar Noé has a theme, it’s “the humanity of inhumanity.” Noé’s shock psychodramas confront subjects like murder, sexual assault, and what happens when a roomful of flex dancers go out of their gourds on LSD. As a filmmaker, he’s drawn to

Keanu Reeves is back to crushing skulls and making movie theater owners scream with adoration, as the star closed CinemaCon with a first look at “John Wick: Chapter 4.” Appearing during the Lionsgate presentation at the annual exhibition trade show, Reeves was greeted with lusty applause and chants of “you’re the man!” from attendees. The

The odds were ever in CinemaCon-goers favor on Thursday night, when Lionsgate brought a teaser for “Hunger Games” prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” to the annual trade show for theater owners. The clip didn’t show any footage from the movie, which is currently in production, nor did it reveal the cast of the

Disney+’s Oscar Isaac-led “Moon Knight” debuted with its premiere episode watched for 418 million minutes during the Marvel Cinematic Universe show’s first five days of availability, according to Nielsen’s newly released streaming rankings. For the week of March 28-April 3, “Moon Knight” didn’t make the ratings-currency company’s list of the Top 10 video on demand

Netflix is reorganizing its marketing department, promoting some key executives, while eliminating several positions. As part of the move, 25 people from Netflix’s global marketing team of more than 500 employees will be laid off, Variety has learned. The cuts come after Netflix announced in its most recent earnings call that it had lost 200,000

Megan Fox spoke candidly to Glamour UK about the “ridicule” she endured after speaking out against Hollywood misogyny early in her career. The actor often spoke out about being objectified on Michael Bay sets, including one infamous “Jimmy Kimmel Live” interview where she called out how creepy it was to have to dance in a

The 2022 Easterseals Disability Film Challenge Awards announced presenters for this year’s ceremony, including “Special” creator Ryan O’Connell and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller. The awards will be held on May 5 at Sony Pictures Studios’ Cary Grant Theater in Los Angeles. Additional presenters include Paul Raci (“Sound of Metal”),