Movies

David Brenner, an Oscar-winning film editor who worked on dozens of films including “Justice League,” “Independence Day” and “Born on the Fourth of July,” died on Thursday, Variety has confirmed. He was 59. “He was an extraordinary editor and a loving, compassionate family man,” the American Cinema Editors, of which Brenner was a member, said

When actor Sophia Ali stepped into the shoes of Chloe Frazer, a fearless, badass treasure hunter in “Uncharted,” she felt unstoppable. “I’m surprised I fit into rooms to be honest. I was on such a high,” she told Variety. “I was playing Chloe’s video game [‘Uncharted: The Lost Legacy’] while I was shooting because I wanted

Scott Eastwood and Shia LaBeouf allegedly had a “volatile” encounter during the making of David Ayer’s 2014 war movie “Fury.” Eastwood recently told Insider that Brad Pitt had to intervene when LaBeouf confronted Eastwood over a miscommunication about filming. The script required Eastwood to spit on a war tank during a scene, but LaBeouf did

The COVID-19 pandemic happened at an inconvenient time for Elsie Fisher’s career. The teen actor, who has been working professionally since she was five, had her breakthrough in 2018 as the lead in Bo Burnham’s hilarious and squirm-inducing “Eighth Grade.” A stint on season two of Hulu’s “Castle Rock” as the daughter of “Misery” villain

Tons of films have dreams in them, but few capture what a dream actually feels like better than “Strawberry Mansion,” the surrealist indie dramedy that premiered at Sundance Film Festival last year and opens in theaters Friday and on digital next week. Directed by Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley, the film tells the story of

Disney Plus has announced the films and filmmakers for Disney Studios Content’s second season of “Launchpad,” a collection of live-action short films. Selected out of almost 2,000 applicants, all from underrepresented backgrounds, the lineup of filmmakers features six writers (Jasmine Johnson, Kevin Park, W.A.W. Parker, Xavier Stiles and the married screenwriting team of Joel Perez

To celebrate Black history month, Ava DuVernay’s indie distribution, arts and advocacy collective Array has produced “28 Days of ‘Sankofa,’” an event series where select cinemas, universities and festival locations throughout the U.S. are screening Ethiopian director Haile Gerima’s “Sankofa” for free, one screening for each day of February. In addition, Array created a free

“Uncharted,” a long-gestating film adaptation of a popular series of video games, racked up $3.7 million in Thursday previews. The big-budget adventure is a key test of Tom Holland’s bankability, coming on the heels of his blockbuster success with “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” The Marvel adventure recently topped “Avatar” to become the third highest-grossing domestic

Variety will return to an in-person Artisans Awards ceremony at this year’s Santa Barbara Film Festival, taking place on Monday, March 7 at 8 p.m. at the historic Arlington Theatre. Honoring those nominated for an Academy Award in below-the-line categories, this year’s Artisans Awards highlights those essential to the filmmaking process and who have exhibited

Netflix released a teaser trailer for Adam Sandler’s basketball movie “Hustle,” premiering on the streamer on June 10. Produced by LeBron James, the film follows a washed up basketball scout (Sandler) as he discovers a star athlete (Juancho Hernangómez) with a rocky past on the street ball courts of Spain. Back in the U.S., the

Closing in on one of the leading voices in Caribbean cinema, Sony Pictures Television has acquired from Latido Films Latin American rights to “Hotel Coppelia,” directed by Dominican filmmaker José María Cabral. Produced by Santo Domingo-based Rafael Elías Muñoz at Lantica Media and Cabral’s outfit Tabula Rasa, “Hotel Coppelia” is a real events-inspired drama, set

That Colson Baker can act is no revelation. The rap-rocker, better known to his legions of fans as Machine Gun Kelly, has already held his own in a dozen or so roles for film and TV, demonstrating a scuzzy on-screen charisma within admittedly limited boundaries. His canny casting as Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee in

101 Films International has picked up world sales rights to “Fear the Invisible Man,” an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic novel, Variety can exclusively reveal. Described as a “period action thriller,” the adaptation stars Mhairi Calvey (“Braveheart”), David Hayman (“The Boy in the Striped Pjamas”), Mark Arnold (“Teen Wolf”) and Mike Beckingham (“Truth Seekers”). “‘Fear

First look images from upcoming U.K./Italian co-production “Commedia” have been released, Variety can exclusively reveal. Actor and writer Greta Bellamacina, who will next be seen in Sky Atlantic’s “This Sceptred Isle,” plays the lead, Irene. Helmed by Italian film and theater director Riccardo Vannuccini, “Commedia” will be Vannuccini’s first English-language film and is intended as

Gentle is the most fitting word to describe the aura of “The Last Bus,” Gillies MacKinnon’s placid travelogue of a movie about an ailing Englishman on a heartrending mission. Sadly, the filmmaker’s road trip errs on the side of excessive gentleness. For a tender movie that follows an old man on a long and demanding

I’m all for bad horror movies having short running times. (It lessens the pain.) And there are classics of horror cinema that are notably compact, like “Frankenstein” (1931), with its twisty tumultuous plot that lasts 71 minutes, or the original 1974 version of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” which achieved its slow-burn descent into the

Warner Bros.’ franchise title “The Batman” and Sony’s game adaptation “Uncharted” have both been given confirmed theatrical release dates in mainland China. “The Batman” will reach conventional and Imax theaters in China on Friday March 18, 2022. “Uncharted” will release four days earlier on Monday March 14. The confirmations mean that there is a rebounding

Variety won 26 National Art and Entertainment Journalism Awards, including entertainment publication for its 115th anniversary issue “Gamechangers” and two journalist of the year awards: senior vice president Tim Gray for print and deputy music editor Jem Aswad for online. The venerable entertainment publication received 98 nominations. The awards, presented by the Los Angeles Press

Apple tapped Park Chan-wook, among Korea’s most successful and critically acclaimed directors, to make a movie shot entirely on its latest iPhones. Park’s “Life Is But a Dream” is the first project in Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” marketing campaign to be produced, shot and edited entirely in Korea. (Watch Park’s film below or at this

This year’s Academy Awards will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for most — but not all — inside the Dolby Theater, Variety has confirmed. As the New York Times reports, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences determined on Thursday that all nominees and invited guests must show proof of vaccination and test negative at

Nearly 30 years since their Oscar-winning collaboration on “Forrest Gump,” Tom Hanks, Robert Zemeckis and Eric Roth will reunite for a new movie. The trio are set to adapt the innovative graphic novel, “Here,” with Hanks attached to star, Zemeckis to direct and Roth to pen the script.  Published in 2014 by illustrator and comics

Actors Sherri Shepherd and Jo Marie Payton have joined the feature film “ImPossible” in key roles. The movie, from executive producer and NFL champ Donald Driver, will weave narrative with Brandon Keith Lewis’ real-life diabetes battle. He will star, direct and co-write the film. Lewis contends with morbid obesity and type 2 diabetes onscreen and

Paramount confirmed this week that “WandaVision” director Matt Shakman will head into production on a new “Star Trek” movie later this year with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho and Simon Pegg reprising their roles for a fourth go-around on the big screen. For Quentin Tarantino fans, the news is the

Michael Bay is calling “bullshit” on the James Bond franchise for holding the Guinness World Record for largest film stunt explosion. It was the 007 tentpole “Spectre” that set the record with one set explosion that had “a total yield of 68.47 tonnes of TNT equivalent.” Not so fast, Bay recently told Empire magazine. According

More than two years after completing his ninth “Star Wars” movie, composer John Williams is returning to the Jedi fold with a theme for “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Variety has learned. Williams has written the musical signature for the continuing adventures of the character played by Ewan McGregor, airing on Disney Plus beginning May 25. He recorded

Casey Wilson and Andrew Rannells will host the 24th Costume Designer Guild Awards. “Throughout our history, the CDGA has been lucky enough to have incredible hosts like Mindy Kaling, Anjelica Huston, Gina Rodriguez and Mandy Moore join us,” Guild president Salvador Perez said in a statement. “We are excited to welcome Casey and Andrew to

Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine has forged a storytelling partnership with World of Women (WoW), the NFT collective that is cracking open the male-dominated world of crypto currency while celebrating inclusivity and equality. World of Women launched in July 2021 with some 10,000 artworks from women creators, quickly becoming one of the most popular and profitable

Big Beach, the production label behind Awkwafina starrer “The Farewell” and Tom Hanks’ “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” has abruptly closed its New York headquarters and parted ways with a significant number of staff, sources tell Variety. The cuts are a sign of the increasingly difficult challenges facing independent film shops, even those with

“Animals are people too!” a liberal yahoo in Portland yells before nearly getting his face eaten off by a Belgian Malinois named Lulu in “Dog,” a movie that not-so-secretly agrees with that sentiment, even as it has a laugh at the clueless animal lover’s expense. Lulu, it turns out, is a more complicated character than

Francis Ford Coppola went viral in 2019 after he was quoted calling Marvel movies “despicable” while supporting Martin Scorsese’s critical beliefs about comic book films hurting the film industry. Coppola later clarified that he wasn’t talking about Marvel movies specifically, saying it’s “despicable” how the film industry now values commerce over art. Speaking to GQ