“The Suicide Squad” opened to $4.1 million in Thursday night previews, bolstered by strong reviews and the wider world of fandom’s mania for all things James Gunn. Theater owners are hoping that the very R-rated comic book film will provide a much-needed jolt to the box office after concerns about the Delta variant and new
Movies
It’s 3 p.m. on a beautiful Southern California day and Barbra Streisand is in bed. “I’m still in my nightie,” she says. “I love being in my bed.” Of course, her dogs — Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett — are by her side. “They take their naps in my bed,” Streisand tells me on today’s
Highly-anticipated mainland Chinese film “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” which was due to have been released later this month has been postponed to an unspecified date. The move, announced late on Thursday, was caused by a recent resurgence in COVID-19 cases in China. The film is a Korean War epic that is co-directed by Chen
The list of what surprises Gale Anne Hurd in the entertainment business is a very short one, and the backlash to the legal battle between Scarlett Johansson and the Walt Disney Company certainly isn’t on it. Hurd has been a driving force behind some of the biggest films ever made (“The Terminator,” “Aliens” and “Armageddon”) and
Actress and now debuting director, writer and composer Aurélie Saada pours a tremendous amount of personal nostalgia into “Rose,” a feature steeped in love for her North African Jewish roots, from music (all written by Saada) to food — the credits even include her recipe for “makroud,” a date-filled cookie. The film stars Françoise Fabian
Gordon Lam and Ann Hui, recipients of Variety honors at the New York Asian Film Festival, could scarcely be more different. Actor-turned producer Lam, who is receiving Variety Star Asia Award is ebullient and busy. Hui, for all her renown in Asia and Europe as a top director, is quiet and unassuming. She will be
After going fully virtual in 2020, the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) returns with a hybrid lineup of screenings Aug. 6-22. The festival will open Aug. 6 with Ryoo Seung-wan’s South Korean action-drama “Escape From Mogadishu,” which depicts the perilous escape attempt by Korean embassy workers stranded during the onset of the civil war
French director Axelle Ropert makes an unwise shift from sprightly comedy (“Miss and the Doctors,” “The Apple of My Eye”) to faux-naive artificiality with “Petite Solange,” a tiresome divorce drama seen through the eyes of an adolescent girl. Though clearly meant as a refreshing, femme-centric throwback to a style of filmmaking that petered out in
Fast emerging as a go-to company for high-profile Chilean and women director titles, Buenos Aires boutique agency Meikincine has swooped on “My Brothers Dream Awake,” ahead of its world premiere at Switzerland’s Locarno Festival on Saturday. Competing in Cineasti del Presente, a section reserved for emerging filmmakers from around the world, “My Brothers Dream Awake”
Stefan Ruzowitzky, who won an Oscar for “The Counterfeiters,” is at the Locarno Film Festival on Friday for the world premiere in the iconic Piazza Grande venue of his crime thriller “Hinterland.” He speaks to Variety about the film, which Beta Cinema is selling worldwide. “Hinterland” centers on a former Austrian prisoner of war, Peter
24 companies, all but five launched last decade, descend on Locarno from Aug. 6, mostly in person, to present their production slates. Every market in international is its own story. So the projects they bring run a huge gamut. Following, a quick drill down on the companies and their banner titles. A second article, published
New Locarno Film Festival artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, who is the former head of the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, is starting to put his stamp on the Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema with a lineup comprising comedies and genre films alongside more straightforward auteur cinema, driven by a desire to make the
High-flying Spanish outfit Filmika Galaika has boarded Gabriel Azorín’s poetic, time-blending “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes”(“Anoche conquisté Tebas”), a buzz title at the Locarno Festival Match Me forum. A networking platform for up-and-coming producers, and a few who have pretty much arrived, Match Me runs on-site at Switzerland’s Locarno Festival over Aug.
Distributor Trinity CineAsia has acquired Donnie Yen-starring action film “Raging Fire” from Emperor Motion Pictures for the U.K. and Ireland. The film debuted at the top of the box office last weekend in China, where it grossed $37.2 million in the three-day period, and led sales since, grossing $56.8 million in its opening week. It’s
London-based sales agency Film Republic has picked up Peter Brunner’s “Luzifer,” which will feature next week in competition at the Locarno Film Festival. The film stars Franz Rogowski, who toplined Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life,” and is produced by Austrian auteur Ulrich Seidl. In “Luzifer,” which is based on the reimagining of a true story,
At this year’s edition of Locarno’s Alliance 4 Development, both the future of the selected nine projects, and the co-production market as a whole, will be on the table. The Locarno Film Festival program, which facilitates international co-production for projects from France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, skipped a year due to COVID-19, but is back
It makes sense that one of the protagonists of “Materna” is a fan of Jean-Pierre Melville’s existential neo-noir “Le Samouraï,” given that David Gutnik’s feature debut is itself a tapestry of modern alienation and disaffection. Charting the plights of four women whose paths eventually cross on a New York City subway train, Gutnik’s fragmented feature
If North Korea and South Korea ever reunite and hold a celebratory film festival, “Escape from Mogadishu” is a sure thing for selection. Based on the amazing true story of embassy staff from both countries joining forces to escape probable death in the civil war-ravaged Somali capital in 1991, this propulsive and intelligently written South
The parent company of indie film and TV studio STX is shopping its film library rights in order to pay off debt of roughly $150 million and infuse the company with cash, a Wednesday regulatory filing said. ErosSTX, which owns the producer of films like “Hustlers” and “Greenland,” revealed it had “entered into an exclusive
Chinese pop singer and actor Jackson Yee, who starred in the Oscar-nominated drama “Better Days,” will anchor a new blockbuster from Chinese director Wen Muye, whose “Dying to Survive” is China’s 12th highest grossing film of all time. The film, scheduled for a 2022 release, does not yet have an official English title, but its
Clint Eastwood redefines machismo in the trailer for his upcoming movie “Cry Macho,” out in theaters and streaming on HBO Max on Sept. 17. The 91-year-old Eastwood directed the film and stars as Mike Milo, an ex-rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder who agrees to bring his former boss’ young son, Rafo (Eduardo Minett), home
Things didn’t go exactly as planned. After spending the bulk of the pandemic hustling to get government assistance for movie theaters hit hard by COVID-19, John Fithian should have been savoring a box office revival this summer. Instead, the head of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), the exhibition industry’s main lobbying arm, is
Lionsgate’s investment in streaming paid off during its most recent financial quarter, as its Starz platform topped 16.7 million global subscribers. But it wasn’t all good news at the media company, which reported a net loss of $45.4 million and a loss of 20 cents per share. That compared unfavorably to a profit of $51.1
People wondering whether it’s safe to go to the movie house again may be given pause by “The Last Matinee,” in which that activity proves gravely injurious to patrons’ health. Uruguayan director Maxi Contenti’s feature is a retro slasher whose aesthetics pay tribute to some illustrious forebears, especially of the Italian variety about 40 years
Film production in Los Angeles rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter of 2021, according to permit data released Thursday by FilmLA. The film office recorded 9,791 shoot days from April to June of 2021 — the highest total since the last quarter of 2019 and higher than the average level for all of
Emmy-nominated film and TV writer-director Sydney Freeland has signed on to direct “Rez Ball,” a coming-of-age drama about Native American basketball for Netflix. Described as “Friday Night Lights” meets “Hoosiers,” “Rez Ball” follows the Chuska Warriors, a Native American high school basketball team from Chuska, New Mexico, that must band together after losing their star
Paramount Players’ upcoming adaptation of the New York Times bestselling novel “Razorblade Tears” has found its screenwriter in Sherman Payne. Payne, best known for the HBO Max original “Charm City Kings,” will adapt S.A. Cosby’s acclaimed novel for the studio division. The book is described as a Southern noir about two men who team up
Lebanon’s leading avant-garde filmmaker Ghassan Salhab has always been unapologetically art house, scraping away at traditional forms of narrative to create elliptical works reliant on unfussy compositions and layered sound design. His films explore liminal emotional states connected with Lebanon’s troubled history, capturing a sense of disturbance that practically quivers with unexpressed tension. His latest,
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has approved the new set of bylaws that had been proposed to reform the organization, recruit more diverse and inclusive members and address the ethics and accountability issues that have long swirled around the organization. Most recently, the HFPA had approved new gift, travel and conflict of interest policies that
The Toronto International Film Festival has revealed that Jessica Chastain, star and producer of “The Eyes Of Tammy Faye,” will receive the Tribute Actor Award at the festival’s 46th edition this year. “Jessica has brought to life such strong and inspiring roles for women, from the films that have screened at TIFF such as ‘The