Movies

The original Jungle Cruise boat ride first opened in July 1955 at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. and has been amusing visitors ever since. Over the years, the river has changed with the addition of an elephant bathing pool, gorillas and a new piranha scene. Disney also updated the ride by removing racist and colonial depictions

Brothers Casey and Colin Jost are co-writing a brand new “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie for Paramount Pictures. The untitled, live-action movie is separate from the CGI-animated film that Seth Rogen is producing for Paramount and Nickelodeon. Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, Scott Mednick and Galen Walker are producing the new “Teenage Mutant Ninja

Neon announced that “Pig” will be available to rent or own on digital starting Tuesday, Aug. 3. The film, directed by Michael Sarnoski and starring Nicolas Cage and Alex Wolff, was released in theaters just two weeks ago on July 16. It will be available on VOD platforms including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google

Rachel True, one of the stars of the teenage witch movie and 1996 cult classic “The Craft,” has landed the lead role in new supernatural thriller, “The Last Call.” Variety has learned exclusively that True will be starring in the upcoming feature, alongside Academy Award nominee Bruce Davison and Emmy winner Keith David. The film

Octavia Spencer will receive the James Schamus Ally Award at this year’s edition of LGBTQ film festival Outfest. The announcement comes just after the recent news, first reported by Variety, that the Oscar winner has boarded the documentary “Right to Try” as a producer. The Zeberiah Newman-directed film, which will have its world premiere at

Italian health authorities have announced that the country will recognize COVID-19 certificates issued by five countries outside the European Union, including the U.S. and U.K., in what amounts to good news for international film delegations set to attend the upcoming Venice Film Festival. However the ordinance, issued late last week by Italy’s Ministry of Health,

Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine has been sold for north of $900 million to a media company backed by the private-equity firm Blackstone Group Inc. Witherspoon and Sarah Harden, Hello Sunshine’s CEO, will join the board of the new company and will continue to oversee day-to-day operations. They will also remain significant equity holders. The Wall

Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, North America’s largest genre dedicated film festival, will host a special pre-festival screening of James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” on Wednesday evening, before kicking off in earnest on Thursday and running Aug. 5-25. Much of this year’s event will be held online, as travel to and from Montreal is still

Actor Nia Long has joined the cast of Netflix’s upcoming romantic comedy “Plus/ Minus.” Long, whose recent onscreen credits include the thriller “Fatal Affair,” 1960s-set drama “The Banker” and “Roxanne Roxanne,” will appear alongside “Riverdale” star Lili Reinhart and Luke Wilson. The previously announced ensemble also includes “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” actor Danny

Comedian Kathy Griffin took to social media to reveal that she has stage one lung cancer and is undergoing surgery to have half of her left lung removed. “I’ve got to tell you guys something. I have cancer. I’m about to go into surgery to have half of my left lung removed. Yes, I have

XYZ Films has acquired North American rights to “Indemnity,” an action thriller from South African director Travis Taute that’s set to world premiere at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival. Written and directed by Taute, “Indemnity” tells the story of an ex-firefighter in Cape Town who’s forced to fight for his life after being accused of murdering

Ever since Steven Spielberg’s career-launching blockbuster “Jaws” broke out in 1975, the world’s obsession with sharks has not slackened. Evidence of this is the glut of films – and TV series – about the much-maligned and misunderstood predator. “The movie ‘Jaws’ had a massive impact on me becoming a filmmaker, and it began my lifelong

As if coming out of the closet were not daunting enough, Canadian filmmaker Robbie Lemieux amps up the fear factor in his feature debut, “Fester.” A participant in the Frontières Co-Production Market, run by the Fantasia International Film Festival alongside Cannes’ Marché du Film, “Fester” is not your average coming-out story. “Writing ‘Fester’ was essentially

Brooklyn-based Utopia has picked up worldwide sales rights to Hayley Garrigus’ “You Can’t Kill Meme,” a documentary feature which drills down on the political meme warfare enshrined by Donald Trump’s presidential victory in 2016. The acquisition comes just ahead of the film’s world premiere at Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival this month. An on demand release

Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired U.S. rights to “Stanleyville,” starring “Goodnight Mommy’s” Susanne Wuest, ahead of the film’s world premiere at this month’s Fantasia Film Festival. One of the high-profile Fantasia deal announcements, the pick-up, brokered with Yellow Veil Pictures, will see Oscilloscope open “Stanleyville” in U.S. theaters this Winter. “Stanleyville” marks the feature film debut

Latin American powerhouse BTF Media and Mexico’s Morbido Group have initiated principal photography in Mexico City on “La Exorcista,” a new feature hailing from famed genre director Adrían García Bogliano and starring María Evoli. The film marks another expansive move by BTF as it drivbes into feature film production, building on its roster of high-level

Dolphin Entertainment and West Realm Shire Services Inc., owner and operator of FTX.US, are teaming up to create an NFT marketplaces for major sports and entertainment brands. The pact will combine Dolphin’s creative and marketing prowess with FTX’s knowledge of crypto currencies. The marketplace is described as “large-scale” and “consumer-facing” and comes as the trading

Selected last week for San Sebastian’s New Directors strand, the festival’s main sidebar, Turkish director Salman Nacar’s “Between Two Dawns” has confirmed distributors for France and Spain. Sales agent Luxbox has also released a first trailer and poster for the film, both of which Variety obtained exclusively. In France, the film’s release will be handled

Matt Damon said in a new interview that he stopped using what his daughter calls “the f-slur for a homosexual” after she wrote him a treatise explaining “how that word is dangerous.” In an article posted by the Sunday Times, the “Stillwater” actor was discussing “changes in modern masculinity” when he launched into a story

The Jewish Film Institute has selected six projects for its second cycle of Completion Grants Program, Variety has learned. JFI, the Bay Area curatorial voice for Jewish film and media, announced the grants at the virtual awards ceremony for the 41st San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. This year, JFI has awarded $100,000 in film completion grants,

Anna Gross, a film executive and producer who worked on films such as “The NeverEnding Story” and “Tootsie,” died of cancer on July 23. She was 68. Gross’ cousin, Mikie Heilbrun, confirmed her death to Variety. “Everyone’s life she touched she enriched,” Heilbrun wrote in an email. “She made them better more full beings and forever

The white fiberglass elephant statues at the Hollywood & Highland shopping center are being removed in a rejection of filmmaker D.W. Griffith’s racist legacy. According to the Los Angeles Times, the new owners of the famous center where the Academy Awards are typically held are removing the elephant statues and “all of the faux Mesopotamian

As an actor, Matt Damon has always had two sides: the light and the dark, the noble and the furtive, the boyishly winning and the ominously coldhearted. Early in his career, when he was that cute kid with the shiny hair and the big grin, he played characters who had a troubled layer or two,

Philipp Yuryev’s “The Whaler Boy,” which took home the Venice Days award at last year’s Venice Film Festival, won the top prize at the Transilvania Film Festival on Saturday. The jury praised the Russian director’s feature debut, an offbeat story of a teenage whale hunter on the Bering Strait who sets out to meet a

Saginaw Grant, the Native American actor known for his performance as Chief Big Bear in “The Lone Ranger” and for featured roles in “Breaking Bad” and other popular series and films, died Wednesday in Hollywood, according to the Associated Press. He was 85. Grant’s publicist, Lani Carmichael, confirmed to the AP that he died peacefully

TikTok star Anthony Barajas, the second victim of a double shooting at a Corona, Calif. movie theater on Monday, has died, according to authorities. In an update to the investigation released on Saturday, the Corona Police Department announced that Barajas, who had previously been on life support, died early on Saturday morning. “The Corona Police

Nearly two decades since the birth of the Romanian New Wave catapulted filmmakers like Cristian Mungiu (“4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days”), Cristi Puiu (“Sieranevada”) and Corneliu Porumboiu (“The Whistlers”) onto the global stage, a fresh crop of rising talents is breathing new life into the country’s film industry. At this year’s 20th anniversary edition

During the closing credits of “The Last Mercenary,” we see a montage of Jean-Claude Van Damme in the various getups he wore during the movie (a fuzzy beard; a mustache and Yankees cap; a blond wig; a Bond tuxedo; drag). The film presents this cavalcade of mostly routine disguises with wide-eyed affection, as if it

Three COVID outbreaks have been reported over the last week at entertainment industry facilities, as the delta variant causes a spike in cases in Los Angeles County. The worst of the three hit the Motion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plan offices in Studio City, where six people tested positive. MPIPHP has since imposed a

Women in Film, Los Angeles, ReFrame and Time’s Up have issued a joint statement calling Disney’s characterization of Scarlett Johansson a “gendered character attack.” The statement from the advocacy organizations reads, “While we take no position on the business issues in the litigation between Scarlett Johansson and The Walt Disney Company, we stand firmly against