Movies

On Sunday, the world and film lovers will get to see how the Academy Awards will handle its biggest night in a completely different way than ever before. At a Wednesday virtual press conference, Tony–winning set designer David Rockwell provided some insight into his plans for transforming Los Angeles’s historic Union Station for the ceremony.

Lyndon Chubbuck, a director and photographer known for such film as 2001’s “War Bride” and 2000’s “The Right Temptation,” has died. He was 67. Chubbuck died at his home in Los Angeles on April 13. He was married to prominent acting coach Ivana Chubbuck and was a co-founder of Ivana Chubbuck Studio, which has worked

With the end of the most unconventional Academy Awards cycle in sight, the 93rd Oscars will be the culmination of more than a year of campaigning as the entertainment industry (and the world at large) was turned upside down by the pandemic. Along the way, Variety remained an essential stop for storytellers to discuss their

Actor and comedian Eric Andre alleges he was racially profiled by two police officers in an Atlanta airport before boarding a flight on Wednesday. Andre made the claims in a series of tweets, alleging that two plainclothes officers stopped him at the Delta terminal in the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and performed a random drug

“We need to get extremely brave,” said Jane Fonda, the legendary actor who has spent her 80s fighting for climate change reform. At the EMILY’s List fourth annual pre-Oscars event on Tuesday, “The First but Not the Last,” Fonda gathered virtually with Regina King, Lucy Liu, Samantha Bee and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham

Apple Original Films has announced “Number One on the Call Sheet,” two companion documentary features that will celebrate Black achievement in Hollywood and explore what it takes for Black actors to be successful in the film industry. Produced by Jamie Foxx, Kevin Hart, Datari Turner and Dan Cogan, “Number One on the Call Sheet” is

Dana Brunetti, the producer behind “The Social Network,” “Captain Phillips” and Netflix’s “House of Cards,” has optioned Martin Cooper’s memoir “Cutting the Cord.” He plans to develop the novel as a feature film at Cavalry Media, his Los Angeles-based media and management company, with Keegan Rosenberger and Matt DelPiano. Cooper, referred to as “the father

Disney has set a massive movie licensing pact with Sony Pictures for the U.S. that promises to bring Spider-Man and other Marvel properties to Disney Plus starting with Sony’s 2022 release slate. The wide-ranging deal, which runs through Sony’s 2026 theatrical slate, also calls for Sony titles to run across Disney’s array of streaming and

It’s all come down to this. The longest awards season is drawing to a close, after an excruciating pandemic year that nearly destroyed the movie business. History looks to be made at the Oscars, with women and people of color getting recognition — but there’s also room for a surprise or two. In the winners

Paramount Pictures has hired Mika Pryce as senior VP of production. She begins her new position on April 26 and will report to the motion picture group’s co-presidents Daria Cercek and Michael Ireland. “Mika has fantastic talent relationships, excellent taste and knows how to build a movie from the ground up,” Cercek and Ireland said

STXfilms has landed rights to “The Marsh King’s Daughter,” a psychological thriller starring Daisy Ridley. The film, from director Neil Burger (“Limitless,” “Voyagers”), is expected to begin production in Canada this June. Based on Karen Dionne’s novel, which has been published in 25 languages, the story follows Helena (Ridley) as a woman living a seemingly

ReelAbilities Film Festival Announces Special Guests and Live Events The New York ReelAbilities Film Festival has announced a selection of exclusive events and speakers to accompany its 13th annual ReelAbilities Film Festival programming. Highlights include the pilot reading of “Disgraced” with Julie Klausner (“Difficult People”), Shannon DeVido (“Best Summer Ever”)  and Alex Scordelis (“Difficult People”)

Imax has partnered with Imagine Documentaries, the non-fiction division of the entertainment company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, to produce and distribute its next five films. The upcoming slate deal covers topics including space, exploration, natural sciences and more. In addition to co-financing the titles, Imax will screen the movies in its high-quality

Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Luke Kleintank will star in “The Good Neighbor,” a remake of German thriller “Unter Nachbarn.” The movie will center on new neighbors David and Robert, who find themselves bonded by a hit-and-run accident. According to the official logline: “When the dead girl’s sister shows up to investigate, David, overcome with guilt,

Think of it as the boutique label’s boutique label. Super Ltd., the distributor of the Oscar-nominated “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” is an offshoot of “Parasite” producer Neon, and was launched to handle more experimental work. It’s not that Neon, which has made a name for itself with indie hits like “I, Tonya” and “Border,” is in

Exactly 30 years to the day since Whoopi Goldberg officially became an Oscar winner, the entertainer is reliving the moment over Zoom. Watching a clip from the 1991 Academy Awards telecast from her home in New Jersey, Goldberg breaks into a big smile as Denzel Washington opens the envelope and declares her the best supporting

The mantra that the pandemic has accelerated existing trends is evident across the entire Hollywood landscape. Variety’s virtual Entertainment Marketing Summit, presented by Deloitte on April 22, will analyze some of these trends. The most obvious is that filmgoers have been driven to at-home viewing. Other changes during this period include higher subscriber churn and

“Loving Highsmith,” a new documentary based on the American crime novelist’s personal writings about her lovers and family, has been acquired by Filmcoopi and Salzgeber & Co for distribution in Switzerland and Germany. Salzgeber & Co will release “Loving Highsmith” in Germany, Filmcoopi in Switzerland. The film, in post-production, was presented Sunday at a Swiss

Antoine Fuqua will direct and produce a new film adaptation of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning look at greed, family, death and sexual repression. The “Training Day” and “Magnificent Seven” director will join forces with producers Stephen C. Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey, who backed a 2008 revival of the show

Multi-award winning Swedish director Anna Eborn has presented her fifth feature-length project at the Visions du Réel’s Pitching forum, one of the key industry sections at the documentary film fest in Nyon, Switzerland. The two-time Dragon Award-winner for Best Nordic Documentary at Sweden’s Göteborg Fest (for “Transnistria” in 2019 and “Pine Ridge” in 2014) was

Those who grew up in the ’80s or ’90s probably remember Apple Computer as the underdog, manufacturer of the friendly-looking Macintosh in a world dominated by beige and boxy IBM clones. Flash forward a few decades, and the tech company’s stock has risen, so much so that it’s no stretch to imagine a doomsday scenario

In today’s Global Bulletin, Sky announces its most sustainable Italian shoot yet for “Romulus” season two; “Death and Nightingales” heads to Starz in the U.S.; Beta Film appoints Sarp Kalfaoğlu in Istanbul; KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission plans its upcoming Film Makers Conference; Lineup Industries and NHK Enterprises strike deals in three territories on a pair of

During lockdown multi-prized film director and historian Mark Cousins found out he had a problem with his eyesight. He decided to turn it into a film in which he imagines “the momentous role that looking has played in his own life and the history of humanity,” as the logline reads. Cousins’ latest film, which is

15 years after moving away from his home in Serbia, director Nikola Ilić settled down and found a girl in Switzerland, eventually marrying his wife and filmmaking partner Corina Schwingruber Ilić. Since then his life has been divided between two countries and three women, his wife, his mother Anđica (“Dida”) and grandmother Dobrila Spasić (“Baba”).

Watch Docs Belarus director Tatsiana Hatsura-Yavorska was arrested in Minsk on April 5, following the controversy surrounding an exhibition she co-organized, entitled “Machine is Breathing, and I Am Not”. The incident sparked a global outcry among the film community, which called the arrest “a classic piece of shameless brutality by the Belarusian authorities.” Belarus, often

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova will executive produce a feature documentary on all-time greats from another era — Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills. “The Goddess and The American Girl” tells the story of French tennis champion Suzanne Lenglen and American sensation Helen Wills against the backdrop of the Roaring Twenties. The feminist Lenglen and the embodiment

Dreams do come true when talented youngsters cross paths with mentors. For track and field U.S. prodigies, Sheppard sisters Tai, Rainn and Brooke, their encounter with coach Jean Bell, their fairy godmother, was pivotal in their sports and personal achievements. The Netflix Original documentary “Sisters on Track” is unspooling this week in the Special Premiere

The arrival of Hollywood superstars and government money for tentpole movies have grabbed headlines in Australia. But independent film productions are also moving ahead in post-COVID Australia. Production will start next month in Perth, Western Australia on “It Only Takes A Night,” a film that is both a romantic comedy and a female empowerment movie.

A highly persuasive film about how we should be wary of film’s power to persuade, Theo Anthony’s discursive and disturbing “All Light, Everywhere” is a superb if sinister example of how the outwardly modest essay format can deploy arguments that challenge us to unpick our most basic assumptions. Here, it’s the idea that a thing

To take one glance at Joaquim Calçada, you might expect him to have a story as tall as his hair. Pushing 70 years of age, zipped tightly into a leather bomber as glossy and black as his shellacked pompadour, he has the look of a grizzled Elvis impersonator, way adrift in small-town Portugal. Yet Joaquim’s