Movies

Chaos reigned at the Brussels premiere of “Love Lies Bleeding” on Saturday, after a barrage of homophobic and misogynistic comments during the screening led to a mass walkout followed by retaliatory protests and a police response. More than 60 queer women stormed out of the regional premiere once the screening turned toxic, while screening organizers

Rebecca Ferguson went viral during her “Dune: Part Two” press tour in late February after she revealed on the “Reign With Josh Smith” podcast that she once had an “idiot” co-star who made her cry on set. The story led to a guessing game across social media platforms where people tried to figure out who exactly

The 30th anniversary of the original animated film version of “The Lion King” will be celebrated at the Hollywood Bowl next month with a live-to-film concert/screening that will include cast members from both the movie and theatrical versions — and beyond — including Jeremy Irons, Nathan Lane, Billy Eichner, Ernie Sabella, Jason Weaver and Bradley

New York-based director/producer Katy Scoggin has worked with high-profile U.S. documentary filmmaker/journalist Laura Poitras on two shorts and three features, notably as co-producer and DP on Poitras’ Oscar-winner “Citizenfour” and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight’s “Risk.” Poitras now serves as executive producer on Scoggin’s feature debut “Flood,” one of six creative documentaries to be pitched as works

Escapade Media has come on board to take international sales rights to ‘Follow the Rain,’ a feature-length documentary about unknown species of mushroom that has enjoyed theatrical release in its native Australia. The film is directed and produced by Catherine Marciniak and follows Marciniak and Stephen Axford, her partner in production company Planet Fungi, as

Circle Women Doc Accelerator, an international training program dedicated to women and non-binary filmmakers, has unveiled the four projects that will take part in its showcase as part of the Cannes Docs program of the upcoming Cannes Film Market. For the fifth consecutive year, four alumnae of the program will present their works-in-progress during the

Last week, Amazon Studios/Prime Video senior VP announced that Chris Brearton was leaving Amazon “to pursue a new opportunity outside the company.” Now we know what that opportunity is: Brearton, who had most recently served as vice president of Prime Video Studios Corporate Strategy at MGM+ and MGM Alternative Television, has joined indie media company AGBO as a

STORM WARNING “Stormy,” a documentary about former porn star Stormy Daniels, has been picked up by Blue Ant Studios for international distribution. The launch was announced on Monday, the same day that former U.S. president Donald Trump begins a criminal trial in New York for allegedly covering up hush money payments to Daniels. “Stormy,” offered

In an exclusive interview with Variety, German maestro filmmaker Werner Herzog discussed his plans to lead the 3rd Film Accelerator program organized by Barcelona-based La Selva. Herzog and his long-time cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger will be on hand to guide the 25 directing and 25 cinematography aspirants who will pair up to create short films no

Cannes Critics’ Week, the sidebar dedicated to first and second films, will open with Jonathan Millet’s psychological thriller “Ghost Trail” and wrap with Emma Benestan’s genre film “Animale.” “Ghost Trail” and “Animale” are two of the 11 features slated for Critics’ Week, which runs alongside the Cannes Film Festival. The sole U.S. film of the

Pierce Brosnan will star with Amir El-Masry in the sports drama “Giant,” based on the true-life story of British-Yemeni boxer Prince Naseem “Naz” Hamed and his rags to riches ascent to a world championship under the tutelage of his Irish-born boxing trainer Brendan Ingle. El-Masry will play Naz and Brosnan is set to portray Ingle.

Crime drama “The Goldfinger” was the numerical winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards, where it won six prizes on Sunday. But it missed out on the best film prize, which went to box office record breaker “A Guilty Conscience.” “The Goldfinger,” a retro financial thriller starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah, earned

Oscar-winning Japanese animated fantasy “The Boy and the Heron” held on to top spot at the mainland China box office to record a second weekend win. The film, which opened triumphantly on April 3, in time for a family-oriented long weekend, fell steeply in its second, non-holiday, frame. It earned $12.8 million (RMB90.6 million), according

“Kung Fu Panda 4” took top spot at the South Korean box office becoming the film that finally pushed aside local champion “Exhuma,” which had dominated for seven consecutive weeks. But it was an understated victory, rather than a triumphant one, and the exhibition industry’s $5.6 million nationwide haul was among the lowest scoring weekends

Chris Keyser and David Goodman, the veteran showrunners who steered the five-month Writers Guild of America strike last year, warned guild members on Sunday to stay vigilant in a fast-changing business landscape despite the gains of last year’s historic labor action. “Though this strike is over, the fight goes on. If we take our eye

‘Succession‘ has gone out with one final bang: The HBO drama won two Writers Guild of America Awards on Sunday night — the most of any series — for best drama series and also for best drama episode. Creator Jesse Armstrong was on hand in New York to accept the award, while several of the

“Queen Rock Montreal” will make its global streaming premiere May 15 on Disney+ as the first concert film available with Imax Enhanced sound by DTS. When it arrived in theaters in January, the remastered 1981 concert was Imax’s biggest exclusive engagement. Now, it will debut on Disney+ alongside 18 Marvel films that will also be

A great many people appear to have come out of “Civil War,” Alex Garland’s a-house-divided-against-itself-can-kick-highly-equipped-military-ass dystopian combat thriller, feeling all shook up. They’re disturbed by it, unsettled by it. They experience the movie as if it were holding a violent mirror up to the simmering rage of America’s current political/spiritual/ ideological divide. Many critics have

Director Alex Garland’s provocative dystopian thriller “Civil War” lit up the box office with $25.7 million in its debut. It’s the first A24 movie to lead the charts in North America, setting an opening weekend record for the New York-based specialty studio. It also marks the biggest R-rated start of the year. Heading into the

Berlinale Forum entry “Shahid,” the debut feature of Iranian-German filmmaker Narges Kalhor, has been picked up by Prague-based doc specialist Filmotor ahead of its premiere at Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel, where it is competing in the more experimental Burning Lights section. Described by Kalhor as a collective work between herself and other artists,

The box office is united behind “Civil War.” A24‘s dystopian thriller earned $10.7 million from 3,838 locations across its opening day and preview screenings, putting itself on track for a debut of around $26 million. The debut figure represents the highest opening day gross ever for A24, besting the $5.1 million earned by 2018’s “Hereditary”

SPOILER ALERT: This contains major spoilers for the ending of “Civil War,” now playing in theaters. Call it the fog of war. At the height of the blood-soaked third act of Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” audiences may be unsure who is on which side of the battle between two factions in an America torn asunder. The

In recorded jail calls, “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed complained about the judge, prosecutor and jurors who served on her case and said she was “railroaded,” according to a court filing on Friday. Gutierrez Reed was convicted last month of involuntary manslaughter for loading a live bullet into Alec Baldwin’s gun, leading to the death

CBS has announced the winners of the studio’s Leadership Pipeline Challenge short film competition, which supports local L.A. nonprofits. Now in its third year, the competition challenges early-career storytellers to create short films in collaboration with and highlighting the mission of hyper-local nonprofit organizations. As part of the initiative, CBS provides the filmmakers with education,

A sense of foreboding permeates “Intercepted” from its first few frames, cueing audiences that they are about to witness something sinister. Documentarian Oksana Karpovych shows peaceful images of children playing outside and birds chirping in the distance. Also heard on the soundtrack are ominous recordings, not exactly music but faint siren-like sounds that announce the

Eleanor Coppola, an American filmmaker who won an Emmy for chronicling her husband Francis Ford Coppola‘s taxing 238-day production of “Apocalypse Now” in her documentary “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse,” died Friday at her home in Rutherford, Calif. She was 87. Coppola’s death was confirmed in a statement by the Coppola family to the

Seven years after showcasing “You Make a Better Window Than You Do a Door” at Visions du Réel’s Short Film competition strand, Lebanese-born Farah Kassem is back in Nyon, this time in the main international competition with her doc feature-length debut “We Are Inside.” Variety was granted access to the trailer. [embedded content] The film

Hollywood decamped for Las Vegas this week for CinemaCon, looking to reassure movie theater owners and executives that they had what it takes to keep audiences flocking to cinemas through 2024 and beyond. And despite odes to the magic of the big screen experience, there was a whiff of desperation in the artificially-oxygenated, cigarette-perfumed air

A judge has sided with Netflix in a legal conflict launched by a famous diver, who claimed that a movie inspired by his life falsely accused him of murder. Judge Bruce G. Iwasaki granted Netflix’s motion to throw out the lawsuit Tuesday, finding that the diver, Pipin Ferreras, could not prove that the fictional film

Talent-driven doc sales outfit Rise & Shine has boarded “Fire Fire Fire” (“Feu Feu Feu”), the feature debut of Swiss rising voice Pauline Jeanbourquin (“Dusk”), due to world premiere in the national competition strand of Nyon’s Visions du Réel docu festival. Variety has had exclusively access to the international trailer. [embedded content] The poetic and