Movies

Sacha Baron Cohen wanted to end “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” the sequel to his 2006 smash mockumentary, with a bang. But Rudolph Giuliani, the Trump apparatchik he hoped to prank into embarrassing himself on camera, wasn’t cooperating. The former mayor of New York City had arrived at a hotel suite to be interviewed for a documentary,

Now that the Recording Academy and CBS have moved this year’s Grammy Awards telecast to March 14, that puts it in competition with the 27th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards — and SAG-AFTRA is not happy with the news. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the shuffling of most dates this awards season, and as the

The Sundance Film Festival will not move forward with drive-in movie screenings in Southern California, due to the state’s alarming increase in COVID-19 infections and deaths, Variety has learned. Los Angeles-area venues the Rose Bowl Stadium and the Mission Tiki Drive-in were meant to accommodate a large number of show business types who are unable

Anticipating that the Japanese government may again call for movie theaters to temporarily close in Greater Tokyo due to an upsurge of coronavirus cases, Toho Cinemas and other leading exhibitors are halting sales of advance tickets for cinemas in the areas. In recent years Japan has been the world’s third most valuable theatrical market behind

Lashana Lynch is getting musical — with the British star set to join the cast of Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of “Matilda.” The musical movie is based on Roald Dahl’s 1988 children’s classic about a 5-year-old named Matilda, whose precocious nature and gift for telekinesis help her overcome bullying from her parents, classmates and even the

Walter Hamada has signed a multi-year deal extension to remain president of DC Films, insiders tell Variety. The extension is through 2023, one individual familiar with the talks noted. The studio is announcing the deal imminently. Hamada will continue to report to Warner Bros. Picture Group Chairman Toby Emmerich. The label is responsible for bringing

[SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers specific to Marielle Heller’s character, Alma Wheatley, in “The Queen’s Gambit.”] Marielle Heller insists she never imagined that “The Queen’s Gambit” would be such a huge hit. “I had no idea how the chess was going to play out,” Heller, who plays Alma Wheatley, the mother of a 1950s

Tyler Perry flew back to Georgia after his absentee ballot failed to arrive in the mail, he tweeted on Monday. The director, writer, producer and actor sent out a tweet on Monday asking if others also had problems receiving their absentee ballots for Georgia’s runoff Senate vote. He said he requested it in early December

Author Eric Jerome Dickey died Sunday in Los Angeles due to complications from a long illness, a representative from his publisher Penguin Random House confirmed to Variety. He was 59. During his multi-decade career, the New York Times best-selling author wrote 29 novels that explored contemporary Black American life from different angles. Some of his

TUESDAY, Jan. 5 Casting MTV’s “Awkward” alum Monty Geer is set as the lead opposite Lili Simmons in the feature “Clive Boomer’s Success,” a comedic thriller from Leader Media and written by Charles Lawrence. “Success” tells the story of intrigue, murder and a five million dollar heist. Geer will play Clive Boomer, a cherubic budding

HBO Max has unveiled the first trailer for Doug Liman’s quarantine-shot movie “Locked Down,” starring Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The trailer introduces Linda (Hathaway) and Paxton (Ejiofor), a London-based couple planning to break up just before the coronavirus lockdown. Forced to quarantine for two weeks, they have no choice but to navigate their relationship,

MyFrenchFilmFestival, an online film festival dedicated to French movies launched by the promotion org UniFrance, will showcase 33 titles, including a competitive lineup of 10 feature films and 10 shorts. Set to run Jan. 15 to Feb. 15, the 11th edition of the festival will collaborate with more than 60 platforms around the world to

Netflix’s first Italian original doc series “SanPa: Sins of the Savior” follows controversial drug rehab founder Vincenzo Muccioli, and has made a splash on the platform since its Dec. 30 debut. In the last week, the series has cracked the platform’s top 10 most-watched programs in Italy, and currently holds the number 2 spot after

A poor young man in India who longs for a life where the grass is greener. A stark but teeming portrait of the squalid underbelly of Indian poverty. A one-in-a-million shot that could catapult our hero to the place of his dreams. “The White Tiger,” written and directed by Ramin Bahrani, is a movie that

In today’s global bulletin, the U.K. live music industry aims for summer return; Studio Lambert bolsters unscripted department; Channel 4 commissions luxury hotel series; and About Premium Content boards Pierre Cardin documentary. U.K. Music, the umbrella body representing the collective interests of the country’s music industry, has published a report setting out the economic, social

The fourth edition of the Malaysia International Film Festival (MIFFest) is now set to be held later this month as an online-only event. The festival was originally scheduled to take place as an in-person event in December and got as far as announcing its selection. However, Malaysia’s coronavirus control measures were increased at the beginning

Canadian government funding body Telefilm has absolved former employee Dan Lyon of any wrongdoing after launching an investigation last summer following allegations by filmmaker Pavan Moondi. In July, independent filmmaker Moondi (“Sundowners”) raised questions about the org’s selection criteria for funding and demanded clarity around its diversity standards. Other allegations of impropriety against Lyon were

The early 2020 box office success of Sam Mendes’ “1917” was one of the few bright sparks in a U.K. and Ireland box office shattered by the impact of coronavirus, according to Comscore’s annual report. The report notes that after five consecutive years when the cinema box office for the territory exceeded £1.3 billion ($1.76

Imported films accounted for only about a sixth of China’s total box office in 2020, a nearly 55% decrease year-on-year, industry data tracker Maoyan Entertainment said Monday. The decline highlights the chaos COVID-19 has wrought on Hollywood release schedules as well as the diminishing appeal of foreign content in what has just become the world’s

Netflix is developing a sequel to Robert Rodriguez’s newly released superhero pic “We Can Be Heroes.” The movie, which draws from the young heroes in the director’s “Spy Kids” franchise and “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl,” follows the children of Earth’s superheroes, whose parents have been kidnapped by alien invaders. The children are left

The movie business is ready to shake off 2020 and the world-shattering pandemic that fundamentally altered the way films are made, distributed and enjoyed. But before the box office can roar back to life, there are still major issues that Hollywood is grappling with, involving everything from cinemas’ red-ink-filled balance sheets to the evolution of

Former Bond girl and “Sheena: Queen of the Jungle” star Tanya Roberts was mistakenly announced as dead late Sunday night. Her rep Mike Pingel told Variety that although her partner, Lance O’Brien, originally thought she had died, the hospital called Monday morning to report she was still alive. However, Pingel said that Roberts remains in

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists has announced its 2020 AWFJ EDA winners, where the most-nominated film “Nomadland” walked away with six categories including best film, actress (Frances McDormand) and cinematography (Joshua James Richards). Filmmaker Chloé Zhao won three individual prizes for directing, adapted screenplay and editing. The AWFJ recognizes the year’s best regardless of

Since his appointment as artistic director of the Locarno Film festival in early November, Italian film critic Giona A. Nazzaro has been busy taking the reins of the prominent Swiss festival. Set to take place in August, the event now has a new programming team as well as industry chief — longtime Locarno collaborator Markus

Paris-based sales outfit Charades has boarded Louis-Julien Petit’s “The Kitchen Brigade” and Emmanuel Poulain-Arnaud’s “The Test.” Charades will begin sales on the pair of French films at the virtual UniFrance Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, which kicks off Jan. 13. “The Kitchen Brigade” marks Petit’s follow up to “Invisibles,” a comedy-drama that tells the true story

Actor Tanya Roberts, known for playing Stacey Sutton in the 1985 James Bond film “A View to a Kill” and Midge Pinciotti on “That ’70s Show” between 1998 and 2004, has died. She was 65. Roberts was out walking her dogs on Christmas Eve when she collapsed. She was admitted to the Cedars-Sinai hospital where

Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival, the biggest movie-TV event in Scandinavia, looks set to stage one of the most dramatic experiments in on-site fest screenings in a COVID-19 age, isolating a single film enthusiast on the bleak North Sea lighthouse island of Pater Noster. There, totally alone, with no iPhone nor even a book, they will

The Rubik’s Cube is getting the big screen treatment. Ashok Amritraj’s Hyde Park Entertainment Group and Endeavor Content have partnered with the eponymous brand for a feature film based on the best-selling puzzle toy. Hyde Park is also working with Endeavor Content-backed “The Wall” producer Glassman Media for a game show based on the Rubik’s

“Wonder Woman 1984” used its lasso of truth to rope in a modest $5.5 million over the New Year’s holiday. The sequel also ensnared another $10.1 million from overseas markets, bringing its global total to a ho-hum $118.5 million. Wonder Woman may be an iconic comic book character, but the film’s lackluster results aren’t that

Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars from Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis. Following Academy Awards history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar predictions are updated regularly with the current year's contenders in all categories. Variety's Awards Circuit Prediction schedule consists of four phases, running all year long: