Movies

As a long-delayed sequel to Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1939 guest column, Variety invited First Lady Michelle Obama to write about showbiz. The item ran on the front page on Oct. 5, 2012, part of Variety’s annual Women’s Impact Report. Obama congratulated the honorees, adding that people in entertainment have used their “incredible reach and influence to

Amazon Studios has unveiled the first trailer for “Coming 2 America,” which sees the return of Eddie Murphy as the charming Prince Akeem. In the upcoming sequel, Prince Akeem, who is set to become the king of the fictional country of Zamunda, finds out he has a son he never knew about — a street-savvy

Announced on Monday’s episode of “The A24 Podcast,” the indie film and TV company revealed that a theatrical version of Ocean Vuong’s novel “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” is in the works. The episode featured a one-on-one conversation between Vuong, a poet and author who won the MacArthur Grant, and Bryan Washington, a writer whose

Documentaries about the fight for pay equity and America’s first Black variety TV show will help anchor the winter lineup of Independent Lens The Emmy Award-winning weekly series boasts several films that will make their broadcast debuts, including Jared Leto’s “A Day in the Life of America; Melissa Haizlip’s “Mr. SOUL!” and Shalini Kantayya’s “Coded

Denzel Washington and Rami Malek are playing a dangerous game with Jared Leto in the first trailer for “The Little Things.” The trio of Oscar winners — Malek won best actor for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Leto took home the supporting actor trophy for “Dallas Buyer’s Club” and Washington is a

Anders Thomas Jensen’s action comedy “Riders of Justice,” starring Mads Mikkelsen, will open the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam. The festival will be staged in two parts this year: the first, in a hybrid format, running Feb. 1-7, and the second, hopefully a physical event, June 2-6. The awards ceremony will take place on Feb.

Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest co-production market, has revealed 21 eclectic projects from several countries and in a welter of languages, for its 2021 online edition. The selected filmmakers will pitch their projects virtually to a curated audience of Indian and international producers, distributors, festival programmers, financiers and sales agents at an open pitch session.

Hong Kong FilMart will be held as a virtual market for the second time in 2021, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But the dates will be shifted back to their usual March slot. FilMart Online will take place from March 15 to 18, 2021, organizers the Hong Kong Trade Development Council announced on Tuesday.

“Halloween” filmmaker David Gordon Green is in talks to direct a sequel to “The Exorcist” from Blumhouse and Morgan Creek Productions. The new film would continue the profitable relationship between the filmmaker and Blumhouse following 2018’s “Halloween” (which earned $255.8 million on a $10 million budget), the upcoming “Halloween Kills” (slated for an October 2021 release)

MONDAY, Dec. 21 “First Cow” Declared Best Picture with Florida Film Critics Circle The Florida Film Critics Circle awarded its top prize to “First Cow,” and the film’s John Magaro also received a nod in the Best Actor category as a runner up. Current Oscar frontrunner and festival darling “Nomadland” also landed two wins, Best

MGM Holdings Inc. is exploring a sale, according to a source close to the situation. The studio believes its library of content — which includes co-ownership of the James Bond franchise — would be desirable to companies looking to expand their streaming sectors. MGM has recruited Morgan Stanley and LionTree LLC to advise on the

In most years, the film industry manages to stir up a fair amount of noise for its wares, buying billboards and Super Bowl spots, trotting out movie stars on talk shows and using glitzy red-carpet premieres to put the latest movies on audiences’ radar. But 2020 wasn’t like other years for reasons you’re probably tired

Lionsgate has extended Michael Burns’ contract. The company’s vice-chairman’s new deal extends through 2023. Burns’ current pact was set to expire in 2022. Lionsgate can extend his contract at its discretion. The extension will keep one of the longest running executive duos in Hollywood atop the entertainment company for the foreseeable future. Burns and Jon

The sixth-anniversary issue of Daily Variety, on Oct. 20, 1939, contained something that was unprecedented for the newspaper and for the author: A guest column by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt about movies. She started by saying she was uniquely unqualified to write about the motion picture industry. “However, I have one great interest in the

Wyatt Oleff, Kevin Pollak and Janeane Garofalo will star in Mark Rosman’s “In My Life.” As the film’s title suggests, the comedy/drama is inspired by the music of the Beatles. It follows Evan, a 16-year-old John Lennon wannabe, who is thrilled when the Beatles move in next door to his Beverly Hills home before playing

David Giler, a writer and producer known for his work on each film in the “Alien” franchise, died at his Bangkok home on Dec. 19. He was 77 years old. His longtime friend, “Alien” producer Walter Hill, said in a statement, “If you knew David, you knew he was special. The magic of his personality

As Variety celebrates its 115th anniversary, we peered back into the archives to honor some of Hollywood’s biggest movers and shakers that were chronicled in the pages of Variety Magazine. The Walt Disney Company that many know and love today was originally founded as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio back in 1923, and the company adopted its

Alan Bergman has been named chairman of Disney Studios Content, where he will help guide the company’s push into the world of streaming and reemergence from a global health crisis that has upended traditional ways of doing business. Alan Horn, who served as co-chairman of the studios group with Bergman, isn’t stepping down despite rumors

International Film Trust (IFT) has sold several international territories on action thriller “Dangerous,” starring Scott Eastwood and Mel Gibson. Territories sold include Koch for Germany, You Planet for Spain, Eagle for the Middle East, Top Film for the CIS, Programme 4 Media for Eastern Europe, and Pris for Portugal. Eastwood plays a reformed sociopath, who,

Director Paul Greengrass has roughly a dozen films under his belt, a mix that captures real-life horrors like 9/11 (“United 93”) and the 2011 Norway terrorist attacks (“22 July”), as well as fictional accounts of amnesiac CIA assassins (“The Bourne Supremacy,” “The Bourne Ultimatum” and “Jason Bourne”). With “News of the World,” which debuts in

Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” continued its reign this weekend, winning four awards — including best film, director, actress (Frances McDormand) and adapted screenplay — at the Indiana Film Journalists Association Awards. Zhao won director at all five critics awards handed out in the last week. Leslie Odom Jr. picked up his first prize for his portrayal

Dutch production house Revolver Amsterdam has acquired the film rights to A. F. Th. van der Heijden’s novel “Mooi doodliggen” (Play Dead), inspired by the 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 disaster, and is developing it as a feature. MH17 was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on July

For cinema owners, 2020 was clearly a watershed year, with many wondering about the long-term future of moviegoing. So a Nov. 2, 1953, guest column by Walt Disney, “The Crucial Year for Pictures,” is a reminder that theaters have survived other crises, and presumably will again. “The motion picture industry stands once more on the

“Living,” an upcoming film starring Bill Nighy, has sold United Kingdom distribution rights to Lionsgate. Set in London in the 1950s, “Living” centers on Williams (portrayed by Nighy), a veteran civil servant who becomes a cog in the bureaucracy of rebuilding post WWII England. As the job starts to consume him, he learns he has

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety. In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed

Andalusia’s La Claqueta and the Basque Country’s Irusoin, producers of Spanish Oscar entry “The Endless Trench,” have re-teamed to buy big screen adaptation rights to Txani Rodríguez’s novel “Los últimos románticos.” The deal builds on one of the most fruitful regional production alliances in Spain, whose co-productions to date take in not only “The Endless

Saudi director Shahad Ameen‘s feminist fable “Scales” has been selected as Saudi Arabia’s official candidate for the Oscar in the international feature film category. “Scales” draws on Arabic folklore about a young woman named Hayat – played by newcomer Basima Hajjar – who rebels against the tradition in her fishing village of sacrificing female children

The Locarno Film Festival has appointed longtime collaborator Markus Duffner as the head of its Locarno Pro industry program. Duffner, who will take the Locarno Pro helm in January, is replacing Paris-based sales exec Valentina Merli, who after being appointed to the post roughly a year ago quietly stepped down following this year’s virtual edition

“The Lord Of The Rings” filmmaker Peter Jackson has revealed footage of his much anticipated Beatles documentary, “The Beatles: Get Back.” The film was supposed to be released in September, but was postponed to 2021 because of COVID-19. Introducing the film from his editing room, Jackson said: “This film was due to be finished around

Veteran executive Brett Hogg has been promoted and made head of Sony Pictures film and television operations across Asia. He will remain at his current base in Singapore. He has been senior VP of international distribution for Sony Pictures Releasing International in the Asia region, supervising the Sony Pictures Releasing operations across Southeast Asia, China and India for theatrical distribution. These