Movies

Audiences’ choices are limited as movie theaters in additional markets reopen this weekend, with only one new studio release, “The Broken Hearts Gallery,” joining high-profile holdovers “Tenet,” “The New Mutants” and “Unhinged” on megaplex marquees. Meanwhile, limited releases are getting better exposure than usual, as indies and docs (such as “All In: The Fight for

Do even the most apolitical artists have a responsibility to find and take a stand when society is crumbling, or should the forms of pop that have always ridden along on surface pleasures still be allowed to be a demilitarized zone? These are questions that clearly face all marquee American entertainers in the fall of

Before this year’s Venice Film Festival comes to a close with Saturday’s announcement of the official selection awards, the fest’s autonomous sections got the ball rolling Friday with their own prizes. Coming out on top in the Venice Days program was Russian director Philipp Yuryev’s debut feature “The Whaler Boy,” an offbeat story of a

The ninth edition of the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival (EMIFF) will go ahead with a physical edition as planned, with expected guests including actor Angela Molina and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, who will receive the Honorary and Vision awards, respectively. Veteran Spanish actor Molina will receive the festival’s Honorary Award that celebrates an actor or

As president of production at Seven Bucks Productions, Hiram Garcia works with Dwayne Johnson every single day. And with 20 years of friendship, Garcia knows the the Rock better than nearly anyone in the world. Garcia first met Johnson when he was dating his sister, Dany Garcia, in college. Today, his older sister and Johnson

“Dunkirk” star Harry Styles has boarded the psychological thriller “Don’t Worry, Darling,” opposite Florence Pugh, Chris Pine and Olivia Wilde. Styles replaces Shia LaBeouf, who has departed the project due to a scheduling conflict. Wilde is directing “Don’t Worry, Darling,” which is set in an isolated community in the California desert in the 1950s, from

What are the benefits of an online festival premiere? It’s been the question on the lips of filmmakers, sales agents, distributors and exhibitors since festivals had to stop operating as physical entities. Venice marked a return to a more traditional way of doing things, while Toronto’s hybrid dance of digital industry and physical public screenings

Gary Fleder has signed on to direct the espionage thriller “Line of Control” with Brickell & Broadbridge Intl. on board to finance and sell the project at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival. Fleder, whose credits include “Runaway Jury,” “Homefront” and “Kiss the Girls,” will direct from a Ben Dubash script. “Line of Control” will explore

Netflix is about to knock out competitors for the worldwide distribution rights to Halle Berry’s directorial debut. Berry’s “Bruised,” an MMA drama that is screening as a work-in-progress at the Toronto Film Festival, is stitching up a sale close to $20 million, insiders familiar with negotiations said. Endeavor Content is repping filmmakers in the deal,

Italian sales company True Colours has acquired world sales in most territories on Moroccan director Ismaël El Iraki’s gritty Casablanca-set “Zanka Contact,” a romancer pairing a faded rock star with a drug problem and a “streetwise amazon (…) with a liquid gold voice,” according to catalog notes from the Venice Film Festival, where the film

Warner Bros. has postponed the release of “Wonder Woman 1984,” the latest development in Hollywood’s rocky plans to return to the movies. The superhero sequel starring Gal Gadot, which was expected to debut on Oct. 2, will now touch down in theaters on Dec. 25, 2020. “Patty is an exceptional filmmaker and with ‘Wonder Woman

There is a world in which the wistfully expressive Naomi Watts would be among the boldest actors working today, like her contemporaries Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman. But for every daring “Luce” or “While We’re Young,” Watts seems to have a tame “Penguin Bloom” on her résumé: middling projects with predictable beats. Still, it’s thanks

At the 2018 Oscars, Mary J. Blige made history with “Mudbound” — by becoming the first Black woman to earn multiple Oscar nominations in the same year (for best supporting actress and original song). Now, she’ll be back in the Oscar race for her new song. Variety has learned the Grammy-winning singer’s latest “See What

Disney’s Chinese-themed “Mulan” got off to a soft start on its debut in mainland China theaters on Friday. By 7pm on opening day, the Niki Caro-directed film had clocked up $6.23 million (RMB42.6 million), according to data from film ticketing agency Maoyan. That made it the top grossing title so far on Friday, with a

Several years ago, Viggo Mortensen was in a plane high above the Atlantic, flying home from his mother’s funeral and struggling to sleep. He was overcome by a flood of emotions and echoes from the past, memories welling up from childhood that gave him the sudden urge to write. Over the course of a restless

Once the Venice Film Festival branded this year’s modified version of the event as a trial balloon for future gatherings, industry minds began to wonder: With the festival scene undergoing such shifts, what other conventional wisdom was suddenly less than certain? One idea in particular struck a chord with Venice attendees. Ever since the Berlin

Asia’s biggest annual film festival in Busan, South Korea is to be postponed by two weeks due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. And organizers warned that the festival could still be canceled outright. At a meeting Friday between the festival’s board of directors and the city authorities, it was decided to shift the event backwards.

Veteran Indian producer Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP is set to restart shooting “Sitara” in November. After a brief schedule in Mumbai, the shoot was paused in March because of the coronavirus pandemic. The film, starring Sobhita Dhulipala (“Made in Heaven”) and Rajeev Siddhartha (“Four More Shorts Please”), is a love story between a fiercely independent, feisty,

Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose”) is joining Daisy Ridley (“Star Wars”) and Stephen Fry (“Gosford Park”) for the voice cast of “The Inventor,” the forthcoming stop-motion animated family feature about the life of Renaissance master Leonardo Da Vinci. “The Inventor” is written and directed by Jim Capobianco, the Oscar-nominated scribe of “Ratatouille.” Matt Berry,

Variety spoke with Kiyoshi Kurosawa the day after the world premiere of his World War II suspense drama “Wife of a Spy” in competition at the Venice Film Festival. A frequent invitee to Venice, Cannes and other major festivals, Kurosawa did the interview via Zoom from the Tokyo office of his Japanese distributor. “This is

Netflix, amid a backlash over the sexualized portrayal of children in recently released drama “Cuties,” is encouraging critics to watch the movie — which it says makes a statement about pressures young girls face in conforming to societal role models of female sexuality. The movie, which is rated “TV-MA” for language, centers on Amy, an

Disney’s chief financial officer Christine McCarthy acknowledged Thursday that the company’s choice to shoot parts of “Mulan” in China’s Xinjiang region has “generated a lot of issues for us.” The corporation has come under fire for shooting portions of the live action epic in the northwestern region where an estimated one million members of the

Longtime Paramount Pictures executive Elizabeth Raposo is leaving her post at the studio, Variety has learned. Raposo has served as Paramount’s president of production since 2017, where she’s been the studio shepherd for all franchise material and event-based intellectual properties.  News of Raposo’s exit was announced by newly-minted motion picture group president Emma Watts. “Elizabeth

Viggo Mortensen and the cast of “Falling” joined Marc Malkin in Variety’s Virtual TIFF Studio presented by Canada Goose to promote the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Despite the timeliness of the film, Mortensen finished writing the screenplay five years ago, following his mother’s death. He said the script was heavily influenced

Kate Winslet has worked with both Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. Looking back, she questions why the film industry — herself included — ever even supported the men. In an interview with Vanity Fair ahead of the “Ammonite” premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the star opened up about her regrets and how she’s

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures has announced its inaugural temporary exhibition will be a retrospective honoring Academy Award-winning filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. The presentation will be on display in the museum’s Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery, and will debut when the museum opens to the public on April 30, 2021. The temporary exhibition, celebrating the

Three-time Oscar nominee Wim Wenders, the director of “Paris, Texas,” “Wings of Desire” and “Buena Vista Social Club,” joined the “Life Through a Different Lens: Contactless Connections” talk earlier this week. Held by the Venice Film Festival and Mastercard, the virtual event allowed him to reminiscence about his beginnings. “I had no intention of becoming

If “‘Elephant’ meets ‘The Hunger Games’” is your idea of an enticing elevator pitch, you’re unlikely to be disappointed by “Run Hide Fight,” though you might want to take a long hard look at your enthusiasm. Kyle Rankin’s fictitious school-shooting thriller echoes multiple previous films in its evocation of post-Columbine classroom terror, before dubiously distinguishing

Controversial French film “Cuties” — about a young Senegalese girl in Paris who joins a “free-spirited dance clique” to escape family dysfunction — has spawned a new backlash against Netflix by critics who allege it goes over the line in portraying children in a sexualized manner. The hashtag “#CancelNetflix” was the No. 1 trending topic

Sipping his morning coffee, Sam Rockwell joined Venice Film Festival and Mastercard’s “Life Through a Different Lens: Contactless Connections” virtual talk on Wednesday. The Oscar winner for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” talked about his early cinematic influences – including the first film he ever saw. “It was the 1933 version of ‘King Kong’ with