Lin-Manuel Miranda, Blake Lively, Richard Gere and Diane Keaton are attached to star in the romantic comedy “The Making Of,” with Endeavor Content handling sales at the upcoming Toronto Intl. Film Festival. Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz are producing through their Bedford Falls Company banner with production planned for the spring. The duo is also
Movies
Independent distributor WellGo USA has secured North American distribution rights for action-packed sci-fi comedy “Max Cloud.” The company plans to give it a digital on-demand release in December. A theatrical release remains a possibility, but will be determined by the state of the coronavirus-strained exhibition sector. Rights are handled by U.K.-based Fae Film & Television,
The struggles of an undocumented immigrant who is also a trans woman in the Brighton Beach area of New York are given a subtle, delicate and ultimately powerful treatment in “Lingua Franca,” by filmmaker Isabel Sandoval. Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing will virtually debut the film in select theaters and on Netflix Aug. 26. Sandoval, who’s
Lionsgate has extended the contract of longtime chief executive officer Jon Feltheimer three months, now expiring on Aug. 21, 2023, with options to push it into 2024 or 2025. Feltheimer has been CEO of the entertainment conglomerate since 2000, teaming with vice chairman Michael Burns during the subsequent two decades. He will turn 69 in
Academy Museum creative director Peter Castro is under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department for sexual assault allegations, Variety has confirmed. “We have been informed of the investigation involving alleged conduct by a museum employee outside of work. We are aware that the alleged conduct did not occur at the Academy or the Academy
James Hong is everywhere. No, really — at the spry age of 91, he is one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood history, with 672 credits to his name. He’s starred in several notable films, including “Blade Runner” and “Big Trouble in Little China,” and voiced Po’s father, Mr. Ping, in the “Kung Fu
The DC FanDome event on Saturday was a grand experiment by WarnerMedia to see if DC Comics fans would congregate virtually for what amounted to an eight-hour string of programming about DC’s movies, TV shows and video games. “We really wanted to put together an event that would super-serve the fans,” Warner Bros. TV group
“This is Us” star Justin Hartley, Bonnie Bedelia and Treat Williams have been cast in the Netflix family drama “The Noel Diary.” Netflix announced Wednesday it had acquired the movie rights to Richard Paul Evans’ New York Times bestselling novel, published in 2017. Charles Shyer, whose credits include “Alfie” and “Father of the Bride,” will
The FBI is looking into allegations brought by Ron Meyer, the deposed NBCUniversal vice chairman who alleges that he was the victim of an extortion plot, two sources tell Variety. Meyer’s camp reached out to the FBI some time ago, after Meyer was initially threatened with exposure of his relationship with actress Charlotte Kirk. The
American Black Film Festival creators Jeff and Nicole Friday will launch Social Justice Now Film Festival, which will run from Oct. 21 to 25. The annual program from their nonprofit, the Film Life Foundation, will feature screenings, community conversations and impact events centering on social and economic issues faced by Black and Brown communities. The
California resident Tyler Tompkins booked a plane ride to see “Tenet” weeks before movie tickets to Christopher Nolan’s latest sci-fi epic even went on sale. The round-trip flight from Los Angeles to Austin, a three-hour Spirit Airlines journey in time for the Sept. 1 screening, set him back $220. And that’s without accounting for the
Paramount Pictures has announced a two-year extension of its first-look deal with producer Neal Moritz, who delivered “Sonic the Hedgehog” to the studio and is producing the sequel. The new deal, announced Wednesday, extends the studio’s relationship with Moritz through the end of 2023. After a strong opening weekend, “Sonic the Hedgehog” went on to
Radha Blank overcomes failure as a playwright by reinventing herself as a rapper in Netflix’s first trailer for “The Forty-Year-Old Version.” The footage starts with Blank teaching a playwriting class in New York City as one of “30 under 30 Playwrights to Watch.” “Remember, if you put in nothing, it will be nothing,” she tells
The leaders of Women in Film knew they had to do something different with its annual fundraiser in 2020. But they had no idea their brainstorming would lead to the organization’s first TV special, “Women in Film Presents: Make It Work,” which airs Wednesday on the CW. “We’ve been looking at our annual gala as
The Venice Film Festival’s Virtual Reality section is going entirely online this year, but expanding its scope via a platform and also a satellite network that will make it accessible worldwide. In normal times the competitive sidebar launched in 2017 by co-curators Michel Reilhac and Liz Rosenthal – who put Venice ahead of the curve
The third “Bill & Ted” movie is here at last. Released 31 years after “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and directed by Dean Parisot, “Bill & Ted Face the Music” sees the return of Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves as Bill and Ted, now middle-aged former rock stars who are warned by a visitor from
Abel Ferrara will be awarded the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award at the Venice Film Festival. Ferrara, who is based in Rome these days, will be handed the award honoring an artist’s original mark on contemporary cinema during a ceremony on Sept. 5 prior to the screening of his latest doc titled “Sportin’ Life.”
The Tokyo International Film Festival will shine a spotlight on the work of internationally-acclaimed Japanese director Koji Fukada during its 33rd edition. The festival will be held in front of live audiences Oct. 31 – Nov. 9, 2020. Fukada, who graduated from The Film School of Tokyo, has worked in both animation and live action
In today’s Global Bulletin, Constantin extends its deal with German hitmaker Bora Dagtekin, San Sebastian finalizes its Perlak section, upstart training program Creative Producer Indaba share details, Endemol Shine sells “Deadwater Fell” in France, and Channel 5 commissions eight new historical programs. CONTENT DEAL Constantin Film has extended its exclusive deal with Bora Dagtekin, one
Song Kang-ho, star of Oscar-winner “Parasite,” will head the cast of “Baby, Box, Broker,” the Korean-language debut of “Shoplifters” director Hirokazu Kore-eda. Rounding out a stellar acting lineup are Bae Doona (“Cloud Atlas,” “The Host”) and Gang Dong-won (“Peninsula,” “The Priests”). The film takes as its starting point boxes that are left out for people
Italy’s Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival – which has long seen thousands of heritage film lovers and distributors flock to the city of Bologna in summer – officially kicked off Tuesday with a freshly restored version of Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Cronaca di un amore” (pictured). It’s an emblematic opener in various ways. The now freshly restored pic
Spanish actor Antonio Banderas, who scored an Oscar nomination for Pedro Almodovar’s “Pain and Glory,” no longer has coronavirus. “After 21 days of disciplinary confinement I can say now that today I overcame the Covid 19 infection,” Banderas tweeted. “I am cured. My thoughts go to those who weren’t as fortunate as me, and to
The U.K. premiere of “Ammonite,” starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, and directed by Francis Lee (“God’s Own Country”), will close the British Film Institute London Film Festival on Oct. 17. Set in the 1840s, the film follows self-taught paleontologist (Winslet) who is entrusted with the care of a young, married woman (Ronan), who recovering
Kate Winslet, Jennifer Hudson and Glenn Close have joined previously announced lead Daisy Ridley in the cast of VR animated film “Baba Yaga,” which will make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Hudson is also an executive producer on the pic from Baobab Studios, which will make a push for the Oscar for
A weirdly tame, let’s-all-get-wasted riff on “The Purge” from the team behind such solid youth-focused comedies as “Banana Split” and “Big Time Adolescence,” Hulu original “The Binge” imagines an alternate America where all drugs and alcohol are illegal, except during a 12-hour window each year, at which time anything goes. If the premise sounds more
MONDAY, AUG. 24 ‘Black Stories Matter’ Series Launches The American Film Institute and Universal Pictures have launched a week-long “Black Stories Matter” series with “BlacKkKlansman,” “Get Out,” “Girls Trip,” “Loving” and “Straight Outta Compton” available for free through Aug. 30. AFI Movie Club content will feature new interviews with composer Terence Blanchard, director Malcolm D.
When director Lisa Donato came on board to helm “Gossamer Folds,” casting a trans actor to play the lead was imperative. “It was non-negotiable,” she says of her directorial debut. Even more important was getting the framing and lighting right, and for that, Donato recruited her frequent collaborator and trans cinematographer Ava Benjamin Shorr to
Allan Rich, who was blacklisted in Hollywood early in his career and later found his niche as a versatile character actor in hundreds of roles, died on Aug. 22 at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, N.J. He was 94. Rich’s notable feature film credits included playing district attorney Herman Tauber in Sidney Lumet’s
The 48th Annie Awards has been scheduled for Friday, April 16, 2021, either in person or virtually, shifting along with other awards shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to ASIFA-Hollywood officials. The organization will make a final decision on a live or virtual ceremony sometime in October. “What this epidemic has taught us is
In today’s Global Bulletin, San Sebastian announces it will screen all eight episodes of Luca Guadagnino’s “We Are Who We Are” and finalizes its competition sections; Venice selects legendary composer Terence Blanchard as its third Campari Passion for Film winner; Big Light Productions gets a new COO; Small World International licenses “Big in Japan” in