Movies

This weekend sees a trio of new comedies arriving to streaming and video-on-demand platforms, taking viewers to the disparate worlds of European music competitions to the campaign trail to tactical espionage. Six years after his debut feature “Rosewater” was released, Jon Stewart has re-emerged with his second film, “Irresistible,” and reunited with “The Daily Show”

Some things never change. Amid Hollywood’s drastically altered landscape, one of the few constants has turned out to be this: the Writers Guild of America is likely going down to the wire at the negotiating table over a new contract. Talks between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers launched six weeks

ICM Partners is cutting about 40 support staff positions in a downsizing effort that coincides with the company’s decision to raise the hourly wage for all assistants to $20. ICM Partners disclosed the changes at a company-wide meeting held Friday. Agency leaders also pledged that 50% of its new hires will be what it described

“Spencer” — a drama starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana — has sold its U.S. rights to Neon, the production company behind last year’s Oscar-winner “Parasite,” and Topic Studios. Neon, which will release the film, and Topic paid $4 million for the rights. The drama centers on a weekend in the early 1990s when Diana decided

“The Blacksmith,” “Ferrari,” “Armageddon Time” and “The Card Counter” look like market highlights of an extraordinary Cannes market, which saw its two virtual platforms delivering for a select number of big U.S. projects, amid large market caution and even fear of a second COVID-19 spike. In the art film sector, Cannes Official Selection label titles

Margot Robbie will star in a female-led version of “Pirates of the Caribbean” for Disney with “Birds of Prey” writer Christina Hodson on board to write the script. Disney is in early development of the untitled project. The Robbie-Hodson collaboration is being developed separately from another “Pirates of the Caribbean” reboot that was unveiled in October

Ellen Kuras, whose credits include “Ozark” and “Catch 22,” has come on board to direct Kate Winslet as Vogue cover model turned war correspondent Lee Miller. Joining them is screenwriter Liz Hannah (“The Post,” “Long Shot”). “Lee” follows Lee Miller as she travels to the frontlines of World War II as a photojournalist and embarks

A group of U.K. film workers have set up a ‘Film and TV Behind the Scenes Assistance Fund’ to help their co-workers in need. The brainchild of location manager Vinnie Jassal (“Kingsman: The Golden Circle”) and co-owner of supply company Spotless H20 Georgette Turner (“Wonder Woman 1984”), the fund was originally set up to help

Variety published this week a digital Spanish Cinema Spotlight, looking at one of Europe’s fastest-growing content production scenes, galvanized by new rebates, the huge Spanish-language market and a thirst for streaming hits along the lines of “The Platform.” Below is the Spotlight, with its take on Spain’s burgeoning production hub, rebate revolution, evolving sales sector, multi-laureled

Like many Americans, David Dobkin had never heard of the Eurovision Song Contest. But when the script for “Eurovision: The Story of Fire Saga” from Will Ferrell and Andrew Steele landed on his lap, the director of “Wedding Crashers” immediately fell in love with the characters. Soon he was diving down an internet rabbit hole

When the Six-Day War broke out in his native Congo two decades ago, documentary filmmaker Dieudo Hamadi—whose film “Downstream to Kinshasa” is the first Congolese film to be an official selection in the history of the Cannes Film Festival—was living in the Musicians’ Quarter in downtown Kisangani, “relatively untouched by the belligerent shells that clashed

Brazilian filmmaker Marcelo Gomes was taking a taxi through Lisbon, where he did the post-production work on a recent film, when he fell into conversation with his driver, a surfer who lived in a busy apartment block in the Portuguese capital. Just a few years ago, the driver said, he knew everyone in the building

The Taipei Film Festival kicked off as a live, physical event Thursday, making it likely the first in the world to occur in-person since the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus — albeit without international guests. Scheduled for June 25 to July 11, the festival will occur ahead of FID Marseille, which will take place

IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights to “Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles,” a documentary about one Isreali chef’s attempts to recreate some of the French Monarchy’s most delicious desserts. The film is the latest work from Laura Gabbert, who previously teamed with IFC Films on “City of Gold,” a look at the late food

Director Lu Yang’s “Assassins in Red” is set to debut next lunar new year, a holiday release window that will likely be one of China’s most competitive ever, as 2020 blockbusters pushed back by the coronavirus prepare to jostle with new titles during the country’s biggest movie-going week of the year. But Lu gently laughs

Actor Nathan Davis Jr., best known for “Detroit,” “Hotel Artemis” and Marvel’s “Runaways,” said that growing up as a Black man, he never really experienced racism. But, in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Davis reveals that he was kicked off an airplane last December, after a flight attendant told him he was playing music too

“The Trip” helmer Michael Winterbottom is set to direct a series depicting the U.K.’s muddled response to the coronavirus crisis under Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Producer-distributor Fremantle is partnering with “True Detective” executive producer Richard Brown’s nascent production outfit Passenger and Winterbottom’s Revolution Films on the project, which will have a keen focus on Johnson,

Taika Waititi and Carthew Neal’s production company Piki Films is to embark on three projects with Maori writers from New Zealand. They turn an indigenous eye on the effects of colonization. The projects will be developed by Neal, and producer Morgan Waru who has taken a full-time position at the company, after having worked with

A group of 18 leading film festivals has kick-started a campaign to persuade film festivals running online editions to use geoblocking technology to protect the commercial potential of the films, and the ability of other festivals to stage local premieres of the films. The campaign, led by Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival, is in response to

Film and theater director Kirill Serebrennikov, whose film “Leto” played in competition in Cannes in 2018, was found guilty of embezzlement by a Russian court on Friday, according to news agency TASS. Serebrennikov, a vocal critic of the Kremlin, was accused of being the leader of a group that embezzled 129 million roubles ($1.87 million)

The Asia Pacific Screen Awards, the annual Asian film prize ceremony that has been held annually in Brisbane, has been put on hold. It was scheduled to be held in November. The Brisbane City Council and its offshoot Brisbane Marketing have notified the organizers that they will not be able to fund the event in

Well Go USA Entertainment has snapped up North American distribution rights to Paraguayan box office hit “Morgue” from Buenos Aires-based sales agent FilmSharks. The deal caps a string of sales across the globe for the supernatural thriller. Hugo Cardozo’s hospital-set film has already sold to more than 40 international territories with HBO Latin America recently

“No Small Matter” opens on an innovative attention-grabber, spoofing dry, outdated classroom tutorials to make its point: that a child’s early education is fundamental to their maturation into successful community members and American citizens. However, before the sequence finishes and the facts start flowing, it makes the mistake of laying down a whopping guarantee that

“On-Gaku: Our Sound,” an oddball music comedy directed by Kenji Iwaisawa, upends all that is typical of Japanese animation. A wee 71-minute hand-drawn animated feature about three high school lunkheads who form a band, the film’s minimalist expression breaks the mold of Japan’s big-budget studio-cloned anime glutted with mind-bending sci-fi conundrums or elaborate time-slip-body-switching fantasies.

Lawrence Osborne, the Asia-based writer who has recently enjoyed a spate of film deals for his own novels, is poised to adapt Jon Swain’s Vietnam War-era memoir “River of Time.” Film rights to Swain’s book have been optioned by Indochina Productions for Osborne to script and executive produce. Swain, an award-winning correspondent for the Sunday

Warner Bros. has again pushed back the release date for Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet.” It’s the second delay for the highly anticipated tentpole that has been primed to reignite moviegoing after lengthy cinema closures due to the coronavirus pandemic. The movie, which cost $200 million, was initially slated to arrive in theaters on July 17, but

Nicolas Cage thriller “Willy’s Wonderland” has sold to most international territories, including the U.K., Canada, Australia, Italy, Germany and Latin America, by Foresight Unlimited at the Cannes virtual market. Cage portrays an out-of-towner forced to clean a family entertainment center in exchange for having his car serviced after it breaks down. He, along with some

“The Last of Us” is hailed by many as a video game masterpiece, praised for pushing the boundaries of a post-apocalyptic story that rivaled some movies. Developed by Naughty Dog for Sony’s PlayStation 3, the game told the story of Joel and Ellie, a smuggler and a young girl traveling across the United States 30 years

Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre is in active negotiations to direct “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” for 3000 Pictures, led by Elizabeth Gabler. “Life of Pi” scribe David Magee wrote the script. Oscar nominee Laurence Mark and Pete Czernin and Graham Broadbent of Blueprint Pictures are producing. Based on the classic D.H. Lawrence novel, the story revolves around the

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has issued $98.8 million in new debt in order to provide it with the funds to refinance $128 million in existing bonds that will come due in November. The Academy issued a new bond offering on June 17, the purpose of which was the refinance its Series 2015B