The Venice Film Festival will go ahead as planned this fall, the region’s governor confirmed on Sunday. Luca Zaia, governor of Veneto, said the world’s longest-running film festival, which was due to take place Sept. 2-12, is still on. The official’s confirmation comes days after the Venice Biennale, which oversees the film festival among a
Movies
There’s a fascinating game of movie fandom that goes like this: “What’s the greatest movie of [that year] or [that decade] that never got the love, or the reputation, that it deserved?” If you’re talking about the 1980s, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that it’s Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild.” You’ve probably heard of it, and
IFC’s horror movie “The Wretched” is leading the small weekend box office with an estimated $186,000 at 59 movie theaters. It drew a respectable $3,153 per theater average during the Friday-Sunday period. Currently, 348 of the 5,400 North American theaters are open, including 169 drive-ins, according to Comscore. Last week, only 21 drive-ins were open,
Supported by the Tribeca Film Institute, winner of the IFF Panama’s Primera Mirada pix-in-post showcase and selected for Cannes Film Market last year before world premiering at January’s Rotterdam Film Festival, Ana Elena Tejera’s “Panquiaco” opened this year’s IFF Panama festival on Wednesday. That marks further recognition for a hybrid documentary-fiction film which talks about belonging and plumbs
The Oscar-nominated animators at Laika Studios are the latest participants in the viral fight challenge social media trend. The animation house posted the short video to the company’s Twitter and TikTok accounts on Saturday, following the breakout success of the previous choreographed fight video from Hollywood stars and stunt performers. The setup of the looping
A gay main character has finally appeared in a Pixar film. “Out,” a short film released on Disney Plus on Friday, follows a man named Greg who struggles to come out to his mom and dad as he gets ready to move to the city with his boyfriend, Manuel. Greg’s inner turmoil rises as his
As Hollywood adjusts to the coronavirus pandemic, a number of film distributors have chosen to scrap their theatrical release plans and launch certain titles on streaming services instead. That raised the question of whether those movies, such as “Trolls World Tour” or “Capone” or “The King of Staten Island,” would be eligible for Academy Awards.
In today’s film news roundup, development has launched on “Denali: A Man A Dog, A Friendship Of A Lifetime” and the story of six teenagers who survived for a year on deserted island and a 1961 Peter Sellers comedy is getting re-released. PROJECT LAUNCHES Spyglass Media Group has signed Charlie Hunnam to produce and star
If you’re of a certain age, there’s a decent chance that your first real exposure to the martial-arts cinema of the Shaw Brothers and Gordon Liu came from the generous splices of film dialogue featured on albums by the Wu-Tang Clan. Those samples all came courtesy of Wu-Tang mastermind the RZA, who has since expanded
Traditionally, the long Memorial Day weekend is the territory where Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies — or else massive tentpoles such as “Mission: Impossible” and “Aladdin” — plant the stake for a blockbuster summer season. But there’s nothing traditional about the release schedule this year. With the coronavirus pandemic still posing a public health
Netflix’s animated movie “The Willoughbys” was watched by 37.6 million households in its first month on the platform, the company said Friday. Directed by Kris Pearn, it’s the second original film from the streamer’s animation division that aims to provide the kind of family content it has been offering from competitors for years. While Netflix
Making the classics hip for a new generation is a storytelling tradition nearly as embedded as the classics themselves: Screens and stages have been so flooded over the decades with updated, dressed-down interpretations of Shakespeare plays, or sundry Greek and Roman myths, that it’s tempting to label traditionalism the new revisionism. Even within this heavily
Costa Rican documentary “Los Últimos,” by Álvaro Torres Crespo, won the $10,000 IFF Panama Film Match Award, in the first edition of IFF Panama Film Match – the Panama Film Festival’s Cinematographic Co-Production Forum for Central America and the Caribbean, supported by the IDB Lab. Initially planned as an integral part of the on-site film
A year ago, Pinar Toprak made history by becoming the first female composer to score a movie that made better than $150 million at the box office. “Captain Marvel” ultimately took in more than $425 million domestically. This week, Toprak returns with music for another female superhero: “Stargirl,” toplining Brec Bassinger as Courtney Whitmore, a
It will come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed the career of director Mark Romanek that his newest work, “Loop,” the pilot episode for eight-episode Amazon Studios series “Tales From the Loop,” is as visually arresting as it is conceptually bold and emotionally evocative. Best-known for his work on some of the past two
Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp and State of Georgia have released an 11-page document outlining “best practices” protocols for film and TV productions. The recommendations were developed in close cooperation with officials from studio and production companies who maintain a presence in Georgia. Georgia was one of the first states to reopen after the coronavirus
Drive-in movie theaters have been something of a salvation during the coronavirus pandemic. As one of the few entertainment joints that are safe to visit outside of the house, they’ve enjoyed a huge boost in popularity. But don’t call it a comeback, says Transit Drive-In Theater owner Rick Cohen. Outdoor moviegoing, once seen as a
Streaming service MUBI, which offers a limited curated selection of films, has introduced a new section called Library, allowing members to rediscover hundreds of films that previously featured on its site. The Library section is available to subscribers at no additional cost. The collection spans MUBI releases, past specials, retrospectives, double bills and other exclusives.
Sky Studios is teaming with popular Italian musician and rapper Salmo to develop “Blocco 181” (working title), an in-house TV production. Salmo will serve as creative and music producer of “Blocco 181” and will also star in the series, which will mark the Italian rap artist’s first TV project. The creative hub Red Joint Film,
Netflix is in the works on its first Dutch film — a crime comedy about a man looking to be the greatest hip-hop artist in the Netherlands. Produced by Fremantle’s Fiction Valley, the untitled film is penned by award-winning “De Libi” writers Shady El-Hamus and Jeroen Scholten van Aschat. El-Hamus, who directed the pair’s previous
Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio, recently the big winner at Italy’s David di Donatello awards with elegant mob drama “The Traitor,” is busy with a trio of projects involving personal and also national history, all shepherded by his now regular producer Simone Gattoni. Gattoni, partner with Bellocchio in Rome’s Kavac Film, and among Variety’s 10 Producers to
The “Avatar” crew may be heading back to Pandora soon. Producer Jon Landau posted a photo on Instagram on Thursday saying that he and the “Avatar” cast and crew are returning to New Zealand next week. Like most films, the “Avatar” sequels had to halt production in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. “Our ‘Avatar’
Veteran Hollywood communications executive Julie Fontaine is exiting her post at Netflix, insiders told Variety. Fontaine joined the streamer in 2017 as vice president of film publicity, where she worked closely with a group of executives including motion picture head Scott Stuber, indie film and documentary head Lisa Nishimura, vice president Tendo Nagenda, and awards
The entertainment industry’s efforts to develop safety protocols for restarting production is predictably becoming a brawl among the major studios and Hollywood unions that has delayed the presentation of the industry’s back-to-work plan to state and local officials. As Variety has reported, jumpstarting production amid the coronavirus pandemic will be complicated and expensive. The industry task force
“The Kissing Booth 2,” the sequel to Netflix’s popular teen rom-com, will debut on the streaming service this summer. The follow-up — again starring Joey King, Joel Courtney and Jacob Elordi — drops on Netflix on July 24. King shared the news Thursday night during a live event on YouTube, where she was joined by
That Bruce Willis grimace. It’s almost as much a trademark as his smirk. When the actor’s mouth tightens and his eyes squint in “Survive the Night,” you’d like to think it’s because his character is feeling the pain. Emotionally, Frank’s estranged from his son. After a run-in with the movie’s two baddies, the retired sheriff
In today’s film news roundup, Tom Hardy’s “Capone” racks up $2.5 million in VOD sales, “The Pollinators” finds a home and Miramax hires Wolfgang Hammer. ‘CAPONE’ RESULTS Vertical Entertainment’s Tom Hardy movie “Capone” has earned the company its best VOD release with a 10-day run amassing over $2.5 million in gross on-demand sales. “Capone” was
A solid Brit gangster film more in the old-school vein of “Get Carter” and “Mona Lisa” than the dog-on-hind-legs Guy Ritchie idiom, “Villain” provides a snug fit for Craig Fairbrass as a convict whose return to society naturally runs smack into familiar trouble. Title notwithstanding, our protagonist is an upstanding kind of tough guy —
Leaders of the Writers Guild of America are seeking significant hikes from studios in pension plan contributions at negotiations that launched this week. “Now, we need to secure additional funding from our employers in order to put our pension plan on strong enough financial footing to weather this market downturn and preserve pension benefits for
Legendary publicity house BWR is closing shop. The firm’s parent company BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe) informed the staff on Wednesday that it was closing the company, which has offices in Los Angeles and New York City, according to multiple sources. “We had a feeling something was happening in the last few weeks,” a source