Vox Cinemas, which operates 514 movie screens across the Middle East, is to open a drive-in cinema in Dubai, which will be the only one to operate in the city, although not its first. The drive-in, which opens on Sunday, is located on the rooftop of a shopping mall, Mall of the Emirates. The capacity
Movies
Rock veteran John Lydon, better known as John Rotten, will host a virtual event on June 7 at 5 a.m. EST to celebrate the digital release of the 2018 documentary “The Public Image Is Rotten,” which arrives today (May 14) on Vimeo On Demand in both English and Spanish. The one-hour, 43-minute film about his
WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi will be highlighted at next month’s Cannes Marché du Film Online’s focus on streaming platforms, as the world’s film industry seeks to get a stronger handle on the possible role of streaming platforms in future movie financing and distribution business models. HBO Max’s keynote is described as its
Netflix has bought global rights to Polish feature “The Hater,” which won Best International Narrative Feature at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. The film will be available worldwide, excluding Poland, from July. Polish subscribers will have access to the film “as soon as the licensing window allows, which is planned for March 2021,” according to
Winona Ryder and Vanessa Paradis have rallied to the defense of Johnny Depp, claiming he was never violent toward them during their relationships with him. Their claims were made as part of witness statements submitted ahead of a libel trial against The Sun newspaper over an April 2018 article in which Depp was described as
Hindi-language dramatic comedy “Gulabo Sitabo,” starring veteran Amitabh Bachchan (“Piku”) and hot Bollywood A-lister Ayushmann Khurrana (“Andhadhun”), will release directly on Amazon Prime Video worldwide on June 12. The film’s theatrical release in April was scuppered by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “At Amazon we’re listening to our customers, and working backwards from there.” said Vijay
Warner Bros. appears hopeful that production on “Matrix 4” will restart by early July. Multiple sources tell Variety that the cast of Lana Wachowski’s fourth installment of the sci-fi franchise has signed eight-week extensions to keep the actors on hold until at least July 6. Filming began in February in San Francisco before moving to
In today’s film news roundup, the documentary “House of Cardin” and crime thriller “Devil’s Night” find distributors and “Lucky Grandma” is raising funds for New York Chinatown. ACQUISITIONS Utopia has acquired the North American rights to the fashion documentary “House of Cardin” by filmmakers P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes. The film, centering on the
“The Wrong Missy” is a rom-com, but it’s really a ’90s Jim Carrey movie merged with one of those slob-goes-on-a-corporate-retreat comedies that has starred everyone from Bill Murray to Adam Sandler to Will Ferrell. Here’s what’s new about it: The hypomanic Jim Carrey figure is a woman — Missy, played by the wild-card comedian Lauren
Russell Crowe is set to star in Paramount’s thriller “American Son,” which is based on the critically acclaimed French film “A Prophet.” Andrew “Rapman” Onwubolu is on board to direct the movie from a screenplay by Dennis Lehane. Neal H. Moritz and Toby Jaffe are producing through Original Film. Rapman landed the job after his
Netflix has acquired worldwide rights to the Eric Andre-Lil Rel Howery hidden-camera prank comedy “Bad Trip” from MGM’s Orion Pictures. The deal was announced Wednesday, nearly a month after “Bad Trip” was released briefly through Amazon Prime Video, then withdrawn. “Bad Trip,” which was originally supposed to debut at the SXSW Film Festival before it
“Little Women” and “1917” appear to be among the first titles that will hit Chinese theaters when they reopen in the wake of the novel coronavirus, new posters and promotion indicate. The two titles have already passed Chinese censorship approvals and were scheduled for release in February, just after the Oscars, but were bumped when
Digital juggernaut Pornhub has offered itself as a streaming partner to Germany’s Oldenburg Film Festival, a 26-year-old indie movie event known for edgy programming and quirky celebrity tributes. The offer, extended by Pornhub vice president Corey Price, comes nearly a week after the festival announced it will forge ahead as planned for a September run.
Cinephiles and celebrity watchers around the world are feeling nostalgic for the Cannes Film Festival, which won’t take place this year due to coronavirus. The festival has only been cancelled twice before. In 1939, when the very first Cannes ever was about to launch, dozens of stars arrived on MGM’s ocean liner, but after the
The Locarno Film Festival has announced details of its innovative “The Films After Tomorrow” initiative to support indie cinema following its cancellation last month due to the coronavirus pandemic. “The Films After Tomorrow” will see the prominent Swiss event dedicated to indie cinema award 2 Golden Leopard prizes comprising a cash component. They will go
Rachel Brosnahan is set to star in “The Switch,” a life-swap comedic drama based on Beth O’Leary’s novel of the same name. Bekka Bowling is adapting the screenplay for “The Switch,” which is set up at Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners. The dramedy centers around a 29-year-old consultant, and her 79-year-old grandmother, who decide to swap
Film professionals, filmmakers and journalists have taken to social media to pay tribute to the Cannes Film Festival, which was due to kick off Tuesday in the French Riviera town and was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The festival and the city of Cannes humbly marked the day by posting a picture of a
Studiocanal has acquired a 100% stake in its German subsidiary Tandem Productions, picking up the stakes of partners Rola Bauer, Tim Halkin and Jonas Bauer. Rola Bauer, a founding partner of Tandem and managing director of Studiocanal, is also stepping down from both of her roles, though she will keep working with the banner on
Screen Media has bought North American rights, as well as select international territories, to “Blackbird,” a family drama starring Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet and Rainn Wilson. Screen Media plans to release the film, which premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, in September. Screen Media acquired the film from Millennium Media. The movie revolves
Udine’s Far East Film Festival, one of the world’s top film meetings for Asian cinema, will become a wholly online event this year, organizers announced on Tuesday. The 22nd edition of the festival was previously postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak from its traditional late-April slot to a new position at the end of June.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mega-hit, zeitgeist-tapping, precedent-breaking, Broadway smash “Hamilton” will land on Disney Plus just in time for our Nation’s birthday. The rap-infused look at Alexander Hamilton’s life and formative role in American history will now be released on the streaming service on July 3, roughly a year before it was supposed to debut. It had
Vue, one of Europe’s largest cinema chains, has revealed a number of measures it will look to enforce this summer when cinemas look to reopen in the U.K. The cinema operator said it “welcomes” the government’s plan to open cinemas from July 4, which was confirmed yesterday as part of an official recovery roadmap shared
European Film Promotion, an agency that promotes European filmmaking worldwide, has launched its flagship program, Producers on the Move, as a virtual series of events, replacing the physical events that usually take place at the canceled Cannes Film Festival. The 20 up-and-coming producers from 20 European countries selected by EFP for the 21st edition of
In today’s film news roundup, Tim Story is in talks to direct Kevin Hart in “Night Wolf,” Michael Moore calls off this year’s Traverse City Film Festival, and New York’s Israel Film Center Festival goes virtual. DIRECTOR ATTACHED STX Films is in final talks for director-producer Tim Story to re-team with Kevin Hart on the
Phoebe Fox was born in to an acting family, the daughter of actors Stuart Fox and Prue Clark. When she was a young girl, she got to see her mother play Cinderella. “I was seven or eight and couldn’t get over the fact my mom was Cinderella,” she says with a laugh. “To me, it
Leaders of the Directors Guild of America have emphasized to their 18,000 members that the special committee headed by Stephen Soderbergh is working “day and night” to reopen production as soon as possible. In a message posted on the DGA web site, President Thomas Schlamme and National Executive Director Russell Hollander sounded a note of caution about
Even as Hollywood continues to wait on when productions will get back up and running, Cate Blanchett is building on her busy film slate, as the A-lister is signing on to another two movie projects with high-profile directors. She is set to join in James Gray’s next picture “Armageddon Times” at RT Features, and is
In “Capone,” Tom Hardy, as the aging, broken-down, not-all-there Al Capone, acts under a corpse-gray mask of desiccated-mobster makeup, and he speaks in a bullfrog croak so raspy it sounds like he’s only got one or two vocal cords left, and that they’ve been burnt to a crisp. It’s 1946, and Capone’s days as the
A Seattle fund aiming to fill a gap in financing for South Asian filmmakers is launching Monday. The Tasveer Film Fund will bestow $5,000, in a first for that community, to South Asian shorts filmmakers to tell their stories, according to the organizers. Rita Meher, executive director of Tasveer South Asian Film Festival, and Pulkit
Even before coronavirus, Brazil’s film sector was in extraordinary trouble, victim of a near 18-month freeze on government film funding under far-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. Now, many executives fear a radical shake out. “We have the incentive freeze, coronavirus, economic crisis, need for a new audiovisual law,” says Fabiano Gullane, one of Brazil’s biggest