Entertainment News Boom

Bollywood A-lister Kartik Aaryan will headline “Aashiqui 3,” the third instalment in the hit franchise, with Anurag Basu (“Barfi!”) to direct. The franchise was launched in 1990 by T-Series and Vishesh Films with hit film “Aashiqui,” directed by Mahesh Bhatt and starring Rahul Roy and Anu Aggarwal. The franchise was revived in 2013 with “Aashiqui

On Sunday night, an hour before the hotly anticipated Sept. 5 world premiere of “Don’t Worry Darling” on the Lido, Variety celebrated director Olivia Wilde with a cocktail party hosted at the posh Danieli Hotel in Venice. Wilde, who is unveiling her second feature as a director out of competition at the festival, graces the

Most of the time, documentaries don’t get sequels, which is strange. Unlike their scripted fiction counterparts, the story doesn’t end when the cameras stop rolling. If you’ve ever attended a filmmaker Q&A after the screening of a great documentary, you know the first question from the audience is almost inevitably either “What’s happened since?” or

If the Sunday night world premiere of “The Whale” at the Venice Film Festival is any indication, Brendan Fraser’s return to Hollywood will be met with plenty of cheers — and even more tears. When the credits rolled on the Darren Aronofsky drama, in which Fraser plays a 600-pound gay man confined to a wheelchair,

When it comes to coffee-table books that survey the great album covers of the classic rock era, there are generally two kinds: those that include a lot of the work of the 1970s design team called Hipgnosis, and those that consist entirely of Hipgnosis’ work. Virtually any rock superstar who had the cachet to ask

The return of Brendan Fraser — not that he ever really went away — has been a reminder of how much affection so many of us had for him back in the ’90s, when he had his moment in movies like “School Ties” and “Encino Man” and “Gods and Monsters” and “The Mummy.” Yet let’s

Although Florence Pugh will be attending the Venice Film Festival for the premiere of “Don’t Worry Darling,” the star is limiting her promotional activities at the festival. After arriving in Venice by private jet, Pugh will attend Monday’s red carpet premiere of “Don’t Worry Darling.” However, the actress will not be participating in the press

Best-known for her role as Noemie in the hit French series “Call My Agent!,” Laure Calamy has emerged in recent years as one of France’s biggest stars and most versatile actors. After a busy career in theater and many notable supporting roles, she finally got a shot at leading roles, and kudos have followed, for

“L’Immensità” is director Emanuele Crialese’s first feature film in 11 years, and only his fifth in a quarter-century: The gifted Italian, best known to international audiences for his splendid, richly felt Ellis Island immigrant saga “Golden Door,” has never been one for unconsidered or impersonal projects. At first glance, then, one might wonder what drew

On the eve of the 79th Venice Film Festival, where his powerful Ukraine war documentary “Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” will premiere out of competition on Sept. 7, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky was in a frantic race against time. Footage was still being shot in Ukraine into the second week of August, with

While waiting to pick up five-year-old Leila from judo practice, personable 40-ish schoolteacher Rachel introduces herself to another parent as Leila’s stepmom, before backtracking to awkwardly correct herself. Later, when a kindly stranger on a train remarks on the resemblance between the two, Rachel doesn’t bother clarifying, merely accepting the benign compliment. Her relationship to

In Italian director Emanuele Crialese’s new drama “L’Immensità,” which is set in 1970s Rome, Penélope Cruz plays a mother of three who, while contending with a violent Italian husband, winds up in a psychiatric institution. “I don’t think my character is crazy at all,” Cruz said. “She is trapped in her family. Trapped in her

Best Friend Forever has unveiled the trailer for “To The North,” Romanian Mihai Mincan’s feature debut which is world premiering in the Horizons section at Venice. [embedded content] Inspired by true events, the edgy thriller follows Joel, a religious Filipino sailor who finds a Romanian stowaway, Dumitru, hidden between some containers during his shift on

Brendan Fraser, the star of the Venice-premiering movie “The Whale,” says he needed to “learn how to move in a new way” in order to play his character Charlie, who weighs 600 lbs. Fraser takes on his most substantial role in a number of years with Darren Aronofsky’s latest, in which Charlie is slowly eating

Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkin is at the Venice Film Festival with Stan McCoy, the org’s chief for Europe, to attend a panel on the economic impact of film and TV production in the U.S. and Italy, organized by the film unit of the Italian culture ministry. They spoke to Variety about the increasingly close

LevelK has boarded Icelandic crime drama “Cold,” directed by Erlingur Óttar Thoroddsen and based on the bestselling book “The Undesired” (“Kuldi”) by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir. Still in production, it was recently pitched at Venice Gap-Financing Market. The story centers on Óðinn, living alone with his daughter Rún. As he investigates decades-old deaths at a juvenile treatment

German helmer Alex Schaad takes on the body-swap trope in Venice Critics’ Week title “Skin Deep,” produced by Walker + Worm Film in co-production with Bayerischer Rundfunk and Donndorffilm. Beta Cinema, which handles the sales, has shared its trailer exclusively with Variety ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Italian fest. The intimate, character-driven

It’s fair to say that Abbey Road Studios is the most documented recording facility in the world, but only if you count the crosswalk outside. Otherwise, the nine-bedroom mansion turned studio hasn’t really had its day in the cinematic sun, the way that more modest studios like L.A.’s Sound City and Alabama’s Muscle Shoals have.