Meek Mill said there was no bad blood with Jay-Z when he left Roc Nation management … and now, Jigga is backing that sentiment in a new track. Jay is one of many major guests on DJ Khaled‘s “GOD DID” album, and doesn’t mince words when talking Meek on a track also titled “GOD DID.”
Sylvester Stallone is still showing up for work, and putting on a face that seems to hide the fact his wife just pulled the trigger on ending their 25 years of marriage. Sly surprised a bunch of excited fans Thursday at a special screening for his new movie “Samaritan” … popping up at the AMC
Former collaborators Freddie Gibbs and Benny The Butcher’s hostility toward one another is reaching nuclear levels … and fans couldn’t be more disinterested 😴!!! Benny the Butcher & Freddie Gibbs are too grown to be acting this immature. — King Wow (@wowthatshiphop) August 24, 2022 @wowthatshiphop The 2 rappers have been trading shots all week
“House of the Dragon” is coming in hot at HBO, netting an early Season 2 renewal less than a week after its series premiere. The second-season pickup comes as little a surprise, given HBO’s financial investment in the show, as well as the fact that the premiere shattered HBO’s record for the biggest premiere audience
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg sat down for chat with popular podcaster Joe Rogan, revealing in the interview that the social giant’s next major VR headset — said to be priced at more than $1,000 — will launch in October. Zuckerberg appeared to be referring to the company’s Project Cambria, a higher-end VR and mixed-reality headset
Jamie Laurenson and Hakan Kousetta’s 60Forty Films has inked an overall deal with Apple TV+, Variety can exclusively reveal. They are already in production on upcoming Apple TV+ thriller series “Hijack,” starring Idris Elba, which they are producing alongside Idiotlamp Productions and Elba’s company Green Door Pictures. “Hijack” tells the story of Sam Nelson (played
The highly-anticipated “Wagatha Christie” documentary with Coleen Rooney is set to air on Disney+ the streamer confirmed today. Unveiling its scripted slate at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Disney+ also announced a slate of high-end original unscripted titles. In addition to “Wagatha Christie” (working title) the platform is set to premiere docs from Keanu Reeves about
Britain’s leading lady of the TV action thriller, Keeley Hawes, is back. The star of “Bodyguard” returns in “Crossfire,” another nail-biting thriller for the BBC in which Hawes plays a holidaymaker whose sunbathing session on her hotel balcony becomes a nightmare when shots ring out across the complex, turning her world upside down. The scenario
Shia LaBeouf has come forward to dispute the assertion that he was fired from “Don’t Worry Darling” by director Olivia Wilde just as production was starting in 2020. LaBeouf asserts that he chose to leave the production because he didn’t feel the actors were given adequate time to rehearse. In the Aug. 24 cover story
Norwegian director Erik Poppe takes on Vilhelm Moberg’s acclaimed series of novels in “The Emigrants,” his new historical drama about a struggling Swedish family which emigrates to the U.S. in 1849, searching for a better future. “It’s probably the most classic work of literature in the whole Scandinavia,” he told Variety, taking about the 2022 Haugesund Festival
Octavia Spencer’s production company Orit Entertainment is set to produce a docu-series about the FBI titled “Feds.” Spencer will exec produce. The docu-series, which is co-produced by October Films, will air on true-crime network ID and on Discovery+. “Feds” (working title) is set to be a six-part production that will give viewers an insight into
Dubai-based sales agent Cercamon has acquired world sales rights for Juraj Lerotić’s “Safe Place,” which won three awards after its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival and was named best film at Sarajevo. The Croatian director’s feature debut is the emotional story of a family reeling in the wake of a suicide attempt that centers
Former Netflix executive Tania Zarak Quintana has joined Iceland’s Truenorth, one of the leading production services companies in the Nordics, as it looks to ramp up development of original content. The production outfit is developing a slate of original shows including “Starlungar,” a 10-part series it’s dubbed “‘The Godfather’ of the 13th century” that follows
Brian Cox says his on-screen alter ego Logan Roy, the misanthropic media mogul at the heart of HBO hit “Succession,” would not be a fan in real life. “Logan would hate me,” said Cox during an in-person conversation at the Edinburgh TV Festival in Scotland. “If Logan met me he’d say ‘I wish that Brian
Lee Jung-jae, the star of hit Netflix series “Squid Game,” is to reprise his role as a manic killer in “Ray,” a TV series spun off from 2020 Korean action-horror film “Deliver Us From Evil.” Korean media sources report that Lee will star in and co-produce the series through his own Artist Studio company and
DOCUMENTARY “Escape From Kabul Airport,” a documentary airing on BBC Two in September, will tell the inside story of the 18 days in August 2021, when the U.S. withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, and the subsequent evacuation of thousands of Afghan citizens from Kabul airport after the Taliban seized the city. The documentary is an
Free Britney, at last! Britney Spears’ fans around the world are praising the pop star’s return to music after she dropped her new single with Elton John. Spears collaborated with John on “Hold Me Closer,” a new spin on his hit song “Tiny Dancer.” The single marks the first music to come from Spears since
When Angelina Jolie read Alessandro Baricco’s short novel “Without Blood” — the basis for her next directorial effort — the Italian fable about the brutality of war and healing in its aftermath had an immediate therapeutic effect. “I read it right as I was going through the beginning of a very dark time in my
Louisa Harland, Nick Mohammed, Joely Richardson, Adrian Lester (pictured above, left-to-right) have boarded upcoming Disney+ series “The Ballad of Renegade Nell,” Variety can exclusively reveal. The Lookout Point production, which is written and exec produced by “Gentleman Jack” writer Sally Wainwright, is an upcoming eight-part adventure and fantasy series about an 18th century young woman
TrustNordisk has snapped up international sales rights to the new Danish crime thriller “Boundless,” based on fiction guru Jussi Adler-Olsen’s “Den Grænseløse,” his sixth novel in the Department Q series. Danish helmer Ole Christian Madsen, credited for the HBO series “Banshee” (2013-16) and WWII drama “Flame & Citron” starring Mads Mikkelsen, has taken up
Film studios in Asia-Pacific are expanding the scale of their operations and want location incentives to keep pace. “Incentives are fundamental, they are an expectation [of production managers] and having one is no longer a USP,” said Rashid Karim, CEO of Iskandar Malaysia Studios. He was speaking at the Content Asia summit conference in Bangkok
U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 was the big winner at the Edinburgh TV Awards, winning six of the 20 awards on offer, including Channel of the Year. The awards returned as an in-person event this year as part of the Edinburgh TV Festival, supported by Screen Scotland. Jodie Comer, who won the 2021 Variety Outstanding Achievement
Sony Music and Music Women* Germany (MW*G), the nationwide umbrella organization of all music women and female-identifying and non-binary individuals, have revealed the winners of the Female* Producer Prize. The prize aims to support female producers in Germany who often lack visibility and support in the country. The winners include Novaa, producer, songwriter and Berlin
Despite some ambitious efforts by director Jessica M. Thompson and screenwriter Blair Butler to revitalize hoary horror movie tropes with allegorical commentary on race, class and male privilege, “The Invitation” is too wearyingly hackneyed for too much of its running time, and too often laugh-out-loud funny as its plot relies on the age-old convention of
Indonesia’s Makbul Mubarak is making quite a splash with his debut feature “Autobiography,” which is world premiering at Venice’s Horizons strand and then playing at Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema section. The film, which examines the effects of Indonesia’s military dictatorship on the country’s youth, follows a young man torn between loyalty and justice who confronts
Brintey Spears and Elton John have released “Hold Me Closer,” a reimagined duet of the piano man’s immortal tune, “Tiny Dancer.” The song is Spears’ first release since the termination of her conservatorship in November of 2021 and her first new music release in six years. [embedded content] While the chorus is, of course, unmistakable,
A series of protests over the prevelance of sexual abuse in the entertainment industry have been staged in front of prominent music companies in recent weeks, and the efforts have been gaining attention on social media via actor Alexa Nikolas. A former cast member of the 2005-2008 Nickelodeon series “Zoey 101,” Nikolas’ megaphone includes more
The prospect of a new version of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” with vocals from Britney Spears has sent the music world into a tizzy for weeks, particularly since Spears has not released fresh music in six years amid the knockdown, drag-out battle over her conservatorship. Luckily, “Hold Me Closer,” produced by Andrew Watt and Cirkut
Indian actor Rasika Dugal is on a roll, with season 2 of Emmy-winning Netflix series “Delhi Crime” streaming, season 3 of Amazon Prime Video series “Mirzapur” filming and several other series and films in the works. Dugal describes season 2 of “Delhi Crime” as “very different from season 1, but still very sensitively and beautifully
“Me Time,” a slapdash comedy by writer-director John Hamburg (“I Love You, Man”), stars Kevin Hart as Sonny Fisher, a stay-at-home parent suffering from what Betty Friedan labeled “the problem with no name.” Sonny feels lonely and out-of-step around adults with concerns more grown-up than his fixation on minivan technology, elementary school talent shows and