Snap hired ad-industry veteran Resh Sidhu to lead Arcadia, the Snapchat parent’s global creative studio for branded augmented reality. Sidhu joins Arcadia as global director, based in New York, heading up the AR business and managing the team globally. Most recently, she served as chief creative officer for Barbarian, working with clients including American Express,
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” has officially unseated director James Cameron’s 2009 science-fiction epic “Avatar” to become the third-highest grossing domestic release in history. After weeks of speculation over whether or not Peter Parker had the legs to bump the people of Pandora from bronze, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” collected the remaining $1 million on Monday
Rolling off its Oscar nomination in the international feature category, Pawo Choyning Dorji’s Bhutanese feature debut “Lunana: A Yak in The Classroom” has been sold by Films Boutique in further territories. Bhutan’s first Oscar entry in 23 years, “Lunana: A Yak in The Classroom” follows a young teacher who dreams of emigrating to Australia to
India Arie used her Feb. 14 interview with Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show” to explain why she thinks Joe Rogan is “consciously racist.” The Grammy-winning singer requested her music be taken off Spotify at the beginning of February, citing Rogan’s problematic “language about race.” Arie first brought attention to Rogan’s history of racist language
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Your new obsession is here, thanks to Shashibo’s latest Grateful Dead collaboration. The company’s popular fidget toy is a magnetic puzzle cube that can be transformed into 70 unique shapes. But aside from serving
“Fresh,” a twisted thriller featuring Sebastian Stan and “Normal People” star Daisy Edgar-Jones, puts a spin on your everyday meet-cute. After a bleak go at attempting to find eligible bachelors on dating apps, Noa (Edgar-Jones) can’t believe her luck when she runs into a cute guy, Steve (Stan), at the grocery store. In the film’s
Catherine Cohen’s debut comedy special “The Twist …? She’s Gorgeous” will premiere on Netflix on March 15, Variety has learned exclusively. In the special, which was taped at Joe’s Pub in New York, Cohen uses her musical expertise to divulge details about relationships, modern feminism and being the main character of her own life. Henry
Phil Rosenthal, creator of CBS’s “Everybody Loves Raymond” and host of Netflix’s “Somebody Feed Phil,” is about to get naked — metaphorically — for his first podcast. Rosenthal is teaming with SiriusXM’s Stitcher podcast division to launch “Naked Lunch,” a weekly talk-show podcast co-hosted with his friend and longtime Rolling Stone journalist David Wild. The
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, agreed to pay $90 million to settle a long-running data privacy lawsuit over its use of cookies in 2010-11 to track users’ internet use even after they had logged off. The settlement was submitted for approval late Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Billionaire developer Rick Caruso said Monday that if elected mayor of Los Angeles, he would take power over homelessness policy away from the City Council and concentrate it in his office. Caruso announced his candidacy late on Friday, just ahead of the filing deadline, and is beginning to outline his plans. In an interview with
STREAMING Discovery racked up subscription numbers during the opening week of the ongoing Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, the company has revealed. Eight times more viewers are streaming Olympic content on Discovery’s streaming services compared to the same period for Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, with total new paid subscribers already surpassing 2018 with a
As other European TV giants such as the RTL Group, Spain’s Atresmedia, owner of the OTT service Atresplayer Premium, is finding the sweet spot between auteur and broad audience shows. Launched two years ago, Atresplayer Premium boasts fast growth in terms of subscriptions – reaching 400,000 users in Spain alone – and content production volume, readying
Keith Richards & the X-Pensive Winos, Mavis Staples, Hozier, Warren Haynes, Melissa Etheridge, Allison Russell and more will headline the sixth annual Love Rocks NYC benefit concert at New York’s Beacon Theatre on March 10. Larkin Poe, Tyler Bryant, David Shaw, Anders Osborne, Celisse, Ivan Neville, Jimmy Vivino, Maggie Rose and Connor Kennedy will also
The inaugural season of CBC and HBO Max series “Sort Of” leads both the television and overall 2022 Canadian Screen Award nominations with 13 nods. CBC’s “Pretty Hard Cases” and CTV Sci-Fi Channel’s “Wynonna Earp” with 11 each, and CBC’s “Coroner” and “Kim’s Convenience” with 10 each are the other leading television nominees. The Academy
In “False Flag” Season 3, Streamaze, an Israeli high-tech company, suffers a chemical attack at a hotel which is masterminded by terrorists. Or does it? Maybe this was an attack on an individual gone awry. Mossad’s state-of-the art data analysis identifies three suspects, all with possible reasons to commit the outrage, one of whose victims
A quirky, colorful murder mystery set in the South African outback will be served up in “Recipes for Love and Murder,” which premieres its first two episodes Feb. 15 as part of the Berlinale Series Market Selects lineup at the European Film Market. Based on the best-selling novels by Sally Andrew, the series follows recipe
The Amazon Studios Inclusion Policy and Playbook released last June in the U.S. is reverberating in the streaming giant’s productions around the world. That is the main takeaway of a panel at the European Film Market on Amazon’s diversity, equity and inclusion panel where it emerged that, though it is U.S.-specific, Amazon’s teams in Europe
As global consumers turn towards series produced in their own countries and other non-US content, developing authentic stories for local markets might be the key to global success, pointed out participants of the Berlinale Series Market opening on Monday. “Great successes can come from anywhere. That’s the biggest learning,” said Jens Richter, CEO at Fremantle
Keshet International and A Private View’s Flemish thriller “Storm Lara” answers the question: What happens when a suicidal caller interrupts a live late-night radio show? As it turns out, a lot. The 4×30’ series moves quickly, putting acerbic radio DJ Lara (Ella Leyers, “Professor T.”) to the test when her suicidal caller’s identity is revealed,
For the first time since 2019, the legendary Roots Picnic is scheduled to return in June with Mary J. Blige, Mickey Guyton — both of whom performed at the Super Bowl on Sunday — Summer Walker and Jazmine Sullivan leading a packed lineup. The festival — which is headlined, hosted, and curated by the Grammy-winning
Jay Ellis (“Insecure,” “Top Gun: Maverick,”) will host the inaugural Anthem Awards. The virtual awards, to be held Feb. 28, were created to honor individuals and organizations for their social impact work. “It’s a tremendous honor to host the first annual Anthem Awards,” Ellis said. “As we enter the third year of a global pandemic
Loco Films, the Paris-based world sales and production company, has unveiled the trailer for Yulia Trofimova’s feature debut “The Land of Sasha” which is premiering today at the Berlinale, in the Generation 14plus strand. “The Land of Sahsa” tells the story of an indecisive 18-year-old struggling to pursue his desire to become a painter as
Carla Simón’s first feature “Summer 1993” was a knockout; a Generation Kplus and Best First Feature award winner at the 2017 Berlinale and Spain’s 2018 Oscars submission, winning three Spanish Academy Goya Awards. The director has since become a reference within a new wave of Catalan women filmmakers that have broken out to considerable box
British singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé has announced her forthcoming album, “Let’s Say for Instance,” will be released on May 6 via Chrysalis Records. Sandé has enjoyed enormous chart success in her native England, with her debut album, “Our Version of Events,” selling nearly five and a half million copies to date and becoming the biggest-selling album
Production label The Number 44 has teamed with podcast company Stak on two projects: a podcast titled “Ten Minutes of Terror” and a black comedy feature based on Stak’s “Jackie the Ripper” podcast. Established by studio and financier Goldfinch, The Number 44 is dedicated to genre content, from horror and thriller to sci-fi and LGBTQIA.
By way of improvisation, relying heavily on events to naturally develop, Argentine filmmaker Gastón Solnicki presents a meandering ode to the city of Vienna, its customs, cultures, facades, and the near-sacrilege of enacting a smoking ban in cafes city-wide. In, “A Little Love Package,” two main protagonists become the vehicles through which the minutiae of
Filmmaker Ashley McKenzie (“Werewolf”) returns to the Berlinale this year with her second feature, “Queens of the Qing Dynasty,” premiering in Encounters on Tuesday. The writer-director stands out as an emerging Canadian talent, backed by the Toronto Film Critics Assn., who awarded her debut film the $100,000 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award in 2017. An
The 67-year-old woman stands alongside an open-backed truck in a city under martial law fearlessly berating the young paramilitary policemen sat impassively behind the wood and steel bars that hold them back – for now. She is somebody’s daughter, probably wife, mother, grandmother. “You’re protecting the dictator, General Min Aung Hlaing!” she shouts wagging her
I try to go into every movie with open eyes and an open mind, but I confess that this Buddhist goal can be seriously tested by the prospect of sitting through a video-game movie. Sorry, but I’ve been burned too often — by “Super Mario Bros.” (the first one out of the gate, back in
Leading Japanese entertainment firms Toho, Toei, Studio Khara and Tsuburaya Productions are joining forces to launch the Shin Japan Heroes Universe, a project modeled on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Shin Japan Heroes brings together such iconic characters as Godzilla, Ultraman and Kamen Rider, as well as the world of anime maestro Anno Hideaki’s Evangelion sci-fi