Amazon Prime Video has signed a multimillion-pound long-term deal with the Pinewood Group’s Shepperton Studios for exclusive use of new production facilities. The move is ahead of Amazon launching several U.K. original series in 2022 and 2023. Filming is currently underway in Scotland on “Anansi Boys” and “Good Omens” Season Two. The forthcoming Lord of
Discovery has announced that it has struck a multi-year agreement to supply content to Foxtel Group, Australia’s pay-TV market leader. The renewed deal covers factual, documentary and reality content from the flagship Discovery Channel as well as the TLC, Investigation Discovery, Discovery Turbo and Animal Planet channels. Significantly, Discovery’s content will be available for Australian
Harry Styles’ success as an arena headliner was celebrated with an award for major tour of the year Tuesday night at the Pollstar Awards, held annually to honor the tours, festivals, venues, promoters, agents, managers, talent buyers and others judged to have achieved the greatest success in the live music sphere in the past year.
George Spiro Dibie, a television cinematographer whose credits across a 48-year career ranged from “Barney Miller” to “Night Court” to “Sister, Sister,” died on Tuesday. He was 90 years old. Dibie’s death was confirmed through a statement from the International Cinematographers Guild. Dibie served as president of Local 659 and then national president of Local
The Oscar nominations for “Drive My Car,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour drama about a man dealing with the death of his wife, have thrilled the director’s native Japan. News of the four Academy Awards nominations was reported by all major Japanese media, from the most serious Nikkei business daily to the sports tabloids whose usual coverage
Not many bands can claim they’re having the best year of their career exactly 50 years into their run. All right — not any bands can make such a claim, historically, except for Sparks, which saw its star rise dramatically in 2021 due not to any recording or touring activity but as film creators and
Visionary visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull, who died Monday, contributed his groundbreaking inventions and techniques to classics including “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and “Blade Runner.” Among his many honors were three visual effects Oscar nominations (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Star Trek: The
CBS has ordered a pilot for a reboot of the drama series “Early Edition,” Variety has learned. The original series starred Kyle Chandler as a man who magically received tomorrow’s edition of the Chicago Sun-Times today, delivered to his door each morning by a mysterious ginger tabby cat. His knowledge of the future then gave him
If last year’s Brit Awards went out with something of a COVID-restricted whimper, this year’s ceremony came in with a bang. Several bangs in fact, as an unexpected mash-up between emo-metal hybrid Bring Me The Horizon and Ed Sheeran on the latter’s “Bad Habits” launched the show to, no doubt, the bewilderment of mums and
Joe Rogan weighed in again on the controversy over his repeated use of the N-word on his podcast — and Spotify’s removal of dozens of past episodes because of his “racially insensitive language” — and this time played the victim card. Last Friday, Spotify pulled 70 episodes “The Joe Rogan Experience” from its platform, dating
HBO has picked up “Doomsday Machine,” the upcoming series starring Claire Foy as Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. The series is adapted from Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang’s New York Times bestselling book “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination.” “Doomsday Machine” chronicles the political and social minefields Facebook has navigated on its
Robert Pattinson guarantees comic book movie fans will know Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” is unlike any other Batman movie ever made as soon as they see the opening shot. Reeves’ nearly-three hour Caped Crusader epic is inspired by New Hollywood classics from the 1970s, including “Taxi Driver,” “The Conversation” and “Chinatown.” Pattinson told GQ magazine
Gina Duncan will serve at the president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, returning to the non-profit organization after a short stint at the Sundance Institute. It’s a homecoming of sorts for Duncan, who previously served as BAM’s first vice president of film and strategic programming. “We saw Gina’s extraordinary leadership skills firsthand during her
Zhang Lu’s “Yanagawa” (China), Hong Sung-eun’s “Aloners” (South Korea) and Fujimoto Akio’s “Along the Sea” (Japan/Vietnam) were among the top award winners at France’s Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas. “Yanagawa,” which opened the 2021 Pingyao Film Festival, won the Golden Cyclo, the festival’s top honor awarded by the international jury. “Aloners,” which has
IMDb TV has announced that it has picked up a second season of “Almost Paradise,” the American-Filipino crime drama series starring Christian Kane. Originally a WGN America show, “Almost Paradise” stars Kane as Alex Walker, a U.S. DEA agent who is betrayed by his partner and forced into an early retirement. Walker relocates to the
Amanda Seyfried doesn’t think she nailed the iconic deep voice of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes for Hulu’s upcoming limited series “The Dropout” — but she did her “best to try to capture the oddness of it.” “The shape of my mouth isn’t the same as hers, but I can make sounds somewhat or pretty close
MSG Networks is doubling down on sports betting, launching a new programming slate dubbed “Bet-A-Palooza.” And in a first, MSG will simulcast two New York Knicks games featuring play-by-play announced through the lens of sports betting. “Bet-A-Palooza,” announced on Tuesday by the sports network, will run every night this week as a lead up to
Wendy Williams will not be returning to her daytime talk show this season, but the future of her show remains in flux, Variety has learned. Meanwhile, Sherri Shepherd is in advanced discussions with Debmar-Mercury for her own daytime talk show, which could potentially replace Williams’ series, sources say. Currently in its 13th season, “The Wendy
The widow of Ol’ Dirty Bastard sued Wu-Tang Clan Productions on Tuesday, alleging that the late rapper’s estate is owed at least $1 million in unpaid royalties. ODB, whose legal name was Russell Tyrone Jones, was a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, the rap group that catapulted to stardom in the early 1990s. He
Among this year’s class of Oscars first-timers is “West Side Story” star Ariana DeBose, whose show-stopping portrayal of Anita in the movie musical earned her a best supporting actress Oscar nod. “Well, a lot can happen before 9:30 a.m. on a Tuesday,” DeBose quipped, jumping on the phone with Variety just hours after learning the
Three women featured in the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler” have launched a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign to help them clear their debts. Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjoholm and Ayleen Charlotte were all victims of the eponymous swindler, an Israeli man named Shimon Hayut who allegedly conned women on Tinder out of millions of dollars by catfishing
NBC News will show an interview between Lester Holt and President Joseph Biden during NBC’s Super Bowl pre-game show on Sunday February 13. NBC said the interview is slated to take place in Virginia, and will mark President Biden’s first sit-down interview with a news organization in 2022. The sit-down appears to be taped, which
Melissa Goodwin, a former top executive at the T.J. Martell Foundation, pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges related to accusations that she embezzled $3.7 million from the charity by using company credit cards to buy Super Bowl tickets and other purchases. Goodwin entered a guilty plea to a single count of wire fraud, in which prosecutors
Last month, rumors had it that although the official reason was Covid on the production staff, Adele postponed her hotly anticipated Las Vegas residency because the staging was too over-the-top — and at the otherwise over-the-top BRIT Awards in London on Tuesday, she kept things relatively straightforward, performing “I Drink Wine” while seated in front
Last August, as movie theater owners gathered in Las Vegas for their annual convention CinemaCon, they were treated to behind-the-scenes footage of Tom Cruise doing what Tom Cruise has made a career of doing: risking death and defying the laws of physics to pull off some of the splashiest stunts on the big screen. In
Korean zombie thriller “All Of Us Are Dead” has become Netflix’s fifth most popular non-English-language series debut, Variety has learned exclusively. On Tuesday, “All of Us Are Dead” debuted on Netflix’s all-time rankings, which tracks the streaming service’s Top 10 most popular non-English TV series based on hours viewed in their first 28 days on
Zendaya hit back at “Euphoria” critics who have criticized HBO’s Emmy-winning, high-school drama series for glorifying drug use. The educational organization D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) put out a statement last month condemning “Euphoria” for “misguidedly glorifying and erroneously depicting high-school student drug use.” The series is currently airing its second season. “Our show is
Action-drama “The Way,” written and directed by Dastan Khalili (“Master,” “Insomnia Manica”), has been picked up for international sales by Iuvit Media Sales. Iuvit will launch sales at the upcoming European Film Market (Feb. 10-17). The film stars Eli Jane (“Kong: Skull Island,” “Argo,” “The Mandalorian,” “Dirty John”). The movie opened for domestic theatrical release
“South Side” has been renewed for Season 3 at HBO Max. Season 3 of the comedy series will now be the second season of the show to air on HBO Max. Season 1 debuted on Comedy Central in 2019 before the show was sold to HBO Max along with fellow Comedy Central series “The Other
Fox Entertainment has acquired the rights to the Gumby franchise. The deal was made between Fox and the estate of Joseph Clokey, the son of Gumby creator Art Clokey. It gives Fox all rights to Gumby and associated characters across film, television and streaming, consumer products, licensing, publishing, and all other categories. “Competition for globally