In this week’s installment of Strictly Business, Variety’s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment, TaP Music’s Ed Millet and Wendy Ong go deep about the rewards and challenges of managing such prominent and pioneering artists as Lana Del Rey, Dua Lipa, Ellie Goulding, Caroline Polacheck, Noah Cyrus
Jacqueline Avant, the 81-year-old wife of music industry legend Clarence Avant and mother of Nicole Avant, has been killed in a home invasion robbery. The Beverly Hills Police Department told Variety that a shooting at that location resulted in a death early Wednesday, without reporting the name of the victim. Netflix confirmed to Variety that
As the songwriter of multiplatinum hits for Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, One Direction and Demi Lovato, among many others, Ross Golan’s schedule was already full when he started his podcast, “And the Writer Is …” in January 2017. At first Golan thought he was creating a niche product for the elite songwriter community, but as he approaches the weekly-ish
Slovak filmmaker Peter Kerekes’ “107 Mothers,” which premiered in Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section and was selected as the Slovak entry for the Best International Feature Film category of the 94th Academy Awards, has won the Arab Critics’ Award for European Films. The award was presented on Wednesday at the Cairo Film Festival, which runs
A new documentary will chronicle the wrongful rape conviction of Anthony Broadwater. From Red Badge Films and Red Hawk Films, “Unlucky” will follow the story about the Syracuse man who spent more than 16 years in prison, and another 20 being labeled as a registered sex offender, before being exonerated of the 1981 rape of
Ibero-America’s toon kids content sector has launched a call at Ventana Sur for more bridge building arenas and channels aimed at boosting co-productions, especially ambitious projects that require a greater number of partners. Ibermedia, the multi-million dollar Ibero-American audiovisual fund, is seen by representative TV networks and indie producers as an opportunity to create juts
Los Angeles-based Outsider Pictures has picked up worldwide sales rights to Colombian Nina Marín’s feature debut “Tierra quebrá” (“Broken Land”), inspired by the magical realism literary genre. Produced by Óscar Alvarado at Marine Films, a company based in the northern Colombian city of Valledupar, “Broken Land” delivers a female story with women carrying the story
When Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams prophetically titled their song “Blurred Lines,” no one could have predicted, sampled or interpolated the tidal wave of internet-hatched accusations of theft directed at industry hitmakers, or the onslaught of frivolous and dubious claims that this deeply flawed verdict would bring to light. Relying heavily on emotional testimony and
Focus Features’ “Belfast” will receive the Vanguard Award at the Palm Springs International Film Awards. A group honor that recognizes a film’s cast and director for their collective work, the recipients will include Kenneth Branagh, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds and Jude Hill, who are all expected to attend the ceremony. “Despite the violence
Check out an official Nightmare Alley Official Behind the Scenes Featurette starring Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett! Let us know what you think in the comments below. ► Sign up for a Fandango FanALERT for Nightmare Alley: https://www.fandango.com/nightmare-alley-2021-225652/movie-overview?cmp=MCYT_YouTube_Desc Want to be notified of all the latest movie trailers? Subscribe to the channel and click the
Bill Gates’ book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” has led to a 10-episode series for educational streamer Wondrium, the campany is set to announce on Wednesday. Besides the series, a companion documentary also inspired by the book will be produced for the service. Both the series and doc will premiere in 2022. Gates will
Sony Pictures Television has confirmed the long-rumored acquisition of U.K. independent production outfit Bad Wolf. Bad Wolf’s credits include “His Dark Materials,” “Industry,” “The Night Of,” “A Discovery of Witches” and “I Hate Suzie.” Sony has taken a majority stake in the company, which includes buying out the minority stakes held in Bad Wolf by
After hosting the 2021 ceremony, comedian and “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah is back to host the 2022 Grammy Awards. Noah made the announcement on CBS Wednesday morning with Gayle King. “It was fun, it was really, really fun. It was a great team. I was just lucky to be a part of it. We
Spotify has unveiled its annual 2021 Wrapped campaign — where users can see the music they listened to the most all year — and with that comes the top artists, albums, songs, playlists and podcasts on the world’s largest streaming service, with more than 381 million total users. The full charts are below, but first,
Pascal Le SegretainGetty Images This week, as the fashion world and social media writ large mourned the death of streetwear icon Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White and artistic director of menswear for Louis Vuitton, the French luxury house was in the midst of planning its men’s runway show in Miami during Art Basel. What was
Opening this year’s Horizons of Arab Cinema section at the Cairo Film Festival, the omnibus film “Becoming” shows just how far the Saudi filmmaking community has come in supporting female filmmakers. Playing in an Out-of-Competition slot, directors Sara Mesfer, Fatima Al Banawi, Jawaher Alamri, Hind Al Fahhad and Noor Alameer collaborated to create this 70-minute
Actor Alec Baldwin has given his first in-studio interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos following the tragedy that occurred on the set his movie “Rust” in October. The actor sat down on Tuesday with Stephanopoulos, who described the one hour twenty minute discussion as “raw” and “intense.” “I’ve done thousands of interviews in the last twenty
In a broad sweep of platform pick-ups, Netflix, Warner Media’s HBO Max and Movistar Plus, Telefonica’s pay TV/SVOD service in Spain, have all acquired drama thriller “High Tide” (“Marea Alta”). From Argentine writer-director Veronica Chen, the feature premiered in World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Pay TV service SomosTV has taken
TRAILER Variety has been given exclusive access to the international trailer for “Into Dust,” an upcoming dramatic short from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel (“Virunga,” “The White Helmets”) produced by Grain Media, Rideback and Fuse Entertainment. The short will launch this Friday on streaming platform WaterBear and be available to watch on Apple TV
PRE-SINGAPORE SALES ITV Studios, the commercial arm of the U.K.’s commercial TV network ITV, has struck a raft of sales and pre-sales deals ahead of the Asia Television Forum & Market that launched Wednesday in Singapore.“The Ipcress File,” a spy thriller from Altitude Film Entertainment, was licensed to Now TV in Hong Kong and the
Brazilian Gregorio Graziosi’s “Tinnitus” is co-written by Andrés Julian Vera and Marco Dutra, a Locarno best director winner for “Good Manners”; its DP is Rui Poças, whose credits include Lucrecia Martel’s “Zama” and upcoming “Tabu.” Its score is from David Boulter, who played keyboard on Claire Denis’ “Bastards,” collaborated on the score of her “High
Legendary Croatian-born NBA player Dražen Petrović will be portrayed in Danilo Šerbedžija’s upcoming biopic film “Higher Force – The Drazen Petrovic Story” (working title). The film was penned by Ivan Turkovic Krnjak (“Lovebox”) and is being produced by Ljubo Zdjelarević and Ivor Šiber at Zagreb-based Kinoteka. The film will shoot next year in Croatia, Germany,
“Now, we’re producing over 100 projects, we’ve calculated we’ll be working on nearly 130 projects next year to supply both our platform networks,” The Walt Disney Company LatAm’s Leonardo Aranguibel commented at a Ventana Sur panel on Tuesday. How can Disney try to ensure quality at such a massive production levels? “We look for the
Buenos Aires-based sales agency Meikincine has acquired the international rights to “Sublime,” the first feature film from Argentine director Mariano Biasin, A coming-of-age drama, the title screened at Buenos Aires’ Cinemark Puerto Madero cinema to sales agents, fest heads and buyers on Tuesday. It did so as part of Ventana Sur’s Copia Final pix-in-post section,
The European Film Awards scheduled to have been held in Berlin, Germany, on Dec. 11 will no longer take place as an in-person event. The 34th European Film Awards ceremony was previously re-formatted as a distanced live event, with attendance limited to nominees and award recipients. “Due to the ongoing and unexpected developments of the
Sport 24 has signed a three-year extension deal with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to broadcast the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The agreement also includes the UEFA Super Cup, which sees the respective Champions League and Europa League winners battle it out for the top prize, and the new UEFA
BandLab Technologies, a Singapore-based venture capital fund that owns historic music media title NME, will reorganize itself under the new name Caldecott Music Group. Headed by Kuok Meng Ru, scion of one of Singapore’s most famous business families, the company will operate under three divisions: tech, media, and retail. The BandLab Technologies name will be
A property that has been featured in HBO’s third season of “Succession” has just sold for $45 million. The mansion is located in the town in the hamlet of Wainscot in New York State. The sellers are David Susser, an aerospace and defense entrepreneur, and his wife, Marla Susser. Viewers of “Succession” saw the house
Jimmy Kimmel offered an impassioned defense of Dr. Anthony Fauci during his opening monologue on Tuesday evening’s episode of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” “If you’ve been watching Fox News, you know that the real enemy isn’t the virus or the do-my-own-research geniuses who refuse to get the vaccine. The real enemy is Dr. Fauci,” Kimmel
Megan Thee Stallion has canceled her upcoming concert in her hometown of Houston, Tex. “out of respect” for the victims of Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival. Megan’s concert was originally set to take place on Friday. In early November, Astroworld turned tragic during Scott’s set when the crowd of 50,000 people surged, resulting in a