After a year lost to the pandemic, the New York Comedy Festival returned to live performances with its fifteenth annual star-studded Stand Up for Heroes benefit on Monday nights. And one of the biggest laughs came from a meandering joke about a “voodoo penis” delivered by a 72-year-old amateur. Well, the guy’s not a professional
Four-time Grammy winning singer-songwriter-producer Missy Elliott was honored Monday with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ciara and Lizzo (pictured below, filming Elliott’s acceptance speech on their phones) were among those to introduce Elliott at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce ceremony — fittingly, Elliott’s star was placed outside the new location of the giant
Ubiquitous dating app Tinder has hired its first ever content executive, Variety can report exclusively. After getting its feet wet with the successful “Swipe Night,” an interactive series where users choose plot outcomes, Tinder has recruited former NBCUniversal exec Jaime Freedman as vice president of content. Freedman will be responsible for building out a strategy
Michael Lewis, co-founder and former CEO of 3D cinema pioneer RealD, has been named chairman of the board of Campfire, a tech startup focused on advanced holographic collaboration for the enterprise market. Lewis’s appointment as Campfire chairman follows a “significant” investment in the startup by Alchemi Project, a company he formed to support businesses and
Julia Mayorga will star opposite Katie Holmes in “Rare Objects.” Holmes not only stars in the film, she will produce and direct the movie. She also co-wrote its screenplay. Mayorga is fresh off her first big breakout role in Showtime’s “American Rust,” a critically-acclaimed family drama in which she stars in alongside Jeff Daniels, Bill
FILM Netflix is teaming with the Larraín brothers’ indie production outfit Fabula to produce its second Chilean original, a feature-length adaptation of Antonio Skármeta’s “Burning Patience,” sometimes referred to as “The Postman,” adapted by one of Chile’s highest-profile screenwriters in Guillermo Calderón (“The Club,” “Ema,” “Neruda”) and helmed by “Sex With Love” director Boris Quercia.
Actress, producer, philanthropist, investor, NAACP Image Award winner, Emmy nominee, Kerry Washington has always been a leading lady. And her resume just keeps building. Next up: This holiday season, the multi-hyphenate is debuting her third jewelry collection with female-founded sustainable fine jewelry brand Aurate. Featuring Art Deco details, gold finishes, and a touch of topaz,
Profits at Tencent Music Entertainment, China’s largest digital music company, dropped in the third quarter of its financial year as the company felt the impact of the Chinese government’s multiple crackdowns on the tech sector. Net profits in the three months from July to September 2021 fell to RMB788 million ($122 million). That compares with
The Middle East premiere of British director Joe Wright’s dazzling romantic drama “Cyrano” will open the Red Sea Film Festival, which is Saudi Arabia’s first full-fledged film festival and market with international ambitions. The ambitious event, which is a key plank of the kingdom’s plans to diversify its oil-based economy and become a prominent Middle
WarnerMedia France has appointed Stéphane Quéneudec as head of local theatrical production to strengthen its French original productions team. Quéneudec, who has been at the company since 2007 working as vice president for TV and SVOD sales, will be managing and developing the company’s local film production, for release both in cinemas and on HBO
LevelK’s dark comedy “Samuel’s Travels” has sold to Cranked Up Films for North America and the Caribbeans following its world premiere at Fantastic Fest. Directed by Aik Karapetian (People out there, The man in the orange jacket, Firstborn), the Latvian-Belgian movie follows Sam, a foreigner who gets lost in the remotest part of Eastern Europe,
Woodcut International has boarded “(K)nox: The Rob Knox Story,” a feature documentary about the tragic story of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” actor Robert Knox, who was stabbed to death at the age of 18. Woodcut will executive produce the film and act as worldwide distributor. Knox (picture above, left, alongside his mother Sally)
It was the hottest summer on record in Greece, with temperatures regularly soaring past 100 degrees. And in recent months the local film industry has been just as sizzling, with Netflix’s “Knives Out 2” and David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future” among a host of big-budget international productions flocking to the sun-soaked Mediterranean nation. The
Dean Stockwell, an American actor with a career that spanned more than 70 years, died on Sunday. He was 85. Sources representing the actor say that he died peacefully, in his sleep at home. Among his best credits were a leading role in the sci-fi series “Quantum Leap,” “Air Force One” and David Lynch films
Drake has made his first public remarks following the tragic deaths of eight people at Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival on Friday night (Nov. 5), writing on social media, “I’ve spent the past few days trying to wrap my head around this devastating tragedy… My heart is broken for the families and friends of those who
In the past 14 years, Stand Up for Heroes — the annual benefit presented by the Bob Woodruff Foundation and the New York Comedy Festival — has raised $60 million to help veterans, service members and their families overcome whatever hardships they’re facing. “In the beginning, it was a lot of visible wounds, amputation and
The Kardashian-Jenner family has offered their condolences on the tragedy that struck Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival, leaving eight dead and at least 300 injured from a crowd surge during Scott’s performance. Scott shares a three-year-old daughter with Kylie Jenner, and the couple is currently expecting their second child together. The beauty mogul and reality
Post Malone has replaced Travis Scott as a headliner for this weekend’s Day N Vegas festival, promoter AEG announced in social media posts Monday night. Scott, whose career is in crisis as a result of the deadly calamity Friday night at his Astroworld Festival in Houston, had remained on the schedule posted on the Las
“NCIS” paid memorial tribute to longtime staff member and audience liaison Harriet Margulies on Monday night, thanking her for 19 years of service to the show. Margulies Oct. 30 in Northridge, Calif., at age 94, according to CBS. As the audience liaison, she was the go-between Belisarius Productions and the “NCIS” fan base, answering hundreds
This past summer, filmmaker Billy Luther (Navajo, Hopi, and Laguna Pueblo Tribes) headed to New Mexico to film his narrative feature debut, “Frybread Face and Me.” Luther’s previous credits include the documentary “Miss Navajo” and the 2018 reality TV series “Alter-Native.” With “Frybread Face and Me” selected as part of the 2020 Sundance Institute and
The eight victims who died during Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival included a dancer, an aspiring border agent, a student athlete, a computer programming student, a district manager at AT&T, a marketer and a pair of best friends. Ranging in age from 14 to 27, the names of those who died at the Houston festival were
In a virtual awards unveiling, Nashville tunesmith Josh Osborne was named songwriter of the year by the ASCAP Country Music Awards for the first time. The Lee Brice hit “One of Them Girls” picked up a country song of the year trophy for co-writer Ashley Gorley. Sony Music Publishing was named publisher of the year
Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio is in final talks to play religious cult leader Jim Jones in MGM’s upcoming feature, written by Scott Rosenberg, Variety has confirmed. Jones was behind the November 1978 mass suicide at Jonestown that took over 900 lives. MGM secured a deal for the feature project in a preemptive situation, with DiCaprio also producing the
Spoiler alert: This column contains light spoilers about the Nov. 2 episode titled “The Grand Jury.” On the penultimate episode of “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein) closes her testimony before the grand jury in the Clinton perjury case by tearfully declaring “I hate Linda Tripp.” The jury, which had begun its service
ABC is developing a single-camera comedy inspired by the life of Alanis Morissette. Titled “Relatable,” the project hails from co-creators Elizabeth Beckwith and Christopher Moynihan, with Beckwith writing the pilot. Moynihan will serve as showrunner, with both also executive producing. Morissette will executive produce and also pen original music for the show. Willie Mercer and
Aimee Mann’s last album, a Grammy winner in 2018, was bluntly called “Mental Illness.” So where do you go from there? How about a song cycle based on a book set in an actual mental institution? “That’s on-the-nose, I know,” she laughs. “Yeah, there was definitely a part of me thinking, well, this is a
PR veteran Alyssa Schimel has been tapped to help run PR and marketing efforts for Shondaland, Shonda Rhimes’ Netflix-based production operation. Separately, Marco Esquivel has been upped to vice president of creative content. Schimel will serve as vice president of communications and marketing for the company. She’ll steer marketing strategies for all content produced by
Apple TV Plus announced that Edward Norton, Indira Varma, Keri Russell, Cherry Jones and Michael Gandolfini have been cast in “,” Scott Z. Burns upcoming climate change anthology series. Known for his performances in films such as “Motherless Brooklyn” and “Keeping the Faith,” Norton plays a scientist named Jonathan Chopin. He is repped by UTA.
“Insecure” star Jay Ellis was fully prepared to become public enemy number one after Sunday night’s episode aired. Titled “Pressure, Okay?!,” the half hour was dedicated to what happened after Lawrence (Ellis) and Condola (Christina Elmore) welcomed their son and all the drama that comes with co-parenting. “Maybe I can be public enemy number two
Longtime “General Hospital” star Ingo Rademacher is out at the long-running ABC soap opera because he declined to comply with the production’s vaccine mandate. His last episode is scheduled to air on Nov. 22, Variety confirmed. News of his departure comes amid backlash to a transphobic meme and anti-vax sentiment he posted on social media Sunday. Rademacher