Paramount has delayed its Tom Cruise tentpoles “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Mission: Impossible 7,” amid a surge in the delta variant of COVID-19. “Top Gun: Maverick” will now open in theaters on May 27, 2022, instead of Nov. 19, 2021, while another Cruise-led adventure, “Mission: Impossible 7,” will debut on Sept. 30, 2022, instead of
Sony has pounced on a new release date for “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” pushing the blockbuster sequel from Nov. 11 to Nov. 19. The minor shift came minutes after Paramount took “Top Gun: Maverick” off its Nov. 19 spot and delayed the Tom Cruise tentpole to 2022. With the absence of the action-packed “Top Gun: Maverick,” Sony
Veteran marketing executive Lucinda Martinez has joined Netflix as vice president of multicultural marketing, after more than 20 years with HBO. In this newly created position, Martinez will build a multicultural marketing team and lead Netflix’s targeted marketing efforts to the Latino, Black, Asian, LBGTQ and faith audiences. Martinez begins her new role later this
All products and services featured by Variety are independently selected by Variety editors. However, Variety may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Despite the convenience of digital technology, an increasing number of music fans are turning to – or returning
Julie Plec and Greg Berlanti’s series “The Girls on the Bus” has moved to The CW from Netflix for development, Variety has confirmed. The series is an adaptation of Amy Chozick’s best-selling book “Chasing Hillary,” with Chozick set to co-write the series. Titled “The Girls on the Bus,” the series is inspired largely by the
Following the historic box office success of Nia DaCosta’s horror flick “Candyman,” Jordan Peele and his Monkeypaw Productions banner (behind “Candyman” along with MGM), have inked a new creative TV partnership with Universal Studio Group. The exclusive pact follows Peele’s existing bond with the company, established in 2019 with a Universal Pictures deal to write
Nielsen’s decades-old track record of measuring the TV business was dealt a serious blow Wednesday after an industry organization decided to suspend its backing of the company’s national ratings service and also cancel an agreed-upon hiatus for its support of Nielsen’s local TV efforts as well. The suspension is the latest salvo in a months-long
Variety has announced its 10 Actors to Watch for 2021, an honor the publication has bestowed since 1998. Past honorees include many future Oscar winners and nominees including Mahershala Ali, Timothée Chalamet, Viola Davis, Adam Driver, Brie Larson and Lupita Nyong’o. This year’s honorees will be feted in Oct. 22 issue of Variety as well as at
If you’d like to see what a challenge it was to stage an elaborate Super Bowl Halftime Show during a pandemic, look no further than the forthcoming Showtime documentary on the Weeknd’s dazzling performance during the 2021 game. The brief clip below shows just how much planning went into the performance, which was seen by
There’s a lot riding on “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” the Marvel movie that opens in theaters this weekend, and not because it’s the first installment in the premier film franchise to feature an Asian star and predominately Asian cast. Though it marks an important step in onscreen representation, “Shang-Chi” will also
Elton John has announced the forthcoming release of “The Lockdown Sessions,” an album of collaborations recorded remotely over the last 18 months, out October 22, featuring more than 20 collaborators, including Dua Lipa, Brandi Carlile, Charlie Puth, Eddie Vedder, Gorillaz, Lil Nas X, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, Rina Sawayama, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, Years &
Justin Bieber will perform at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards, where he also scored a leading seven nominations this year. This will be the first time in six years that Bieber takes the stage at the VMAs, set for Sunday, September 12, and hosted by Doja Cat. The show will air live from the
In advance of the Sept. 17 release of his debut full length album “Montero,” Lil Nas X released his full track list and features in a hypnotic video version of his just-released cover art. The album includes the previously released singles “Industry Baby,” “Sun Goes Down” and the title track, although not the seasonal song
WarnerMedia Kids & Family is building out a new family programming block called ACME Night on Cartoon Network, with a Steve Urkel animated musical film among the first projects greenlit. “Did I Do That to the Holidays? A Steve Urkel Story” was announced alongside titles like “Merry Little Batman” and an untitled ”Looney Tunes Cartoons” movie.
Screening this week at Series Mania, “Doce” is a seven-part series about Portugal’s first major girl band. It is a musical odyssey in a country that was undergoing radical transformations in the wake of the 1974 revolution. “Doce” represented Portugal in the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest and were glitzy trailblazers of a new world of
Tom Llamas is ready to leap into an increasingly crowded field for evening news. The NBC News anchor, who previously led a streaming evening program at ABC News, is preparing for the launch of a digital evening endeavor for NBC News, a project he vows will have a kinetic feel and range a little further
HBO Max has finally come to Vizio’s SmartCast platform in the U.S., bringing the WarnerMedia streamer to one of the country’s best-selling TV brands. Consumers who have Vizio SmartCast-enabled televisions and who subscribe to HBO Max will be able to sign into the app to get access to the service’s 13,000-plus hours of premium content.
Billy Porter is following in Whitney Houston’s footsteps. The “Pose” star plays the Fairy Godmother in Amazon’s “Cinderella,” writer-director Kay Cannon’s new take on the classic fairy tale. It’s the same role Houston played in the 1997 TV-movie with Brandy in the title role. “My 14-year-old sissy self is doing backflips, spinning around like the
From the outset of Amazon Studios’ new “Cinderella” movie, writer-director Kay Cannon welcomes audiences into a fantasy unlike any before it, putting a glimmering girl-boss gloss on the oft-adapted fairy tale. In this heightened unreality, characters can break into song with a Janet Jackson chart-topper as easily as they belt out a new Broadway-style power
Effie T. Brown, Gabrielle Union and Taraji P. Henson are joining forces to bring the fantasy graphic novel “Sorcerority” to the big screen. Brown’s Gamechanger Films secured the rights to the fantasy novel by Mikhail Sebastian and George Watson earlier this year, and subsequently partnered with Union’s I’ll Have Another Productions and Henson’s TPH Entertainment
The BBC has evacuated a third of its staff and their families from Afghanistan with the help of U.K. government and military. The hundreds of evacuees are now being supported by the corporation and government in the U.K., where they are being processed as refugees. A senior BBC source told Variety last week that the
Reed Birney, the stage and screen veteran best known for his Tony-winning turn in “The Humans,” has joined the packed cast of Mark Mylod’s “.” The Searchlight Pictures dark comedy has already lined up an impressive ensemble of heavyweight talent, including the previously announced Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes. The rest of the cast includes
Celebrating its 48th edition, the Telluride Film Festival announced its official programming selections, which include world premieres of Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” Mike Mills’ “C’mon C’mon,” Joe Wright’s “Cyrano” and Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “King Richard.” Also on the docket are Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter,” Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand
“The Show,” as the Telluride Film Festival programmers refer to its annual feature program, is back this year with a wide array of documentary award season contenders. Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe, Jacques Cousteau, Anthony Fauci, Francisco Fellove and the Velvet Underground are the subjects of various docus in this year’s lineup. The nonfiction lineup also
With a busted lip and a bursting heart, an arm gone weirdly numb and pounding feet punishing a pair of pink Nikes throughout, Marija, as played by breakout Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė, bears “Runner” aloft from frantic start to fraught finish like an Olympic torch. An 87-minute-long anxiety attack masquerading as a movie — but in
L.A.’s Rich and Successful Film Festival launches Sept. 4, starting at 1 p.m., at the Lumiere Music Hall in Beverly Hills. The festival spotlights work by independent filmmakers who live in Los Angeles County. Indie production company Sogbots, which is presenting the fest, said there were more than 100 submissions, and there will be 14
The summer of George may have passed them by, but at least “Seinfeld” arrives on Netflix well ahead of Festivus, or television fans may have had a lot of grievances to air this year. All 180 episodes of the classic 1990s sitcom are launching Oct. 1 on the streaming giant. “Larry [David] and I are
The television adaptation of the hit video game series “Life Is Strange” is enlisting music star Shawn Mendes and Anonymous Content. The TV version of the Square Enix games hails from Legendary Television and dj2 Entertainment, with Anonymous Content now also producing. Anonymous and Legendary will serve as co-studios, with Legendary as the lead studio.
Every generation rolls their eyes at the one after (who inevitably roll theirs back), but the striking thing about Dina Duma’s “Sisterhood,” which plants its eerily atmospheric growing-pains drama deep into Macedonian Gen-Z culture and lights it up with phone screens and insta posts, is how depressingly little the pressures of coming of age have
Michael B. Jordan’s upcoming college basketball showcase, spotlighting men’s teams from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) added Turner Sports and Invesco QQQ as partners. The newly named Invesco QQQ Legacy Classic will take place on Saturday, Dec. 18, at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. TNT will televise the doubleheader competition between Hampton University