After four years as a co-host on “The View,” Meghan McCain said goodbye to the ABC daytime show on Friday. Her last day on the long-running chat show included discussions of whether or not it is justifiable to break off friendships over a refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19, a conversation with U.S. Senator Kyrsten
Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has taken El Rey Network — once a linear cable TV channel — and reformatted the Latino-focused brand for the streaming era in partnership with Cinedigm. Launched in 2013, El Rey Network at its peak reached over 40 million households stocked with a range of English-language scripted and unscripted programming catering to
Tiffany Haddish has joined the National Comedy Center’s advisory board of the directors. She fills the seat formerly held by the late Carl Reiner. The announcement coincides with Lucille Ball’s 110th birthday. The center is located in Ball’s hometown of Jamestown, New York. “Comedy is a true art form — its artists deserve to be
After unveiling it during a performance at Boston’s Fenway Park on Tuesday, Guns N’ Roses have released “Absurd,” their first official new song since their 2008 album “Chinese Democracy.” However, to call the song “new” is a relative term: The song, formerly called “Silkworms,” has been knocking around for two decades and was reportedly written
After Joseph Gordon-Levitt finished his spec script for “Mr. Corman,” the Apple TV Plus series about a young man with musical aspirations who struggles with anxiety, he showed it to director Rian Johnson. The two have collaborated on such projects as “Looper” and “Knives Out” and have come to know each other well. So well,
Bertelsmann’s Luxembourg-based media giant RTL Group has declared its 2021 half-yearly results and is projecting revenues at its content arm Fremantle to grow to €3 billion ($3.52 billion) by 2025 after a pandemic-affected 2020. The RTL Group has interests in 67 television channels, 10 streaming platforms and 38 radio stations. The group’s content business, Fremantle,
It’s 3 p.m. on a beautiful Southern California day and Barbra Streisand is in bed. “I’m still in my nightie,” she says. “I love being in my bed.” Of course, her dogs — Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett — are by her side. “They take their naps in my bed,” Streisand tells me on today’s
“The Suicide Squad” opened to $4.1 million in Thursday night previews, bolstered by strong reviews and the wider world of fandom’s mania for all things James Gunn. Theater owners are hoping that the very R-rated comic book film will provide a much-needed jolt to the box office after concerns about the Delta variant and new
Highly-anticipated mainland Chinese film “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” which was due to have been released later this month has been postponed to an unspecified date. The move, announced late on Thursday, was caused by a recent resurgence in COVID-19 cases in China. The film is a Korean War epic that is co-directed by Chen
The list of what surprises Gale Anne Hurd in the entertainment business is a very short one, and the backlash to the legal battle between Scarlett Johansson and the Walt Disney Company certainly isn’t on it. Hurd has been a driving force behind some of the biggest films ever made (“The Terminator,” “Aliens” and “Armageddon”) and
Highly-anticipated mainland Chinese film “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” which was due to have been released later this month has been postponed to an unspecified date. The move, announced late on Thursday, was caused by a recent resurgence in COVID-19 cases in China. The film is a Korean War epic that is co-directed by Chen
In 2018, Aimee Mann revealed she was working on songs for a planned “Girl, Interrupted” stage musical, to be based on Susannah Kaysen’s memoir, which was adapted into a 1999 film. The musical isn’t destined to land any time soon, but the music pegged for it will, in the form of “Queens of the Summer
After going fully virtual in 2020, the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) returns with a hybrid lineup of screenings Aug. 6-22. The festival will open Aug. 6 with Ryoo Seung-wan’s South Korean action-drama “Escape From Mogadishu,” which depicts the perilous escape attempt by Korean embassy workers stranded during the onset of the civil war
Gordon Lam and Ann Hui, recipients of Variety honors at the New York Asian Film Festival, could scarcely be more different. Actor-turned producer Lam, who is receiving Variety Star Asia Award is ebullient and busy. Hui, for all her renown in Asia and Europe as a top director, is quiet and unassuming. She will be
Actress and now debuting director, writer and composer Aurélie Saada pours a tremendous amount of personal nostalgia into “Rose,” a feature steeped in love for her North African Jewish roots, from music (all written by Saada) to food — the credits even include her recipe for “makroud,” a date-filled cookie. The film stars Françoise Fabian
French director Axelle Ropert makes an unwise shift from sprightly comedy (“Miss and the Doctors,” “The Apple of My Eye”) to faux-naive artificiality with “Petite Solange,” a tiresome divorce drama seen through the eyes of an adolescent girl. Though clearly meant as a refreshing, femme-centric throwback to a style of filmmaking that petered out in
Most fans have a favorite Beatle, but there’s not much debate about which Beatles solo album is the best: George Harrison’s epic “All Things Must Pass.” Released in November 1970, just seven months after the group’s breakup was belatedly confirmed, it has become synonymous with the concept of suppressed brilliance. Since he first landed a
Warner Bros. International Television Production Germany (WBITVP Germany) has acquired the exclusive international rights to bestselling Icelandic author Ragnar Jónasson’s “Dark Iceland” series of crime novels and will co-produce with Herbert L. Kloiber’s Night Train Media. The “Dark Iceland” series comprises six novels — “Snowblind,” “Blackout,” “Rupture,” “Whiteout,” “Nightblind” and “Winterkill” — published between 2010
New Locarno Film Festival artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, who is the former head of the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, is starting to put his stamp on the Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema with a lineup comprising comedies and genre films alongside more straightforward auteur cinema, driven by a desire to make the
24 companies, all but five launched last decade, descend on Locarno from Aug. 6, mostly in person, to present their production slates. Every market in international is its own story. So the projects they bring run a huge gamut. Following, a quick drill down on the companies and their banner titles. A second article, published
Stefan Ruzowitzky, who won an Oscar for “The Counterfeiters,” is at the Locarno Film Festival on Friday for the world premiere in the iconic Piazza Grande venue of his crime thriller “Hinterland.” He speaks to Variety about the film, which Beta Cinema is selling worldwide. “Hinterland” centers on a former Austrian prisoner of war, Peter
Fast emerging as a go-to company for high-profile Chilean and women director titles, Buenos Aires boutique agency Meikincine has swooped on “My Brothers Dream Awake,” ahead of its world premiere at Switzerland’s Locarno Festival on Saturday. Competing in Cineasti del Presente, a section reserved for emerging filmmakers from around the world, “My Brothers Dream Awake”
Distributor Trinity CineAsia has acquired Donnie Yen-starring action film “Raging Fire” from Emperor Motion Pictures for the U.K. and Ireland. The film debuted at the top of the box office last weekend in China, where it grossed $37.2 million in the three-day period, and led sales since, grossing $56.8 million in its opening week. It’s
High-flying Spanish outfit Filmika Galaika has boarded Gabriel Azorín’s poetic, time-blending “Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes”(“Anoche conquisté Tebas”), a buzz title at the Locarno Festival Match Me forum. A networking platform for up-and-coming producers, and a few who have pretty much arrived, Match Me runs on-site at Switzerland’s Locarno Festival over Aug.
London-based sales agency Film Republic has picked up Peter Brunner’s “Luzifer,” which will feature next week in competition at the Locarno Film Festival. The film stars Franz Rogowski, who toplined Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life,” and is produced by Austrian auteur Ulrich Seidl. In “Luzifer,” which is based on the reimagining of a true story,
The U.K. government has unveiled a £750 million ($1.04 billion) insurance scheme to help music and live events affected by COVID restrictions. The Live Events Reinsurance Scheme, delivered in partnership with the Lloyds banking group, will see the government act as a reinsurer – stepping in with a guarantee to make sure insurers can offer
At this year’s edition of Locarno’s Alliance 4 Development, both the future of the selected nine projects, and the co-production market as a whole, will be on the table. The Locarno Film Festival program, which facilitates international co-production for projects from France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, skipped a year due to COVID-19, but is back
If North Korea and South Korea ever reunite and hold a celebratory film festival, “Escape from Mogadishu” is a sure thing for selection. Based on the amazing true story of embassy staff from both countries joining forces to escape probable death in the civil war-ravaged Somali capital in 1991, this propulsive and intelligently written South
It makes sense that one of the protagonists of “Materna” is a fan of Jean-Pierre Melville’s existential neo-noir “Le Samouraï,” given that David Gutnik’s feature debut is itself a tapestry of modern alienation and disaffection. Charting the plights of four women whose paths eventually cross on a New York City subway train, Gutnik’s fragmented feature
After an epic buildup — starting with a cryptic statement about “the dawn,” back in May, then some social media teases, then placement in an ad for the Olympics, and then news that it was banned from IMAX theaters — the Weeknd’s new single and video “Take My Breath” has arrived, and it sounds like another