Michael Bay’s Netflix action thriller “6 Underground” has received a financial rebate from the Malaysian authorities as recompense for the visual effects work it purchased in the country. While the country has operated a location incentive program for film and TV production in the country since 2013, this is the first time that a film
Long-time NBCUniversal executive Jeff Wachtel has left the company, Variety has confirmed. He most recently served as president of NBCUniversal International Studios. Variety understands that Wachtel’s departure follows some issues pertaining to respect in the workplace, after which it was agreed that Wachtel would leave the company. It’s believed a search for his replacement is
The U.K.’s £500 million ($648 million) insurance scheme is finally going live. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden and Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced Friday that the hotly anticipated government-backed Film and TV Production Restart Scheme is formally launching following state aid approval from the European Union. It’s expected the scheme — which provides compensation for future coronavirus-related
Italian sales company Vision Distribution has scored sales on soccer icon doc “My Name Is Francesco Totti” by Roman director Alex Infascelli (“S Is for Stanley”) to Sky for the U.K. and Germany, ahead of its Rome Film Festival world premiere on Saturday. The deal, which sees the high-profile doc start its international journey, was
Cooper Raiff’s “S—house” is perhaps the only movie for which I would pay double the price of admission just to see a montage of how all the theaters in America that have booked this puckishly named indie choose to represent its title. With symbols, like the movie poster (i.e. “S#!%house”)? Censored with asterisks or dashes,
Few companies in the global television industry have been better placed than Netflix to take advantage of the surge in demand for premium international content. But when it comes to the explosion in programming from outside of Hollywood, the company’s former VP of international originals Erik Barmack admitted on Thursday, “We didn’t see it coming.”
Play video content Exclusive TMZ.com Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins says there’s no doubt the industry abandoned TLC after the death of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, but she wants to make it clear she’s got no beef with anyone … except maybe one guy. T-Boz — one half of the popular girl group which still includes Rozanda
When the coronavirus pandemic arrived in Hollywood earlier this year, shutting down productions and throwing the industry into chaos, not even veteran TV executive Michael Ellenberg, the former HBO head of drama responsible for commissioning iconic series such as “Westworld,” “Big Little Lies,” “True Detective,” and “The Leftovers,” could have predicted such a robust, industry-wide
Writer-director Julia Hart (“Fast Color”) has seen more crime films than she can count, and she has concluded that these movies have a bad habit of underutilizing their female characters — the girlfriends and wives who get shunted to the side when the going gets tough. It’s bad form for reviews to quote from press
As the official White House photographer, Pete Souza had an unprecedented view of President Reagan and President Obama. Souza was everywhere, but it wasn’t until 2017 that he started sharing his work through Instagram and providing a window into the Oval Office and how Obama led the country. He provided perspective. In a new documentary,
It’s easy to think of Tom Petty’s 1994 “solo album,” “Wildflowers,” as a cult record — the underdog in a catalog full of bigger and brasher choices, revered for its willingness to forgo the classic Heartbreakers band sound in favor of more abundantly acoustic textures, and for letting down the good-time veil for more personal
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched “Gimme Shelter,” the 15th episode of “Supernatural’s” final season. With only a handful of episodes left before The CW’s long-running demon-hunting drama “Supernatural” signs off for good, every line of dialogue, every frame of footage and every decision — from guest star casting to guest
President Trump wanted to run and ramble. Savannah Guthrie wouldn’t let him. In what may be the performance of a career, the popular “Today” anchor kept a tight rein on the proceedings of a controversial town-hall event in Miami with President Donald Trump that put the network’s parent, NBCUniversal, in the cross-hairs of critics and
President Trump and Joe Biden offered starkly different visions for the country and a sharp contrast in leadership styles on Thursday as the presidential contenders took part in dueling town halls on NBC and ABC. NBC’s hourlong event with Trump drew strong criticism from the entertainment industry and many others who saw it as a
Vaughn McClure, a member of ESPN’s National Football League coverage team since 2013, died at his home near Atlanta this week. He was 48. ESPN announced Vaughn’s death. No cause of death was given. McClure covered the Atlanta Falcons team as part of NFL Nation. He covered the team during its run to Super Bowl
Paul Frank, a producer and TV executive who worked at Columbia TriStar TV, the Firm and Prospect Park, died Sept. 30 at the age of 53. Frank died at his home in Los Angeles of what family members believe was a heart attack. He was the son of Rich Frank, former Walt Disney Studios president,
Exclusive Lil Yachty ruined a man’s chances to watch a Juice WRLD tribute when the rapper and his boys beat the crap out of him … according to a new lawsuit. Jimmy Quivac is suing Yachty claiming he and his crew pummeled him as he was heading inside the Rolling Loud Festival last December to
In today’s TV News Roundup, Netflix announced the premiere date for “Bridgerton,” and HBO unveiled the trailer for the second season of “His Dark Materials.” DATES MTV announced the return of “Jersey Shore Family Vacation” with back-to-back episodes premiering Nov. 19. Following the dramatic events of the Season 3 finale, the reality show will kick off with
Campbell: Thierry Chesnot/GEtty Images; remaining Images: Imaxtree. Kenneth Ize was in Venice when we spoke in mid-September, his first time venturing outside Nigeria after nearly seven months in quarantine. The 29-year-old onetime LVMH Prize finalist, who made his fall 2020 debut in Paris to much fanfare, was putting the finishing touches on his spring 2021
Twitter users reported broad problems accessing the service Thursday afternoon across the U.S., Europe and other parts of the world. A notice posted on Twitter’s status page at 5:56 p.m. ET said the company was “Investigating Irregularity with Twitter APIs.” “We know people are having trouble tweeting and using Twitter,” a company rep told Variety.
Can’t remember the name of a song, but you can hum a few bars? Google has felt your pain — and now has a solution to this particular first-world problem. The company today announced “hum to search,” which lets users hum, whistle or sing a melody to the Google app, which then tries to track
Armie Hammer isn’t quite sure how far along development is on the “Call Me by Your Name” sequel. “I still haven’t seen a script,” the actor told Variety on Wednesday while promoting his new Netflix movie “Rebecca.” “I don’t know if there is a script and they’re just not giving it to me or if
Disney Plus has added a new content warning label on several classic animated movies, including “Peter Pan,” “Dumbo,” “Fantasia” and “Lady and the Tramp.” Last year, the streaming service added content warnings to content considered to have outdated depictions that appeared as a smaller text box on screen. The updated disclosure appears when a user
George Clooney and Grant Heslov are developing John Grisham’s baseball-themed novel “Calico Joe” as a movie with Clooney attached to direct. Clooney and Heslov will also produce under their Smokehouse Pictures banner alongside Bob Dylan’s Grey Water Park Productions. The script’s development is being financed by ZQ Entertainment, the newly-launched production company from former CAA agent
The increasingly Hollywood-friendly RedBird Capital Partners is making a big splash on the West Coast. The private investment firm is opening a Los Angeles shop with a big new hire as anchor, the veteran Goldman Sachs executive Andy Gordon, who will join the company as a partner in the first quarter of 2021. Recent RedBird
Range Media Partners has signed Gabrielle Union. The actress, producer, bestselling author and activist is the latest to join the upstart management company, which launched in September under Peter Micelli and a group of high-profile agents from CAA, UTA and WME. The move is unsurprising as Union, recently named one of Time magazine’s 100 most
Though he’s just 25, French songwriter and record producer Alex Petit — better-known in the hip-hop music community as CashMoneyAP — already drives a new Bentley SUV and just dropped $1.8 million on his very first home, a five-bedroom structure in L.A.’s wealthy but oft-overlooked San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Tarzana. But Petit can well
Filmmaker Elegance Bratton, a Marine Corps veteran and Sundance Film Festival alum, is set to direct the documentary “Hellfighters.” The film chronicles the life of James Reese Europe, an African American jazz pioneer who served as a lieutenant during World War I in the Black military unit known as the Harlem Hellfighters. “As a veteran
Don’t be fooled by the cheery ring of the Disney-esque title “The Kid Detective.” Severely misrepresenting the mature essence of writer and first-time director Evan Morgan’s smart crime caper, this innocent-sounding name might just be the result of poor creative judgment. Then again, it might also be purposely designed to pull the rug out from
“Ratched” racked up the views in its first week on Netflix. Ryan Murphy’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” prequel series injected itself at the top of Nielsen’s latest streaming ranker for the week Sept. 14 (“Ratched” premiered on the 18th). The show dethroned “Cobra Kai,” which had been the most-viewed program in streaming for