While cameras are yet to roll on foreign productions lensing in South Africa — with international flights into the country still banned — production of local soap operas and drama series got a restart in May. That’s given the industry time to test its COVID-19 safety protocols before foreign productions return to the country, which
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sent ripples through the industry Tuesday with the announcement of new diversity and representation requirements for best picture beginning in 2024. Academy CEO Dawn Hudson and president David Rubin, along with producer DeVon Franklin and Paramount chief Jim Gianopulos spoke with Variety about the new initiatives and
The Oscars made a historic move when they announced their new inclusion requirements for best picture eligibility. For some, this was a welcomed change from the Academy, while others found it to be intrusive to the sanctity of movies and the stories that people want to tell. For people like me, it was the single
Check out an official Dune Featurette starring Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson! Let us know what you think in the comments below. ► Sign up for a Fandango FanALERT: https://www.fandango.com/dune-2020-219677/movie-overview?cmp=MCYT_YouTube_Desc Want to be notified of all the latest movie trailers? Subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to stay up to date. US
It’s the final weeks of the presidential race and, as usual, entertainers are getting out the vote for the Democratic nominee. But in Los Angeles, some members of the entertainment community are focused on a race that’s much closer to home. Many celebrities and TV writers are rallying behind Nithya Raman, a Harvard grad and
Universal Television chief Pearlena Igbokwe has been elevated to head of TV content for NBCUniversal as part of the broader shakeup of NBCU’s senior executive ranks. Bonnie Hammer, the NBCU veteran who had been overseeing all TV production, segues into the NBCU vice chairman role that was hastily vacated last month by Ron Meyer. The
Mara Brock Akil has signed an overall deal with Netflix. The news comes just days ahead of the Netflix premiere of Brock Akil’s classic sitcom “Girlfriends,” which will begin streaming on Netflix on Sept. 11. Under the multi-year deal, Brock Akil will write and produce scripted content and other creative projects for Netflix. “It is
Peter Sarsgaard has joined the upcoming Hulu drama series “Dopesick” in a series regular role. The series looks into the epicenter of America’s struggle with Opioid addiction, taking viewers from a distressed Virginia mining community, to the hallways of the DEA, and to the opulence of “one percenter” Big Pharma Manhattan. The eight-episode limited series
The coronavirus pandemic has another casualty: FX’s “Atlanta.” FX Networks and FX Productions chairman John Landgraf previously said “Atlanta” should return with its third season in January 2021, but the pandemic-forced production shutdown has pushed that date. Although he did not yet provide a specific new date, he did share, during a virtual press conference
Rapper, singer and songwriter 24kGoldn (real name: Golden Landis Von Jones) is in a sunny mood. Naturally, the 19-year-old has good reason to smile this season, even though summer is nearly over, as his latest single featuring Iann Dior, “Mood,” has been a surprise hit: with over 110 million streams on Spotify alone since its
Writer and producer J White Did It, whose credits include Cardi B’s “I Like It” and “Bodak Yellow” and Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage” featuring Beyonce, has signed with Milk & Honey Management where he will be represented by manager Chad Wes, GM Nic Warner and founder and president Lucas Keller. Milk & Honey is based
If there are two things that don’t go together, it’s quarantining and queues. Yet beleaguered independent music retailers are offering positive reports on Record Store Day 2020… or, rather, the first of three monthly “Record Store Day Drops” that are belatedly substituting for the major RSD that was to have gone down in April. RSD
Jimmy Kimmel has been a part of my life since the moment I arrived in Los Angeles in 1996 and started listening to him every morning as Jimmy the Sports Guy on KROQ’s “Kevin & Bean Show.” As a radio geek myself, I’ve always loved that Kimmel started in radio, where it’s live; you must
“Parasite” filmmaker Bong Joon Ho is set to produce the immigration drama “Sea Fog” at Participant Media. Matt Palmer, who directed “Calibre,” is writing and directing “Sea Fog,” based on a previous draft by Oren Moverman. “Sea Fog” is based on the 2014 Korean film “Haemoo,” which follows a fishing-boat crew on a dangerous commission
It’s a Thursday afternoon in December, and on the big screen at the Sony scoring stage, swords are flashing, arrows are flying and soldiers in ancient Chinese garb are spinning in midair. Composer Harry Gregson-Williams is conducting a 90-piece orchestra in his score for Disney’s “Mulan” (currently available on Disney Plus), the live-action remake of
Music Box Films has scooped U.S. rights to French auteur Francois Ozon’s “Summer of 85,” a highlight of Cannes 2020’s Official Selection which is set to play at Toronto and San Sebastian film festivals. The film is represented in international markets by the Paris-based company Playtime. “Summer of 85” marks Ozon’s follow up to “By
Saban Films has bought U.S. rights to the dark comedy “Fatman,” starring Mel Gibson, Walton Goggins and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, for release at the end of this year. “Fatman” centers on a neglected and precocious 12-year-old who hires a hitman to kill Santa Claus after receiving a lump of coal in his stocking. Gibson portrays a
Check out the official Dune Trailer starring Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson! Let us know what you think in the comments below. ► Sign up for a Fandango FanALERT: https://www.fandango.com/dune-2020-219677/movie-overview?cmp=MCYT_YouTube_Desc Want to be notified of all the latest movie trailers? Subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon to stay up to date. US
Veteran heavy-metal musician and reality TV star Bret Michaels is looking to rock out of his Westlake Village, Calif., estate. The kerchief-wearing frontman of the 1980s glam-rock band Poison, star of several VH1 dating competition series in the late 2010s, has put an almost $4.5 million price tag on the tropically landscaped Mediterranean spread he
Area 120, Google’s incubator division for experimental projects, has officially opened up Fundo — a platform for YouTubers and other creators to host paid, ticketed virtual experiences — to anyone in the U.S. and Canada. Fundo, as first reported by Variety, has been in beta for the past year with a few hundred “trusted testers,”
Vice Media Group’s Refinery29 has recruited Simone Oliver, a former Facebook exec and New York Times editor, as the women-focused media brand’s global editor-in-chief. Oliver will start at R29 on Sept. 30, 2020, reporting to Vice Media Group chief digital officer Cory Haik. Oliver steps into the role after Refinery29’s previous EIC, Christene Barberich, resigned
The legacy of 2019’s Oscar-winning “Green Book” is living on via different media in the most innovative fashion. Beginning on Sept. 14, a new podcast revisits how African Americans traveled the segregated south during the Jim Crow era. But “Driving the Green Book” is not only a podcast, but an audio guide that will allow
Macro Television Studios, a division of Charles D. King’s multiplatform media company Macro, is bringing on board five new executives amid greater efforts to broaden its focus to include scripted and alternative programming: Inga Dyer as senior vice president of business and legal affairs, Aisha Corpas Wynn as vice president of alternative programming, Ahmadou Seck
Eric Rochant’s spy drama “Le Bureau,” the animated series “The Fox-Badger Family” and the documentary “Cinema through the Eye of Magnum” won France’s 16th Export Awards. Hosted by the promotion organization TV France International, the Export Awards honors the French programs that have yielded the most sales abroad in the categories of animation, documentary and
Outgoing top exec Susan Rovner has made her departure from Warner Bros. official. Rovner, who is expected in the coming days to be named head of television programming at NBCUniversal’s linear channels and Peacock streaming service, sent a memo to the staff of Warner Bros. TV Wednesday confirming that her last day at the studio
“Fargo’s” highly-anticipated fourth season was just one production caught in the crosshairs of the coronavirus pandemic that forced production shutdowns across the globe. With only nine of the 11 episodes produced, original plans for a spring launch (and 2020 Emmy eligibility) were scrapped quickly, but only a few months later cameras were back up for
Despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, BMI closed its fiscal year (which ended June 30) with record revenue and royalty distributions. The company generated $1.311 billion in revenue, a $28 million increase over the previous year and distributed and administered $1.233 billion to its affiliated songwriters, composers and publishers, 3% or $37 million more
Gorillaz, the nearly 20-year-old music and animation project from Blur cofounder Damon Albarn and illustrator Jamie Hewlett, has announced the latest installment of its “Song Machine” project, a 17-song installment — which they are pointedly not calling an album — featuring guest performances from Beck, Elton John, The Cure’s Robert Smith, Fatoumata Diawara, St. Vincent,
Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn are starring in the Holocaust drama “One Life,” centered on the life of humanitarian Nicholas George Winton. Both actors will portray Winton, who championed the rescue of Czech children threatened with deportation to Hitler’s death camps to the safety of British foster families. He succeeded in rescuing 669 children before
The National Board of Review announced Wednesday it was shifting dates for its annual prizes from November 2020 to Jan. 26, 2021. The new date aligns itself with qualifying Oscar films. In a statement, the NBR extended its eligibility period saying: “Films will be eligible if screened by the NBR and released either theatrically or