Underscoring the enduring popularity of crime drama, Abacus Media Rights (AMR), an Amcomri Entertainment company, has announced a slew of sales on two titles, led by Showmax Original “Catch Me a Killer,” a true crime drama with “Game of Thrones’” Charlotte Hope playing South Africa’s first and most famous serial killer profiler. Hope also headed “The
Picking up on Berlinale Series Market hits, such as “Lost Boys & Fairies,” and teasing some of the big main competition swings at Series Mania – “Apples Never Fall,” “Rematch,” “So Long, Marianne” – the 2024 London TV Screenings are a powerhouse showcase of some of the biggest TV highlights of 2024, plus the trends
With her ninth album “This Is Me…Now,” Jennifer Lopez promised to be more honest and vulnerable than ever before — a bookend to 2002’s “This Is Me…Then” in which she would “tell her side” of the romances that for decades have been one-dimensionally splashed across the pages of tabloids worldwide. Even as a lifelong fan,
Universal Music Group has announced a majority investment in the Nigeria-based Afrobeats powerhouse label Mavin Global (Mavin). The label, based in Lagos, is home to such hits as Rema’s “Calm Down” — the Selena Gomez-featuring remix of which was No. 12 on Variety’s 2023 Hitmakers chart and is the most-viewed video on YouTube by an
Of all the shows that have sought or earned comparisons to “Game of Thrones,” most have emulated its genre conventions. From “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” to “Foundation,” fantasy and science fiction series have thrived in recent years, riding on the momentum of a blockbuster hit that proved lore and maps
Pharrell Williams has announced the fourth annual Black Ambition Prize Competition is now open for applications for the 2024 prize cycle. Black Ambition is a non-profit initiative, created by Williams, that aims to provide a bridge to success for Black and Latinx entrepreneurs who are launching tech, design, healthcare and consumer products services start-ups. In
Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries has set up “Jockular,” a podcast from three queer best friends Katie Kershaw, Tien Tran and E.R. Fightmaster — who, along with their guests, will discuss all things queer, trans and women-forward in the world of sports. “Jockular” will dispense “equal doses of sports commentary, cultural criticism and light-hearted gossip,” per
Swiss investment firm Crédit des Alpes is launching a new film financing division called The Film Bond, which offers an online tool that it claims reduces standard costs of completion bonds that most indie producers need to get their projects off the ground. A completion bond is simply a guarantee that a film’s production will
Timothée Chalamet first revealed in September 2022 that his “Don’t Look Up” co-star Leonardo DiCaprio once gave him brief but essential career advice: “No hard drugs and no superhero movies.” DiCaprio has never gone down the comic book movie route, and it’s a path Chalamet has also avoided so far despite the majority of his
Fresh off the Sundance-winning “Girls Will Be Girls,” Indian actor-producers Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal have unveiled a further slate from their Pushing Buttons Studios. Directed by Shuchi Talati, “Girls Will Be Girls” is the debut production from Pushing Buttons Studios, in collaboration with Crawling Angels, Blink Digital and Dolce Vita Films. It bowed at
Los Angeles-based duo the Driver Era is hitting the road for a 17-city tour across North America. With over three albums to date, brothers Ross and Rocky Lynch will again begin touring on April 2 in Pittsburgh’s Roxian Theatre and hit venues in New York, New Jersey, Quebec and more before wrapping in Toronto on
Pankaj Udhas, the Indian singer renowned as an exponent of the ghazal form of musical poetry, died in Mumbai after a prolonged illness. He was 72. Udhas’ daughter Nayaab revaled the news via an Instagram post: “With a very heavy heart, we are saddened to inform you of the sad demise of Padmashri Pankaj Udhas
The upcoming Lucasfilm theatrical release “The Mandalorian & Grogu” is one of 15 films to secure an estimated $61 million in 2024 production tax incentives through California’s Film and Television Tax Credit Program. The California Film Commission touted Disney’s “Mandalorian & Grogu” as the biggest-budget movie to ever qualify for state’s tax program, which distributes
MTV Staying Alive Foundation, Paramount Global and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have partnered on “In Bloom,” a short film anthology focusing on gender equity. Directed by emerging female filmmakers from Nigeria, Kenya, India, the U.S. and Brazil, the anthology addresses a range of issues including period poverty, child marriage, gender-based violence, HIV self-
Style Points is a weekly column about how fashion intersects with the wider world. The other night, Monica Lewinsky was en route to a work dinner and realized she was going to have to do that very L.A. thing: turn her car into her own personal dressing room. As she puts it, “If you’re going
The Match Factory has revealed multiple distribution deals for two Berlinale competition titles: German director Matthias Glasner‘s “Dying,” which won the festival’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, and Russian director Victor Kossakovsky‘s documentary “Architecton.” “Dying,” which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, also picked up the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas and the
UPPING THE ANTE France’s Canal+ Group said that it has increased its stake in multi-territory Asian streaming platform Viu to 30%. “This additional investment underlines the confidence that Canal+ has in Viu and its teams. It also highlights the determination of Canal+ to make Asia its next growth vector, through its strategic partnership with PCCW,
The age rating for the 1964 “Mary Poppins” has been increased in the U.K. due to “discriminatory language.” On Friday, the British Board of Film Classification upped the Disney movie’s cinema rating from U, meaning it contained “no material likely to offend or harm,” to PG for “discriminatory language.” In a statement to Variety, a
Whoopi Goldberg, famed EGOT and business mogul, is adding another entry to her résumé: streaming entrepreneur. Goldberg is an equity investor in Blkfam, billed as the first and only Black-owned and Black-focused family streaming platform. The free, ad-supported service launches Feb. 26 across multiple platforms. At launch, Blkfam’s content library includes more than 20 syndicated
When the film biz jetset lands at O.R Tambo airport for this week’s 6th Joburg Film Festival they’d be amazed by a little-known story of how the airport’s namesake was the mastermind behind a plan to recruit ordinary British working-class volunteers to travel to South Africa and detonate pamphlet bombs in the 1970s during the
“La Cocina,” the Rooney Mara-starring drama that recently bowed in competition at the Berlinale, has been acquired for most international territories. HanWay Films has closed sales for France (Originals Factory), Australia and New Zealand (Vendetta), Spain (Avalon), Italy (Teodora Film), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Scandinavia (Mis. Label), Poland (Monolith), Romania (Bad Unicorn), Baltics (Acme), Czech
Hybe, the Korean entertainment group behind BTS, saw revenues and profits both grow by more than a fifth in 2023 as album sales doubled and post-COVID conditions allowed more concerts. The company Monday reported annual revenues of KRW2.17 trillion ($1.63 billion), up 23% compared with 2022. Net profits reached KRW187 million, more that three times
Steven Moffat began working on his new limited series “Douglas Is Cancelled” in 2018, before most people — Moffat included — had even heard of the term “cancel culture.” It was only later he realized his story — about a distinguished news anchor whose life is turned upside down when an unguarded comment goes viral
“The Man With the Crooked Arm,” a Western drama series created by Perivi Katjavivi that was presented at the Berlinale Co-Production Market, is the latest attempt by the Namibian filmmaker to wrestle with the legacy of German colonialism in his southern African nation. The eight-episode limited series follows a notorious Black cowboy who sets off
Horror film “The Voices of Our Mother,” headlined by Sheila McCarthy (“Women Talking”), has wrapped principal photography. The film is written and directed by Mark O’Brien, who is also an actor, with his most recent credit being Atom Egoyan’s Toronto and Berlinale selection “Seven Veils.” It tells the story of a family who is brought
Following on the heels of a successful post-pandemic reboot one year ago, the Joburg Film Festival kicks off its sixth edition on Feb. 27, with the glitzy capital of South Africa’s media and entertainment industry showcasing a selection of top talents from the host country and across the African continent. The event opens with the
The nights were dark and stormy for many of the days on the five-week call sheet of “Death of a Whistleblower” but although South African director Ian Gabriel personally detests night shoots, he pushed through since his latest conspiracy thriller about cover-ups and a journalist’s dogged pursuit of the truth simply wouldn’t have felt the
The four strongest Chinese titles that launched over the Lunar New Year holidays continued to dominate the mainland China and global office charts for a third successive weekend, albeit with a change of order that put Zhang Yimou’s “Article 20” in top spot. Global box office tracking service ComScore showed “Article 20,” “Pegasus 2,” “YOLO”
The four strongest Chinese titles that launched over the Lunar New Year holidays continued to dominate the mainland China and global office charts for a third successive weekend, albeit with a change of order that put Zhang Yimou’s “Article 20” in top spot. Global box office tracking service ComScore showed “Article 20,” “Pegasus 2,” “YOLO”
The Producers Guild of America used the platform of its annual awards ceremony Sunday to launch a drive to help secure health insurance coverage for Hollywood’s working producers. The guild is asking studios, streamers and other large-scale content companies to help fund health insurance for “qualified producers” through line items in TV and film production