“Betty” looks like how being a teenager feels. Shot during a vibrant New York City summer, the show zips alongside its characters as they weave through traffic, across parks, over bridges on their skateboards. When it slows down, it’s to take in the view, have a laugh, shoot the shit. But within minutes it’s inevitably
“Back to Visegrad” opens, appropriately enough, with Miresha, a former student at Eastern Bosnia’s Visegrad Primary School, driving through a series of long tunnels hacked into a hillside. Miresha is in many ways still in a psychological tunnel herself. She’s about to attend a school reunion of her classmates at the school, whom she hasn’t
The 2020 NFL Draft was unlike any other. Over seven rounds, league commissioner Roger Goodell, the 32 NFL head coaches and almost 100 NFL prospects were broadcast virtually from home using over 600 camera feeds. Not only was this year’s affair unique in terms of its presentation, but it also smashed previous ratings records for
When the Academy of Country Music moved in mid-March to push its annual April awards show back to September, but left the location for the rescheduled telecast noticeably indeterminate, speculation immediately ensued that the show would not take place in its longtime locale of Las Vegas but be moved to Nashville, so participating country stars
Following its recent cancelation after two seasons, the series finale of “God Friended Me” on CBS scored less-than-heavenly numbers, as ABC took Sunday night thanks to “American Idol”‘s first at-home edition. The two-hour “God Friended Me” curtain call averaged around a 0.6 rating among adults 18-49 and 6.2 million total viewers, which represents roughly a
U.S. production, finance and management firm The Cartel is teaming up with management and production company Untitled Entertainment to develop and produce 10 movies for television and theatrical release as well as international distribution over the next two years. The Cartel and Untitled Entertainment will jointly develop and produce the titles and The Cartel will
UPDATED: The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund, recently purchased a large stake in Live Nation Entertainment, the world’s largest live-entertainment company, according to SEC filings released Monday. Public Investment disclosed that it owned a 5.7% stake in the company, a total of 12.3 million shares valued at approximately $500 million. The fund’s stake
When Variety played a game of “Never Have I Ever” with the cast of the Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher’s new Netflix comedy, stars Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Ramona Young and Lee Rodriguez revealed whether or not they’ve found themselves in any of the coming of age show’s often relatable (yet sometimes wacky) circumstances in real life.
The story of how newcomer Maitreyi Ramakrishnan landed the lead role on Mindy Kaling’s new Netflix comedy “Never Have I Ever” is the kind of fairy tale that normally comes from the mind of a TV writer. In April 2019, Kaling posted an announcement on social media seeking South Asian women to audition for her
Berlin-based sales company Picture Tree Intl. has picked up international rights to UFA Fiction’s family drama “God You’re Such a Prick” (“Gott, du kannst ein Arsch sein!”), which features Til Schweiger and Heike Makatsch leading a star-studded cast. Inspired by the true story of Stefanie Pape and the book of the same name written by
Teenagers struggling with sexual identity, women fighting to reconcile their multi-faceted roles in society, and men grappling with the destructive constraints of masculinity are among the themes to be explored in the 2020 edition of the TorinoFilmLab’s FeatureLab, an intensive annual workshop focused on first and second feature film projects at advanced stages of development.
With COVID-19 shuttering film fests worldwide, YouTube has stepped in to launch a 10-day digital film festival this spring with 20 partners — streaming free to cinema fans everywhere. We Are One: A Global Film Festival is being produced and organized by New York’s Tribeca Enterprises. The YouTube-hosted event will feature programming from 20 top
As the coronavirus pandemic has paralyzed the live-entertainment industry the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) has formed to fight for the survival of independent venues and their employees, as well the communities around them. Consisting of more than 800 venues, including New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom and the Troubador in Los Angeles, NIVA, which recently appealed to Congress for more aid during
SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood’s major studios are beginning negotiations today for a successor agreement to the union’s master film and TV contract amid plenty of concern in the industry about how SAG-AFTRA and WGA negotiations will unfold in the pandemic-rocked economic climate. The performers union, which has about 160,000 members, and the Alliance of Motion Picture
Breaking News “Duck Dynasty” star Willie Robertson‘s home was the center of a massive shooting this week, where someone drove by and sprayed his home with bullets … in broad daylight. The drive-by took place Friday at Willie’s estate in West Monroe, Louisiana — where several of his family members are staying right now during
Cooking and video streaming have both boomed as major quarantine activities — and now Food Network Kitchen, which fuses the two pursuits, will be free to tens of millions of Amazon device users. Amazon is paying Discovery to give away one-year free subscriptions to Food Network Kitchen to all users of Fire TV and Fire
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” will begin streaming on Disney Plus two months earlier than previously scheduled. The final installment of the original Star Wars movie series will debut on the streaming service — when else? — on May 4, colloquially known as “Star Wars Day” among fans of the galactic movie franchise. With
“The Night Manager” producer The Ink Factory has extended its co-financing agreement with media investor 127 Wall Productions until 2024. London and L.A.-based independent The Ink Factory said the agreement will allow it to increase development funding and production co-financing capacity across both film and TV. The existing co-financing facility was set up between Hong
Nancy Pelosi, the powerful Speaker of the House, has formally endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the White House. As the leader of the Democratic Party in Congress, Pelosi’s support of its presumptive presidential candidate was never in doubt. Pelosi’s full-throated support for Biden means she is revving up her formidable
iHeartMedia today announced the launch of “The iHeartRadio Living Room Concert Series Presented by State Farm,” a weekly performance series with the goal of bringing Americans together for performances by some of music’s top artists. In honor of essential workers, a donation will be made to a featured charitable organization for each episode in the
More than 400 leading creative figures including Stephen Fry, Grayson Perry, Rufus Wainwright and Simon Callow have warned that the U.K. risks becoming “a cultural wasteland” unless government provides urgent financial support for the creative industries. In an open letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, they called
Film piracy has surged since coronavirus lockdown measures were introduced in March, according to new data from digital piracy research firm Muso. Muso calculated that film piracy increased by over 40% when lockdown measures were enforced, describing the rise as “unprecedented.” Comparing the last seven days of March to the last seven days of February,
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has returned to work at Downing Street, three weeks after being admitted to hospital with coronavirus. Johnson gave a briefing from outside Downing Street to mark his return on Monday morning, apologizing for “being away from his desk” and saying that the fight against coronavirus was the biggest single challenge
Broadway sent in the A-team for “Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration,” an online salute to Stephen Sondheim that had theater lovers across America in full “You’re not crying, I’m crying” mode. The cast of dozens of performers consisted mostly of the biggest names in musical theater from the last 40
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the seventh episode of “Westworld” Season 3. The penultimate episode of “Westworld” Season 3 finally gave viewers the Dolores-Maeve showdown that had been teased all season long, and it did not disappoint. But prior to that, Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Caleb (Aaron Paul) arrived
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Prisoners of War,” the series finale of “Homeland.” “Homeland” went out on a high note Sunday with a 66-minute final episode that was full of the elements that defined the series. The episode, entitled “Prisoners of War,” (a nod to the Israeli series from Keshet
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Prisoners of War,” the series finale of “Homeland.” Carrie’s fate wasn’t sealed on the page until 24 hours before “Homeland” shot its final scenes. Mandy broke into song on his last day of shooting. And at the last minute, Los Angeles had to double for
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Mercy Shall Follow Me,” the 10th episode of “Outlander” Season 5. Viewers who are familiar with Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” book series were in for quite a surprise in the most recent episode, “Mercy Shall Follow Me,” because the action jumped ahead to the sixth
Gene Dynarski, who appeared as Izzy Mandelbaum Jr. on “Seinfeld” and on the original “Star Trek” television series, has died. He was 86. Dynarski died on Feb. 27 at a rehabilitation center in Studio City, his friend, playwright Ernest Kearney announced. The actor starred in the 1997 “Seinfeld” episode “The English Patient” as the son
Harold Reid, the bass singer in the long-running country vocal quartet the Statler Brothers, died Friday night at age 80. A post on the group’s website said that Reid “had bravely endured a long battle with kidney failure.” The group had retired in 2002 after being together in various configurations since 1955. They were inducted