February 19, 2020 4:25PM PT A mass shooting in the West German city of Hanau has raised security concerns for the Berlin Film Festival, which kicks off on Thursday. Local media reports late Wednesday indicate that several people are dead following a shooting. Eight people are believed to have been killed while five others are
February 19, 2020 3:45PM PT James Wolk has been cast in the lead role of the NBC drama pilot “Ordinary Joe,” Variety has learned. The project explores the three parallel lives of Joe Kimbrough (Wolk) after he makes a pivotal choice at a crossroads in his life. The series asks the question of how different life might
It was an evening of elegance at the Los Angeles premiere of Focus Features’ “Emma” on Tuesday night. The red carpet was lined with pastel floral arrangements at the DGA Theater, priming visitors to be transported to the ornate pageantry of Georgian-era England, as depicted in this new adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic tale. Anya
February 19, 2020 3:50PM PT Paramount Players has lost two of its executives, with Matt Dines and Ali Bell leaving their posts as executive vice presidents of development and production. A spokesman for Paramount told Variety that there are no plans to shutter the three-year-old division in the wake of the departures. Wyck Godfrey, Paramount’s
February 19, 2020 2:30PM PT HBO Max has given out a pilot order to the comedy “Minx,” Variety has learned. The half-hour project is set in 1970s Los Angeles, in which an earnest young feminist joins forces with a low-rent publisher to create the first erotic magazine for women. Ellen Rapoport is attached to write and
In “Sylvie’s Love,” Tessa Thompson stars as an aspiring TV producer named Sylvie opposite Nnamdi Asomugha’s young musician Robert, who meet and fall in love in the New York summer of 1957. The 1950s and 1960s-set film — written and directed by Eugene Ashe — is a romantic tale of love found, lost and possibly
“Pretty Little Liars” alum Keegan Allen has joined the cast of “Walker,” The CW’s upcoming reboot of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” Variety has learned exclusively. He joins previously announced stars Jared Padalecki and Lindsey Morgan. Padalecki stars as Cordell Walker, a widower and father of two with his own moral code, who returns home to Austin
Two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is producing and starring in the genre-bending drama feature “Swan Song” for Apple TV Plus, with production starting in the spring. The film will be produced by Apple and Anonymous Content. “Swan Song” will be directed by Academy Award winner Benjamin Cleary, who also wrote the project. Cleary won the
Women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred has never been accused of being press shy. But on Wednesday, while the jury was deliberating in the Harvey Weinstein rape trial, she was accused for serving as a mouthpiece for the prosecution, prompting one of Weinstein’s attorneys to request a gag order for the media-savvy Allred. Damon Cheronis was
Pixar’s new movie “Onward” marks a reunion of sorts for Tom Holland and Chris Pratt. The two actors, who both have ties to Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe and most recently teamed in “Avengers: Endgame” as Spider-Man and Star-Lord, play brothers in the animated fantasy adventure. Their friendship has become a highlight of “Onward’s” promotional tour
Reed Hastings promises to share the untold story about how Netflix’s culture helped it pivot from a DVD-by-mail company to a streaming giant more than a decade ago in a new book due out this spring. “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention,” is set to be released May 12, 2020. The 320-page
New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr., the principal sponsor of the Better Oversight of Secondary Sales and Accountability in Concert Ticketing (BOSS Act) designed to reform the live-events ticket market, today rejected Pearl Jam’s call to reject the bill. Calling the bill “flawed,” the group said in a letter yesterday that it “blocks non-transferable ticketing”
“Mulan” may not be for very young children, as it’s become the first Disney live-action remake to receive a PG-13 rating. The new take on the Disney classic got the rating from the Motion Picture Association of America due to the “sequences of violence” apparently depicted in the film. All previous live-action remakes from the
Bethenny Frankel is coming to HBO Max with an unscripted competition series. The “Real Housewives of New York” alum has scored an eight-episode order at the nascent streamer for “The Big Shot With Bethenny.” In the half-hour series, aspiring moguls will compete for a chance to win a spot on the executive team of Frankel’s
Just hours after Soulection released a flyer and lineup for its upcoming Lovers and Friends Festival on Tuesday (Feb. 18), former Bad Boy artists Mase and Lil Kim publicly rescinded their commitment to perform. Lovers and Friends is scheduled for May 9 at the 27,000-capacity Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif. but some acts
Netflix’s surprise 2018 YA rom-com hit “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” spawned a lot of hard-to-duplicate success metrics: star Noah Centineo gained over 12 million Instagram followers in the two months following the film’s premiere, Japanese probiotic milk Yokult saw a surge in sales from its brief product cameo and Norwegian singer-songwriter Anna
February 19, 2020 10:27AM PT AMC Networks’ streaming service Sundance Now has picked up U.S. rights to the literary adaptation “The Secrets She Keeps.” Based on a novel by Michael Robotham, the noirish drama builds on a chance encounter between two pregnant women in a supermarket just outside of Sydney. While Meghan (Jessica de Gouw,
February 19, 2020 10:58AM PT Patina Miller has been cast in a leading role in the upcoming “Power” prequel “Raising Kanan.” Officially titled “Power Book III: Raising Kanan,” the series is a prequel set in the ‘90s during the early years of “Power” character Kanan Stark. Miller will star as Raquel “Raq” Thomas, Kanan’s mother.
A startling one-two punch of new statistics from the British Film Institute and industry body U.K. Producers’ Roundtable have revealed the stark challenges facing the country’s independent filmmakers. After a BFI study published in late January revealed that spending on U.K. independent film production fell by 45% to £175 million ($228 million) in 2019, a
Jennifer Lawrence will star in Adam McKay’s upcoming film “Don’t Look Up,” a comedy set to debut on Netflix later this year. The movie, also written by McKay, follows two low-level astronomers who embark on media tour to warn mankind of an approaching asteroid that will destroy planet Earth. “I’m so thrilled to make this
YouTube is driving into the feature documentary space with a bold new film on drill music from one of the U.K.’s most celebrated documentarians. The controversial genre represented in the Brian Hill-directed “Terms and Conditions: A U.K. Drill Story” has become inadvertently associated with violence and knife-crime in the U.K., and marks a daring step
“Sonic the Hedgehog” will have to worry about more than just a waxy mustached villain this weekend. Paramount’s family film will face box office competition from another kid-friendly adventure, Disney and 20th Century’s “The Call of the Wild.” Harrison Ford and a dog named Buck star in “The Call of the Wild,” the latest big-screen adaptation
February 19, 2020 10:43AM PT Variety can exclusively reveal the trailer for “Playing Hard” director Jean-Simon Chartier’s feature documentary “They Call Me Dr. Miami,” which is being shopped to buyers at the EFM this week. Commissioned by Documentary Channel and set to bow at the Miami International Film Festival next month, the film follows Dr.
Los Angeles’ Banc of California Stadium + Exposition Park will host the inaugural Virgin Fest on June 6 and 7. Headliners for the festival include Lizzo, A$AP Rocky and Anderson.Paak and the Free Nationals along with Major Lazer, Ellie Goulding, Jorja Smith, Banks, Tank and the Bangas, Trixie Mattel, Lauren Jauregi, Tiffany Young and Barns
Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild” ranks as one of the most famous books about a canine ever written. So director Chris Sanders knew that the composer of his film adaptation simply had to be a dog lover. Luckily, Sanders’ “How to Train Your Dragon” composer, John Powell, has two standard poodles. And when
After ceding to Lil Wayne last week, Roddy Ricch is back to dominating the Rolling Stone charts, although he’ll likely take a back seat next week to Justin Bieber, whose first album in nearly five years, “Changes,” dropped on Friday. Ricch and Drake and Future continued their reign over the Top 100 Songs chart this
Norwegian synthpop trio A-ha’s “Take On Me” has joined YouTube’s billion-views club. The iconic video from A-ha, which combines live action with pencil-sketch animation, is only the second song from the 1980s to reach the elite YouTube milestone, after Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” crested the one-billion-views mark last fall (and currently has
Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell are reuniting to star in a series adaptation of the Wondery and Bloomberg Media podcast “The Shrink Next Door,” Variety has learned. The series is in development at Media Rights Capital (MRC) Television with no network or streaming service currently attached. Inspired by true events, “The Shrink Next Door” is
Even as the Paley Center vacates its Beverly Hills museum, the org is still planning a full slate of L.A.-based events in the first half of 2020. As Variety previously reported, the Paley Center will no longer have a physical location on the west coast, but instead will hold events at a variety of locations
February 19, 2020 9:18AM PT Annaleigh Ashford will star in the CBS multi-camera comedy pilot “B Positive.” In the show, faced with finding a kidney donor, newly divorced dad Drew is at the end of his rope when he runs into Gina (Ashford), a rough-around-the edges woman from his past who volunteers her own. Together