December 5, 2019 4:14PM PT Rich Battista, the recently boarded chief executive of Imagine Entertainment, has exited his post at the production company after joining but a few months ago in August, Variety has learned. “Rich Battista has left Imagine Entertainment,” said Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, the founders of the company, in a joint
Lamia Chraibi, a leading producer of daring films from the Middle East and North Africa region, is developing “Meskoun,” an ambitious pan-Arab genre-bending series with Moroccan filmmaker Hicham Lasri (“Jahilya”) on board as showrunner. Chraibi (“Mimosas”) will produce the 14-episode series with her Moroccan banner La Prod, along with Mohamed Hefzy’s Egyptian company Film Clinic,
Singapore has launched a scheme to help find the next generation of filmmakers from the South East Asia region. Local content producers Blue3Asia and CreativesAtWork, with the support of Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority launched the Leap!, a short film production scheme at the ongoing Asian TV Forum & Market on Thursday. Seven filmmakers from
Netflix is closer to getting into the numbers game than it’s ever been. Scott Stuber, the head of original films at Netflix, says the behemoth streaming company — which has famously kept its viewership and box office data hidden from public display — is working on a comprehensive system of making audience metrics for its
Stephen Graham is set to join Tom Hardy and Michelle Williams in Sony’s “Venom 2,” with Hardy returning as the titular anti-hero. Andy Serkis is set to direct, and Naomie Harris and Woody Harrelson are also on board. Sony had no comment on the casting. The original film was a huge hit for the studio
Eugene Jarecki – two times winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize – for “Why We Fight” (2005) and “The House I Live In” (2012) – is preparing an untitled “Tuareg Project,” that he will shoot in Morocco. The pic will be produced by Addison O’Dea (“Discovery TRVLR”), and line produced by Moroccan producer Zakaria
Patrick Schwarzenegger has a process for reading scripts. On his first time through, he’s just trying to get a sense of the story. Then he goes back and re-reads it through the eyes of the characters. On his third pass, he tries to put everything together thematically. Even with such a specific methodology, Schwarzenegger, the
December 5, 2019 2:48PM PT David Ondříček’s “Zátopek,” a biopic about Olympic champion athlete Emil Zátopek, has wrapped filming. The film stars Václav Neužil, Martha Issová and James Frecheville, who starred in Sundance prize-winner “Animal Kingdom.” Ondříček, one of the most successful Czech directors working today, was selected by Variety magazine for its “10 Directors
December 5, 2019 2:30PM PT “Yellowstone” star Kevin Costner is expanding his television universe to include a whole lot more national parks. Variety has learned that the Oscar winner has set up a one-hour drama project at ABC about the Investigative Services Branch of the National Parks Service. Costner is co-writing the series with showrunner
December 5, 2019 2:23PM PT In a week with lots of other Billie Eilish things going on — including Variety’s two cover stories, her acoustic performance at Apple’s headquarters and, not least, reports of a multi-million-dollar documentary deal with Apple — a new video from the 17-year-old singer has also arrived. The clip — for
If Midge Maisel wants to be successful as a standup comedian, her portrayer Rachel Brosnahan says, “she’s going to have to give up her personal life. She’s going to have to go at it alone.” The second season of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” ended with Brosnahan’s 1950s housewife-turned-comic, character getting the opportunity of a lifetime
Leonard Goldberg, a prolific producer and TV executive who supervised movies and TV series that captivated viewers in two different centuries, died on Wednesday due to injuries sustained during a fall. He was 85. Goldberg most recently served as an executive producer on the popular CBS drama series “Blue Bloods,” which is in its tenth
CMJ Music Marathon, the New York-based music festival and conference ran from 1978 until 2016, is apparently relaunching next year. Details are scant, but a tweet from the company’s official account said that the festival is under “new management” — which means that its most-recent CEO, Adam Klein, who was ordered by a judge to
Peter Segal will direct and executive produce Stephen Amell’s upcoming Starz series “Heels,” Variety has learned exclusively. The eight-episode drama, which hails from Lionsgate Television in association with Paramount Television Studios, stars Amell and Alexander Ludwig as brothers Jack and Ace Spade. Set in a close-knit Georgia community, it follows a family-owned wrestling league as the
It’s official: with the amount of scripted series alone hitting the 500 mark and refusing to stop there, there is just too much content available to keep up with all of it. But although the quantity of series offered continues to grow, that does not automatically mean the quality increases as well. As such, no
Hollywood loves to be referential, even when it’s unintentional. This is evident in some of the Oscar contenders for best picture. While each are unique and stand out in their own right, they often draw similarities to past buzzy films and television programs. Will nostalgia help make one of the movies on this list find
At an early screening of “Bombshell,” which chronicles the Fox News sexual harassment scandal, director Jay Roach was nervous. Writer-producer Charles Randolph says it was because of the audible audience reaction: “It’s just too much laughing!” For many of this year’s prominent Oscar contenders for best picture, one of the most important questions is how
Category Hitmaker Artist Song Songwriter Amy Allen Halsey “Without Me” Producer-Songwriter Benny Blanco Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid “Señorita” “Eastside” Producer-Songwriter Tommy Brown Ariana Grande “7 Rings” “Thank U, Next” Producer-Songwriter Cashmere Cat Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello Benny Blanco, Halsey & Khalid “Señorita” “Eastside” Producer Cirkut Ava Max “Sweet
When Swae Lee stepped into a Los Angeles studio last year, little did he know the song he laid down vocals for, “Sunflower,” would end up being one of 2019’s major hits. “I wanted to go out with a bang that night, and I got it out of me,” he says of the fateful evening
Taylor. Drake. Post. Ariana. The only things these artists have in common, apart from being chart juggernauts who only require only one name, is the label they’re on: Republic Records, which for the third consecutive year is Variety’s Hitmakers Label of the Year. The company has no less than 10 entries in Hitmakers’ Top 25
Despite his band’s name, Ryan Tedder is a man of many, many republics. He’s the songwriter of the year in Variety‘s Hitmakers issue largely for his work as a producer-writer in ensuring, with “Sucker,” that the Jonas Brothers had the smoothest possible runway for their comeback to make a safe landing. But eclipsing even that
Have you ever wondered how many varieties of secret sauce can be packed into one delicious three-minutes-and-20-seconds burger of a song? Ten months after the Jonas Brothers’ comeback smash, “Sucker,” came out and finally took the trio to the top, it’s still tickling our ears… and, frankly, slightly puzzling our brains, as we try to
December 5, 2019 10:30AM PT Aubrey Plaza will return to the white tent on Santa Monica beach to host the Film Independent Spirit Awards for the second consecutive year. Now in its 35th year, the ceremony honoring the year’s best independent cinema will be held on Feb. 8. The 2020 celebration will broadcast live on
Quincy, Mass.-bred songwriter-producer Louis Bell has credits on four of 2019’s most consumed hits: Post Malone’s “Wow” and “Sunflower,” Halsey’s “Without Me” and Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker.” “If these songs were colors on a spectrum, they would be totally different colors, but somehow they work,” says Bell. His secret? Not paying attention to trends, or anything
December 5, 2019 10:20AM PT It’s almost time to say goodbye to 2019 and the horse it rode in on — or the horse that dominated the conversation for the better part of the year, at least: Lil Nas X’s. If, 12 months ago, anyone had told us the coming year would be defined by
For a long time, the divas in Jason Owen’s life — be it the ones he watched on early MTV as a kid in rural Arkansas, his former roommate, Tori Spelling (the two shared a Los Angeles address at the peak of her fame), or longtime client Shania Twain (the two parted ways amicably in
Karen McDougal, the former model who was paid $150,000 to stay quiet about her affair with President Donald Trump, sued Fox News on Thursday, alleging that host Tucker Carlson falsely accused her of extortion. The slander lawsuit, filed in state court in New York, concerns a segment that aired in December 2018 in which Carlson
“The Simpsons” is leading the way with three Writers Guild of America nominations, followed by two each for “Bob’s Burgers,” “The Crown,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Pen15,” “Russian Doll,” “Succession,” “Veep” and “Watchmen.” Fox’s “The Simpsons,” which began airing in 1989, scored noms in the animated category for the “Go Big or Go Homer,” “Livin’
HBO Max has given out a series order to the half-hour high school dramedy “Generation.” The project had been ordered to pilot at the nascent streamer earlier this year, meaning this is the first HBO Max pilot to get picked up to series. The ten-episode series follows a group of high school students whose exploration
December 5, 2019 10:00AM PT A one-hour rom-com procedural set in the Florida Panhandle is in the works at Fox. The network has issued a put pilot commitment to “Florida Man,” which hails from “Neighbors” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” director Nick Stoller, and “Bones” producer Carla Kettner. “Florida Man” centers around the loquacious, eccentric Bell