LevelK has boarded “We Have Never Been Modern,” a Czech period drama inspired by the true story of intersex people in the 1930’s. The film has been selected at Karlovy Vary and will be released in Czech Republic by Bontonfilm. The movie, which marks the feature debut of Matěj Chlupáček (“Zrádci”), follows Helena, who is
International sales house Totem Films has closed distribution deals in multiple territories for “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” which had its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. The company also closed a deal for France for another Directors’ Fortnight film, “A Song Sung Blue.” “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” was sold to France (Capricci), U.K. (New Wave), Benelux
David Thion, the French producer of Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning “Anatomy of a Fall,” is reteaming with Guillaume Senez for “Une part manquante,” a Tokyo-set drama which Be For Films is representing in international markets. “Une part manquante” will also reunite Senez with popular French actor Romain Duris, who starred in his 2018 film
VIEWERSHIP RECORD Indian streaming service JioCinema claimed a record for the number of concurrent viewers this week. It reported that 32 million viewers were simultaneously using its service to watch the IPL cricket final match between The Chennai Super Kings and the Gujarat Titans. The platform’s previous peak was 25 million. Chennai eventually won the
The New Zealand government said on Tuesday that the country’s generous screen production incentives systems are to be continued. The decision follows a New Zealand government review of the local and international production incentives and the post-production and visual effects schemes that began in late 2022. They also follow expansion announced earlier this month of
The Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, Eastern and Central Europe’s leading cinema event, has unveiled its lineup, which includes new works by Pascal Plante, Stephan Komandarev, Tinatin Kajrishvili and Babak Jalali in the Crystal Globes Competition. They will vie against films by up-and-comers Ernst De Geer, Itsaso Arana and Cyril Aris. The section has nine
“Perfect Days,” which world premiered in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, is reminiscent – in some ways – of “Groundhog Day,” but whereas in the latter film Bill Murray’s character, Phil, is trying to escape the repetitive nature of his existence, in Wim Wenders’ film the protagonist, Hirayama, is “embracing it,” the German director
With conflict currently erupting in Sudan, one could be forgiven for approaching Mohamed Kordofani’s “Goodbye Julia,” which takes place in Khartoum during the six years prior to the 2011 secession of South Sudan, as a worthy, topical history lesson. And it certainly does have merit as a primer for the class, ethnic and religious unrest
“It’s been about 25 years since I stood on this stage,” since Shania Twain, not long after the kickoff to her set Sunday night at the Hollywood Bowl. She had that figured about right — the calendar shows she last played America’s most favored amphitheater on May 6, 1999. That was a few weeks shy
“Sebastian has two songs, but where’s Scuttle’s?” Marshall says the filmmakers realized when crafting the adaptation. DeLuca came up with the title, playing off the slang word for “gossip,” which Scuttle (Awkwafina) excels at – sort of. “She’s so befuddled and never gets the words together, so a fun thought was like let’s make it
The real-life story of Reality Winner’s arrest unfolds as such a sharp piece of on-the-nose political theater that it almost seems to have been dramatized. On June 3, 2017, the FBI showed up at the former Air Force member and NSA translator’s house to question her about a leaked document that they’d traced back to
Monty Python star John Cleese has expressed disdain for modern sensibilities and “PC culture” on several occasions in recent years. The comedian found a new battleground for those convictions by claiming that his plans to mount a stage adaptation of the 1979 comedy “Life of Brian” have been “misreported” by the Daily Mail (in a
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The profanity-riddled dialogue and whip smart writing of “Succession” finally came to a close on Sunday night with one last extremely dramatic finale episode, ending with the highly anticipated answer to the series-long question
SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers from “With Open Eyes,” the series finale of HBO’s “Succession,” now streaming on Max. Tom Wambsgans of St. Paul, Minn. — an unrepentant striver, the broken-hearted lover of Shiv Roy, an unconscionable careerist, a yearning potential parent, an abuser of Greg, a Disgusting Brother: Matthew Macfadyen played the “Succession” character in all of
Milt Larsen, the magician and TV writer who co-founded Hollywood’s famed Magic Castle night spot, died May 28 in Los Angeles. He was 92. Larsen had deep roots in the world of magic and in Los Angeles. His father, William Larsen Sr., was a prominent local defense attorney and a performing magician. His mother, Geraldine,
Johnny Depp has sustained an injury to his ankle, prompting his group the Hollywood Vampires to delay a set of imminent tour dates. The group announced the news Monday morning, stating that Depp has been advised to avoid travel for the time being. The Hollywood Vampires — composed of Depp, Alice Cooper and Aerosmith member
These are indeed the waning days of the scripted basic cable juggernaut. That may be a strange thing to point out when once again, the most-watched entertainment show of the just-completed 2022-2023 TV season was “Yellowstone,” the modern western that airs on Paramount Network. But “Yellowstone” is wrapping up sometime in the next year, and
Nicholas Britell knew very early on that Brian Cox’s Logan Roy was going to be killed off in the final season of HBO’s “Succession.” It was up to him to figure out what the passing of a titan of industry would sound like musically. Britell, who won an Emmy for the show’s theme music in
Family audiences turned out in force, propelling Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” to the top of the box office over the Memorial Day weekend. The film, a live-action remake of the 1988 animated favorite, earned a splashy $117.5 million over the four-day holiday. It ranks as the fifth largest Memorial Day debut — last year’s “Top
Oft-remembered for soundtracking “Valley Girl” with the classic cut “A Million Miles Away,” singer-songwriter Peter Case has a worldwide following, but veteran followers of the Los Angeles music scene may have spent the last 40 years or so trying to solve a puzzle about him. The riddle: When Case was a master of Beatlesque power-pop
Lightning strikes twice. Having won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in 2018 with “The Dead and the Others,” filmmaking duo Renée Nader Messora and João Salaviza scooped a Un Certain Regard Ensemble Prize on Friday night, including the collective crew and creative team, for “The Buriti Flower.” The couple, whom across the years have developed
Top Argentina’s free-to-air channel Pakapaka has inked a deal with Paris-based animation house Dandelooo on award-winning series “Jasmine & Jambo,” to be broadcast on the Argentine government funded channel dedicated to children’s content. Melissa Vega, international sales manager at Dandelooo told Variety, “Jasmine and Jambo is an amazing series that is doing great internationally. Pakapaka is the
After opening on April 28 in Japan, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has hit the JPY10 billion ($71 million) milestone in just 31 days – the quickest ever by a non-Japanese animation in the Japanese market.In the latest three-day period from May 28 to 28, the film earned JPY632 million ($4.5 million), bringing its cumulative
Launching out of Cannes Premiere, Valerie Donzelli’s “Just the Two of Us” is a feverish psychological thriller about a woman brought deeper and deeper into a toxic relationship. And if Donzelli had always intended to make the project ever since reading the source novel back in 2014, the lockdowns of 2020 helped push certain elements
Martin Scorsese is on a post-Cannes tour of Italy where over the weekend the director, known for having a religious bent, met with Pope Francis and announced that he will make a film about Jesus. “I have responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing
The 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, June 9 to 18, has unveiled the titles in contention for awards in its four main feature-length sections: main competition, Asian New Talent, Animation film and documentary. These are eligible for the festival’s prestigious Golden Goblet Awards, winners of which will be announced at the Shanghai Grand Theater on the
PLATFORM PARTNERSHIP NBCUniversal (NBCU) and JioCinema, Viacom18’s streaming service, have entered into a multi-year partnership bringing thousands of hours of NBCU films and TV series to India. Content is sourced from the Universal Television, UCP, Universal International Studios, Universal Television Alternative Studio, Sky Studios, DreamWorks Animation, Universal Pictures, Focus Features and Bravo brands. NBCU’s programming
Germany’s Beta has licensed Spanish special ops thriller “La Unidad – Kabul,” to Max for the U.S., the third instalment in one of Movistar Plus+’s longest running franchises, “La Unidad,” whose six episodes deliver an engrossing and sometimes shocking take on the 2021 Fall of Kabul. With the purchase, all 18 episodes of Spanish series
SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers from “With Open Eyes,” the series finale of HBO’s “Succession,” now streaming on Max. “Succession” ends in a place it’s been countless times before: with Kendall Roy, alone and adrift by a body of water. “With Open Eyes,” the feature-length conclusion to the Roy family saga, has many such
“Fast X” predictably won a second weekend on top of the mainland China box office, driving its total past the $100 million mark. But the disappointing start for Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” was the bigger talking point. “Fast X” earned $17.6 million in China according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That was a