Critical Role announced a special live one-shot D&D adventure aimed at continued fundraising for wildfire recovery efforts in L.A. Critical Role will host a “chaotic and interactive” one-shot charity livestream titled “Freaky Thursday,” featuring Bells Hells, the characters from its third D&D campaign played by Ashley Johnson, Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel,
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British consumers’ appetite for home entertainment reached new heights in 2024, with the sector surpassing £5.1 billion ($6.4 billion) for the first time, according to new data released by the British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE). The milestone marks unprecedented growth across streaming, premium digital and physical formats. The wider U.K. screen industry, including cinema
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“I want to set the record straight on a couple of things, and that’s it.” So says Paul Reubens — better remembered by many viewers as offbeat children’s entertainer Pee-Wee Herman — at the outset of “Pee-Wee as Himself,” as he and director Matt Wolf tentatively lay out the terms of the documentary they’re making.
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No matter how a person might feel about “Saturday Night Live”’s jokes or cast or host choices, there’s absolutely no denying that for the better part of the last half century, it has been the most consistently powerful platform in America for musicians, whether they’re superstars, rising stars or falling stars. Virtually every major artist
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Lady Gaga has revealed that her seventh studio album, apparently titled “Mayhem,” will be released on March 7. The announcement was teased via billboards that appeared overnight in New York and Las Vegas,. “The album started as me facing my fear of returning to the pop music my earliest fans loved,” Gaga said in the
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As a documentary about politically incendiary subjects — including medical transition and the discrimination faced by transgender communities — Italian documentary “GEN_” is unconventionally persuasive. Directed by Gianluca Matarrese, the film follows several months in the life of the elderly Dr. Bini, a quirky, fast-talking fertility and hormone specialist in the twilight of his career,
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After the submarine-set “Whiskey on the Rocks,” available on Disney + since Jan. 22 outside Sweden, French-Swedish producer Patrick Nebout of Dramanation is turning to the skies, with another Cold War satire spy thriller: the majority English-speaking “Learning to Fly,” Variety has learned in exclusivity. The flagship European series is based on a concept by David Troncoso Conlin
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Spotify has set up a velvet-roped VIP section for its most listened to podcasters — with Joe Rogan and Audiochuck’s “Crime Junkie” getting the top honors in the streamer’s inaugural Creator Milestone Awards. Evaluated quarterly, Spotify’s Creator Milestone Award are being bestowed on podcasters who reach certain streaming thresholds on the platform. The first group
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Top brass at Japanese network giant Fuji Television and its parent company have stepped down following explosive allegations involving former SMAP frontman Masahiro Nakai and claims of a corporate cover-up, the Associated Press reports. Network president Koichi Minato and chair Shuji Kanoh announced their immediate resignations Monday as fallout continues over Nakai’s alleged sexual assault
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Andrew Ahn’s “The Wedding Banquet,” a remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 rom-com starring Bowen Yang and Lily Gladstone, will open this year’s BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival. The film, which is world premiering Monday night at Sundance Film Festival, will have its international debut on March 19 at London’s BFI Southbank with Ahn in
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France’s Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques, the body behind national film ceremony the César Awards, has departed X. The Academy made the announcement in a press release on Monday, having already deleted its account on the Elon Musk-owned platform. “The Academy of Cinema Arts and Techniques has decided to end its presence on the
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“The Talent,” a glitzy party-set psychological thriller toplining Ester Expósito, one of the biggest breakouts of “Elite” stars, will be brought onto the market at Berlin by Spain’s Film Factory Entertainment.  Handling many of Spain’s biggest non-global streamer movies, Film Factory has acquired worldwide rights to “The Talent”outside Spain. It will present at next month’s
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Action icon Jackie Chan has completed principal photography on “The Shadow’s Edge,” a high-stakes thriller that marks his second collaboration with Chinese helmer Larry Yang. The duo previously struck gold with “Ride On,” which dominated Asian box offices in 2023, becoming Japan’s highest-grossing Chinese import and landing among Malaysia’s top three Chinese releases of the
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European TV giant Banijay Entertainment — whose more-than 60 labels have produced recent shows such as “Rogue Heroes,” “Ripley” and “The Rig” — has expanded the roles of two execs as it rejigs its global scripted division. As part of a new combined leadership structure, Steve Matthews has been named head of scripted, creative and Johannes
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Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” will be partly filmed in Sicily which, according to scholars, was a location for Odysseus’ wanderings in the epic composed by Homer around 8th century BCE. Shooting of the Sicilian portion of Nolan’s “Odyssey” is expected to start in roughly two months on the island of Favignana, known as
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Ikusmira Berriak, the San Sebastian-based development program behind Cannes Directors’ Fortnight hits “The Water” and “Creatura” and Sundance standout “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” has announced six projects for its 2025 residency program, as the initiative soars in popularity, applications sky-rocketing 34% to 487 for this current year. Reasons for that cut several ways.
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Arte France, the upscale French public service broadcaster, has made the Nordic region one of its biggest shopping destination of TV drama with the U.K., since the Danish cult series “The Killing” (2010) and “Borgen” (2012).  “Occupied”, the Norwegian futuristic political thriller was another landmark show which kick-started in 2015 the channel’s venture into event co-productions
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At next month’s European Film Market in Berlin, the first footage will be shown to buyers from medieval fantasy epic “The Stolen Child.” Variety spoke to the writer-director Sebastian McKinnon about the film, whose international rights are being represented by Picture Tree Intl. The film’s trailer debuts below. [embedded content] The synopsis for “The Stolen
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