As expected, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” sky-rocketed to No. 1 on the albums chart –scoring the biggest opening week numbers of 2023 for any album by units earned and the fifth-largest streaming week ever. The 36-song record, released March 3 via Big Loud/Mercury/Republic Records, opens with the equivalent of 501,000 sales in
Singer-actor Sofia Carson and 14-time Oscar-nominated songwriter Diane Warren performed their nominated song “Applause” from the film “Tell It Like a Woman” at the Academy Awards Sunday night. Carson urged the women of the world to “give themselves an applause” during the simple, stark performance of the ballad. Carson wore a bejeweled gown over a
CNN has scored its first Oscars win: “Navalny,” the harrowing film following Russian dissident and former presidential candidate Alexei Navalny, took the prize for documentary feature film at Sunday’s Academy Awards. The documentary, directed by Daniel Roher, gained new relevance after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The CNN Films/Warner Bros. documentary is a
Hong Kong-based indie sales agent Autumn Sun comes to FilMart with a bulging slate of new film titles from around Asia — including two animated features from mainland China. Autumn Sun, headed by sales veteran Elliot Tong, is giving a market premiere to “Planet Cat,” an animated feature by Song Yuefeng (“Ping Pong Rabbit,” “Throne
After three editions that were canceled due to a combination of COVID and bad timing, Hong Kong’s FilMart film rights market may have finally had some things go its way. It opens March 13 with many factors now moving in its favor. Not least of these are the moves by the Hong Kong government to
European Film Promotion (EFP), an international network of film promotion institutes from 37 countries, is heading back to Hong Kong’s FilMart for its in-person return. “It wasn’t clear if the reopening of the market [post-pandemic] will immediately lead to business, but people want to reconnect with local companies,” observes deputy managing director Jo Mühlberger. This
Icelandic writer-director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson (“Under the Tree”) makes a smooth transition to English-language directing with the high-concept comedy “Northern Comfort,” co-written with longtime collaborators Halldór Laxness Halldórsson and Tobias Munthe. It centers on a disparate group of people who share a disabling fear of air travel, which they are trying to overcome through a
The federal government has stepped up efforts to contain the damage of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank by assuring that all depositors to the bank will have access to all of their money as of March 13. The Treasury Department, Federal Reservce and FDIC put out a joint statement on Sunday to assure markets
Hulu has released the first look at Meryl Streep in Season 3 of “Only Murders in the Building,” via a teaser that will be aired during the Oscars on Sunday night. The 30-second clip introduces Streep as a “surprise you never saw coming,” before panning to the Oscar winner fumbling a line during what looks
Daniela Fejerman and Elvira Lindo’s “Someone Who Takes Care of Me,” a celebration of actors, their passion, craft and historical legacy, opened this year’s Malaga Film Festival in a fitting tribute to the Spanish entertainment industry. The film, which screened out of competition, centers on three women whose careers have spanned stage, film and
As a global audience starts to tune in for the 95th Academy Awards, one thing that is guaranteed to surprise viewers is the creative decision not to have a red carpet, but a champagne-colored runner instead. “I think the decision to go with a champagne carpet rather than a red carpet shows how confident we
Jimmy Kimmel‘s hosting the Oscars again tonight, and a year out from the infamous slap … the dude has been talking a lot about it, kinda turning the moment into a punchline. The late night funny man has been doing a ton of press in the weeks leading up to the big gig — his
The Weeknd is now tied with Bryan Adams for the second most Juno Awards after the Canadian superstar added four more trophies to his stash at the Opening Night Awards, a gala industry dinner, held at the Edmonton Convention Centre on March 11. He did not come to Alberta for Canada’s biggest celebration of homegrown
It’s been nearly a year since Will Smith struck Chris Rock on the Academy Awards stage. As a result, Smith is not expected to attend the 95th annual Oscars ceremony on Sunday night. Under normal circumstances, Smith would be one of the presenters for the major awards categories in this year’s ceremony. He won best
Charles Dance was never a big Twitter or Facebook user. But now that he stars in Paramount+’s new Kiefer Sutherland thriller “Rabbit Hole”? “It’s made me more determined to have absolutely nothing to do with social media at all,” he said. “I mean, I never did anyway, but I’m certainly not going to do so
Lady Gaga is expected to make a surprise appearance at the Oscars on Sunday night to perform “Hold My Hand,” the Oscar-nominated song from “Top Gun: Maverick,” according to several insiders who spoke to Variety on the condition of anonymity. The decision seemed to be a last-minute back-and-forth effort as Gaga was initially reported to
It’s a big night for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” at the Oscars, but stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan are already looking to the future with “American Born Chinese.” The two actors reunite in the first teaser for the action-comedy series. Released Sunday morning by Disney+, the footage caps off with the announcement
In “Bottoms,” a high-school comedy that is brazenly gonzo, scaldingly and at times even dementedly over-the-top, and actually about something, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) have been best friends since the first grade, but in their senior year at Rock Ridge High they’re at the end of their tether. They’re losers, they’re lonely,
“Scream VI” is slaying at the international box office, generating $22.6 million from 53 markets. According to Paramount, those ticket sales mark the biggest overseas opening weekend of the “Scream” franchise, ahead of prior installments by 60% for comparable markets. The latest “Scream” also set a new record in North America with its $44.5 million
Saul Hudson, better known as Slash, the British-American lead guitarist of iconic rock group Guns N’ Roses, has launched a horror production outfit. His new act, BerserkerGang, is being hatched in partnership with horror genre professionals Michael Paszt, James Fler and Andrew T. Hunt of Raven Banner; Rodrigo Gudiño, filmmaker and founder of Rue Morgue
Jonathan Majors is making sure to keep his body in shape. The actor has created quite a stir for his physique in “Creed III,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and the Sundance Film Festival favorite “Magazine Dreams.” Majors tells Variety that he’ll work out not once, but twice before the Oscars on Sunday. “I’m going
Nearly 125 years after her assassination, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria — or Sisi to her enduring cultists — continues to inspire a veritable industry of portraiture in Europe: In the last year alone, a novel, two TV series (one of them a glossy Netflix affair) and two feature films have been dedicated to the
Patty Jenkins says she was more than disappointed that no women were nominated for best director this year. “I give up, I give up,” the “Wonder Woman” director told me Saturday at the Charles Finch and Chanel pre-Oscars dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge. “I say that even with all of their push
The story of Kim Philby is perhaps too good to make up. The British spy, a double agent for Moscow, operated at the highest levels of the intelligence community; his ability to disseminate information to the Soviet Union, to which he eventually defected, is proof, perhaps, of the power of personal charm and erudition to
Tom Cruise got a hero’s welcome in Hollywood over the last week of February. The Oscar nominee for producing “Top Gun: Maverick” had been largely absent from Los Angeles during prime awards campaigning season, held up filming his latest “Mission: Impossible” epic, and the town was more than compensated for his absence when he finally
Jake Johnson describes his new film “Self Reliance,” which he wrote and directed, as “‘Jacob’s Ladder’ with some laughs.” The film is a comedy with real stakes: Johnson stars as a man who winds up in a game where he’s trying to win a million dollars while hunters try to kill him. The twist is
The much-decorated Japanese drama “Drive My Car” was named the best film Sunday at the Asian Film Awards, defeating hot favorite “Decision to Leave.” Other notable awards went to Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda whose “Broker” debuted at Cannes, but which was largely shunned in his home country. “Decision to Leave,” which started the evening with ten
“Scream VI” collected $44.5 million in its opening weekend, a scary-good start for Paramount and Spyglass Media’s long-running slasher series. Those ticket sales were enough to top domestic box office charts over two newcomers, Sony’s prehistoric sci-fi thriller “65” and the Focus Features heartwarming comedy “Champions,” as well as last weekend’s victor “Creed III.” The
There are times when you look back at pop culture phenomena and can’t resist the urge to ask: Can you believe this actually happened? Tackling a notorious fiasco in one of the galaxy’s most popular franchises, Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak’s amusing and exhaustive documentary ”A Disturbance in the Force” unpacks 1978’s “Star Wars Holiday
Before the LGBTQ teen sex comedy “Bottoms” premiered at the SXSW Film Festival on Saturday, festival director Claudette Godfrey told the audience in the Paramount Theater to prepare themselves for an experience that defied description, and that’s largely what they got. The movie stars Rachel Sennott (“Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” “Shiva Baby”) and Ayo Edebiri (“The