SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from Season 1 of “Wednesday,” now streaming on Netflix. Wednesday Addams cracked the case. Everyone’s favorite macabre teen made her triumphant return to screens in “Wednesday,” produced by Tim Burton, facing her toughest battle of all: high school at Nevermore Academy. The title character, played by Jenna Ortega, spends the
Nick Holly, a manager, writer and producer who co-created the ABC comedy series “Sons & Daughters,” died Nov. 21 of cancer in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 51. Originally from Geneva, N.Y., Holly played lacrosse at Rutgers U., then moved to Hollywood where he got his start in the business in the CAA mailroom. He
The 32nd annual Gotham Awards is underway (watch it live here) the celebration that marks the official start of awards season and is often strong indicator of films and series are poised for continued success. The event, which is hosted at New York’s Cipriani Wall Street, will see performer tributes to honor seasoned Hollywood veterans
Harvey Weinstein’s defense called their first three witnesses on Monday morning, following nearly a month of the prosecution’s case in the disgraced producer’s Los Angeles sexual assault and rape trial. Weinstein’s attorneys have said they intend to call six witnesses in total, and expect to rest their case this week. All three witnesses took the
Pop quiz: What do the filmmakers who won this year’s top Sundance prize (Nikyatu Jusu, “Nanny”), Cannes’ Palme d’Or (Ruben Östlund, “The Triangle of Sadness”) and Oscar’s best picture trophy (Sian Heder, “CODA”) have in common? They’re all veterans of Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch list — which also counts Taika Waititi, Chloé Zhao and
“The Walking Dead” went out with a bang for AMC+ on Nov. 20, scoring the young streamer its highest single day of viewership ever. The 90-minute series finale episode, which aired in the show’s usual 9p.m. Sunday slot on AMC’s linear channel and was available for streaming at that time on AMC+, is also the
Scarlett Johansson is set to star in a limited series adaptation of the John Katzenbach novel “Just Cause” at Amazon, Variety has confirmed. Amazon has given the project a straight-to-series order. It will mark Johansson’s first major television role. Originally published in 1992, “Just Cause” centers on Miami reporter Matt Cowart. According to an individual
Lenny Daniels on Monday became the latest WarnerMedia veteran to exit the company since it was acquired by the former Discovery Communications. Daniels had been president of the sports-media operation once known as Turner Sports, which encompasses the company’s NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball telecasts and studio shows as well as the NCAA March
“Strange World” director Don Hall was thinking about his children and the world they would inherit when he got the idea for Disney’s latest animated feature. Hall, whose credits include “Raya and the Last Dragon,” says he wanted to tell a story about the environment. “This idea of the world existing on a back of
The top 10 of the Billboard albums chart remains largely unchanged this week with Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” leading the pack. The set has now spent four nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 with the equivalent of 177,000 album sales in the U.S., consisting of 156 million streams and 57,000 copies sold, according to Luminate. “Midnights” topped
Rapper Pusha T shared his perspective on friend and longtime collaborator Kanye West’s recent antisemitic remarks, which included hateful comments about the Jewish community and problematic conspiracy theories. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the veteran rapper articulated a general disappointment in the 45-year-old’s opinions, condemning the hate speech and bigotry that fueled
“Devotion,” says composer Chanda Dancy, “is about true eternal love. How do you translate love for family, love for your fellow man, love for your country, into music? That’s what the director and I wanted to create.” Dancy’s score for the J.D. Dillard film about an African-American pilot who became a Korean War hero is
Hilarie Burton, Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz are opening up about more of their experiences on “One Tree Hill,” specifically the “Maxim” storyline in Season 4. During Monday’s episode of their “Drama Queens” podcast, they recap the fourth episode of the season, during which Brooke (Bush) takes photos of Rachel (Danneel Ackles) for Maxim
Mark Burnett has formally resigned from his top leadership role at MGM, a move that comes 10 months after Amazon closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of the studio. Burnett’s departure from the MGM fold is not a surprise. The producer, known for enduring unscripted hits including CBS’ “Survivor,” NBC’s “The Voice” and ABC’s “Shark Tank,” has
James Gunn is the new co-chairman and co-CEO of DC Studios along with Peter Safran, and he confirmed during a Twitter Q&A with fans that the DC Universe under his watch will be connected across film, television, animation and video games. But that doesn’t mean Gunn and Safran are putting a ban on standalone projects that exist
TFL Meeting, a TorinoFilmLab-organized initiative, has awarded 18 cash prizes, worth a total of €315,000 ($330,000), to support the development and production of feature-length projects. Of the 30 projects presented during the program’s 15th edition, 20 were part of the ScriptLab program, and 10 were showcased in the FeatureLab program. The participants presented them to
The 32nd annual Gotham Awards will take place Monday evening at an in-person event held at New York’s Cipriani Wall Street, the same venue where this year’s nominations were announced. The red carpet will commence at 7 p.m. ET, which will then be followed by the ceremony. The event is being live-streamed online right here
Legendary Entertainment, the production company behind “Dune” and “Godzilla vs. Kong,” has cut ties with Warner Bros. and entered a multi-year worldwide film distribution partnership with Sony Pictures. Under the new agreement, Sony will market and distribute Legendary’s upcoming theatrical motion picture titles. However, select existing projects at Legendary are exempt from the pact, meaning Warner
For Kendrick Lamar’s “We Cry Together” short film, it was crucial that the visuals captured the vulnerability and toxicity of a relationship in an intimate space. “It challenged me to actually live in what I was writing, and really be there and be present with Taylour [Paige],” Lamar said. “And I remember us going back
Elon Musk unleashed a stream of confrontational Twitter posts directed at Apple — including claiming that the tech giant has threatened to remove the Twitter app from the Apple App Store without providing a reason for doing so. “Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why,” tweeted
Andrew Brown has been promoted to president of Digital Distribution at Neon, the company announced Monday. Under Brown’s leadership, the studio launched its home entertainment division and formed Decal, a home entertainment distribution company. “Andrew’s knowledge of the players, the platforms and the history of cinema all converge to make him a one-of-a-kind executive,” said
Style Points is a weekly column about how fashion intersects with the wider world. Putting aside the burgeoning 2010s twee revival, the word “quirky” gets a bad rap in fashion. But when Alessandro Michele, then largely unknown, came onto the scene seven years ago, he made eccentricity feel cool again after years dominated by tastefully
Howard Stern is taking Oprah Winfrey to task over showing off her wealth on social media. During the Nov. 28 episode of “The Howard Stern Show” on SiriusXM (via Mediaite), the radio host said that “Oprah’s not embarrassed by her wealth at all” and somewhat lacks self-awareness considering she frequently posts about her wealthy lifestyle
Subject Matter, a recently-launched nonprofit organization that supports social issue documentary films and other nonprofits that work on its featured topics, announced their inaugural grantees, awarding a total of $120,000 to four feature-length documentaries and four of the films’ coinciding nonprofits. Subject Matter launched in July, spearheaded by former Tribeca Film Institute leaders Amy Hobby,
Scott Grogin is stepping down as executive vice president of communications for CBS Entertainment, Variety has confirmed. Grogin originally joined CBS in 2016, working with CBS Television Distribution. He started working with CBS Entertainment in 2018. He was perhaps best known in the industry for being responsible for CBS’ daily ratings information, including his “Notes
George Takei had nothing nice to say about former “Star Trek” co-star William Shatner in a new interview with The Guardian. Takei, who starred as Sulu opposite Shatner’s Captain Kirk during their “Star Trek” tenure, said there was a healthy camaraderie on set among his cast members “except for one, who was a prima donna.”
Artists Den brings “Live From My Den” back for another season, highlighting today’s most extraordinary artists as they perform from the creative spaces of their homes, studios and cities most significant to their creative processes. New episodes of “Live From My Den” will premiere each week exclusively via Variety.com, beginning Friday, Dec. 2, with an
The Weeknd has announced European and Latin American dates for his After Hours Til Dawn tour, which belatedly wrapped its North American leg in Los Angeles over the weekend. Next year’s dates begin on June 10 of next year in Manchester, UK at Etihad Stadium. The newly announced European leg of the tour spans 21
The jury in the Danny Masterson rape trial was told Monday to start its deliberations from scratch on Monday, after two members of the panel were excused due to testing positive for COVID-19. The jury had informed Judge Charlaine Olmedo on Nov. 18 that it was unable to reach a verdict on any of three
Penske Media Corp. has acquired ATX TV, the entity that operates the annual television festival in Austin, Tex. The deal calls for PMC, which is the parent company of Variety, to help expand the scope of the ATX brand with programming and activities beyond the four-day event in June that has become a key stop