Warner Bros. Discovery kicked off its annual upfront event at the Madison Square Garden Theater by paying tribute to the late Ted Turner, who had just died the previous week. Turner, of course, was part of why WBD was even holding an upfront in the first place: Not only was the
Bound by a common language and torrid history, 21-year-old Mexican nanny Lucila (Anna Diaz) bristles against her surroundings in Madrid, where she and her younger brother followed their mother from their Mexican hometown. “Ashes” shares these broad strokes with the novel on
Yona Speidel, the Emmy nominated writer and producer formerly known as Our Lady J, recently experienced grief as a Jew for the first time. Just six weeks after converting to Judaism in March and officially changing her name, Speidel marked her late brother’s Yahrzeit (the
‘The Batman: Part 2″ director Matt Reeves has been rolling out posts on X introducing a number of additions confirmed to be joining Robert Pattinson in the cast of the upcoming sequel. Among the now-confirmed new faces, Reeves announced that Scarlett Johansson has joined the
The French-language drama boasts an all-star Gallic cast that includes Isabelle Huppert, Virginia Efira, Vincent Cassel and, in a small role, Catherine Deneuve.
With two recent deals, Byron Allen has elevated his profile in both late-night TV and the digital media space. He’s about to take control of struggling media company BuzzFeed, and next week he is getting the the CBS time slot that is being vacated this month by “The Late Show
Amazon Studios has been sued by a post-production vendor who alleges he was blackballed after refusing to pay kickbacks to an Amazon employee. Joe Eckardt, owner of Unbreakable Post, alleges he has been denied at least $1 million worth of work since refusing to participate in
Ted Turner made his mark across media and entertainment as a trailblazing entrepreneur. Nowhere was his impact more profound than in journalism with the launch of CNN. Ted Turner was also nothing short of a gift to the journalists who covered his long run in the public eye.
Asghar Farhadi made a grand return to Cannes Film Festival on Thursday night with the debut of “Parallel Tales,” his French-language drama starring Isabelle Huppert, earning a 5.5-minute standing ovation. The acclaimed Iranian auteur blew kisses to the crowd as the audience
After publicly supporting Donald Trump and the Republican Party in recent months, Nicki Minaj is opening up about why she became vocal in her support for the President. During an interview with Time, Minaj says a major reason that she was turned off to Democrats was that after
Maddie Brewer has signed with Verve for representation, Variety has learned exclusively. She continues to be repped by Fourth Wall Management. Brewer is the creator, writer, and animator behind the Adult Swim series “CHIPS.” The show premiered in October 2025 and will be in
Emmy award-winning TV producer Sarah Caplan, who worked on series including “Felicity,” “Lost” and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, died April 30 at Dignitas in Zurich, three years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She was 73. Her daughter, Stella Stahl, said in a statement, “In
“Tangles,” a new black-and-white animated film about a 20-something illustrator named Sarah who is dealing with her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease, was all too real for its producers, Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen. The couple started dating more than two decades ago, as
Her big-screen résumé also included ‘No Mercy, ‘Valmont,’ ‘Malcolm X’ and ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.’
After 20 years with Paramount brands, MTV Entertainment Studios president Keith Cox is stepping down from his position. Paramount Television Studios president Matt Thunell and Cox announced the news in notes to Paramount employees Thursday, which were obtained by Variety. Per
R&B-pop artist Dawn Richard, singer-songwriter Valerie June, Nigerian guitar innovator Mdou Moctar and electronic artist Porches will perform at the 2026 Libera Awards, the Foundation for Independent Music and the American Association of Independent Music have announced. The
Florida is once again having a main character moment. Three major series recently utilized the region’s distinct environs: ABC’s “R.J. Decker,” Peacock’s “M.I.A.” and Apple TV’s Season 1 of “Bad Monkey.” HBO’s comedy series “It’s Florida, Man” is currently prepping for a third
The hunt for the next James Bond has officially kicked off. Amazon MGM Studios started auditioning actors for the part of 007 in the past few weeks, Variety has learned, with the studio enlisting the help of Nina Gold to find the man with the suaveness and danger necessary to
The matter-of-fact seduction of Pawlikowski’s filmmaking lies in how he stages everything with a coolly objective authenticity. In "Fatherland," he lends this historical moment a time-machine quality, so that we feel we’re right there, in Germany in 1949, seeing the sands of
Subscribers of Charter Communications’ higher-end Spectrum TV plans now have access to Warner Bros. Discovery’s Discovery+ for no extra charge. Of course, much of the content on Discovery+ (but not all) is already available through WBD’s HBO Max, which also is currently
It’s all about people spying on each other, which can be a good idea for a movie. And no one is saying that Farhadi has to stick to his familiar mode of neorealist drama. But "Parallel Tales," it’s my grim duty to report, is a meandering and rather amorphous mess. It’s a
Matt Reeves took to X on Thursday to confirm that Johansson and Stan were officially joining the DC sequel.
On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, Variety’s Michael Schneider breaks down the last lap of upfronts week as Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix and YouTube grabbed the megaphone. And Variety music chief Jem Aswad goes deep on the music of “Heated Rivalry” in a session
The Try Guys’ bonkers cooking competition “Phoning It In” has rounded out its slate of judges, cast members and contestants for Season 4. The show premiered its fourth installment on the independent streamer 2nd Try TV on May 6 before it rolls onto YouTube starting May 30.
The Vera Farmiga, Tim Blake Nelson and Jim Parsons-starring cult biopic from director Michael Gallagher has been picked by Altitude Films for Britain and Sphere Films for the Canadian market.
Claudine Longet, the French singer and actress who underwent a 1976 trial after she shot and killed her boyfriend, Olympic skier Spider Sabich, has died, according to the Telegram. She was 84. Longet performed pop tracks for A&M Records’ albums before she sang the Henry
“Gabin” is far from the first film — nonfiction or otherwise — to make a longterm investment in a child protagonist, training a camera on them over years as adulthood gradually approaches. Maxence Voiseux’s film has obvious precedents in such documentary projects as Michael
The distinctive visual storytelling of Canadian cartoonist Sarah Leavitt is deftly and stylishly transferred to the big screen in “Tangles,” an honestly felt and highly affecting adaptation of her autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. Chronicling with tenderness and
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are developing a feature film adaptation of the Afghan war memoir, “No Way Out: The Searing True Story of Men Under Siege,” for Netflix. The book chronicles British Major Adam Jowett’s command of Easy Company, a unit of Paras and Royal Irish
The feature film debut from Iranian-French director Mahsa Karampour about her and her brother, a former member of indie rock band The Yellow Dogs, follows the journey of the search for a familial bond.
BFFoundation has announced the 2026 Bentonville Film Festival’s lineup of in-person premieres. The festival will be held June 15-21 in Bentonville, Arkansas, and will showcase a range of narrative, documentary, homegrown, short film, and episodic material. BFF 2026 will open on
Ending a show is not easy — and the process is different for everyone. That was just one lesson learned during the drama series panel at the Variety A Night in the Writers’ Room event in Los Angeles. First, both Eric Kripke, showrunner and executive producer of Prime Video’s
Sandra Hüller takes a fraught and cathartic road trip in Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cannes premiere “Fatherland”– and her GPS is set for next year’s Oscar race. The audience at the Grand Palais rewarded Hüller’s performance as the dutiful daughter of a post-war German literary genius
Dua Lipa has announced “Dua Lipa (Live From Mexico),” a live album and concert film that she recorded across three shows at Mexico City’s Estadio GNP Seguros. The film is slated to premiere on May 21 at 10 a.m. PT on Lipa’s YouTube channel, while the live album will hit
The star returns to the fashion world for Boots Riley's wild adventure following a band of professional shoplifters, appearing alongside Moore, Taylour Paige, Naomi Ackie, Poppy Liu and Eiza González.
The new period drama from the director of 'Ida' and 'Cold War' had its world premiere in Cannes competition Thursday night.
'Gia – The Shadow of Beauty,' treating her "not as a pop-cultural icon but as a young woman navigating desire and visibility in 1980s New York," is being presented to potential partners at Cannes.
It’s been three years since Drake has released a solo album, but he’s far from cooled off. Since releasing 2023’s “For All the Dogs,” Toronto’s finest teamed up with PartyNextDoor for “Some Sexy Songs 4 U”; dropped a massive collection of footage and files, including a handful
The team behind the docuseries “Lost Women of Alaska,” which explores the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) crisis, discussed raising awareness around the disproportionate violence against Native women at the Variety FYC TV Fest on May 6. Held in conversation with
Mister Smith Entertainment has unveiled a phot look still of its supernatural horror film “Hide and Don’t Speak.” Pic features the film’s star Momona Tamada (“Avatar: The Last Airbender”). The cast also includes Tanner Buchanan (“Cobra Kai,” “How to Date Billy Walsh”), Garrett
Additionally, longtime trustee Sarah Barrack has been appointed to the role of vice president of the board.
There is a moment, somewhere between exchanging favorite films and confronting each other’s psyche, where two strangers from different countries have to decide whether they can actually make something together. For the eight directors at the center of “Next Step Studio
At 76, Daniel Auteuil arrives at Cannes with two films, a parrot on his head and five decades of work that somehow still hasn’t made him a household name outside of France
A feature project with John Legend and Mike Jackson and a kids’ TV project based on Chrissy Teigen and Tracy Stevens’ podcast are among the projects that have been unveiled as part of Kas Kas Productions’ initial development slate. Founded by former Lionsgate executive Kamala
The actor has emerged as a Cannes regular in recent years, and he attended a market showing of his action thriller in the Palais this week: “It’s just a fun action movie that we got to shoot in L.A.”
Chile boasts a milestone presence in Cannes this year with new or consolidating companies leading the charge. Among them is Fernando Bascuñán’s Planta with three projects — two competing in Directors’ Fortnight: Domingo Sotomayor’s drama about a woman adopting a stray dog, “La
Charades has acquired world sales rights to “La Frappe” (“The Blow”) from writer-director Julien Gaspar-Oliveri. The film will premiere during Cannes’ Critics Week. The film which will have its world premiere on May 15, follows siblings Enzo and his sister Carla who have been
Bill Lawrence will receive the 2026 Project Healthy Minds Storyteller of the Year Award. The TV creator will be honored at Project Healthy Minds’ annual World Mental Health Day Gala on October 8 at Spring Studios in New York. Lawrence currently serves as the executive producer
As Chile boasts a milestone presence in Cannes this year with new or consolidating companies leading the charge — including Domingo Sotomayor’s drama about a woman adopting a stray dog, “La Perra,” and Lisandro Alonso’s “Double Freedom” (“La libertad doble”) both competing in
