Kuwait Exhibitor Launches Rebrand With Eye on Saudi Launch, Expansion The Kuwait National Cinema Company has launched new branding for its Cinescape exhibition circuit alongside the opening of a major new multiplex. The nine-screen Cinescape Al Kout Mall opened Monday ahead of the Islamic Eid al-Adha holiday. To coincide with the opening the KNCC will roll-out the Cinescape rebrand across all its locations. The new…
Alejandra Márquez Abella’s Toronto Platform Entry ‘The Good Girls’ Taken by Luxbox (EXCLUSIVE) MADRID — Having swooped before Berlin on Gael García Bernal starrer “Museo,” Paris-based Paris-based Luxbox has acquired most world sales rights to Alejandra Márquez Abella’s “The Good Girls,” another high-profile Mexican movie. Mexican exhibition giant Cinepolis’ is handling distribution rights in North and Latin America. “The Good Girls” is one of the 12 films –…
‘Dying Light: Bad Blood’ Hits Steam Early Access In September Techland’s zombie-infested battle royale game “Dying Light: Bad Blood” enters Steam Early Access in September, the developer announced on Monday. The fast-paced multiplayer title combines the core gameplay of the “Dying Light” franchise with the battle royale elements made popular in games like “Fortnite” and “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.” Up to 12 players scavenge for weapons, parkour…
Milt Barlow’s Asia Releasing Acquired by Tangren Cultural (EXCLUSIVE) Brisbane-based Tangren Cultural Film Group has acquired multinational company Asia Releasing, a distributor and marketing firm specializing in the handling of Chinese films. Milt Barlow, industry veteran and Asia Releasing founder, will stay on as COO of Tangren. Tangren has quickly built up a 60% market share of the box office for Chinese and Korean…
Lucía Alemany’s ‘Innocence’ Rolls with Sergi López, Laia Marull (EXCLUSIVE) MADRID — Sergi López (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Harry, He’s Here to Help”) and Laia Marull (“Take My Eyes,” “Black Bread”) co-star in rites-of-passage drama “La Inocencia” (Innocence), the feature debut of Lucía Alemany, a key name in a generation of often very young women cineastes now energizing Catalan cinema. Starring Carmen Arrufet in her first lead…
Gretchen Carlson Defends Miss America Organization Against Bullying Charge From 2018 Winner Gretchen Carlson is defending herself and the Miss America Organization against accusations from 2018 pageant winner Cara Mund that she has been harassed and silenced during her tenure to date. Mund also claims that Carlson has elbowed her out of the spotlight. Carlson, the former Fox News anchor and 1989 Miss America winner, became chairman…
Media Reacts to Asia Argento Payout: ‘Two Things Can Be True at Once’ Most celebrities have not been vocal so far about the news that Asia Argento paid a young actor a settlement after a sexual encounter when he was 17. The New York Times broke the story Sunday evening that former child actor and musician Jimmy Bennett had received $380,000 from Argento after the 2013 encounter in…
Concert Review: Brandi Carlile Covers Aretha, Channels Elton in Moving Greek Show Brandi Carlile is well used to both covering and being covered. Last year, she was the recipient of a tribute album that had Adele, Dolly Parton and Pearl Jam, among others, doing her songs. She can give as well as she gets, and on her current tour, she’s dropped in everything from “Madman Across the…
‘Sharp Objects’: Chris Messina on Richard’s ‘Broken Heart’ and the Moment He Lost Control SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Falling,” the penultimate episode of “Sharp Objects.” The characters in “Sharp Objects” are all hiding secrets, some deeper than others. For Chris Messina, the idea of “having a secret in every scene” was integral to his portrayal of Detective Richard Willis, the outsider sent to…
Asia Argento Settled With Sexual Assault Accuser Last Year (Report) According to documents obtained by the New York Times, leading #MeToo advocate Asia Argento settled an accusation of sexual assault from former child actor and musician Jimmy Bennett for the sum of $380,000 to be paid over the course of a year and a half. The claim and resulting discussions of payment are included in…
China Box Office: ‘The Island’ Earns $39 Million to Beat Still Hungry ‘Meg’ The outcome of the China box office was far less controversial than the previous weekend, but no easier to predict. Comedy, “The Island” retained its top spot in its second weekend. Giant shark movie, “The Meg” moved up to second place and crossed the $100 million mark. But “iPartment,” the Chinese film which topped the…
Lana Del Rey Defends Decision to Perform in Israel Lana Del Rey has defended her decision to perform at Israel’s Meteor Festival on Friday, Sept. 7. On August 19, the singer wrote, “I believe music is universal and should be used to bring us together. … Performing in Tel Aviv is not a political statement or a commitment to the politics there just like…
Ken Jeong Calls Out Hollywood’s ‘Cultural Insensitivity’ Ken Jeong delighted audiences in “Crazy Rich Asians” as Papa Goh, the high-haired, nouveau riche father of the Goh family. But behind the laughter, a range of emotions welled behind the comedian, for the road to “Crazy Rich Asians” was a deeply emotional one. Even now, while doing press for the film, Jeong can’t help but…
The Summer’s Most Important Movie Trend: People Still Love Going to the Movies! Each year, as the summer movie season winds down, we get to hear the box-office analysis of the previous four months, and these days it tends to be more than just a who’s-up/who’s-down postmortem of the business of Hollywood. It’s become a way of reading the tea leaves of where movies stand in American life.…
Jacki Weaver Heads Cast of Stan Original Series ‘Bloom’ Australia’s two-time Oscar-nominated actress Jacki Weaver (“Silver Linings Playbook,” “Animal Kingdom”) heads the cast of sci-fi series “Bloom.” An original commission for Australian streaming platform Stan, the six-part series is produced by Sony Pictures Television’s Playmaker. The story takes place a year after a devastating flood has killed five locals in an idyllic country town,…
‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Doesn’t Represent All Asians Everywhere, And That’s Fine (Column) Despite the critical acclaim, the box office success, and the fabulous jade carpet roll out, some critics have decried “Crazy Rich Asians” for not being all things to all Asians. There have been complaints that the film doesn’t represent the true diversity of Southeast Asia or Asia or the Asian-American experience. And they are absolutely right;…
‘The Meg’ Remains No. 1 at International Box Office, Tops $300 Million Worldwide “The Meg” swam past the competition at the international box office for the second week in a row. Warner Bros.’ shark thriller generated $67 million in 55 territories abroad this weekend for an overseas tally of $230.4 million. It picked up another $21.5 million in North America, bringing its global tally over $314 million. “The Meg,”…
Late-Night TV Has a Growing Problem: Maybe There’s Too Much of It Something funny is going on with late-night TV, but it’s not the sort of development that’s going to make anyone laugh. Netflix’s decision on Friday to cancel programs led by comics Michelle Wolf and Joel McHale, both of which emulated traditional late-night series, marks just the most recent move in a scaling back of the genre.…
Film Review: ‘Billionaire Boys Club’ Tough break. After 15 years in director’s jail, “Wonderland” helmer James Cox resurfaces with another smarmy true-crime drama, “Billionaire Boys Club,” this one about a bunch of Los Angeles investment scammers who wound up whacking a couple of their associates when their Ponzi scheme started to go south, only to have the film implode in…
‘Stranger Things’ Season 3 Is Inspired by 1985’s ‘Fletch’ (EXCLUSIVE) When Season 3 of “Stranger Things” eventually returns, don’t expect Chief Jim Hopper to be jumping for joy at the sight of Starcourt Mall — or rushing to buy a sundae from Joe Keery’s Steve Harrington, for that matter. “I don’t know if Hopper would be caught dead at Scoops Ahoy,” David Harbour joked ahead of a…
‘Crazy Rich Asians’ to Top ‘The Meg’s’ Second Weekend “Crazy Rich Asians” is heading for a glamorous first weekend with an estimated $22 million from 3,384 North American locations. The Warner Bros. film debuted August 15 and has already racked up $16 million. Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Awkwafina, and Michelle Yeoh star in the Asian-led pic, the first of its kind since 1993’s “The…
Trump Claims Social Media Platforms Stifle Conservative Voices WASHINGTON — President Trump said that social media platforms are “discriminating against” Republican and conservative voices, but “we won’t let that happen.” Companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook deny that they have targeted or singled out rightward forms of content. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the claims at a hearing…
Film Review: ‘Running for Grace’ It’s difficult to offer a detailed synopsis of “Running for Grace” without making it sound like something adapted from a young adult novel of recent vintage. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, you understand, but this pleasantly well-crafted period drama actually plays more like a throwback to youth-skewing entertainment of an earlier era. Imagine…
Sarajevo Film Review: ‘Love 1. Dog’ When an isolated forest ranger rescues a mysterious young woman he finds beaten and unconscious, his long-suppressed emotions surge out of control in Romanian multi-hyphenate Florin Şerban’s third feature “Love 1. Dog.” Set in some indeterminate time during the 20th century, this enigmatic but engrossing drama may look completely different from Şerban’s 2010 Berlinale prize-winner, “If…
Jeffrey Katzenberg on Oscars’ New Popular Film Category Controversy Jeffrey Katzenberg is keeping a safe distance from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ recent controversial shakeup of the Oscars. “I’m wishing them well,” the media mogul told Variety on Thursday at the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s NextGen party at Paramount Studios. “I love the Academy. I want it to work out…
Fall Movie Preview 2018: ‘Venom,’ ‘A Star Is Born,’ ‘Halloween’ With a Harry Potter follow-up, a Spider-Man spinoff, and a new take on “Mary Poppins” among the bounty of movies opening in theaters, the rest of 2018 has plenty to offer filmgoers. “A Simple Favor” Release Date: Sept. 14 Stars: Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding Why we want to see it: The gossip girl…
TV News Roundup: Disney Channel Announces ‘Coop & Cami’ Premiere Date In today’s roundup, Disney Channel announces October premiere dates for two new shows, and the “Clear the Shelters Day” initiative aims to encourage pet adoption. DATES Disney Channel is also rolling out the new family sitcom “Coop & Cami Ask the World” on Friday, Oct. 12. at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT. The live-action comedy follows middle-school siblings Coop (Dakota Lotus) and Cami…
Check’s In the Mail: Sony Music Disburses $750 Million to Artists in ‘Spotify Windfall’ (EXCLUSIVE) Sony Music has begun to distribute the $750 million in profit it collected from the April sale of 50% of its Spotify shares to the artists and distributed labels within the Sony system, Variety has confirmed. As previously reported, Sony, which held 5.7% of Spotify’s stock when the streaming service went public, will not count the funds…
‘Star Wars Resistance’: Disney Drops Trailer for ‘The Force Awakens’ Prequel Series “Can you imagine what it’s like to be an ace pilot?” Kazuda Xiono (“Kaz”) asks in the new trailer for Disney Channel’s upcoming animated show “Star Wars Resistance.” The adventure series will have a one-hour premiere on Sunday, Oct. 7 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Disney Channel, DisneyNOW, and Disney Channel VOD, with further airings…
Michelle Wolf, Joel McHale Talk Shows Canceled by Netflix Netflix has canceled two of its talk shows, “The Break With Michele Wolf” and “The Joel McHale Show With Joel McHale.” The move comes just months into both shows’ runs — with McHale’s haveing premiered in February and Wolf’s in May. It also comes as Wolf has seen her star rise, thanks in part to…
British Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn to Deliver Edinburgh TV Festival Lecture British politician and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is set to deliver the prestigious Alternative MacTaggart lecture at this year’s Edinburgh Television Festival, which takes place next week. The Labour Party leader will participate in a Q&A with BAFTA-nominated actress Maxine Peake following his speech, as well as take audience questions, the festival announced. Corbyn has…
The Debate Over ‘The Affair’ Star Ruth Wilson’s Awkward Exit (Column) In an interview with “CBS This Morning” this week, Ruth Wilson created something rare for daytime talk: the sort of tense, awkward moment that reminds you that a show is unscripted, and live. Asked about the end of her role on “The Affair” — her character, Alison, was recently killed — Wilson told “This Morning”…
