2023 National News in Review

Alex Ritman French TV giant Banijay has sold back the production arm of Beyond International — the Australian producer and distributor best known for “Mythbusters” it fully acquired in Dec. 2022 — to the company’s managing director, Mikael Borgland.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor If anyone should be able to engineer a reunion of “Saturday Night Live” alumni, it should be Dan Aykroyd. A member of the show’s first cast of “Not Ready for Prime-Time Players,” Aykroyd was also among the first to jump from “SNL” to Hollywood and continues to tour with a band based on The Blues Brothers group he and John Belushi originated on the NBC mainstay.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s box office revenue rose in 2023 to €495 million ($542,000) while the country’s admissions tally reached 70.5 million, representing a roughly 60% increase compared with 2022. Though Italian moviegoing figures – announced Wednesday in Rome by national box office compiler Cinetel – mark a substantial leap forward, they are still down roughly 23% compared with the country’s average box office intake during the period between 2017 and 2019. Prior to the pandemic, the benchmark of a good year was considered 100 million admissions.

Following Monday night's 2-0 win over Wigan Athletic in the fourth round of the FA Cup, attention now switches to Sunday's Premier League clash with Tottenham Hotspur for Manchester United.

Protesters briefly interrupted a Fox News town hall with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who in campaigning in Iowa in the final days before that state’s caucuses.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis will take the debate stage one last time this Wednesday, Jan. 10.

FBI: International is almost here!

Valerie Wu Intern The National Society of Film Critics has announced its awardees for 2023’s best achievements in film. This year marks the 58th annual awards, which are voted upon by the prestigious organization’s slate of film critics, including Variety‘s chief film critics Owen Gleiberman and Peter Debruge.

Variety Staff Follow Us on Twitter Want to know which international features vying for Oscar gold are worth watching? Variety‘s team of critics has been on the ground at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto and other major film festivals, on the hunt for the best of the best. In December, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences unveiled its shortlist of 15 films eligible for the second round of voting in the Best International Feature Film category.

Happy New Year, everybody. Jesse Whittock with you for the first Insider of 2024, as we look forward to bringing you the biggest stories throughout the year. Read on, and please and sign up here to get the newsletter delivered to your inbox every week.

EXCLUSIVE: Meta, parent company of Facebook, is closing its Frank Gehry-designed London base, Deadline has learned. It will further reduce the number of offices it occupies in London, where the tech giant has its largest staff presence outside of the U.S.

Taiwan’s government has suspended its Taiwan International Co-funding Program (TICP) in a move that appears to signal a change in direction towards more mainstream projects. 

We’re looking back at all of the cancellations and renewals made by TV networks over the last 12 months, and AMC had quite the year.

Jimmy Failla has been named host of Fox News Saturday Night, the weekly comedy satire series that debuted last year.

Sean Hannity told listeners on his radio show on Tuesday that he’s relocated to Florida, citing New York’s tax rates as a major reason for the move.

Fox News will host a town hall featuring former President Donald Trump on January 10, counter-programming to CNN‘s Republican debate from Iowa that same evening.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent The French box office jumped 19% in 2023 with an estimated €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) grossed from 181.2 million tickets, according to Comscore France. Unlike in 2022, when the top 10 was exclusively dominated by U.S.

Fox News dominated the ratings for 2023, but only MSNBC showed slight growth in audience compared to a year earlier.

War, continued anti-LGBTQ crackdowns and the decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual relations are among the issues that made headlines around the world over the past year. Here are the top international stories of 2023.

KSLTV reported. He has a few months left to live and has entered hospice care.