Amazon Studios Leads Bidding On ‘Voltron’ Live-Action Film With ‘Red Notice’ Helmer Rawson Marshall Thurber

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorIn today’s podcast roundup, “Batman Unburied” flies to the top of Spotify’s charts; HBO Max’s “The Staircase” gets a companion podcast; Slate’s “Slow Burn” Season 7 will unpack the history of Roe v. Wade; Audible set to release “Beast Master” investigative narrative podcast about “Ohio’s bear king”; and more.DC’s “Batman Unburied” superhero series soared to the top of the Spotify podcast charts in markets around the globe this week after its premiere — unseating “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the controversial show that is the streamer’s regular chart-topper. The thriller from David S. Goyer delves into the dark recesses of Bruce Wayne’s psyche with an all-new storyline.The first two episodes of the 10-ep “Batman Unburied” bowed May 3.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorMunich-based Global Screen has acquired family entertainment film “School of Magical Animals 2” for worldwide distribution. A first teaser will be presented at the Cannes Market for the project, which has a budget of more than $13 million.

Emiliano De Pablos After a two-and-a half year hiatus, renowned Spanish producer Manuel Cristobal has returned to toon production, joining the team behind animated feature project “The Glassworker,” directed by Usman Riaz, and created by Pakistan-based Mano Animation Studios. “The Glassworker” marks the first hand-drawn animated feature from Pakistan. Scheduled for a 2023 release, the project is said to be in the running for a berth at this year’s Annecy Work in Progress showcase, a prestige selection which would earn the title considerable international profile. Targeting family audiences, the film is set in a location loosely inspired by Pakistan, telling the story of young Vincent and his father Tomas, who run the finest glass workshop in the country and find their lives upended by an approaching war in which they want no part.  The arrival in their town of an army colonel and his young talented, violinist daughter, Alliz, shakes their reality and tests the relationship between father and son.The love that develops between Vincent and Alliz is challenged constantly by the differing views of their fathers.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Miracle: Letters to the President,” directed by Lee Jang-hoon, was Saturday named as the best film winner at the Far East Film Festival in Italy’s Udine, following an audience poll. The South Korean-made film was described by festival organizers as “a sweet-natured hymn to the power of dreams.” Second and third places belonged to Chinese-produced pictures Li Ruijun’s “Return to Dust” and Xing Wenxiong’s “To Cool to Kill,” respectively.

Naman Ramachandran Amazon Prime Video pulled out the heavy international artillery to launch a massive Indian slate on Thursday. They are bullish about the market.Kelly Day, VP of international, Amazon Prime Video, said at a round table during the event: “The future of global streaming services is really about global expansion, and moving much more ambitiously, to serving customers in our international markets all over the world.

Graham McTavish, best known for roles in The Hobbit, Rambo and Outlander, is narrating the international version of Love Nature’s upcoming doc The Ocean’s Greatest Feast.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefPeter Luo’s Stars Collective has optioned the rights to acclaimed Chinese novelist and screenwriter Tong Hua’s best-selling sci-fi fantasy novel series “The Memory Lost in Space” and will adapt the story into both an English language television series and feature film.A story told over four book installments, the first of which debuted in 2017, “The Memory Lost in Space” is set in the distant future, with humans forced into an exodus to the edge of the galaxy after the depletion and destruction of Earth’s energy and habitat. Humans resort to genetic modification to stay strong but this creates new diseases and conflict between pure-breeds and those modified.

), “BARDO” will enjoy a theatrical release on a global scale later this year including in Mexico, its country of origin, as well as the US, Canada, UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Japan and Korea, among many more before debuting on Netflix.Iñàrritu previously worked with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki on his last two films to Oscar-winning effect.“BARDO” stars Daniel Giménez Cacho and Griselda Siciliani. In addition to Khondji, the film features a below-the-line team that includes production design by the Oscar-winning Mexican designer Eugenio Caballero (“Pan’s Labyrinth”) and costume design by Anna Terrazas (“ROMA”).Netflix previously released noteworthy titles like Alfonso Cuaron’s “ROMA,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” in theaters before the films were available to stream on Netflix, and for Iñárritu’s first Netflix feature it appears he’s being given a similar rollout strategy – although it’s unclear if “BARDO” will have an exclusive theatrical window or if the film will release on streaming and in theaters on the same day.This is Iñárritu’s first film since 2015’s “The Revenant,” which earned him a Best Director Oscar on the heels of 2014’s “Birdman” which won Best Director, Picture and Original Screenplay.

Famed Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi has partnered with the U.K.’s Royal Shakespeare Company to create a stage version of Japanese animation legend Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 hand-drawn classic My Neighbour Totoro, a beloved film that follows the adventures of two young sisters who move from Tokyo city to the countryside.

Development on a live-action “Robotech” movie began back in 2007 at Warner Bros. with a fleet of writers each taking a crack at turning the beloved Japanese anime series from the 1980s into a Hollywood feature film.

The animated Super Mario Bros. movie from Illumination and Nintendo and based on the video game franchise is being pushed back from a holiday 2022 release to now open over Easter weekend.

The cast of Queer Eye can’t speak enough about Angel Flores.

EXCLUSIVE: Miki Ishikawa (The Falcon And The Winter Soldier), Sierra McCormick (American Horror Stories) and Nick Sagar (The Princess Switch) have signed on to star in the indie horror-drama, I Don’t Want to Drink Your Blood Anymore, from writer-director Andrew Sullivan (Bokeh).

Although it turned out to be David Lynch-less, this year’s Cannes line-up is in no shortage of big names (complete list here). Claire Denis returns to the competition section for the first time in 34 years with her Nicaraguan ‘80s romance “Stars At Noon”; James Gray premieres his childhood-inspired “Armageddon Time”; and, as the headliner, “Crash” and “Videodrome” director David Cronenberg looks set to return to his body-horror roots with the Viggo-in-chrysalis “Crimes of the Future.” And if that competition doesn’t sound fierce enough already, there’s also a new movie from Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, titled “Broker,” which now has its first trailer.

Mónica Marie Zorrilla Two months after the debut of musical rom-com “Marry Me,” starring Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson and Maluma, Bobby Crosby is getting another one of his Keenspot graphic novels adapted for the big screen. Israeli producer Uri Singer has secured the film and television rights to “Dreamless,” a Keenspot graphic novel by Crosby illustrated by Sarah Ellerton.“Dreamless,” which was first a Keenspot webcomic in 2009 before being collected into a graphic novel, has been read by more than four million people worldwide.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentA few hours after unveiling Cannes Film Festival’s 2022 Official Selection on the Champs Elysees, artistic director Thierry Fremaux sat down with Variety to discuss the festival’s drive to not give in to calls for a cultural boycott of Russian films and filmmakers, efforts to have more female directors in competition, discussions to bring back streamers in a near future and what those rumors about David Lynch in the lineup were about. The all-star competition lineup of this upcoming 75th edition boasts no less than four Palme d’Or winning directors, including Japanese master Kore-eda Hirokazu (Japan) and Swedish helmer Ruben Ostlund (“Triangle of Sadness”), as well new films by David Cronenberg (“Crimes of the Future”), Kelly Reichardt (”Showing Up”), James Gray (“Armageddon Time”) and dissident Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov (“Tchaïkovski’s Wife”).

Coming off the blockbuster success of S.S. Rajamouli’s RRR, star Ram Charan is hardly sitting on his laurels. Releasing April 29 is action drama Acharya which he’s producing and starring in with his father, the prolific actor Chiranjeevi. He’s also currently shooting RC15 (working title), a political drama from 2.0 director S. Shankar, and has more projects in the pipeline.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefLionsgate’s local-language film consortium GlobalGate Entertainment has added Japan’s Rakuten to its worldwide team of production and distribution partners.“We will acquire the adaptation and remake rights to IPs with high global value and recognition and work with talented creators in Japan to create world-class content. We will also leverage the Rakuten Ecosystem to distribute the newly created content around the world, sharing it with as many fans as possible,” said Ando Koji, Rakuten Group managing executive officer and communications and energy company senior VP.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAs the Cannes Film Festival will announce its Official Selection on Thursday, Variety is starting to get a slightly clearer picture of what 75th edition will look like, though fewer titles than usual have leaked. Led by Cannes’ artistic director and general delegate Thierry Fremaux, the selection committee has been flooded with late submissions and is now in the thick of deliberations.Most surprisingly, according to two well-informed sources, there will even be a David Lynch feature film which has been completely off the radar and stars Laura Dern — either as a cameo or a supporting role — along with some other Lynch regulars.We already know the sun-dappled celebration will land several high-profile films from U.S.