Asylum Entertainment Group Strikes Deal to Invest in DARE Pictures (EXCLUSIVE)

Sony Pictures Entertainment has hired Jill Ratner as their EVP and General Counsel, overseeing all of the studio’s legal functions, compliance and labor relations, SPE music affairs, government/external matters, and corporate social responsibility teams. 

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Disney deputy general counsel Jill Ratner has exited the Mouse House to join Sony Pictures Entertainment as executive vice president and general counsel. Beginning in her new role May 28, Ratner will be overseeing all SPE’s legal functions, compliance and labor relations, SPE music affairs, government/external affairs and corporate social responsibility teams. She will report directly to CEO Tony Vinciquerra.

Wheelhouse is getting ready for a rollercoaster ride.

Alexandra Jarvis is the latest agent to leave the Oppenheim Group!

K.J. Yossman Victoria Asare-Archer has been tapped to adapt C.M. Ewan’s “The House Hunt” for Sony Pictures Television-backed Eleventh Hour Films.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Sony Pictures Entertainment and Apollo Global Management are considering a possible joint bid for Paramount Global. News of the discussions was first reported by the New York Times. Sources close to the situation confirmed the conversations but cautioned that there are numerous obstacles that would need to be overcome before the sides could formally submit an offer.

A ton of first look deals were announced today at Paramount‘s CinemaCon presentation one of them being for their A Quiet Place filmmaker John Krasinksi and Allyson Seeger’s Sunday Night label.

Angelique Jackson Noted civil rights attorney Ben Crump has inked a seven-figure deal to author a series of crime novels for Bantam Books. Under the deal, Bantam Books will publish the first two installments of a crime fiction series written by Crump, who has defended and won significant settlements for the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Henrietta Lacks, the residents of Flint, Michigan and several others.

EXCLUSIVE: Israel’s Keshet International (KI) has struck its latest co-development deal, a partnership with British presenter Bettany Hughes‘ indie SandStone Global.

Katcy Stephan Outplay Films‘ “Turtles,” directed by David Lambert, has landed U.S. distribution with Dark Star Pictures. The film, which stars Dave Johns, Olivier Gourmet and Brigitte Poupart, follows a long-married couple who are headed for divorce.

Emiliano De Pablos After 12 seasons on linear TV, flagship Spanish talent show “Operación Triunfo,” produced by Banijay Iberia’s Gestmusic, has jumped successfully to the online environment via Prime Video. “Operación Triunfo’s” first gala was the most viewed premiere in the history of Prime Video in Spain. Its app for voting accumulated 53 million votes and, on social networks, generated 718.9 million views in TikTok and YouTube, according to VOD analytics Sigmados30.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Television has finalized a new licensing deal with Paramount Global for comedy series The King of Queens to continue to be available on Paramount linear cable networks. The new pact also includes for the first time streaming rights on Paramount+ for all nine seasons and on Pluto TV for some (currently Seasons 1-3).

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent With one week to go before the press conference unveiling the 77th Cannes Film Festival Official Selection, director Thierry Fremaux is pledging to remain zen — despite wrestling with submission delays, reverberations of Hollywood’s double strikes and high expectations after last year’s edition unveiled Oscar winners “The Zone of Interest” and “Anatomy of a Fall.” This year’s edition is already heating up, with George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” confirmed to premiere at the festival and Quentin Dupieux’s “A Second Act,” starring Léa Seydoux, set as the opening night film. In his first and only interview ahead of the lineup reveal, Fremaux tells Variety all about this year’s edition, including his hopes to welcome back Francis Ford Coppola with “Megalopolis” and Yorgos Lanthimos with “Kinds of Kindness,” his appeal to Ted Sarandos to lure Netflix back on the Croisette, his stance on France’s new #MeToo reckoning, the presence of female directors at the festival and how geopolitical turmoil may shape the Official Selection. Last year was a milestone year for the Cannes Film Festival. How did you approach this year’s lineup, and how many films have been selected so far? The unanimous feedback we got is that 2023 was a really great year.

EXCLUSIVE: Showrunner and screenwriter Trey Callaway (The Messengers) has taken on new reps at Independent Artist Group and Echo Lake Entertainment.

EXCLUSIVE: The competition investigation that is spooking the UK’s fabled TV drama industry looks set to rumble on until at least the end of the year.

Ellise Shafer U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has backed J.K. Rowling after the “Harry Potter” author spoke out against Scotland’s new hate crime act, daring the police to arrest her for misgendering trans women.

EXCLUSIVE: A week after veteran talent agent Jed Abrahams resigned as KMR Talent’s SVP and head of the agency’s New York office, he has joined Los Angeles-based management and production company The Rosenzweig Group (aka The Rose Group) as a talent manager. He will open and head an office in New York, making The Rosenzweig Group — founded in 2018 by Marni Rosenzweig — officially bicoastal.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Searchlight Pictures has signed a first-look deal with Olivia Colman and Ed Sinclair’s South of the River Pictures. Under the new pact, the specialty studio, which has worked with Colman on “The Favourite” and “Empire of Light,” will develop and produce feature-length motion pictures with the production company. South of the River Pictures was founded by Colman, Sinclair and their long-time partner in crime, Tom Carver, to develop and produce original scripted comedies and dramas with “an authored sensibility.” Colman and Sinclair have been married since 2001.

EXCLUSIVE: Alejandra Reyes, most recently a TV lit agent at UTA, is switching to management and joining 3 Arts Entertainment. She is bringing an expertise in the international space — focusing on Latin America and Spain — which she developed as an agent, introducing international writers and directors to the US market, attaching them to major series and closing first-look/overall deals for them. That includes a first-look deal with Onyx for The House of Flowers creator Manolo Caro and his production company Woo Films and an overall deal with Netflix for Chilean writer José Ignacio “Chascas” Valenzuela, creator, executive producer and showrunner of Who Killed Sara?

EXCLUSIVE: Alloy Entertainment’s Head of Film Elysa Dutton has written a children’s book and her employer is turning it into its first animated feature film.