Bill Heck and Amiah Miller Join Searchlight Pictures Horror-Thriller ‘Dust’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle EditorJonathan Bailey is in talks to join the cast of Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked” movies.The “Bridgerton” star will play Fiyero in the two-part feature adaptation headlined by Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. The Universal Pictures films are set for release on Christmas in 2024 and 2025.“Wicked” is a prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” telling the story of how Elphaba became the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch.“We decided to give ourselves a bigger canvas and make not just one ‘Wicked’ movie but two!” Chu wrote in a statement when announcing the two-parter. “With more space, we can tell the story of ‘Wicked’ as it was meant to be told while bringing even more depth and surprise to the journeys for these beloved characters.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winning film “Triangle of Sadness” has been sold by Coproduction Office to major distributors around the world. “Triangle of Sadness,” which was acquired by Neon for North America at the Cannes Film Festival, just had its North American premiere at Toronto and is playing at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Coproduction Office has now sold the movie worldwide to major distributors. Recent deals have been closed with Stay Golden (China), Edko (Hong Kong), Impact (India), Gaga (Japan), Green Narae (South Korea), Catchplay (Taiwan), TBA Studios (Philippines), Sun (Latin America), Frontrow (Middle East), Forefont (South Africa) and Les Films 26 (French-speaking Africa). 

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic If you’re someone who considers themself a foodie (and I totally am), chances are there was a moment in the last few years when you had The Awakening. It may have been when the waiter was describing the veal marrow with beat foam served with baby lettuces from New Zealand. It may have been when you were eating the red snapper that was cooked halfway through, like a rare steak, and you thought, “I love sushi, I love cooked fish, but I’m not sure this is really the best of both worlds.” It may have been when you saw the bill. Whatever the trigger, that was the moment you looked up from your plate and realized that high-end foodie culture has become a serious annoyance. It’s gotten too fussy, too pricey, too full of itself, too not filling (of yourself), too avant-garde and conceptual, too tied to The Salvation of the Planet, too much of an ordeal. Did I mention too pricey? It used to be that if you wanted to ridicule culinary mania, you mocked someone like Guy Fieri. But he has risen from the ashes of infamy to a kind of born-again respectability (and yes, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” was always a great show). Now, if you want to ridicule culinary mania, the most natural targets are restaurants like The French Laundry in Napa Valley or Bros’ in Southern Italy, places where the 12-course “tasting menu” can inspire you to think, as one blogger put it, that “there was nothing even close to an actual meal served.”

A steady flow of specialty films starts this weekend with the return of a key player to cinemas and a broader arthouse slate that will expand steadily into awards season. This is still a weird theatrical landscape but independent distributors and theater owners have agreed for months that there’s no recovery without a brisker pace of new releases

Actor Bill Heck (Broadway’s Cabaret, Hulu’s The Old Man) will join the return Broadway engagement of Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out co-starring Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Jesse Williams.

Red carpet date night! While the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards aims to celebrate the best of television, many stars are feeling the romance.  

Ethan Shanfeld Disney made quite a splash at its D23 Expo last weekend with a first look at Halle Bailey’s live-action “The Little Mermaid,” which earned over 104 million global views, Variety has learned exclusively. The clip takes viewers on a journey through the ocean before showing the shimmering underwater life of Ariel (Bailey), who teases her version of the iconic “Little Mermaid” song “Part of Your World.” “The Little Mermaid” teaser floated above those of all recent Disney live-action titles, including “Cruella” (68 million views), “Beauty and the Beast” (94 million views), “Alladin” (74 million views) and “Maleficent 2” (62 million views). Due to Queen Elizabeth II’s death on Thursday, “The Little Mermaid” metrics do not include views from the U.K., Ireland and Australia.

Holly Jones Spain’s Bendita Films (“The Clash”) has scooped international sales rights to twisted and suspenseful production “The Uncle” (“Stric”) ahead of its market screening at the Toronto Festival. “We’re thrilled to represent the brilliant debut feature from David Kapac and Andrija Mardešić, a captivating, oppressive thriller with humorous notes that will surely surprise international audiences with its unsettling atmosphere and inventive narrative structure,” stated Luis Renart, CEO-sales & acquisitions at Bendita Films. Written and directed in tandem by Kapac and Mardešić, the project garnered a special jury mention in July at the Proxima strand which has replaced East of the West at the Karlovy Vary Festival. It marks the first feature effort for the Croatian duo who’ve previously paired to create several festival-showcased short films, including post-war noir comedy “Iris.”

Michaela Zee editor Spectrum Originals has released the official trailer for the crime dramedy series “Panhandle.” The release date of the series’ first two episodes on Spectrum is Sept. 26. The eight-episode series follows armchair detective Bell Prescott (Luke Kirby) and traffic cop Cammie Lorde (Tiana Okoye) as they investigate a murder in their small Florida town. Along with Kirby and Okoye, the series stars Forrest Goodluck, Lorenza Izzo, Wallace Smith, Glenn Morshower and Lesley Ann Warren. Recurring guest stars include Melanie Minichino, Landon Chase DuBois, Mo Gallini, David De Vries, Deja Dee, Paulina Gálvez, Scott Takeda and Grant Freely.

Today at D23, Disney offered a first look at its live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey and directed by Rob Marshall, which is slated to hit theaters May 26. Watch the teaser above.

Disney has revealed the first trailer for Hocus Pocus 2 at the D23 Expo in Anaheim tonight (September 9).The new movie, which will see original stars Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker return, will arrive on Disney Plus on September 30.The sequel will also introduce new characters, including one played by Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham, as the trailer reveals.The trailer begins with a priest banishing the three young witches, who grow up to be Midler, Najimy and Parker’s characters, from Salem and meeting Waddingham in the woods. “They were right to fear thee,” she tells them.Happily never after.#Disenchanted, an Original movie, starts streaming November 24 on @DisneyPlus.

are back! But there is tragedy in the family's midst.ET exclusively premieres the new season 10 promo for the ABC family comedy, and the Goldbergs are preparing to welcome another member into the family with newlyweds Erica (Hayley Orrantia) and Geoff (Sam Lerner) expecting their first child. But while they're celebrating the arrival of baby Goldberg, the new season begins with patriarch Murray Goldberg (former star Jeff Garlin) having already died.Though the promo doesn't share the news of Murray's death, it does hint at «tragic tales» to come in the signature way — with a touch of humor, sass and sarcasm.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Isabelle Adjani is re-teaming with “The King’s Favorite” director Josée Dayan on the six-part mystery thriller “Belphégor.” The acclaimed actress stars as the enigmatic 16th-century noblewoman and courtier Diane de Poitiers in “The King’s Favorite,” which premiered at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous on Monday. The €7.6 million ($7.5 million), four-part series, produced by Dayan’s Passion Films and sold internationally by France TV Distribution, examines de Poitiers’ complicated relationship with the young French king, Henry II (played by Hugo Becker), that lasted more than two decades. The large ensemble cast also includes Samuel Labarthe, Virginie Ledoyen and Gérard Depardieu.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Heitor Dhalia, one of Brazil’s foremost and most ambitious movie auteurs, director of  “Drained,” “Adrift” and “Bald Mountain,” is teaming with Netflix to make “DNA do Crime,” a banner title for the U.S. streaming giant in Brazil, one of its largest international markets. Described by Dhalia as “one of the biggest series ever produced in Brazil,” the eight-part scripted skein, which goes into production on Oct. 31, turns on a heist of epic proportions, which takes place on the Brazil-Paraguay border.  When federal police officers are called in to investigate, they discover “the beginning of a thread that unravels, like no other, the construction of crime in the country,” the synopsis runs.

Emily Longeretta Teri Hatcher and James Tupper will star as former high school sweethearts in Hallmark Movies & Mysteries original movie “Mid-Love Crisis,” premiering this fall. Brian Markinson, June Laporte and Matreya Scarrwener also star. Hatcher portrays Mindy, a single mom approaching her 50th birthday who “realizes she’s in the throes of a bonafide mid-life crisis.” During a long weekend at the family’s lake house with her daughter Rita (Laporte) and Rita’s girlfriend, Emily (Scarrwener) Mindy is surprisingly reunited with her former boyfriend — Emily’s uncle, Sam (Tupper), who she hasn’t spoken to in three decades. As Rita plans to surprise Emily with a proposal, she tells her mom she wants her dad to join them, leading to Mindy’s two exes under one roof.

Angelique Jackson Antonio Fargas (“Starsky and Hutch”) and Stephanie Sigman (“Miss Bala”) have joined star Mike Colter in Tubi’s ‘Murder City,’ the second movie filmed under Village Roadshow Pictures’ Black Noir Cinema franchise, co-founded by NBA great Kevin Garnett. Last December, Variety exclusively announced “Murder City” as one of the first films slated for Black Noir Cinema, a lineup of genre movies developed and produced by Village Roadshow and Tubi, which will exclusively debut on the Fox-owned free streaming platform. Described as a “thrilling contemporary crime story,” the film follows Neil (Colter), a disgraced former cop, who after losing his job on the police force is forced to work with the city’s most notorious — and ruthless — kingpin, Ash (Sigman), to settle the debts of his estranged, deadbeat father, Graham (Fargas), and protect his wife and son.