Bill Yarbrough Wins Election To SAG-AFTRA National Board By A Single Vote In Nashville; First Big Win For Maya Gilbert-Dunbar’s Opposition Team

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor London- and Paris-based Film Constellation has boarded sales on 2D family animated feature “Carmen,” a contemporary adaptation of the opera, to be directed by 2023 Annecy Film Festival winner Sébastien Laudenbach. Variety revealed first details of the project last year exclusively.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA are pushing California lawmakers to grant unemployment benefits to striking workers. In California, workers currently do not receive unemployment pay when they are on strike. But state lawmakers are working on a bill, SB 799, that would extend benefits to workers who have been on strike for at least two weeks.

This is Day 129 of the WGA strike and Day 56 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety is debuting an exclusive clip from Farah Nabulsi’s thriller “The Teacher,” starring Imogen Poots (“The Father”) and Saleh Bakri (“The Band’s Visit,” “Wajib”). The film will have its world premiere on Saturday at the Toronto Film Festival in the Discovery section.

The Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA will rally on Thursday at Amazon Studio in Culver City to highlight their push a bill that would provide unemployment insurance to striking workers in California. Striking writers and actors in New York and New Jersey are already eligible to receive unemployment benefits after 14 days on the picket line, but not in California.

Holly Willoughby has broken her silence after This Morning was dealt a blow at the National Television Awards on Tuesday evening. For the first time in 13 years, the programme failed to scoop up the Best Daytime Show award, instead losing out to The Repair Shop.

WGA West President Meredith Stiehm and SAG-AFTRA Secretary-Treasurer Joely Fisher were in Sacramento last week lobbying California legislators for passage of Senate Bill 799, which would make striking workers eligible to collect unemployment benefits. The bill passed through the Assembly Insurance Committee on Thursday and the Legislature has until September 14 to send the bill to the Governor’s desk.

EXCLUSIVE: The AMC-distributedconcert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour according to sources has actually clocked $37M+ from the three big theater circuits –AMC, Regal and Cinemark– in its first 24 hours of presales. That’s definitely higher than the first day presales of Star Wars: Force Awakens at $20M.

Britney Spears’ estranged husband, Sam Asghari, took to the streets of Los Angeles on Thursday to stand in solidarity with his fellow performers as part of the ongoing strikes organized by SAG-AFTRA and WGA.

Megalopolis, the long-awaited passion project from Francis Ford Coppola, is the latest film to land an interim agreement from SAG-AFTRA. The film finished production earlier this year so it is unknown what the agreement would be used for but with festival season ramping up it could potentially be getting one in order to be sold on one of the markets or potentially screen an upcoming festival and in need of one for publicity purposes.

“Strike Force Five” is a go.

SAG-AFTRA and the WGA have suspended picketing at multiple locations in Los Angeles on Monday and Tuesday as temperatures are expected to rise.

SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America West are among more than 20 labor organizations lobbying for passage of a bill pending in the California legislature that would make striking workers in the state eligible for unemployment benefits, as they are in New York and New Jersey.

Your Lucky Day, the horror thriller featuring one of the final performances of Euphoria breakout Angus Cloud, has secured a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement for publicity ahead of its Fantastic Fest premiere, Deadline has learned.

Ahead of its world premiere in competition at the 80th Venice Film Festival, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, which follows the Presleys from the perspective of the King’s young bride, has secured a SAG-AFTRA Interim Agreement.

SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles Local and the Writers Guild of America will hold a “National Day of Solidarity” rally on Tuesday outside Disney Studios.

WGA and SAG-AFTRA pickets have been canceled in Los Angeles on Monday, August 21 due to Hurricane Hilary.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Deauville American Film Festival will forge ahead with its honorary tributes to stars such as Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Peter Dinklage and Joseph Gordon-Levitt despite the fact that they won’t be in attendance due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. The festival’s artistic director, Bruno Barde, told Variety ahead of the event’s press conference on Thursday that he empathized with actors and writers who are on strike to “protect themselves against the dangers of artificial intelligence.” “AI has always existed in cinema and it’s now posing a threat to screenwriters, set designers, dubbers and, of course, to actors whom we’re using the image of.

Editors Note: Bill Mechanic is chairman and CEO of Pandemonium Films and a former top executive at Paramount, Disney and chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment. He is also a former producer of the Oscars and Oscar-nominated films like Hacksaw Ridge and Coraline. He previously advocated for interim agreements as a guest on Deadline’s Strike Talk podcast and his company has applied for them since.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The wide reach of Clarence Avant, who was widely known as “the Godfather of Black Entertainment” and died Sunday at the age of 92, was evident from the range of people paying tribute to him on social media after his death was announced Monday morning. His influence spanned music, entertainment, sports, politics and beyond. Within just a couple of hours, former President Bill Clinton, the Rev.