Blue Fox Entertainment Acquires Horror Thriller ‘Wake Up’ From Directing Trio RKSS, StudioCanal

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Variety won eight first-place awards Sunday night at the Los Angeles Press Club‘s 66th annual SoCal Journalism Awards, including a top win for executive editor Brent Lang as entertainment journalist of the year. Variety came into the 2024 ceremony with 74 nominations, representing work published by staffers online or in the weekly print edition during the 2023 calendar year.

William Earl Joshua John Miller and his personal and creative partner, M.A. Fortin, never set out to make a movie about an exorcism because, as Fortin says to Miller, “Your father stars in the greatest one of all time.” Miller’s dad was the actor Jason Miller, who played Father Damien Karras in “The Exorcist.” He often told Joshua stories of the purportedly haunted set, recounting fires that started around the production and the injuries and deaths that would impact those who worked on the film.

EXCLUSIVE: Olivia Taylor Dudley (The Magicians) and Riley Dandy (Things Will Be Different) are in production in Little Rock, Arkansas on Abigail Before Beatrice, a slow-burn psychological thriller marking the sophomore feature of writer-director Cassie Keet.

Sharareh Drury Variety has won two best cover awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors. Variety‘s “Michael J. Fox Tells His Story” issue, which ran May 17, 2023, and features an in-depth interview with Michael J.

At the top of an executive roundtable kicking off CineEurope in Barcelona on Monday, Paramount’s President of International Theatrical Distribution Mark Viane gave a shout-out to the massive opening of Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2. “If anyone is here from Disney,” he said to the audience, “congratulations, you really helped kick-start the summer.”

A film and TV welfare association has been launched in the wake of the tragic death of John Balson.

EXCLUSIVE: British filmmaker Paul Raschid has added veteran Italian filmmaker Dario Argento (Suspiria, Inferno, Deep Red) and actor Franco Nero (Django Unchained, The Pope’s Exorcist, John Wick) to his latest interactive project The Run.

EXCLUSIVE: Blue Fox Entertainment has acquired Autumn and the Black Jaguar from Studiocanal. Blue Fox will release the family-friendly adventure film in theaters nationwide later this year.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large It’s been more than a year and a half since Rob Wade took over as CEO of Fox Entertainment. On Monday at the Banff World Media Festival, Wade made his first extensive public comments about how it’s been going so far — and elaborated on any new acquisition plans he might have for the company, the fate of some of the third party shows still on his air (including “9-1-1: Lone Star”) and the decision behind his recent corporate restructuring network, studio and distribution operations into their own divisions.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Will Arnett is expanding his relationship with Fox Entertainment. The actor and comedian, who hosts Fox’s “Lego Masters,” has sealed an overall producing deal for his Electric Avenue Prods. to produce fare for the network’s in-house production company.

EXCLUSIVE: The Haunting of Hill House actor Henry Thomas is joining the ESX Entertainment produced horror movie The Necklace, Deadline hears.

Alex Ritman Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to horror thriller “I’ll Play Mother,” with the Anthem Sports & Entertainment Company set to release the film in September. The film, which was acquired from Concourse Media, stars Susanne Wuest (“Goodnight Mummy”), Jo Martin (“Doctor Who,” “Back to Life”) and Shubham Saraf (“A Suitable Boy”). Brad Watson (“The Siege”) directs from a screenplay by Libby Adam, based on an original story by Charles Edwards.

EXCLUSIVE: The ESX Entertainment produced horror movie The Necklace has added actresses Christina Moore and Brynne Kurland to their growing cast which includes sisters Madeleine & Violet McGraw (respectively from M3GAN and The Black Phone), Sarah Lind, Felix Solis and Jacob Moran.

EXCLUSIVE: Roxanne McKee (Game of Thrones, Hercules, Strike Back) and George Blagden (Vikings, Black Mirror, Versailles) have signed on to star in The Run, the latest interactive feature project from British filmmaker Paul Raschid. 

Michael Nordine “What if there were a shark in the Seine?” is, one can only assume, a question that Parisians ponder on a daily basis. It’s also brilliant in its simplicity, if not quite as appealingly silly a high-concept premise as “what if there were snakes on a plane?” and “what if the moon … fell?” Look no further than “Under Paris” for an answer to the hypothetical that surely keeps Emmanuel Macron up at night, as Netflix’s new thriller swims rather than sinks as it adds life to a genre that’s been bloodless for far too long.

Jack Dunn Film distributor Uncork’d Entertainment has acquired the documentary “The Mandela Effect Phenomenon” from writer-director Robert Kiviat. Uncork’d plans a July 9 digital release. The Mandela Effect refers to the psychological phenomenon of a group of people misremembering well-documented facts or events.

Murder with the Stars.” Craig Shoemaker penned the screenplay and will serve as a producer, with Jonathan Silverman set to direct and act in the movie. “This concept came to me several months ago, and I knew I was onto something unique and fun,” Shoemaker said. “Since then, the creative process has unfolded effortlessly with two old friends signing on, Jonathan Silverman and Jeff Franklin.

Jack Dunn Rian Johnson’s whodunnit franchise will soon notch its third installment with the coming production of “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” pulling its title from the song by U2. While plot details remain under wraps, Johnson recently announced the return of Detective Benoit Blanc, played by series mainstay Daniel Craig, in a 45-second teaser posted to X. The original “Knives Out”, released in 2019, followed Blanc as he investigated the mysterious circumstances behind the death of mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer).

Disney+ has unveiled Korean spy thriller Tempest for its 2025 slate, and revealed Japanese animeCode Geass Rozé of the Recapture will arrive on the platform on June 21.

After announcing the title for the new Knives Out installment last week, the first big names to join Daniel Craig in the next installment are Josh O’Connor and Cailee Spaeny. They are both set to join Netflix’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Rian Johnson is returning to direct from a script he wrote. He will also produce the pic with his partner, Ram Bergman through T-Street Pictures.