Bolton is transformed into snowy Russia as Ewan McGregor films new TV series

EXCLUSIVE: More Tyler Perry’s House of Payne and Tyler Perry’s Assisted Living are on the way.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Series Mania has always been about discovery: Of drama series as an art form, in its early days from launch in 2009; then of key players on a burgeoning international premium TV scene. Series Mania’s International Panorama now catches a new wave of creatives transitioning from film to scripted TV – Israel’s Yaron Shani with “Innermost,” Spain’s Isaki Lacuesta and Isa Campo with episodes of “Apagón”; and highlights notable emerging auteurs: Denmark’s Kasper Møller Rask, Canada’s Alexis Durand-Brault, Spain’s Fran Araujo, Pakistan’s Assim Abassi and Germany’s Jakob and Jonas Weydemann.  But for having already bowed at national festivals, some of the 12 titles below could well have been in the running for a Competition berth. 

Making a movie with your own child is perilous enough at a time when the media, which is stuffed with them, has decided that “nepo babies” are the latest blight on the eco-system of filmmaking. It’s even more of a risk when your private life has been splashed all over the tabloids, and the facts of that controversy — man leaves wife and kids to start a new family with a younger woman — are a key part of that movie. But whether or not Ewan McGregor and his daughter Clara saw the film as a chance for family therapy, or whether they even thought about these things at all, Emma Westenberg’s affecting, slow-burn debut leaves all that kind of real-world baggage firmly at the door.

Making a movie with your own child is perilous enough at a time when the media, which is stuffed with them, has decided that “nepo babies” are the latest blight on the eco-system of filmmaking. It’s even more of a risk when your private life has been splashed all over the tabloids, and the facts of that controversy — man leaves wife and kids to start a new family with a younger woman — are a key part of that movie. But whether or not Ewan McGregor and his daughter Clara saw the film as a chance for family therapy, or whether they even thought about these things at all, Emma Westenberg’s affecting, slow-burn debut leaves all that kind of real-world baggage firmly at the door.

Last year, as the industry was looking to lift itself out the pandemic’s purgatory at the box office, SXSW lit the wick on A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, which wound up dynamiting the 18-34 hipster moviegoer set in what became the highest-grossing indie film of 2022, the best ever for the New York-based distributor, and now a potential Oscar Best Picture winner.

EXCLUSIVE: Gersh has signed in-demand Canadian actress Molly Parker for representation.

Filming on a second series of Trigger Point is underway and is expected to air on our television screens later this year. The police drama, starring Vicky McClure in the lead role as a police bomb disposal officer, was a huge hit amongst viewers in 2022.

Nick Cannon set social media ablaze earlier this week when he revealed a big announcement was coming, ultimately quashing suspicions he was announcing he’d fathered his 13th child by revealing he’ll be hosting a new Kevin Hart-hosted game show called “Who’s Having My Baby?”, in which female contestants compete to see which of them will be lucky enough to be the next woman for Cannon to impregnate.

‘Riceboy Sleeps’ Scoops Top Canadian Film AwardAnthony Shim’s Riceboy Sleeps has won Canada’s biggest film award, the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award. The prize, decided by the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA), comes with a CAN$100,000 ($72,000) cash prize. Riceboy Sleeps beat nominees Clement Virgo’s Brother and David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future. The semi-autobiographical film explores the challenges of living between two cultures through the tale of a Korean immigrant single mother raising her son in Canada. Shot in the Greater Vancouver area and Korea, the feature world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022, winning its Platform Prize, and then played in Busan and a raft of other festivals. The win comes as Toronto-based distributor Game Theory Films gears up for the title’s Canadian release on March 17. The feature will also be released in Korea, Singapore and the US in the coming months.  “The Toronto film community has been so good to us since TIFF where this crazy journey first began and I hope to make more films in the future that will warrant the same type of support,” commented Shim.

HBO’s penultimate episode 8 of The Last Of Us delivered 8.1 million viewers Sunday night across HBO Max and linear telecasts. That’s up 74% from the series debut night in January and sets a new series high ahead of next Sunday’s season finale, per Nielsen and HBO.

Though it never won any major awards, FX’s long-running “Sons of Anarchy” is one of the most popular series to ever grace the cable network. In fact, the show’s recent spinoff, “Mayans M.C.,” is one of the best spinoffs in recent memory and easily one of the most underrated series on TV today.

K-pop boyband Stray Kids have filmed a new music video for their next comeback.On March 6, South Korean news outlet Hankuk Ilbo reported that the boyband had recently completed filming a new music video for their next project. The outlet also claimed that Stray Kids would be making their comeback this April.JYP Entertainment later confirmed, per Soompi, that Stray Kids “did complete filming their new music video”.

Alison Sweeney is back in the shoes of Hannah Swensen for Hallmark Channel!

Ewan McGregor is sporting new facial hair these days.

Paris Fury has revealed her £50 birthday present haul for her son Prince Adonis as he turned four. The doting mum-of-six, who is married to heavyweight champion boxer Tyson Fury, took to Instagram to share the superhero-themed gifts she purchased for her youngest son.

NATO will present Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas with its Spirit of the Industry Award at CinemaCon in April for the event’s closing night Big Screen Achievement Awards.

Series 9 of the winter Love Island series kicked off back in Jan, with Maya Jama making her presenting debut in replacement of Laura Whitmore. So far, we’ve seen plenty of drama, including Islander Jessie going off-script during the Knowing Me, Knowing You task, and viewers calling out Movie Night after the episode was not what they expected - all while the contestants bask in the sunshine of their Cape Town villa. But for many eagle-eyed fans out there, there may have been something else (or someone else, should we say) you may have recognised from a previous stint on the show.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is teaming up with husband Ewan McGregor for the third time on screen!

Will Smith caused a major controversy when he slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars after the comedian made a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Despite all the backlash he received after the incident, Smith is now joking about it in a new video he shared to TikTok. In the video, he showed himself listening to another TikTok creator explaining "an absolutely unhinged exercise." As he listened thoughtfully, the other person said, "Did you know that you can pick any object, look at it and ask it what it thinks of you?" She explained that after doing this, "You will get an answer in your mind from intuition." As she gave examples of what kind of objects you could use for this exercise, Smith looked off to the side, out of view of his camera.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is set to star opposite Ewan McGregor in Showtime and Paramount+’s upcoming limited series A Gentleman in Moscow, an adaptation of Amor Towles’ bestselling novel.