Briarcliff Entertainment Takes U.S. On Gerard Butler’s ‘Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera’ – Cannes

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all North American rights for Catherine Breillat’s drama Last Summer (L’été dernier) following its well-received premiere in competition in the final days of the Cannes Film Festival (May 16-27).

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday. Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Kate Beckinsale may have the internet beat with her Keanu Reeves story! On Monday, the actress took to her Instagram to share a throwback picture from her first appearance at the Cannes Film Festival with the cast of in 1993. Along with the pic, which was found by her mother, Beckinsale shared the story about how her male co-stars, Keanu Reeves and Robert Sean Leonard, stepped in to help after her bodysuit took on a mind of it's own ahead of her moment on the carpet.«So my mum DID find one of the original Cannes pictures but unfortunately it’s not full length so you can’t see the Dr Martens.

Cannes Film Festival, Beckinsale posted an Instagram photo Monday that captures her between the leading men of the 1993 flick.Sharing a “fun fact” about the event, the 49-year-old actress reflected on her gray and green tie-dye-colored bodysuit with a matching shawl.“I had bought the bodysuit in the Sock Shop at the airport and when I got in the car to drive to the premiere with Denzel and Pauletta Washington, all the poppers in the crotch popped themselves open and it flipped up like a roller blind,” she confessed.The “Pot-au-Feu” star recalled that she felt it would be inappropriate to adjust her garment in front of the Washingtons, so she “quietly panicked” instead. “Walked out onto the biggest red carpet of my life and whispered to Keanu and Robert Sean Leonard what had happened.

Jesse Collins Entertainment President Dionne Harmon announced today that John Wehage has joined the company as Executive Vice President, Head of Production of the full-service Emmy-winning production company. Karen Grant-Selma will lead the company’s in-house legal team as Executive Vice President, Head of Business & Legal Affairs. Both will report to Harmon.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor International sales house Totem Films has closed distribution deals in multiple territories for “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry,” which had its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. The company also closed a deal for France for another Directors’ Fortnight film, “A Song Sung Blue.” “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” was sold to France (Capricci), U.K. (New Wave), Benelux (Vedette), Sweden (Folkets Bio), Greece (Ama Films), Czech Republic (Artcam), and Germany (Eksystent). More deals are in negotiation. The distributor in Switzerland is Frenetic. The film, directed by Elene Navierani, centers on Etero, a 48-year-old woman living in a small village in Georgia. Etero never wanted a husband and cherishes her freedom as much as her cakes. But her choice to live alone is the cause of much gossip among her fellow villagers.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Germany’s Beta has licensed Spanish special ops thriller “La Unidad – Kabul,” to Max for the U.S., the third instalment in one of Movistar Plus+’s longest running franchises, “La Unidad,” whose six episodes deliver an engrossing and sometimes shocking take on the 2021 Fall of Kabul. With the purchase, all 18 episodes of Spanish series “La Unidad” are now available to stream on Max in the U.S.   Beta has previously sold the thriller, spangled by action scenes and haunting in its sudden deaths, to 50 territories including France, Latin America, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Australia.  

A question comes up part of the way through Ric Roman Waugh’s “Kandahar” that the film can’t find an answer for: Is this a Sad Dad Gerard Butler action picture or a Gritty Dad Gerard Butler action picture? Either way, he’s a dad, but in Sad Dad Butler films, that’s a feature; in Gritty Dad Butler films, it’s window dressing. “Kandahar” isn’t quite one or the other.

Director Ric Roman Waugh’s drab film fumbles and grumbles through Iran, the United Arab Emirates and eventually Afghanistan as the hunt for CIA Agent Tom Harris (Butler) intensifies. “Kandahar,” to its credit, aspires to be deep. Geopolitics come up, as does the Taliban’s mangled interpretation of the Quran, along with ISIS and other aftershocks of American wars in the Middle East.Really, though, it is just another tiresome and impenetrably brooding Gerard Butler movie in which no event seems to matter any more than the next one — and grimaces are mistaken for drama. Before ho-hum Harris goes on the run, he is posing as a utility worker in Iran while attempting to destroy a nuclear plant.

Marta Balaga Denmark’s “Norwegian Offspring,” by Marlene Emilie Lyngstad, from Den Danske Filmskole, was chosen as the winner of the 26th edition of La Cinef. In the story, a mother passes away and her estranged son – obsessed with theories about the repression of male sexuality in modern society – starts longing for offspring of his own. “The jury was captivated by this bold filmmaker,” said Ildikó Enyedi, who presided over the jury. “It made us laugh and cringe at the same time.”

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Leading lights of contemporary Iranian cinema, including ‘Holy Spider’ actor Zar Amir Ebrahimi, ‘The Siren’ director Sepideh Farsi, ‘The Opponent’ helmer Milad Alami and producer Kaveh Farnham, turned up at the Cannes Film Festival to raise the alarm on the repression faced by Iranian cinema during a session hosted by Amazon Prime Video’s Sahar Baghery. Iran has been the centerstage of widespread protests driven by women against the Islamic Regime since Mahsa Amini died in police custody for for wearing her hijab too loosely in September 2022. Although the rebellion has garnered vocal support outside of Iran, it hasn’t succeeded in dethroning the Iranian Regime. A number of dissident Iranian filmmakers and talent have been jailed over the last six months, notably Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof who was recently released from prison. Rasoulof was nevertheless banned from leaving Iran to serve on the jury of Un Certain Regard at Cannes.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer The upper deck at France’s Hotel Du-Cap-Eden-Roc offers a stunning coastal view of nearby city Cannes, the kind that Jay Gatsby would covet to peep Daisy Buchanan. On Tuesday, at one of the hottest parties at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, that view belonged to Graydon Carter. Standing alone with a female companion, the creator of the digital publication Air Mail and iconic former editor of Vanity Fair observed not a long-lost love but a cliffside full of movie stars, auteur directors and Hollywood power players. Carter’s Air Mail co-hosted an evening celebrating the 100-year anniversary of Warner Bros. Pictures, the latter represented by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and his top content lieutenants. Leonardo DiCaprio, Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, Lily-Rose Depp, Sam Levinson, Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Rebel Wilson and more turned up to toast cinema and each other.

Kandahar is the latest from director Rick Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen, Greenland), starring frequent collaborator Gerard Butler, along with Travis Fimmel, Navid Negahban, Ali Fazal, and Bahador Foladi in an action drama that lacks imagination. With the script penned by Mitchell LaFortune, these particular types of stories often suffer from narrative sameness: westerner travels to the Middle East, things go boom, westerner saves the day, the end. 

Kaouther Ben Hania’s powerful drama “Four Daughters” which mixes documentary and fiction to tell the story of Tunisian mother whose two elder daughters joined ISIS is scoring a slew of sales following its well-received Cannes competition premiere. French company The Party Films Sales has sealed deals on “Four Daughters” for: Benelux (Cineart); Spain (Caramel Films); Italy (I Wonder); Switzerland (Trigon); Sweden (Triart); Denmark (Camera Film); Norway (Arthaus); Finland (Cinemanse); Poland (New Horizons); Greece (Ama Films); former Yougoslavia (Discovery) and Turkey (Bir Film). Rights to the film for multiple other territories are under negotiations, the company said.

Elizabeth Wagmeister Senior Correspondent Leonardo DiCaprio was seen taking a selfie with a lady in red as he sat sandwiched in between Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux and festival president Iris Knobloch, deep in conversation at Kering’s Women in Motion Dinner. As he left, he walked to the back balcony of the party where Salma Hayek was sitting on a step smoking a cigarette. He bent over and hugged Hayek as he headed home just before 1:00 a.m. If DiCaprio had stayed a bit later, he might have been dancing on a table with Michelle Yeoh and Brie Larson. Yeoh — the night’s honoree as the recipient of Kering’s Women In Motion Award for 2023 — left shortly before 2 o’clock in the morning, glistening with sweat after dancing the night away with Larson, who is a member of the Cannes jury. The two Oscar winners got up on chairs to dance and were joined by a saxophone player, who jumped on the table, and even Frémaux, who got in on the dance party. (The video, first captured by Variety, has now gone viral with Yeoh and Larson sharing on their social media and raving about meeting each other for the first time.)

EXCLUSIVE: Briarcliff Entertainment has snapped up North American distribution rights from Concourse Media to Christian Swegal’s true crime thriller, Sovereign, starring Nick Offerman, Dennis Quaid, and Jacob Tremblay.

EXCLUSIVE: Good Deed Entertainment (GDE) has acquired North American rights to Carol Ray Hartsell’s Hamptons-set indie romantic comedy Love… Reconsidered for a Valentine’s Day 2024 release.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has snapped up U.S., Canada and key international for Studiocanal and Heyday Films’ threequel Paddington in Peru.

Harrison Ford got visibly emotional while accepting an honorary Palme d’Or for lifetime achievement at the Cannes Film Festival The 80-year-old actor was in attendance for the premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny on Thursday (18 May). Reports from the festival say Ford was greeted with thunderous applause as he arrived for the premiere, with a highlights reel of Ford’s biggest performances playing on a screen behind him. “They say when you’re about to die, you see your life flash before your eyes,” Ford quipped.

EXCLUSIVE: Magnolia Pictures and mk2 have acquired rights to Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck’s Untitled Ernest Cole Documentary, about South Africa’s first Black freelance photographer.