CEO Says Sony Pictures Is Not For Sale & Is Committed To Staying Independent

EXCLUSIVE: Cobra Kai co-executive producers Joe Piarulli and Luan Thomas have signed a multi-year overall deal with Sony Pictures Television, the studio behind the popular Netflix series.

Jack Black is in talks to star with Ice Cube in Sony Pictures’ comedy Oh Hell No, to be directed by cutting-edge comedy director Kitao Sakurai. Matt Tolmach is producing through Matt Tolmach Productions with Black and Roz Music.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorSony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions has swooped on world rights, outside Nordic, for Jalmari Helander’s World War II action film “Immortal.” Jorma Tommila and “Peaky Blinders” star Paul Anderson go head-to-head in the film, which is set to shoot in Lapland, Finland, in September.

EXCLUSIVE: Twenty-year Sony Pictures executive Peter Calvin Nelson is joining Samuel Goldwyn Film as the Head of Production.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentSony Pictures has boarded Alê Abreu’s buzzed up animated feature “Perlimps,” the acclaimed Brazilian director’s follow up to “Boy and the World” which was nominated for best animated feature at the 2016 Academy Awards.A best animated feature-winner in the independent category at the 43rd Annie Awards, “Boy and the World” also took the top Cristal at the 2014 Annecy Festival.Several excerpts for the film will be screened on June 17 in this year’s

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer“Hannibal” and “Star Trek: Discovery” creator Bryan Fuller is attached to make his feature directing debut with an adaptation of the Stephen King novel “Christine,” which Fuller is developing with Sony Pictures.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures and Blumhouse are revving back up Christine, a new version of the Stephen King novel that Bryan Fuller is writing to direct. Jason Blum is producing for Blumhouse, and Vincenzo Natali and Steven Hoban are also producing.

Kinetic, from Chris Dennis, is an action thriller where a truck drive has to deliver dangerous cargo to save his pregnant wife. Paul Katis is attached to direct, with Carson Reeves.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all worldwide rights to the documentary “Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story” which is co-directed by five-time Academy Award nominee Frank Marshall and Ryan Suffern, the studio announced on Thursday.The documentary is produced by Marshall, Suffern and Sean Stuart (“The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash”), executive produced by Quint Davis and Jimmy Buffett and features artists Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Buffett, Katy Perry, Earth, Wind & Fire, and many others.“We’re

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Classics has taken all global rights to the documentary Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story co-directed by five-time Oscar nominee Frank Marshall and Ryan Suffern (Finding Oscar). Marshall recently directed the HBO documentary The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart which is in consideration for this Emmy season.

Christopher Vourlias Sony Pictures International Productions has acquired remake rights for the Russian blockbuster comedy “Son of a Rich,” the country’s highest-grossing film of all time, Variety has learned.The studio has secured the Mexican, Indian, South Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and Italian adaptation rights.

K.J. Yossman Sony Pictures Television has hired Michaela Fereday as senior VP of scripted production.Based in the U.K., she will begin her new role next week, reporting into senior VP of international co-productions, Brendan Fitzgerald.As senior VP of scripted production, Fereday will focus on productions coming out of Sony Pictures Television International Production, as well as overseeing premium scripted series commissioned abroad and produced in the U.K.

Kang Daniel has opened up about the “pressure” he feels as a soloist in an industry dominated mostly by groups.In a new interview with Beatroute, the South Korean singer explored his meteoric rise from a member of the now-disbanded boyband Wanna One to becoming a fully fledged pop star in his own right.

Sony Pictures Television has raided Red Production Company for Michaela Fereday, the head of production and executive producer on shows including HBO Max and Channel 4’s critically adored AIDS crisis drama It’s A Sin.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Television will link sixteen aspiring scribes with industry professionals and mentors for its six-week Diverse Writers Program.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefSony Pictures Entertainment intends to play the film and TV industry’s new era as an independent studio, committed to theatrical releasing, and with an expanded slate that gives it more options in streaming, says its chairman and CEO, Tony Vinciquerra.Speaking Thursday at parent company Sony Group’s investor relations day, Vinciquerra said that as parts of the world emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic “SPE has many reasons to feel optimistic about the way things

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment WriterSony has found its greatest hunter.Aaron Taylor-Johnson will headline “Kraven the Hunter,” further expanding Sony Pictures’ efforts to capitalize on its trove of Marvel comics characters with connections to Spider-Man.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefSony Pictures Entertainment’s film and television operations are not for sale or about to be hived off, Sony Group CEO Yoshida Kenichiro said Wednesday.

William Earl Variety and Sony Pictures Television will host a monthlong immersive experience, the Variety/Sony Pictures Television Virtual FYC House, aimed to capture the attention of TV awards voters. The interactive, 3D experience kicks off with a special preview night for a select audience and then will open to a wider audience on May 27 through June 28.

EXCLUSIVE:  Sony Pictures Television’s TriStar is adapting Laurie Fabiano’s bestselling 2010 historical novel Elizabeth Street for television, with Edoardo Ponti (The Life Ahead) attached to direct and executive produce. Tyler Hisel (Treadstone, Wayward Pines) has written a pilot for the project, based on Fabiano’s own great-grandmother’s epic struggles.