David Cronenberg Shoots Prada-Produced Short Using 18th-Century Female Wax Corpses

Bad Bunny is being sued by his ex-girlfriend for the alleged unauthorised use of one of her voice recordings in his music, it has been reported.Per Pitchfork, the audio clip in question appears on the Puerto Rican artist’s 2016 single ‘Pa Ti’, as well as the song ‘Dos Mil 16’ from his fourth and latest studio album, ‘Un Verano Sin Ti’ (2022).The message hears Bunny’s former partner Carliz De La Cruz Hernández saying “Bad Bunny, baby”.De La Cruz reportedly filed a lawsuit against the rapper/singer this month in a Puerto Rico court. She claims that both her voice and the phrase – which she allegedly came up with – were being used without her permission.According to Pitchfork, De La Cruz is seeking $40million (£33m) in compensation.A translation of the lawsuit reads: “Thousands of people have commented directly on Carliz’s social media networks, as well as every time she goes to a public place, about ‘Bad Bunny, baby’.“This has caused, and currently causes, De La Cruz to feel worried, anguished, intimidated, overwhelmed and anxious.”Also being sued are Bad Bunny’s label Rimas Entertainment and his manager, Noah Kamil Assad Byrne.Bad Bunny and De La Cruz are said to have been together between 2011 and 2017.

Oscar-winning UK producer David Parfitt shared insights from the highs and lows of his 35-year producing career at a masterclass for the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra talent incubator over the weekend.

Fox Corp. is planning a major building overhaul and expansion of its Century City lot including nine new soundstages as well as a media campus, office space and focus on related transportation infrastructure.

Variety ranks the films of David Cronenberg. Having nothing in common with his 2022 film of the same name, the 1970 “Crimes of the Future” is best seen as an early artifact of Cronenberg’s obsessions with flesh and sex.

Al Roker and his wife Deborah Roberts have been enjoying a well-earned break in Puerto Rico after several months of health battles, and the pair look happier than ever. ABC News anchor Deborah looked radiant in the pictures, as she rocked a geometric-patterned swimsuit with a low V-neckline and appeared to have a refreshing sparkling drink in hand.Al, who helps to host rival network NBC's Today Show wore a Team USA tee and board shorts in the pictures and kept safe with a baseball cap covering his head.

EXCLUSIVE: Hiro Murai and his producing partner Nate Matteson, who have exec produced series including HBO Max’s Station Eleven and FX’s The Bear, are parting ways.

Bad Bunny will be returning to his native Puerto Rico in May to host the upcoming “Backlash” event for WWE.

Bad Bunny is bringing one of his passions to his home of Puerto Rico. He’ll serve as host of WWE’s “Backlash,” one of the sport’s most famous and viewed live events. The show will be hosted on May 6th, at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot in San Juan.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian producer Andrea Iervolino is planning to bring to the big screen “Maserati: a Racing Life,” an English-language biopic about the family behind the high-performance automobiles that, along with Ferrari and Lamborghini, Italy is known for.   Iervolino’s AMBI Group – in which he is partnered with Monika Bacardi – previously produced the Bobby Moresco-directed biopic “Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend” and is also among producers of Micheal Mann’s upcoming “Ferrari” with Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley. He told Variety he sees “Maserati” as a natural segue to those films about Italy’s iconic automakers.

William Earl Music superstar Bad Bunny is set to host the live WWE event “Backlash” in his native Puerto Rico. It will take place on Saturday, May 6, at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot in San Juan. It’s the first live WWE event taking place in Puerto Rico since 2005. “In 2005 when I was a kid, I wasn’t able to attend New Year’s Revolution at el Coliseo,” Bad Bunny said in a statement. “Finally, 18 years later WWE returns to the island with a massive event and this time I won’t miss it.” Bad Bunny is no stranger to the world of the WWE. In 2021, he performed “Booker T” at that year’s Royal Rumble event, and then started appearing on Monday Night Raw. He eventually won the WWE 24/7 Championship that year. In 2022, he appeared at the Royal Rumble as a contender, advancing past noted wrestlers Sheamus and Dolph Ziggler to make the final five. He will also be a character in the upcoming wrestling video game “WWE 2K23.”

‘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.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prominent Arab journalist Nakhle Elhage, who ran the Al Arabiya news network for 16 years, is launching a digital startup called Blinx to produce news and short form storytelling content targeting Gen Z and millennials in the Middle East and beyond. Headquartered in a high-tech Dubai Media City studio, Blinx is being dubbed as the first digital native storytelling hub in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It “will soon launch on multiple platforms,” according to a statement. The digital startup, which is financed by unspecified UAE-based investors, is offering a “more story, less noise approach,” the statement said, with content made by young people “delivering relatable content to a young audience in a way the MENA region has yet to see,” it added.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian star author Robert Saviano, whose mob exposé “Gomorrah” spawned both Matteo Garrone’s eponymous prizewinning movie and the groundbreaking crime series that plays stateside on HBO, is making his directorial debut. Saviano will direct “I’m Still Alive,” an animation adaptation of his graphic novel illustrated by Israeli artist Asaf Hanuka (“Waltz With Bashir”). “Still Alive” examines the anti-mob activist’s life under armed guard since being forced to live with police protection shortly after 2006 when Saviano’s account of the inner workings of the Neapolitan Camorra crime syndicate was published. Just like Saviano’s graphic novel, “I’m Still Alive” will feature illustration’s by Hanuka, an Eisner-winning cartoonist who is known, besides “Bashir,” for his autobiographical strips “The Realist” and for graphic novel “The Divine.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Production on “Hacks” Season 3 will resume the week after next, series producers Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky revealed to Variety on Sunday. Downs, Aniello and Statsky were at the WGA Awards in Century City, where the trio picked up the win for episodic comedy (for the Season 2 finale “The One, The Only”). “She’s doing great,” Downs said. “She actually said to me recently that she’s better than ever, which I believe because she is Jean Smart. She’s at home. Obviously, not out on the town tonight. But she’s doing really well.” Production on Season 3 of the Emmy-winning HBO comedy was put on hold late last month after Smart revealed via Instagram that she had successfully undergone a heart procedure.

A woman who was declared dead in the United States after she went missing for more than three decades has been found alive in Puerto Rico. Patricia Kopta, then 52, disappeared suddenly in 1992 from Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, US after her husband came home and she was nowhere to be seen.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie are shooting flight scenes for “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two” on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea, which Cruise reached by helicopter from the Italian port city of Bari, where he jetted into on Saturday. Confirming Italian press reports, the head of the Apulia Film Commission Antonio Parente told Variety on Thursday that Cruise flew into Bari, which is the Apulia region’s capital city, on Saturday Feb. 25. After spending the night in Bari’s 5-star Hotel Delle Nazioni, Cruise on Sunday hopped on a private helicopter from the Bari airport to go shoot scenes for the eighth “Mission Impossible” installment on an U.S. aircraft carrier “which is probably the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush, but we are not sure,” Parente said.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer David Young, the chief negotiator for the Writers Guild of America West, has bowed out of the negotiations on a new basic agreement due to a medical leave. The WGA informed members Tuesday that Ellen Stutzman, the assistant executive director of the guild, will take over as chief negotiator. The move comes just three weeks before the high-stakes negotiations are set to begin with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The current three-year contract is due to expire on May 1, and writers have been agitating for significant increases in wages and residuals and for measures to address “mini rooms.” Stutzman has been with the guild for 17 years, and has been assistant executive director since 2018.

It’s not often we get new David Cronenberg material. And while the upcoming series, “Dead Ringers,” isn’t directed by the legendary filmmaker, his DNA is still all over it, as it is a remake of the 1988 film of the same name.

For more than a decade, we’ve heard rumors and reports about a direct sequel to David Cronenberg’s Oscar-nominated 2007 film, “Eastern Promises.” It was going to happen, a script was written, then it was shelved. Then years later, it would come back, seemingly getting close to production, then fall apart again.

Alec Baldwin is facing yet another legal battle after the Rust shooting!