‘Dracula’ Studio Hammer Films Acquired by Renowned British Theater Mogul John Gore (EXCLUSIVE)

Angel Studios, the outfit behind one of summer’s biggest hits, Sound of Freedom, will release its next film and first original, The Shift, in theaters Dec. 1.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Elysian Film Group, Anonymous Content and Bleecker Street have jointly acquired the U.K. rights to “The Boy and the Heron,” the first film from legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki in a decade. Elysian Film Group will release the film in U.K.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer CBS Studios has suspended term deals with talkshow star Phil “Dr. Phil” McGraw, BET+’s “Kingdom Business” producer DeVon Franklin and “Nancy Drew” executive producer Lis Rowinski due to the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike. Representatives for CBS Studios declined to comment on the suspension of these deals Monday.

Naman Ramachandran The U.K. has a robust presence at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, and several of the films screening there find contemporary resonance while exploring historical subjects.

EXCLUSIVE: House of the Dragon star Emma D’Arcy has produced their first short film with production partner Ellen Spence (The Essex Serpent) at new shingle Second Name Productions.

Dwayne Johnson loves making fans’ day.

A new film by Hayao Miyazaki filmmaker (or anything from animation house Studio Ghibli) is always worth celebrating. And for Miyazaki’s first feature film in a decade, TIFF pulls out all the stops.

Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired U.S. rights to Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-woon’s Cobweb, starring Song Kang-ho, which had its world premiere Out Of Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. 

McKinley Franklin editor Following its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, Bleecker Street has acquired the U.S. rights to Sara Bareilles and Jessie Nelson’s “Waitress: The Musical,” which is set for a nationwide release on Dec. 7, the studio announced Wednesday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Abacus Media Rights has pre-sold the feature documentary “The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee,” to Sky Arts, SBS Television Australia; to NonStop Entertainment for Scandinavia, Iceland and the Baltics and to Movistar for Spain. Lee is known as the Dracula character and for transitioning from 1960s Hammer horror films to a distinguished acting career that encompassed James Bond films, the “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” franchises. Less well-known are his aristocratic Italian roots, a close family connection to James Bond novelist Ian Fleming, Lee’s wartime experiences in the British and Finnish military, post-war Nazi-hunting adventures and a side career as a heavy metal rock singer. As an actor, Lee achieved a Guinness world record for the highest number of screen appearances. Produced in association with the British Film Institute and Trigger Films by Canal Cat Films, “Life and Deaths” is an innovative documentary which uses fresh interviews, archive material and multiple forms of traditional and cutting-edge animation, including marionation, to bring one of the world’s leading actors back to life on screen.

Richard Linklater brought his Hit Man to the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, world premiering the comedy thriller out of competition to a six-minute ovation inside the Sala Grande.

It was 22 years ago that Skip Hollandsworth wrote a Texas Monthly article about Gary Johnson, a school teacher who moonlights as a hit man who doesn’t kill people. Now if that doesn’t sound like the formula for a hit movie, you may understand why it has taken so long for Gary’s story to make it to the silver screen, so long in fact that its subject passed away before he could hit the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival where the film is having its World Premiere tonight. Nevertheless Glen Powell never forgot the story and has teamed with Richard Linklater to finally tell it, but it is only “loosely” based on the article. Certain details in the screenplay co-written by Linklater and Powell are made up, and those are the details that actually help make this a hilarious winner, as well as perhaps Linklater’s most commercial movie since School Of Rock. Its quirky true crime element also has a bit in common with Linklater’s Bernie which starred Jack Black. The director seems drawn to this kind of offbeat tale, with some level of truth to it.

Ethan Shanfeld Alejandro Monteverde, the director of 2023’s surprise box office hit “Sound of Freedom,” has set his next film, “Cabrini,” for a theatrical release on March 8, 2024. From “Sound of Freedom” indie distributor Angel Studios, “Cabrini” tells the story of Francesca Cabrini, an Italian American religious sister who founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and became the first U.S.

Angel Studios, the platform empowering filmmakers with full creative control to crowdfund and create, is announcing today the release of CABRINI—the second Angel Studios release from SOUND of FREEDOM Director Alejandro Monteverde. CABRINI will launch in theaters nationwide on March 8, 2024.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Did the Algonquin round table somehow spiritually relocate itself in the early 1970s to Key West, Florida? The idea that the small, remote island city was a hotbed for one of the last great counterculture arts scenes — particularly for prose writers, but also with some music mixed in — is the focus of a new short film about the Key West scene of 50 years ago, “All That Is Sacred.” The 34-minute movie, which stars the famous novelist Tom McGuane and writer-musician Jimmy Buffett, has its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival this weekend. Variety has an exclusive premiere for a trailer for the film, which does not yet have distribution; check it out below.

Popular Channel 4 series, The Traitors, will soon be returning as filming gets underway at Scotland's Ardross Castle.The show proved a hit over the Christmas period last year when 22 strangers competed for a £100,000 prize in a game of subterfuge and drama in the Gothic castle. Aerial photos of the castle show black cars arriving as this year's contestants make their way to the place they'll be staying for the next few weeks as the murder mystery game gets underway.

David Ayer is speaking out about “Suicide Squad”, his 2016 DC Comics-inspired film that introduced Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.

Chris Cope, who previously spent 12 years as a marketing executive for Raleigh Studios, has joined The Green Room as a talent manager. Cope has a long history of booking live entertainment for LA’s Sunset Marquis Hotel as well as several other marketing endeavors for studio initiatives during his decade with the company. Cope joins The Green Room as the company focuses on expansion while celebrating it 9th anniversary and in anticipation of the end of the SAG/WGA  Strikes.

HBO Documentary Films has acquired U.S. and Canada television and streaming rights to Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at Sundance.

Naman Ramachandran The sheer popularity of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is leading to its expansion this year, while sister event Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest content market, will have a focus on new technology, one of the country’s top film officials has revealed. The Indian government-backed events run in parallel in Goa in November each year in close geographic proximity. In 2022, demand for tickets at the public-facing IFFI was so strong that reservations had to be paused on the second day of the festival.