Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are coupling up for the 2022 Toronto Film Festival.
25.08.2022 - 13:03 / deadline.com
Ewan McGregor (Obi Wan Kenobi) has been cast as the lead in Paramount+’s upcoming UK drama series A Gentleman in Moscow, replacing Kenneth Branagh, news that came as Paramount Premium Group CEO David Nevins laid out his vision for Paramount+’s international expansion and talked creativity at the Edinburgh TV Festival.
Emmy-Award winning actor McGregor will play Count Alexander Rostov who, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, finds that his gilded past places him on the wrong side of history, in the adaptation of Amor Towles’ international best-selling novel that heads into production later this year.
McGregor’s character synopsis continues: “Spared immediate execution, he is banished by a Soviet tribunal to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol, threatened with death if he ever sets foot outside again. As the years pass and some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside the hotel’s doors, Rostov’s reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. As he builds a new life within the walls of the hotel, he discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.”
Branagh was announced in the role back in 2018, as Deadline revealed at the time, but McGregor will now play the Count.
McGregor said: “It’s an amazing, wonderful story and I am very excited to get to play such a fabulous role.”
Paramount content chief Nevins, who also oversees Showtime, made the announcement today at the Edinburgh TV Festival during an interview conversation with former Sky Studios exec and new BAFTA CEO Jane Millichip, during which he also unveiled Antoine Fuqua’s Showtime series King Shaka.
The Paramount+ International original will be produced by eOne in association with VIS,
Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are coupling up for the 2022 Toronto Film Festival.
Selome Hailu As Fox Entertainment gears up for the fall season, the chief of its unscripted division is most excited about returning to production with scaled-back pandemic restrictions. “I’m not gonna say COVID’s gone, because it’s definitely not gone, but things have become easier to film,” Rob Wade, president of alternative entertainment and specials, told Variety ahead of the network’s summer 2022 Television Critics Association press tour presentation. “‘We have ‘The Masked Singer’ coming back,” which has been completely reinvented,” Wade said. The series, a singing competition between celebrities whose identities are concealed by elaborate costumes, debuted in 2019. Therefore, only its first two seasons got through production unaffected by COVID-19.
The BFI London Film Festival has unveiled its full list of titles, with the program comprised of 164 features and 23 world premieres across film and TV.
Netflix’s series adaptation of Australian novel Boy Swallows Universe has unveiled its cast, and first images from the shoot have been released.
The 66th BFI London Film Festival is set to host the world premiere of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, the Oscar-winning director’s dark take on the classic fairy tale about a wooden marionette brought to life to mend the heart of a grieving woodcarver named Geppetto.
Star Wars after starring in Trainspotting.The Obi-Wan Kenobi actor recently reflected on his career in the 1990s on the Smartless podcast, discussing his uncertainty about joining the Star Wars franchise in 1999 after working on Trainspotting in 1996.“I really had to think about it,” McGregor said. “Because it came right after that Trainspotting period, and by that time I was so full of myself.“I was like, ‘I am Danny Boyle’s actor. I am fucking urban grunge.
Ewan McGregor is revealing how almost missed out on starring in “Star Wars” because he thought he was too “urban grunge”.
Naman Ramachandran Netflix India has expanded existing partnerships and forged new ones with several of the country’s leading production houses. They include T-Series, Red Chillies Entertainment, Pooja Entertainment, Viacom 18 Studios, Luv Films, Reliance Entertainment, RSVP Movies, Benaras Media Works, Maddock Films, Junglee Pictures, Balaji Telefilms and Matchbox Shots. Monika Shergill, VP, content, Netflix India, says: “With some studios, we have a partnership to bring more of their films on the service, like T series – we’ve been doing so many films with them – Pooja Entertainment, RSVP, Red Chillies, they’ve been long standing partners. But across the board, we are working with many.”
Paramount+ has released the trailer for their upcoming original film On the Come Up during the 2022 MTV VMAs.
K.J. Yossman Paramount+’s chief content officer and Paramount TV boss for scripted originals has revealed the streamer is working on a documentary about Louis C.K., the disgraced comedian who stepped back from public life after he was caught up in the #MeToo movement. According to Nevins it will involve the New York Times reporters who broke the story that Louis C.K. had been accused of sexual misconduct by five women. “Louis CK is a slightly different situation [to Harvey Weinstein] and a great, great comedian who has come back in his own way,” said Nevins during a talk at the Edinburgh TV Festival in Scotland on Thursday morning. “I don’t think the social change that #MetToo has brought about is resolved at all,” Nevins said. “There’s a bit of backlash against #MeToo, who has to go away and who’s allowed to come back.”
K.J. Yossman Ewan McGregor is set to star in “A Gentleman in Moscow,” the adaptation of Amor Towles’ novel, for Paramount+ and Showtime. McGregor, who has previously starred in the Star Wars franchise and “Halston,” will play Count Alexander Rostov who finds himself going from riches to rags following the Russian revolution. A Soviet tribunal banishes him to the attic room of an opulent hotel, where, oblivious to the world outside, he “discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.” “It’s an amazing, wonderful story and I am very excited to get to play such a fabulous role,” said McGregor, who will also produce the series,
Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor John Boyega has never shied away from speaking out about the racist bullying he received for his work as Finn in the “Star Wars” franchise. Things got so bad, he convened a meeting with Disney and Lucasfilm execs to express his disappointment in their lack of support during the targeted attacks. While Boyega has now said he has no plans to return to “Star Wars,” he’s proud of “Obi-Wan” star Ewan McGregor coming to his co-star Moses Ingram’s defense after she became the target of online hate when their series premiered on Disney+ in May. “I don’t know how Disney have done, and I don’t know how they’ve moved with everything,” Boyega tells me on this week’s episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast. “All I know is about specifically Lucasfilm, about the Obi-Wan Kenobi stuff. And I saw that Ewan McGregor video. And that kind of got me, that was nice. That got me a little emotional on that. That’s cool that he showed up for her like that. That’s cool.”
EXCLUSIVE: Juno Films has acquired rights to the experimental drama The Same Storm, from writer-director Peter Hedges (Ben Is Back), for distribution in the U.S., Canada and the UK. The film will open at the Quad Cinema in NYC and the Laemmle Santa Monica on October 14.
John Boyega says he felt “peace” following Disney’s recent handling of racist backlash to black characters in the Star Wars universe. The British actor said the company’s response to abuse directed at Moses Ingram, who starred in the Obi-Wan Kenobi spinoff series alongside Ewan McGregor, “fulfils my time where I didn’t get the support”. Disney and McGregor both released public statements directly addressing the racist messages sent to Ingram and expressing solidarity with the actress.
John Boyega has expressed “frustration” with Disney’s kid-gloves handling of fan protests when he was cast as a “Black Stormtrooper” in 2015’s The Force Awakens. But the British actor says he’s made peace with it after seeing how differently the company recently handled similar fan criticism of Moses Ingram in Obi-Wan Kenobi.