Fantastic Fest Awards Winners: ‘Piggy,’ ‘The Five Devils’ and ‘The Menu’ Take Top Honors (Exclusive)

Small-town Main Streets around the country are competing to win the title of Great American Main Street.  The award, first given out in 1995, has recognized over 100 Main Streets in America since the program's start.  The Great American Main Street Award recognizes outstanding Main Street communities that can serve as a model across the country for preservation-based district revitalization.  Main Street America, a nonprofit, has announced the top eight semifinalists for the 2023 award including Danville, Virginia, Denison, Texas, Florence, South Carolina and Metuchen, New Jersey. The winners will be announced on March 27, 2023, during the Opening Plenary of the 2023 Main Street Now conference in Boston.

Telenovela star Pablo Lyle has been found guilty of manslaughter three years after a horrific road rage incident that ended with a man’s death.

Kat McNamara has revealed new show Walker Independence is "more dangerous" than Jared Padalecki's Walker.Exclusive: 9-1-1's Oliver Stark opens up about vulnerability and why it's okay to cryThis is very much a women-focused CW show with dramatic music, marginalized voices getting center stage, and a love triangle.WATCH: Trailer for Walker: Independence Set in the late 1800s, Walker Independence is an origin story of The CW series Walker, itself a reboot of Texas Walker Ranger. It follows Abby Walker, an affluent Bostonian whose husband is murdered before her eyes while on their journey out West. When Abby finally arrives in the town of Independence, where her husband was set to be Sheriff, she encounters diverse residents who all have their own secrets.

! The show is back with a whole new cast of singles, looking… or rather, listening, for love in the pods. ET exclusively has the first full trailer for season 3, which was filmed in Dallas, Texas, back in 2021. In it, we see some of the 30 hopefuls searching for their soulmates without ever seeing them. «That's been one of the hardest things, dating as an adult,» 27-year-old Cole says.

EXCLUSIVE: Music Box Films has acquired North American rights to SXSW road-trip drama The Unknown Country starring Certain Women and Killers of the Flower Moon actress Lily Gladstone and Raymond Lee (Top Gun: Maverick).

Every time we hear anything new about Ron DeSantis we’re reminded of the alternate universe that should have been, where his name was a footnote in political comedy history. But instead of being known only for that horribly embarrassing campaign ad where he just kept worshipping Donald Trump, the man actually got elected governor of Florida. Sigh… We live in the worst timeline…

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Ed Sheeran has announced details for the North American leg of his “+ – = ÷ x Tour” (pronounced “The Mathematics Tour”), hitting stadiums across the continent for the first time since his 2018 “Divide” tour, Dates begin on May 6th at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX, before wrapping up on September 23rd at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA (see itinerary below). Main support on a majority of the dates comes from R&B singer Khalid (May 6th-September 2nd), with rapper/singer-songwriter Russ rounding out the tour (September 9th-23rd); Dylan, Cat Burns, Maisie Peters, and Rosa Linn alternate as first of three. Sheeran recently wrapped the European leg of the tour, performing in front of over 3 million people in six months, including a five-night stand at London’s Wembley Stadium.

Flanders Image, the promotional arm of the VAF film fund of Belgium’s Flemish-speaking community, has unveiled the 80 projects selected for its annual CONNEXT showcase, running as a hybrid event from October 10-24.

The Imagen Awards unveiled the winners of their 37th annual gala honoring Latinos in television and film. Some of the honorees that received the accolade included the animated film Encanto for Best Feature Film, Love, Victor as Best Comedy Primetime Program and Selena: The Series for Best Drama Primetime Program.

Michaela Zee editor Dua Lipa, Lizzo and Jack Harlow are among the top artists to headline the 2022 iHeart Radio Jingle Ball Tour taking place in 11 cities this coming holiday season. Roughly 10 performers will be featured on each of the shows. Other performers rotating through the bill at the concerts this year include Sam Smith, the Kid Laroi, Demi Lovato, Lewis Capaldi, Pitbull, Charlie Puth, Backstreet Boys, Black Eyed Peas, Nicky Youre, Anita, Khalid, Tate McRae and more. The tour will stop in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Tampa and Miami/Ft. Lauderdale.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer The tragic death — and subsequent sweeping justice movement — of U.S. Army soldier Vanessa Guillen is the center of a new documentary coming to Netflix later this fall. “I Am Vanessa Guillen,” from director Christy Wegener, will tell Guillen’s tragic but galvanizing tale, about a young woman who dreamed of a military career. In 2020, however, after telling her mother she was being sexually harassed on the Fort Hood army base, Guillen was murdered by a fellow soldier. Her story sparked an international movement of assault victims demanding action. The project follows her family’s fight for historic reform, a journey that takes them to the Oval Office.

Abigail Walker (Katherine McNamara) is a woman on a mission to seek vengeance against the man who murdered her husband in the new teaser for The CW’s “Walker: Independence,” which you can view above in a clip shared exclusively with TheWrap. The prequel to “Walker” (which stars Jared Padalecki in the reimagining of the classic “Walker, Texas Ranger”) takes viewers back some hundred years to the late 19th century, on the frontiers of the Wild West in the eponymous Texas town.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter The FX comedy pilot “English Teacher” has found its main cast, Variety has learned exclusively. Stephanie Koenig (“Lessons in Chemistry,” “The Offer”), Enrico Colantoni (“Just Shoot Me,” “Station Eleven”), and Julian Sergi (“Ramy,” “War Dogs”) have all joined as series regulars. Carmen Christopher (“The Bear,” “Killing It”), Jordan Firstman (“Big Mouth,” “Ms. Marvel”), Yissendy Trinidad (“Babylon,” “You’re Not Alone”) and Langston Kerman (“Insecure,” “The Boys”) will all appear in recurring roles. “English Teacher” was originally ordered to pilot in June. Production is now underway. Brian Jordan Alvarez wrote the pilot and stars as Evan, a gay high school English teacher in Austin, Texas. The show follows him and his fellow teachers “trying to balance the competing demands of the students and their parents in a world where the rules seem to change every day.” Alvarez is also an executive producer on the pilot along with Paul Simms, who is currently an executive producer on the FX shows “What We Do in the Shadows” and “Atlanta.”

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer 42West’s BHI has promoted two employees to new leadership roles and hired Red Bull’s head of U.S. communications for gaming, Variety has learned exclusively. At the Dolphin Entertainment-owned brand, Jonah Keel has been elevated from vice president to senior vice president, while account director Briana Richard has been upped to VP in her division. In addition to these promotions, 42West/BHI co-presidents Dean Bender and Shawna Lynch have brought on Red Blake Shuster as a new VP. “Since BHI was acquired by Dolphin Entertainment and subsequently merged with 42West in January 2021, the division has experienced high double-digit growth,” Lynch said “We owe a great deal of that success to the leadership skills of Jonah and Briana. They are both client and staff relationship builders that drive the efforts of our best-in-class clients, while simultaneously bringing on new and exciting partners.”

When journalist and documentarian David Farrier grows restless, he must wish for the cosmos to deliver him a story in his niche: kooky, off-radar, and with a forbidding underbelly. And when David Farrier makes a wish, a monkey paw on the other side of the world twitches.

When journalist and documentarian David Farrier grows restless, he must wish for the cosmos to deliver him a story in his niche: kooky, off-radar, and with a forbidding underbelly. And when David Farrier makes a wish, a monkey paw on the other side of the world twitches.

Meryl Streep is honoring her longtime friend Robert De Niro.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent An English-language reimagining of the world of Sergio Corbucci’s cult 1966 spaghetti western “Django,” which launched the career of Italian icon Franco Nero, is set to launch from the Rome Film Festival in October. The high–concept TV series, titled “Django,” will play in 2023 exclusively on Sky and its streaming service NOW in all countries where Sky operates, including the U.K., Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria. It will also air on Canal+ in France, Switzerland, Benelux and Africa. The Rome Film Festival runs from Oct. 13-23. The 10-episode “Django” show stars Matthias Schoenaerts (“Rust and Bone,” “Bullhead”) as the iconic gunman who is the title character, alongside Nicholas Pinnock (“For Life”) as John Ellis, described as the “visionary founder” of the town of New Babylon. Lisa Vicari (“Dark”) plays Django’s daughter Sarah and Noomi Rapace (Millennium Trilogy) has the adversarial role of John’s powerful and ruthless enemy Elizabeth Thurman. 

Hard pass. Maren Morris may be a 2022 Country Music Award nominee — but that doesn’t mean she feels comfortable attending the event amid her ongoing feud with Brittany Aldean.