Gaumont Animation & Studio 100 Media Strike First-Look Deal

Taylor Swift is looking cute and casual in these new candid photos!

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International If you ask most people in the U.K. industry how business is going right now, they’ll likely tell you it’s been agonizingly “slow.” It’s meant to be boom time for production, but this summer, the U.S. writers strike combined with a cost of living crisis is brutally squeezing unscripted and scripted projects. This week, as the clock ticks away on negotiations between American actors union SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood’s collective bargaining agent, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the prevailing thought will be: is all of this about to get much worse? A number of British actors Variety has spoken to say they’ve yet to hear from local actors’ union Equity with any guidance about their situation. That’s likely because it’s being worked out in real time. Paul W. Fleming, general secretary for Equity, has been in Los Angeles for discussions with SAG-AFTRA, which is optimistic about its negotiations with the AMPTP. (He’s also visiting New York to meet with theater union Actors’ Equity.)

EXCLUSIVE: Julie Soto’s debut novel Forget Me Not is being adapted into a TV series by Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group.

The New York Times reported Thursday, citing three people familiar with the matter.The report said multiple bidders had offered to acquire Vice, but only Fortress was deemed “qualified,” “meaning the others did not meet the bar Vice had set for buyers,” citing one of the sources. A bankruptcy judge must approve any deal before it goes forward.

Ryan Murphy is responding allegations.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Despite what the splashy yacht parties in Cannes suggest, media companies really are trying to save money right now. Really! Top execs at Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Netflix, Paramount Global, Amazon and NBCUniversal parent Comcast have all promised shareholders during recent quarterly earnings calls that they’ll be spending wisely amid the economic downturn. Sweeping layoffs and other cost-cutting strategies, including the removal of underperforming content from some streaming services, has been among the first orders of business in 2023. But no matter how many jobs these Hollywood heavyweights cut (in Disney’s case, 7,000 over the first half of the year), reaching an outlandish savings target (nearly $4 billion for the post-merger Warner Bros. Discovery) is going to require pinching pennies in more areas than staff headcount. While CFOs are shredding budgets to ribbons, TV’s latest FYC season poses another quandary: What is the cost vs. benefit of an Emmy this year? And does the statuette’s symbolic value go down if the best-of-television awards are not televised due to the writers strike?

Miami Heat star Kevin Love has shared the first picture of his newborn baby he has welcomed with Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Kate Bock. The star couple have not yet revealed the baby's name or gender but a first look at the newborn was shared by the NBA player on Instagram this week. Bock shared the picture on her own Instagram story with the caption 'mine' along with a white heart emoji.

Daredevil: Born Again and The Penguin finally have thrown in the towel: Deadline has learned that the Disney+ series and the Max drama will remain on pause until the end of the WGA Strike — whenever that may be.

Addie Morfoot Contributor At Tuesday’s New York’s premiere of Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” the star-studded cast had plenty to say about Hollywood’s writers strike. Scarlett Johansson, Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston and Rupert Friend revealed how they really feel about the face off between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers while walking the beige carpet at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. “Whatever happens moving forward will forever change how revenue is determined,” Johansson told Variety. “It’s a thing that has needed to happen for a long time, that we’ve been talking about for a long time, and it’s finally reached this breaking point. It’s important for all of us creatives to unite and support this massive shift so we can get over to the other side, which we will.”

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Prime Video debuted the first-look image and revealed the premiere date for the adaptation of thriller series “Harlan Coben’s Shelter” from New York Times best-selling author Harlan Coben on Thursday. The show marks Coben’s first collaboration with Prime Video. The first three episodes of the eight-episode series will premiere globally on Aug. 18 exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, with new episodes available each Friday, leading up to the season finale on Sept. 22. “Harlan Coben’s Shelter” follows the story of Mickey Bolitar after the sudden death of his father leads him to start a new life in Kasselton, New Jersey. Mickey quickly finds himself tangled in the mysterious disappearance of a new student at his school, Ashley Kent, which leads to uncovering unimaginable secrets within their quiet suburban community.

in May after a 24-hour strike. That compromise also included immediate raises of up to 12.5 percent to cover the years 2021 through 2023. Under Insider’s impending guidelines, merit raises would still be available.Additionally, Insider employees would also be able to work from anywhere, including fully remote work.

The world of “John Wick” is expanding.

Amber Dowling In 1998, Glen Salzman and Katherine Buck launched Montreal-based Cineflix Media with one of its first series, “Dogs with Jobs.” Unable to secure Canadian financing, they pitched the series at the Banff World Media Festival to international broadcasters during a market simulation session. From there, the company produced five seasons of the factual series, which continues to sell internationally. More impressively, it was the beginning of Cineflix growing from a company with three factual shows into one of Canada’s largest independent producers, with creative, production and distribution arms in Montreal, Toronto, New York, London and Dublin.

Amber Dowling In 1998, Glen Salzman and Katherine Buck launched Montreal-based Cineflix Media with one of its first series, “Dogs with Jobs.” Unable to secure Canadian financing, they pitched the series at the Banff World Media Festival to international broadcasters during a market simulation session. From there, the company produced five seasons of the factual series, which continues to sell internationally. More impressively, it was the beginning of Cineflix growing from a company with three factual shows into one of Canada’s largest independent producers, with creative, production and distribution arms in Montreal, Toronto, New York, London and Dublin.

Film and television writers from around the world will be picketing and rallying Wednesday in support of the Writers Guild strike, which is now in its 39th day.

The day after New York-based pickets were canceled for the week because of smoke, the gathering at Warner Bros. in Los Angeles was a bit smaller on Thursday, with less than 50 people gathering in support of the WGA strike.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director The name Preston Mutanga might not ring a bell, but anyone who has contributed to the $235 million and counting box office haul for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” has seen his work on the big screen. Mutanga is a 14-year-old from Toronto, Canada, who landed a role as an animator on “Across the Spider-Verse” after he recreated the film’s trailer shot-for-shot in the style of LEGO blocks and left producers Chris Lord and Phil Miller dazzled (via The New York Times). Not too bad for your industry debut. Mutanga uploaded his LEGO remake of the “Across the Spider-Verse” trailer to Twitter on Jan. 2 (see the post below). Lord and Miller, both active Twitter users, caught wind of the clip and were impressed — the directors know a thing or two about crafting LEGO-inspired sequences as the directors of 2014’s “The LEGO Movie.” When the team decided they wanted a scene in “Across the Spider-Verse” set in a LEGO universe, they decided to reach out to Mutanga.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Oscar-winning director Gabriele Salvatores (“Mediterraneo”) is back behind the camera on “Napoli – New York,” a period immigration drama based on a story written for the screen by Federico Fellini. Fellini co-wrote the tale of two Neapolitan kids who embark on a ship to New York to escape Italy’s early postwar poverty with his frequent collaborator Tullio Pinelli, a writer on the Italian maestro’s “La Dolce Vita” and “8 1/2,” as well as other titles. Italian A-lister Pierfrancesco Favino (“The Traitor,” “Nostalgia”) stars as the chief officer of the ship which the two kids, named Carmine and Celestina, manage to board surreptitiously in the port of Naples, becoming clandestine passengers. The youngsters are on a mission to reach the U.S. where they dream of living with Celestina’s sister, who emigrated to New York two years earlier. Newcomers Dea Lanzaro e Antonio Guerra play the kids. (See first-look image above of Favino with the kids and Salvatores.)

Michael Lamont, who went from acting in Bye Bye Birdie and Oliver! on Broadway to a career as photographer for studios, theaters and actors, has died. He was 76. According to Patty Onagan, publicist for Lamont’s wife Kay Cole, he died May 21 in North Hollywood of Alzheimer’s complications.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director David Maisel might not be a name Marvel fans think of when they talk about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the entertainment executive recently stressed to The New Yorker that the “MCU wouldn’t exist” without him. Maisel is Marvel Studios’ former president and the initial architect of the MCU, which Kevin Feige has since taken the reigns of as the company’s current president. Feige’s name has become synonymous with Marvel’s success, which Maisel said has all but overshadowed his contributions. Or as Maisel put it, “It’s like a Thanos snap.” “Most people right now think Kevin started the studio,” Maisel said. “They don’t know me at all.”