‘Has Fallen’ Film Franchise Switches To TV; Mathieu Kassovitz To Star In Series Backed By StudioCanal & Co-Produced By Gerard Butler’s G-Base

Director Ric Roman Waugh’s drab film fumbles and grumbles through Iran, the United Arab Emirates and eventually Afghanistan as the hunt for CIA Agent Tom Harris (Butler) intensifies. “Kandahar,” to its credit, aspires to be deep. Geopolitics come up, as does the Taliban’s mangled interpretation of the Quran, along with ISIS and other aftershocks of American wars in the Middle East.Really, though, it is just another tiresome and impenetrably brooding Gerard Butler movie in which no event seems to matter any more than the next one — and grimaces are mistaken for drama. Before ho-hum Harris goes on the run, he is posing as a utility worker in Iran while attempting to destroy a nuclear plant.

Having previously won the Palme d’Or in 2001 for “The Son’s Room” and premiered the majority of his films in competition, Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti has been a mainstay at the Cannes Film Festival for several decades.

Pierre Creton, has won the SACD Prize, awarded by France’s Writers’ Guild for the best French-language movie in the section. Written by Mathilde Girard, Cyril Neyrat and Vincent Barré, and directed by Creton, who combines his film career with work as an agricultural labourer, “A Prince” has weighed in at this year’s Directors Fortnight as one of the most singular of titles, whose central narrative turns on a horticultural student, Pierre-Joseph. His mentors, botany teacher Alberto and plant nursery owner Adrien, soon become his lovers.

Chloe Madeley will star in a new ITVX reality series following her life as she navigates being a first-time mother alongside her husband and former England rugby player James Haskell. At Home With The Madeleys will focus on the daughter of TV presenters Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan after welcoming daughter Bodhi last year, ITV have said. The series will showcase the Madeley family dynamic as Chloe’s husband, sports star Haskell, forges a new career as a DJ.

Vivo Film (“Le Quattro Volte,” “Miss Marx”) has boarded André Ristum’s action drama “Tecnicamente Dolce” (“Technically Sweet”), based on a screenplay by Italian legend Michelangelo Antonioni, teaming with Gullane Filmes, Brazil’s biggest independent film production house. The news comes as “Carnival Is Over,” the awaited thriller drama by “Narcos” director Fernando Coimbra, whose “A Wolf at the Door” was one of the standout Brazilian feature debuts of the last decade, has now entered post-production, shaping up as one of the big arthouse titles to hit festivals from Brazil next year.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While the lineup of Cannes Film Market’s newly launched initiative Cannes Investors Circle has remained under wraps, Variety has learned about four of the nine projects which were pitched during the invitation-only event. The initiative was created by the film market’s new executive director Guillaume Esmiol to connect VIP private investors with select filmmakers and producers boasting a stellar track records. Curated by experts such as Medici’s Tamara Tatishvili, Arte Cinema’s Rémi Burah and financier Serge Hayat, the nine projects are budgeted between €2 million and €12 million. Among these are “Dracula. The Second Coming” directed by Radu Jude, the Romanian helmer of Berlinale prizewinning “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn,” directed by Ada Solomon at microFILM; “Rivo Alto,” directed by Clément Cogitore (“The Wakhan Front”) and produced by Jean-Christophe Reymond at Kazak Productions (“Titane”); “The Girl” directed by Marina Ziolkowski (“But You Look So Good”) and produced by Philippe Gompel (“Cherry”) at Manny Films, and “The Birthday Party” directed by Miguel Angel Jimenez (“Chaika”) and produced by Giorgos Karnavas (“Triangle of Sadness”) at Heretic.

With all the headlines dedicated to the #MeToo movement over the past few years, it can sometimes feel like the industry has made progress — certainly, enough to launch several biopics and television shows about its own misconduct. But this is still a time when “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” actress Adèle Haenel feels compelled to quit the French film industry in protest, and when the director of the Cannes Film Festival feels the need to say, out loud, that Cannes is not a “festival for rapists.” READ MORE: Cannes Director Says Event Is Not “A Festival For Rapists” Needless to say, there’s still work to be done, and it’s good that these conversations continue to happen – especially when they involve an icon of the French film industry, Marion Cotillard.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Maxime Rappaz’s debut film “Let Me Go,” which plays in the Cannes ACID sidebar, has been sold to Brazil and Taiwan. The film stars Cannes regular Jeanne Balibar in the lead role as a fiftysomething woman torn between her family commitments and pursuing her own desires. Every Tuesday, a neighbor takes care of Claudine’s son while she goes to a mountain hotel to meet men passing through. When one of them decides to extend his stay for her, Claudine is confused and finds herself dreaming of another life. Imovision has acquired all rights for Brazil, and will release the film in cinemas after a Brazilian festival premiere. “The mise en scène is excellent and Jeanne Balibar is extraordinary,” Jean-Thomas Bernardini, president of Imovision, commented.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Kaouther Ben Hania, the Oscar-nominated director of “The Man Who Sold His Skin” whose latest film “Four Daughters” is competing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, will next direct “Mimesis,” an epic love story set in Tunisia. While the plot is under wraps, the story is set in two different periods, the 1990s and the 1940s, paying tribute to cinema and Arab-Muslim cultural heritage. It’s being produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha at Tanit Films, who produced Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” and her previous film “The Man Who Sold His Skin” which world premiered at Venice where it won best actor for Yahya Mahayni and was nominated for best international film at the Oscars in 2021.

Quite the globe-trotter. David Hasselhoff exclusively shared several fun facts about himself with Us Weekly — many of which are travel-related.

Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner looks unrecognisable after transforming into a 1980s jewel thief for new six-part drama Joan. The 27-year-old actress, who played Sansa Stark in the smash hit HBO fantasy series, looks worlds away from her usual self in the new ITVX show - with peroxide blonde hair and bright red lipstick.

In “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the sturdy lark, positioned precariously in the liminal space between commerce and taste, there are the familiar callbacks, the big set pieces, the cracking bullwhip, dashing fedoras, nefarious Nazis, exotic locales, old friends and new faces. Something, however, is missing.

EXCLUSIVE: Paris-based WTFilms has acquired international sales rights for thriller Hood Witch, the debut film of rising French director Saïd Belktibia, starring Golshifteh Farahani and Denis Lavant.

Angus Finney As Europe’s multitude of film agencies prepare to plant their flags atop Cannes’ pavilions, a host of public servants are mindful that they face an existential crisis in the bruising battle for cinema’s hearts, minds and future political support. Under attack from Ministers of Culture (Germany), losing top box office status in their home markets (France) and most recently an acknowledgment of institutional racism at the British Film Institute (U.K.), the guardians of the European filmmaking ecosystem valued at more than $3 billion is facing a reckoning like never before. The timing is acute. A powerful array of streaming platform and studio-driven streaming commissioners have been muscling into Europe for a long time. The scale of commissioning engulfing larger European territories was illustrated by Netflix’s recent revelation that it will have spent $6 billion in just four years in the U.K. by the end of 2023. And in a recent talk that will have jangled the nerves of European funders, Netflix chair Reed Hastings claimed that the streamer is the “biggest builder of cross-European culture” as European subscribers overtook North American ones with 76.7 million next to 74.3 million revealed in the streamers’ last quarter results.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were involved in a “near catastrophic car chase” with paparazzi on Tuesday, May 16, in New York City.

Naman Ramachandran Streamer Disney+ has revealed a power packed British cast who will join the previously announced David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner and Danny Dyer on the series adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s steamy novel “Rivals.” Joining the eight-part saga are Annabel Scholey (“The Split”), Maggie Steed (“Ten Percent”), David Calder (“Motherland”), Antony Byrne (‘”The Witcher”), Denise Black (“Queer as Folk”), Bryony Hannah (“Call The Midwife”), Olivia Poulet (“Back”) and Brendan Patricks (“Downton Abbey”). “Rivals” is part of Cooper’s bestselling “Rutshire Chronicles,” set in affluent 1980s England where two powerful men and neigbors – Olympian turned politician Rupert Campbell-Black and television exec Tony Baddingham – have a longstanding rivalry that finally comes to a head.

EXCLUSIVE: New Europe Film Sales has unveiled fresh deals for Danish director Ulaa Salim’s sci-fi drama Eternal.

Michelle Keegan is returning to the small screen this weekend in a brand new BBC drama. The former Coronation Street star ditched filming in the north, and her home in Essex with her husband Mark Wright, to head to Australia to film Ten Pound Poms.

Naman Ramachandran Juno-winning and Grammy-nominated Canadian pop singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes’ original song “Something Big” will feature on the soundtrack of upcoming 3D animated family feature, “Butterfly Tale.” Montreal and Madrid-based international sales and distribution company Pink Parrot Media will represent the film at the upcoming Cannes film market. “Butterfly Tale” is set along the diverse, picturesque, and ever-changing backdrop of the great Monarch butterfly migration. It tells the tale of Patrick, a gutsy and loveable yet inept, one-winged butterfly who stows away in a milkweed trailer in order to be part of the journey of a lifetime. With his best friend, a goofy caterpillar named Marty, and Jennifer, a butterfly who is afraid of heights, Patrick becomes an unlikely hero. But first, he must face his fear, embrace his uniqueness and triumph over adversity while battling changing weather patterns, humans and three evil birds bent on revenge.

Succession‘s Jeremy Strong will star in playwright Amy Herzog’s new Broadway adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. Tony-winning director Sam Gold will direct in early 2024.