EXCLUSIVE: Silver Tree (The Flight Attendant, You) is set to direct and executive produce on the upcoming Paramount+ series Fatal Attraction.
30.04.2022 - 01:31 / deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Writer, director, and award-winning journalist Julian Rubinstein’s highly anticipated anti-gang war documentary, The Holly has tapped Academy Award-winning filmmaker and Hyperobject Industries founder, Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up) and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Todd Schulman (Borat) as executive producers ahead of its world premiere at Telluride’s this Memorial Day weekend.
Executive producing alongside McKay and Schulman are Trygve Myhren, Kayvan Khalatbari, Chad Asarch, and K. Nicole Robinson Asarch, and Co-Executive Producer David Sirota (Don’t Look Up). The film is produced by Emmy-winning filmmaker and theater company founder Donnie l. Betts (Music Is My Life), Sarah Dowland (The Crime Of The Century), and Dia Sokol Savage (Finding Kendrick Johnson).
“I was completely blown away after seeing the rough cut of The Holly,” states executive producer Adam McKay, “From income inequality, race, gun violence and corruption, this film is the macro of America in the micro.”
Based on Rubinstein’s New York Times Editor’s Choice pick, The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun, and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood (FSG, 2021), The Holly takes place in the historic “Holly” neighborhood of Denver and highlights anti-gang activist Terrance Roberts. When the film starts, Roberts—whose anti-gang work won him grants and awards—is facing life in prison. In an incident that shocked the city of Denver, Roberts shot someone at his own peace rally. The shooting happened in the so-called “Holly,” a section of a neighborhood that was once at the center of Denver’s civil rights movement, and later became Roberts’ turf back when he was a gang member. The high-profile case becomes an unexpected window into the machinations of the gang
EXCLUSIVE: Silver Tree (The Flight Attendant, You) is set to direct and executive produce on the upcoming Paramount+ series Fatal Attraction.
SAG Award-nominee Alexandra Billings (Transparent) will star in, and executive produce the upcoming trans revolutionary indie feature, Queen Tut.
Normal order resumed on This Morning on Monday as Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby kicked off another week of shows. The first edition of the ITV daytime show of the week marked Holly's return.
John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentIn a further expansive move into production, London-based Protagonist Pictures is teaming with Madrid’s Mogambo, executive producers on “1917,” for a multi-year, multi-title strategic production partnership.Announced on the cusp of the Cannes Festival, the deal sees the two companies allying to finance, co-produce and sell up to five films a year, Protagonist CEO Dave Bishop and CCO George Hamilton, announced alongside Mogambo founders Ignacio Salazar-Simpson and Ricardo Marco Budé.They added in a statement that the partnership will focus on jointly green-lighting prestige third party filmmaker-driven titles with budget ranges of $5 million-$25 million, as well as strategic co-productions and development. Negotiated by Mogambo’s legal director Carlos Segovia and Protagonist’s COO James Pugh, Hamilton and Head of Acquisitions Luane Gauer, the alliance is another building brick for both companies as they seek to leverage co-production to create bigger and more ambitious movie productions.They can also bring to the table Protagonist Pictures’ muscle as a top European sales company.
Leo Barraclough International Features EditorErotic love story “99 Moons,” which will have its world premiere in Cannes’ ACID sidebar, has debuted its trailer (below). Berlin-based sales outfit M-Appeal has acquired the world sales rights to the film, which is directed by Jan Gassmann. The film centers on Bigna, a 28-year-old scientist, and 33-year-old Frank.
Director Adam Wingard (“The Guest“) is a busy fella with projects like a “ThunderCats” movie and “Face/Off” sequel on the horizon, among others. His next big outing will be Legendary‘s follow-up to the hit Monsterverse film “Godzilla vs.
they had been discussing, in earnest, a follow-up to their first Dan Stevens collaboration.Clearly, “Godzilla vs. Kong” had the edge (or maybe the script was just in the best place) as production begins this summer in Australia.
EXCLUSIVE: Marking the first major role to be cast in the upcoming sequel, Dan Stevens is set to star as the lead of the next feature film installment of the Legendary’s Monsterverse franchise, a follow up to 2020’s Godzilla vs. Kong. Adam Wingard, who directed the first film, is returning to direct the film with production is slated to begin this summer in Australia.
EXCLUSIVE: Courteney Cox is looking for a new home for her pregnancy docuseries 9 Months.
Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer“Fate of a Sport,” an official premiere of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, has unveiled its first trailer exclusively to Variety.Covering the world of professional lacrosse and one of its most controversial and high-profile stars, Paul Rabil, the film deals in much more than triumph on the pitch — encompassing millions in capital fundraising, talent poaching, and lawsuits from legacy athletic clubs all against the backdrop of a global pandemic.“Even in the regular lacrosse league, guys still have to have a second job,” a narrator explains in the clip, alluding to the fact that professional lacrosse is nowhere near as well-funded or rewarding for its players on the national stage. Until Rabil and his brother Mike decided to break ranks and potentially sacrifice Paul’s decorated career to launch a league of their own (the Premier Lacrosse League).
Director Adam Wingard (“Godzilla vs Kong“) and writer Simon Barrett’s “The Guest” starring Dan Stevens is easily one of the better modern attempts to recreate the tone of a 1980s action sci-fi hybrid film. “The Guest” certainly has DNA from filmmakers like John Carpenter, James Cameron, Paul Verhoeven, and Chuck Russell (“The Blob,” “Dream Warriors“) all mixed in to create something that harkens back to an era when major studios backed high concept R-rated genre projects.
EXCLUSIVE: BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU), the UK production powerhouse behind Planet Earth and The Green Planet, has hired BAFTA-winning Mike Davis to lead a major push into CGI.
Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorReady to listen to an off-the-cuff tale from Adam McKay as you drift off to dreamland? Of course you are.In the forthcoming podcast “Bedtime Stories With Adam McKay” from Sony Music Entertainment, the filmmaker, writer and comedian will deliver an “immersive and lulling auditory experience” — one that McKay will make up on the spot, the company says. It’s part of Sony Music’s new original podcast slate, announced Wednesday as part of the IAB Podcast Upfronts.Each episode of “Bedtime Stories” will feature McKay delivering an improvised story, based on one word chosen at random by his producer, Harry Nelson.
Holly Jones Acclaimed Brazilian writer-director Alê Abreu, director of the Oscar-nominated “The Boy and the World,” will world premiere his electric feature-length film “Perlimps” at the upcoming Annecy International Animation Film Festival after excerpts from the project were teased as part of the fest’s Works in Progress program last year.“Perlimps” will screen at Annecy as a Special Event.The film presents a mythical prism of hues splayed out to create a dense enchanted forest pictured in painterly tropical tones. Amidst the backdrop, two rivals, Claé and Bruó, reluctantly join forces in a bid to save their precious woodland and the Perlimps from giants surrounding the forest and regain peace.
EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures’ 3000 Pictures has preemptively acquired film rights to I Think My Mother-In-Law Is Trying to Kill Me—a psychological thriller, based on a Reddit short story by Nick Moorefox.
Lady Gaga has released “Hold My Hand,” the power ballad she co-penned and performs for Paramount/Skydance’s upcoming Top Gun: Maverick which has its world premiere on Wednesday in San Diego. Attendees at CinemaCon in Las Vegas got their first taste of the song when the Tom Cruise sequel screened for exhibition last Thursday, and it’s another in Gaga’s and the Top Gun canon that could go all the way to the Oscars.
), “BARDO” will enjoy a theatrical release on a global scale later this year including in Mexico, its country of origin, as well as the US, Canada, UK, Italy, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Japan and Korea, among many more before debuting on Netflix.Iñàrritu previously worked with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki on his last two films to Oscar-winning effect.“BARDO” stars Daniel Giménez Cacho and Griselda Siciliani. In addition to Khondji, the film features a below-the-line team that includes production design by the Oscar-winning Mexican designer Eugenio Caballero (“Pan’s Labyrinth”) and costume design by Anna Terrazas (“ROMA”).Netflix previously released noteworthy titles like Alfonso Cuaron’s “ROMA,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” in theaters before the films were available to stream on Netflix, and for Iñárritu’s first Netflix feature it appears he’s being given a similar rollout strategy – although it’s unclear if “BARDO” will have an exclusive theatrical window or if the film will release on streaming and in theaters on the same day.This is Iñárritu’s first film since 2015’s “The Revenant,” which earned him a Best Director Oscar on the heels of 2014’s “Birdman” which won Best Director, Picture and Original Screenplay.
EXCLUSIVE: With filming currently under way on Fast X, Deadline has learned that Justin Lin is stepping down as director of the next installment in the Fast and Furious franchise just days into production. Lin co-wrote the film with Dan Casey and will remain on as a producer and while the parting was amicable between both parties, insiders say Lin ultimately decided to step away from the franchise due to creative differences. Lin has released a statement on his decision to leave the film:
J. Kim Murphy One week ago, NBA legend and Los Angeles Lakers icon Jerry West employed his legal representation to send a letter to HBO, Warner Bros. Discovery and Adam McKay demanding a legal retraction for his portrayal on HBO’s “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.” The correspondence included testimony by former members of the Lakers organization, including retired ballplayer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to reinforce its argument of the show creating “a deliberately false characterization.” Weeks before, Earvin “Magic” Johnson himself voiced his criticism of the series to Variety, saying “You can’t do a story about the Lakers without the Lakers… the real Lakers.”Author Jeff Pearlman, whose book “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s” has been adapted to the HBO series, gets where they’re coming from.
Jordan Moreau Director Adam McKay’s Netflix film “Don’t Look Up,” which starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance and more A-listers, made a splash last winter for how the dark, political comedy eerily mirrored real life. The film tackled issues of climate change and media misinformation, and one fictional tech billionaire character hit even closer to home after Elon Musk and Twitter agreed to a $44 billion deal on Monday.“It’s dangerous,” Blanchett told Variety about Musk’s Twitter takeover, at the Chaplin Award Gala in New York on Monday. “That’s all I have to say, it’s very, very dangerous.”Rylance’s character, Peter Isherwell, an eccentric tech CEO who profits off a comet hurtling toward Earth, was based partly on Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs.