James Shani Launches Creative Studio, Rich Spirit; Banner Producing Ali Abbasi Film ‘The Apprentice’

Friends debuted over 30 years ago, and fans can’t believe it’s been decades since the former NBC comedy became a smash-hit.

Alex Ritman Anton, the European production, financing and sales group behind “Greenland,” is set to ramp up its output following a significant injection of funds. The company — which was the first to bring institutional slate funding to European production — has secured more than Euros100 million ($109 million) in new financing through a group of institutional investors, led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.

The stars of the movie The Apprentice are continuing to promote the film at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival amid criticism from the Trump campaign.

EXCLUSIVE: Dahlings, Oscar-nominated Maria Bakalova is channeling an essence of Ivana Trump, who she praises as a “boss lady,” when we meet on a terrace at the Palais to natter about her slyly sublime portrait of Donald Trump‘s first wife in filmmaker Ali Abbasi’s Cannes hit The Apprentice.

EXCLUSIVE: Ozark‘s Felix Solia has signed on to star opposite Jacob Moran, Madeleine McGraw and Violet McGraw in The Necklace, a horror film from director Juan Pablo Arias Munoz that heads into production in Atlanta in late May.

The Apprentice” director Ali Abbasi has responded to the Trump campaign’s threat to sue over the movie, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival on Monday night. “Everybody talks about him suing a lot of people — they don’t talk about his success rate though, you know?” Abbasi said.

The Apprentice filmmaker Ali Abbasi was asked today at the pic’s Cannes press conference about Donald Trump‘s legal threats against the movie following its world premiere here at the fest.

Five years ago, Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi broke out internationally with the Oscar-nominated “Border,” a thorny little beast of a fable about love, complicity, and guilt. His latest prods at some of the same themes, although the thorny little beast at the center of “The Apprentice” is far from a fictional creature of fables.

Already fighting dozens of indictments and a so-called hush money trial in New York, Donald Trump wants to head back to court over the movie that took Cannes by storm today.

Sebastian Stan is hitting the red carpet at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival!

le town.The controversial movie “The Apprentice,” depicting the former president’s rise to fame in New York high society during the 1970s, premiered Monday at the Cannes Film Festival in France to a glamorous crowd including Cate Blanchett and Bella Hadid.The movie received a standing ovation ranging from eight to 11 minutes, according to accounts.In the drama, Sebastian Stan plays a younger Trump as he meets power lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong of “Succession”) and first wife Ivana (Maria Bakalova of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”).While his political ambitions are said to be hinted at, “The Apprentice” does not cover the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections or Trump’s four years in the White House. It also has nothing to do with the NBC reality TV series he hosted.What it does have, according to viewers, are shocks aplenty.During one cringey scene, Trump is said to get liposuction and a hair transplant.And, in another jarring moment, he violently rapes Ivana.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Brazilian social impact entertainment company Maria Farinha Films has taken a minority stake in Joanna Natasegara’s London-based production company Violet Films, which is known for high-profile docs such as “White Helmets,” “Virunga,” “The Edge of Democracy” and Prince Harry’s Netflix series “Invictus.” Leonardo DiCaprio and Barry Jenkins are involved as producer and writer, respectively, in Violet Films’ upcoming feature film adaptation of “Virugna” for Netflix. São Paulo-based Maria Farinha Films is a leading studio in Latin America, known for its hit Globoplay Original “Aruanas” — created by the company’s co-founders Estela Renner and Marcos Nisti — about four women in a São Paulo environmental NGO battling devastation wrought by a mining corporation.

Jack Dunn Umbrelic Entertainment has unveiled the cast of its upcoming horror film, “The Possession at Gladstone Manor,” which includes Caylee Cowan (“Hypnotic”), Jesse Metcalfe (“John Tucker Must Die”), Charlotte Kirk (“The Reckoning”), Darren Weiss (“Inside Man”), Barbara Crampton (“You’re Next”), William Mapother (“Blackhat”) and Lin Shaye (“Insidious” franchise). Production is currently underway in Kansas City, and AMP’s Anthony Buckner is handling international sales at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. According to an official logline, “The Possession at Gladstone Manor” picks up “when Jamie Black discovers her mother has gone missing [and] resolves to investigate by applying for the same job her mother held at Gladstone Manor.

Richard Gere poses for a family photo while attending the 2024 Cannes Film Festival premiere of his upcoming film Oh, Canada held at Palais des Festivals on Friday (May 17) in Cannes, France.

John Krasinski and Natalie Portman are hard at work on their new movie!

Rithy Panh has dedicated the lion’s share of his career to interrogating the genocidal Khmer Rouge era in his native Cambodia, and it is no trivial obsession. Panh fled Phnom Penh when he was just 11, and after his family was devastated in the Killing Fields, he escaped to a Thai refugee camp at 15. Now 60, Panh has been committed to keeping the memory of the impact of Pol Pot’s tyrannical regime alive in documentary, narrative and animated film.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Microsoft‘s Activision has launched a new internal, standalone studio with one mission: creating a new narrative-based and genre-defining AAA franchise. Titled Elsewhere Entertainment, the studio will be headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, with additional staff in the United States.

As the 77th Cannes Film Festival gets underway, there are plenty of obvious frontrunners for the coveted Palme d’Or. But don’t count out Ali Abbasi‘s “The Apprentice” as a dark horse pick to win the festival’s top prize.

Studiocanal has acquired UK and Ireland rights for Ali Abbasi’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender The Apprentice.

By Fans wanting to see Penelope Featherington () and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) in might be surprised to learn that when Newton first got the scripts, his initial thought was: How complicated can this story be?“Penelope has been infatuated by Colin ever since the start of season one,” he explains to Glamour over Zoom. “So in my head, there was a clear path: All he needs to do is see what's been right in front of him all this time, and they'll live happily ever after.”Of course, this is Bridgerton.