Julianne Moore in Sky, AMC’s ‘Mary & George’: First Images Unveiled (EXCLUSIVE)

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday. Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

K.J. Yossman Jonah Hauer-King can currently be seen swimming up a storm alongside Halle Bailey in Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” but for his next project he’s part of a different world – “World on Fire.” The PBS and BBC drama series has released first look images from its upcoming second season, showing Hauer-King as a grimy pilot called Harry in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. In the show, which was created by Peter Bowker, he is joined by “The Crown’s” Lesley Manville, Parker Sawyers (“A Discovery of Witches”) and Eugénie Derouand (“The Advent Calendar”).

Naman Ramachandran Shant Joshi’s Los Angeles and Toronto-based company Fae Pictures (2023 Cannes title “In Flames”) has boarded Cape Town-based company Giant Films’ “Runs in the Family.” Fae will executive produce and handle the festival launch of the LGBTQ+ road trip family drama, a clip for which has been unveiled. The film is by real-life father-son duo Ian Gabriel (“Ludik”) and Gabe Gabriel (“No Hiding Here”). Ian directed and Gabe wrote and stars in “Runs in the Family.” The film marks Gabe’s first professional role since he came out as trans in 2019. The film follows a reformed con artist, Varun (Ace Bhatti), and his transmasculine son, River (Gabe Gabriel), on a road trip across South Africa to break River’s estranged mother (Diaan Lawrenson) out of rehab. When injury befalls Ollie (Cleo Wesley), River’s drag partner and best friend, his mother propels father and son to partner up for a drag competition that could win River his gender-affirming surgery.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Netflix landed North American rights for “May December,” a soapy romantic-drama directed by Todd Haynes and starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, which debuted at Cannes Film Festival. It sold for $11 million, marking the first big sale of this year’s festival. Several bidders, including Neon, were in the mix before Netflix emerged victorious. The streamer hopes to position “May December” as an Oscar contender in the fall. A scandalous age-gap relationship plays out at the center of “May December,” which debuted on Saturday to raves and earned a six-minute standing ovation. Moore plays the “December” to Charles Melton’s much-younger “May,” who was just 13 when the two fell in love. Given their 20-year age gap, their marriage inspired a national tabloid scandal. Decades later, their relationship is put to the test as an actress (Portman) travels to Georgia to study the life of Moore’s character, whom she’s set to play in a film.

Coming into Cannes 2023, there was a lot of discussion about Todd Haynes’ new dramedy, “May December.” Haynes is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers working today and his latest stars none other than Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, two of the most respected actors in the world. It appears, judging by early reviews, “May December” delivers the goods and is likely going to be in the mix come awards season.

Christopher Vourlias U.S. writer and political advocate Dane Waters and “Superpower” co-director Aaron Kaufman announced the launch of a new global nonprofit group, Humanity for Freedom, Monday in Cannes. The organization is dedicated to the fight against authoritarian governments through educational and advocacy work. The group’s global kick-off event, 72 Hours for Freedom, will feature screenings around the world of “Superpower,” the documentary about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, co-directed by Kaufman and Sean Penn. The event will take place in over a dozen countries on six continents, starting in London on June 6 and wrapping in Washington, D.C., June 8, including stops in Rome; Tbilisi, Georgia; Sofia, Bulgaria; Abuja, Nigeria; Tokyo; Sydney; and Buenos Aires.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Todd Haynes is the latest auteur to use Cannes as a launching pad for a potential Oscar contender, debuting his delicious dramedy “May December” at the festival on Saturday. Premiering less than one hour after Martin Scorsese’s 202-minute “Killers of the Flower Moon” conquered Cannes, the torrential downpour on Saturday night couldn’t keep many patrons away from taking in the Haynes movie. And not just because the movie reunites the director with his muse Julianne Moore, who he worked wonders with on “Safe” (1995) and “Far from Heaven” (2002), the latter which earned an Oscar nomination for Moore’s performance and one for Haynes’ script.

There’s trouble in the paradise of Savannah, Georgia, where the skeins of Spanish moss-draped over corridors of trees wave in the gentle coastal zephyrs with each night’s picture-perfect sunset. Spouses Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) have opened their palatial home for a backyard BBQ; he’s manning the grill, and she’s darting about trying to make everything just right, each well aware of their role to play.

CANNES – Perhaps it was the fact we’ve reached the halfway point of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and the media have reached an inevitable breaking point with lack of sleep. Or maybe it was the often (but not talways) demure personalities of “May December’s” Oscar-winning stars, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman.

May December, Todd Haynes’ film that received an eight-minute standing ovation at Cannes late on Saturday evening, is a film all about transgression, Julianne Moore told the press on Sunday. 

CANNES (Reuters) - Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore anchor director Todd Haynes' attempt at a fourth Palme d'Or in the drama "May December," which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night. Moore plays an older star who became tabloid fodder two decades earlier because of her relationship with a much younger man, played by Charles Melton - best known for "Riverdale.

May December co-stars Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore were joined by producer Will Ferrell when they walked the red carpet at the movie’s premiere during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival on Saturday (May 20) at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Todd Haynes brought delicious psychodrama to the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, with the world premiere of his “May December” starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore. Captivating the Cannes crowd the film earned a 6-minute standing ovation at the festival’s Grand Palais. “May December” stars Natalie Portman as Elizabeth, an actor who heads to Savannah to study the lives of Gracie (Moore) and Joe (“Riverdale” star Charles Melton). Years prior, Gracie and Joe’s scandalous cross-generational affair sparked a national controversy due to their age gap and the fact that Gracie was Joe’s boss at a local pet store. Twenty years later, Elizabeth is playing Gracie in a film version of the scandal, but her arrival puts a disruptive pressure on Gracie and Joe’s marriage.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In the experimental montage that opens “Persona,” a bare-chested teenage boy caresses a screen upon which the faces of two women slowly morph back and forth. It’s easy to imagine Todd Haynes being tempted to start his deep-as-you-want-to-go rabbit-hole drama “May December” the same way, seeing as how this endlessly fascinating movie focuses on the blurring of the lines between a Hollywood star (Natalie Portman) and her Heartland subject (Julianne Moore), who was caught in a sexual relationship with a 7th grader at the age of 36. The movie wants to know: Can playing this Mary Kay Letourneau-like tabloid sensation really answer what makes such a woman tick? A heady director whose entire oeuvre feels ripe for film-studies dissertations, Haynes makes movies not merely to be watched, but to be analyzed and deconstructed after the fact. From the rich Douglas Sirkian pastiche of “Far From Heaven” to the queer twist on classical “woman’s pictures” provided by “Carol,” his style can be chilly and distancing. Not so “May December.” As layered and infinitely open-to-interpretation as any of his films, it’s also the most generous and direct, beginning not with Ingmar Bergman references (those come later), but with footage of monarch butterflies. They’re symbols of transformation, too, but also something nice to look at (and listen to, underscored by a lush reworking of the piano theme from “The Go-Between”) before these two women meet.

Todd Haynes has a way with female stars. I would even call him the new-age George Cukor in that regard. Whether in Carol with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, or his HBOlimited series Mildred Pierce with Kate Winslet, or his homage to the director of so many so-called “women’s pictures” of the ’50s Douglas Sirk in Far From Heaven with Julianne Moore, he seems to be in his comfort zone with women. That has never been more apparent than his latest, May December, a deliciously entertaining showcase for Natalie Portman and Moore (her and Haynes’ fourth film together), which just had its world premiere Saturday in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Marta Balaga Julio Hernández Cordón’s vampire tale “The Day is Long and Dark” (“El Día es Largo y Oscuro”) is unveiling first images and trailer, which world premieres at Cannes’ Fantastic Pavilion. Alina Rojas, Diana Bustamante and Hernández Cordón produce, for La Mitad del Continente (Mexico) and Burning (Colombia).  The film, currently in post-production, dives into a complicated family dynamic as Vera, a 17-year-old girl, needs to learn how to live with her “vampirism gene.”  Prisoners of the sun, she and her father, Cruz, spend their days in hotel rooms until she can’t take it: Feeling guilty and misunderstood, and missing her boyfriend she is afraid of hurting, Vera wants to die. Suddenly, her father – who is also a film director – has two missions in life. He can’t let her attack anyone but he also needs to make sure she doesn’t commit suicide.

Naman Ramachandran XYZ Films has unveiled the first clip from Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection “In Flames,” a Pakistani-Canadian horror film directed by Zarrar Kahn. The film, produced by Anam Abbas and executive produced by Shant Joshi, Todd Brown and Maxime Cottray, is part of XYZ’s New Visions slate. As revealed by Variety, XYZ had boarded the title last year. In the Karachi-set film, after the death of the family patriarch, a mother and daughter’s precarious existence is ripped apart by figures from their past – both real and phantasmal. They must find strength in each other if they are to survive the malevolent forces that threaten to engulf them.

EXCLUSIVE: Sky wanted to start 2023 with a bang. Comcast’s European pay-TV giant gathered journalists at London’s salubrious Soho Hotel and laid on a banquet table heaving with Danish pastries. A smorgasbord of upcoming Sky content was also on the menu, but there was really only one show on everyone’s lips. The Last of Us had recently premiered and Pedro Pascal’s blockbuster apocalypse series was in the mood to steal Sky’s thunder.

Mary & George, an upcoming queer period drama, has just released the first-look images of Julianne Moore in character. In this dramatic retelling of real-life British history, the actress plays Mary Villiers, a ruthless woman who used multiple avenues to rise to the height of English society — including bribing politicians and working with criminals.

The Lazarus Project, a British drama series starring I May Destroy You’s Paapa Essiedu, doesn’t launch until next month on TNT.