Nicholas Stango Promoted to Variety’s Executive Producer of Video

William Earl Variety has promoted Jem Aswad to lead all music content across digital, print and live media platforms as executive editor, music. Aswad will oversee all aspects of Variety‘s music-related editorial operations and staff. He will also continue to serve as Variety‘s leading voice on the business of music, penning cover stories, deep-dive features, investigative stories, personality profiles and reviews. With his promotion, Aswad will also help steer Variety‘s music-related event franchises, including Hitmakers and Music Mogul of the Year, and contribute significantly to developing music programming for live media events. Aswad is based in Variety‘s New York office and reports to co-editors in chief Cynthia Littleton and Ramin Setoodeh. Shirley Halperin, Variety’s executive editor, music since 2017, is stepping down to become editor in chief of Los Angeles magazine.

HanWay Films has boarded The One, an erotic thriller starring Melissa Barrera and Nicholas Hoult and will launch sales at the Cannes Film Festival.

Naman Ramachandran Melissa Barrera (“Scream VI”), Nicholas Hoult (“The Menu”) and Lana Condor (“Moonshot”) headline the cast of “The One,” from writer-director team Kevin Armento and Jaki Bradley. HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales, and will launch the film at the Cannes film market, with WME Independent and UTA co-repping the film for North America. “The One” follows Taylor (Barrera), who’s made a last-ditch effort to find love by becoming a contestant on a reality dating show. Now down to just herself and two other women competing to win the heart of Mason (Hoult), Taylor begins to feel the artifice of the show fade, and the game becomes terrifyingly real. Amidst the opulent beachfront setting, fairy-tale dates, and ever-flowing champagne, pursuit turns into obsession and rivalry turns into treachery as reality itself blurs.

EXCLUSIVE: Drake’s DreamCrew Entertainment, producers of Dear Mama, Euphoria, and Top Boy is pleased to announce its association as executive producers with Rosie Filmwaze LLC whose The Melt Goes On Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons receives its U.S. theatrical premiere at New York’s Film Forum today.

Charna Flam After a decade-long friendship, comedy producers David Bernad and Todd Schulman finally put together their hidden-camera comedy expertise to make Amazon Freevee’s viral success “Jury Duty.” The executive producers of the overnight hit mockumentary combined their talents for the improvised-scripted sitcom. Bernad and Schulman began with the idea to hone in on sitcom genre tropes and create a story about an isolated individual amongst a cast of actors as they served on a sequestered jury. The two have had successful stints with unconventional comedy subgenres, most recently within the improvised-scripted sphere.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor HBO’s “Succession” series finale will be 90 minutes long, according to one of the key members of its creative team. Variety confirmed. “It’s 90 minutes,” Emmy winning composer Nicholas Britell said. “It’s a huge episode — like a movie.” The episode will be directed by “Succession” executive producer Mark Mylod, and will air on the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, May 28. While little else is known about what to expect, Variety previously reported in a cover story with HBO chief Casey Bloys that the network is not developing any spinoffs.

Charlie Nicholas has told Michael Beale he must tell the Ibrox board straight what he needs to topple Celtic, but the former Hoops striker claims they won’t have to “spend fortunes” to mount a challenge against their treble-chasing rivals next season.

EXCLUSIVE: Daddy Yankee has signed on as an executive producer of the upcoming Netflix series Neon. Yankee, a pioneer of the reggaeton genre popularized in his native Puerto Rico, also makes a cameo appearance.

BreAnna Bell Taraji P. Henson has signed on to join Village Roadshow Unscripted Television and Candid Camera Inc. as the companies look to revamp their “Candid Camera” series. She will appear alongside series veteran and executive producer Peter Funt. The new version of the series is said to “feature modern gags with the same infectious spirit” of the original show. “If this announcement is some kind of epic prank by Taraji and my friends at Village Roadshow, then I’ve really been had! There couldn’t be a better time to bring back Candid Camera. Folks need stress-free smiles more than ever. Our show has a lot in common with ‘Ted Lasso’ — minus the cursing. We celebrate humanity and good sportsmanship, and we manage to do it with a lot of laughs,” said Funt.

Ellise Shafer Aubrey “Drake” Graham and Sean “Diddy” Combs have signed on as executive producers of Grammy-nominated rapper French Montana’s documentary “For Khadija,” which is set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 16. Directed by Mandon Lovett, “For Khadija” follows “the unlikely rise of Moroccan-born, multi-platinum recording artist French Montana, as his single mother she sacrifices everything to raise her three young sons in the Bronx, after being abandoned by their father and left destitute,” according to the doc’s official description. “The film spans the globe as it depicts the family’s unique immigrant journey, a son’s perseverance in the face of insurmountable obstacles, and a mother’s unwavering faith — all in pursuit of the American dream.”

Fugitive rape suspect Nicholas Rossi gave a bizarre TV interview in the US where he flopped around to 'prove' he couldn't walk.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The winners of the 27th Webby Awards have been announced, with Variety taking home two trophies from the annual awards program that recognizes the best of the internet. The magazine’s Variety Power of Women 2022 from Los Angeles won the Webby People’s Voice Award for events and livestreams in the General Video category, and Variety won the Webby for editorial writing in features and design section of the Websites and Mobile Sites category for co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh’s Oct. 26, 2022, cover story on Hugh Jackman. Variety had garnered four 2023 Webby Awards nominations. Other 2023 Webby Awards winners include Lizzo, former President Barack Obama, Doja Cat, Blackpink, the cast of Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” the cast of Marvel’s “Wakanda Forever,” Trixie Mattel, Hugh Jackman, Christina Aguilera, Patrick Mahomes, Jimmy Kimmel, Roger Federer, Serena Williams and Trevor Noah. Companies, brands and campaigns picking up Webbys this year include the Apple TV app, Adobe’s Frame.io, ESPN’s “30 for 30” podcast, Headspace, Discord, Nike’s Just A/Run, Etsy, Crooked Media’s “Pod Save America” and Spotify’s Wrapped.

The wife of fugitive Nicholas Rossi has claimed that her husband is '100 percent not a rapist' as he faces extradition to the United States over sex assault charges. Miranda Knight also told NBC’s Dateline that she hopes the pair will one day “crack open a bottle of champagne” and “return to their normal lives” as her husband remains in custody.

Nicholas Hoult may have lost out to Robert Pattinson when it came to starring in 2022’s “The Batman”, but he insists the right man got the job.

Nicholas Hoult missed out on three big roles in a row, and the first was a chance to play the caped crusader himself in The Batman.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Nicholas Hoult confirmed in a recent interview with The Guardian that he lost out on roles in “The Batman,” “Mission: Impossible 7” and “Top Gun: Maverick” all in a row. In a new interview with GQ España, the actor stressed that he is “happy” with his career despite these “disappointments.” Hoult also went into a bit more detail about the experience of losing the title role in “The Batman” to Robert Pattinson. “Of course,” Hoult said when asked if he would’ve liked to play Bruce Wayne/Batman. “I’m sure if you ask most people, they’ll tell you they’d want to portray that role. I think Matt Reeves’ ideas were fantastic and he made a brilliant movie. And I also think that Rob [Robert Pattinson] did an amazing job with the character and I loved seeing him in it. So I don’t think I would have done as good a job as him ultimately. I don’t think I could have fit as well into the world that Matt created as Rob did.”

US fugitive Nicholas Rossi didn’t attend his latest extradition hearing after becoming involved in an “altercation” with a security guard, a court heard.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent In a bid to showcase the utility of NFT’s in cinema, the team behind Mounia Meddour’s (“Papicha”) Rome-premiering film “Houria” is launching a limited impact NFT collection. Meddour’s follow up to her Cesar-winning feature debut “Papicha,” “Houria” is still playing in theaters in France and was recently boarded by “CODA” Star Troy Kotsur who is now executive producer on the movie. Kotsur made history last year as the first Deaf man to take home an acting award at the Oscars.  The initiative, which is being engineered by the film’s producers Ink Connection and High Sea, as well as the banners MADworld and Lumiere, will allow for the creation of a series of NFT’s focusing on “Houria”‘s central themes — sign language and dance. Powered by blockchain technology, a portion of the NFT proceeds will be donated to the Paris-based non-profit org Femmes Sourdes Citoyennes et Solidaires (United Deaf Women Citizens).  

Nicholas Hoult has been in a few films you might have heard of. He’s been a young version of X-Men’s blue mutant The Beast, and was in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road.

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