‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and More VES Award Nominees Boast New Tech Achievements

Naman Ramachandran Indian sales outfit Indywood Distribution Network has sold Rupesh Paul’s “Kamasutra – The Revenge” wide ahead of Hong Kong’s film rights market FilMart. Starring Sherlyn Chopra, Milind Gunaji and Gajendra Chauhan, and produced by San2Creations, the film follows two princesses – one who is robbed of her dreams when forced to accept a middle-aged king as her husband, and another thirsty for revenge. Indywood has sold the film to Twin (Japan, all rights); A2 Filmes (Latin America TV/VOD); Filmbridge (Mongolia, all rights); Pioneer Film (Philippines, all rights) and RFT Films (U.K./Ireland, theatrical).

Sophie Ellis-Bextor, The Amazons and Heartworms.The festival is set to return to Oxford’s Hill Farm from July 25-28 and will be headlined by Jamie T, Wet Leg, The Streets and Idles. It will also be Wet Leg’s first UK festival headline set.“Oh wow – I’m incredibly excited to be playing this year’s Truck Festival!” said Ellis-Bextor in a press release.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The Love Rocks NYC Benefit Concert has become an annual New York tradition and Thursday night’s show at the Beacon Theatre was one of the best on record, raising $3.8 million for the God’s Love We Deliver charity with performances and/or appearances from Dave Grohl, the Black Keys, Hozier, Nile Rodgers, Tom Morello, Don Felder, Bettye LaVette, Joss Stone, Allison Russell, Emily King, Marcus King, Lucius, Larkin Poe, Trombone Shorty, Luke Spiller, Quinn Sullivan, and Bernie William. This year’s concert raised $3.8 million, which will allow God’s Love We Deliver to serve 380,000 meals for New Yorkers living with severe illnesses.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. When Colin Jost and Michael Che are together, whether it’s as co-hosts of “SNL’s” Weekend Update or in the real world outside the confines of the famed 30 Rock stage, they are rarely serious. Like the comedic characters they broadcast on NBC, their teasing, banters and pranks are incessant — and their chemistry is palpable.

Marc Malkin Senior Editor, Culture and Events From Ryan Gosling’s rainbow assortment of custom Gucci suiting to Colman Domingo’s brightly hued attire, real men wear pink — or any other color, for that matter. “Everyone is feeling freer to wear what makes them feel beautiful and authentic,” Gosling’s stylist Mark Avery tells Variety. “May December” star Charles Melton has landed on countless best-dressed lists for the head-turning looks he has served since the Todd Haynes film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor J.J. Abrams is taking a look back at “Felicity,” the beloved series he co-created that premiered 25 years ago, in a difference kind of rewatch podcast featuring guest appearances by the show’s stars, including Keri Russell, Scott Speedman and Scott Foley. “Dear Felicity,” from Abrams’ Bad Robot Audio and Spotify’s The Ringer, is set to debut Wednesday, March 13.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Ahead of its U.S. premiere at SXSW, “The Queen of My Dreams” has been sold to a flurry of international markets, including in the U.K. and Ireland to Peccadillo Pictures.

Jordan Moreau Peter Weber, known as Pilot Pete to Bachelor Nation, became the second person to trade in the “Bachelor” mansion for the Scottish castle of “The Traitors.” Weber joined Season 2 of Peacock’s competition series as a Faithful, someone who is covertly working to sniff out the three Traitors within the cast and banish them out to take home the cash prize. The “Bachelor” leading man follows in the footsteps of Arie Luyendyk Jr., who was a Faithful in Season 1 and nearly made it to the end of the game. Halfway through this season, Weber put a major target on his back by going after the Traitors (“Big Brother” star Dan Gheesling, “Survivor” queen Parvati Shallow and “Real Housewives of Atlanta” icon Phaedra Parks).

You blink - and it's March already. With spring just around the corner, it's a time to celebrate new beginnings - and, on our streaming services, a fresh batch of TV shows and films.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SANTA FE, N.M. — The director called “action,” and Alec Baldwin emerged from a wooden shed and advanced toward the camera, firing shots from an old pistol. As soon as he heard “cut,” the actor wanted to do the take again.

New York Dolls’ David Johansen, John Lyon and more.The lawsuit was in an effort to regain control of the artists’ masters, and has finally come to a settlement after years of closely-watched class-action litigation against major record labels over copyright law’s termination right.Announced in court papers last week, the agreement between the music label and the musicians will resolve a case which saw artists accuse Sony of unfairly rejecting their efforts to invoke termination – a federal law that’s supposed to let authors take back control of their works decades after they sold them away.Per Reuters, Johansen, Lyon and Paul Collins sued Sony Music back in 2019, accusing the label of barring their termination notices for their music and proceeding to sell it without permission. The case had ben on pause for settlement since 2021.The musicians based their claims off of a part of the Copyrights Act.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor That’s all, Oscar folks! In just 12 days, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will crack open 23 illustrious envelopes to unveil the victors of this year’s 96th Oscars. It’s a night where predictability usually reigns supreme, but hey, there’s always room for a curveball or two. During the past six days of intense voting, Variety has been on the scene, chatting it up with over 50 AMPAS members to get the lowdown on which movies and performances have been getting the thumbs-up on their ballots.

Call the Midwife's Helen George has shared some exciting news about her career, following some "heartbreaking" scenes on the popular drama series.The 39 year old actress, who is famous for playing Trixie Franklin in the BBC show, posted a picture of herself looking chilled out backstage at The King and I musical at the Dominion Theatre in London looking stunning in a flowing satin gown. In the musical, Helen plays the main character, Anna Leonowens - a schoolteacher who is hired by the King of Siam to help modernise his country.

The Trump family continues to make headlines following their four years in the White House.

The Weeknd has finally shared the music video for ‘Popular’ featuring Madonna and Playboi Carti. Check it out below.The video first premiered in the game Fortnite last week.

Imagine a movie akin to a sad David Bowie song about an astronaut drifting alone into the dark abyss of space, contemplating his life, his lost love, his past, and an uncertain, perhaps soon-to-be-shortly doomed future. Sing the wistfully estranged and reflective “Space Odyssey” tune and the lamenting iconic line, “Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows!” That’s Swedish filmmaker Johan Renck’s “Spaceman” in a nutshell, which makes for possibly the weirdest, most existentially lonely movie Adam Sandler has ever starred in.

Christopher Vourlias Abel Ferrara has made a career out of staring unflinchingly into the abyss, interrogating man’s weakness and depravity and daring his audiences to look away. Faced with the catastrophic violence of the war in Ukraine, however, which he chronicles in the Berlin-premiering documentary “Turn in the Wound,” even the iconoclastic director finds himself at a loss — for words, and for easy answers.

Rachel Leviss is making her voice heard on a very important matter — and specifically because it is something she says her disgraced former did not do several months ago. Of course, Rachel and Tom Sandoval

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If you’ve gotten a good look at the just-released list of Record Store Day 2024 exclusives due to hit indie stores on April 20, you may rightly feel overwhelmed: It includes no less than 387 titles. Seriously perusing the lineup can easily amount to a full day’s work, if you’re the kind of omnivore who’s prone to clicking on each alphabetically arranged title to look for content, vinyl colors (black being much more the exception than the rule these days) and — the most trepidatiously approached information of all — how many or how few copies were pressed.

Marta Balaga Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu and his Bucharest-based company Mobra Films will join forces with Poland’s Kijora Films on “Tales of the Golden Age – The Warsaw Pact,” a follow up to his 2009 sketch comedy referencing urban legends from the Ceausescu regime. Expanding to accommodate stories from different ex-communist Eastern European countries, including Poland, it will be written by Mungiu and directed by Ioana Uricaru.