Paradigm Hires Voltage Pictures Film Exec Babacar Diene, Ups Four To Agent

EXCLUSIVE: Sharon Stone (The Flight Attendant, Ratched) has optioned the rights to Lisa Barr’s upcoming novel Woman on Fire, inking a deal to produce and star in a film adaptation.

Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of the Oscar-nominated movie Licorice Pizza, is finally responding to the backlash the film received for scenes in which an actor uses a fake Asian accent.

Juliette Binoche puts in another tremendous performance in Claire Denis’ drama Both Sides Of The Blade (aka Fire, and also aka Avec Amour Et Acharnement). The Berlin Film Festival competition title is an intimate slow-burner that sets a credible scene, but doesn’t quite deliver on the mystery it promises. 

No Spide-Man? No Peace! At least according to director Kevin Smith, who has xpressed his vehement displeasure about the Oscar snub of Spider-Man: No Way Home from the Best Picture Oscar nominees.

EXCLUSIVE: Producer Janet Zucker (Fair Game, Friends with Benefits) has optioned the film rights to Cynthia Pelayo’s International Latino Book Award winner Children of Chicago for Zucker Productions, with producer Tony Eldridge (The Equalizer films) for Lonetree Entertainment.

Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films and Scarlett Pictures are partnering to co-produce The New Boy with Blanchett attached to star and Warwick Thornton writing and directing. Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair join Blanchett in the ensemble, which is set to begin filming in October of this year in South Australia. Roadshow Films will be distributing for Australia and New Zealand, CAA Media Finance and UTA will be handling sales for North America, and The Veterans is on board to manage sales for the remainder of the globe. Blanchett, Andrew Upton and Georgie Pym will be producing for Dirty Films; and Kath Shelper will produce for Scarlett Pictures.

A new approach. While reflecting on her dating life since her split from Randall Emmett, Lala Kent noted that she has learned her lesson when it comes to meeting someone new.

EXCLUSIVE: Actress and filmmaker Romola Garai, whose directorial debut Amulet played at Sundance 2020, is working on a raft of projects including a re-team with Amulet producer Matthew James Wilkinson (Yesterday).

Beginning with our review coverage all the way back to the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, through Cannes in July, Venice and Telluride in the late summer, and finally to late-breaking holiday-season releases that qualified just under the gun for Oscar eligibility, Deadline has been on the front lines of opinion for this year’s eventual 10 nominees for Oscar Best Picture.

above), titled “From Jordan Peele,” gives equal time to both his Oscar-winning “Get Out” and its successful follow-up “Us,” including the spooky “Us”-ified version of Luniz’s 1995 jam “I Got 5 On It.” Of course, at the very end of the spot we get a look at “Nope,” namely cast members Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun (who somehow looks even more dashing in a cowboy hat), all looking ominously to the sky. (The poster featured a sinister-looking cloud.)We don’t know much else about “Nope,” besides that the cast also features Barbie Ferreira, Brandon Perea, and Michael Wincott, and that it was shot by Christopher Nolan’s regular cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (who shot some of it for IMAX).

Jennifer Lopez, 52, wowed on Feb. 4 when she made an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in an eye-catching set of outfits. The singer performed her new song “Marry Me”, from the new film Marry Me, with Maluma, and wore a flattering white bikini top under a matching cropped blazer and a long skirt. Before she sang, she also wore a long bright red dress with spaghetti straps as she happily chatted with the show’s host, Jimmy Fallon.

“Good Kids”starring Nicholas Braun, “Fathers & Daughters” starring Russell Crowe, “Pay The Ghost” starring Nicolas Cage, and “I.T.” starring Pierce Brosnan. He also executive produced a number of Voltage titles, including “Time Is Up,” “Archenemy,” “Safer at Home,” “Redemption Day,” “Follow Me” and “Drive Hard.” Previously, Diene was VP of acquisitions & apsara distribution at IM Global.

Selome Hailu Paradigm Talent Agency announced that Babacar Diene has been hired as a content agent. Additionally, Sam Benfey, Josh Cohen, Natalie Handelsman and Wilson Rubinoff have been promoted to agent.Diene is a longtime film financing, sales and production executive joining Paradigm from his previous position as vice president of acquisitions and development at Voltage Pictures.

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorBerlin-based sales agency Picture Tree Intl. has added to its European Film Market slate “Love Thing,” starring top German actor Elyas M’Barek, whose credits include “The Collini Case.” Also on the slate is “Soul of a Beast,” which debuts its trailer below.Despite the virtual nature of the EFM, the company has taken additional office space at the Marriott Hotel in Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz.“Love Thing,” which also stars Lucie Heinze, Peri Baumeister and Alexandra Maria Lara, is directed and written by Anika Decker, whose last feature “High Society” sold widely.

EXCLUSIVE: Hong Chau (Downsizing, Watchmen), DB Woodside (Lucifer, 24), Fola Evans-Akingbola (UK’s Call My Agent, Black Mirror), Eve Harlow (NeXT, The 100), Phoenix Raei (Clickbait, Stateless), Enrique Murciano (Bloodline, Father of the Bride 2) and Sarah Desjardins (Yellowjackets, Riverdale), have been cast as series regulars opposite leads Gabriel Basso and Luciane Buchanan in The Night Agent, Netflix’s political conspiracy thriller series created by Shawn Ryan based on author Matthew Quirk’s 2019 New York Times bestseller.

EXCLUSIVE: Sarena Khan and Andra Gordon’s Athena Pictures and Starlings Television, led by Chris Philip, have teamed with Propagate Content’s Ben Silverman to co-produce Shadowland, a female-driven wildlife crime thriller series, from Jacqui Barcos, director Darnell Martin (American Rust, The Good Lord Bird) and executive producer Peter Elkoff (Sons of Anarchy, Chance).

Italian football agent Fabrizio Ferrari has refused to rule out the possibility of Manchester United defender Axel Tuanzebe joining Napoli on a permanent basis.

BBC Three Orders Comedy From ‘People Just Do Nothing’ Team

If you’ve never been to Sundance before, you can expect a lot of fresh features from oft-marginalized directors and — at least these days — films shot with square aspect ratios. “Girl Picture,” a delightful, Finnish coming-of-age tale by the director Alli Haapasalo, fulfills both criteria.