Paramount Sets ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3’ for Holiday 2024 Release

Cohen Media Group hopes a Spanish film can dent the tough market for foreign language fare, Bleecker Street is out with a hostage drama and A24 presents Owen Kline’s directorial debut about a teenage cartoonist as the arthouse market flexes more muscle than it has in weeks.

Disney+ subscribers may have noticed that James Cameron’s Avatar has gone missing from the streaming platform. The highest-grossing movie of all time was quietly removed ahead of the theatrical re-release of the 2009 sci-fi film set for September 23.

Wilson Chapman editor With its library of Marvel films, Disney animation classics and “Star Wars” installments, Disney+ has one of the largest catalogues of blockbuster films on streaming platforms. But recently, subscribers have noticed the biggest film is missing: James Cameron’s “Avatar,” the highest-grossing movie of all time, has been quietly removed from the service with no prior announcement. Sources confirmed the removal to Variety and attributed it to the upcoming theatrical re-release of the 2009 sci-fi epic. Set for Sept. 23, the theatrical re-release, intended to promote the film’s long awaited sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water,” will present the movie in new, 4K high-dynamic range restoration. The original “Avatar” will have a limited, two-week run.

Over the past decade-plus, since the original debut of “Avatar” back in 2009, we have seen James Cameron’s film hit theaters sporadically for some new re-release. Recently, this happened in 2019, after the record-breaking run of “Avengers: Endgame,” when 20th Century Studios wanted to reclaim the #1 box office champ title.

Clayton Davis Idris Elba is undeniably the star of Will Packer’s latest movie, “Beast,” but the family story at the heart of Universal’s release was a big draw for the producer who previously shepherded “Girls Trip.” In the movie, debuting in theaters Aug. 19, Elba plays Nate Samuels, a recently widowed doctor who returns to South Africa with his two teenage daughters (Iyana Halley and Leah Sava Jeffries) and must fight to survive from a man-hunting lion.Packer sought to offer a balance for the late summer movie calendar.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 races back to Number 1 on the Official Film Chart.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterIs everyone on vacation?That would be one plausible explanation behind the great box office slowdown. Although three new movies opened nationwide, none were able to crack the top five on domestic charts and only two — A24’s satirical slasher “Bodies Bodies Bodies” and Lionsgate’s low-budget, vertigo-inducing thriller “Fall” — managed to infiltrate the top 10.It’s even more dire that Sony’s action-thriller “Bullet Train,” which claimed the top spot for the second weekend in a row with $13.1 million from 4,357 North American locations, was the sole film to bank at least $10 million in ticket sales. After two weeks on the big screen, the Brad Pitt-led “Bullet Train” has generated $54.4 million at the domestic box office.

Wilson Chapman editorEverybody’s gonna be kung fu fighting — a fourth film in the “Kung Fu Panda” series will release in 2024, Universal Pictures announced Friday.The film, which is slated for a March 8, 2024 release, will be the first film in the “Kung Fu Panda” franchise since 2016, when the DreamWorks Animation series concluded a planned trilogy. The films focus on Po (Jack Black), an excitable panda bear living in a fantasy version of ancient China.

There will be more Kung Fu Panda. Universal has set a March 8, 2024 theatrical release for the fourth installment to the Jack Black voiced franchise which has grossed $1.8 billion through three movies.

Naman Ramachandran Streamer Paramount+ will arrive Sept. 15 in Italy with some 8,000 hours of content spanning all genres at launch.

Peter Caranicas Deputy EditorIn July 2012, I showed up at the office of legendary Hollywood litigator Bert Fields along with Variety freelancer Bob Verini. We were doing a Q&A with the legendary Hollywood lawyer, a partner at Greenberg Glusker, in one of those nondescript Century City steel-and-glass skyscrapers.

When the first trailer for “Sonic The Hedgehog” dropped online, it wasn’t apparent that the film would end up being a smashing success as the beloved video game character’s bizarre design led fans to ask the studio to “fix” the look of Sonic to a more traditional version and, surprisingly, it happened.

Paramount Pictures has unveiled a release date for its third Sonic the Hedgehog film, at the same time pushing back the date for its Untitled Smurfs Animated Musical. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will open wide on December 20, 2024, with the newest Smurfs pic going wide on February 14, 2025, having previously been set to unspool on the date now claimed by the former film.

In this age of IP-dominated cinema, there are plenty of announcements that seem obvious on the surface. Another superhero film being made? Sure, that makes sense.

Bert Fields, the relently loyal powerhouse entertainment lawyer who repped clients including Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Tom Cruise, George Lucas, the Beatles, Michael Jackson and many others in myriad headline-making cases in Hollywood, has died, TMZ reports. He was 93.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterHook, line and sinker. “Top Gun: Maverick” has toppled “Titanic” as the seventh-biggest film ever at the domestic box office, earning $662 million in ticket sales.For Paramount, “Top Gun: Maverick” has also overtaken “Titanic” as the studio’s biggest film in its 110-year history.

Clayton Davis There’s no question that Michelle Yeoh is one of the most versatile actresses working today. To celebrate her 60th birthday (how is she 60?), Variety is ranking the best performances of her career so far.From her first role in “The Owl vs. Bombo” (1984) up until her most recent work in the box office smash “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” she’s shown no signs of slowing down and continues to push the boundaries of her craft.For over three decades, she’s built a career that has made her one of the biggest Asian stars in Hollywood.

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon has some new co-hosts.

K.J. Yossman Bryan Cranston, Blair Underwood and Jennifer Morrison will lead the jury for this year’s Hollyshorts Film Festival.They will be joined by Stephanie Lang, Joanna Quinn, David Dastmalchian, Adaku Ononogbo and Jeremy Swift.Set to open Aug. 11 at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and virtually through the BITPIX platform, the festival will screen a number of short films including Steve McQueen’s prostate cancer documentary “Embarrassed,” starring Idris Elba, Ben Proudfoot’s “Mink!” about the first woman of color elected to the U.S.