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“I was always a big fan of the original movie, but I did feel while watching subsequent American or British war films that is a question of perspective that I can’t tell,” All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger said of his motivation in finally bringing a German version of the iconic World War I tale to the big screen. 

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Austin Butler’s agent told him he would need to gain weight to play the older version of Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” “I heard that Ryan Gosling when he was going to do ‘The Lovely Bones,’ had microwaved Häagen-Dazs and would drink it,” Butler tells Variety. “So I started doing that. I would go get two dozen doughnuts and eat them all. I really started to pack on some pounds. It’s fun for a week, and then you feel awful about yourself. But we were planning on shooting chronologically in the beginning. That quickly went out the window with COVID. It was just impossible.” On this week’s episode of the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, Butler sits down to discuss receiving his first Oscar nomination for best actor. He also discusses renting an apartment after the Warner Bros. corporate cards were shut off following the COVID shutdown. In addition, he talked about whether he would reprise his role as James Garrett in a “Zoey 101” movie or get aged-up to play Sebastian Kydd from “The Carrie Diaries,” so he can play opposite Sarah Jessica Parker from “Sex and the City,” a show he says he watched while in his New York City apartment, taking a bath, and feeling like “a middle-aged woman.”

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Move over, Tom Cruise! The “Top Gun: Maverick” legend wasn’t the only star Hollywood’s latest group of Oscar contenders were excited about seeing at Monday’s nominees luncheon. “The Banshees of Inisherin” stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson gushed over meeting Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”). “I spent a long time chatting with him,” Gleeson told me after the annual luncheon at the Beverly Hilton. In fact, Gleeson texted Mescal after the nominations were announced in January. “I had to ask my son Domhnall for his number. I was very proud of [Mescal],” Gleeson said.

“Argentina 1985’s” director Santiago Mitre spent over two years researching his film on the story of th public prosecutors who took on the country’s brutal dictators. He said his film was able to get the audience thinking about the real-world problems that go on in their own countries. Mitre joined fellow international film directors on a panel that included Jerzy Skolimowski (“EO”), Lukas Dhont (“Close”), Colm Bairéad (“The Quiet Girl”), Edward Berger (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) and Santiago Mitre (“Argentina, 1985”). Roger Durling, the festival’s director moderated the panel.

Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton, the heirs to the UK throne, will attend the upcoming BAFTA for the first time in three years, Kensington Palace has announced. William, who has been the president of BAFTA since 2010, and Kate will watch the ceremony being held at the Royal Festival Hall on 19 February before meeting the winners and Rising Star Award nominees.The royal couple last attended the event in person in 2020 with the prince last year recording a video message in his place, in which he congratulated those nominated and praised the work of BAFTAs programmes.

For All Quiet on the Western Front, director Edward Berger wanted the film to be created from a German perspective. He tasked composer Volker Bertelmann with the job of creating a score he’s never done before, giving him few insights into what he wanted for the final cut. Based on the 1928 novel of the same name, the film follows Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer), a young German soldier who experiences the horrific reality of serving on the front line. Bertelmann wanted to use instruments connected to that time period, so he used a refurbished harmonium passed down from his grandmother.

Oscar-nominated All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger has launched a production outfit and struck a first-look deal with Fremantle.

It looks like it’s a forward march into Oscars season with the heavily accoladed war-drama All Quiet on the Western Front. Following its impressive 14 nomination count at the BAFTAs in almost all major categories, the film’s director Edward Berger and producer Malte Grunert now sound off to the tune of nine total Oscar nominations for: Best Picture, International Feature Film, Cinematography, Music (Original Score), Production Design and Make-up and Hairstyling.

With the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences having expanded its shortlist for the Best International Feature Film Oscar to 15 in recent years, it’s inevitable that some deserving titles miss the nominations cut. However, several of the perceived frontrunners are in the mix after today’s announcement, including Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front which has nine nominations in total, including Best Picture, and is yet another sign of how foreign-language films are crossing over into other main categories. 

At the start of awards season, Edward Berger’s All Quiet On The Western Front was a lock for International, but few could have foreseen how much further it would go. Alongside that nomination, the German film is now also in the running for Best Picture, having made the shortlist for Sound, Original Score, Adapted Screenplay, Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, Visual Effects, and Cinematography.

BEST FILMALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT Malte GrunertTHE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonaghELVIS Gail Berman, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Patrick McCormick, Schuyler WeissEVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan WangTÁR Todd Field, Scott Lambert, Alexandra MilchanOUTSTANDING BRITISH FILMAFTERSUN Charlotte Wells, Producer(s) TBCTHE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Pete CzerninBRIAN AND CHARLES Jim Archer, Rupert Majendie, David Earl, Chris HaywardEMPIRE OF LIGHT Sam Mendes, Pippa HarrisGOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE Sophie Hyde, Debbie Gray, Adrian Politowski, Katy BrandLIVING Oliver Hermanus, Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Kazuo IshiguroROALD DAHL’S MATILDA THE MUSICAL Matthew Warchus, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Jon Finn, Luke Kelly, Dennis KellySEE HOW THEY RUN Tom George, Gina Carter, Damian Jones, Mark ChappellTHE SWIMMERS Sally El Hosaini, Producer(s) TBC, Jack ThorneTHE WONDER Sebastián Lelio, Ed Guiney, Juliette Howell, Andrew Lowe, Tessa Ross, Alice Birch, Emma DonoghueOUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCERAFTERSUN Charlotte Wells (Writer/Director)BLUE JEAN Georgia Oakley (Writer/Director), Hélène Sifre (Producer)ELECTRIC MALADY Marie Lidén (Director)GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE Katy Brand (Writer)REBELLION Maia Kenworthy (Director)FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGEALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT Edward Berger, Malte GrunertARGENTINA, 1985 Santiago Mitre, Producer(s) TBCCORSAGE Marie KreutzerDECISION TO LEAVE Park Chan-wook, Ko Dae-seokTHE QUIET GIRL Colm Bairéad, Cleona Ní ChrualaoíDOCUMENTARYALL THAT BREATHES Shaunak Sen, Teddy Leifer, Aman MannALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED Laura Poitras, Howard

Netflix has topped this year’s list of distributors nominated for BAFTA film awards for the fourth year running with 21 nominations overall.

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Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.

The 2023 BAFTA Film Awards longlists were unveiled this morning, and an unexpected frontrunner emerged in Netflix’s wartime epic All Quiet On The Western Front.

As 2022 draws to an end, Deadline’s critics have each chosen their top three movies of the year to hail from abroad. Some were festival world premieres, and some have made the International Feature Oscar shortlist (not all were put forth by their country of origin, nor are they each in a foreign language). Donkeys certainly made a splash, including in one 2020 French title that only saw U.S. release this year.

Edward Berger caused a splash in 2015 with the sleeper-hit TV series Deutschland ’83, a slow-build spy drama set in the deep freeze of the cold war. This year he went even further back into Germany’s history for All Quiet on the Western Front, a brutal retelling of Erich Maria Remarque’s First World War novel, first published in 1929. Many years in limbo, including a period of time with Daniel Radcliffe attached, the project received an adrenaline shot when Berger came on board to take the novel back to its German roots. The harrowing Netflix production has captivated audiences all over the world with the story of rookie soldier Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer), and has a strong shot at the International Oscar, having made the 15-title shortlist while opening up four further possibilities for music and craft.

It has been apparent in talking to Oscar voters across many branches that the one title that keeps coming up at the top of their lists is Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front, which is the German entry for International Feature Film. That it has strength across the board though is borne out with the Oscar shortlists in 10 categories released Wednesday by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Ruben Östlund’s latest satire, Triangle of Sadness, dominated the European Film Awards with four wins, including Best Film, the evening’s top prize.

The National Board of Review today named the top-grossing film of 2022 as its Best Film of the year.

Best Film:  “Top Gun: Maverick”Best Director: Steven Spielberg,“The Fabelmans” Best Actor: Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”Best Actress: Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” Best Supporting Actor: Brendan Gleeson, “The Banshees of Inisherin”Best Supporting Actress: Janelle Monáe, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”Best Original Screenplay: Martin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”Best Adapted Screenplay: Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, Ian Stokell, “All Quiet on the Western Front”Breakthrough Performance: Danielle Deadwyler, “Till”Breakthrough Performance: Gabriel LaBelle, “The Fabelmans”Best Directorial Debut: Charlotte Wells, “Aftersun”Best Animated Feature:  “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” Best International Film: “Close”Best Documentary: “Sr.”Best Ensemble: “Women Talking” Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Claudio Miranda, “Top Gun: Maverick”NBR Freedom of Expression Awards:“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”“Argentina, 1985”Top Films (in alphabetical order):“Aftersun”“Avatar: The Way of Water” “The Banshees of Inisherin”“Everything Everywhere All at Once”“The Fabelmans”“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”“RRR”“Till”“The Woman King” “Women Talking”Top 5 International Films (in alphabetical order):“All Quiet on the Western Front”“Argentina, 1985” “Decision to Leave” “EO”“Saint Omer”Top 5 Documentaries (in alphabetical order):“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”“All That Breathes”“Descendant”“Turn Every Page – The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb”“Wildcat”Top 10 Independent Films (in alphabetical order):“Armageddon Time”“Emily the Criminal”“The Eternal Daughter” “Funny Pages” “The Inspection”“Living”“A Love Song”“Nanny”“The Wonder”“To Leslie”The NBR Awards Gala is scheduled

Director Edward Berger said that what intrigued him most about the prospect of adapting Erich Maria Remarque’s world-renowned bestselling book All Quiet on the Western Front into a film was the chance to tell the story in his native German language.

Edward Berger’s All Quiet On The Western Front and Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast top the European Film Academy’s Excellence Awards honoring achievement in the arts and crafts categories, the winners of which were announced on Wednesday.

In its second week of release, All Quiet on the Western Front has entered Netflix’s Most Popular Non-English Films List in the seventh spot with 71.45M total hours viewed. For the second week in a row, the film was the #1 non-English film with 39.9M hours viewed and was in the Top 10 in 90 countries.

War films hold a special place in the history of film. Nearly since the beginning of the medium, filmmakers have been using film to show the horrors of war.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “The Woman King” director Gina Prince-Bythewood will be feted at the 10th annual Middleburg Film Festival with the Agnès Varda Award, while “Triangle of Sadness” star Dolly De Leon will receive the festival’s Breakthrough Performance Award. “Empire of Light” actor Micheal Ward is being honored with the Spotlight Actor Award. The Sam Mendes film has also been named as the closing night film of the festival. 2019 Distinguished Composer Award recipient Terence Blanchard and his band, the E-Collective, will return to the festival and close out with a music performance.

period drama “Corsage,” starring Vicky Krieps as 19th-century Austrian Empress Elisabeth; Lukas Dhont’s tender coming-of-age film “Close,” the Belgian selection; Jerzy Skolimowski’s nearly wordless “EO,” a road movie from the point of view of a donkey that was submitted by Poland; and South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s stylish crime story/love story hybrid, “Decision to Leave.”Other films that could be positioned to do well include the German selection, Edward Berger’s harrowing new version of the classic antiwar novel “All Quiet on the Western Front,” a Netflix release; Spain’s “Alcarras,” a drama by Carla Simon that won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival; and “Our Brothers” from director Rachid Boucharev, who has represented Algeria seven previous times in the Oscar race, landing three of the country’s five nominations.As usual, the rule that allows an Academy-approved body from each country to choose that country’s Oscar submission has led to some surprises.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO’s hit comedy-drama series The White Lotus recently finished filming its second season at Italy’s Lumina Studios to the north of Rome.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The ongoing overhaul of Rome’s Cinecittà Studios is getting traction thanks to booming demand from international productions just as the number of sound stages increase, prompting realistic prospects of turning a profit by end of 2022, which is a year earlier than planned. Cinecittà has been undergoing a radical revamp devised by managing director Nicola Maccanico since June 2021, when European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Italian premier Mario Draghi (pictured above at Cinecittà) jointly visited the iconic studio lot and held a press conference in its vast Studio 5 — known as the late, great filmmaker Federico Fellini’s second home — to announce a €300 million ($300 million) investment to meet the growing international demand for studio space,

Adapted from Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same name, Edward Berger’s take on “All Quiet On The Western Front” is a chilling piece of anti-war filmmaking with a star-making turn from Felix Kammerer in the lead role of young Paul Bäumer, who learns the hard way that war is hell. Although it’s hard not to compare and contrast this new version to Lewis Milestone’s Best Picture-winning 1930 film starring Lew Ayres, it’s equally wild that it took nearly 100 years for a German adaptation given it’s the novel’s country of origin.

Lewis Milestone’s 1930 classic, All Quiet On The Western Front was based on the 1928 novel by Erich Maria Remarque and became the first adaptation of a book to win the Oscar for Best Picture, as well as the first Best Picture Oscar winner to also take Best Director. It has hardly been touched by filmmakers since then save for a TV Movie remake by director Delbert Mann in 1979 that starred Richard Thomas. Now that has changed, and in a significant way , as the book has finally been taken on by Germany with director Edward Berger’s (Patrick Melrose, Your Honor) adaptation (co-written with Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell) that finally shows us the perspective from the German side. It has already been selected as the German entry for the 95th Academy Awards Best International Film race, and just had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival today.

Ed Meza @edmezavar Director Edward Berger and producer Malte Grunert are set to follow up their new adaption of Erich Maria Remarque’s harrowing war novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” with a much more upbeat work, a remake of the rollicking 1967 French-Italian pic “The Last Adventure,” which starred Alain Delon, Lino Ventura and Joanna Shimkus. Grunert and Berger had been working on the remake and were already in development when “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which makes its world premiere at the Toronto fest Sept. 12, came along. They are now planning to return to the project after Berger finishes his next pic, the Vatican-set thriller “Conclave,” based on the Robert Harris novel and set to star Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rossellini. Berger goes into prep on “Conclave” in October in Rome, with production scheduled to start in January.

Rome’s Cinecittà studios are hitting unprecedented levels of occupancy, as the historic site continues to upgrade and expand its facilities under a five-year industrial plan, Cinecitta SpA CEO Nicola Maccanico said on Wednesday.

The harrowing new trailer for “All Quiet on the Western Front” has been released ahead of the movie’s premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Considered one of the greatest war novels of all time, perhaps no story told the horrors of war greater than “All Quiet On The Western Front,” a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I, published in 1928. Soon after, Lewis Milestone directed his own movie based on the book in 1930, another early classic.

Netflix’s upcoming All Quiet On The Western Front has been selected to represent Germany in the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars. Directed by Edward Berger, the anti-war movie is a new take on the classic 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque which was also the source material for the eponymous 1930 Best Picture Oscar-winner.