James Costos Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

First Lady Jill Biden will make a fundraising swing through Southern California later this week, as she headlines events in Los Angeles and the Palm Springs area. She also will speak at the Human Rights Campaign Los Angeles dinner on Saturday.

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here bringing you all the news and analysis from another busy week, during which we have been to Spain through Argentina via Berlin. Oh, and there was the small matter of the Oscar noms. Read on, and sign up here.

Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden wrapped up a weekend of fundraising in Los Angeles on Sunday, with a record amount raised.

President Joe Biden arrived at LAX late on Friday afternoon to kickoff a weekend of fundraising, starting with a Hollywood-centric event hosted by designer Michael Smith and James Costos, the former U.S. ambassador to Spain.

President Joe Biden arrives in Los Angeles on Friday afternoon for his first Hollywood-centric fundraiser of his reelection campaign, amid pent up demand, some trepidation about 2024 and the potential for a return of Donald Trump.

Lenny Kravitz is scheduled to perform on Friday when President Joe Biden headlines his first reelection fundraiser in Los Angeles, according to the invite.

EXCLUSIVE: President Joe Biden will make his first Los Angeles fundraising swing next month, with a Dec. 8 event featuring a lineup of co-hosts including Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, Michael Smith and James Costos, Shonda Rhimes, Rick Caruso and Peter Chernin and Megan Chernin.

Michelle Obama looked stunning in a recent outing in Germany, a stop that comes after a summer spent gallivating in Europe. On Monday night, she was photographed leaving a restaurant called Käfer Feinkostladen wearing a floral dress and some stunning boot, the perfect fall and transition out of summer look. Malia Obama returns to Los Angeles from NYC and hits the gymMalia Obama giggles with a friend while wearing the perfect fall lookMichelle Obama’s most memorable and uplifting TV cameosMichelle’s outfit was made up of a floral dress and some black leather knee length boots.

Malia Obama is living her best life in New York City and looks as happy as can be. The 25-year-old former First Daughter was photographed while walking through the busy city on Wednesday with a friend.Her friend took her adorable French bulldog along on the adventure. The girls looked to be laughing, while she held a dog bag, proving she’s a responsible pup owner who cleans up after her pet.Malia, who recently wore the same shirt as Dua Lipa, was all smiles while wearing a casual and effortlessly cool look: a white sleeveless top, black trousers, and matching boots.Elizabeth Holmes and ‘RHOSLC’ star Jen Shah become friends in prison: ‘They have bonded’Taylor Swift’s new love: Who is Travis Kelce?Michelle Obama continues her denim trend while in MadridThe daughters of Barack and Michelle Obama moved in together in Los Angeles, but Malia has been spending time in NYC lately.

Michelle Obama made the most out of the fading days of summer. The former First Lady recently embarked on a late summer holiday in Spain, enjoying a whirlwind adventure in two beautiful cities – Mallorca and Madrid.

EXCLUSIVE: Former Legendary Television President and Starz CEO Chris Albrecht, and Jane the Virgin executive producer Jorge Granier have formed Rubicon Global Media, a firm designed to aggregate leading intellectual property from Latin America and Spain, transforming it into content with worldwide appeal. The company will also produce story-driven content for Latin American audiences. 

When Joe Biden made a fundraising swing through Democratic donor strongholds in San Francisco, Chicago and New York last month, one city was noticeably absent from the list: Los Angeles.

Holly Jones A wandering love note to Madrid directed by local filmmaker Curro Sánchez Varela, “Voices of a City” ( “Voces de una ciudad”) merges prominent aesthetics with a charismatic populace, who so often blend into the background of photos taken of the bustling metropoli.  The film is a curated 24-hour journey through each urban corner, delving into the most integral part of any locale, the humans living within its confines, serving as an immersive peek into the city’s history, culture and enduring allure. Breezily narrated by Goya Award-winning Spanish actress Blanca Portillo (“Maixabel”), the sprawling shots of familiar architecture run alongside sharply focused studies of residents from the mayor to a famed chef, taxi drivers to artists and musicians, as well as a most charming retired couple.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Headed by ex-HBO exec James Costos, Los Angeles and Madrid-based Secuoya Studios and Colombia’s Caracol Television have closed a framework deal to jointly develop, produce and finance scripted series over the next year.  The agreement seals an alliance between two of Latin America’s powerhouses, with large international ambitions. Amazon’s Prime Video and now Mediawan have boarded Secuoya Studios’ flagship series “Zorro,” starring “Elite’s” Miguel Bernardeau and Renata Notni, directed by “Money Heist’s” Javier Quintas. Producer of iconic longer-format series, Caracol TV’s “La Reina del Flow” Season 1 sold to over 100 countries; “El Rey; Vicente Fernandez” Season 1 bowed on Netflix Sept. 12 , shooting to No. 3 in global non-English charts. 

EXCLUSIVE: First Lady Jill Biden will visit Los Angeles on Friday with an itinerary that includes a fundraiser hosted by writer-producer and Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In a bid to further extend its Shooting in Spain brand around the world, the Spain Film Commission (SFC) began in 2018 to name prominent figures in the international entertainment biz as honorary ambassadors. Among them are former HBO executive and U.S. ambassador to Spain James Costos; director Terry Gilliam; actors Emily Blunt and Aitana Sánchez- Gijón; NBCUniversal executive Veronica Sullivan; DP Javier Aguirresarobe and Indian location manager Ramji Natarajan. Variety approached three of them to give their take on helping to promote Spain as a key destination for film-TV shoots and assess the challenges that remain. As the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 2013-17, Costos was laser focused on supporting U.S. studios’ efforts to find growth opportunities. However, despite the country’s many advantages, other European destinations offered better incentives and it was often outbid. Notwithstanding, some major productions landed, led by “Game of Thrones” and “The Bourne Identity,” while some U.S. studios began opening outposts in Spain. “During my tenure in Spain I welcomed HBO and Netflix, and others soon followed,” Costos recalls.

 Current ceilings are €18 million ($19.8 million) for the Canary Islands, €10 million ($11 million) for the rest of Spain.The call for a muscular rise in incentives was made at Spain’s Málaga Film Festival, as industry figures including Fernando Victoria de Lecea, line producer on Wes Anderson’s 2021 Spanish shoot “Asteroid City,” sketched a possible roadmap to take full advantage of the country’s extraordinary $1.8 billion Spain AVS Hub state funding which has begun to flow into events such as Málaga’s Spanish Screenings and the bullush promotion of Spanish series at Series Mania. Other panelists took in Carlos Rosado, president of the Spain Film Commission, Roberto Sacristán, head of Alianza Industria Audiovisual (ALIA) and Rosa García, president of RedCau, a network grouping five of Spain’s biggest film-TV clusters.In contrast to so many Spanish industry panels at festivals down the decades, the panel’s mood was upbeat. Rosado recalled how the Spain Film Commission aided in the creation of Spain’s first international shoot tax rebate on local spend, instituted in 2015, As first-phase COVID-19 still raged, at the instance of Rosado and former U.S.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentIn the biggest news to come out of Iberseries Platino Industria, L.A., Miami and Madrid-based Secuoya Studios and Telemundo Streaming Studios are joining forces to co-develop, co-produce and co-finance multiple fiction projects through to 2023.Sequoya Group’s content production arm, Sequoya Studios, leapt to prominence in April 2020 when appointing James Costos, a former HBO executive and U.S.

By Emiliano De Pablos

By John Hopewell

Joe Biden may have faltered in the early Democratic primaries, but with recent polls predicting a strong finish in today’s South Carolina primary, a coterie of Hollywood loyalists are hoping that the former vice president can still right his wayward campaign. "It’s crunch time," says James Costos, a former HBO executive and Democratic donor who served as ambassador to Spain during the Obama administration.