Square Eyes Boards Immersive Video Game Pic ‘Knit’s Island’ Competing at Swiss Doc Fest Visions du Reél (EXCLUSIVE)

EXCLUSIVE: Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to The Stones and Brian Jones, a documentary about the “lost creative genius” who launched – and named – The Rolling Stones.

Tara Karajica On Tuesday, on the eve of the opening of Belgrade’s Beldocs Film Festival, festival director Mara Prohaska Markovic sent her condolences to the families of those killed in two mass shootings in Serbia in recent weeks, including one in Belgrade. After a minute’s silence, Prohaska Markovic presented the films that will screen in the 16th edition of the festival, which runs May 10-17. The festival opens with Mladen Kovačević’s “Another Spring,” about the 1972 smallpox epidemic in Yugoslavia, and will close with a film about Serbian rapper Dalibor Andonov Gru, “Gru Is Here.”

The National Association of Theatre Owners has named Amanda Matin as their first chief of staff. Martin will report directly to president and CEO Michael O’Leary while working across all NATO organizations, including the Cinema Foundation and CinemaCon, in this newly created position.

The CW has confirmed that it is going on a date with FBoy Island and its female spinoff FGirl Island.

EJ Panaligan editor The first trailer for director Neil Blomkamp’s “Gran Turismo,” adapted from the popular PlayStation video game racing franchise, has been released. Blomkamp, whose notable directing credits include “District 9” and “Elysium,” departs from his typical science fiction subject matter to take on the sports racing film. Based on a true story, “Gran Turismo” follows a young teenager who’s obsessed with playing the racing video game and gradually takes his controller skills onto a real racetrack with hopes to become a professional race car driver. Archie Madekwe plays the film’s main character, with David Harbour as his racing trainer, Djimon Hounsou as the teenager’s father and Orlando Bloom as a motorsport marketing executive. Darren Barnet plays a respected GT Academy driver who feels threatened by the teenager’s fast-growing success.

Deadline has obtained a list of the locations being targeted by the WGA West and WGA East in Los Angeles and New York for potential strike actions and picketing.

Trinidad Barleycorn One of the smallest countries in Europe has the highest number of soldiers per capita. This situation is dissected in “Swiss Citizen Soldiers,” one of the six high-end documentaries that will arrive on the circuit in the coming months, and were pitched at the Swiss Films Previews at Visions du Réel, in Nyon, Switzerland. SWISS CITIZEN SOLDIERS “Switzerland has 200,000 soldiers, by far the most per capita in Europe, and most of these soldiers are switching between their job and military service. Almost a third of them have their roots in another country”: this is the starting point of “Swiss Citizen Soldiers” (Echte Schweizer), by Luka Popadić, his first documentary feature after several short films.

Lise Pedersen As Switzerland’s international documentary film festival Visions du Réel is about to wrap up, its artistic director Emilie Bujès, who’s been running the show since 2017 and was part of the selection committee for several years before that, told Variety that packed theaters throughout the 10-day event are proof that the public is back. She was very pleased to note that many of the 163 screenings were packed – “even the retrospectives!” – and she was delighted to have two women filmmakers among her guests. “They were fantastic. Symbolically, to have two strong women who were so generous with the audience – it was paradise,” she said of Alice Rohrwacher, who will be in Cannes’ main competition with “La Chimera”, and acclaimed Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, whose upcoming project, “Chocobar,” will be her first foray into feature-length non-fiction.

EXCLUSIVE: The viral gaming sensation Vampire Survivors is in the works for television. Story Kitchen is partnering with the game’s developer, poncle founder Luca Galante, to adapt the comedic gothic horror video game into a premium, animated television series.

“Twisted Metal” TV series based on the beloved PlayStation video game franchise, and while it’s merely a teaser, the vibes are definitely on point.Anthony Mackie stars in the live-action half-hour TV series adaptation, which follows a motor-mouthed outsider who’s offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Per the synopsis, “With the help of a badass axe-wielding car thief, he’ll face savage marauders driving vehicles of destruction and other dangers of the open road, including a deranged clown who drives an all too familiar ice cream truck.”Indeed that ice cream truck makes an appearance at the end of the teaser, offering a preview of the character Sweet Tooth played by Samoa Joe (and voiced by Will Arnett).The show is based on an original take by “Deadpool” writers Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick and is written by Michael Jonathan Smith (“Cobra Kai”).

McKinley Franklin editor Start your engines, because it’s time for yet another TV adaptation of a popular video game. Peacock has released the first teaser for its new action-comedy series “Twisted Metal,” which will premiere on the streamer on July 27 with all 10 episodes. “Twisted Metal” is based on PlayStation’s car combat video game series of the same name. In the games, players control deadly demolition derby vehicles and destroy each other in a hellish Twisted Metal tournament. The games include a cast of crazed characters, the most famous of which is a serial killer clown known as Sweet Tooth who drives an ice cream truck. In the trailer, he appears briefly at the very end. The first look gives fans a glimpse into the reimagined “Twisted Metal” landscape plagued set to Len’s “Steal My Sunshine.”

Before violent games like “Mortal Kombat” created panic among parents there was “Street Fighter II.” The second installment of that storied franchise became a global success thanks to its arcade incarnation before a home release helped launch the 2D fighting genre in the 1990s. And then there’s the 1994 “Street Fighter” film, but let’s not talk about hat.

Lise Pedersen “The Days I Would Like to Forget” by Ukrainian film collective Tabor, which picked up the top industry award at international documentary festival Visions du Réel, is a trilogy project that examines the consequences of war. It is directed by Alina Gorlova (“No Obvious Signs,” “This Rain Will Never Stop”), Maksym Nakonechnyi (“Butterfly Vision,” “This Rain Will Never Stop”), Simon Mozgovyi (“Salt From Bonneville,” “The Winter Garden’s Tale”) and Yelizaveta Smith (“Solitude,” “Butterfly Vision”), who have been working together and documenting the war in their country for close to a decade. The project is divided into three 70-minute chapters: “Human & War,” which examines the impact of war on everyday life, “Death & Life,” which focuses on the perception of death during the Russian-Ukrainian war, and “Space & Time,” which investigates the link between the war in Ukraine and other parts of the world.

Josh Broadwell Five years after the end of “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order,” Cal Kestis’ friends are scattered across the galaxy dealing with their own demons, while the young Jedi Knight runs guerrilla strikes against key Imperial targets. Reality tore his dreams of resistance into tatters of resentment, and he’s left trying to find a purpose for his life in “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” — a journey of surprises that improves on the original in every way. However, like Cal himself, it still falls short of its full potential. Cal’s story takes some unpredictable turns that end in intriguing possibilities for a third game. Much like the hero, developer Respawn Entertainment recognizes that it has little recourse against the Empire and its entrenched position in the galaxy and “Star Wars” canon, so both turn inward instead. Cal still fights the Imperials when he can, but “Survivor” is less about making a difference against an oppressive Empire and more about finding a place to call home.

EXCLUSIVE: Prime Video has been quietly ramping up its Nordic originals slate, and it’s now found its first documentary.

EXCLUSIVE: Content creator and entrepreneur Markiplier has entered production in Austin, TX, on Iron Lung, a new horror film that he’s starring in and directing from his own script.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Taskovski Films, the London-based world film sales company, has picked up “Grasshopper Republic,” which will have its world premiere in the International Competition at Visions du Réel documentary festival in Switzerland. Filmed by Daniel McCabe over the course of three seasons in Uganda, “Grasshopper Republic” follows a grasshopper trapping team in verité style as these modern-day prospectors push into remote forests seeking their fortune by capturing this elusive prey. We witness massive generators being hauled up collapsing mudbanks. Light posts are erected with chemically treated bulbs, casting a lurid neon green pall over the tree canopy, irresistibly attracting the swarm to their corrugated iron traps.

The box office for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” just keeps on growing.

The box office for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” just keeps on growing.

Brent Lang Executive Editor “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” continues to be a box office high-scorer. The video game adaptation has crossed the $500 million mark at the global box office, shattering records with the gusto that its title character usually amasses power-ups. To date, the animated adventure has earned $260.3 million domestically and $248.4 million internationally. That lifts its worldwide haul to  $508.7 million. It is now the highest-grossing film of 2023 at both the global and domestic box office, surpassing “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (unlike that movie, people seem to have enjoyed this one). More important, it also makes “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” the biggest video game adaptation in history, topping the grosses of “Warcraft” and “Detective Pikachu.”