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Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer Marvel laid off 15 staffers on Monday, including lower-level production and development employees in Marvel Studios in Burbank as well as employees in the Marvel Entertainment division in New York. The layoffs were predicated by the overall reduction in Marvel’s slate of film and TV titles after the challenges of the 2023 releases led the company to reassess the rapid increase in productions to feed the launch of Disney+.

Marc Malkin Senior Editor, Culture and Events Lily Gladstone and Bowen Yang will star in Bleecker Street and Shivhans Pictures’ remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 romantic comedy “The Wedding Banquet” from director Andrew Ahn. Kelly Marie Tran, Oscar winner Yuh-jung Youn and Joan Chen are also attached to star. The reimagination of Lee’s Oscar-nominated film is based on a screenplay by Ahn and James Schamus.

We know that Manchester has some amazing museums and now that's been acknowledged in a list of some of the most family-friendly ones in Europe.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent In the run-up to its world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Francis Ford Coppola‘s 135-minute epic “Megalopolis” is on track to sell to a French distributor, Le Pacte. The indie company, presided over by veteran French distributor Jean Labadie, is currently negotiating a deal. It seems like an odd match for such a pricey movie considering Le Pacte’s fairly modest size.

Steven J. Horowitz Senior Music Writer Tyler, the Creator, the Killers and Sturgill Simpson have been tapped to headline the upcoming Outside Lands Festival, taking place on August 9-11 in San Francisco. The festival, which is entering its 16th year, will take over Golden Gate Park for the three-day event.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Mckenna Grace, the in-demand actor who appeared in “I, Tonya” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” and recently starred in “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” is set to lead the upcoming film “Everything I Never Did.” The young adult-targeted picture is written by screenwriters D.J. McPherson and Scott Taylor and will be directed by Australia’s Jeremy Sims (“Last Cab to Darwin”).

Michaela Zee Netflix has acquired the series “Calabasas” from executive producers Kim Kardashian, Emma Roberts and “Pretty Little Liars” creator I. Marlene King, Variety has confirmed.

came to Netflix, and now real-life pro athlete power couple are bringing a beloved soccer romance novel to the small screen. announced on Wednesday that the couple’s production banner, A Touch More, would be developing Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner into a series.

William Earl “The Gray House,” the Kevin Costner-produced limited series about a female spy ring during the Civil War, will open Monaco’s 63rd annual Monte-Carlo Television Festival in June. The six-episode limited series tells the hidden-history tale of four Southern women — a Virginia socialite and her mother, a formerly enslaved Black woman and a high-end prostitute — who served as key espionage agents for the Union. The foursome are credited as unsung heroes who helped end the nation’s brutal cleavage in 1865.

Angelique Jackson Sports icons Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe are getting in the game as TV producers. Bird and Rapinoe’s production banner, A Touch More, has teamed up with independent TV studio Future Shack Entertainment to develop “Cleat Cute,” the bestselling novel from author Meryl Wilsner.

EXCLUSIVE: Lucy Freyer (Paint), Malik Elassal, Owen Thiele (Dollface), Amita Rao and Jack Innanen (The Dessert) have been cast as the leads of FX‘s ensemble comedy pilot Snowflakes, written by former The Tonight Show scribes Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw and to be directed by Jonathan Krisel (Baskets).

Apple Studios and MACRO Television Studios have added three new actors to Government Cheese, the upcoming Apple TV+ dramedy with David Oyelowo starring in the lead role as well as serving as executive producer through his company Yoruba Saxon.

Selome Hailu Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has set two new unscripted series at Netflix via her Archewell Productions banner, which is under an overall deal at the streamer. The first series will be curated by the Duchess, aka Meghan Markle, and will “celebrate the joys of cooking, gardening, entertaining, and friendship” per an official description.

At their CinemaCon presentation this AM, Paramount Pictures today announced a three-year extension of its first-look deal with producer Neal H. Moritz and his Original Film banner.

Warner Bros is getting back in business with The Color Purple director Blitz Bazawule, with the studio landing rights to the tentatively titled Black Samurai with Bazawule directing. He wrote the pic on spec and will also produce under his Inward Gaze banner.

EXCLUSIVE: Norman Reedus is going to have a busy year.

Angelique Jackson In a competitive situation, Warner Bros. has landed “The Color Purple” director Blitz Bazawule’s next project, which takes on the legendary Yasuke, an African warrior who became the first Black samurai.

Lexi Carson Art the Clown will be back for Halloween this fall, with some help from Iconic Events Releasing. The distribution banner has partnered with Cineverse and its horror division Bloody Disgusting to handle theatrical distribution on “Terrifier 3,” the next entry in the ongoing cult horror series. Announced at CinemaCon Tuesday morning, the partnership between the companies marks a continuation from “Terrifier 2,” which Iconic Events distributed theatrically in 2022.

Amazon has come under fire for selling a 'suicide manual' that a retired GP used to plan her own death.

Real Madrid are hoping to close the roof at the Santiago Bernabeu to make Manchester City feel like the walls are closing in.

An unlikely alliance has formed between Rochdale MP George Galloway and one of his by-election rivals from February.

Angelique Jackson Film icon Pam Grier has teamed with Village Roadshow Pictures to develop a project based on her bestselling 2010 memoir, “Foxy: My Life in Three Acts.” Known as the queen of 1970s Blaxploitation classics like “Coffy” and “Foxy Brown,” plus Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-nominated film “Jackie Brown,” Grier is enjoying her latest act thanks to movies like 2023’s “Cinnamon.” That film kicked off her relationship with Village Roadshow Pictures, which produced the title under the company’s Black Noir Cinema banner for Tubi. “Foxy: My Life in Three Acts” details Grier’s legendary screen career; her relationships with Richard Pryor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Freddie Prinze, among others; her experience as a Black female star in an era with rampant racism and sexism; and her battle with stage-four cervical cancer, diagnosed in 1988, when she was told she had 18 months to live.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter A TV series set in the world of “Legally Blonde” is in development at Amazon Prime Video, Variety has confirmed. No plot details are available, but the project is being executive produced by Reese Witherspoon along with Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, with Schwartz and Savage also writing. Witherspoon starred in two of the “Legally Blonde” films and will executive produce under her Hello Sunshine banner alongside Lauren Neustadter.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Ari Wallach has made his living as a professional futurist for more than 20 years. What does that mean? “I work with really large organizations, mostly helping them think about tomorrow — the far-off tomorrows,” Wallach explains on the latest episode of Variety podcast “Strictly Business.” Wallach’s forward-looking intellect is on display in the new PBS docu series “A Brief History of the Future,” which premiered April 3 on PBS in the U.S. He hosts the series and is an executive producer with Kathryn Murdoch, Wendy Schmidt and DreamCrew, the production banner headed by hip hop superstar Drake.

Brent Lang Executive Editor In a competitive situation, Vendôme Pictures, the Oscar-winning banner behind “CODA,” has optioned the film and television rights to John Vaillant’s nonfiction book about climate change “Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World.” It comes after the book was released to much acclaim in June 2023 and went on to win the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. It was also a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award, andwas named a best book of the year by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Financial Times and The Guardian, among many other prominent publications.

Katcy Stephan Emmy and Golden Globe winner Julia Garner is joining Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four” as Shalla-Bal, a version of Silver Surfer from the Marvel comics. She will star alongside Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm (aka the Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm (aka the Human Torch) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm (aka the Thing).

The Martian Adapted Screenplay nominee and The Cabin in the Woods filmmaker Drew Goddard has been set to write and direct a new Matrix movie at Warner Bros. with the franchise’s original co-scribe and co-director Lana Wachowski executive producing.

Livingston have blasted Celtic’s controversial Green Brigade ultras group for “wholly and utterly unacceptable” behaviour during their 3-0 win at the Tony Macaroni Arena on Sunday.

Livingston have hit out at Celtic ultras group the Green Brigade for their “wholly and utterly unacceptable” conduct at Sunday’s Premiership clash and accused them of going against club and police advice to unveil a pre-match tifo.

K.J. Yossman Disney is licensing a number of its original series to BBC Studios-owned broadcaster UKTV. Among the shows that are set to appear on UKTV networks are Anne Frank drama “A Small Light” and all seven seasons of “Sons of Anarchy.” “A Small Light” is heading to UKTV’s free to air network Drama in May while the complete series of “Brothers and Sisters” will go to UKTV Play this spring followed by “Sons of Anarchy” in the summer.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “Grey’s Anatomy” has been renewed for Season 21 at ABC, Variety has learned. The renewal extends the series’ record-breaking run as the longest running primetime medical drama in TV history, which it first became in 2019. It is also the longest running primetime scripted series in ABC history.

EXCLUSIVE: Keegan-Michael Key and his multi-hyphenate partner Elle Key, along with their Bigger Picture Media Group banner, have signed with Range Media Partners for management.

Katcy Stephan Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman will star in “The Roses,” a reimagining of the 1989 classic “The War of the Roses.” The dark comedy, which is currently in development, will be directed by Jay Roach (“Bombshell,” “Meet the Parents”) and is written by Tony McNamara (“Poor Things,” “The Great”), based on the novel by Warren Adler. The film follows picture-perfect couple Theo (Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Colman), who have successful careers, great kids an enviable sex life.

Alex Ritman In news likely to simultaneously delight and appall across the cinema world, a third instalment of IP-bludgeoning slasher ‘Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey’ has been confirmed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield and Scott Chambers of prolific horror banner Jagged Edge Productions. According to the producers, ‘Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3’ will have a bigger budget than the previous films and will introduce new characters from the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories, including Rabbit, the heffalumps and the woozles. All will no doubt be given sadistic, murderous twists.

Selome Hailu It appears that Season 13 of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” has achieved not only the series’ highest viewership ever, but the highest of the entire “Real Housewives” franchise since 2014, according to Multiplatform + 35 data. The first 16 episodes of Season 13 averaged 4 million viewers across 35 days of Bravo and Peacock viewership. Episodes 17-20 have yet to hit the 35-day mark, but performed strongly according to same-day data, outpacing several of the preceding episodes.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Neon, the indie studio behind “Parasite” and “Anatomy of a Fall,” has tapped the producers of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Jon Read and Allison Rose Carter, to lead their growing production arm. Read and Carter are the co-founders of Savage Rose Films.