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TikTok is reportedly experimenting with AI to create a feature that will allow users to make songs based on prompts.According to TechCrunch, the company has made the experimental feature accessible to a few users so far. It is currently unknown when it will be made fully available.The social media platform has partnered with Bloom, a large language model, to create the lyrics, whilst music from a pre-saved catalogue from TikTok will serve as the instrumental.

Happy Mondays‘ Shaun Ryder has made a guest appearance on a posthumous single, ‘Green Banana’ by Lee “Scratch” Perry.The upbeat new track is taken from the late dub legend’s forthcoming posthumous album ‘King Perry’, which will be released on February 2 via False Idols. It has been released alongside a remix by Bristol duo Dubkasm.It follows the previously released single ‘100lbs of Summer’ featuring Greentea Peng, which was also released alongside a remix by Tricky.The album was written, recorded, and produced by Perry together with producer Daniel Boyle before his death in August 2021 at the age of 85.Check out ‘Green Banana’ below:According to a statement, the new album was Perry’s idea to “do something new, something different but still with a dub framework”.The record, which will reportedly incorporate “synthwave, big beat, drum & bass and electronica”, will be a “kaleidoscopic and engaging melting pot of rhythms, melodies, and voices.” It also said that “Poignantly, closing track ‘Goodbye’ was Perry’s last ever recorded vocal performance.”In other news, Ryder’s biopic Twisting My Melon has been halted due to creative disputes.In 2013, ITV announced it was planning to serialise the Happy Mondays frontman’s autobiography Twisting My Melon. Eventually, Jack O’Connell (Skins) was announced as the lead actor in 2019.

One of 2024’s most anticipated movies has an official release date — and a new title. Deadline reports that Zoë Kravitz‘s feature directorial debut will hit theaters at the end of August courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios under the name “Blink Twice.” That’s not as provocative as its former title “Pussy Island,” but despite a different title, the film has the same sleazy set-up.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The annual MusiCares Person of the Year dinner will be like New Jersey West, with Bruce Springsteen among the performers announced to salute Jon Bon Jovi just prior to the Grammys in L.A. on Feb. 2.

American Fiction, a new film based upon the book ‘Erasure’ by Percival Everett. Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, Leslie Uggams, Adam Brody, Keith David, Issa Rae and Sterling K.

A new AI feature being launched in beta by streaming pay-TV provider Fubo allows viewers to choose specific news segments from a continuously updated supply of “instant headlines.”

The Strangers’ Case from American filmmaker Brandt Andersen and starring French actor Omar Sy will make its world premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. 

Alex Ritman Julianne Moore is set to star in “The Room Next Door,” the first full-length English-language feature from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar. Moore — whose casting was confirmed on Thursday by Almodóvar’s production company El Deseo on social media — joins Tilda Swinton in the film. Swinton previously starred in Almodovar’s 2021 short “The Human Voice.” Swinton’s casting, which Almodóvar’s first spoke about last year, was also confirmed by El Deseo.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The Super Bowl ad roster is usually filled with commercials for beer, candy and snacks. There will also be at least one focused on something more serious. The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, an advocacy group backed by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, will run a 30-second spot during CBS’ February 11 broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII, ensuring that a serious note will sound amid many silly ones.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The nominees for the 96th Academy Awards were announced Tuesday morning, with “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s sprawling examination of the dawn of the Atomic Age, leading with 13 nods including Best Picture.

Before making Past Lives, writer-director Celina Song says with a laugh, she didn’t even know how to read a call sheet. Flash forward a year, though, from the A24 romantic drama’s world premiere at Sundance, and she’s landed an Original Screenplay nom for her debut feature.

The Sundance Institute and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation today named the recipients of three artist grants aimed at supporting projects currently in development, as they officially bestowed their Feature Film Prize on Sam and Andy Zuchero’s Love Me, all through their joint Science-In-Film Initiative.

Love Me,” from filmmaker duo Sam and Andy Zuchero, received the juried feature film prize from Sundance Institute and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s joint Science-in-Film initiative at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The prize is awarded to a film that focuses on science or technology as a theme or depicts a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.

EXCLUSIVE: Imagine Entertainment co-chairmen Brian Grazer and Ron Howard have entered into a multi-year co-financing and production partnership with Fifth Season and their co-CEOs Graham Taylor and Chris Rice.

Björk and Philip Glass are among the musical guests that have been announced for the new album by US electronic producer Jlin.The eleven-track album is called ‘Akoma’ and will be released via Planet Mu Records on March 22. Jlin has also shared the first track from it, ‘The Precision of Infinity’, which features the legendary minimalist composer Glass.

Kristen Stewart is being honored with the visionary award at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival opening night gala, a prize that is a bit unusual for the actor to accept. Speaking to Variety‘s Angelique Jackson, Stewart said her job is to serve the vision of filmmakers and not to always have her own sense of vision. “When I saw that I was being given the visionary award I was like, ‘What a word!'” Stewart said during Variety On The Carpet, presented by DIRECTV.

Ben Croll Noé Debré, the co-writer of “Dheepan” and “Stillwater” and creator of the European Parliament sendup series “Parlement,” marks his feature directorial debut with the bittersweet comedy “A Good Jewish Boy.” Produced by Moonshaker, sold by Charades and making its world market premiere at this year’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris, the freewheeling film follows a 27-year-old man-child Bellisha (Michael Zindel) and his ailing mother, Giselle (Agnès Jaoui), who together make up the last remaining Jews living in a working class neighborhood that all of their friends and family have long since fled. At first that’s just as well for the easy-going Bellisha, but health concerns, prejudice and most of all an acute sense of alienation soon begin to creep in.

LE SSERAFIM‘s Yunjin and soloist Crush.Released on January 17, ‘Yes or No’ features vocals from LE SSERAFIM’s Yunjin and K-R&B singer Crush. The song also notably samples K-pop girl group Brown Eyed Girls’ 2008 track ‘Love’.‘Yes or No’ features lyrics co-written by Yunjin, GroovyRoom and Kim Eana, the latter of whom wrote ‘Love’.

FX has set a March 29 premiere date for Spermworld, a documentary feature on the unregulated online marketplace for sperm, produced by The New York Times and Edgeline Films.

Whiplash” has topped the Sundance Film Festival‘s list of top 10 feature films from the past four decades. In honor of the 40th edition of the festival that starts Thursday, the Sundance Institute surveyed over 500 filmmakers, critics and industry members who selected from nearly 4,000 features that have played the festival.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The best home-theater experience coming to the market is one you’ll be able to strap onto your head, according to Apple. Apple unveiled several new entertainment experiences that will be available on Apple Vision Pro — its expensive new mixed-reality headset — when it begins shipping on Feb.

Alex Ritman Production has now started on “AlGaid,” the latest feature from fast-rising Saudi Arabian production house Telfaz11, which smashed local box office records with their first two local releases, “Sattar” and “Mandoob.” Directed by Hussar Alhulwah and shooting in the sprawling production hub of Neom, “AlGaid” unfolds against the backdrop of the early 20th-century Arabia desert and is described as blending the revenge genre with Bedouin soap opera tropes. The film was penned by Saudi novelist and writer Ahmed Alhokail.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The musical-comedy “Shucked” had its closing performance on Broadway Sunday night, but the show went out with an even louder set of whoops than expected, as the curtain call included the news that a feature film adaptation is in the works. Show reps confirm to Variety that a movie version of “Shucked” is being set up with Mandalay Pictures. The producers for Mandalay will be Jason Michael Berman (AIR) and Jordan Moldo, along with Alan Fox.

The Office is still one of the most popular syndicated TV shows on the air today, and fans have been wondering if there will ever be a reboot.

Showbiz 411, the E-street band leader, 74, was allegedly hired by “Black Mass” director Scott Cooper, who is also known for his 2009 film “Crazy Heart” starring Jeff Bridges. Springsteen’s sixth studio album was lauded as an introspective turn for the “Born To Run” belter, turning a bout of depression into artistic inspiration.As the story goes, the New Jersey-born musician intended to rerecord the raw, emotional demo tracks that would comprise the forthcoming “Nebraska,” but eventually decided to release the songs as they were. The stripped-down album is also said to have given rise to Springsteen’s 1984 hit, “Born in the USA.”Little is known about the upcoming film aside from the fact that Cooper, 53, is slated to direct.

Oscar documentary branch voters can’t be accused of parochialism. They ventured far and wide to select their shortlist of feature documentaries for 2023, tapping films from countries as varied as a U.N. roll call: Ukraine, Uganda, Poland, Denmark, Tunisia, Canada and the United States.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Winner of a Spanish Academy supporting actress Goya Award for “Marshland” and nominated for a 2023 best doc short Spanish Academy Goya Award for “Memory,” which she also directed, Nerea Barros, star of “The Gypsy Bride” is preparing “The Coast” (“La Costa”) which will mark her directorial feature debut. Also written by Barros, “The Coast” will make its market debut in March at the 2024 Malaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event (MAFF). Its news comes little more than a month after the end of the run on Nov.

Bill Murray (The French Dispatch), Michael Cera (Life & Beth) and Benicio Del Toro (The French Dispatch) have been set to star in the newest feature from seven-time Academy Award nominee Wes Anderson, which is set to go into production this year, Deadline has confirmed.

EXCLUSIVE: Bella Thorne is set to make her feature directorial debut with Color Your Hurt, the true story of a young gay man growing up in the bible belt.

Ozzy Osbourne, Corey Taylor, Al Jourgensen and more have been enlisted to appear on Billy Morrison’s new album.Yesterday (January 9), Morrison – known for being the rhythm guitarist in Billy Idol’s band – took to Instagram to provide updates on his career. After announcing that he was signing with The Label Group and Virgin Music, he detailed the release of his third solo album, ‘The Morrison Project’, which arrives on April 19.“The album features a ton of guest appearances by my friends and the first single, ‘DROWNING’ will be released February 23rd,” wrote Morrison.A post shared by Billy Morrison (@billymorrisonofficial)The album will reportedly consist of 12 tracks and feature guest appearances from various rock and rap icons, including Ozzy Osbourne, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor, Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen, Steve Vai, DMC of Run-DMC, Billy Idol bandmate Steve Stevens, Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes, Black Sabbath touring drummer Tommy Clufetos, and more.Speaking to Blabbermouth upon the album’s announcement, Morrison highlighted his process working with guest vocalists, in which he allowed them to “do whatever they felt”.

If you’re planning on taking a leap into fitness this January, you’re going to need the right tools for the job, and that starts with your outfit. Whether you’re planning on levelling up your daily step count or throwing yourself into an intense cardio regime, picking the right clothes keeps you comfortable throughout your workout.

EXCLUSIVE: MindRiot Entertainment, the transatlantic indie behind Danielle Deadwyler’s Parallel and the upcoming OceanGate pic Salvaged has locked the rights to adapt former pro skater Josh Swindell’s memoir into a feature film. 

Variety Staff Follow Us on Twitter Want to know which international features vying for Oscar gold are worth watching? Variety‘s team of critics has been on the ground at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto and other major film festivals, on the hunt for the best of the best. In December, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences unveiled its shortlist of 15 films eligible for the second round of voting in the Best International Feature Film category.

Sundance Institute announced the addition of the documentary The Greatest Night in Pop to the 2024 Sundance Film Festival film program and the lineup for the Festival’s Beyond Film programming. 

Margot Robbie revealed two movies that are guaranteed to bring her to tears when she watches them.

Jordan Peele has come forth to tease his as-yet-untitled fourth directorial effort, previously dated for Christmas Day 2024, following its strike-imposed removal from Universal Pictures‘ release calendar.