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EXCLUSIVE: New York-based creator, comedian, actor, writer Kyle Gordon has signed wtih CAA for representation.

Lexi Carson Meryl Streep lends her voice to the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s children’s literacy program, Storyline Online. Streep reads “The Three Questions,” which is a children’s book based on a story by Leo Tolstory, written and illustrated by Jon J. Muth, accompanied with watercolor illustrations and published by Scholastic.

William Earl Variety has announced the initial lineup for the Kering Women in Motion Talks at the Cannes Film Festival. This year’s talks include some of the most important women working in cinema. On May 18, Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh will interview NBCUniversal Studio Group chairman and chief content officer Donna Langley, touching on a major year for the studio that includes the upcoming feature “Wicked.” The conversation comes at a pivotal time for Langley and the studio as Universal Pictures will receive the International Achievement in Film award from Variety at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and Langley is receiving the Women in Motion Award at a dinner hosted by Kering on May 19.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor The Emmy race just got a bit more spicy. Three popular YouTube web series have found their content creators taking a chance on themselves, which could significantly impact the Emmy race in some categories. The spicy chicken wing interview series Hot Ones, hosted by Sean Evans, has successfully petitioned to be included in the outstanding talk series category.

EXCLUSIVE: 20th Century Studios has acquired an original feature pitch from Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern (Booksmart), enlisting Gloria Sanchez to produce.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Few companies in the world have had such as impact on their local film industry than Globo Filmes, the feature co-production arm of Brazilian giant Globo, which is Latin America’s biggest communications conglomerate. Over the last 25 years, Globo Filmes has backed more than 500 movies, almost all through co-production.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Morgana Studios, ReachStar and ReDefine Originals are partnering on the animated feature “Diamante,” set on the lush Caribbean Island of the Dominican Republic. The film will be directed by Mathieu Ratthé with the screenplay written by Ratthé and Leticia Tonos Paniagua from an original idea by Claudio Lluberes. Animation will be handled by ReDefine Originals, which is part of DNEG.

trailer is here, and there is a lot happening. Not only do we have , of course, but the whole thing is set to a particularly emotional Taylor Swift song, and the girls are freaking out.The film, based on the , stars Lively as flower-shop owner Lily Bloom, alongside Justin Baldoni and Brandon Sklenar as her leading men.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor When “Expats” showrunner and director Lulu Wang was penning the script for episode 4, she featured a scene where Hilary gets trapped in the elevator with her mother. But little did she know, actress Sarayu Blue was claustrophobic. “That’s my biggest fear,” Blue says.

Kaare Eriksen Media Analyst With an average of 77.7 million daily active users in the first quarter of 2024, Roblox is an interactive platform too good for just about any brand to pass up. Stephanie Latham, VP of global brand partnerships at Roblox, stopped by Variety podcast Strictly Business to discuss just how lucrative Roblox has become as an experiential platform for users, creators and brands alike to interface with each other, be it through experiences built around music, film, TV, sports or individual personalities.

Rudie Obias editor If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Although Apple is enjoying the fruits of the iPhone 15, Google is looking to reap the rewards of its own new smartphone — the Google Pixel 8a.

Indonesia‘s Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival (JAFF) will unveil its inaugural JAFF Market in December. The initiative was announced at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday. This new three-day event aims to reshape the Indonesian film industry by fostering networking, innovation and collaboration among various sectors.

Naman Ramachandran Dimpy Agrawal‘s Gubbara Entertainment has unveiled a $1 million script development fund aimed at empowering Indian feature filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival‘s market. Agrawal previously served as a producer at Netflix India and her credits include some of the streamer’s top titles from the territory such as Zoya Akhtar’s “The Archies,” Vishal Bharwaj’s “Khufiya,” Vasan Bala’s “Monica, O My Darling” and Ajay Singh’s “Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga.” She has had prior stints at Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions and Phantom Productions. Gubbara was launched in early 2023.

Guy Lodge Film Critic It is polite, we are told, not to speak ill of the dead, though it’s just as often prudent not to speak ill of the living. For victims with grievances against those older and more powerful than them, it’s hard to know when to speak up at all.

EXCLUSIVE: The Banff World Media Festival has set panels on the “mass exodus of Black women executives in Hollywood” and LGBTQ+ representation, featuring the likes of Schitt’s Creek star Emily Hampshire and a Disney Development Director.

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Cera caught Tyler Taormina’s feature directing debut Ham on Rye after a friend suggested he check it out. He was so impressed that he signed himself up as a sort of producing “cheerleader” on the filmmaker’s latest picture Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, which plays in Directors’ Fortnight on Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival.

Jamie Lang Brazil’s O2 Play, the distribution arm of O2 Filmes group, will host a Cannes market screening for director Marcelo Gomes‘ latest feature, “Portrait of a Certain Orient,” on Friday, May 17 at 1:30 p.m. in Lerins 4. Ahead of the screening, O2 has given Variety exclusive access to the romantic period drama’s international trailer.

Naman Ramachandran Glasgow-based Momentum Films, led by producer Rakasree Basu (“Iqbal and the Jewel of India”), has officially launched at the Cannes Film Festival‘s market. The company is focusing on developing original stories by converging the Scottish and the South Asian cinematic landscapes across feature films, high end television and narrative documentaries. Momentum has an under-production film “Adrift,” which was shot in Tamil Nadu, southern India, and is currently in post-production.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” finished in time for its global release next week. Appearing at press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, auteur Miller discussed the tight deadline sitting beside his cast including Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke. “We only finished the film two and a half weeks ago,” Miller told global reporters.” It hits theaters on May 24.

Young Sheldon is a rare spin-off which has managed to endure outside of the original show’s shadow.Created by Chuck Lorre and Steven Molaro, The Big Bang Theory prequel follows child prodigy Sheldon Cooper (Iain Armitage) as he grows up in East Texas. Jim Parsons, who played the adult version of the character on the original sitcom, narrates the series.Other cast members include Zoe Perry, Lance Barber, Montana Jordan, Raegan Revord, Annie Potts, Matt Hobby and Emily Osment.Over its seven seasons, Young Sheldon has featured voice cameos from several members of The Big Bang Theory cast, including Mayim Bialik, Kaley Cuoco and Simon Helberg.As explained during a Television Critics Association panel earlier this year, the series hit certain canonical events in Sheldon Cooper’s life in season seven, which presented the creators with a natural ending to the show.“There are certain things that we know happened in Sheldon’s life when he’s 14,” executive producer Steve Holland said (via TheWrap).

Queens Of The Stone Age have announced plans to reissue their 1998 self-titled debut album on vinyl.It was first reissued in 2011 and later in 2022 alongside vinyl releases of their 2013 album ‘Like Clockwork’ and 2017’s ‘Villains’.Now, a new double LP reissue is set for release on June 21, featuring all of the songs originally intended for the record arranged in the band’s chosen order.It also features several bonus tracks including ‘The Bronze’, ‘Those Aren’t The Droids You’re Looking For’ and ‘Spiders and Vinegaroons’ along with the original cover artwork by Frank Kozik. You can pre-order/pre-save it here.Self-titled 2LP editionBack in print June 21st.Pre-order: https://t.co/SNzIassSV9 pic.twitter.com/Cfmp1nqfsM— QOTSA (@qotsa) May 15, 2024SIDE A1. ‘Regular John’2. ‘Avon’3. ‘If Only’4. ‘Walkin On The Sidewalks’SIDE B1. ‘You Would Know’2. ‘The Bronze’3. ‘How To Handle A Rope (A Lesson In The Lariat)’SIDE C1. ‘Mexicola’2. ‘Hispanic Impressions’3. ‘You Can’t Quit Me Baby’4. ‘These Aren’t The Droids You’re Looking For’SIDE D1. ‘Give The Mule What He Wants’2. ‘Spiders And Vinegaroons’3. ‘I Was A Teenage Hand Model’The band are set to headline this year’s Download Festival next month alongside Avenged Sevenfold and Fall Out Boy.Speaking to NME about the Donington metal festival, frontman Josh Homme said he felt there was “no reason to trip out” over their set.“Is it just going to be same-old-same-old?’ he said.

Apple, Eye Tracking is enabled via the front-facing camera and is designed with users with physical disabilities in mind. It is powered by machine learning and all data gathered will be secured on the device, not shared with Apple.Fortunately, this technology won’t need any peripherals to work.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Set during the Civil War, a long way from the front lines, Roberto Minervini’s “The Damned” continues the Italian helmer’s career-long examination of the rifts and affinities between overlooked segments of American society. Apart from one long, destabilizing battle with an unseen adversary, the portrayal is a relatively peaceful one, following a group of Union soldiers assigned to scout the Northwestern frontier in 1862.

A number of celebs descended on the Trafford Centre last night for a sneak peek of beauty giant, Sephora's new store.

Guy Lodge Film Critic What is poignant about “This Life of Mine” — the final film by French writer-director Sophie Fillières — is all but impossible to extract from the beleaguered circumstances of its creation. Aged just 58, Fillières died last summer, shortly after completing the shoot of this wistful, somewhat autofictional study of midlife feminine crisis.

Jamie Lang Buenos Aires-based production, sales, and distribution outfit FilmSharks is hosting a pair of market screenings for David Bisbano‘s animated feature “Dalia and the Red Book” at this year’s Marché du Film, and Variety has been given exclusive access to the first English-language trailer for the film. “Dalia” will screen twice at this year’s market, on Thursday, May 16, at 2:00 p.m. in Palais E and on Friday, May 17, at 9:30 a.m.

Longtime Hallmark Channel actress Lacey Chabert is taking her talents to Netflix to star in a new Christmas rom-com!

Christopher Vourlias In a different world, had she not been readying her long-awaited sophomore feature, “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” for its Cannes premiere, Rungano Nyoni might have spent the past few weeks preparing her family for its upcoming move to Zambia, the southern African nation where the director was born and spent part of her childhood. Instead, it was a mad dash to get the film across the finish line. “It’s been long hours, non-stop for weeks,” Nyoni says on the eve of the French fest’s opening night.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Chile’s Quijote Films, behind Cannes 2023 Un Certain Regard Fipresci Prize winner “The Settlers,” has tied down a powerful alliance of international partners on “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo,” the first feature of 2018 Cannes Cinéfondation top winner Diego Céspedes. An LGBTQ-themed drama, “The Mysterious Gaze” is set in a mining town where a strange illness is said to be transmitted between men who fall in love with each other.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Beta Cinema has closed a slew of international territory sales on its resistance epic “William Tell,” Nick Hamm’s adaptation of Friedrich Schiller’s play. WME Independent represents domestic rights.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korea’s Barunson E&A has picked up world sales rights to Vietnamese horror-comedy “Don’t Cry Butterfly.” Sales will be launched this week at the Cannes Market. Written and directed by Duong Dieu Linh, the Hanoi-set film follows a housewife who uses voodoo to try and get her cheating husband fall back into love with her, but instead invites a mysterious presence into the house.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Leading documentary specialist Autlook Filmsales has secured international sales rights to “Us, Our Pets and the War,” which looks at the impact of the war in Ukraine on animals, and how the conflict led to the biggest pet evacuation in history. The film, which became the highest-grossing theatrically released documentary in Ukraine of all time, is directed by investigative journalist and YouTube vlogger Anton Ptushkin.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Peter Webber, who helmed the Oscar-nominated “Girl With the Pearl Earring,” is to direct a film about the family behind the Leica camera brand, who helped many Jewish people escape Germany during World War II. Webber has teamed up with Red Panda Films’ Martin Serene and Franziska Morai, also the film’s screenwriter, Christine Guenther of Fireglory Pictures, Birgit Gernboeck and Versa Studios to produce the film.

Joey King is taking fashion inspiration from Despicable Me‘s iconic minions while promoting the franchise’s fourth movie in Los Angeles.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Independent filmmaking is no easy task — even if you’re Steven Spielberg’s daughter. Destry Allyn Spielberg is set to make her feature directorial debut with “Please Don’t Feed the Children,” a low-budget thriller, which was filmed last year in Santa Fe, N.M. But the film has endured significant financing problems, shutting down just before production was to begin.

Nikki Glaser isn’t buying that Tom Brady had no idea he’d face backlash from his family over the roast!