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John Bleasdale Guest Contributor When writer-director Mohamed Kordofani first conceived of the film “Goodbye Julia,” he realized that he didn’t have a single friend from South Sudan — “and there are millions who live in Khartoum.” Now he has hundreds, he tells Variety. The first Sudanese film to premiere in the Un Certain Regard sidebar in Cannes, his debut feature won the Prix de la Liberté and is now the official Sudanese entry for the Academy Awards, with Lupita Nyong’o on board as an executive producer. The film had its Middle East and North Africa premiere this week at El Gouna Film Festival, where Kordofani was awarded the Variety MENA Region Talent Award.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large While Netflix awaits Season 2 of its breakout hit “Wednesday,” the latest adaptation of the “Addams Family” franchise, it is already eyeing a way to expand that universe. Variety has confirmed that Netflix and producer MGM Television are indeed aiming to spin off “Wednesday” to focus on Uncle Fester.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “There are really only two things that can turn a bad day into a great one: The first is love. But to be honest, that’s not for today. My third wife just dumped me.

Cliffhanger sequel has bagged itself a new director. The film, which will see the return of Sylvester Stallone’s Gabe Walker, was set to be helmed by Ric Roman Waugh but now it looks likeJean-François Richet will take the reigns of the new movie, as per Screen Daily.News also comes that the film will kick off shooting next summer supposedly for a 2025 release.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Guy Pearce (“LA Confidential,” “Memento”) has recently wrapped production on “Inside,” an Australian crime thriller and coming of age drama film. The picture is the debut feature of Charles Williams, whose short film “All These Creatures” won the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. The story sees after a young man transferred from juvenile to adult prison, where he is taken under the wing of both Australia’s most despised criminal, and a soon-to-be-a-paroled inmate.

Sydney Sweeney and her fiancé Jonathan Davino are taking off!

Adam Driver is revealing that Kylo Ren’s arc in the Star Wars sequel trilogy was originally very different from what made the final cut!

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Alexander Payne calls editor Kevin Tent his filmmaking partner. The two first met running in the same L.A. film school circles.

Stuart Miller When Byron Allenwas just 14, he started doing stand-up comedy. Four years later, in 1979, he became the youngest comedian to appear on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” It was a launching pad for an entertainment career that included a stint on “Real People,” a lead role in “Case Closed,” a TV movie he co-wrote and a syndicated late-night show bearing his name. But all along, Allen had his eyes on a much bigger prize.

Jamie Dornan revealed a truly unexpected way that he accidentally ruined a day of filming during a recent interview.

Elizabeth Banks really, really wants to join the cast of The White Lotus.

K.J. Yossman SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for “The Crown” Season 6, streaming on Netflix now. The series finale of “The Crown” is set in 2005, a full 17 years before Queen Elizabeth II’s death.

Jennifer Lopez is resuming production of her upcoming movie Unstoppable!

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Next Step, a program organized by Cannes Critics’ Week whose recent alumni include Molly Manning Walker (“How to Have Sex”), has unveiled the participants of its milestone 10th edition. Spearheaded by Thomas Rosso, a producer turned artistic director, the workshop selects emerging directors who have had their short films play at Cannes’ parallel section, Critics’ Week, and helps to develop their feature debuts.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for David Fincher’s “The Killer,” now streaming on Netflix. The next few months will be stacked with conversations about the year’s best film performances, but we’d be remiss to let 2023 go dark without mentioning one of its most exciting turns: Kerry O’Malley in David Fincher’s “The Killer.” A veteran working actress who has appeared on “1923,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and in features like the “Annabelle” franchise, O’Malley more than held her own alongside Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton in the unexpectedly funny tale of a contract killer gone haywire. O’Malley stars as Dolores, an average-seeming New Orleans woman who serves as dutiful assistant to a lawyer (Charles Parnell), who also happens to dole out high-paid hit orders on the rich and powerful.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor There might be more kitchens in Max’s series “Julia” than in every Nancy Meyers movie put together. The list starts with the kitchen at Julia Child’s home in Cambridge, Mass.

Todd Gilchrist editor Season one of “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” ended on an appropriately triumphant note with the Los Angeles Lakers’ victory over the Boston Celtics in the 1980 NBA Championships. Not only was Jerry Buss (John C.

Caroline Brew editor Director Abdulelah Alqurashi sat down with Variety’s senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay at Variety’s Artisans Screening Series to break down his film “Alhamour H.A.,” Saudi Arabia’s official Oscars submission. The film is based on the true story of one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest con artists, a former security guard named Hamed who grows rich by convincing people to make dubious investments. Alqurashi lived in Jedda as a banker while the scam was happening.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor European Film Promotion has revealed the 10 emerging actors who will take part in the 27th edition of European Shooting Stars program, which promotes European acting talent. Past Shooting Stars have included Carey Mulligan, Alicia Vikander, Maisie Williams and Riz Ahmed. From Feb.

EXCLUSIVE: Naomi Scott (Aladdin), Kit Harington (Game Of Thrones) and Simon Callow (Shakespeare in Love) have wrapped shoot on romance Eternal Return, for Village Roadshow, Macro and BK Studios.

Sydney Sweeney has had some scary experiences on set. While shooting her new film “Anyone But You,” Sweeney revealed that she had to shoot a scene with a trained spider. Despite the fact that the animal was safe to work with, she reveals that it still bit her.

strutted into the sad environs of a Los Angeles DMV. Platinum hair cut into a choppy crop and lips slathered in impossibly shiny gloss, she tottered into the driver’s license photo booth, stretched out her arms and began to smize. The impromptu shoot that followed would break protocol on various levels.

Todd Gilchrist editor Even among James Cameron’s epic and frequently arduous productions, from “Titanic’s” nine months of filming to the three years spent on “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “The Abyss” was particularly ambitious — and difficult: The 1989 thriller was shot almost entirely underwater, requiring its crew and cast to learn how to shoot, and act, while using diving equipment with which many of them were completely unfamiliar. “You show up to do a diving movie, you’re going to have to dive,” says Cameron in a new clip from bonus features accompanying the film’s digital release on Tuesday.

Ben Croll Alongside the ongoing push for greater, industry-wide parity, French activist and feminist organization Collective 50/50 will next tackle workplace harassment with a new plan to bolster and expand existing workplace safety workshops, while promoting the widespread use of intimacy coordinators. Launched in partnership with France’s National Film Board (CNC) and the professional training organization Afdas, the new initiative will expand the reach of existing programs, which mostly targeted producers.

EXCLUSIVE: The Terrifier franchise has been one of the biggest success stories in grassroots genre moviemaking in recent years. The second movie in the slasher franchise showcasing the murderous Art the Clown was made for only $250k but last year took $11M domestic and another $4M internationally.

As told to Jordan Emanuel burst onto the scene in 2023 as the star of one of the network’s newest shows, Summer House Martha’s Vineyard, and quickly became a fan favorite for her confidence and unique story. The 31-year-old model first made headlines in 2019 when she was chosen as Playboy’s Playmate of the Year, becoming the to hold that title as well as Playmate.

Ethan Shanfeld Ready for another rendezvous with the ton? “Bridgerton” is returning to Netflix in 2024, with the third season of the period drama waltzing onto streaming in two parts. The first four episodes will premiere on May 16, and the next four will be available to stream on June 13. Along with the announcement, Netflix released a video stitching together previously seen footage with TikToks and social media posts from fans eager to revisit the upper crust of Regency-era London.

This is completely horrifying! Two young internet stars are finding themselves

Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell had one final fairy tale in her life before sadly passing away.

After seeing his acclaimed Netflix series All the Light We Cannot See secure a Golden Globe nomination on Monday morning, director-EP Shawn Levy spoke with Deadline about his forthcoming Deadpool threequel and Stranger Things‘ final season, as well as his work on the aforementioned historical drama.

Colman Domingo and Jacob Elordi have passed each other on the set of the megahit HBO drama “Euphoria” without ever sharing a scene. That’s why Domingo, who won an Emmy for guest actor in the show, describes this conversation as “an overdue coffee” — just without the caffeine kick. As the actors discuss the pressures of portraying historical figures — Domingo embodying Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin as he plans the 1963 March on Washington in George C.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Oscar winners Dustin Hoffman and Helen Hunt are attached to star in Peter Greenaway‘s drama “Lucca Mortis,” which has started filming in the Tuscan city of Lucca. The new film by the 81-year-old iconoclastic British filmmaker and artist — known for arthouse hits such as “The Draughtsman’s Contract,” “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” and “The Pillow Book” — is the tale of a New York writer (Hoffman), who in in 2001, following the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, takes a sabbatical to visit Lucca in search of his distant Italian origins.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Denzel Washington being cast in Antoine Fuqua’s upcoming Netflix movie as ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal is sparking some controversy in Tunisia, the home country of the great military commander. According to French newspaper Courrier International, there are complaints about depicting the Carthaginian general as a Black African being made in the media and the Tunisian parliament. Member of Parliament Yassine Mami has pointed out that Hannibal, who was born in 247 BC in Carthage – now known as Tunis, the Tunisian capital – was of West Asian Semitic origin.

A popular star of Hindi films for a decade with over 80 million Instagram followers, Alia Bhatt, best known internationally for her 2022 double Gangubai Kathiawadi and RRR, has fast become one of India’s hottest exports. 

Travis Kelce and Kayla Nicole may not be on the best of terms, but Jackson Mahomes doesn’t seem to mind!

Head Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas has revealed she’s a grandma, or as she likes to call herself, Glamma Shirley. Shirley's son, Mark, 37 and his wife BC Jean, 36, are feeling blessed after the birth of their son Banksi Wylde Ballas, especially after suffering a miscarriage last year. While Shirley hopes to be a hands-on grandparent, that will prove tricky with Mark and BC being based in Los Angeles.