Spy Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Believe it or not, Taylor Swift actually did have a hand in Argylle!

EXCLUSIVE: Focus Features has won a bidding battle for Black Bag, a package for a spy thriller film that Steven Soderbergh will direct this summer in Europe from a David Koepp script, with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender attached to star. Casey Silver and Greg Jacobs are producing.

Matthew Vaughn’s latest spy adventure “Argylle” inches closer to its premiere, one important question remains unanswered: Who is Elly Conway? For those unfamiliar with “Argylle,” the film — starring Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Dua Lipa and more — is said to be based on a book of the same name by Conway, an unknown, first-time author. Indeed, the book itself is real, published by Penguin and available for purchase. But in a twist revealed by the movie’s trailer, Conway is also the name of Howard’s character, a bestselling spy novelist who finds herself involved in some real-life espionage.

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical has acquired U.S. rights to spy thriller Chief of Station starring Aaron Eckhart, Olga Kurylenko and Alex Pettyfer.

Ellise Shafer John Cena is in full support of WWE’s recent pact with Netflix to stream “Monday Night Raw” on the platform starting in 2025. At the world premiere of his new movie “Argylle” in London, Cena told Variety that the deal is “good for everybody” and congratulated fellow wrestler Dwayne Johnson — with whom he feuded in the 2010s — on joining the board of WWE parent TKO. “That’s great for WWE, that’s obviously great for TKO.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic Slasher movies often droop between grisly highlights due to the weak plotting and cardboard characters meant to lend structural integrity to their shock content. “In a Violent Mind” avoids those pitfalls by pretty much sidestepping entirely the standard niceties of narrative and psychological detail. There is explanatory backstory — however piecemeal and possibly-inaccurate — but otherwise writer-director Chris Nash’s first feature approaches the usual bloody business with a sort of minimalist purity, enabled by focusing almost wholly on the POV of one Unstoppable Killing Machine.

Henry Cavill and Bryce Dallas Howard are promoting their new movie Argylle!

Anna Marie de la Fuente Latin America is about to get an array of new thematic channels, thanks to a strategic partnership between Canal+ Group’s Thema America and SPI Int’l. SPI Int’l’s popular channels FunBox UHD, FilmBox Arthouse, Gametoon, FightBox, DocuBox, Fast&FunBox, FashionBox, Erox, Eroxxx, and 360TuneBox, will be distributed across the region via Thema America, which will represent and distribute the channels.

Fans are worried for Michelle Trachtenberg.

Stephen Rodrick The not-so-secret fact about premieres is that the actors rarely watch, usually ducking out when the lights go down. They spend the film’s duration smoking cigarettes and reciting the cinema’s version of the serenity prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, i.e. the director’s predilection to use my worst take.” That was not the case at Sundance’s world premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence,” a ghostly thriller about the Payne family, a bougie clan with a significant number of problems including a spectral, uh, presence that could be friend or foe.

Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender are set to co-star in a spy thriller!

The stars of the upcoming spy movie Argylle stepped out for their first major red carpet premiere this week!

If you’ve been online recently, you might have seen a rumor that Taylor Swift is the mysterious author of a novel.

Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell are promoting their new movie Argylle in South Korea.

will read double and triple meanings into ev-er-y-thing Taylor Swift does or says or breathes near. It's mostly harmless fun, but one recent rumor has been so buzzy that it required an actual investigation.

Matt Rife is starring in a new movie!

Chainsaw Man leads the field with a dominant 25 nominations for Crunchyroll‘s eighth annual Anime Awards, which be handed out in March. It will compete for the marquee Anime of the Year prize against Bocchi the Rock!, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Swordsmith Village Arc, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, Oshi No Ko and Vinland Saga Season 2. 

Callum McLennan Continuing their alliance into 2024, EO Media, led by Ezequiel Olzanski and SPI International, a Canal+ company, have secured all rights for Latin America, including Brazil, to a star-stacked slate of movies from topline talent such as Keanu Reeves, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, Michael Shannon and fanbase stalwart Jean Claude Van Damme. As star talent continues to mark apart titles in a crowded marketplace, the new nine-pic distribution lineup also features Alec Baldwin, Diane Keaton.

Ellise Shafer When Martin Scorsese is lauded with Berlin Film Festival‘s Honorary Golden Bear next month, the awards ceremony will be accompanied by a screening of his 2006 film “The Departed.” The crime thriller, which won four Oscars including best picture and director, stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg. The film tells the story of an Irish mob boss who plants a spy within the Massachusetts State Police just as the police assign an undercover cop to infiltrate the gang.

Matthew Vaughn, director of Argylle, is clearing things up and shutting down conspiracy theories that claim Taylor Swift wrote the book on which the film is based.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Taylor Swift is not the mysterious author behind the “Argylle” book that served as the inspiration for Apple’s upcoming spy thriller from director Matthew Vaughn. Conspiracy theories have circulated on social media for months alleging Swift is the author “Elly Conway,” a pseudonym for the writer whose manuscript was apparently so astonishing that it led to a reported $200 million deal for the film rights. Screenwriter Jason Fuchs adapted Conway’s book into Vaughn’s movie.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith is coming!

EXCLUSIVE: Another high-profile post-strike TV package has found a buyer. In a competitive situation with multiple bidders, Netflix has nabbed Covers, a drama from Girls creator Lena Dunham, who is set to write, direct and executive produce under her Good Thing Going banner; Drew Comins’ Creative Engine Entertainment (Yellowjackets); and Fifth Season, sources tell Deadline.

Pop star Dua Lipa has ruled herself out of the TV adaptation of Shuggie Bain – despite being a massive fan of the book.

Francesca Sloane is being refreshingly candid about her upcoming Amazon series reboot of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Of course Donald Trump‘s name comes up in the Jeffrey Epstein document dump! It would have been more surprising if he hadn’t. After all, they were good friends for many years, and even a few passing acquaintances get mentioned here and there. The question is, how is it mentioned??

A popular spy thriller with a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score has been renewed for a fifth season on Apple TV.

TV favourite Sarah Lancashire is joining Keira Knightley and Ben Wishaw for a new Netflix spy thriller.

for her red carpet appearances, which is how our girl accidentally found herself wearing a pajama top to Colin Farrell's movie premiere. Been there, babe. Sort of.“In the course of our fun time together, [Farrell] took me to the premiere of a spy thriller he was in called The Recruit with Al Pacino,” .

K.J. Yossman Ben Whishaw (“Paddington”) and “Happy Valley’s” Sarah Lancashire are set to join Keira Knightley in Netflix’s upcoming spy series “Black Doves,” Variety can exclusively confirm. More details about the series, which was written and created by “The Lazarus Project” showrunner Joe Barton, have also emerged.

Hulu announced today that Moving, which became the most-watched Korean original on the streamer and Disney+ globally earlier this summer, will be available in English in December.

A former SNP MP has claimed that Nicola Sturgeon allowed MI5 agents into the party.

Matthew Vaughn had a long conversation with “Happy Sad Confused” this week about his new film “Argylle” and just about everything else he’s done in his career. That includes Vaughn’s aspirations for an MCU-like spy cinematic universe at MARV that combines “Argylle,” the “Kingsman” franchise, and a third franchise he has in the works.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In 2016, John le Carré published a memoir called “The Pigeon Tunnel,” which the late spy novelist — who died in late 2020 — claims had been the working title of nearly all his books at some point. For le Carré, the term describes the passage through which naive birds of sport were forced from their nests, only to emerge as targets for marksmen waiting with rifles poised at a hotel in Monte Carlo.

Marta Balaga Everyone lies in the World War I series “Davos 1917.” Mostly because they have to. “You have war, you have the elite coming together in this one place. You have to watch your step and tread carefully.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Questlove spends most of his waking (and sometimes sleeping) hours of his life at the Greenwich Village’s famed Electric Lady Studios.