“Only Murders in the Building” is officially back, baby. We’re three episodes deep into the season, and we’re already obsessed with Meryl Streep’s character, confused about what shenanigans are about to ensue, and in love with Mabel Mora’s clothes.
01.08.2023 - 09:43 / variety.com
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Franco-Tunisian film and TV entrepreneur Tarak Ben Ammar is expanding the scope of his Italian operations by buying local unscripted production outfit Blu Yazmine, while also entering talks to build a large studio complex in Rome. Though Ben Ammar’s ambition to build sprawling new filming facilities in the Italian capital are in advanced talks but not fully concrete, the purchase of a majority stake in Blu Yazmine via his Rome-based Eagle Pictures has been closed.
Eagle Pictures, which is headed by former Mediaset exec Andrea Goretti, is Italy’s top indie film distributor thanks to its deals with Paramount and Sony Pictures, whose titles they release exclusively in Italian cinemas. The Rome-based company is also becoming increasingly active in the TV sphere.
The deal that Eagle has with Sony also involves a partnership to co-produce six pictures, one of which is the upcoming Denzel Washington-starrer “The Equalizer 3,” which was shot entirely in Italy. Blu Yazmine was formed in 2020 by veteran Italian TV executives Ilaria Dallatana and Francesca Canetta who, after starting out at Mediaset, founded Magnolia TV in 2001, which became a local leader in the creation and adaptation of television entertainment formats.
Magnolia was sold in 2008 to what is now Banijay Italia. Subsequently, Dallatana and Canetta headed Italian state broadcaster RAI’s RAI 2 station as network chief and deputy chief, respectively, between 2016 and 2017.
The Blu Yazmine management team – which will now remain unvaried – also comprises former RAI 1 chief Andrea Fabiano, who serves as the company’s chief content officer. Their current formats comprise the Italian version of NBC’s “Game of Games,” ZDF’s
.“Only Murders in the Building” is officially back, baby. We’re three episodes deep into the season, and we’re already obsessed with Meryl Streep’s character, confused about what shenanigans are about to ensue, and in love with Mabel Mora’s clothes.
Low end forecasts have Sony’s Denzel Washington starring, Antoine Fuqua-directed action threequel, The Equalizer 3 at $30M+ over 4-days.
Italian outfit Inter Milan are 'preparing a bid' for Manchester United-linked defender Benjamin Pavard.
Jennifer Lopez is expressing her love for hubby Ben Affleck song (sort of).The «Ain't Your Mama» singer took to Instagram on Tuesday to commemorate Affleck's 51st birthday, and shared an adorable video she recorded while in the passenger seat of their car — as the birthday boy drove around town.While on the road, Lopez beamed as she lip synced and danced to Sam Cooke's iconic love song «Wonderful World» and smiling brightly to the lyrics, «Don't know much about the French I took/ But I do know that I love you/ And I know that if you love me, too/ What a wonderful world this would be.»«Dear Ben … Happy Birthday. I love you!» Lopez captioned the heartwarming post.A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo)Back in July, the cute couple celebrated Lopez's birthday at their new home.
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez continue making the best of their summer, and this time, the couple were captured getting their shopping on in the Hamptons. Ben and JLo visited the Flying Point Surf and Skate store in Southampton, New York, and left with a funny graphic T-shirt written with: “Woke Up Sexy As Hell Again.” “They were very friendly to the staff and were both very happy that afternoon,” an insider told People.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Rome’s Cinecittà Studios are in the midst of a radical overhaul that started in June 2021, when the government-owned facilities, headed by Nicola Maccanico — who is a former Warner Bros. and Sky Italia senior exec — secured a multi-million dollar loan provided by the European Union’s post-pandemic recovery fund to upgrade and expand the studios. Productions that recently set up camp on its iconic backlot, lured in part by Italy’s generous 40% cash-back tax credit, include Roland Emmerich’s gladiator series “Those About to Die,” which is currently shooting, and Luca Guadagnino’s recently wrapped William Burroughs adaptation “Queer” starring Daniel Craig.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Nicole Morganti, Amazon Studios head of Italian originals, is being promoted by the streamer to the newly expanded role of head of local originals for Southern Europe encompassing Italy, France and Spain. Morganti, who has over 20 years of experience in the Italian entertainment industry, joined Amazon Studios as head of unscripted originals for Italy in February 2019 from her previously held position of Discovery Italy’s VP of talent and productions.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent An underhanded move by members of Italy’s right-wing government to try and take over the management of Rome’s Centro Sperimentale Film School is prompting an uproar by its students and a strong show of support from the country’s top directors. Earlier this week, students of the Centro Sperimentale — which is the oldest film school in the world, and among the finest — staged a demonstration in front of the country’s parliament just as a piece of legislation that would change the school’s management was swiftly being approved by a parliamentary committee.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent French director Élise Girard’s “Sidonie in Japan” starring Isabelle Huppert as a French writer mourning her husband’s death while on a book tour of Japan, is among titles set to launch from the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori. The section, also known as Venice Days, has unveiled its lineup comprising ten titles world premiering in competition – six of which first works – and films in other sections all displaying a wide range of genres and visual styles, but tied together by “A common discourse,” said the section’s artistic director Gaia Furrer.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent The 80th Venice Film Festival is announcing its lineup on Tuesday from the Italian city, where artistic director Alberto Barbera and La Biennale president Roberto Cicutto are holding a press conference. The Lido’s only previously announced titles in the main selection are the opener, Italian director Edoardo De Angelis’ “Comandante” — a lavish anti-war epic featuring local star Pierfrancesco Favino as a heroic Sicilian World War II naval officer — and the closer, Netflix’s survival thriller “Society of the Snow” by Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona. “Comandante” replaced Luca Guadagnino’s sexy sports comedy “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, which had previously been set as the fest’s buzzy opener but was pulled due to promotional complications prompted by the SAG-AFTRA strike.
People.Bennett died on Friday, at the age of 96.“Tony, naturally, loved visiting his ancestral homeland, and we spent many summers in Italy over the years,” Benedetto, 56, told a reporter. “It was always a special time for us to be together, just the two of us,” she fondly recalled.“Tony would paint all day, and then we would eat pasta, which was his favorite meal…Everyone knows Tony had heart, but he also was a wonderful soul,” she said of the “Cheek to Cheek” singer.She noted that her surname, Benedetto, is Bennett’s original family name — and that it means “the blessed one” in his mother tongue, Italian.
Tony Bennett’s fans are keeping his legacy alive!
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Spanish director J.A. Bayona’s “Society of the Snow,” a reconstruction of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes that forced survivors to take extreme measures, including cannibalism, has been set as the Venice Film Festival’s closing film. The deeply immersive Spanish-language saga is a Netflix original film shot in Andalusia’s Sierra Nevada, mainland Spain’s highest mountain range, using a 300-person crew. “Society of the Snow” will world premiere on the Lido out-of-competition on Sept. 9th. Its official screening will be held in the Palazzo del Cinema after the awards ceremony. In 1972 Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to bring Montevideo’s Old Christians Rugby Club team to Chile, crashed at an altitude of 11,712 feet in the Andes. Of its 45 passengers – which consisted mostly of the rugby team, friends and family – 29 survived. Without food, the survivors, who belonged to Uruguay’s elite, were forced to eat the flesh of the deceased to stay alive. 19 survived an avalanche. 72 days after the crash, 16 finally made it out alive.
Here are your Manchester City evening headlines for Friday, July 21.
death Friday at 96. Mayor Eric Adams, 62, was one of the first politicians to honor the legendary singer, taking to Twitter to write: “A working-class kid from Queens, Tony Bennett, sang our song to the world.
Tim Chan If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The late Tony Bennett is being remembered in a new children’s book that chronicles the singer’s inspiring path to success, and the impact he left with his seven decade-long career.
Tony Bennett died on Friday, July 21. He was 96 years old.
confirmed Bennett’s death, revealing he passed away in his hometown of New York. His cause of death — just two weeks shy of his 97th birthday — has not yet been announced.“I come from good Italian stock — but I’ve tried to stay fit through the years,” Bennett told me nearly 20 years ago.At the time he was a spry 72, meeting and greeting concertgoers with swagger before a benefit performance in the blazing hot Sonoran Desert of Tucson, Ariz.For two decades beyond that, the 20-time Grammy winner kept swinging as smoothly as ever — making history as one of the only artists to chart new albums in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and the first three decades of the 21st century.Anthony Dominick Bennedetto was born into a poor family of Italian immigrants living in Astoria, Queens, on Aug.
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Tony Vinciquerra, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, took a guarded tone in talking about the SAG-AFTRA strike during an industry panel in Italy on Friday. But it was clear that he hopes it will be over soon. “We are very dismayed about having these strikes” said Vinciquerra, referring to the combined WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that mark the second time in Hollywood history that actors have joined writers on the picket lines. “We want to make a deal,” the Sony chief went on, adding: “Even though there have been a lot of headlines saying the opposite.”
Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Banijay is expanding its footprint in Italy’s scripted production arena by partnering with Greenboo Production, the shingle recently founded by “Perfect Strangers” producer Marco Belardi. Formerly known as Bamboo Production, Greenboo was launched last year by Belardi, who formerly headed the Leone Film Group’s film and TV company Lotus Production. Besides producing “Perfect Strangers,” the megahit concept dramedy that’s been remade in a dozen countries around the world, Belardi has also spawned a steady stream of other hits such as Gabriele Muccino’s “There Is No Place Like Home,” which in 2018 pulled in more than $10 million locally and has been spun off recently into a successful TV series for Sky. They also have high-end series “Lions of Sicily” coming up for Disney and a multi-picture deal with Netflix.