‘The Lego Batman’ Director Chris McKay to Adapt Brynne Weaver’s Bestseller ‘Butcher & Blackbird’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Chris Pratt's wife Katherine Schwarzenegger is 'pregnant with their third child' - just two years after welcoming their youngest child.The Hollywood actor, 45, and author Katherine, 34, who share daughters Eloise Christina, 2, and Lyla Maria, 3, are expecting another bundle of joy, according to a report from People on Friday, 28 June. Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter is believed to be pregnant again but the couple have not addressed reports.They already have two young daughters together and Chris is also father to 10-year-old Jack, who he shares with his ex-wife, Anna Faris. He and American Pie actress Anna were married from 2009 and 2018 before calling it quits.

SPOILER WARNING: This story discusses plot points from “A Quiet Place: Day One,” now playing in theaters. Audiences watching “A Quiet Place: Day One” might find themselves rooting for an unlikely hero: Frodo the cat. That’s because director Michael Sarnoski wanted the black and white kitty to feel like a real character. “We managed to get through the whole movie without creating a CG cat, which was a big victory for us,” he declares, proudly.

Variety’s chief film critics have found much to love: studio knockouts, independent standouts, international gems, documentary landmarks, underground breakouts. Here are our picks for the 10 best movies of 2024 so far. It’s scarier than any horror film.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Before Kevin Costner‘s highly anticipated “Horizon” hits theaters this weekend, the actor and director has released a photo book that delves even deeper into the themes of the Western epic — and it’s already a No. 1 bestseller on Amazon.

Lexi Carson More Godzilla and King Kong are coming to Max. “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” will be available to stream from home on Max starting July 4. The film was a box office hit earlier this year with $196 million at the domestic box office and $567 million worldwide.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Maximum secrecy – including an omerta about the cast – was observed during the filming of “The Chronicles of Libidoists,” a Taiwanese film fable that is pitched as a modern-day retelling of “The Little Mermaid” fairy tale. A work-in-progress teaser in Cannes, however, disclosed that major Taiwan star Wu Kang-ren was the protagonist of the production which, now completed, seems certain to challenge censors worldwide. With the film poised for imminent commercial release in Taiwan and a series of autumn festival play dates being lined up, it is easy to see why the cloak of anonymity was required.

Felonious Gru and his brood return to the big screen July 3 in Illumination and Universal Pictures’ Despicable Me 4, seven years after its predecessor and two years after spinoff prequel Minions: The Rise of Gru.

K.J. Yossman Happy Accidents has set up a second North American office. The international film and TV studio has also appointed Courtney Colman as its chief financial officer.

EXCLUSIVE: Image Nation Abu Dhabi is teaming with L.A.-based Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov and his production banner Bazelevs to launch the Screenlife Accelerator Program in the UAE.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor The Palm Springs International ShortFest has announced the juried and audience award winners for its 2024 edition, which took place June 18-24. Over $25,000 in cash prizes and five Academy Award-qualifying honors were presented to the winning films, which included Esteban Pedraza’s “Bogotá Story” and Jadwiga Kowalska’s animated film “The Car That Came Back from the Sea.” See a full list of winners below.

EXCLUSIVE: Synchronicity Films is adapting Hanif Kureishi’s The Body as a series with the novelist and screenwriter on board as an exec producer and Emmy-nominated director Paul McGuigan attached. There are scripts from crime writer Robert Murphy and the producers will relocate the action from the UK to the U.S. for the series.

Percival Everett, whose novel “Erasure” was adapted as “American Fiction.” Steven Spielberg will executive produce the movie through his company, Amblin Partners, with Taika Waititi in early talks to direct the project. Everett will write the screenplay and will serve as executive producer. Published in March by Doubleday to critical raves, “James” reframes the classic story of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim, an enslaved man who floats down the Mississippi River with teenaged Finn, a good friend of Tom Sawyer.

Laika, the renowned Oregon animation studio founded by Travis Knight, has acquired the internationally bestselling fantasy novel Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, enlisting Knight to direct an animated feature adaptation.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor James Chance, the confrontational, controversial saxophonist and singer of the Contortions and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, who helped start the No Wave movement of the late 1970s in New York City, died Tuesday in New York, his Facebook page confirmed. He was 71. “His death was announced by his brother David Siegfried of Chicago, who did not specify a cause of death but noted that the musician’s health had been in decline for several years,” the statement said.

The Munich International Film Festival will screen 152 films from 53 countries during its 41st edition, which runs from June 28 to July 6. 

Coming into a series that has been on for two seasons doesn’t always leave a lot of room for new ideas, but costume designer Christina Flannery says she was thrilled with the opportunity to embellish and elevate the established characters for the third season of The Righteous Gemstones. “Time had passed, so we were able to show that the three siblings were taking over the church and I was able to push my own look into it for sure,” she says. “The costumes of season one and two are great, but I definitely think that my injection of these psychedelic neons and rhinestones took the baseline and allowed us to fold out the characters more.”

Anohni and the Johnsons played their first show in nine years in Athens last night (June 13) – read on to see the footage.READ MORE: Anohni – ‘My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross’ review: a sublime soul reinventionThe group last performed live in June 2015, the final show taking place in Hobart, Australia. That absence came to an end in the Greek capital’s Odeon of Herodes Atticus on Thursday with a show that took in material from across their career, as well as Anohni’s 2016 solo album ‘Hopelessness’.The group were introduced by the renowned performance artist Marina Abramovic, and gave live debuts to a number of songs, including ‘It Must Change’, ‘Can’t’ and ‘Why Am I Alive Now?’Check out footage below:ANOHNI and the Johnsons @ Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Acropolis.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales agency Films Boutique has closed further deals for Ray Yeung’s “All Shall Be Well,”following the North American deal with Strand Releasing and the first international sales previously announced by Variety.The film has been acquired by Nour Films in France, One From the Heart in Greece, Mezipatra in Czech Republic and Slovakia, HBO Europe in Eastern Europe, Beta Film in Bulgaria and Falcon in Indonesia, in addition to the already announced deals with Vedette in the Benelux, Karma in Spain, Trigon in Switzerland and Lev in Israel.Films Boutique is in negotiations with potential buyers in the U.K., Latin America, Germany and Japan.Additionally, New Voice Film Productions Ltd. secured distribution deals with Golden Scene for Hong Kong and Macau and Flash Forward Entertainment in Taiwan.“All Shall Be Well” is written and directed by Yeung and was produced by Yeung’s frequent collaborator Michael J.

Ben Croll Paris-based Kinology will handle international sales for “Ogresse,” a musical directed by Grammy-winner Cecile McLorin Salvant and acclaimed animator Lia Bertels. Spearheaded by Miyu Productions and adapted from a stage show that Salvant has toured since 2019, the animated fable mixes digital 2D and stop-motion alongside a wealth of musical styles ranging from ballads to jazz waltzes to baroque lamentos, setting to song the plight of a misunderstood outsider living alone in the woods and the heartache of young knight sent to fatally win her heart. After claiming two prizes out of the Annecy Animation Festival’s Mifa pitch session last year, the international co-production has emerged as an industry buzz title, winning support from the likes of Claude Barras, who will co-produce and provide stop-motion assistance through his Lausanne-based Helium Films banner.

Ben Croll In a sign of Folivari’s widening ambitions, the French animation powerhouse will handle world sales of the Sherlock Holmes spinoff “The Baker Street Four” through its newly launched distribution branch Folivari International. Adapted from a local comic book series that pairs Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective with four streetwise urchins, the title was developed in-house, with Folivari and Blue Spirit (“Blue Eye Samurai”) tackling creative duties and Canal+ set as commissioning broadcaster.