‘Tomb Raider’ Director Simon West to Direct Saudi Arabia-Set Epic ‘Antara’ at Neom’s Bajdah Studios

Ellise Shafer When Chappell Roan calls from Los Angeles, the singer-songwriter is picking up matcha on her way back from a morning pilates class. “I like, kind of hate myself because of that sentence,” Roan tells Variety. “I’m literally in Silverlake — that’s even worse.

Fox News Bret Baier sat down with Saudi Arabian leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tonight and, to Baier’s credit, asked some pointed questions which MBS – as he is known – answered in turn with degrees of candor and deflection.

Cello, the under-the-radar English and Arabic-language horror movie shot in Saudi Arabia by Saw filmmaker Darren Lynn Bousman received its world premiere this week at the Muvi Cinema in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

In what’s being billed as the Saudi leader’s “first interview with a major American news network since 2019,” Fox News announced that Bret Baier will sit down with Mohammed bin Salman for a “no holds barred” conversation.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent U.S. director Darren Lynn Bousman’s English and Arabic-language horror film “The Cello,” starring Jeremy Irons and “Saw” star Tobin Bell, is set to open theatrically across Saudi Arabia on Thursday, marking a significant moment in the kingdom’s moviemaking ambitions. The high-end chiller, about a cellist who finds out his new instrument comes with a centuries-old curse, is generating local buzz and robust ticket pre-sales following its gala premiere on Sept.

Manchester City are reportedly set to joust with Liverpool for the signature of West Ham defender Nayef Aguerd.

L.A. Confidential Oscar-winning scribe Brian Helgeland had cracked a sequel with the original author James Ellroy to the City of Angels film noir — but no one bit, not even the pic’s original studio, Warner Bros.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent British director Luna Carmoon’s first feature “Hoard” has scored three prizes at the Venice Critics’ Week where the other standout title is Chilean documentary “Malqueridas.” In “Hoard,” which is set in 1984 London, 7-year-old Maria and her mother live in their own loving world built on sorting through bins and collecting shiny rubbish. One night, their world falls apart, and the film joins Maria a decade later, living with her foster mother.

Sharareh Drury How does one measure the worth of one’s life? Does one life have more value than another? These complicated questions are at the center of British-Palestinian writer-director Farah Nabulsi’s feature debut, “The Teacher,” which premieres in TIFF’s Discovery section. The film follows Palestinian schoolteacher Basem (Saleh Bakri), who acts as a father figure to two of his students, Yacoub (Mahmoud Bakri) and Adam (Muhammad Abed El Rahman), amidst turmoil in the West Bank.

Here are your Manchester City evening headlines for Friday, September 8.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent London and Paris-based Film Constellation has taken international sales on Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky’s hotly anticipated Saudi-set travel movie “Hajjan,” ahead of its Toronto Film Festival world premiere. “Hajjan,” which will launch from Toronto’s Discovery section, is a followup to Shawky’s first feature “Yomeddine,” which had the rare distinction of making the competition cut for Cannes.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Giuliano Montaldo, the prolific Italian director, actor and film industry executive, whose works comprise powerful political drama “Sacco and Vanzetti” about the Massachusetts trial and execution in 1927 of accused Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, has died at his home in Rome. He was 93.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Chinese director Bi Gan, whose 2018 film “Long Day’s Journey into Night” played at Cannes, will next direct “Resurrection.” The ambitious sci-fi detective movie is to be headlined by Chinese superstar Jackson Yee (“Better Days”) and Taiwanese actor Shu Qi (“The Assassin”) who sits on this year’s Venice jury. Boasting Bi’s edgy aesthetic and narrative style, the film tells the story of a woman whose consciousness falls into the “eternal time zone” during a surgical procedure.

A Massachusetts teen has passed away after attempting a viral social media challenge.

Angel Studios, the platform empowering filmmakers with full creative control to crowdfund and create, is announcing today the release of CABRINI—the second Angel Studios release from SOUND of FREEDOM Director Alejandro Monteverde. CABRINI will launch in theaters nationwide on March 8, 2024.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent French director Edouard Bergeon, whose Cesar-nominated debut feature “In the Name of the Land” was a box office hit in 2019, has penned another eco-thriller, “The Green Deal.” The movie, which is partly set in the Indonesian forest, has been boarded by Playtime and will be pitched to buyers at the Toronto Film Festival. “The Green Deal” explores crimes and colliding interests in the exploitation of a palm oil and the production of biofuels.

Dawson’s Creek is a beloved modern teen TV classic.

Con-Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider director Simon West will shoot his upcoming historic drama Antara in Saudi Arabia in the country’s growing production hub of Neom.

EXCLUSIVE: Saudi Arabia’s Red Rea Film Foundation has announced it is investing in Johnny Depp’s Modi, Michael Mann’s Venice title Ferrari and Guy Ritchie’s World War Two spy action feature The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Did the Algonquin round table somehow spiritually relocate itself in the early 1970s to Key West, Florida? The idea that the small, remote island city was a hotbed for one of the last great counterculture arts scenes — particularly for prose writers, but also with some music mixed in — is the focus of a new short film about the Key West scene of 50 years ago, “All That Is Sacred.” The 34-minute movie, which stars the famous novelist Tom McGuane and writer-musician Jimmy Buffett, has its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival this weekend. Variety has an exclusive premiere for a trailer for the film, which does not yet have distribution; check it out below.