Topic Studios Promotes Ryan Heller To EVP, Film & Documentary

Not yet thirty years old, Mia Goth has already collaborated with several world-renowned filmmakers for her willingness to follow their most demented muses. Her girlish appearance strikes a shocking contrast with the atrocity exhibitions that she gravitates toward: eagerly taking to sexual grooming in Lars Von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac;” undergoing forcible insemination and grisly spaghettification with Claire Denis in “High Life;” becoming an insane asylum’s incestuous princess for Gore Verbinski in “A Cure for Wellness;” witnessing her own disembowelment as part of the orgiastic blood ritual Luca Guadagnino that’s the grand finale to “Suspiria;” manifesting a century of madness for Ti West’s in-progress trio of period pieces of “X,” “Pearl,” and the upcoming “Maxxxine.” And so it’s no surprise that Goth’s latest outing is another twisted affair: Brandon Cronenberg‘s “Infinity Pool,” which takes place at a Mediterranean beach resort that hides a violent and depraved sub-culture.

Amazon Studios is getting into business with Critical Role, the company behind Prime Video’s The Legend of Vox Machina animated series, with a multiyear exclusive overall television and first-look film deal.

Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon, Peaky Blinders) and Mena Massoud (Aladdin, Jack Ryan) have signed on to star in the sports drama Giant, written and directed by Rowan Athale (The Rise, Gangs of London, Strange But True) with Sylvester Stallone and Braden Aftergood of Balboa Productions on board as executive producers.

A performer at Universal Studios Hollywood at the Waterworld: A Live Sea War Spectacular was hospitalized after an accident during one of the shows at the theme park on Monday, January 23.

White Lotus stars Beatrice Grannò and Simona Tabasco are showing Us their Skims! The actresses were tapped by Kim Kardashian to star in her brand’s new Valentine’s Day campaign.

There’s crazy, there’s batshit crazy, and then there’s Brandon Cronenberg’s definition of crazy. It’s a crazy that’s impossible to contain and even more impossible to label: a mind-bending neon-lit nightmare bursting at the seams with perverse imagery, an abrasive embrace of the grotesque, and a ravishing explosion of seduction and power.

Gloria Sanchez, the production partnership between Will Ferrell and Jessica Elbaum that ramped up after Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy ended their long partnership, today launches Theater Camp. Coming on the heels of the Apple TV+ musical Spirited, Theater Camp premieres shortly at Eccles as an acquisition title. Directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, the film stars Gordon and Ben Platt as longtime best friends who return to an upstate run down theater camp which is imperiled when its founder lapses into a coma due to an unfortunate strobe light incident. Her son takes over, and he tries to stave off foreclosure even though he initially has little interest in greasepaint and the boards. The project grew out of Booksmart, another Gloria Sanchez production. Elbaum & Ferrell produced with PictureStart’s Erik Feig (who financed), Samie Kim Falvey, Julia Hammer, Ryan Heller, Maria Zuckerman, Noah Galvin, Gordon, Lieberman and Platt.

Dana Walden, chairman, Disney General Entertainment Content, has restructured another area of the division she took over last summer, bringing back together publicity and communications years after they had been split. She laid out the changes in the company memo, which you can read at the bottom of the story.

Italian big-screen diva Gina Lollobrigida was due to be laid to rest in her native hilltop town of Subiaco, after a televised funeral ceremony on Thursday at the Church of the Artists in nearby Rome.

Though Ti West has been making films for years now, it’s quite obvious that 2022 was by far the biggest year of his career. Not only did he release the acclaimed slasher, “X,” but he quickly followed that up with the prequel, “Pearl,” which might actually be the better of the two films.

[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl is set to debut a new combined version of his 2022 films Rimini and Sparta at the Rotterdam Film Festival later this month.

The FX docuseries Dear Mama is set to premiere on April 21 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and will stream the following day via Hulu. The premiere will include the first two episodes of the 5-part series, with one new episode each subsequent week.

CAA has promoted eight trainees from its training program, CAA Elevate, to Agent. Those moving up at the agency are Pili Allen, Tara Anderson, Nicole Brookman, Ben Gelfand, Erica Drache Martelli, Jonathan Rodrigues, Lucas Ryan and Michael Taber.

The Sundance Institute has today named the jurors who will preside over awards for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The 16-person lineup features everyone from CODA star Marlee Matlin to We Need To Talk About Cosby‘s W. Kamau Bell, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton and actor-comedian Jim Gaffigan.

A currently crippling fall may see Hanif Kureishi unable to walk or “ever be able to hold a pen.”

Romanian police officials have seized nearly a dozen luxury vehicles belonging to controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate amid his arrest!