Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit Examines Innovative Tech Impacting Film, TV

Writers rooms are opening this week for Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television’s three Chicago dramas for NBC, three FBI dramas for CBS as well as NBC’s Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter The 2023 Variety Gotham Week Expo kicked off in New York City on Thursday with a series of panels focused on diversity and inclusion. The first panel of the day was “Deep Dive: The Inclusion List” with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative in collaboration with the Adobe Foundation. Panelists included Dr.

Sharareh Drury Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival GEMS has announced the full lineup for its 2023 festival, which will run from Nov. 2-5. The 10th edition of the fest will feature 26 films from 14 countries, all taking place at MDC’s Koubek Center and Silverspot Cinema.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Jack Neo, for two decades Singapore’s most commercially successful filmmaker, is to direct and produce “Money No Enough 3,” a second sequel to his oldest film franchise. The film is the first project from HiJack Pictures, the joint venture outfit between distributor-producer Clover Films and Neo’s J Team productions that was announced last year. Neo has either directed or starred in nine of the all-time top ten local movies in Singapore. “Money No Enough 3” will reunite the three stars of the original movie, Mark Lee, Henry Thia and Neo himself.

iKON have opened up about their departure on YG Entertainment and why they decided to make that choice.In December 2022, YG Entertainment announced that the K-pop agency and iKON had “mutually agreed” to end the boyband’s exclusive contract, following a “long and careful discussion” with the group’s members.Thereafter, the six-member group signed with 143 Entertainment in January 2023. Since then, the boyband have released their third studio album, titled ‘Take Off’, and embarked on a world tour in support of the record.In a new interview with Forbes, iKON has opened up about why they decided to leave YG Entertainment.

Beyoncé fans looking to experience her “Renaissance World Tour” in a new way may get their wish before the year ends. According to multiple reports, the icon is in final talks to bring her global tour to the big screen via AMC Theatres. Per Variety, the theatre chain will reportedly skip over the studios for direct distributio

International execs from Unifrance, MK2 and TrustNordisk kicked off the annual Zurich Summit on Saturday to discuss the importance of film festivals when promoting a title and if fests are drifting away from what works in cinemas. 

EXCLUSIVE: The End of the F***ing World producer Clerkenwell Films and Envision Entertainment are co-creating a six-part drama series about a working-class teenage girl sent to an elite finishing school.

So, filmmaker Gareth Edwards is doing the interview round for his latest sci-fi extravaganza, “The Creator,” starring John David Washington. It’s a movie heavily indebted to “Blade Runner,” “Apocalypse Now,” and even “Star Wars” (read our review here).

Naman Ramachandran Signature Entertainment has acquired U.K. and Ireland rights to writer-director Warwick Thornton’s Australian drama “The New Boy” from The Veterans. The film follows a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun, disturbing the delicately balanced world.

Baz Luhrmann has been named president of the Features Competition jury at the upcoming Red Sea International Film Festival. This third edition of the event runs from November 30-December 9 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

McKinley Franklin editor Leaders from Mattel, YouTube, Universal Pictures, Google, Amazon and more gathered at Variety’s Entertainment and Technology summit, presented by City National Bank, to breakdown the future of marketing in the entertainment space. Panels included conversations with the leading experts on artificial intelligence, fan-focused growth on social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok and the massive future of online gaming. Here are a few of the key takeaways from a day of lively discourse.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In one of the first deals to emerge from the San Sebastian Film Festival, powerhouse indie studio, Filmax, which celebrates its 70th anniversary at San Sebastian Festival, has snapped up international rights to LGBTQ+ dramedy “Norbert(a)” from Imposible Films, the producers of hits “Truman,” “The People Upstairs” and “Stories not to be Told.” Directed by newcomers Sonia Escolano, who also penned the script, and Belén López Albert, it is toplined by Luis Bermejo (“Magical Girl”), Adriana Ozores (“Alba”), Mariona Terés (“The Girls at the Back”) and María Romanillos. Norbert(a) follows Norberto and María, who’ve been married for decades and live what seems like an ordinary life in their working-class neighborhood.

Seth MacFarlane is donating an additional $5 million to The Entertainment Community Fund just shy of two months after an initial gift of $1 million to assist industry workers impacted by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Woodstock Film Festival has added Tony Goldwyn’s comedy drama “Ezra,” starring Bobby Cannavale and Robert De Niro to its 2023 lineup.In the film, which made its world premiere earlier this month at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival, Cannavale stars as Max, a stand up comic who after recently blowing up his career and marriage is living with his father Stan (De Niro).

Maja Hoffmann has been officially confirmed as President of the Locarno Film Festival following a vote at an Extraordinary General Assembly on Wednesday.

Marta Balaga International Sámi Film Institute’s managing director Anne-Lajla Utsi will now add “trailblazer” to her résumé as the recipient of the first-ever Women in Film and Television International Peace Prize. The award ceremony will take place on Sept. 23 during the WIFTI Helsinki Summit.

BreAnna Bell Fox Entertainment Global is expanding its content slate, adding new unscripted programming from Fox Alternative Entertainment, Gordon Ramsay’s Studio Ramsay Global, and TMZ. Announced for MIPCOM 2023, the new content will be joining original animated content from Bento Box Entertainment, live-action comedy from FOX Entertainment Studios; and more than 20 movies produced by MarVista Entertainment.

A first-time filmmaker has claimed the top prize at the 19th Annual Camden Film Festival in Maine, one of the country’s foremost all-documentary festivals.

Organizers of the Camden International Film Festival in coastal Maine are moving ahead with regular programming today, as Hurricane Lee – downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone – aims further north towards Nova Scotia.