Vertical Entertainment Acquires Sci-Fi Thriller ‘No Running’ Starring Skylan Brooks, Rutina Wesley, Taryn Manning & More, Eyes Spring Release

Al Roker Entertainment has optioned the New York Times best-selling novel The Personal Librarian (Berkley/Penguin) from authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray for a limited series.

William Earl Sky Studios CEO Cécile Frot-Coutaz has been selected as the 2022 recipient of the Variety International Achievement in Television Award, to be presented at global content market MipTV in Cannes in April. Frot-Coutaz was the Head of EMEA at YouTube and CEO of Fremantle before joining Sky Studios last year.The award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated leadership and innovation in the international television marketplace.

Whoopi Goldberg fired back at Bill Maher over comments he made in his Real Time monologue Friday evening, including, “I don’t want to live in your paranoid world anymore — your masked, paranoid world.”

Bari Weiss revved up a fierce debate about our return to normalcy in a COVID-19 world.On Friday’s episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher,” Weiss articulated what many Americans are feeling: a searing fatigue with the seemingly endless COVID restrictions that have led to an alarming mental health crisis among our youth, saying that pandemic-related rules will be “remembered by the younger generation as a catastrophic moral crime.”“I’m done. I’m done with COVID,” she said, noting that early in the pandemic she complied with every recommendation. “I sprayed the Pringles cans that I bought at the grocery store, stripped my clothes off because I thought COVID would be on my clothes.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterNetflix has emerged victorious in a bidding war for director Lee Daniels’ next movie.Several Hollywood players, including MGM and Miramax, were vying for rights to the Oscar-nominated director’s upcoming project. Netflix’s $65 million price tag — a hefty sum covering the film’s production budget and buyouts — secured the sale, according to Deadline Hollywood, who broke the news.The movie reunites Daniels and Andra Day, who recently worked together on Hulu’s musical biographical drama “The United States vs.

While Alex Garland‘s next film “Men” for A24 is in the can and should come out later this year, his relationship with the indie studio, which released his debut directorial effort, “Ex Machina,” is only growing stronger. According to Deadline, Garland’s follow-up film will be “Civil War,” an original action epic with an American near-future setting with A24 getting involved alongside production company DNA Films.

EXCLUSIVE: Bill Maher is back and ready to rumble.

EXCLUSIVE: The Santa Barbara Film Festival will be getting a touch of Lucy and Desi by way of honoring another pair of major stars.

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical Entertainment has acquired North American and UK rights to Hector Barron’s horror-thriller In the Forest, along with U.S. rights to Alice Blehart’s animated film Little Sorcerer. Both titles are slated for a day-and-date theatrical release, with the former from Disrupting Influence to hit screens on January 28, and the latter from Chinese independent animation studio Gold Valley Films to debut on May 6.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterEcho Lake Entertainment has optioned Melissa Gould’s memoir “Widowish” to develop it as a TV series, Variety has learned exclusively.The book tells the story of Gould’s life after the unexpected death of her husband. Left to raise their adolescent daughter on her own, and act as if she could resume life without him by her side, Gould found that she didn’t fit the typical idea of widowhood or meet the expectations of mourning.

New Yorkers strolling through Washington Square Park got a huge surprise from a comedy legend this week.

The White Lotus star and SAG Award nominee Murray Bartlett has boarded Hulu’s limited series Immigrant, which hails from Pam & Tommy creator Robert Siegel. He joins star and executive producer Kumail Nanjiani.

EXCLUSIVE: Greenwich Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Mau, the first-ever feature-length doc about world-renowned designer Bruce Mau. The indie distributor will release the film written and directed by Benji and Jono Bergmann (Netflix’s Oscar-shortlisted Camp Confidential) in theaters on March 18.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinedigm has acquired North American rights to the horror film Incarnation starring Taye Diggs (All American, House on Haunted Hill), Jessica Uberuaga (Take Back) and Michael Madsen (Species, Hell Ride), with plans to release it in theaters and on VOD on February 18.

EXCLUSIVE: Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to the WWII-era romantic drama I’ll Find You from director Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl, Real Genius). The Anthem Sports & Entertainment company plans to release the title starring Adelaide Clemens (To the Stars), Leo Suter (Sanditon, Beecham House), Stephen Dorff (Old Henry, Deputy), Connie Nielsen (Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Wonder Woman 1984) and Stellan Skarsgård (Dune, Chernobyl) in theaters and on demand on February 25.