Verve Promotes TV Literary Agent Melissa Darman to Partner (EXCLUSIVE)

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Nicole Power has joined the ensemble of the upcoming Netflix drama series“Glamorous.” She will appear alongside the previously announced “Sex and the City” icon Kim Cattrall, as well as actor, singer-songwriter and YouTuber Miss Benny. In the show, Power will portray Mykynnleigh, a seemingly guileless corporate consultant who rolls into town to help make a business deal happen. Although she seems wholesome and unsophisticated, those appearances are deceiving as Mykynnleigh possesses a lot of backbone and business acumen. “Glamorous” tells the story of Marco Mejia (Miss Benny), a gender-nonconforming queer young man whose life seems to be stuck in place until he lands a job working for legendary makeup mogul Madolyn Addison (Cattrall). It’s Marco’s first chance to figure out what he wants out of life, who he actually is and what it really means for him to be queer.

Ben Croll Marion Cotillard will star as Coco Chanel in “Rencontre(s),” an immersive, interactive, and multi-sensorial project that whisks participants back to Paris of the Roaring Twenties. Making its world premiere as part of the Venice Film Festival’s recently rebranded Venice Immersive showcase for new-media projects, the pop-history experience mixes live elements with 2D animation and XR embellishments to retrace the creation of Chanel No 5. Variety debuts the teaser here (below). Commissioned by Chanel and produced by Paris-based studio Atelier Daruma, the 15-minute immersive experience puts participants into the shoes of Ernest Beaux, the Russo-French perfumer who created the iconic elixir for the fashion icon. Voicing an animated version of Coco Chanel in both English and French, the Oscar-winning actress plays the designer at the height of her Queen of Paris fame, as a 38-year-old doyenne and magnetic pole for the city’s modernist and avant-garde scenes.

Caroline Framke Chief TV Critic For any adult still avoiding animation out of some stubborn refusal to understand its advantages as a both visual and storytelling medium, “Pantheon” makes its ambitions known from the get-go. After the eerie opening theme, scoring a fluorescent string of code smashing through a Greek statue, the show cuts to a high-school classroom, where a blunt voiceover lays the stakes bare. “Most of the girls in my class completely missed the moment when the world began to end,” teen outcast Maddie Kim (Katie Chang) tells us, the laptops blinking in unison as if in agreement. It’s a fittingly arresting start to this unnerving series, which taps an all-star cast to meld micro character work with macro questions about technology that may never have a satisfying answer.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Sandbox Films and Gamechanger Films will develop “Under the Dream,” a new documentary feature that will be co-directed and co-produced by Saelyx Finna, Mia Imani and Laurie Polisky. The film is a creative documentary about the uncharted realm of dream technology and the Black-led movement to protect our minds at night. Gamechanger CEO Effie Brown, and Sandbox Film’s Jessica Harrop, head of production and development, and founding director Greg Boustead will be acting as executive producers on the project.   Sandbox is a documentary studio behind “Fire of Love,” a look at married volcanologists that debuted at Sundance before selling to National Geographic Documentary Films, and Gamechanger Films is a production company behind the upcoming A24 release “The Inspection.”

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media Russell Crowe will play a former homicide detective tasked with re-examining a brutal murder case from his past in “Sleeping City.” The Nickel City Pictures film marks the directorial debut of Adam Cooper, who wrote the script with Bill Collage. The film is an adaptation of E.O. Chirovici’s acclaimed novel, “The Book of Mirrors.” Cooper and Collage previously penned the scripts for “Assassins Creed” and “Exodus: Gods and Kings.” Crowe played Roy Freeman, who is undergoing a cutting-edge Alzheimer’s treatment. He is forced to grapple with the impact of an investigation from his former life after a death row inmate that Freeman arrested 10 years prior starts to proclaim his innocence. Intrigued and fighting to regain his memory, Freeman enlists his former partner to help him revive the case and discover the truth. Together, they set off to unravel a tangled web of secrets, forcing Freeman to make some horrific discoveries.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Paris-based company Indie Sales has boarded Emad Aleebrahim Dehkordi’s feature debut “A Tale of Shemroon” which is set to premiere in the New Directors competition at San Sebastian. Set in the north of Tehran, “A Tale of Shemroon” follows Iman and his younger brother Payar who live with their father. After the death of their mother, Iman starts a business thanks to his connections with the city’s affluent youth, but these new opportunities bring him on a dangerous path affecting his family’s destiny. “We are proud to be a part of San Sebastian’s New Directors competition with this new voice from Iranian cinema,” said Nicolas Eschbach at Indie Sales. “Emad (Aleebrahim Dehkordi) depicts the reality of the Iranian youth living in parts of Tehran that have seldom been seen before,” Eschbach continued.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media IFC Films has acquired North American rights to “Four Samosas,” a romantic comedy set in the Little India neighborhood of Los Angeles. The film premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. IFC will release “Four Samosas” in theaters and on demand on Dec. 2, 2022.  Ravi Kapoor directs and Venk Potula (“Veep”) leads an ensemble cast that includes Sonal Shah, Sharmita Bhattacharya, Nirvan Patnaik, Karan Soni, Summer Bishil, and Meera Simhan. The film centers on wanna-be South Asian American rapper, Vinny (Potula), who along with three friends — all of them first-time thieves — plans to rob a grocery store owned by his ex-girlfriend’s father, in order to steal her wedding diamonds and disrupt her pending engagement. 

Britney Spears' mother, Lynne Spears, is speaking out after the singer made a series of bombshell claims about her 13-year conservatorship in a lengthy audio file, which she released publicly on YouTube over the weekend. In the 22-minute clip — which has since been made private, though the audio of it has been reposted online — Britney issues a series of accusations against her family members, including parents Lynne and Jamie Spears, and expresses deep hurt and anger. «I felt like my family threw me away,» she says at one point. Lynne took to Instagram on Sunday with a response of her own, sharing a black and white throwback shot with her daughter. The pair are seen arm-in-arm, laughing, as they walk through a wooded area in the photo. «Britney, your whole life I have tried my best to support your dreams and wishes! And also, I have tried my best to help you out of hardships! I have never and will never turn my back on you!» Lynne captioned the post.

J. Kim Murphy Daniel Craig brushed up on his voice to shoot “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” sharing that he worked with a coach in order to regain the Southern accent that he used to play detective Benoit Blanc in the first “Knives Out.” “I went away to work with an accent coach for three or four months before we started shooting,” Craig told Empire magazine in the publication’s upcoming profile of “Glass Onion.” “I’d forgotten the accent and I didn’t want to do a pastiche. I wanted to make it as grounded and as anchored in reality as possible.” In the first “Knives Out,” Blanc’s voice is described by the uppity Ransom Drysdale (played by Chris Evans) as a “Kentucky-fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl” — a far cry from Craig’s own British accent, which he employed across his 15-year tenure leading the James Bond series.

K.J. Yossman Ewan McGregor is set to star in “A Gentleman in Moscow,” the adaptation of Amor Towles’ novel, for Paramount+ and Showtime. McGregor, who has previously starred in the Star Wars franchise and “Halston,” will play Count Alexander Rostov who finds himself going from riches to rags following the Russian revolution. A Soviet tribunal banishes him to the attic room of an opulent hotel, where, oblivious to the world outside, he “discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.” “It’s an amazing, wonderful story and I am very excited to get to play such a fabulous role,” said McGregor, who will also produce the series,

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaRLJE Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, has acquired “Old Man” and is planning to release the thriller this fall. The movie from director Lucky McKee (“All Cheerleaders Die”) stars Stephen Lang, who is best known for his work as the chief villain in “Avatar.” It marks the screenwriting debut of Joel Veach and co-sters Marc Senter (“Starry Eyes”), Liana Wright-Mark (“Ocean’s 8”), and Patch Darragh (“Succession”).

Selome Hailu Disney Branded Television has set a celebrity voice cast for its upcoming animated musical series “Firebuds” including Padma Lakshmi, Melissa Rauch, Oscar Nuñez, José Andres, Pamela Adlon and “Weird Al” Yankovic. The series will premiere on Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney+ on Sept.

EXCLUSIVE: Kyle Jaeger has joined 2AM as a manager and will focus on representing emerging creators across film, television, and theater.

With Little Mix currently on hiatus (we're fast-approaching the 100-day mark, not that we're counting), our attention's turned to Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall and Perrie Edwards' solo endeavours.

It is with overwhelming sadness that Musicoast Pty. Ltd. and Universal Music Australia announces the death of…Posted by The Seekers on Saturday, August 6, 2022Durham’s family have asked for privacy in the wake of her passing.

Judith Durham, an Australian folk music icon whose voice graced several international hits with her group, The Seekers, has died at 79.