The editorial staff at digital news site Slate has unanimously ratified its second collective bargaining agreement with the WGA East. The new three-year contract, covering 56 staffers, will see salary minimums rise to $58,000 by 2024, up from the current minimum of $51,000. Slate won union recognition in January 2018, and ratified its first collective […]
With the Winter Olympics set to begin next week in Beijing, a U.S. State Department human rights report paints a chilling picture of censorship, violence against reporters, and the suppression of dissent during the last Olympic Games held there. Even the Olympic torch relay was censored at the Beijing summer games of 2008 when dissidents […]
EXCLUSIVE: Harry Bradbeer is set to direct MGM and Hello Sunshine’s feature film adaptation Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, which is based on Gail Honeyman’s #1 best-selling novel of the same name. Georgia Pritchett will adapt with Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter producing for Hello Sunshine. Emily Ferenbach will serve as an executive producer. The novel […]
Mark Strong (Cruella, 1917), Mélanie Laurent (6 Underground, Inglorious Basterds), Jodie Turner-Smith (After Yang, Queen & Slim), Kuhoo Verma (Plan B, The Big Sick), Enrique Arce (Money Heist, Terminator: Dark Fate), Tony Goldwyn (The Hot Zone: Anthrax, King Richard), Annie Mumolo (Queenpins, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar) and Zurin Villanueva (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Detroit) have joined the cast […]
The Sundance Institute today set Fox Maxy as the recipient of the 2022 Merata Mita Fellowship, bolstering Indigenous women-identified artists in their efforts to mount a feature film. Maxy is a filmmaker and artist based in San Diego, CA. Her work has screened at BAM CinemaFest, International Film Festival Rotterdam, imagineNATIVE Festival, MoMAs Doc Fortnight, […]
EXCLUSIVE: Established post-production venue Levels Audio has expanded to New York, with noted industry vets Sue Pelino and Kassie Caffiero leading its new facility. The company has contributed audio and post elements to Peacock original series True Story with Ed and Randall and Netflix’s Cheer. Other credits include HBO Max’s Friends reunion special, NBC’s The […]
UPDATED with new date: The New York Film Critics Circle said the new date for its previously postponed 2022 awards ceremony will be Wednesday, March 16 at TAO Downtown in Manhattan. The group last month voted Japan’s Oscar submission Drive My Car as its Best Film, while Jane Campion was named Best Director for The […]
EXCLUSIVE: Carlota Pereda, the writer-director whose debut feature Piggy (Cerdita) makes its world premiere tonight in the Midnight Section of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, has signed with CAA. In Pereda’s Spanish-language horror film, an overweight teen is bullied by a clique of cool girls while holidaying in her village—with the long walk home that follows changing […]
For Robin Robin, directors Dan Ojari and Mikey Please looked towards animated Christmas specials as inspiration for their musical animated short. Robin Robin follows Robin (Bronte Carmichael), a young bird raised by a family of mice after her egg rolls into a dump. As she grows up and the differences between her and her family […]
EXCLUSIVE: Dagmara Dominczyk (Succession) is set for a key recurring role opposite Billy Crudup in Apple TV+ original series Hello Tomorrow!, from MRC Television. Created, written and executive produced by Amit Bhalla and Lucas Jansen, who will serve as showrunners, Hello Tomorrow! is set in a retro-future world. It revolves around a group of traveling […]
EXCLUSIVE: George & Tammy, the country music drama series centered around Tammy Wynette, is bulking up its cast. The limited series, which is a co-production between Spectrum Originals and Paramount Network, has added Kelly McCormack and Katy Mixon as guest stars. Jessica Chastain plays Wynette, the first lady of country music, while Michael Shannon is playing […]
Syfy has handed a 12-episode straight-to-series order to The Ark, from Independence Day writer-producer Dean Devlin and his Electric Entertainment. Stargate SG-1 writer-producer Jonathan Glassner will serve as co-showrunner and executive produce alongside Devlin. The series will begin production in March at PFI Studios in Belgrade, Serbia, with the premiere date TBD. Casting will get […]
The UK government’s £44M ($60M) Young Audiences Content Fund (YACF), which has gone some way to addressing steep declines in the nation’s commercial children’s TV market, is to wind down next month. The BFI, which operated the fund, had hoped it would be extended beyond its three years but the government has said no more […]
Gordon Ramsay’s Studio Ramsay Global (SRG) has opened its third hub in Glasgow from which it will produce a second series of BBC One format Future Food Stars. The Fox-backed outfit has already appointed its first researcher, who will start in March, and is openly recruiting for local production execs, development execs and producers to […]
Dekanalog To Release Long-Lost Doc EXCLUSIVE: New York-based distributor Dekanalog has acquired a pair of features for release in 2022. The first is Walter Saxer’s long lost documentary Sepa: Our Lord Of Miracles. Shot in 1987, the film observes the open-air penal colony of the same name, created in 1951 by the Peruvian government in […]
EXCLUSIVE: Stath Lets Flats producer Roughcut TV has hired two development execs to bolster its scripted comedy/drama credentials and is taking the hit Channel 4 comedy back out to U.S. networks. Roughtcut Managing Director Ash Atalla said Jamie Demetriou’s three-time-BAFTA-winning comedy about a hapless North London-based Greek Cypriot estate agent will be pitched to the […]
Music Financier Invests In ITV’s ‘The Ipcress File’ EXCLUSIVE: Music financier Cutting Edge Media Music has invested in ITV’s adaptation of Len Deighton’s The Ipcress File and will take full music rights to the upcoming series. Altitude Television’s big-budget six-parter has already pre-sold to AMC+ and producer Andy Mayson said “Cutting Edge’s involvement and expertise has […]
Newen Studios is moving into feature film after financier Anton increased its investment in the French production giant by 40% to €50M ($56.6M). The extension of the agreement comes after two years’ worth of Anton investment in which Newen has been behind the likes of OCS’ The Opera and France Télévisions/RTBF/ARD’s Crossroads. It is currently in production […]
Thandiwe Newton, as she now spells her first name, finally gets a role she can really sink her teeth into with God’s Country, a disturbing, unusually class-and-race-conscious modern Western that paints a pretty despairing view of human relations in red state America. Methodically paced and dominated by negative emotions all around, director/co-writer Julian Higgins takes […]
Krystin Ver Linden’s debut movie Alice arrives with the assurance that it is based on true events, one of those vague guarantees that lingers in the back of your mind while the movie unspools and what you think you’re watching turns out to be something very, very different. Factuality is often a moot point in […]
Kanye’s demands for the final cut on Jeen-yuhs makes its Sundance premiere all the more fascinating. The three-part Netflix documentary directed by Clarence “Coodie” Simmons and Chike Ozah is raw, rambling and riveting in equal measure. The press screener – labeled ‘Work In Progress’ – features previously unseen footage from 21 years of the performing […]
In the battle to protect their territory in the Amazon rainforest, the indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people really only have one significant weapon in their arsenal: media attention. Without it, landgrabbers will keep penetrating further into their land in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. The Territory, which just made its world premiere at Sundance, ups the media […]
Iconic fashion designer Manfred Thierry Mugler, founder of Mugler, has died at the age of 73. His personal Instagram page confirmed his death with a post of a black square and a caption that reads, “We are devastated to announce the passing of Mr. Manfred Thierry Mugler on Sunday January 23rd 2022. May his soul […]
