Diagnosed with epilepsy, director Miles Levin refused to hide. Instead, he took an “emotional leap” with the upcoming feature “Under the Lights.” “The best movies come from journal entries you wouldn’t want anyone to read,” he says. “If you have a story that comes out of you with no risk whatsoever, it’s less likely to […]

Something wicked this way comes on the packaging of Mattel’s “Wicked” dolls. There’s a website listed on the toy box, but instead of linking to the webpage for the movie adaptation of the Tony-winning musical, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, Mattel has mistakenly listed the URL to a pornographic website. The film’s official website […]

Long before Chappell Roan debuted her new country song, “The Giver,” on “SNL” and leaned into the camera to exert lesbian ownership of country-style expression, Fancy Hagood was committed to carving out space for queerness in country music. Earlier this year, he started covering Roan’s song “Casual,” joking that her unabashed lyrics had finally freed him up to […]

Filmmaker Tyler Taormina quickly fell in love with IFC Films’ idea for how to market his merry-and-bright feature. The indie distributor’s trailer for “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” plays as a full-on throwback to how holiday season comedies used to be advertised, complete with baby boomer doo-wop, a long list of grinning cast members and […]

“Red One,” a Christmas-themed release in which Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays Santa’s head of security, didn’t have too big a bounty to unwrap in its international box office debut. The film collected just $26.6 million from 25,195 screens across 75 overseas markets over the weekend. By comparison, “Venom: The Last Dance” added $33 million […]

Jaymes Vaughan debuted two new Christmas singles on Nov. 8, performing both on board Hallmark’s Christmas Cruise on the Norwegian Gem. The singer is married to Jonathan Bennett, Hallmark actor and producer, who also served as the host of the inaugural cruise. Vaughan performed “It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas” and “Home for […]

Elon Musk is apparently not impressed by Dana Carvey’s impression of him on “Saturday Night Live.” “Dana Carvey just sounds like Dana Carvey,” Musk wrote on X, replying under a clip of last night’s cold open, in which Carvey sported Musk’s “dark MAGA” hat and jumped up and down chanting, “USA! USA!” Responding to another […]

The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race features Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, and William Byron and others during the 36th annual race. The race takes place at Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, AZ, on Sunday, Nov. 10 with a start time of 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT. If you want to catch all of […]

Andra Day is joining the Season 2 cast of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” as Athena. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, is one of the most important Olympian characters in Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson” books, being the mother of Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries), Percy’s (Walker Scobell) close friend and fellow demigod. Day made […]

A Locarno world premiere this August, “Rita,” the directorial debut of Spanish star Paz Vega (“Spanglish,” “Lucia & Sex”), has clinched first key market sales, rolling off the American Film Market. Sales company Filmax has closed the U.K. and Ireland with Signature Entertainment, whose recent and upcoming releases include “The New Boy,” “Unicorns” and Viggo […]

Jon M. Chu had a pretty good excuse for missing the premiere of “Wicked.” The director of the two-part musical epic couldn’t make the starry Los Angeles event because his wife gave birth to their fifth child, a girl, on Saturday, Nov. 9 — the same day as the pink-and-green celebration. “This movie has always […]

In “September 5,” which Paramount plans to release on Nov. 29, the tense hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics unfolds with painstaking detail from the point of view of the ABC Sports team covering the games. To do this, director Tim Fehlbaum and the team went to great lengths to give what cinematographer […]

“Venom: The Last Dance” is looming over the domestic box office in its third weekend of release. The third and final installment in Sony’s comic book trilogy has added $16.2 million from 3,905 North American theaters, down 37% from the prior frame and enough to lead over two newcomers, A24’s horror thriller “Heretic” and Lionsgate’s […]

Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti’s Israel-set family drama “Happy Holidays” won the top prize Sunday at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, taking home the Golden Alexander for best feature film. Copti’s sophomore feature, his first film since his Oscar-nominated 2009 debut “Ajami,” premiered in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons sidebar, winning the best screenplay prize. Variety’s Siddhant […]

Five years after his feature debut “All This Victory” took the Grand Prize and the audience award at Venice’s Critics’ Week, Lebanese filmmaker Ahmad Ghossein is gearing up to shoot his next film. The filmmaker’s sophomore effort, “The Side Effects of Trusting Life,” was selected as part of this year’s Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Agora Crossroads […]

The NFL travels to the Bavaria for a regular-season game in Germany. For Week 10, two conference rivals go head-to-head as the New York Giants (2-7) face off against the Carolina Panthers (2-7) at Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany on Sunday, Nov. 10. The game kickoffs at 9:30 a.m. ET/6:30 a.m. PT on NFL Network, […]

As the Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) concludes its fifth edition, the event has reaffirmed its role as a significant platform for the creative industry on the island – and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. With a focus on collaboration and cultural representation, TCCF 2024 brought to light three key trends that reflect Taiwan’s evolving position […]

For his first “Weekend Update” segment following Donald Trump’s victory on Tuesday, co-anchor Michael Che appeared to raid his liquor cabinet. “How did I let y’all convince me that rural Pennsylvania would pick the Jamaican Indian lady?” Che lamented before reaching under his desk for a glass of brown liquid. “Clearly, I’ve been spending too […]

Hosting the post-election episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Bill Burr opened his monologue with a laugh: “Nice to be here on such a fun week. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t watch politics. We’re gonna keep it light.”  But it wasn’t long before he addressed the elephant in the room. “All right ladies, […]