Friends star Courteney Cox and UK producer Sister are investing in a new production venture from British TV producer Richard Bacon.
16.03.2023 - 23:23 / variety.com
Pink Parrot, for example, unveiled a bevy of pre-sales on comedy romp “4 Days Before Christmas,” led by deals with Germany’s Splendid and Kaleidoscope in the U.K. FilmSharks has closed Latin America with The Walt Disney Co./Star Distribution on “Dalia and the Red Book,” as well as Germany, Russia/CIS and Taiwan with the U.S., France, Japan, Spain and Italy in discussions. Open-market international sales for theatrical distribution have sagged terribly in the past two decades on all but standout titles. One exception, which can still deliver seven figure returns, is animation. Despite a slowing sales cycle, Mafiz and the Spanish Screenings still saw a dizzying slew of announcements. Following, a selection:
*In two big plays pointing to how the international market is trending, in the run-up to Malaga, Erik Barmack announced the launch of a Latin American movie finance completion fund and Sony Pictures International, María Ripoll and El Estudio a rom-com movie series, The Love Collection. *Fathom Events and Spain’s Bosco are prepping a U.S. theatrical release in September for doc “Libres.” *”Waiting for Dalí” director David Pujol is lining up a new feature film, “Rehearsal for a Kiss,” and paparazzi series “The Flash Game.” *On individual titles, Filmax swooped on sales rights to “Ashes in the Sky,” the true story of an anti-facist freedom fighter, new Victor García Leon comedy “One Hell of a Holiday!” and “Killing Crabs,” Canarian filmmaker Omar Al Abdul Razzak’s feature fiction debut which world premieres in Malaga’s Zonazine strand. *”10.000 km” directed Carlos Marques-Marcet is readying “They Will Be Dust,” a woman’s euthanasia drama casta as a musical. *Disney’s Star Distribution has acquired Latin American
Friends star Courteney Cox and UK producer Sister are investing in a new production venture from British TV producer Richard Bacon.
EXCLUSIVE: Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (I Feel Pretty) have closed deals to write and direct Big Pink, an English-language remake of the Spanish dramedy La lista de los deseos for Monarch Media.
A magical love story! Melissa Joan Hart and husband Mark Wilkerson have a sweet romance that has been going strong for two decades.
A post shared by Melissa Joan Hart (@melissajoanhart)“We helped all these tiny little kids cross the road and get their teachers over there, and we helped a mom reunite with her children.”The actor explained that this was the second time her family had been in close proximity to a school shooting after they moved to Nashville from Connecticut where her kids were in a school “a little ways down” from the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting.“I just don’t know what to say anymore,” the actor added. “It is just, enough is enough.
Matteo Berrettini leads the way on a jog with Melissa Satta in Miami, Fla., on Tuesday afternoon (March 28).
Melissa Joan Hart believes “enough is enough.”
Universal Television is developing a series adaptation of Diane Marie Brown’s debut novel Black Candle Women with Jenna Bush Hager, who has a first-look deal with Universal Studio Group, under her production banner Thousand Voices. Hager is teaming with Bel-Air showrunner Carla Banks Waddles and Good Girls creator Jenna Bans, both of whom have overall deals with UTV, for the project.
Peter Andre has opened up about living in Japan, recalling a time when a Japanese mafia boss started yelling aggressively at him and tensions started to rise. Singer Peter, 50, said the experience left him "petrified" as hee described the “dangerous” situation as “a little too close for comfort”. He told The Sunday Times: "On this particular night, this man just started yelling at me really aggressively and it turned out he was a member of the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza.
His greatest catch! Mets pitcher Edwin Díaz and wife Nashaly Mercado have been by each other’s side for more than a decade.
Melissa Joan Hart revealed last weekend that she and her husband of nearly 20 years regularly go to couples therapy, which helps them have a "safe space" and "understand" each other. "We’ve been in and out of couples therapy and we really enjoy that because it just helps us understand each other better even after 20 years," the "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" star, 46, told US Weekly on Saturday at the nostalgic 90s Con in Connecticut. "We do it once in a while." She said she and husband Mark Wilkerson, 46, have gone more "consistently" since last fall. "We kind of go in and out of seasons of it, but I just find it to be so helpful because it really kind of helps us have a safe space.
The Miami Open tennis tournament kicks off this week and Denmark’s Holger Rune and Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas were just two of the ATP stars who volunteered during the Miami Open Unites campaign on Monday (March 20) in Miami, Fla.
A work in progress. Melissa Joan Hart and husband Mark Wilkerson still put plenty of effort into keeping their marriage strong after nearly 20 years.
Ed Meza @edmezavar Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren’s celebrated Spanish feature “20,000 Species of Bees” and Kattia G. Zúñiga’s Panamanian drama “Sister & Sister” took the top prizes at the Malaga Film Festival, garnering the Golden Biznagas for Spanish and Latin American pictures respectively. “20,000 Species of Bees” also won best supporting actress for Patricia López Arnaiz and picked up theSpanish Cinematographic Informers Association’s Feroz Puerta Oscura award. The film’s success follows two awards in Berlin, including a Silver Bear for Sofía Otero for her portrayal of a young girl going through a gender crisis. For Zúñiga, the Golden Biznaga is sure to help further propel “Sister & Sister,” an autobiographical story about two teenage sisters who travel from Costa Rica to Panama in search of their absent father.
Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Nearly a week after the Oscars, the hurt and disappointment of a missed opportunity still weighs heavily on the minds of some South Asian American dancers, who are setting out to ensure it never happens again. Many in the South Asian dance community were dismayed by the astonishing dearth of South Asian representation in the “Naatu Naatu” performance at Sunday’s Academy Awards. While singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava were on hand to perform their hit tune from Tollywood smash “RRR” — which made history for India that night by winning best original song — they were joined on stage by not a single dancer of South Asian heritage.
Joshua Alston Some of the best television shows are about whip-smart operators and the political nuances of their professional worlds. So why then is it so challenging to make a satisfying series about academia? It’s not only difficult to think of a television show that has succeeded in lifting the veil of a university, it’s tough to think of shows that have even tried. The most recent swipe at it was Netflix’s “The Chair,” a thin but charming dramedy starring Sandra Oh that ended after a single season. Even as college campuses remain a go-to battleground for American culture wars, the inner lives of the professors caught in the crossfire are usually reserved for novels. The latest such attempt to animate the tenured life is AMC’s “Lucky Hank,” which is built from just such a novel. It’s an adaptation of “Straight Man,” the Richard Russo novel that preceded his Pulitzer Prize-winning “Empire Falls.” Much of Russo’s work borrowed elements from his real-life origins as an English professor-turned-novelist, which explains why “Lucky Hank” so accurately captures professorial ennui. But it might capture ennui a little too well, resulting in a show that seems to amble in no particular direction with little indication of when it might hit a stride.
Callum McLennan “Girl, Unknown,” the sophomore feature from Spanish director Pablo Maqueda (“Dear Werner”), currently ranks as one of the early buzz titles at the Málaga Film Festival, even before its world premiere. The film adapts Paco Bezerra’s stage play “Grooming.” Maqueda, Bezerra and Haizea G. Viana wrote the script, which retains the play’s unsettling cat-and-mouse element. It delves into the recesses of desire, raising questions on depravity, sexuality, and the drive to be fulfilled. The story unfolds a pendulum swinging power dynamic between the seemingly innocent 16 year old Carolina, and a middle aged man she meets in a park named Leo. What begins and is a case of grooming morphs into something far more complex due to Carolina not being all she seems. Maqueda shows a Hanekesque talent in balancing the disturbing with the thrilling. On the film, Maqueda told Variety: “I feel the film as a kaleidoscope and the characters as masks. I like stories that navigate in the daily terror of everyday life,”
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent MALAGA, Spain — It’s not over yet. In March 2021, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced the government would plow €1.6 billion ($1.9 billion) into a Spain AVS Hub plan designed to turn Spain into one of the foremost film and TV hubs in Europe. Supported by Spain’s E.U-backed Recuperation, Transformation and Resilience push for post COVID-19 recovery, the Spain AVS Hub plan has been co-financed by part of a €806.9 billion ($866.5 billion) NextGenerationEU stimulus package for the whole of the European Union, which is a temporary instrument. As that package ends, Spain’s government will look to negotiate funding from alternative sources to ensure that Spain AVS Hub initiatives are more than a flash in the pan, a broad cross-section of governmental authorities told an audience Tuesday at a Malaga Spanish Screening Content conference.
Pedro Pascal, one of the most popular actors at the moment and best known for his current roles in HBO’s ‘Last of Us’ and Disney+’s ‘The Mandalorian,’ attended the Oscars not only to present an award, also to support someone special in his life, his sister, Javiera Balmaceda.While Pedro has been in the spotlight a lot lately, his sibling also has a very successful career in the film industry. Javiera is a producer, and while she didn’t receive a nomination, she was part of several projects recognized throughout the awards ceremony.
Richard Gere and his family are taking some time to enjoy the outdoors after the actor's recent hospitalization. On Sunday, Gere's wife, Alejandra Silva Gere, took to Instagram to share a family photo that included the couple, along with one of their sons, spending time on a farm. "In these times, especially if you live in the city, it is so difficult to be able to enjoy the basic pleasures that nature offers us — for me, the ones I value the most and those I want to instill in my family," Alejandra first captioned the post in Spanish.
is once again one of the most talked-about films in 2023, in large part thanks to one of its former child stars, Ke Huy Quan, who has made a major Hollywood comeback with . In the 1985 film directed by Richard Donner, written by Chris Columbus and based on a story by Steven Spielberg, Quan plays Richard «Data» Wang, a spy fanatic obsessed with making his own gadgets who is one of several kids living in a coastal Oregon town attempting to save their homes from foreclosure by searching for the long-lost fortune of legendary pirate One-Eyed Willy.During his emotional speech for his historic Best Supporting Actor Oscar win on Sunday for his role in, Quan personally thanked his co-star Jeff Cohen, who later became his lawyer and negotiated his deal for Cohen played Chunk in. Quan was in tears as he thanked Cohen, calling him his «Goonies brother for life.»The longtime friends later happily posed at the after-party alongside Ana de Armas.Back in January when Quan received an Oscar nomination, Cohen — who's a partner at entertainment law firm Cohen Gardner LLP — shared a heartfelt message for him on Twitter.«Could not be more proud of and excited for my Brother, Ke Huy Quan,» he wrote while sharing pictures of the two, including a throwback on of them on the set.