‘Fantastic Four’ Director Matt Shakman Signs With CAA

EXCLUSIVE: The Sex Lives of College Girls star Alyah Chanelle Scott has signed with Lighthouse Management + Media for management in all areas.

EXCLUSIVE: UTA has signed Young Mazino in all areas. The agency will help bolster Mazino’s career across film, television, and more.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International “Drive My Car” star Hidetoshi Nishijima has signed with CAA for representation. Nishijima starred in the acclaimed 2021 Japanese feature “Drive My Car,” which was nominated for four Academy Awards, and walked away with the Oscar for best international feature film. He earned several awards for his performance in the Cannes-premiering critical darling, including best actor from the National Society of Film Critics and the Boston Film Critics Circle Awards, as well as the Japan Academy Film Prize for best actor. Nishijima will next star alongside Rashida Jones in “Sunny,” Apple TV+’s half-hour dark comedy series from A24 and Lucy Tcherniak. He also stars in Kitano Takeshi’s “Kubi,” which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month.

EXCLUSIVE: Big Talk Productions is renaming itself Big Talk Studios and is reshuffling its top team as Matthew Justice departs after 16 years.

EXCLUSIVE: Zoë Chao has signed with Entertainment 360 for representation. She most recently appeared in Netflix’s Your Place Or Mine opposite Reese Witherspoon. She will next be seen in Hulu’s Nightbitch opposite Amy Adams and can currently be seen in the Party Down reboot for Starz. In March, SXSW premiered the independent film If You Were The Last, starring Chao and Anthony Mackie.

EXCLUSIVE: House of Lies creator Matthew Carnahan has signed with Verve for representation.

not-so-amicable parting from Warner Music was announced, Brazilian superstar singer Anitta has inked with Universal’s Republic Records, sources close to the deal tell Variety. Republic declined requests for comment. The singer left Warner after 11 years at the company and a big effort by the company’s Warner Records label to break the singer in the U.S. with her multi-genre latest album “Versions of Me,” released just over a year ago. Despite a blockbuster performance at last year’s Coachella festival, a massive international hit with the song “Envolver” (which has amassed more than 500 million streams on Spotify), and collaborations on the album with hitmakers like Max Martin, Ryan Tedder and Stargate — not to mention features from Saweetie, Missy Elliott, Khalid and Maluma — the album was not a hit in the U.S., although she remains a superstar in Latin America and other territories.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Oscar-winning documentarian Bryan Fogel has signed for representation with Range Media Partners. Fogel is best known for his 2018 film “Icarus,” which exposed Russia’s state-sponsored doping program and the whistleblower at its center. The Netflix title won the Academy Award for best documentary, the first such prize for the streamer. Prior to its crowning moment on the Dolby stage, the film sold for $5 million out of the Sundance Film Festival. Additional laurels for “Icarus” included the special jury prize at that year’s Sundance, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Journalism, and nominations from BAFTA, the television academy and the Directors Guild of America.

EXCLUSIVE: Veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss, best known for his Oscar-winning turn in The Goodbye Girl, has signed with Innovative Artists for representation.

EXCLUSIVE: Grammy and three-time Tony Award nominee, Joshua Henry has signed with Liebman Entertainment for management.

You may notice that “Sue Storm” and “Reed Richards” are gaining traction on social media, and it’s all because of some big casting rumors that are circulating. Sue Storm and Reed Richards are two of the lead roles in the Fantastic Four franchise, which is coming to Marvel in the near future.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Bestselling author and screenwriter Caroline Kepnes has signed with CAA, Variety can report exclusively. Kepnes is the writer-creator behind the four-book “You” series, following the exploits of magnetic serial killer Joe Goldberg. Her novels are the source material for the Netflix scripted juggernaut “You,” adapted by Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble. The series reinvigorated the career of Penn Badgley in the lead role of Goldberg, and has proven a massive performer on the streaming platform. A fifth and final season of the series was just greenlit. Kepnes, a native of Cape Cod, will next release “For You and Only You” on April 25 from Random House. It joins previous titles “You Love Me,” “Hidden Bodies,” and the flagship “You.” She is also the author of the novel “Providence,” a supernatural love story. Her works have been translated into numerous languages and continue to build a rapt audience around the world.

Micaela Diamond, currently costarring in Broadway’s hit musical revival Parade, has signed with CAA.

Jeanne du Barry starring Johnny Depp.Directed by French filmmaker Maïwenn, the biographical drama follows the life of Jeanne du Barry (played by Maïwenn), who climbed the social hierarchy to become the last royal mistress of King Louis XV (Depp).The film marks Depp’s first feature performance in three years, and comes after the actor won his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard last year.Asked by Variety about the “controversial choice” to open the festival with the actor’s comeback, Fremaux said: “I don’t see Maïwenn’s film as a controversial choice at all, because if Johnny Depp had been banned from working it would have been different, but that’s not the case.“We only know one thing, it’s the justice system and I think he won the legal case. But the movie isn’t about Johnny Depp.”Jeanne du Barry will open the festival on May 16, before it is released in cinemas in France on the same day.

Matt Baker has been flooded with support after sharing his heartbreak after his beloved dog died. The former The One Show host took to Instagram on Thursday (April 13) to share that his 'sweet natured' pooch Isla had devastatingly passed away.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Nick Schenk, a film and television screenwriter with an affinity for grit, has signed with Agency for the Performing Arts.  Schenk has penned three scripts that became director-star vehicles for Clint Eastwood: “Gran Torino,” “The Mule,” and “Cry Macho.” 2008’s “Gran Torino” revived Eastwood as a leading man at the box office, earning nearly $270 million worldwide on a reported $33 million budget. Schenk also wrote “The Judge,” a 2014 feature teaming of Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall, earning the latter an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.  Most recently, Schenk co-wrote ‘”A Christmas Story Christmas” for Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment. An update to the holiday classic, the HBO Max original saw young Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) all grown up trying to recreate the Christmas magic of his youth for his own kids. 

While “Deadpool 3” is gearing up to be Marvel’s first big attempt at tackling mutants, their upcoming “Fantastic Four” reboot is also going to be a real challenge as it’ll be the first proper hard reboot of the Fox era. The studio is said to be zeroing in on casting the four leading roles, and the latest update on the film is a bit of a switch-up on who is writing the script.

Josh Friedman (Snowpiercer) has taken over screenwriting duties on Marvel’s forthcoming Fantastic Four movie from Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer, Deadline can confirm.

EXCLUSIVE: Whitney Peak, who recently starred as Becca in the Disney+ sequel Hocus Pocus 2, has signed with CAA.