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Tatiana Siegel Universal Pictures has found its director for the high-priority Leonardo da Vinci film. “All of Us Strangers” helmer Andrew Haigh has signed on to direct and adapt Walter Isaacson’s acclaimed biography of the Renaissance man. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Isaacson’s book became one of the hottest literary properties when it hit the market in 2017.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Playtime has boarded “Crossing Lines,” a Danish thriller by Baghdad-born first-time director Jahfar Muataz. Currently filming, “Crossing Lines” revolves around a reformed criminal, Cairo, who enjoys his new life as a gang exit counselor. When his nephew Hamza disappears, Cairo discovers he had secretly joined his former gang.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music In the wee hours of Thursday — 2:35 a.m, ET, to be precise — Universal Music Group and TikTok announced the settlement of their three-month standoff over royalties, AI policies and other issues. The battle was significantly disruptive to the industry but most of all to artists, thousands of whom suddenly found their music muted on the world’s most powerful platform for discovering and promoting music.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Jessica Casano-Antonellis is exiting SiriusXM to join the new Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery sports-streaming venture as head of communications.

J. Kim Murphy Benedict Cumberbatch sees the strings in the first trailer for Netflix’s “Eric,” a new limited series that sees the British actor take on the role of a children’s television puppeteer that becomes wracked by guilt after his son disappears, as well as obsessed with the nine-year-old’s imaginary creation.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic One of the buzziest — or should that be tipsiest? — performances at this past weekend’s Stagecoach came from an artist who wasn’t even listed on the poster art. Late-breaking sensation Shaboozey was squeezed into the festival as a performer in the Bud Light Backyard tent, where there was other squeezing going on as Sunday’s festivalgoers stood in line to get a glimpse of the artist whose “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has proven to be a straight-out-of-the-box smash among both country and hip-hop fans. Shaboozey isn’t coming to stardom himself in any kind of overnight way; the 28-year-old, Virginia-born singer-rapper put out his first single 10 years ago, and he’s about to release his third major-label album.

Alex Ritman Kristen Stewart and Oscar Isaac are teaming up to star in the next wild-sounding project from Panos Cosmatos, best known for soaking Nicolas Cage in blood and vodka for his trippy action-horror “Mandy.” “Flesh of the Gods,” launching in Cannes with WME Independent, CAA Media Finance and XYZ Films, packs some considerable pedigree behind the camera, having been written by Andrew Kevin Walker (“Se7en,” “The Killer”) from a story he devised with Cosmatos, and produced by Adam McKay and Betsy Koch of Hyperobject Industries. Isaac and Gena Konstantinakos also produce for Mad Gene Media, the production company Isaac set up with his wife Elvira Lind.

Naman Ramachandran Indian studio Applause Entertainment‘s upcoming big-budget series “Gandhi” aims to humanize the Mahatma. The first season covers the formative years of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s life as a law student in London and later as lawyer and civil rights activist in South Africa, during which time he conceived the ideas that ultimately led India to independence from British rule.

Naman Ramachandran “Harry Potter” star Tom Felton is currently filming the series “Gandhi,” where he plays Josiah Oldfield, the future Mahatma’s friend in London. Part of the series, produced by Sameer Nair for India’s Applause Entertainment and directed by Hansal Mehta, follows the young Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi when he was in London to study law and missing vegetarian food.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “Cobra Kai” Season 6 is getting a super-sized sendoff. As part of the Netflix Is A Joke Festival, the streaming giant has announced that the final season of the popular series will consist of 15 episodes, with the season to be split into three five-episode blocks. The first five episodes will premiere on July 18, while the second batch of five will premiere on Nov.

Marc Malkin Senior Editor, Culture and Events When Maddie Ziegler first read the script for her new dramedy short “Kodar: The Primordial God of Light and Ether,” she immediately started googling the title character. With his ghostly complexion and horns protruding from his head, she assumed he was from the MCU or some other IP. “I was doing all this research, but I was like, ‘I can’t find anything about him,’” Ziegler tells me.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Music Box Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Daaaaaalí!,” the latest film by Quentin Dupieux whose upcoming movie “The Second Act” will world premiere on opening night at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Naman Ramachandran The London West End stage adaptation of “Fawlty Towers” will be free of racial slurs, creator John Cleese has said. “Fawlty Towers – The Play” is based on the classic 1975 sitcom and is written by Cleese and Connie Booth and adapted for the stage by Cleese. Cleese, who co-wrote the original 1975 TV series with Connie Booth and starred as Basil Fawlty, has written the two-hour play based on three of the original TV episodes – “The Hotel Inspector” and “The Germans” from Season 1 and “Communication Problems” from Season 2.

Jennie Punter Spain’s push to position itself as a premier player in the world’s film and TV industries extends to the documentary zone, as both audiences and industry delegates discovered in the impressive display of the country’s finished and work-in-progress films and co-production know-how at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival this week. According to the European Audiovisual Observatory’s Yearbook 2023/2024, Spain is the European leader in documentary production, with 153 films in 2022 (Italy was second with 137, Switzerland third with 83)—a sign that Spain’s €1.6 billion public investment in the strategic sector, intended to spur production growth for the 2021-2025 period, has taken root in the doc space.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Iranian authorities are exerting heavy pressure on director Mohammad Rasoulof to pull his latest work “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” from the Cannes Film Festival by harassing the film’s producers and actors who have been summoned for questioning and banned from leaving the country. Human rights lawyer Babak Paknia, who is Rasoulof’s lawyer, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that several unspecified actors and producers on “Sacred Fig” were summoned and questioned last week by authorities.

K.J. Yossman Tom Hollander and Niamh Algar are set to lead “Iris,” a new Sky Original drama from “Luther” creator Neil Cross.

Amber Dowling Specific images of the Holocaust have endlessly punctuated the film and TV landscape: The barbed wire of a concentration camp. Naked bodies rendered to skin and bone, tossed in discarded piles. Gleeful abuse and random killings by evil Nazis.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Meryl Streep will receive the honorary Palme d’Or on the opening night of the 77th edition of Cannes Film Festival, Variety has learned. Luring the Oscar winner is yet another feat for this Cannes edition, which will bring together a flurry Hollywood legends. Notably, George Lucas will receive the honorary Palme d’Or during the closing ceremony; Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” and Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” are playing in competition; and George Miller‘s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and Kevin Costner’s Western epic “Horizon, an American Saga” are playing out of competition.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor SAG-AFTRA will license Nielsen‘s streaming content data, which the union will to enforce the terms of its 2023 contract with Hollywood studios. Under the deal for Nielsen’s Streaming Content Ratings, SAG-AFTRA will have “an objective source of domestic viewership data for original streaming programming,” the parties announced.

Alex Ritman Simon Curtis (“My Week With Marilyn,” “Downton Abbey: A New Era”) has lined up a quartet of stars for upcoming comedy “Encore” from “Twilight” banner Temple Hill Entertainment. The film — announced by Protagonist Pictures, which is launching worldwide sales ahead of Cannes — will reunite eight-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close with Oscar winner Jeremy Irons 34 years after their critically acclaimed hit “Reversal of Fortune.” Henry Winkler and Don Johnson round out the ensemble cast. Written by Academy Award nominee Robert Nelson Jacobs (“Chocolat”), “Encore” follows a group of retired actors as they attempt to reignite their passion for life.

Addie Morfoot Contributor The Hot Docs Forum, the festival’s industry centerpiece, wrapped Wednesday with its most lively awards announcements in recent memory—complete with flamenco guitar, song and dance courtesy of Spain, this year’s country in focus—as hundreds of industry delegates assembled under the sun in the courtyard of Toronto’s Hart House. Elaine Epstein’s “Arrest the Midwife”—one of 20 projects presented to key funders and decision-makers as well as filmmakers, producers and other observers at the two-day Forum pitch event—won the First Look first prize of Can $20,000 cash.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Memento International has boarded “Gazer,” the debut feature of American filmmaker Ryan J. Sloan which will world premiere at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Addie Morfoot Contributor In “Streets Loud With Echoes” filmmaker Katerina Suvorova captures a youth-powered civil movement sparked by the shocking murder of Denis Ten, who made history when he became the first ever Kazakhstani figure skater to win an Olympic medal. The doc follows Kazakhstan citizens who want to challenge the political regime and make them take notice of their citizenry. The 95-minute docu made its world premiere at Hot Docs earlier this week.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor David Wnendt, the German director behind controversial coming-of-age movie “Wetlands,” Hitler satire “Look Who’s Back” and teen crime drama “Sun and Concrete,” is once again pushing boundaries with his next feature film project. Backed by distributor-producer Constantin Film and with Seven Elephants lead producing, Wnendt has embarked on the feature film adaptation of the award-winning novel “Athos 2643” by Nils Westerboer. Wnendt, who will both write the screenplay and direct the theatrical film, promises an “emotional and spectacular experience that will take the audience into the vastness of outer space,” according to a press statement.

Naman Ramachandran The next venture from “RRR” director S.S. Rajamouli is Disney+ Hotstar animated series “Baahubali: Crown of Blood,” based on the hugely successful “Baahubali” film franchise. A trailer has been unveiled.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Paris-based international sales and production company Totem Films has revealed its production slate, with projects by Nastia Korkia, Vytautas Katkus, Ernst de Geer and Anna Roller. Totem brought together the directors and writers of the projects they are developing to take part in a Script Circle in Berlin, led by consultants Françoise von Roy and Franz Rodenkirchen. Totem partners Bérénice Vincent and Laure Parleani said that the production companies they are working with, Garagefilm, TamTam and Kalekone, were “enthusiastic about this collaborative idea, so were the directors and scriptwriters.” They added: “It is very nurturing to have a mix of different personalities, countries and backgrounds.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The months-long standoff between Universal Music Group and TikTok over royalty payments and AI policies is finally over, at least for the time being, with the announcement that the two entities have struck a deal to bring the label’s music back on the platform. As part of the agreement, the companies stated that they will “deliver improved remuneration for UMG’s songwriters and artists, new promotional and engagement opportunities for their recordings and songs and industry-leading protections with respect to generative AI.” UMG’s music will return to the platform imminently, and the companies will collaborate on realizing “new monetization opportunities utilizing TikTok’s growing e-commerce capabilities and will work together on campaigns supporting UMG’s artists across genres and territories globally.” “This new chapter in our relationship with TikTok focuses on the value of music, the primacy of human artistry and the welfare of the creative community,” said Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of UMG.

Murtada Elfadl “The Battle for Laikipia” offers a prescient perspective by focusing on the communities that are living with the consequences of climate change right now: the ranchers and pastoralists of Laikipia, located on the equator in Kenya. These people, their cattle, their farms — their means of life — have been dealing with drought. Over a period of approximately two years, the documentary’s directors Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi show how climate change can directly resurface tensions that have been kept at bay for generations.

Naman Ramachandran Indian streamer SonyLIV has unveiled the cast and a first look for its magnum opus series “Freedom at Midnight.” Based on the 1975 non-fiction book by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, the political drama delves into India’s independence movement, weaving together untold tales and critical moments from the era when the country’s then British colonial rulers partitioned the country into India and Pakistan. Sidhant Gupta (Prime Video series “Jubilee”) plays Jawaharlal Nehru, who became the first Prime Minister of independent India, Chirag Vohra (SonyLIV series “Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story”) Mahatma Gandhi and Rajendra Chawla (Netflix film “Looop Lapeta”) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who became the first deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India.

Angelique Jackson Following the success of “The Curse,” Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder and A24 are teaming up again to take on the cutthroat world of chess. The studio has won the rights to the hot feature package “Checkmate,” based on a book proposal by author Ben Mezrich, whose works were adapted into “The Social Network” and “Dumb Money.” The story centers on what has been described as the “biggest scandal in the history of chess,” following the controversial 2022 head-to-head match between Grandmasters Magnus Carlsen, then world champion, and Hans Niemann, during which the latter was accused of cheating.