‘The Walking Dead’ Maker Skybound Launches Unscripted Division

The National have added a massive Cardiff Castle show to their summer 2024 UK and Ireland tour plans.The American quintet – comprised of Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Bryan Devendorf and Scott Devendorf – are set to perform at the iconic Wales establishment on July 3.They will be joined by special guests, New Zealand psychedelic rock band Unknown Mortal Orchestra, who will serve as the opening act for the night. Tickets for the Cardiff Castle gig are available to purchase here.The National are also set to perform at a variety of festivals this summer including taking over the Other Stage at this year’s edition of Glastonbury.

Salma Hayek had a wonderful time visiting The Pinault Collection, an extensive art collection amassed by her husband, French billionaire François Pinault, and his family. The private collection is at three museums, and she stopped by the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice, Italy, to appreciate it.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Epic war-time survival tale “The Guns of Muschu” has already assembled a weighty cast ahead of a production start in the first quarter of 2025. The film is an adaptation of the non-fiction book “The Guns of Muschu,” written by Don Dennis, with an adapted screenplay by Tom Broadhurst and Jack Brislee (“Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan”). The narrative brings to life a pivotal chapter of Australian war history with gritty authenticity, recounting the high body count Operation Copper, a mission during WWII when Australian and New Zealand troops were sent into the jungles of Papua New Guinea. The objective of the mission was to investigate the Japanese defenses on Muschu Island, capture a Japanese officer for interrogation and discover the location of two naval guns on the island that were protecting a harbor.

Lise Pedersen In an exclusive interview with Variety after picking up the top industry prize at Swiss documentary festival Visions du Réel, Franco-Iranian director Mehran Tamadon outlined the intention of his upcoming feature documentary “The Last Days of the Hospital.” Set against the backdrop of France’s public health crisis and shortage of personnel, the film will show patients from a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Paris taking charge of their own ward. Tamadon has been running film workshops with the patients at the hospital for the past eight years, and decided it was time to make a film to denounce what he describes as “the ultra-liberal policy which plans the death of the public hospital.” “French public hospitals are not doing well, nurses and caregivers are leaving because they are mistreated and poorly paid.

EXCLUSIVE: Adult animation is among the best performing genres on Hulu with shows like Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers, and the streamer has been looking to expand its original offerings with series like Solar Opposites and the Futurama revival.

The 2024 Tribeca Festival, which unveiled its film slate Wednesday, is out with its television lineup of world premieres of new and returning programs from networks and streamers.

Lise Pedersen Two new cash prizes introduced this year in Swiss film festival Visions du Reel’s industry section, VdR-Industry, were among a flurry of awards handed out as the program wrapped in Nyon, Switzerland, on Wednesday. The Eurimages Co-production Development Award, created to promote the fund’s role in encouraging international co-production from the initial stages of a project, and which comes with a cash prize of €20,000 ($22,000), went to “The Last Days of the Hospital” by Mehran Tamadon (“My Worst Enemy,” “Bassidji”).

When the late, legendary filmmaker William Friedkin called Kiefer Sutherland to gauge his interest in playing the lead in the Showtime and Paramount+ film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, the actor hung up almost immediately. But not because he wasn’t interested in working with the director he’d long revered, Sutherland explained. “I thought it was one of my friends making a joke.”

Taylor Swift has been on the road with her mega popular Eras Tour for well over a year now, playing to tens of thousands of fans each night across the continents in North and south America, Australia and Japan, so far. Luckily for British Swifities, the queen of pop will be making the UK and Ireland her home for the next leg of the Eras tour in a matter of weeks.

Even as he collected his martini, the burly stranger who introduced himself as “Joe” exuded an aura of belligerence. We were standing on the fringe of a post-screening reception, so, hand extended, I blurted, “Did the movie work for you?”

Race Across the World is back on BBC One, and among the five teams of two are Londoner Eugenie and her daughter Isabel.The contestants will be pushed to their physical and emotional limits as they leave behind smartphones, internet access and bank cards to cross six seas and eight borders from northernmost Japan.The first team to reach the final destination bags a £20,000 cash prize. Eugenie, 60, hails from Barking and is a teacher, while her daughter Isabel, 25, from Birmingham, is a trainee clinical scientist.They hope that the experience will bring them closer together, despite admitting that their relationship can be fiery at times.

Wow!

So, Sony was here at CinemaCon after all. In a way. Sony domestic distribution chief Adrian Smith took the stage to introduce the first ever Crunchyroll presentation at the Las Vegas exhibitor and studio confab. Smith beamed that the label “has exceeded all our expectations and everyone at Sony is excited about the future and what’s coming.” 

James Bond. Created by Ian Fleming, Bond epitomizes the suave, sophisticated spy with a penchant for danger and romance.

Christian Nodal and Cazzu are basking in the happiness of parenthood with their daughter, Inti. Since becoming first-time parents, the family has been experiencing many “firsts” together. Most recently, they introduced Inti to the ocean.

The Libertines have revealed that they’ve bought the bathtub that Jim Morrison died in for their Margate hotel, The Albion Rooms.The band released their fourth album ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ last Friday (April 5), marking their first full-length record in almost a decade. It is currently on course to hit Number One in the UK.During a new interview with Matt Wilkinson on Apple Music 1, Pete Doherty and Carl Barât talked about achieving their “dream” of opening their own Libertines hotel and studio space in 2020.“We’ve also got the bathtub that Jim Morrison died in, which we’re going to be putting in one of the rooms,” Doherty explained at one point in the chat.The frontman of The Doors passed away in Paris in 1971 aged 27.

The Roost Podcast Network, home to podcasts including This Past Weekend with Theo Von, has a new owner.

Alex Ritman Banijay has acquired the format rights to “Alumni Lovers,” the school reunion dating show from MBC that first launched in South Korea last December. In a deal to be formerly announced by its global head of acquisitions Helen Greaterox at an MIPTV panel later on Monday, the French TV giant will launch the format in Netherlands via its SimpelZodiak label and France through Endemol France.

EXCLUSIVE: In Playing Nice James Norton stars as Pete, a doting dad who finds out his son was switched at birth, giving him a different kind of hero to portray. “He’s a kind of small hero,” Norton told Deadline. “Unlike most of the characters I’ve played, he’s very likable, very amenable and recognizable. There’s a simplicity to him, which I hadn’t really played before, and a likability and quietness that made him feel very real.”

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Talpa Studios, the company founded by “The Voice” and “Big Brother” creator John de Mol, has closed further territory sales for quiz-show format “The Floor.” Variety can also reveal that the show has been named by research organization K7 Media as the “Format to Watch” in its “Tracking the Giants” format sales report, which was released Saturday at MipFormats. The recognition is based on the show’s territory sales. K7 said: “’The Floor’ is the best-selling format in 2023 and early 2024 among all the unscripted formats that were newly created in 2023.