Vice Studios Docs Boss Joins Banijay Label Dragonfly

Faye Bradley Faye Bradley Hong Kong Design Institute has announced the opening of a new virtual production studio at Shaw Studios, one of the biggest and most comprehensive film facilities in the Greater Bay Area. It is intended to support professional education in the sector and enhance filming facilities in the city.

On the heels of Best Animated Feature wins at the Oscars and Golden Globes, Hayao Miyazaki’s hand-drawn original The Boy and the Heron has been set to stream exclusively in the U.S. on Max, following the streamer’s move to extend its multiyear U.S. licensing deal with famed Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli.

Former Fox Television Studios and Shine Americas boss Emiliano Calemzuk is to take charge of Israeli network Reshet 13.

Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer recently picked up shares of the company on the open market and vice chair Michael Burns said today he thinks the purchase was spurred by a visit the set of the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Media and entertainment powerhouse Banijay has launched joint venture Dynamic Ally Pictures in Germany, further expanding its scripted capacity in the country. The Berlin-based production company, founded and led by “Helgoland 513” executive producers Veronica Priefer and Johannes Kunkel, is dedicated to developing, packaging and distributing scripted content for the German and international market.

Banijay Germany has taken another step into the scripted market by launching a joint venture with the executive producers behind Helgoland 513.

Alejandro Monteverde, whose Sound Of Freedom was the top grossing independent film of 2023, is back in theaters this weekend with Cabrini, also from Angel Studios, in wide release. The true story of an indomitable Italian nun on a mission to aid immigrants living in misery and poverty in late 19th century New York City, stars Cristiana Dell’Anna as waif-like Francesca Cabrini. She navigates a Pope, an Archbishop, the mayor of New York and the Italian Senate among others to build a charitable empire starting with one orphanage in the immigrant slum called Five Points (last seen in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York). Giancarlo Giannini plays Pope Leo; David Morse is Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan; and John Lithgow a villainous Mayor Gould — men Cabrini lectured, sparred with, cajoled and threatened to realize her life’s work. Canonized in 1946, she is the Patron Saint of Immigrants.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter A limited series about the murder of JonBenét Ramsey is currently in development at MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios, Variety has learned. The official logline for the project states that it “details the mysterious death and the surrounding media frenzy in the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, a case that captivated an entire nation and left us with more questions than answers.” Richard LaGravenese is attached to serve as executive producer and showrunner on the project.

One of America’s most famous unsolved murders, the 1996 killing of JonBenét Ramsey, is getting the true-crime limited scripted series treatment.

K.J. Yossman Julian Bellamy, managing director of ITV Studios, has joined the board of governors of the National Film and Television School in Buckinghamshire, England. ITV Studios is the production arm of U.K.

Ellise Shafer Catherine McCormack has joined Colin Firth in Sky and Peacock’s upcoming limited series “Lockerbie,” about the 1988 flight disaster in which 259 passengers and crew members were killed. The “Slow Horses” actor will play Jane Swire, the wife of Dr. Jim Swire (Firth).

Big news for the Mouse House. Longtime Walt Disney Studios president Sean Bailey is departing the studio.

Major news today for Oscar-nominee To Kill a Tiger. Actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas is joining the award-winning feature documentary as an executive producer, alongside Dev Patel, Mindy Kaling, and other bold-faced names. The news comes as Netflix inks a deal to launch the film globally on its platform soon.

The Holdovers collaborators, director Alexander Payne and screenwriter David Hemingson, are working on another film together—a Western, in fact—and during a Q&A following a screening of The Holdovers at Soho House in West Hollywood on Friday, Hemingson revealed there’s a part earmarked for Paul Giamatti.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Audiences will get a chance to see MTV Documentary Films‘ Oscar nominated short documentary “The ABCs of Book Banning” for free on YouTube beginning on Feb. 23 until the end of the month. The 27-minute film, about the rising tide of book banning efforts around the United States, marks docu titan Sheila Nevins‘ directorial debut.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Vice Media Group is making drastic changes in the face of financial difficulties. In a memo to Vice employees Thursday, CEO Bruce Dixon said the company will be cutting “several hundred” jobs in the next week. As part of its major restructuring, Vice will discontinue publishing content on its own website, Vice.com, and will instead put “more emphasis on our social channels as we accelerate our discussions with partners to take our content to where it will be viewed most broadly,” Dixon wrote in the memo.

Beleaguered youth-skewing media company Vice is eliminating “several hundred positions” and moving away from online news.

Kevin Macdonald Helming Klitschko Doc For Sky

Welcome to Deadline’s London TV Screenings list, our definitive look at next week’s buzzy event taking Soho by storm. If you’re wondering who’s exhibiting, what’s on offer and want to dive deeper into the distribs’ strategy, we’ve done the hard work for you, presenting profiles from nearly 30 exhibiting sales houses. Below, check out profiles for all the London TV Screenings founders, along with the outfits based in the UK. Read on, and find all our London TV Screenings content throughout the week here.

K.J. Yossman Banijay U.K. have invested in Immovable Studios, the production outfit co-founded by hip-hop artist, author and entrepreneur Akala and his business partner and manager Chanelle Newman.