Werner Herzog Watched 30 Minutes of ‘Barbie’ and Asked: ‘Could It Be That the World of Barbie Is Sheer Hell?’

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Spider-Verse” star Shameik Moore found himself in hot water on X (formerly Twitter) during the 2024 Oscars when he seemingly reacted to “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” losing the Academy Award for best animated feature to Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” by posting a one word reaction: “Robbed.” Many fans were quick to criticize Moore, who voices Miles Morales in the animated franchise, and pointed out that Miyazaki is a master of animation who directed an equally acclaimed movie. “Respect to the winner,” Moore posted in a follow-up response. “It’s true, I’m definitely a sore loser, but we didn’t lose, ‘Spider-Verse’ has impacted A LOT of lives.

2024 Oscars were hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on Sunday, March 10, airing on ABC (in the new earlier time slot of 7 p.m.). The Christopher Nolan flick starring Cillian Murphy was this year’s frontrunner, with a staggering 13 nominations — including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for Murphy and Robert Downey Jr., respectively. The Best Actor race was a battle between Murphy, Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”) and Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”).Murphy took home the expected win, and Nolan and Downey Jr.

competed for the coveted Best Picture award.Hollywood’s elite were in good hands as late-night host Jimmy Kimmel returned as the show’s emcee for the fourth time, having hosted the event in 2017, 2018 and 2023. Kimmel, 56, joked that he “always dreamed of hosting the Oscars exactly four times.”Of course, no award ceremony would be complete without controversy.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large “Conan O’Brien Must Go” is finally going. The long-in-the-works project, announced last year during Warner Bros. Discovery’s upfronts presentation, has been given a premiere date: Thursday, April 18 on Max.

Margot Robbie is celebrating the launch of the new book Barbie: The World Tour with her stylist and fashion collaborator Andrew Mukamal!

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here taking you through what has been a whirlwind of a week in international TV and film. Do not stop here — please do read on. And sign up here.

Berlin Film Festival 2025 Dates 

Zack Sharf Digital News Director It sounds like Daniel Day-Lewis is serious about his retirement from acting and won’t be returning, at least according to his longtime director Jim Sheridan. The Irish filmmaker directed three of Day-Lewis’ most prominent films: “My Left Foot” (1989), “In the Name of the Father” (1993) and “The Boxer” (1997). Day-Lewis won the Oscar for best actor with “My Left Foot” and was also nominated for “In the Name of the Father.” “He says he’s done.

Even months after the fact, these days, the standard question every filmmaker seems to get is something about “Barbie” or #Barbieheimer, or maybe it’s just Piers Morgan. Filmmaker Werner Herzog was on Piers Morgan Uncensored recently, for some reason, to discuss his life and career, but also because it’s Morgan, “woke culture” in Hollywood, Putin, Israel, Hamas, and because it’s hard-hitting journalism, hypnotizing chickens.

The cast of Barbie experienced life in plastic while filming 2023′s hottest, Oscar-nominated blockbuster. The very pink extravaganza grossed over $1 billion in less than a month and became the top grossing movie of 2023 in North America!

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Rachel Brosnahan spoke to Variety On the Carpet presented by DIRECTV at the 2024 SAG Awards about gearing up to start filming James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy,” in which she’s taking on the role of Lois Lane. The filmmaker posted the first cast photo last week after a table read of the script, and then Warner Bros. execs confirmed filming would officially begin next week.

Barbie.During a recent appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the German filmmaker was asked by host Morgan whether he was “in the Barbie camp or the Oppenheimer camp” as the 2024 Oscars approach.“I have not seen Oppenheimer yet, but I will do it. Barbie, I managed to see the first half-hour,” Herzog responded.“I was curious and I wanted to watch it because I was curious.

Justine Triet’s Anatomy of A Fall won Best Film and Director at the 49th edition of the French César awards on Friday.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor After a year hit with Hollywood strikes and an early buzz positioning Christopher Nolan’s drama about the creation of the atomic bomb as a frontrunner, sentiments from more than a dozen Oscar voters on the first day of final voting revealed a strong backing for Nolan. “Nolan fucking deserves it,” an anonymous voter emphasizes to Variety, highlighting the widespread acclaim for Nolan’s direction and billion-dollar blockbuster.

Micheline Presle, the French actress whose controversial Devil in the Flesh role was the start of a career that included starring opposite John Garfield, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn and Paul Newman, has died at 101.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director From a Christopher Nolan set to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? It’s the path “Oppenheimer” star David Krumholtz wanted to take by campaigning for the role of Ben Grimm/The Thing in the upcoming Marvel tentpole “The Fantastic Four.” The actor recently revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he met with the film’s director, Matt Shakman, to play Ben Grimm because “it’s been a big, sort of unabashedly craven goal of mine to be part of the MCU in some way.” “I only met him on the strength of a Twitter post or an Instagram post that I then took down two hours after I posted it,” Krumholtz explained. “I was embarrassed. My post said, ‘I just want to be in the conversation.’ And it was a picture of the Thing, and Matt saw it somehow.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Oscar nominee America Ferrera has been cast in her next role outside of Barbie World. Ferrera has signed on to star in Oscar nominee Paul Greengrass’ upcoming drama “The Lost Bus” alongside Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey, Variety has learned exclusively.

In some ways, Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s biggest non-superhero movie, was a product of the pandemic. Until the winter of 2020, the director had been loyal to Warner Bros., and their logo was to be found on every film that Nolan either wrote, directed or produced.

Michael J. Fox left no dry eyes in the room at the 2024 BAFTAs.

Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy leads a quiet life away from the spotlight with his wife and two sons.