Barry Jenkins Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Neon has promoted Jeff Deutchman to be its new president of acquisitions and production, Tom Quinn’s arthouse distributor announced Tuesday. Deutchman has been with Neon since its founding five years ago, and in that time he has been instrumental in landing some of the distributors biggest acquisitions, including last year negotiating deals for “The Worst Person in the World,” “Flee,” “Spencer,” “Pig,” “Memoria” and “Petite Maman.” Deutchman also helped to grow Neon’s production slate, launching projects such as Tilman Singer’s “Cuckoo” starring Hunter Schafer, Joshua Oppenheimer’s musical “The End” with Tilda Swinton, Brandon Cronenberg’s “Infinity Pool” starring Alexander Skarsgård and Ben Wheatley’s horror film “In the Earth,” which was one of the first fully completed productions of the pandemic.“Jeff has been here from the beginning and is a big part of Neon’s success; his taste and his instincts are simply impeccable.

Angelique Jackson Marvel star Dominique Thorne has signed with M88 for representation.Thorne will soon make her MCU debut as the comic book character Riri Williams, aka Ironheart, a brilliant inventor who built her own version of the Iron Man suit in an MIT dorm, in the highly-anticipated movie “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Thorne will then go on to headline her own Disney+ series, “Ironheart.”The young actor made her feature film debut in Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins’ critically acclaimed 2018 movie “If Beale Street Could Talk.” She played Sheila Hunt, the younger sister of Fonny Hunt (Stephan James), one half of the movie’s central love story. Thorne next starred opposite Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield in Warner Bros.’ Academy Award-nominated film “Judas and the Black Messiah.” Directed by Shaka King and executive produced by Ryan Coogler and Charles D.

Amazon’s The Underground Railroad has been revealed as surprise winner of the prestigious BAFTA TV Award for Best International.

Manori Ravindran International EditorThe Paul Mescal-led “Aftersun,” which will world premiere at Critics’ Week in Cannes next month, has been picked up for sales by Charades.Directed by Charlotte Wells, the drama is billed as an intimate story about a young father and his 11-year-old daughter, Sophie, who are on holiday at a resort in Turkey in the late 1990s. The film stars Mescal, the breakout star of “Normal People,” as the father and new talent Frankie Corio as Sophie.Here’s an official description of the film: Sophie (Corio) reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father (Mescal) 20 years earlier.

EXCLUSIVE: Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak’s production company Pastel has hired Kiva Reardon as VP of Film, appointing Karolina Peysakhov as VP of Television. Both have already started working out of Pastel’s Los Angeles office.

La La Land, instead of its intended recipient, Barry Jenkins’s queer coming-of-age tale Moonlight. What followed were among the most excruciating scenes ever broadcast on live TV, as florid speeches gave way to the realisation that there had been a colossal mistake.

to host a poll of the last 10 years of Oscar Best Picture winners. The poll was designed both to show which of the past decade’s winners is the favorite, and to illustrate how the Oscars’ ranked-choice (or preferential) system of vote counting works in the Best Picture category.And now, as Oscar voting is closing, here are the results. The answer to which film is the favorite is simple: “Parasite.” Bong Joon Ho’s South Korean film that won the Oscar in 2020, is by far the favorite of the 270 people who participated in the poll.

For The Underground Railroad creator and director Barry Jenkins, the WGA honorary Paul Selvin Award served as an “affirmation to to keep working the way I am.”

The 2022 Writers Guild Awards are underway Sunday in a virtual ceremony that will see winners crowned in three motion picture, 17 television, and three radio and audio categories along with one category for promotional writing. A Black Lady Sketch Show and Ted Lasso scribe Ashely Nicole Black is emceeing the event, during which honorary awards will be bestowed on talk show icon Dick Cavett and Barry Jenkins, the latter of which is up for a WGA Award tonight for his limited series The Underground Railroad.

HBO is reportedly working on a fourth season of its crime-drama anthology series True Detective, tentatively titled True Detective: Night Country.Deadline broke the news of Night Country on Friday (March 18), claiming that Issa López and Barry Jenkins will steer production on the new season. It follows a similar report from last February, wherein HBO’s chief content officer, Casey Bloys, said he and his team were “working with a couple of writers to find the right tone and take” for a continuation of the True Detective format.Created by Nic Pizzolatto, the series first aired in 2014, with second and third seasons airing respectively in 2015 and 2019.

Kristen Stewart and Jessica Chastain are stepping out for the night!

While there was “Sopranos” and Martin Scorsese’s “Boardwalk Empire” before it, and David Fincher’s participation in “House Of Cards” that paved the way for the streaming age, it’s hard to argue that the show that launched the current era of streaming Peak TV with auteur directors involved was anything other than HBO’s “True Detective,” directed by Cary Fukunaga.

HBO could be bringing back True Detective sooner rather than later.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterA fourth season of “True Detective” is officially in development at HBO, Variety has learned from sources.The new season is currently titled “True Detective: Night Country.” The plot is largely being kept under wraps, but sources say that it would take place in the Arctic, where night can last more than 24 hours. It is also believed that the season would feature two female leads.

HBO is working on a fourth iteration of True Detective.

Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons are hitting the red carpet!

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures Television unveiled the 15 helmers selected for the next class of its Diverse Directors Program. They are Alison Rich, Alexandra Chando, Kristen Buckels, Mauro Mueller, Dale S. Lewis, Alvaro Ron, Caitlin Gerard, Cameron Ali Fay, Kandis Fay, Ria Pavia, David Mahmoudieh, Bao Tran, Gustavo Cooper, Zoe Stewart and Aron Kantor.

Ellise Shafer The Writers Guild of America, East will host their annual “And the Nominees Are…” limited series contenders’ panel on March 1, with Variety hosting the livestream.The limited series panel will take place at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT and will run for 90 minutes.

Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B has boarded Beetlejuice 2, Deadline has confirmed, bringing a new sense of life to a project that has long been in the works at Warner Bros.

Maggie Gyllenhaal won the USC Libraries’ Scripter Award tonight for her adaptation of Netflix’s The Lost Daughter, based on the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante, making Gyllenhaal the frontrunner to take home the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Since 2011, the Scripters have proven to be a remarkable bellwether for the Academy Awards in the category, syncing up eight years in a row. They’ve diverged in each of the last three awards cycles, however, although Gyllenhaal is no doubt hoping to start a new streak.

“The Lost Daughter” has won the 34th annual USC Libraries Scripter Award as the best screen adaptation of 2021, with the award going to writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal and to an Italian author who writes under the pseudonym Elena Ferrante.The Scripter Award goes to both the writer of the screenplay and the author of the work on which it is based, so Gyllenhaal shares the honor with the prolific author who published the novel in 2006 and whose refusal to reveal her true identity has sparked a number of investigations into who she (?) might actually be. Ferrante did send Gyllenhaal a thank-you statement to read at the ceremony.Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” an adaptation of a 1967 novel by Thomas Savage, was considered the Scripter favorite.

naacpimageawards.net and youtube.com/naacpimageawards.Night one’s winners included Will Smith and Nikole Hannah-Jones; Issa Rae and Barry Jenkins were among those awarded on the second night.The live telecast of the 53rd NAACP Awards will be hosted by Anthony Anderson and features a performance by Mary J. Blige on Feb.

NAACP Image Awards has officially been kicked off! As usual, this year's ceremony honoring people of color across television, music, literature and film is preceded by a week-long celebration, with five nights of virtual awards leading up to Saturday's live telecast.Hosted by returning emcee and seven-time NAACP Image Awards winner Anthony Anderson, the ceremony will include Issa Rae, Kerry Washington, LL Cool J, Morgan Freeman, Questlove, Tiffany Haddish, Zendaya and more presenting awards, while Samuel L. Jackson accepts the NAACP Chairman's Award and Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project, receives the Social Justice Impact Award.The preceding non-televised nights will be hosted by actor and comedian Affion Crockett, with awards presented by Cory Hardrict, Demetrius Shipp Jr., Khleo Thomas, Lori Harvey, Wendy Raquel Robinson and more.

naacpimageawards.net and youtube.com/naacpimageawards.Will Smith, Nikole Hannah-Jones and Stacey Abrams were among those who took home awards on the first night of the ceremony.The live telecast of the 53rd NAACP Awards will be hosted by Anthony Anderson and features a performance by Mary J. Blige on Feb.

EXCLUSIVE: Krypton alum Aaron Pierre is set to co-star opposite Mahershala in Marvel’s new Blade pic starring Ali as the iconic vampire hunter. Delroy Lindo is also on board with Bassam Tariq set to direct. It is unknown who Pierre will be playing in the film. Stacy Osei-Kuffour is on board to pen the script with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige producing.

EXCLUSIVE: Showtime is expanding its cast for The Chi, with the addition of Nia Jervier (Dear White People) and Carolyn Michelle Smith (House of Cards) who will take on recurring roles for the series’ upcoming fifth season.

Amazon Prime Video is rolling out on-set counsellors to a number of its productions following the success of the measure on Barry Jenkins’ Underground Railroad. 

William Earl PGA-nominated producers will gather on Feb. 23 for Variety FYC Fest: The Producers, for exclusive conversations about the top films and television shows of the year.

The Directors Guild of America announced the television, commercial and documentary nominees for the 2022 DGA Awards and one film dominated the Dramatic Series category. In an embarrassment of riches, “Succession” took all five nominations recognizing Kevin Bray, Mark Mylod, Andrij Parekh as well as the team of Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Bergman.