Barry Levinson Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Naman Ramachandran The life and work of Hans Zimmer, the Oscar-winning composer of “The Lion King” and “Dune: Part One,” will be celebrated in BBC Two documentary “Hans Zimmer – Hollywood Rebel.” The 60-minute film looks back at Zimmer’s 40-year journey from post-war Germany to Hollywood royalty. It will seek to reveal the musical secrets of Zimmer over a career that includes scores for films “Rain Man,” “Pirates of The Caribbean,” “Gladiator,” “No Time To Die,” “The Dark Knight,” “Batman Begins” and “The Thin Red Line” plus the music he created for BBC Studios Natural History films, including “Planet Earth II,” “Blue Planet II” and “Frozen Planet II.”

David E. Kelley’s investigative drama series “The Calling” were released Monday by Peacock, offering a glimpse into the show ahead of its Nov. 10 debut on the streamer. Adapted from a series of novels by author Dror Mishani, the show’s plot follows a New York Police Department detective named Avraham Avraham (Jeff Wilbush), who typically relies on spirituality to guide his pursuit of truth until one investigation makes him rethink his beliefs. The series stars Wilbush, Juliana Canfield, Karen Robinson and Michael Mosley. One image highlights a particularly tense, yet slightly absurd moment where Wilbush is locked hands with a man wearing a hotdog suit in what looks like the context of an interrogation.

EXCLUSIVE: Justine Juel Gillmer, exec producer of Amazon’s big-budget series The Wheel of Time, has scored a studio home.

Emmy’s Outstanding TV Movie category this year featured one traditional awards film, Barry Levinson’s harrowing WWII tale The Survivor for HBO, joined by four followups to canceled series, Disney+’s Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Showtime’s Ray Donovan: the Movie, Paramount+’s Reno 911!: the Hunt for QAnon and Roku’ Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas.

Clayton Davis The second night of the Creative Arts Emmys will take place on Sunday night, where hot races such as guest acting, music and stunts will be revealed. History could be made with “Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers” from Disney+ could be the first animated movie to win for outstanding television movie, after becoming the first ever to be nominated. However, we could see if HBO will be in line to make history if it takes the category for Barry Levinson’s “The Survivor.” HBO is able to win all the top series categories for drama (“Succession”), comedy (“Barry” or “Hacks”) and limited (“The White Lotus”). It would be the first network in history to win all four if achieved.

Don DeLillo’s post modernist 1985 novel, White Noise has been long desired by filmmakers trying to crack the nut of how to bring the complex dark comedy to the screen. Barry Levinson made an attempt that didn’t come to fruition in 2004. Director Michael Almereyda was announced in 2016, also going nowhere. James L. Brooks’ Gracie Films had it optioned at one point. But it seems entirely appropriate that it should finally land into the hands of Noah Baumbach, a self-professed mega fan of the book he read first in college in the late 80’s  and saw it as a very satiric yet accurate account of the sad state of affairs of the world at that time. However by 2021 when he got around to adapting and directing the first of his own films he didn’t write as an original screenplay, the multiple themes running though the book not only were still relevant, they seem more of this time then the 37 years since the book’s publication.

Wise Guys, according to reports.The actor, who made his name in crime dramas like Goodfellas, Casino and The Godfather Part II, will return to the genre for a film directed by Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Bugsy).Wise Guys will follow the lives of Italian-American crime bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, who both operated their respective families in the middle of the 20th century. In 1957, Genovese attempted and failed to assassinate Costello.

Robert De Niro will star in the Warner Bros. mob drama Wise Guys from director Barry Levinson, Deadline can confirm. The project reunites the duo following their collaborations on the Emmy-nominated HBO TV movie The Wizard of Lies, which had De Niro playing Bernie Madoff, and Magnolia Pictures’ 2008 dramedy, What Just Happened, as well as the director’s earlier films Wag the Dog and Sleepers.

EXCLUSIVE: Anonymous Content has hired former Bron executive David Davoli as President of International, based in New York.

previously announced cast members Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Everly Carganilla and Connor Esterson. The project will be headed by the original franchise’s creator and director Robert Rodriguez, who is also producing and writing alongside Racer Max.

EXCLUSIVE: Billy Magnussen (No Time to Die) is set to star in Netflix’s upcoming reboot of the popular franchise, Deadline has learned. He joins previously announced cast members Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Everly Carganilla, and Connor Esterson.

Based on the 1992 film of the same name, which was also Crystal’s directorial debut, “Mr. Saturday Night” is co-written and stars the 74-year-old actor as Buddy Young Jr., a comedian whose career soars and then plummets during the early years of television.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and Media“Mr. Saturday Night” will wrap up its Broadway run on Sept. 4.

John Panzarella will be this year’s recipient of the Location Managers Guild International’s Lifetime Achievement Award. It will be presented at the ninth annual LMGI Awards, which are returning live to the Los Angeles Center Studios on August 27.

Billy Crystal is attached to star and executive produce new limited series “Before,” where he will play Eli, a child psychiatrist and recent widower who encounters a troubled young boy. Apple TV+ has picked up the show hailing from Paramount Television.Sarah Thorp (“The Bounty Hunter”) will serve as writer, with Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson (“Dopesick”) attached to direct.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterBilly Crystal is set to star in the limited series “Before” at Apple, Variety has learned.Crystal will star in the show as Eli, a child psychiatrist who recently lost his wife when he encounters a troubled young boy. Crystal will also executive produce in addition to starring.The series comes from writer Sarah Thorp (“The Bounty Hunter,” “Hawthorne”), who is also an executive producer.

EXCLUSIVE: Apple TV+ has picked-up Before, a limited series starring Billy Crystal, who also will serve as executive producer, Deadline has learned. I hear details on the project, including the size of the order, are still being finalized.

EXCLUSIVE: AMC Networks has acquired North American rights to Monsieur Spade, a one-hour drama starring Clive Owen from The Queen’s Gambit co-creator Scott Frank and City On A Hill showrunner Tom Fontana. Black Bear Television also has joined as the series’ studio and will deficit finance.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticWhen I watch a movie by the writer-director James Gray, I often have the sensation that I’m seeing two films in one: the story being told and the one hovering offscreen — the one that’s all about his aspiration to be something larger than a mere storyteller. Early Gray films like “The Yards” (2000) and “We Own the Night” (2007) were modest tales suffused with his desire to be making “a ’70s movie.” “Ad Astra” (2019) was a lavishly scaled outer-space thriller suffused with his desire to be making “2001: A Space Odyssey.”“Armageddon Time,” Gray’s eighth feature, marks a break from most of what he has done before.

EXCLUSIVE: Showtime has announced a new date for the third-season return of City on a Hill starring Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge. The series that also stars Jill Hennessy, Lauren E. Banks and Matthew Del Negro will premiere on Sunday, July 31 at 10 p.m. Eight, one-hour episodes are planned. Watch the new trailer above.

Clayton Davis Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official awards predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis; Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders by television editor Michael Schneider (for Emmys) and Davis (for Oscars); Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly interview series with talent and an expert roundtable discussion; and Awards Circuit Video analyzes various categories and contenders by Variety's leading awards pundits. Variety's unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provide inside reports on all the contenders in this year's awards season races.

Clayton Davis An exciting and welcomed twist to the Emmy race for outstanding television movie has arrived, as Mimi Cave’s horror-comedy “Fresh,” starring Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones, is being submitted for Primetime Emmy consideration.This offers an interesting possibility in a category that hasn’t drummed up much excitement over the last couple of years. While buzzy titles like “Bad Education” and three consecutive “Black Mirror” episodes dominated, the soulful purpose of the category has seemed to be missing.

Opening his remarks to a crowd in the backyard of his Kalorama neighborhood home, Ireland’s Ambassador Daniel Mulhall quipped, “I’m kind of wondering: Is it legal to have so many people at a party?”

Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were set to host their first official film screening at the White House on Thursday.The Bidens will show HBO’s “The Survivor,” in honor of Yom HaShoah and Holocaust Remembrance Week, in the White House movie theater on the ground floor of the East Wing.The film tells the story of boxer Harry Haft, who put the lives of fellow concentration camp prisoners at risk to save his own. The movie dramatizes Haft’s experience in Auschwitz, a central part of the Nazi death camp system.An estimated 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland and at least 1.1 million died, according to its museum and memorial website.Director Barry Levinson, actor Ben Foster, who plays Haft, the film's producers and representatives of the American Jewish Community were expected to attend, the White House said.HBO debuted “The Survivor” on Wednesday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

HBO’s The Survivor will be shown at the White House on Thursday, marking President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden’s first official screening since taking office.

EXCLUSIVE: Steven Pasquale (American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson), Stephanie Szostak (A Million Little Things) and Tony Curran (Your Honor) are set for key recurring roles in David E. Kelley’s The Missing, Peacock’s eight-episode series based on Israeli crime writer Dror A. Mishani’s international bestselling novel The Missing File. Details of their characters are being kept under wraps.

When it came time for director Barry Levinson to cast the role of famed boxing trainer Charlie Goldman in his new film “The Survivor,” he went straight to his friend Danny DeVito. “This was all Barry,” DeVito said about how he came to be a part of the HBO Holocaust film, telling TheWrap it was like no time had passed at all since he and Levinson first worked together on the 1987 film “Tin Men.”“The Survivor” tells the true story of Harry Haft, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp who was forced to box other inmates to survive – sometimes to the death.