Exclusive Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

EXCLUSIVE: John Cleese‘s Channel 4 show about cancel culture appears to be a dead parrot.

Taylor Swift had a huge surprise for fans at 2am on April 19, just two hours after releasing her new album The Tortured Poets Department.

Remember those rumors, oh, eight years ago about how Sony was a target for acquisition?

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios has begun the countdown for its Ryan Gosling starring, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller directing space adventure movie, Project Hail Mary for March 20, 2026. No other wide entries are on that weekend.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Jay Duplass and Kelvin Yu are the latest additions to the cast of FX‘s limited series adaptation of “Dying for Sex,” Variety has learned exclusively. The series is based on the podcast of the same name.

New Patreon EXCLUSIVE show is out! Perez is team JoJo Siwa! U? This and much more on our latest show! CLICK HERE to listen to The Perez Hilton Podcast with Chris Booker in full at Patreon.com/PerezHilton

EXCLUSIVE: Comedy Dynamics has locked in plans to release Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan‘s latest special, Tomfoolery, on platforms worldwide on April 30.

EXCLUSIVE: Rising Saudi Star Mohammed Elshehri has been announced as master of ceremonies at the 10th edition Saudi Film Festival, running from May 2 to 9 in the Eastern Province city of Dhahran.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Variety has been granted exclusive access to the trailer (below) for Portuguese director Miguel Gomes‘ “Grand Tour,” which will have its world premiere in Cannes Film Festival’s Competition section. Variety can also exclusively reveal that that distribution on “Grand Tour” will be handled in France by Tandem, and in Italy by Lucky Red, and that Gomes’ next film will be “Savagery.” “Grand Tour” kicks off in 1917 in Burma. It centers on Edward, a civil servant for the British Empire, who runs away from his fiancée Molly the day she arrives to get married.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief James Warburton, MD and CEO of Seven West Media, one of Australia’s largest media conglomerates, has resigned following a series of scandals. He was scheduled to depart the company in December, but now exits with immediate effect following a board meeting on Thursday. In a filing to the Australian Stock Exchange, Seven West said that Jeff Howard, currently its chief finance officer, will take over as MD and CEO with effect from Friday.

After just over two months on our screens, on Thursday, 18 April a new individual will be crowned winner of The Apprentice and will walk away with a £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar. This year’s winners will follow in the footsteps of Marnie Swindells who won last year’s series and has since been busy working on her Bronx Boxing Club in London. But despite coming out on top, in an exclusive interview with OK! Marnie has revealed that she did not think she was going to win after having a “slight meltdown” while in the final boardroom of the series.

EXCLUSIVE: Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is partnering, through his Seth MacFarlane Foundation, with Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation to fund the first-ever, curated restoration of historically significant animated shorts from the 1920s to 1940s.

EXCLUSIVE: Quentin Tarantino’s movies are always full of surprises, and here is one about The Movie Critic we did not expect. Deadline can reveal that Tarantino has dropped the film as his 10th and final project. He simply changed his mind, Deadline has been told.

EXCLUSIVE: CAA has signed Robert O’Hara, the New York-based playwright and director of Jeremy O. Harris’ Tony-nominated Slave Play.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Chef and content creator Nick DiGiovanni has signed with WME for representation in all areas, Variety has learned exclusively. He continues to be represented by Align PR and Yorn Levine Barnes. DiGiovanni rose to fame when he became the youngest-ever finalist on the cooking competition series “MasterChef” in 2019 during the show’s tenth season.

EXCLUSIVE: Metrograph Pictures announced on Wednesday that Good One — the first feature from writer-director India Donaldson, which premiered to rave reviews at this year’s Sundance Film Festival — will open in theaters nationwide on August 9.

EXCLUSIVE: Chris Pine, who famously played Captain Kirk in the Star Trek reboot, is set to narrate Space: The New Frontier, a documentary made for IMAX, Giant Screen and specialty theatres by Definition Studios Australia in association with K2 Studios. 

EXCLUSIVE: Tony Award winning playwright and screenwriter Itamar Moses has signed with Grandview for management. Itamar’s play The Ally recently premiered at The Public Theater, directed by Lila Neugebauer and starring Josh Radnor. His new musical Dead Outlaw ran simultaneously off-Broadway with Audible Theater at the Minetta Lane.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Wall Street is betting that Netflix‘s stream machine continued to fire on all cylinders coming into 2024. After netting a whopping 13.1 million new subs in Q4, Netflix is riding a wave of momentum that continues to be buoyed by the paid-sharing strategy, as it converts password borrowers into paying members, according to analysts.

EXCLUSIVE: Channel 4 has axed its splashy version of U.S. survival format Alone after one season.

Holly Jones German sales outfit Patra Spanou Film (“Blue Moon”) has acquired international rights to “The Pleasure Is Mine” (“El Placer Es Mío”), the debut feature from Brazilian-born screenwriter and director Sacha Amaral, whose prior efforts on short “Billy Boy” earned him a slot at the Cannes Cinéfondation program in 2021. The boutique sales agency has also shared an exclusive first-look teaser with Variety ahead of the drama’s premiere in international competition at this year’s Bafici in Buenos Aires, running April 17-28.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent In a big move to plant their flag internationally, leading Hollywood talent agency CAA has appointed Alex McGuire to oversee the firm’s sports media representation efforts throughout the U.K. and Europe.

Emma Roberts is giving fans an exclusive look inside of her home!

EXCLUSIVE: Terrence Terrell (Giants, Obliterated) has signed with Ascend Artists Representation.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter The upcoming Apple TV+ series “Government Cheese” has filled out its main cast with four new additions, Variety has learned exclusively. Jahi Winston (“We Have a Ghost, “Charm City Kings”), Evan Alexander Ellison (“She Came to Me,” “Devil in Ohio”), Jeremy Bobb (“The Knick,” “Russian Doll”), and Louis Cancelmi (“Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Billions”) have all joined the show. They will appear alongside previously announced series lead David Oyelowo as well as cast members Simone Missick, Bokeem Woodbine, Sunita Mani, and Adam Beach.

EXCLUSIVE: Ariana Greenblatt is joining the ensemble of Lionsgate’s Now You See Me 3 joining the all-star ensemble of Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher Dave Franco and Mark Ruffalo, who are all expected to return. Ruben Fleischer is on as director. Eric Warren Singer, Seth Graham Smith and Mike Lesslie penned the script.

EXCLUSIVE: Margaret Qualley has pulled out of playing Amanda Knox in Hulu‘s upcoming limited series for scheduling reasons.

EXCLUSIVE: Lucy Freyer (Paint), Malik Elassal, Owen Thiele (Dollface), Amita Rao and Jack Innanen (The Dessert) have been cast as the leads of FX‘s ensemble comedy pilot Snowflakes, written by former The Tonight Show scribes Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw and to be directed by Jonathan Krisel (Baskets).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Max Cutler sold Parcast Studios, his scripted-audio entertainment start-up, to Spotify in 2019 under a deal in which Spotify ultimately paid nearly $90 million. Cutler went on to become Spotify’s VP, head of talk creator content and partnerships — inking exclusive licensing deals with podcasters including Alex Cooper, Emma Chamberlain and Markiplier, and managing the company’s partnership with “The Joe Rogan Experience” — before exiting last year. Now Cutler is back in the game with the launch of Pave Studios.

Tim Chan If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Taylor Swift‘s new album, “The Tortured Poets Department” is due out April 19 but fans can already pre-order the CD and vinyl online now. Target is offering three exclusive versions of “Tortured Poets Department” on CD and one exclusive vinyl.