Innholdsfortegnelse for 10/26/2022 i Variety

AWARDS CIRCUIT Too often, the industry hears, “It’s good, but not for the Oscars,” or “That’s not something the branch will go for.” As the Academy heads into the future with new leadership in place, CEO Bill Kramer, just-elected president Janet Yang and the 54-person Board of Governors have a chance to broaden the appeal of the Oscar telecast and also to expand what the organization deems “worthy of achievement.” Recently, we learned the Academy’s animation branch rejected Netflix’s “Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood” for consideration, stating it “does not feel that the techniques meet the definition of animation in the category rules” due to “extensive use” of live-action footage. And A24’s “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” is feared to be headed toward a similar fate. How would…

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GRAY’S GOLD The word “Oscar” has several meanings. It’s a golden statuette; it’s the highest achievement in film; and it’s the telecast. The first two are in fine shape. But that third one is a hot mess, threatening to tarnish the others. So it was a big relief when new Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences CEO Bill Kramer and president Janet Yang, along with producers Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner, on Sept. 17 revealed they’re working to fix it. Yes, we’ve heard that before. But, fingers crossed, this is the right time to keep Oscar on track by reinventing it. Oscars have a history of innovation. The Academy invented Hollywood awards ceremonies in 1929. The first kudoscast was in 1953 and it set the template for virtually every…

In Hollywood pictures, Colombia has been stereotyped as a backward, violent country overrun with drug gangs. But thanks to a 2016 peace agreement, a calm has settled in, unleashing a surge of creative energy. Colombians have reason to hope the bad old days are finally behind them and their country is ready to claim a place as a global production hub. Silvia Echeverri, head of the Colombian film commission, offers this pitch for her country: “We have four points that are crucial to filmmaking. First, we have talent, cast and crew that know how to participate in audiovisual [production]. We’ve got an incentive that is competitive worldwide, with no competition in South America. We’ve got the diversity of our locations. And fourth is the support of the film commission and…

When “Silent Road,” a Greek abduction thriller written by Melina Tsampani and Petros Kalkovalis, dropped its first episode on Mediaset Italia’s flagship Canale 5 station this summer, 1.4 million viewers tuned in, making it the second-highest rated show in its timeslot. The series, which follows an affluent Athenian family after a school bus carrying their children is held hostage, set a new benchmark for the Greek television industry, which even in the era of globe-trotting drama has been slow to cross borders. Directed by Vardis Marinakis and produced by Athens-based Filmiki for Greek broadcaster Mega TV, “Silent Road” is being sold internationally by Beta Film. Tsampani and Kalkovalis acknowledge that the industry is still “taking baby steps.” “Greek fiction has to find its place in a vast global market and…

ACT I THIS IS A STORY about grief in NewYork. Hugh Jackman’s father died while he was making “The Son.” But instead of taking time off, Jackman kept playing Peter, a workaholic struggling to take care of his family: a new baby, a partner and a teenage son, Nicholas, suffering from a frightening depression. Jackman, 54, related to Peter as both a father of two kids and as a son. Jackman’s dad raised him after his mother abandoned their family in Australia when Jackman was 8. Jackman visited his father, who’d been living with Alzheimer’s for 12 years, right before shooting his first scene as Peter. “He was nearing the end,” Jackman says over a recent lunch in downtown Manhattan, where he lives with his wife, Deborra-Lee Furness. “So he…

In the first 14 years of Elvis’ recording career with RCA, nearly all his records were credited to “Elvis Presley With the Jordanaires,” because that’s the way Elvis wanted it. Many of those early hits were built around the imaginative vocal ideas of the group’s arranger, Neal Matthews, and all four members of the vocal quartet took an active role in crafting the sounds that dominated much of the pop, rock & roll and country music charts from the mid-1950s on. To Elvis, who met the Jordanaires in 1955, they were more than a studio backup group. While Baz Luhrmann’s awards contender “Elvis” focuses on other aspects of Elvis’ influences, the Jordanaires were not part of the movie’s story, but they are an essential component of rock and roll history. Jordanaire tenor Gordon…

Colombia’s fledgling filmmaking sector feels it’s ready to soar. While there are still holes in its capacity, Colombians are determined to fill them. “Colombians are survivors,” says Diana Bustamante, whose producing credits include the locally shot Tilda Swinton-starrer “Memoria,” which took the 2021 Cannes Film Festival Jury prize. “When studio productions arrived, we were not really prepared to receive productions of such size, but we learned really fast how to do it.” For example, she says, 10 years ago, there were only about 20 quality focus pullers in the country. “Now there are like a hundred very good ones.” Crews, actors, writers and directors are mostly concentrated in Bogotá (Bustamante calls it Colombia’s “only real cosmopolitan city”), with some in Medellin. The surge in shooting since the 2020 expansion of…

MOVIE REVIEW Director: Guillermo del Toro Starring: Ewan McGregor, Gregory Mann, David Bradley The possessive claim in the title “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” is a gutsy one. There’s confidence — some would even say arrogance — in filming an oft-told story at least as old as the hills, and suddenly branding it as your own: Even two auteurs as ballsy as Francis Ford Coppola and Baz Luhrmann didn’t slap their own names on “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet,” respectively. Still, you can hardly blame del Toro’s stop-motion spin on Carlo Collodi’s 19th-century chestnut “The Adventures of Pinocchio” for wanting to advertise its distinguishing vision up top: After umpteen tellings of the wooden-boy tale, and coming on the heels of Robert Zemeckis’ wretched Disney remake, Netflix’s rival…

Actor-writer Keegan-Michael Key gained fame as half of sketch comedy series “Key & Peele” alongside Jordan Peele, but he’s been in a wide range of projects since then, including musicals (“Schmigadoon!” “The Prom”) and animation (“Bob’s Burgers,” “Chip’n Dale: Rescue Rangers”). These days, he can be seen on Hulu’s “Reboot,” which follows the cast of a former hit TV show, called “Step Right Up,” that reunites. He’s also the lead voice on Henry Selick’s stop-motion animated Netflix feature “Wendell & Wild,” co-written by Peele. “I’ve always adhered to this sense of variety,” he says. “When I see an actor play something madcap and slapstick-y, and later see them in a very brooding drama, that’s acting. That transformation is appealing to me, and that’s what I’m always looking for.” • The…

To borrow a phrase from poet Carl Sandburg, a sustained economic slowdown appears to be creeping into the U.S. on little cat feet. Everyone from Jeff Bezos to Gwyneth Paltrow is talking about the likelihood of a deepening recession, with the Amazon founder advising Twitter followers on Oct. 19 to batten down the hatches and the Goop CEO confessing latenight worries about the economic outlook a few days earlier. Technically, the U.S. economy entered recession territory midyear, following the second straight quarter of decline in gross domestic product. But the economy has rallied in the past following such declines, leading some to argue we aren’t yet in a recession; the glass-half-full crowd points to low unemployment even amid rising inflation as an indicator we aren’t in such bad financial straits.…

Halloween hasn’t even arrived yet, but the holiday movie season is already underway on the small screen. There are more than 140 new offerings this extended season, and familiar faces abound, along with surprise newcomers. Here’s a closer look at the festive options airing before Christmas. Have I Seen This Before? Oft-told storylines are very much in vogue — seven movies include royals, three feature inns and eight highlight a hometown return — while some serve up new twists on the genre. Notably, “Three Wise Men and a Baby” doesn’t focus on romance. Instead, it centers on rebuilding the relationship between three brothers forced to care for a baby over the holidays. Double Duty Tyler Hynes and Andrew Walker — who happen to be cousins — star in two movies…

A new renaissance in hairstyling and makeup for Black actors appears to be on the horizon, thanks to the work of female artisans on a trio of recent period films: “The Woman King,” “Till” and “A Jazzman’s Blues.” Braiding, twists and locs were a staple for characters in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “The Woman King,” set in 1823 in the African kingdom of Dahomey, now known as Benin. Hair department head Louisa Anthony researched and collaborated with locals in South Africa to secure a stellar team on the movie, which stars Viola Davis. Although a historian and a research specialist were on set, there was very little available photography from the period, so the makeup team relied mostly on sketches. “Google search was quite helpful in going back to discover hundreds of…

Oct. 19 Variety’s New York Party American Bar, New York Variety toasted some of the city’s most powerful players at its annual soiree celebrating the New York issue, which co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh launched in 2016. “The Whale” star Brendan Fraser and director Darren Aronofsky, who graced this year’s cover, were feted at the downtown cocktail bar. “I am a New Yorker. I was born and raised in Brooklyn. To be on the cover of Variety’s New York issue is a thrill,” Aronofsky told the crowd, adding that from the start of his career, “Variety was the king of publications.” When Fraser was asked about the resurgence of his career — dubbed “the Brennaissance” by fans — the actor smiled and said, “Happy to be working again! If that’s what it…

Private equity investors in indie movies “might as well throw their money down a rat hole.” Those words of warning from the late Jake Eberts (“Driving Miss Daisy”) continue to send a shudder down the spines of the unrecouped. Indeed, the industry motto that “you never get net” remains as prescient as ever. In today’s challenging indie market, three key factors have dented the prospects of recouping equity: The first is the demise of previously semi-reliable ancillary revenues via DVD and free TV since the financial crisis of 2009. The second is the disappearance of any back-end sharing of platform profits given the SVOD business model; and the third is less choice due to the steamroller of original commissioning by the streamers. Talent is being signed up at such speed…

When audiences return for the 63rd edition of the Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival, many hoping to discover the new wave of up-and-coming local talent might be searching for the next “Magnetic Fields,” the feature debut of graphic artist-turned-director Yorgos Goussis that rode the success of its 2021 Thessaloniki premiere to sweep the country’s local Academy Awards en route to representing Greece in the international feature film Oscar race. Since its modest origins as Greek Cinema Week among movie-lovers in this handsome seaside city, the Thessaloniki event has offered a launching pad for emerging Greek talents ranging from Goussis to Theo Angelopoulos, the towering figure of 20th-century Greek cinema, who premiered his first feature, “Reconstruction,” at the fest in 1970. Half a century later, Greece is enjoying its brightest big-screen moment…