Innholdsfortegnelse for 04/24/2024 i Variety

The magazine story you’re about to read was supposed to kick-start Variety’s awards season coverage in 2023. Last summer, we were thrilled to land one of the buzziest fall movies as the cover of our Venice Film Festival issue. “Challengers,” starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist as tennis pros who create as much heat together off the court as on, had been selected as the opening-night movie on the Lido. We photographed the three stars of Luca Guadagnino’s latest drama in London in June for a magazine issue that was supposed to hit newsstands in late August. Then the actors went on strike, and all bets were off. With Zendaya unable to promote the film any longer, Amazon MGM Studios decided to push “Challengers” back to April 2024. We’d…

Despite their rom com-heavy résumés, Anne Hathaway and actor-turned-director Michael Showalter had never met prior to collaborating on the May-December love story “The Idea of You,” which bows May 2 on Amazon Prime Video. Unless you count that one time at Beverly Hills’ Gucci Osteria, which in 2022 was the site of a dinner party to celebrate Jessica Chastain’s Oscar nomination for the Showalter-directed film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” “I wanted to talk to Anne, but I was too embarrassed,” Showalter recalls of the soiree. “The path of least resistance is to just not talk to anybody.” Adds Hathaway with a chuckle: “I couldn’t figure out how to breach my wall of shyness.” Months later, Hathaway conquered her timidity when she recruited Showalter to co-write and direct “The Idea…

When prospective students of the University of Southern California visit the school, tour guides like to point out several noteworthy landmarks on campus: Heritage Hall and its multiple Heisman trophies on display, the symbolic Tommy Trojan statue and Norris Cinema Theatre, where students of all majors congregate each Thursday night to watch and discuss cinema with famed film critic Leonard Maltin. The class, officially titled CTCS-466: Theatrical Film Symposium, was founded by a fellow critic, Arthur Knight, in the early 1960s. He proposed filmmakers bring their latest work to campus for youthful, eager minds to absorb and discuss. Stewardship of the class passed to L.A. Times critic Charles Champlin in 1985, and eventually, the opportunity to take over one of USC’s most popular electives was presented to Maltin. Maltin, Variety’s…

Each year, Variety curates a list of the top film school programs across North America. From universities that are as old (or older) than the moving picture itself, to budding programs, the schools on this list collectively offer an impressive array of educators, facilities and lessons to be learned. Countless alumni from these programs have become legendary names in the industry. They have created award-winning films and television series, enacted change both on screen and behind-the-scenes, and often give back to the institutions that fostered their talent. Belmont University Nashville Collaboration between departments is key to the success of Belmont’s students in the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business. “Our faculty are career industry professionals, who’ve worked in all forms, from indie features to the biggest studio productions,”…

Sammy Hagar has always taken the time to pay tribute to his hometown, the gritty Inland Empire city of Fontana. And the city has made sure to repay him in kind over the years, awarding Hagar the key to the city, dedicating a Sammy Hagar Day and renaming a street Hagar Way. On June 15, Hagar will put his stamp on another Fontana institution, as the city’s longstanding Center Stage Theater (which closed in 2022) will officially reopen as Stage Red, in homage to Hagar’s “Red Rocker” sobriquet. “That theater is really a landmark for me,” Hagar remembers. “It was a really beautiful building when I was growing up — relative to Fontana, that is — and I used to see all my movies there. My uncle, Eugene King, used…

“Challengers,” Luca Guadagnino’s enthralling sports opera about three great-looking tennis stars who trade partners, is the latest movie to feature that time-honored configuration, the love triangle. And make no mistake: This one is complicated. It’s no mere either/or thing. But then, that’s true of the best movie love triangles. There’s an equality to them, a kind of symbiotic harmony. “Titanic” is a love triangle (and a timeless film), but it’s not like there’s much suspense about who Kate Winslet loves more, Leonardo DiCaprio or Billy Zane. You could say something similar of “Gone With the Wind.” But in the most haunting movie triangles, the triangle has an isosceles aspect; the angles exist in tantalizing balance. With that in mind, here are our picks for the 10 best love-triangle movies. 1 The…

Across the film school landscape, there are many notable programs but five in particular stand apart because of their impressive curriculum, notable alumni and overall influence: the American Film Institute, California Institute of the Arts, the Kanbar School of Film and Television at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. AFI is noted for its remarkable instructors such as cinematography head Stephen Lighthill and producing head Lianne Halfon. Fellows are guaranteed to make films and the school has partnered to help create the Disney/AFI Underrepresented Storytellers Initiative to help create a pathway that removes economic barriers for emerging filmmakers. Ask many any animation luminary where they went to school, and you’ll likely hear the name CalArts.…

They say, “If you remember the ’60s, you weren’t there,” but newly minted Hollywood Walk of Fame honoree Sammy Hagar not only remembers the ’60s, but the ’50s as well. As someone who grew up in that same era in Hagar’s hood, the former hometown of America’s biggest steel mill west of the Mississippi and birthplace of the Hells Angels — Fontana — I can attest to the veracity of Hagar’s crystal-clear total recall. Now a bustling metropolis (well, bustling mostly with logistic centers aka shipping warehouses,) back in the ’50s Fontana had a population of just under 10,000 and Kaiser Steel had a payroll of about that same number. It was more “Deer Hunter” than “Surf’s Up,” with a richly diverse blue-collar working-class hamlet of transplanted Rust Belt Slovenians,…

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare Director Guy Ritchie Cast Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer Distributor: Lionsgate In “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” Prime Minister Winston Churchill authorizes an illicit mission to undermine Hitler’s fleet of U-boats during World War II. The plan calls for renegades with little respect for the rules, led by cocky ex-criminal Gus March-Phillipps (Henry Cavill). At the top-secret briefing, Gus helps himself to a glass of Scotch whisky, steals a box of cigars and struts over to the desk where a priggish-looking officer identifies himself as “Fleming, Ian Fleming.” It doesn’t take an intelligence expert to put two and two together: Gus March-Phillipps would serve as a prototype for Fleming’s James Bond character. Since “No Time to Die,” there’s been much talk about…

Action romance is a tricky genre to master — it requires the right balance of heart and spectacle. But when done well, à la “True Lies” or “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” it will live on forever in the rewatch rotation. Stunt coordinator-turned-director David Leitch has launched cars straight into the air and staged fight scenes that have had theaters erupting in thunderous cheers. His latest challenge, however, will be making the audience’s heart melt with “The Fall Guy,” releasing in theaters May 3. Smartly, he cast Ryan Gosling, the living embodiment of a junior high schooler’s diary entry, to play the hero. Adapted from the 1980s series, the Universal film follows down-at-his-heels action choreographer Colt Seavers (Gosling), who must unravel a treacherous mystery while on the set of the next…

WHEN NCUTI GATWA MAKES HIS FIRST APPEARANCE as the 15th Doctor in the science-fiction series “Doctor Who,” he isn’t wearing any pants. In a 60th-anniversary special released in December, the previous Doctor — played by series icon David Tennant — subverts the show’s long-standing practice of regeneration: Instead of simply transforming into the next Doctor, he literally splits in half, bringing Gatwa’s Doctor into the world alongside him. In the process, the two divide the clothes of Tennant’s Doctor between them, leaving Gatwa in nothing but a dress shirt and a pair of tighty-whities. “Oh, my God, that first costume fitting!” Gatwa says, bursting into an infectious fit of laughter. It’s a frequent occurrence as he speaks with Variety on a chilly March day over lemon ginger tea at the…

When John Bradley met with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss about their new series “3 Body Problem,” the first thing they told the “Game of Thrones” actor is that they’d written a role in the sci-fi mind-bender for him. Quite literally. “They said, ‘It’s as close to yourself as any character you’ll ever play,’” Bradley says. “It’s kind of a daunting prospect. It’s a bit like you’re going to see yourself drawn by one of those caricature artists on the street. I’m going to find out what these highly perceptive, very bright people think I am as a person.” The character Benioff, Weiss and co-creator and co-showrunner Alexander Woo created for Bradley — Jack Rooney, part of the “Oxford Five” of college friends and scientists at the center of the…

When California State University Northridge’s head of film production Nate Thomas came to visit one of his first students, Paul Hunter, on the set of Apple TV+ series “Government Cheese,” the Northridge alum and show co-creator could be heard “bragging to everyone” about his time in the program. After learning to tell stories at CSUN, Hunter spun a successful career directing music videos for Beyoncé and U2, among others, into helming Bacardi spots with Michael B. Jordan and Cannes Golden Lion-winning campaigns for Nike. Much of that has been through Prettybird, a Hollywood commercial house he co-founded and uses to help foster and launch the careers of other underrepresented voices. “It all started at Northridge,” Thomas says. “We do filmmaking not just for the privileged. We make it for all…

Sammy Hagar will be the first to tell you he isn’t out to save the world. But through his Hagar Family Foundation, his Acoustic-4-a-Cure benefit concerts and his support of local food banks, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer has made a considerable impact. “I always say you have to take care of your own community first,” Hagar says. “I’m not trying to save people around the world just because I simply don’t have that kind of money. Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates: even those people don’t have that kind of money. They help, and they try, and they spend hundreds of millions of dollars, so with my little bit that I have, I try too.” Perhaps the most prominent of Hagar’s initiatives is the annual Acoustic-4-a-Cure benefit…

The Tortured Poets Department Artist Taylor Swift Label Republic Records Producers Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, Aaron Dessner Would you be surprised to know, or be reminded, that Taylor Swift hasn’t really released a breakup album in a decade? She’s spent the better part of the past 10 years being off-brand, in that regard, writing scads of songs rooted in a long, stable relationship and — when she did go sadcore, or madcore — finding source material for musical drama in things that didn’t always have to do with love, like her label battle or Kanye/Kim-gate. Granted, dusting off “All Too Well (10-Minute Version)” and having that remake turn into the song of the 2020s did a great deal to recently cement her image as the queen of bust-ups. But in…