Innholdsfortegnelse for 05/07/2024 i Variety

For a writer, signing on to “Planet of the Apes” is less an assignment than a calling. After all, it’s the longest-running science-fiction series in film history. So when Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, the husband-and-wife screenwriting and producing team, conceived “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” in 2011, they envisioned more than a single-serving reboot. “We did see that if we played it right, there’d be at least three movies,” Jaffa tells Variety. He wasn’t wrong: Their four-film stint culminates with “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” the franchise’s 10th installment (and the first in a reported new trilogy). Their tenure follows that of Paul Dehn, who took over screenwriting duties from Rod Serling and Pierre Boulle for the 1970s “Planet of the Apes” sequels. “Kingdom” also…

At one point in the not-so-distant past, the biggest television shows premiered as the trees began to change in the fall. However, those days are over, and some of the most exciting series, including Season 3 of “The Bear,” will arrive in June. Although the Emmy-winning comedy does not yet have a premiere date, there are many other shows to look forward to this June. Star Wars: The Acolyte Premiere date June 4 (Disney +) Set about 100 years before “Star Wars: Episode I,” the latest “Star Wars” show is the most diverse and inclusive yet. With Lee Jung-jae, Amandla Stenberg, Charlie Barnett and Jodie Turner-Smith in the cast, the series will also feature the first live-action Wookie Jedi, portrayed by Chewbacca actor Joonas Suotamo. Clipped Premiere date June 4…

Over the course of his 45-year career, actor D.W. Moffett has been a leading man on Broadway, worked with iconic directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci and Steven Soderbergh and toplined a hit network TV show. Today, his professional life is centered around Savannah, a town on Georgia’s coast that is four hours from Atlanta and famous for historic homes on quiet streets lined with trees covered in Spanish moss. But that doesn’t mean he has been exiled to the show business wilderness. As chair of the film and television department at Savannah College of Art and Design, Moffett is not just an educator and mentor, he’s also a high-ranking studio exec. SCAD owns Savannah Film Studios, which features three soundstages, a 5,500-square-foot LED volume stage and a backlot under construction,…

A competitive tax rebate, combined with public and private initiatives to revitalize the local infrastructure, has substantially boosted the number of international productions shooting in France. Last revamped in 2020, Gaul’s Tax Rebate for International Production scheme now supplements a 30% across-the-board rebate with an additional 10% — applicable on all eligible expenses — for productions that spend $2.2 million with local VFX and post houses. And once the tax incentive put France back on the map, the country’s flourishing production ecosystem has kept projects on site longer than ever before. “The preconceived idea that France was too expensive clearly has changed,” says line producer John Bernard of Peninsula Film. “Projects with strong French DNA have very much embraced the whole process, basing themselves in France from beginning to end,…

I first saw “Let It Be” when I was a kid, in the summer of 1970, just weeks after it was released. My family was coming off one of those “Vacation” road trips. During the miles of driving, we listened to Top 40 radio, which meant that several times a day I got to hear “The Long and Winding Road,” which I thought was the single most beautiful song I’d ever heard. (To this day, I adore the Phil Spector heavenly-choir orchestral-layer-cake version and have never understood Paul McCartney’s aversion to it.) I knew that the first thing I was going to do when we got back was go to see “Let It Be” — and, in fact, it was the first Beatles thing I was old enough to connect…

The name of Busy Philipps’ new late-night show, “Busy This Week,” couldn’t be more apt. After all, aside from launching the QVC+ series, the effervescent actress is also starring on Netflix’s “Girls5eva,” hosting her podcast “Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best” and, following her own recent diagnosis, advocating for ADHD awareness. With QVC+, Philipps and her co-host and producing partner, Caissie St. Onge, have found an unlikely yet somehow perfect platform for their bubbly banter. The series, which debuts on May 8, sees the best friends conducting celebrity-guest interviews, sharing personal stories and giving viewers a dose of retail therapy via Philipps’ curated shopping picks. “Busy This Week” isn’t Philipps’ first foray into the talk-show space. In 2018, she hosted E!’s “Busy Tonight,” which was canceled after six months due…

Hollywood executives are much more accustomed to pointing a spotlight rather than occupying one. There are exceptions like CinemaCon, the annual gathering of global movie theater owners in Las Vegas. It’s here that the studio chiefs hope to dazzle exhibitors with upcoming film slates, celebrity cameos and exciting new footage. All this to say: “We promise to put butts in your seats, and buckets of popcorn in their laps.” Last month at the convention, it was nearly the end of the Universal Pictures presentation and Donna Langley — chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and the newly minted chief content officer of NBCUniversal Studio Group — had yet to step on stage. Her team showed off glimpses of the sexy, action-packed tornado sequel “Twisters,” the Gen Z-leaning creepfest “Nosferatu” from…

Ron Howard first attended the Cannes Film Festival with his 1988 fantasy-adventure “Willow,” and he’ll never forget his first walk up the stairs at the Palais des Festivals, where the film premiered out of competition. “I remember that first time so vividly,” he says, more than 25 years later. “And what I really remember is how fun it was.” Howard would return over the years as an Oscar-winning director and super-producer (with Brian Grazer) behind Imagine Entertainment. This year, Howard will make his return to the Croisette with the documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man,” premiering as part of the Cannes Classics lineup before hitting Disney+ May 31. Howard will also be honored with Variety’s Profiles in Excellence Award at the publication’s Welcome to Cannes Party, hosted in partnership with the…

Georgia’s base 20% transferable tax credit isn’t that impressive when compared to the tax credits in other top production hubs such as California (20%-25%), New York (30%) and New Mexico (25%-40%). What sets the state’s film and TV production incentive apart is the 10% bump it gives projects for including its Peach State logo in their credits. It’s a “gimme,” an offer no one is ever going to refuse, meaning the state’s incentive is effectively 30%, end of story. But, in February this year, state legislators introduced a major plot twist in the form of House Bill 1880, which threatened producers’ ability to get that extra 10% and, in turn, and the massive film and TV industry that has been built in Georgia since it established the current version of…

The growth of France’s VFX sector cannot be overstated, as the implementation of a comprehensive 10% bonus for international productions that spend more than $2.1 million with local companies (and the fact that the full 40% tax rebate can be earned off digital expenditures alone) has supercharged the postproduction ecosystem, funneling first financial and then human capital. On paper, the equation is self-evident: Where investment goes, talent soon follows. In practice, this cause-and-effect has fueled a wide repatriation, as skilled graduates of the country’s top training programs return from outposts abroad for the opportunity to work on projects at home. Studios like Paris- and Montpellier-based the Yard have reaped the benefits of this inverse brain-drain, building on commissions from recent projects like “Halo,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings…

As the new Doctor at the helm of the Tardis, the police box-shaped time-traveling ship, Ncuti Gatwa takes “Doctor Who” on a thrilling ride that doesn’t disappoint. The ancient alien and his latest companion, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), embark on a vibrant season jammed with all the magical elements that have made the show a British television staple for 60 years. Russell T Davies first spearheaded “Doctor Who” from 2005 to 2010. With Davies’ return as showrunner, writer and executive producer, longtime fans and newcomers will find the latest season joyous and accessible. It was Davies who reinvigorated the series after its original run ended in 1989. Following a long line of Doctors, Gatwa’s historic casting as the first Black and openly queer actor in the role — along with…

The new Apple TV+ series “Dark Matter” centers on a man who discovers alternate universes populated by other versions of himself. In other words, it’s a twisty sci-fi mind-bender. But not if you’re its star, Jennifer Connelly, who saw the show as a love story. “It was kind of an ode to a marriage,” she says. “It’s told through this device of alternate realities, which is a fun idea, but it’s really an exploration of a couple. And I enjoyed that.” In the nine-part series, debuting May 8, Connelly portrays Daniela Dessen, a once-promising artist who chose instead to start a family with her husband, Jason (Joel Edgerton). What Daniela doesn’t know is that her Jason has been replaced by a Jason from another reality who regrets putting work before…

Back in 2019, on a visit to Los Angeles, celebrated Indian director Sanjay Leela Bhansali stopped in at the offices of Netflix. In his informal five-minute meeting with CEO Ted Sarandos, Bhansali pitched an idea — it would be an opulent tale of warring courtesans set amid India’s struggle for independence. Sarandos greenlit the project on the spot. Now Bhansali’s Hindi-language series, “Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar,” is making its U.S. debut (episodes dropped on May 1). Spanning 1920 through 1947, the lavish story is set in the Heeramandi district of Lahore, British India, the milieu of the tawaifs. As with the geisha of Japan, tawaifs were trained in music and dance and courted by nobility. At the show’s center are Mallikajaan (Manisha Koirala), the scheming queen of Heeramandi, and her…

While each Emmy season has a slew of returning talent — a few of this year’s top contenders include Jean Smart (“Hacks”), Quinta Brunson (“Abbott Elementary”) and Jeremy Allen White (“The Bear”) — there’s also a large group of actors who are making their splash on a contending series for the first time. Maya Erskine Erskine stars as Jane, one half of the titular spy couple in Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane’s adaptation of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Unlike the 2005 film starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, this husband and wife aren’t lying to each other about their professions — they are strangers who have been paired up by an organization to work undercover as a married couple. Prior to the Amazon Prime Video series, Erskine was known for…

With vibrant green carpets no doubt already having been sourced for its various global premieres, “Wicked” is expected to be one of the biggest movie events this winter. It certainly ticks all the necessary boxes — a major musical adaptation of one of the world’s most successful stage shows and featuring an all-star cast led by the almost-EGOT Cynthia Erivo and, in her first feature-film lead role, pop princess Ariana Grande. But however the film — the first of a two-parter — does at the box office, it has already marked a key moment for Universal Pictures, being its first film to be shot at its major new U.K. facility, Sky Studios Elstree. First announced by Comcast’s pay TV giant Sky in 2019, approved by local authorities in 2020 and…

Ron Howard has been part of our collective consciousness for as long as I can remember. Or at least he looms large in mine. Born in 1954, he was on many of the TV series I grew up watching and had his own starring role on “The Andy Griffith Show” by 1960. And his father had the idea that little “Ronny Howard” should play a good kid, not the wise-guy type popular in those “Dennis the Menace” years. He’d be nice. It stuck. He’s been known as “nice” ever since. That made him much too easy to dismiss. However prominent he was — as a principal star of “American Graffiti” in 1973, top-billed “Happy Days” actor the next year and then as a director debuting with “Night Shift” in 1977…

Located 25 miles south of downtown Atlanta, in Fayetteville, Trilith Studios is the nation’s largest purpose-built studio complex, with a long list of clients ranging from Marvel movies such as “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” to the latest iteration of the game show “Family Feud.” Now, it’s expanding outside its gates with Trilith Live, a seven-acre entertainment complex set to open next month adjacent to the studio in the Town at Trilith, its 235-acre master-planned development with 300 homes — and room for 450 more — a large percentage of which house entertainment workers. Trilith Live will feature a cinema complex, an 1,800-seat auditorium, 120,000 square-feet of restaurants, shops and office space and, most significant, a pair of 25,000-square-foot stages for productions using live studio audiences, such as reality…