Ava DuVernay Bringing ‘One Perfect Shot’ To HBO Max, Inspired By Popular Twitter Account

Manori Ravindran International EditorMia Wasikowska will take on the lead role in “Little Joe” director Jessica Hausner’s cult thriller “Club Zero,” Variety can reveal.The Australian actor will portray an unusual schoolteacher in Hausner’s second English-language film, which begins shooting in the U.K. and Austria in July.Wasikowska was most recently seen in Mia Hansen-Løve’s Cannes-premiering film “Bergman Island.”In “Club Zero,” Wasikowska’s teacher takes a job at an elite school and forms a strong bond with five students — a relationship that eventually takes a dangerous turn.Discussing the film at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra event last year, Hausner described the film as “a lot about eating,” relating to eating disorders and “eating behaviors.” This will be Hausner’s sixth feature.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian director Roberta Torre, known for campy Mafia musical “Tano to Die For” and other anarchic pics, is making “Le Favolose,” about a group of transgender women who reunite after 20 years to commemorate a dead friend and do right by her after her identity has been violated.“Le Favolose,” which translates as “The Fabulous Ones,” is being produced by Donatella Palermo, who is at the Berlinale with auteur Paolo Taviani’s competition entry “Leonora Addio.”Palermo, who has a longstanding rapport with Torre, is the Italian producer behind two Berlin Golden Bear winners: the Taviani brothers’ “Caesar Must Die” and Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fire at Sea.” “When a person decides to face the [gender] transition from man to woman it can be a very painful process in several different ways: social, physical, etc.,” said Palermo, who notes that “when a trans dies, most of the time their body is returned to their families.” Torre’s new pic is based on a real-life story of Antonia, one of the “Fabulous Ones,” who is buried by her family dressed as a man under her original name, Giampaolo, amid the indifference of most.

Mel Brooks film kicks off not with its opening sequence, but rather an introduction by University of Chicago professor and TCM host Jacqueline Stewart.The intro, in which the “Silent Sunday Nights” host provides social context to the 1974 Cleavon Little-Gene Wilder comedy, is similar to the disclaimer in front of “Gone with the Wind.”“This movie is an overt and audacious spoof on classic Westerns,” Stewart says in the newly added intro. “It’s as provocative today as it was when it premiered back in 1974.”The TCM notice not only provides context to some of Brooks’ characters but also informs audiences about the director’s spoofing ways.

Blazing Saddles is currently streaming on HBO Max, along with a new introduction that automatically plays before the Mel Brooks classic begins. It is unclear exactly when the intro was added to the 1974 comedy classic starring the lateCleavon Little and the late Gene Wilder, but it was sometime after the film premiered on the streaming service in July.

HBO Max had added an advisory warning to yet another film rife with outdated racist themes.

Selena Gomez is inviting fans into her kitchen as part of her delightful at-home cooking series,. Virtually joining her each episode is a world-renowned chef who helps her master a new cuisine and learn new tips and tricks about home cooking as they make the most of their time during quarantine. One of those chefs is former contestant, food TV staple and owner of several Los Angeles restaurants Antonia Lofaso, who teaches Gomez how to make seafood tostada, consisting of a mixture of calamari, octopus and shrimp, in one of the series’ funniest episodes.

Selena Gomez might need a little more practice. The actress' HBO Max cooking show,, debuts on Thursday, and only ET has an exclusive sneak peek at Gomez's attempt to make ramen with Chef Candice Kumai over video chat. Though ramen may not seem like too complicated of a recipe, Gomez adorably has a little trouble following Kumai's instructions.

Here’s an interesting one with a semi-interesting story. Like Netflix back in the day, HBO Max has to fill its content coffers and one way the streaming service is doing that—just like Netflix and Amazon did originally—is license previously made content and repackage it as something relatively new.

Dade Hayes Finance EditorAT&T CFO John Stephens said the layoffs currently affecting WarnerMedia should not be seen as a course correction after the May launch of HBO Max, but rather as a “refocusing” of the company.The executive discussed the reductions of about 600 WarnerMedia staffers and many other topics during an online appearance Tuesday at the Oppenheimer Technology, Internet & Communications Conference.Starting Friday and continuing into this week, the restructuring was punctuated by the departures of entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt and HBO Max chief content officer Kevin Reilly. The two had been installed as the principal architects of the streaming effort by John Stankey when he was overseeing WarnerMedia.

Nellie Andreeva Co-Editor-in-Chief, TVWarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar shook up the top ranks at the AT&T-owned media company today, consolidating all film, TV and streaming content under Warner Bros.’ Ann Sarnoff. The sweeping restructuring includes expanded responsibilities for HBO Max’s Andy Forssell and HBO’s Casey Bloys and the exit of top WarnerMedia/HBO Max executives Bob Greenblatt, Kevin Reilly and Keith Cocozza.Like with any major consolidation, there will be a ripple effect.

Ava DuVernay has set her next project — and it's inspired by a popular Twitter account. The filmmaker will executive produce and narrate at HBO Max, the streaming service announced on Friday. The new half-hour docuseries will celebrate iconic movie moments guided by Hollywood's most exhilarating cinematic voices.

Elaine Low Senior TV WriterWarnerMedia sprung the news Friday of a major internal reshuffling, which translated to the departures of WarnerMedia Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt and HBO Max chief content officer Kevin Reilly, and the elevations of Warner Bros. chief Ann Sarnoff and HBO programming guru Casey Bloys.

Ava DuVernay will narrate a new documentary series exploring some of the most famous scenes in cinema.

Denise Petski Senior Managing EditorHBO Max has greenlighted One Perfect Shot, a docuseries that celebrates some of the most iconic moments in filmmaking, narrated and executive produced by Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Ava DuVernay. Inspired by the popular Twitter account of the same name, the docuseries is produced by Warner Horizon Unscripted Television with DuVernay’s ARRAY Filmworks.Each episode will feature one acclaimed director who will pull back the curtain on their most iconic shots.

Seth Rogen has scripted and starred in any number of movies that have pulled inspiration from his life, but he says, the HBO Max time-travel farce adapted from a short story by Simon Rich, is perhaps the story he relates to most.The film stars Rogen as Herschel Greenbaum, a ditchdigger living in a fictional Eastern European country circa 1919.

Alexandra Del Rosario Associate Editor/Nights & Weekends13th and When They See Us director Ava DuVernay is the latest artist to receive the annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.With Thursday’s announcement from the Gish Prize Trust, founded by actresses Dorothy and Lillian Gish, DuVernay is the fourth filmmaker to receive the honor. The director follows past honorees Ingmar Bergman, Robert Redford and Spike Lee.

In the ever-growing Streaming Wars, where platforms aim to destroy each other for the coveted subscriber dollars, content is the ammunition. If you have lots of ammo and a few big guns, you can do a lot of damage.

Opinions of Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” normally fall into one of two camps. The first camp, which is the seeming majority of people, despise the film and don’t even acknowledge the project’s connection to the “Alien” franchise.

Based on an utterly ridiculous premise—a man who is preserved in pickle juice for 100 years and comes out of his hibernation unscathed in modern-day Brooklyn—it’s kind of unbelievable that Seth Rogen’s “An American Pickle” is a film at all, and a movie that someone actually greenlit. Originally a Sony movie, eventually sold to HBO Max in the COVID-19 pandemic, at first— in its Eastern-European-set prologue and first act, especially— it’s hard to imagine the quaint, peculiar, small stakes ‘American Pickle’ as a theatrical release, and anything more than the TV movie that it is now.

It’s easy to forget among the noise of toxicity, cultural division, polarized memes, and bad blood, that the people bringing us 24/7 news are just that, people. The new CNN Films documentary “On The Trail: Inside The 2020 Primaries” silences the rhetoric to reveal what it really takes for lead political reporters to deliver stories.

Well, isn’t this a pickle??