Film Studios Set For Crunch Talks Over Property Tax That Could “Torpedo” UK Status As Hollywood Rival

EXCLUSIVE: Argentinian crime thriller A Singular Crime (Un Crimen Argentino), directed by Lucas Combina, has landed a series of international distribution deals on the third day of the EFM.

Believe it or not, M. Night Shyamalan had his seventh #1 opening weekend at the box office with “Knock At The Cabin” earlier this month.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Austin Butler’s agent told him he would need to gain weight to play the older version of Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” “I heard that Ryan Gosling when he was going to do ‘The Lovely Bones,’ had microwaved Häagen-Dazs and would drink it,” Butler tells Variety. “So I started doing that. I would go get two dozen doughnuts and eat them all. I really started to pack on some pounds. It’s fun for a week, and then you feel awful about yourself. But we were planning on shooting chronologically in the beginning. That quickly went out the window with COVID. It was just impossible.” On this week’s episode of the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, Butler sits down to discuss receiving his first Oscar nomination for best actor. He also discusses renting an apartment after the Warner Bros. corporate cards were shut off following the COVID shutdown. In addition, he talked about whether he would reprise his role as James Garrett in a “Zoey 101” movie or get aged-up to play Sebastian Kydd from “The Carrie Diaries,” so he can play opposite Sarah Jessica Parker from “Sex and the City,” a show he says he watched while in his New York City apartment, taking a bath, and feeling like “a middle-aged woman.”

Angelique Jackson M. Night Shyamalan has inked a new multi-year, first-look deal with Warner Bros. Pictures, with the Oscar-nominated filmmaker switching his allegiance from Universal. The announcement was made Thursday by Warner Bros. Pictures Group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy. News of the pact comes as the director celebrates his latest release “Knock at the Cabin,” which marks his seventh No. 1 opening at the box office — he has a No. 1 film in each of the last four decades — and further contributes to his more than $3 billion haul at the global box office, beginning with his breakout hit, “The Sixth Sense.” “Where I write and direct is my home,” Shyamalan said in a statement announcing the new deal. “Disney and Universal, where I’ve made most of my films, will always be home and family to me. Warner Bros. has a storied history of cinema. Through its recent experiences, the company has rediscovered its love and appreciation for filmmakers, and the impact of the theatrical experience. We all win when movies succeed in theaters. I believe David Zaslav, Michael De Luca, and Pam Abdy have dedicated themselves to unique filmmakers, and to filling theaters all around the world for years to come.”

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros Pictures Group has inked a multi-year first-look directing and producing agreement with two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, whose movies have grossed $3.3 billion at the box office.

Following the success of the hit Apple series Slow Horses, director James Hawes has found his next major studio project as he has has boarded the 20th Century thriller Amateur starring Oscar-winner Rami Malek. While the project is still in development, Hawes attachment is a good sign this project is headed in the right direction. Gary Spinelli penned the most recent draft.

Once upon a time, you’ll remember that filmmaker J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot productions signed a massive deal with Warner Media, reportedly worth over $500 million (though later reports said closer to $200 million) to create content for Warner Media, HBO, and HBO Max.

Warner Bros Discovery chief executive David Zaslav earned $232 million in excess compensation in 2021, according to As You Sow’s latest annual ranking of the most overpaid CEOs among S&P 500 companies. Amazon, Apple, Disney and Netflix are also high up in the group’s ninth report that looks beyond total pay in its own attempt to quantify overpay and draw attention to some pressing issues in the space.

Catalonia’s Inicia Films (“La Maternal”) and Basque Country’s Gariza Films (“Nora) produce. Sales: Luxbox (Helin Celik) Selected for Forum, a doc feature produced by Barcelona’s Kepler Mission Film and Vienna-based Kurd Celik. The harrowing story of three Jordanian women survivors of male violence.

AS a whole the Harry Potter film franchise made more than £6.4billion at the global box office. And I can exclusively reveal bosses at Warner Brothers Studios are hoping to cash in on the wizarding world once again. Film insiders told me how senior executives had started developing Harry Potter And The Cursed Child — which has been on stage in the West End since the summer of 2016 — into a new franchise.

EXCLUSIVE: Akiva Goldsman is returning his Weed Road to Warner Bros, in a multi-year first look deal.

J. Kim Murphy Lady Gaga is putting on a happy face. Director Todd Phillips has shared a new look at “Joker: Folie à Deux,” posting an image depicting star Joaquin Phoenix in the arms of Gaga. “Happy Valentines Day,” reads Phillips’ brief caption on Instagram. The image marks the public’s first look at Gaga in the film.A post shared by Todd Phillips (@toddphillips) Gaga is reportedly playing a version of the DC Comics character Harley Quinn, a psychiatrist who finds herself smitten with the Joker before taking on his villainous ways. Margot Robbie had previously portrayed Quinn in the “Suicide Squad” films and “Birds of Prey.” Kaley Cuoco voices the character on the ongoing HBO Max animated series “Harley Quinn.”

Brendan Fraser has defended the Batgirl film he appeared in that was shelved by Warner Bros. last summer in a shocking move.The Oscar-nominated star of The Whale, 54, appeared at a SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Screening Room in Los Angeles.At the event, Fraser wore a brown cowhide coat over a black shirt with dark blue jeans and black boots.The actor Wednesday told Howard Stern that the DC motion picture didn't get a 'fair shake' when it was shelved by the studio ahead of its 2022 release.Fraser, who played the role of Firefly in the movie, said that Batgirl filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah got it right shooting in Glasgow, Scotland, which made a prime stand-in for Gotham.'Gotham never looked better cast as Glasgow, Scotland, you know,' the Indianapolis, Indiana-born actor said.

Pat Saperstein Deputy Editor Richard J. Anobile, a noted author of film books and post production supervisor and producer, died Feb. 10 in Toronto after a brief illness. He was 76. Born in New York, Anobile wrote more than 30 film books. His started out with books about the Marx brothers, including “Why a Duck” in 1971, followed by “The Marx Brothers Scrapbook,” Anobile co-authored the book with Groucho Marx, and it featured interviews with the then-octogenarian and never-before-seen photos and documents. Anobile’s other classic comedy works included books about W.C. Fields, Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy. His books covered every facet of entertainment, from “Mork and Mindy” and James Whale’s “Frankenstein” to “The Maltese Falcon” and “Psycho.”

Zack Sharf Steven Spielberg is in the running for another best director Oscar thanks to “The Fabelmans,” an autobiographical drama about the filmmaker’s childhood that also wrestles with the choice artists must make between family and art. In a recent interview with “RRR” director S.S. Rajamouli, Spielberg said that a real-life conflict between art and family hit him later in his career when he had to decide between raising his children in Los Angeles or going to London to direct Warner Bros.’ first “Harry Potter” movie. “The personal meaning about [how the conflict between] art and family will tear you in half happened to me later, after I had already established myself as a filmmaker, as a working director,” Spielberg said. “Kate [Capshaw] and I started raising a family and we started having children. The choice I had to make was taking a job that would move me to another country for four or five months where I wouldn’t see my family every day…That was a ripping kind of experience.”

Fremantle has acquired a minority stake in Artists, Writers & Artisans (AWA), the U.S.-based indie backed by Lis Murdoch’s Chernobyl producer Sister and James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems.

EXCLUSIVE: Coming into this week’s EFM, Ben Affleck action-thriller Hypnotic was barely on anyone’s radar. However, the movie was quietly one of the market’s X-factors. It’s rare, after all, for a big-budget, finished film with A-list talent and director to still be without a U.S. distributor.

In a turnabout, China is handing out release dates for Hollywood movies at a clip these days — and with a fair bit of notice. Yesterday, we learned that Paramount/eOne’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will go day-and-date on March 31, and today comes news that Universal/Blumhouse/Atomic Monster’s hit M3GAN has been granted a March 17 start. That’s about two months since the pic began overseas rollout and will see it face off with Warner Bros/New Line/DC’s Shazam: Fury of the Gods on March 17, that film timed to the domestic release.