Gemma Atkinson and Gorka Marquez face 'rough patch' due to 'work struggles'

Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. Today we’re talking to Stephen Kelliher, co-founder and MD of established London-based sales and film finance outfit Bankside Films. The company played a key role in getting Australian horror hit Talk to Me off the ground and Kelliher walks us through how that project came together as well as Bankside’s hefty EFM slate this year.

EXCLUSIVE: One of the UK’s biggest sports producers could lay off around 5% of staff as the troubling economic headwinds hit the world of sports production.

The All3Media sale saga has drawn to a close after almost a year with RedBird IMI confirming the acquisition of The Traitors superindie from Warner Bros. Discovery and Liberty Global for £1.15B ($1.45B).

In theory, we owe the world another edition of the Contender Countdown. A long-awaited update on the state of the Best Picture race.

EXCLUSIVE: The Australian television M&A market is set for its first big deal in a minute or two.

Alexei Navalny, who has led the main opposition to Vladimir Putin for years and was the subject of an Oscar-winning doc, has died, according to state reports citing the Russian prison service. He was 47.

UPDATE, with video: Prince Harry spoke to Good Morning America correspondent Will Reeve about his visit to the UK to visit his father, King Charles, following his disclosure that he has been diagnosed with cancer.

Festival season 2024 is well underway, Insiders, as our team decamps to Berlin. That and plenty more news to report from around the world to follow. Jesse Whittock with you. Sign up for the Insider newsletter here.

Christopher Nolan has revealed the reason why his longtime collaborator Michael Caine didn’t appear in Oppenheimer.The Oscar-nominated film took the box office by storm last year, and saw Cillian Murphy take on the role of the titular theoretical physicist who helped develop the first nuclear bomb.The project marked Murphy’s sixth time working with the renowned director, and first time taking on the lead role following supporting slots in Batman Begins and Dunkirk.However, Oppenheimer did not feature an appearance from another one of the director’s longtime collaborators: Michael Caine.The London actor has featured in eight of his films including The Dark Knight, Inception, Dunkirk, The Prestige and Interstellar, and speaking at the British Film Institute chairman’s dinner, Nolan shed light on why he didn’t take on a role in the 2023 blockbuster.Accepting the BFI Fellowship, Nolan explained that he was willing to have Caine in the movie, but the actor jokingly turned it down, saying: “OK, enough is enough” (via Variety).Discussing his reaction to Caine sitting Oppenheimer out, Nolan said: “I had to go off on my own. OK, I haven’t got Michael Caine, I’d better get Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, Kenneth Branagh, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Cillian Murphy, Tom Conti, and hoped that all those greats would add up to one Michael Caine.”He later added: “So many people have helped me, so many people have been there for me, in so many different ways.

Becky Hill and Chase & Status will deliver a collaborative performance at the 2024 BRIT Awards next month.This year’s edition of the ceremony is due to take place at The O2 in London on Saturday, March 2. It’ll be presented by a trio of hosts – Maya Jama, Clara Amfo and Roman Kemp – and will be available to watch on ITV1 and ITVX.Today (February 16), it has been announced that Hill will take to the BRITs stage with electronic duo Chase & Status for a special joint performance.

Jessica Kiang The kids in Ilkay Idiskut’s third grade class are, as they let you know within about five minutes of Ruth Beckermann‘s delightful Berlin Encounters documentary “Favoriten,” very much their own people. These 25 boisterous, funny, clattering seven-year-olds attend the largest elementary school in Vienna and for the most part hail from migrant family backgrounds from Turkey or Syria or Serbia. Diminutive in form but outsized in personality, they are also, however, eminently recognisable and relatable, and you can find all the various versions of your own grade-school self in one or other of them at some point.

Berlinale, which looks to be one of the most politically charged editions in recent history. Several filmmakers have already canceled their participation to the festival in protest of Germany’s attitude towards Palestinian voices, while more than 50 Berlinale workers have signed an open letter this week demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and asking that the festival leadership take a “stronger institutional stance” on what the statement calls “the current assault on Palestinian life” and calling on the festival to take a stance that is “consistent with those taken in response to other events that have struck the international community in recent years.” The war in Gaza followed Hamas’ attacks on Israel on Oct.

Naman Ramachandran The Philippines’ Quezon City Film Commission (QCFC) is teaming with European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE) to launch the first EAVE marketing masterclasses, which aims to bolster the region’s burgeoning film industry and its active participation in the global market. The initiative will select 30 Filipino and Asian producers and film industry professionals who wish to advance their careers and enhance their professional experiences.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It turns out the track list for Taylor Swift‘s upcoming album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” wasn’t fully revealed yet, at least not for every edition. A different deluxe edition than the previous deluxe edition was announced Friday morning, featuring not just alternate cover art but a different exclusive track: a previously unannounced song called “The Bolter.” This CD/vinyl variant was announced by Swift during the opening night of a three-night stand in Melbourne, Australia, during the acoustic segment.

Ellise Shafer After making her acting debut as trans teen Jules in HBO’s hit series “Euphoria” in 2019, Hunter Schafer found herself in high demand. But as she flipped through scripts, only one gave the 25-year-old what she calls “the sparkly feeling”: Tilman Singer’s horror film “Cuckoo.” Schafer auditioned and was cast as Gretchen, an angsty and isolated 17-year-old who is forced to move with her father, stepmother and young stepsister to a resort in Germany, where she soon learns that things are not as they seem.

Alex Ritman Jonathan Glazer returned to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, where he shot elements of his Holocaust drama ‘The Zone of Interest,’ on Feb. 15 for the Polish premiere of his acclaimed and Oscar-nominated film.

William Earl Variety veteran Todd Spangler has been promoted to Business Editor, overseeing coverage of corporate and financial news, mergers and acquisitions and other deal activity for media and entertainment’s largest conglomerates. Spangler will also continue to drive Variety‘s coverage of digital media and Silicon Valley tech giants. Based in New York, Spangler is a pillar of daily breaking news coverage.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent A new film industry superclass is emerging in Spain: movies powered or co-backed by its streaming giants. Perhaps the biggest example, Netflix Spain’s Andes flight disaster “Society of the Snow,” scored two Academy Award nominations last month. Now, in the run-up to Berlin, London-based Film Constellation has acquired most world sales rights to “The Captive,” from Oscar winner Alejandro Amenábar (“The Sea Inside”) and Mod Producciones, a $15 million period adventure epic on the literary makings of “Quixote”author Miguel de Cervantes, held to ransom in a Moorish corsair jail.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Taiwan-based auteur Tsai Ming-liang, who has two films in the Berlinale this year, is a contrarian who would be almost at home working with art-galleries and museums as cinemas and film festivals. Indeed, his new “Abiding Nowhere” is part financed by the Smithsonian Institute. “Abiding Nowhere,” which premieres on Monday in the Encounters section and consists of lonely wanderings through Washington DC by a barefoot monk, is, by Tsai’s own admission, “not a normal film.” “It does not have a story or a plot.

Alex Ritman “The Outrun,” the adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s deeply raw and lyrical 2016 memoir about addiction, recovery and nature, premiered in Sundance this year to stellar reviews, with many awards prophets already suggesting that the film could take Saoirse Ronan — who stars in and produces the film — back to the Oscars in 2025. For producer Sarah Brocklehurst, the Sundance premiere also marked something of an enjoyable full circle, landing almost five years to the day after the Sundance 2019 debut of “Animals.” The film, which screens at the Berlin Film Festival, also marks the first feature from her Brock Media banner.

Dune: Part 2 have been shared, with some critics describing it as “the definitive sci-fi epic of a generation”.The premiere for the Denis Villeneuve film – which is the sequel to the 2021 movie – was held in London’s Leicester Square last night (February 15), and stars the likes of Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler and more.Originally, the film was set to be released in cinemas last November, however, it was later pushed back to March 1 due to the strikes across Hollywood. Now, the first thoughts on the sci-fi project have been shared, and it seems to be drawing glowing reviews across the board.In addition to Chalamet and Zendaya, returning cast members include Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgård, and Charlotte Rampling.