How 13 Tony Nominations Ignited Struggling ‘Some Like It Hot’ at the Box Office

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Assel Aushakimova’s dark comedy about journalism in Kazakhstan “Bikechess” has won the Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s Works in Progress award, which runs as part of the festival’s industry section, Eastern Promises. The section is focused on feature film projects from Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and North Africa. The Kazakh film follows Dina, who works as a journalist for the national television station. The stories she is asked to report on are becoming increasingly absurd and full of praise for the government. Her love life is limited to a few secret meetings with her married camera­man. Dina looks after her young sis­ter, a lesbian activist, who regularly finds herself in trouble with the au­thorities.

Naman Ramachandran “Dangal” filmmaker Nitesh Tiwari’s “Bawaal,” starring Varun Dhawan (“Bhediya”) and Jahnvi Kapoor (“Mili”), has unveiled a teaser and confirmed its direct-to-digital global premiere date on Amazon’s Prime Video. Varun Dhawan plays Ajay Dixit, a school teacher in Lucknow, idolized by his students, and admired by everyone in town and Janhvi Kapoor as Nisha, a bright and beautiful girl, whose only hope is to find her one true love. But love is never easy and it has to passage through a war of its own. The film is shot in India and multiple international locations. The film is produced by Sajid Nadiadwala’s banner Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment in collaboration with Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Nitesh Tiwari’s Earthsky Pictures.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Authorities in The Philippines are weighing a decision on whether to follow the lead taken by Vietnam and ban Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” movie. Vietnam on Monday announced that it will bar the film’s commercial release due to the movie’s depiction of a map that depicts the “nine dash line,” a disputed representation of China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. The Philippines, like Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia, have competing claims in the South China Sea and strongly refute China’s claim to nearly the entire maritime region. “If the invalidated 9-dash line was indeed depicted in the movie ‘Barbie,’ then it is incumbent upon the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) to ban the same as it denigrates Philippine sovereignty,” said Philippines Senator Francis Tolentino, vice chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, according to local media reports.

Naman Ramachandran After a scandal that rocked Ireland in recent days over national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTE) overpaying presenter Ryan Tubridy, the country’s government has ordered two separate reviews into the scandal. The matter led to the suspension and subsequent resignation of RTE director general Dee Forbes, a former high-level Discovery executive. On Tuesday, Ireland’s Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin T.D., announced that she will be commissioning an independent, root and branch examination of RTE composed of two separate and parallel reviews: a review of governance and culture; and a review of contractor fees, human resources and other matters.

NHS Lanarkshire’s Specialist Falls Service is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

There were big hopes for Mason Mount when he joined Vitesse on loan from Chelsea in 2017.

After you get used to the motions of driving daily, it can become super easy to assume you know everything, and forget some common rules of the road.

The way Scott McDonald sees it is very simple.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Samuel Goldwyn Films announced today that the company has acquired U.S. rights to the “The Three Musketeers,” a two-part adaptation of the swashbuckling French adventure story by Alexandre Dumas. The two films were shot back-to-back, with the first film “The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan” released in France this past April, earning $35 million at the international box office. The sequel “The Three Musketeers: Milady” will open in the country on Dec. 13. The period epic boasts a top-shelf ensemble of European stars such as Francois Civil (“Call My Agent!”), Vincent Cassel (“Black Swan”), Romain Duris (“Eiffel”), Pio Marmaï ((“Happening”), Eva Green (“Casino Royale”), Vicky Krieps (“Phantom Thread”) and Louis Garrel (“The Dreamers”). Both films were directed by Martin Bourboulon, with screenplay by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière.

Recording artist Deborah Cox and Chicago-based actress and singer Melody A. Betts have joined the Broadway-bound cast of The Wiz, with Cox taking the role of Glinda and Betts cast as Aunt Em and Evillene.

Seth Meyers’ upcoming tour.The “Late Night With Seth Meyers” host and former ‘Saturday Night Live’ Weekend Update anchor is leaving his trademark desk behind and traveling all over North America performing stand-up live at venues from June through August.Of course, there will be a handful of NYC gigs along the way for the NYC-based performer.Over, the course of the summer run, Meyers will stop in at New York City’s City Winery on June 20, July 18 and July 24.He’ll also host the launch of the new book “Boom Chicago Presents the 30 Most Important Years in Dutch History” along with Amber Ruffin, Tarik Davis and more at Le Poisson Rouge on June 21.Finally, he’ll conclude his brief trek with back-to-back co-headlining shows with John Oliver at the Beacon Theatre on Thursday, Aug. 17 and Friday, Aug.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Steven Soderbergh starts things off with an apology. His assistant is on vacation, and he was certain that our interview was scheduled to start a full 15 minutes after it was supposed to commence. That resulted in a mad scramble of calls text messages to track down the filmmaker. “I was just sitting here staring off into space,” he says. It must have been a rare moment of calm for the always-on-the-move director, who a has averaged at least one movie or series a year since reemerging from a short-lived retirement in 2017. And he’s back again this summer with “Full Circle,” a six-part miniseries that premieres at the Tribeca Festival before launching on Max on July 13. It’s a morally complex story about a botched kidnapping that causes several characters’ lives to intersect in surprising ways. It’s also a fascinating portrait of modern-day New York City, one that showcases a privileged Manhattan family (Claire Danes and Timothy Olyphant play the guardians of a business that revolves around Dennis Quaid’s celebrity chef), as well as a pair of Guyanese kidnappers who are deployed by CCH Pounder’s shadowy business woman to exact revenge. “Full Circle” is the kind of knotty thriller that Soderbergh, a master of the genre, does such a great job of setting and then unwinding. To say more would be to spoil its pleasures.

J. Harrison Ghee has arrived at the 2023 Tony Awards and is ready to make history!

History in the making! J. Harrison Ghee received their first Tony Award nomination in May 2023, marking the first time a nonbinary actor earned such an honor.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Rosario Dawson and Sam Adegoke have joined the cast of “Dark Days & the Dawn,” the latest film from “This Is Not a War Story” director Talia Lugacy. “Dark Days & the Dawn” unfolds over the course of one night and into daybreak, as Maria Del Sol (Dawson) and Samuel (Adegoke), a couple who have been together for four hundred and sixty years, hit their breaking point. Lugacy and Kamau Ware collaborated on the genre bending script for “Dark Days & the Dawn,” penning characters written specifically for Dawson and Adegoke to portray. Lugacy produces under her Acoustic Pictures banner, alongside Noah Lang for Witchcraft Motion Picture Company, and Ware for Kamau Studios. Cassian Elwes and Tom Culliver executive produce for Elevated Films. The film will shoot in Savanah, Georgia later this year.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker are checking in across the pond. The two actors (a real-life married couple) are bringing their relationship comedy “Plaza Suite” to London following a sold-out Broadway run. The West End transfer of Neil Simon’s play is directed by Tony Awardwinner John Benjamin Hickey. It will play a strictly limited season at the Savoy Theatre from Jan. 15 to March 31 with tickets on sale in September. In an interesting twist, the play, which unfolds in one of the most famous hotels in the world, will be remounted in a theater that is part of an equally iconic hotel. The production marks Broderick’s return to the West End stage following his run in 2019’s “The Starry Messenger.” “Plaza Suite” is Parker’s West End debut. Both stars are known for their film and television work — he for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Glory,” she for “Sex and the City.” However, they also frequently appear on stage. Broderick won a Tony for “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “How to Succeed in Business…” and appeared in “The Producers.” Parker made herBroadway debut in 1976 in “The Innocents”directed by Harold Pinter, and appeared in “Annie,” “How to Succeed in Business…” and“Once Upon a Mattress.”

Brent Lang Executive Editor Gravitas Ventures has acquired North American rights to Megan Griffiths’” I’ll Show You Mine,” a Duplass Brothers Productions film, starring Poorna Jagannathan and Casey Thomas Brown. The drama will be released in theaters and on demand on June 23, 2023. “I’ll Show You Mine” follows an author who has made a career by examining her own trauma as she sits down to interview her beguiling pansexual nephew Nick for a new book about his history as a model. Over the course of a weekend, the two challenge each other to confront and reveal their buried secrets.   “‘I’ll Show You Mine’ was made to engage in an entertaining way with universal themes–sexuality, the effects of trauma, and the need to release the shame that holds us back. It’s a deeply hopeful film that I think will really resonate with audiences and I just couldn’t be more excited to partner with Gravitas to get it out into the world,” stated director Megan Griffiths.  

Brent Lang Executive Editor As Matthew López prepared for the London debut of “The Inheritance,” his epic drama about the AIDS epidemic and its painful aftershocks, he was simultaneously outlining a first draft of “Some Like It Hot,” an effervescent re-imagining of the classic Billy Wilder film. The two shows could not have been more radically different. But López enjoyed toggling between comedy and tragedy. “I like working in extremes,” he says. “I like working in different modes.” Plus, he thinks that both productions benefitted from their author’s double act. “I got to live in both worlds at once,” López argues. “One helped the other. Doing the shows at the same time kept both projects in check. It prevented ‘The Inheritance’ from getting too dour and kept ‘Some Like It Hot’ from getting too lightweight. It brought some gravity to ‘Some Like It Hot’ and some levity to ‘The Inheritance.'”

Brent Lang Executive Editor When I reach Jeremy O. Harris, he’s about to be whisked upstate to celebrate his birthday. And this one is hitting a little harder than others, and not just because, like all birthdays, it’s a blaring reminder of all the mileage that’s been accumulated. No, it’s because Harris is turning 34, the same age that Lorraine Hansberry, the brilliant, barrier-atomizing playwright behind “A Raisin in the Sun, was when she died in 1965. “I feel aligned with her spiritually,” Harris, who took the theater world by storm with his 2019 Broadway debut, “Slave Play.” “We both went to Broadway for the first time when we were 29 years old. And right now, I’m thinking that my life has been so short, but it’s so much richer because of what she has done for the theater.”

The Broadway-bound revival of The Wiz, which will launch a national tour in Baltimore this fall, has cast Kyle Ramar Freeman (A Strange Loop) as the Lion, Phillip Johnson Richardson (Apple+’s Sharper) as the Tinman, and former The Voice contestant Avery Wilson as the Scarecrow.

Brent Lang Executive Editor The Tribeca Festival has unveiled the jury members who will select winning projects in the film, immersive, games and audio storytelling sections for its 2023 edition. It’s a collection of directors, writers, actors, producers and cultural leaders that includes Oscar winner Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”) and Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”). The A-list talent in the jury consists of actors such as Zoey Deutch (“The Politician”), Dianna Agron (“Glee”), Zazie Beetz (“Atlanta”), Kate Siegel (“Hush”), Nina Dobrev (“The Vampire Diaries”), Piper Perabo (“Covert Affairs”), Noah Centineo (“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”) and Chloë Grace Moretz (“Kick-Ass”). Chance the Rapper, playwright and screenwriter Jeremy O. Harris and multi-hyphenate filmmakers such Andrew Ahn, Mark Duplass, Stephen Kay and Clea DuVall are also among the jurors.