International: Last News

Naman Ramachandran Korean medical thriller “Hyper Knife” has emerged as Disney+‘s most-viewed Korean premiere globally in 2025, the streamer revealed Tuesday. The series, which debuted with two episodes on March 19, has reached this milestone less than two weeks after its launch, with the ranking based on seven days of streaming data.

EXCLUSIVE: Ellen Wander’s Film Bridge International has hired Michaela Johnson-Carroll to the position of Director, Worldwide Sales.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Around ninety percent of life forms in the deep sea have yet to be named by humans, British director Eleanor Mortimer informs us in the course of her documentary “How Deep Is Your Love.” It’s a statistic somehow comforting in its vagueness — how, after all, can we put an exact figure on what is unknown to us — and humbling in its vastness, a reminder that we still don’t own huge stretches of the globe we profess to run. Across history, any number of explorers, scientists and storytellers have been fascinated by the essential, alien hostility of the ocean to our species, and its enduring status as a place we can only visit but never settle.

Naman Ramachandran “The Last Wife” director Victor Vũ’s Vietnamese supernatural thriller “Detective Kien: The Headless Horror” has locked down international distribution deals across major global territories following its unveiling at Hong Kong FilMart 2025. Mockingbird Pictures, handling international sales for the period horror-mystery, confirmed distribution partnerships with 3388 Films (North America), Infinity Group (Australia and New Zealand), MovieCloud (Taiwan), and Lotte Cultureworks (Korea).

Anna Marie de la Fuente Rio de Janeiro-based Habanero Film Sales has snapped up the worldwide sales rights to “The Panama Canal Treaties – Son of Tiger & Mule” (“Hijo de Tigre y Mula”) in advance of its special screening at the Panama International Film Festival (IFF Panama). The topical documentary has been doing gangbusters at the local box office since its theatrical release on March 13, now among the top four highest-grossing films in Panama.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Marine Le Pen, the well-known French far-right leader who ran for president three times and faced off Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the 2022 presidential election with an unprecedented score for her Rassemblement National (National Rally) party, has been barred from running for office for the next five years by a French criminal court on Monday. Prosecuted for embezzlement of public funds and complicity in the embezzlement of public funds, Le Pen was also sentenced to four years in prison, including two years during which she will be forced to wear an electronic bracelet.

EXCLUSIVE: ARD and Beta Film’s 30 Days of Lust is being remade in France.

EXCLUSIVE: French director Gilles de Maistre’s upcoming movie The Desert Child has sold to a slew of territories for Studiocanal, following its sales launch at the European Film Market in February.  

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Michael Mann has officially finished the screenplay for “Heat 2,” the long-awaited sequel to his 1995 crime drama starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. In response to a question about the the status of the project in an interview with Vulture, the legendary director said that he had “just finished the screenplay and handed in the first draft.” When asked who he handed it to exactly, Mann said Warner Bros., who released the first film.

Refresh for latest…: As Hollywood begins to descend upon Las Vegas ahead of the start of CinemaCon tomorrow, it was a mixed bag at the international box office this weekend. Jason Statham-starrer A Working Man muscled in with a $30.2M global bow, including $15M from overseas markets, while Snow White saw a 48% drop in the offshore sophomore session. 

Naman Ramachandran Gower Street Analytics has increased its 2025 global box office projection to $34.1 billion, up from its original December forecast of $33 billion, largely due to the fiery performance of Chinese animated blockbuster “Ne Zha 2,” now the fifth highest-grossing film of all-time globally. The revised numbers, released just as the film industry gathers in Las Vegas for CinemaCon (March 31-April 4), project a 13% year-on-year increase from 2024 and a marginal 0.5% increase from 2023. Despite the upward revision, the forecast still sits 13% behind the average of the last three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019) at current exchange rates.

Rangers take the road and the miles to Dundee as they look to kick on from their derby high.

is an insulting $4,500. Hello, New York! Goodbye, savings!And now, adding to their throbbing migraine is a demented list from a website called Niche: 2025’s Best Neighborhoods to Live in New York City.Trust this guide if you want to ruin your life.Perhaps an overworked intern mixed up the results from “Areas to Definitely Avoid on a Friday Night”?But no, this AI-esque assemblage is real and supposedly “based on crime, public schools, cost of living, job opportunities and local amenities” and not the result of a game of Pin the Tail on the Borough.One borough in particular. All but five of the 25 spots are in Manhattan.

The international break is finally over and those who prefer their football served up at club level are rejoicing.

CPH:DOX has crowned winners at the latest edition of the renowned nonfiction film festival in Copenhagen.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has sent out a statement to its 11,000 members following mounting criticism over its lack of public support for Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” who was recently detained by Israeli forces. On Friday, the Academy issued a follow-up letter explicitly naming Ballal and apologizing for omitting both him and the film from an earlier message sent earlier in the week. “On Wednesday, we sent a letter in response to reports of violence against Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal, co-director of No Other Land, connected to his artistic expression.

Marta Balaga Spain’s “The Interregnum” was named the winner of SeriesMakers, receiving the Beta & Kirch Foundation Award which carries a cash prize of €50,000 ($51,000). SeriesMakers is a creative initiative headed by Laurence Herszberg, general director of Series Mania, and Ferdinand Dohna, head of content & co-production of Beta. It was launched in 2022.

Jamie Lang Currently making its international debut at Series Mania, “Mariliendre” is the latest boundary-pushing series produced by Suma Content and Los Javis – the creative minds behind “Veneno,” “La Mesías,” and “Vestidos de Azul.” The six-episode musical comedy-drama, directed and co-written by Javier Ferreiro, is a vibrant love letter to friendship, queer identity, body positivity and Madrid’s famous Chueca nightlife in the 2000s. It also marks the high-profile acting debut of “Operación Triunfo” finalist Martin Urrutia. Variety recently caught up with Urrutia, only a few days before his 20th birthday on March 30, to discuss stepping into scripted television for the first time, the unique musical challenges of “Mariliendre” and the show’s growing international buzz.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent LILLE, France — Lili Reinhart scored best actress for “Hal & Harper” at France’s Series Mania, Europe’s biggest TV festival, as its attendance figures went through the roof. Meanwhile, Spain’s Movistar Plus+ scored a historic double, winning the top Grand Prize in main competition for Alauda Ruiz de Azua’s “Querer” and best series for Diego San José’s “Celeste,” co-produced with The Mediapro Studio, in the fest’s major sidebar.

WH Smith has agreed to sell its UK high street chain to Hobbycraft owner Modella Capital in a deal valuing it at £76 million, and will eventually rebrand as TGJones.The sale does not include the retailer’s travel locations, such as shops in airports and train stations – nor the WHSmith brand. All the approximately 480 stores and 5,000 staff working for the high street businesses will move under Modella Capital’s ownership as part of the deal.The deal will see the WH Smith name disappear from high streets and replaced by brand TGJones.The travel division, which has become the key focus of the group in recent years and also includes shops in hospitals, will not be changing.That makes up the bulk of its sales and profits, and has grown to more than 1,200 stores across 32 countries.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Theatre is Body – Body is Poetry” is the title chosen by Willem Dafoe for his first edition as artistic director of the Venice Biennale‘s International Theatre Festival, which kicks off May 31 with the European premiere of the revival of the Wooster Group’s “Symphony of Rats.” The lineup assembled by Dafoe for the fest – which runs through June 15 – stems from his own experiences and influences, and ranges from a Whose Who of big experimental theatre names such as the Odin Teatret, Italy’s Romeo Castellucci, Germany’s Thomas Ostermeier, and Switzerland’s Milo Rau, to emerging talents like Afro-Belgian multidisciplinary artist Princess Bangura who will present two solo shows: “Oedipus Monologue” and “Great Apes of the West Coast.” Dafoe speaks to Variety from Venice about assembling his lineup and deciding to personally participate with a homage to late great New York experimental theater guru Richard Foreman, who died in January. What are some of the discoveries that are part of your program? One is Davide Iodice’s “Pinocchio – What is a Person,” which I saw in Naples.