audience: Last News

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Billie Eilish chose “Happier Than Ever” as the title of her previous album, you didn’t have to look far past the straight-faced album cover to find levels of irony in that. She didn’t completely put on a happy face for this year’s full-length follow-up, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” either.

Jamie Lang Latin American super-producer Daniel Dreifuss was in his father’s hometown of Montevideo this week to speak to the Ventana Sur film market about how to craft an awards season campaign. It’s clear why the market would want to host Dreifuss as he’s a qualified authority on the subject, having backed Oscar-nominated fare such as Pablo Larraín’s 2012 feature “No” and last year’s four-time Academy Award-winner “All Quiet on the Western Front.” During his discussion, the hitmaker talked about far more than how to earn plaudits, however, explaining that if the initial goal of a project is to win awards, chances are that the honors will never come. Below, we highlight five takeaways from a one-on-one conversation between Dreifuss and Variety and his enlightening masterclass at Ventana Sur.

Jamie Lang Hollywood heavyweight director Fede Alvarez returned to his home country of Uruguay this week to host a masterclass at the Ventana Sur market, held in Montevideo for the first time this year. Eliciting loads of laughs and several enthusiastic rounds of applause, Alvarez reflected on his personal journey from a teenage filmmaker shooting superhero movies with his friends to helming one of Hollywood’s most iconic sci-fi franchises with this year’s “Alien: Romulus,” which grossed $351 million at the global box office.

Jamie Lang Paul Hudson’s Outsider Pictures has acquired U.S. theatrical rights to Venezuela’s 2024 International Feature Oscar submission “The Shadow of the Sun” by director Miguel Angel Ferrer. “The Shadow of the Sun” is the story of Alex, a young deaf man who asks his older brother Leo to accompany him in a musical competition.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In reviewing Laufey‘s August concert with the LA Philharmonic, Variety wrote, “Laufey feels like she was born to play the Hollywood Bowl, with her rapturously received pop/jazz/classical set.” Something else she might have been born for: the big screen. She’s on Imax screens across America this weekend (and some slightly less massive-scale ones as well) with “Laufey’s A Night at the Symphony: Hollywood Bowl.” And director Sam Wrench‘s extended use of closeups establishes that she’s as expressive an actress, in her fashion, as she is a singer, guitarist, pianist and cellist.

Murtada Elfadl In crafting a quietly affectionate film about a man who thinks he might be an alien, “Sky Peals” director Moin Hussain manages to make an allegory about solitude and isolation with a deft and steady hand. The film’s lead character, a 30-something British man of Pakistani origin, could be a stand-in for millions who feel removed from their roots while living within cultures and among people who think of them as outsiders. Hussain’s skillful filmmaking avoids making obvious points, instead deepening the narrative as a singular character study with sci-fi elements.

Trainspotting is on the way.Welsh published the cult novel in 1993 and it was later turned into a film via director Danny Boyle. They both followed the lives of a group of heroin addicts and their friends living in Leith, Edinburgh.The original Trainspotting film was later followed up in 2017 with sequel T2 Trainspotting, which saw original stars Ewan Bremner (Spud), Robert Carlyle (Begbie), Ewan McGregor (Renton), Jonny Lee Miller (Sick Boy) and Kelly Macdonald (Diane) all return.Announcing the news of the new novel on social media, it was revealed that it would be called Men In Love and would follow Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie as they try to leave heroin behind and pursue love instead.In a statement, Welsh said: “I’m really, really excited about bringing these characters back,” via The Guardian. A post shared by Irvine Welsh (@irvine.welsh)The novel will arrive on July 3 2025 and focuses on a “transitional” period for the characters in their mid-twenties which Welsh described as an “interesting time in the lives of men” who start to become “serious in their quest for romance” as you “start to believe in your own mortality for the first time.”While there have been other spin-off novels with the characters including Porno and Skagboys, this is the first that takes place immediately after the events in Trainspotting.Welsh went on to add that the book shows working-class characters “having big emotional lives” something he says is rarely seen in fiction.

Variety TV critics Alison Herman and Aramide Tinubu have overlapped with a single series in their picks for the year’s best shows, speaking to the deep pool from which they had to choose. While some of these series have been major hits, like HBO’s “The Penguin,” or awards-season darlings such as FX’s “Shōgun,” other, less-discussed shows also earned their attention.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Tyler Perry has dedicated the past quarter-century of his career to giving voice to Black women on stage and screen. With “The Six Triple Eight,” the self-made mogul — who leveraged his success to build a production studio on a former U.S. Army base outside Atlanta — has found a story ideally suited to his strengths and interests: how a courageous group of 855 women of color made history during World War 2, becoming the first such unit to serve overseas.

EXCLUSIVE: When editing a musical film, editor Myron Kerstein puts himself in the audience’s shoes to find the driving emotional force of the film. “With Wicked, even though we have these giant set pieces, this epic canvas, ultimately it’s the human moments between these two characters that will move the audience,” he says in a new Wicked editing featurette.

Andrés Buenahora “Joker: Folie à Deux,” Todd Phillips‘ sequel to the Oscar-winning film starring Joaquin Phoenix, will be available to stream on Max on Dec. 13. It will debut on HBO linear on Dec.

Is anyone even watching young adult TV anymore? 

Aramide Tinubu Just over a decade ago, the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist became the biggest robbery in the country’s history. Now, Brian Donovan and Ed Herro have put their own “Fargo”-like spin on the real-life theft in Prime Video’s beautifully unhinged dramedy thriller, “The Sticky.” Set in 2011 in a tiny Quebec town where syrup is king, the audience is introduced to three unlikely and outlandish characters. There’s Ruth (a winning Margo Martindale), a bitter maple farmer determined to keep her farm afloat while caring for her comatose husband.

Holly Jones With a heady dose of ‘80s nostalgia and the gravity that only a script full of fierce intergenerational matriarchs can bring to the table, Mexico’s Mayra Hermosillo revealed a cut of her nuanced and buzzy coming-of-age title “Vainilla,” among the players selected for Ventana Sur’s Primer Corte. The film is produced by Stacy Perskie, Karla Luna Cantú and Andrea Porras Madero at Mexico’s lauded Redrum, with production credits that include Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Bardo” and Gael Garcia Bernal-fronted Golden Globe winner “Mozart in the Jungle.” Paloma Petra at Nuevo León-based Huasteca Casa Cinematográfica co-produces the project.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Michelle Yeoh wasn’t initially convinced she should be part of the hit musical “Wicked.” Speaking at the Red Sea Film Festival, she said that, although Jon M. Chu “could throw the phonebook at me and I would say yes,” she wasn’t sure she was the right choice to play Madame Morrible in the film until she got a surprise video from stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande straight from the film’s set. In the video, the two stars said, “Michelle, it is imperative that you join us!” and, even though the Oscar winner can’t sing, she took on the role and joined Chu’s production almost immediately.

After an intense battle over two days in the I'm A Celebrity jungle, one contestant has secured the much-sought-after 'Ticket to Cyclone', guaranteeing immunity from the next two eliminations.

Brent Lang Executive Editor “Swept Away,” a musical that mixed together a shipwreck, cannibalism and the music of the Avett Brothers, hoped to defy conventional wisdom about what constitutes a Broadway hit. Instead it announced Thursday that it will wrap up its short run this month. The production, which began previews Oct.

Matthew Rankin thinks more of audiences than that. His new film, “Universal Language,” was selected by Canada as the country’s submission for the Oscars’ international feature category, but you’d be forgiven if you were unable to place it.

West End actor and theater star Kyle Birch has sadly passed away at the young age of 26.

Andrés Buenahora There was a sense of hope and optimism at Variety’s Faith and Spirituality in Entertainment Honors gala on Wednesday night. Held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills and presented by the Coalition for Faith and Media, the event celebrated industry leaders supporting underrepresented themes of faith within entertainment. Jeff Simpson, Coalition for Faith and Media trustee and CEO of Desert Management Corp, opened the ceremony by highlighting the importance of diverse portrayals of faith in media.

Former Strictly Come Dancing star Ola Jordan has questioned whether one of the two remaining female contestants can win this year's series as she spoke about the voting system.