awards: Last News

Selena Gomez surprised her Only Murders in the Building family handing SAG Awards to Martin Short and Steve Martin.

Spotify has claimed it has paid $10bn (£7.7bn) in royalties in 2024, the largest payout to the music industry in a single year.The streaming service said 1,500 artists earned over $1 million in royalties, marking a 10-fold increase in its yearly payout figure from 2024, where $1 billion was given overall.In a report looking at payments of royalties, Spotify called their 2024 payouts “the largest in music industry history”, and compared itself to Tower Records at the peak of the CD era in the early 2000s.However, this comes as artists and industry figures continue to criticise the streaming service over streaming earnings. Earlier this year, nominees for the Songwriter Of The Year category at this year’s Grammy Awards decided to boycott Spotify‘s party for the ceremony.The likes of Jessi Alexander, Amy Allen, Jessie Jo Dillon and RAYE – who have all been nominated for Songwriter Of The Year have announced they will be skipping the streaming platform’s celebratory bash and will also not be performing at the event.However, Spotify said it pays royalties to rights holders, explaining that it does not have “visibility” on where the money ultimately goes as it is dependent on the artists’ individual contracts with their labels – according to BBC News.A spokesperson said: “Spotify does not pay artists or songwriters directly.

EXCLUSIVE: Walden Media and Akiva Goldsman‘s Weed Pictures are making the Cold War thriller Billion Dollar Spy with Oscar-winner Russell Crowe and Industry’s Harry Lawtey set to headline.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Agora, the industry section of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, announced its awards Wednesday. Among the awards in the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum section was the IEFTA Award for Best Documentary in Development, accompanied by a 10,000 euro cash prize.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor The largest audience award in the world, the LUX Audience Award, sees citizens and members of the democratically elected European Parliament coming together yearly to honor a European film with their coveted prize. This year’s slate of highly-acclaimed nominees include Gints Zibalodis’s history-making “Flow,” which just won Latvia its first ever Oscar for Best Animated Film, and Mati Diop’s “Dahomey,” the first film by a Black filmmaker to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large The long-running Newport Beach Film Fest is set to launch a TV counterpart this June. The org revealed Wednesday that it will hold the inaugural Newport Beach TV Fest from June 5 to June 8 at the Lido Theater and The Port Theater in Newport Beach, Calif.

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy Award nominee Clifton Collins Jr. (Westworld, The Stand) and Mo McRae (Big Little Lies, Gridiron Gang) have joined the cast of Apple TV+‘s limited series Lucky created by Jonathan Tropper. Production is currently underway in Los Angeles.

EXCLUSIVE: Tim Sheader, who last year became the Artistic Director of prestigious London theater the Donmar Warehouse, has signed with CAA.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Two years after receiving the Honorary Golden Alexander Award for his body of work, renowned Greek documentarian Stavros Psillakis returns to the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival with “Sculpted Souls.” The film looks at the history of the Hansenites — individuals affected by Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy — through the story of Swiss dentist Julien Grivel, who treated patients affected by the disease pro bono for almost three decades. Speaking with Variety ahead of the film’s world premiere, Psillakis recalls first reading Grivel’s book, “Greece, My Ithaca,” and promptly wanting to meet up with the dentist. “He immediately won me over,” says the director, who then quickly began production despite not having funding locked yet.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent “Falke Motors,” from “Pusher” co-scribe Jens Dahl, “Stick ‘Em Up” by the creators of Series Mania winner “Blackport” and “The Wonderful Golem,” from “The Cakemaker” director Ofir Raul Graizer, figure among a typically high-caliber, talent-studded lineup at this year’s third edition of Series Mania Seriesmakers. A unique mentoring program for filmmakers making their TV creator debut – or seeking in the case of “Blackport’s” creators to hone their craft – 2025 also sees Seriesmakers adopting a new commercial edge as creators and Series Mania itself seeks to forefront shows which, without abandoning their artistic ambition, seek to cut through a still immensely competitive TV drama sector in a buyers’ market.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Nine years after “All These Sleepless Nights” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to great acclaim and picked up the directing prize in the World Cinema – Documentary category, Polish director Michał Marczak is gearing up to make “Closure.” The project, selected as part of the Pitching Forum at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival’s industry section, Agora, follows a father as he scours the depths of Poland’s Vistula River in search of his missing teenage son. Speaking with Variety out of Thessaloniki, Marczak says the project came to him as a “complete coincidence” as he was location scouting for a fiction feature film he was planning to shoot by the Vistula.

The 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards show will be happening next week and Fox has announced some exciting details, including many of the stars who you can expect to see in attendance!

Gene Winfield, a pioneering legend in the hot-rod world who created custom cars for numerous films and TV shows including Blade Runner, the original Star Trek series, RoboCop, Get Smart! and many others, has died. He was 97.

Joey King and Hunter King are having the best sister trip ever!

Thania Garcia The Songwriters Hall of Fame will recognize Stephen Schwartz — the arranger and composer behind the music from “Wicked,” “Godspell” and “Pippin” — as the recipient of the 2025 Johnny Mercer Award at the Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala, slated for June 12 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. The Johnny Mercer Award is the most prestigious honor bestowed by the Songwriters Hall of Fame, is exclusively reserved for a songwriter or songwriting team who has already been inducted in a prior year and whose body of work is of “such high quality and impact that it upholds the gold standard set by the legendary Johnny Mercer,” per the SHOF.

Jamie Lang Accomplished writer, director and editor Diana Toucedo’s upcoming feature “To Live in a Shout” is currently in development and has received a significant boost with the addition of “20,000 Species of Bees” filmmaker Estibaliz Urresola as co-writer. The project is one of the hottest set to participate in the upcoming Malaga Festival’s MAFIZ industry sidebar where it pitches at MAFF, the event’s co-production and financing platform. Described by its producers as a gripping drama, the film tells the story of Lola, a U.N.

Matt Minton mminton@variety.com Bravo’s “The Valley” is officially returning for Season 2 on April 15 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. This second season of the reality show, developed as a spin-off of “Vanderpump Rules,” continues to see the fracture in long-term relationships following everybody’s move away from West Hollywood.

method dressing may officially be behind us following his best actor loss for “A Complete Unknown,” the actor’s rock-and-roll era lives on in a new GapStudio satin set, designed after the custom fit he wore to the Academy Awards Nominees Dinner earlier this month. For one of his last ensembles of awards seasons, Chalamet wore a custom recreation of Gaps’ Icon jacket and loose jeans in a black Duchesse satin, layered on top of a black silk jersey T-shirt.

ITV has severed ties with Martin Fustes, a writer on long-running soap opera Emmerdale, after he admitted to charges of attacking his girlfriend.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Chile’s Catalina Saavedra, a Sundance Acting Special Jury Prize winner for “The Maid,” and a Film Independent Spirit Award nominee for “Rotting in the Sun,” is attached to star in Natalia Luque’s “A Decorous Woman” (“Señorita de Buena Presencia”), lead produced by Chile’s Parina Films and one of the highest profile projects to be showcased at next week’s 2025 Malaga Festival Fund & Co-Production Event (MAFF). In further news, “A Decorous Woman,” set up at Parina Films, represented by Rodrigo Díaz, and France’s Tomsa Films (France), headed by Thomas Lambert, has just been boarded by Madre Content.

Brian Durnin’s debut feature Spilt Milk took home the Audience Award at the Glasgow Film Festival this year, wrapping up a starry 21st edition that saw the likes of James McAvoy, Jessica Lange, Ed Harris, Toni Collette, Tim Roth and Takehiro Hira all touch down at the Scottish event.