Feature: Last News

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief A feature-length fully-animated version of smash hit Korean series “Yumi’s Cells” will launch next month at the European Film Market in Berlin. International rights to the property were picked up by Barunson E&A, part of the Korean Barunson conglomerate that also produced Oscar-winning live-action film “Parasite.” “Yumi’s Cells: The Movie” is a 3D feature animation based on the popular Naver webtoon series of the same title that debuted in 2015. Production of the film is by Locus Animation (formerly Sidus Animation), which was previously responsible for “Red Shoes and Seven Dwarfs” and Studio N, a subsidiary of Naver Webtoon.

Happy Mondays‘ Shaun Ryder has made a guest appearance on a posthumous single, ‘Green Banana’ by Lee “Scratch” Perry.The upbeat new track is taken from the late dub legend’s forthcoming posthumous album ‘King Perry’, which will be released on February 2 via False Idols. It has been released alongside a remix by Bristol duo Dubkasm.It follows the previously released single ‘100lbs of Summer’ featuring Greentea Peng, which was also released alongside a remix by Tricky.The album was written, recorded, and produced by Perry together with producer Daniel Boyle before his death in August 2021 at the age of 85.Check out ‘Green Banana’ below:According to a statement, the new album was Perry’s idea to “do something new, something different but still with a dub framework”.The record, which will reportedly incorporate “synthwave, big beat, drum & bass and electronica”, will be a “kaleidoscopic and engaging melting pot of rhythms, melodies, and voices.” It also said that “Poignantly, closing track ‘Goodbye’ was Perry’s last ever recorded vocal performance.”In other news, Ryder’s biopic Twisting My Melon has been halted due to creative disputes.In 2013, ITV announced it was planning to serialise the Happy Mondays frontman’s autobiography Twisting My Melon. Eventually, Jack O’Connell (Skins) was announced as the lead actor in 2019.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The annual MusiCares Person of the Year dinner will be like New Jersey West, with Bruce Springsteen among the performers announced to salute Jon Bon Jovi just prior to the Grammys in L.A. on Feb. 2.

American Fiction, a new film based upon the book ‘Erasure’ by Percival Everett. Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, John Ortiz, Erika Alexander, Leslie Uggams, Adam Brody, Keith David, Issa Rae and Sterling K.

A new AI feature being launched in beta by streaming pay-TV provider Fubo allows viewers to choose specific news segments from a continuously updated supply of “instant headlines.”

The Strangers’ Case from American filmmaker Brandt Andersen and starring French actor Omar Sy will make its world premiere at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. 

Alex Ritman Julianne Moore is set to star in “The Room Next Door,” the first full-length English-language feature from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar. Moore — whose casting was confirmed on Thursday by Almodóvar’s production company El Deseo on social media — joins Tilda Swinton in the film. Swinton previously starred in Almodovar’s 2021 short “The Human Voice.” Swinton’s casting, which Almodóvar’s first spoke about last year, was also confirmed by El Deseo.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The Super Bowl ad roster is usually filled with commercials for beer, candy and snacks. There will also be at least one focused on something more serious. The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, an advocacy group backed by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, will run a 30-second spot during CBS’ February 11 broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII, ensuring that a serious note will sound amid many silly ones.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The nominees for the 96th Academy Awards were announced Tuesday morning, with “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s sprawling examination of the dawn of the Atomic Age, leading with 13 nods including Best Picture.

Before making Past Lives, writer-director Celina Song says with a laugh, she didn’t even know how to read a call sheet. Flash forward a year, though, from the A24 romantic drama’s world premiere at Sundance, and she’s landed an Original Screenplay nom for her debut feature.

The Sundance Institute and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation today named the recipients of three artist grants aimed at supporting projects currently in development, as they officially bestowed their Feature Film Prize on Sam and Andy Zuchero’s Love Me, all through their joint Science-In-Film Initiative.

Love Me,” from filmmaker duo Sam and Andy Zuchero, received the juried feature film prize from Sundance Institute and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s joint Science-in-Film initiative at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The prize is awarded to a film that focuses on science or technology as a theme or depicts a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.

EXCLUSIVE: Imagine Entertainment co-chairmen Brian Grazer and Ron Howard have entered into a multi-year co-financing and production partnership with Fifth Season and their co-CEOs Graham Taylor and Chris Rice.

Björk and Philip Glass are among the musical guests that have been announced for the new album by US electronic producer Jlin.The eleven-track album is called ‘Akoma’ and will be released via Planet Mu Records on March 22. Jlin has also shared the first track from it, ‘The Precision of Infinity’, which features the legendary minimalist composer Glass.

Kristen Stewart is being honored with the visionary award at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival opening night gala, a prize that is a bit unusual for the actor to accept. Speaking to Variety‘s Angelique Jackson, Stewart said her job is to serve the vision of filmmakers and not to always have her own sense of vision. “When I saw that I was being given the visionary award I was like, ‘What a word!'” Stewart said during Variety On The Carpet, presented by DIRECTV.

Ben Croll Noé Debré, the co-writer of “Dheepan” and “Stillwater” and creator of the European Parliament sendup series “Parlement,” marks his feature directorial debut with the bittersweet comedy “A Good Jewish Boy.” Produced by Moonshaker, sold by Charades and making its world market premiere at this year’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris, the freewheeling film follows a 27-year-old man-child Bellisha (Michael Zindel) and his ailing mother, Giselle (Agnès Jaoui), who together make up the last remaining Jews living in a working class neighborhood that all of their friends and family have long since fled. At first that’s just as well for the easy-going Bellisha, but health concerns, prejudice and most of all an acute sense of alienation soon begin to creep in.

LE SSERAFIM‘s Yunjin and soloist Crush.Released on January 17, ‘Yes or No’ features vocals from LE SSERAFIM’s Yunjin and K-R&B singer Crush. The song also notably samples K-pop girl group Brown Eyed Girls’ 2008 track ‘Love’.‘Yes or No’ features lyrics co-written by Yunjin, GroovyRoom and Kim Eana, the latter of whom wrote ‘Love’.

FX has set a March 29 premiere date for Spermworld, a documentary feature on the unregulated online marketplace for sperm, produced by The New York Times and Edgeline Films.

The Green Brigade have featured as a news package on an Iranian government-owned TV channel.

Whiplash” has topped the Sundance Film Festival‘s list of top 10 feature films from the past four decades. In honor of the 40th edition of the festival that starts Thursday, the Sundance Institute surveyed over 500 filmmakers, critics and industry members who selected from nearly 4,000 features that have played the festival.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor The best home-theater experience coming to the market is one you’ll be able to strap onto your head, according to Apple. Apple unveiled several new entertainment experiences that will be available on Apple Vision Pro — its expensive new mixed-reality headset — when it begins shipping on Feb.