Whatever spell conjured by the witchy Owens sisters, played onscreen by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman in two “Practical Magic” movies, wasn’t powerful enough to lure audiences to theaters. “Practical Magic 2” disappointed in its box office debut with $30 million from 4,146 North American theaters, arriving on the lower end of expectations. Overseas, the […]
Variety•Rebecca Rubin13 Sept
Nicholas Weinstock, executive producer of the Apple TV+ series “Severance,” has boarded “Tongue,” an Indian fantasy-horror feature written and directed by Krishnarjun Bhattacharya and starring Sayani Gupta. Weinstock produces through his banner Invention Studios alongside Divya D’Souza, with Gupta serving as the film’s Indian producer. The film earned a spot in the South Asian Canadian […]
Variety•Naman Ramachandran13 Sept
Across the harrowing financial realities of late capitalism, an indisputable global fact is the injustices faced by countless workers who deliver everything we have come to rely on, from food orders to Amazon purchases. Despite their hard work under unideal, sometimes even unsafe conditions, it’s no secret that delivery staff have been barely compensated with […]
Variety•Tomilaffly13 Sept
Cinematographer Adam Pietkiewicz has been dealing with patchy internet over the past few days. He and his crew have been sailing on the Baltic Sea and have finally docked at an undisclosed location in northeastern Poland. In a few weeks, Pietkiewicz will attend the Toronto International Film Festival to accept the Variety TIFF Artisan Award […]
Variety•Jazztangcay13 Sept
Twenty-three years after the United States invaded Iraq, the American public now knows that despite his horrific reign and brutal dictatorship, Saddam Hussein never had any weapons of mass destruction. Based on former CIA analyst John Nixon’s 2016 memoir “Debriefing the President,” and adapted for television by Daniel Stiepleman and Jonathan Wakeham, TNT’s limited series, […]
Variety•Aramide Tinubu13 Sept
Iranian director Ali Asgari has no desire to repeat clichés about great expectations for things to come. “In Iran, we don’t have high hopes for the future anymore,” he states. “We’ve been waiting for good news for so many years, and it never came. But I do believe in these small specks of light. For […]
Variety•Marta Balaga13 Sept
Helen Mirren, Laura Linney, Rhys Ifans, Erin Doherty and James McAvoy star in three of the biggest U.K. titles world premiering at Toronto and making Variety’s 2026 selection of 20 International Titles to Track at this year’s Toronto.Jodie Comer sings (very creditably Variety suggests), in a fourth U.K. package, gothic rom-com “Stuffed” as romance takes […]
Variety•Roberto Prieto13 Sept
Netflix’s “Scooby-Doo: Origins” has wrapped production, the company announced Sunday. The live-action series is set for a global release on the streamer in 2027. Per the series’ official logline, “Scooby-Doo: Origins” is a “modern reimagining of the iconic mystery-solving group of teens and their very special dog.” “During their final summer at camp, old friends […]
Variety•Payton Turkeltaub13 Sept
Twenty-five-year-old newcomer Adia never really imagined becoming a movie star. Growing up, she was focused on becoming a professional dancer before a hip injury derailed that dream. That’s when the high school senior discovered acting. “I decided to take an acting class, just to try it out and see if that would be comparable or […]
Variety•Angelique Jackson13 Sept
Melissa Rivers is returning to the red carpet. Fashion expert and author Rivers — who rose to fame reporting outside awards-shows with her late mother, the comedian Joan Rivers — will be joining Variety co-president and co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh and CNN correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister at the two brands’ Emmys pre-show broadcast. On “CNN & Variety […]
Variety•Daniel D’Addario13 Sept
British writer-director Lakeem Rose, is developing his feature debut, a contemporary adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” with Canadian producers Plato Fountidakis and Paul Rapovski and Hong Kong-based producer and casting director Mike Leeder. In Rose’s version, the story shifts to a world just after a modern-day war, centering on four returning soldiers […]
Variety•Naman Ramachandran13 Sept
Variety and Chanel’s annual Women in Film dinner was the place to see and be chic at the Toronto Film Festival on Friday night. When Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh entered the bar for the evening cocktail hour, Emmy winners Sarah Paulson and Colman Domingo greeted her with hugs. Soon, Patricia Arquette breezed in too, pulling […]
Variety•Angelique Jackson13 Sept
In “The Stunt Driver,” Jay Baruchel reteams with his “Goon” director Michael Dowse and takes on a showy lead part as stunt driver Ken Carter, who’s best remembered for a jump he didn’t make: a proposed mile-long leap over the St. Lawrence River in a rocket-powered car. The five years spent on that ill-fated project […]
Variety•Guy Lodge13 Sept
Toward the end of Rebel Wilson’s “Girl Group,” a fizzy, gaudy clone of “Pitch Perfect” sculpted from the mentor formula of “Bad News Bears,” the movie spirals into an interminable sequence of pop music performances. The song-and-dance numbers are so awkwardly endless that they call to mind the denouement of a very different pop spectacle: […]
Variety•Guy Lodge13 Sept
Scottish writer-director Tom Nicoll is unveling at Toronto his buzzy debut “Salvation.” It tracks an aspiring online life coach whose attempt to reinvent himself and then sell that transformation to others pulls him in increasingly desperate directions. The psychological and blackly comic thriller world premieres in TIFF’s Discovery section, having already been selected for the […]
Variety•Callum McLennan13 Sept
Seven years after “Moving On,” Korean filmmaker Yoon Dan-bi returns with “The World Before,” a coming-of-age film about desire and first love. Speaking with Variety ahead of the film’s Toronto Film Festival Platform world premiere, Yoon discusses how capturing the authenticity of change worked its way at every stage of the production. “I want to […]
Variety•Naman Ramachandran13 Sept
In “Masc,” director Bertil Nilsson pulls off a nifty trick: He observes an observer. Usually a film’s protagonist has the dominant POV, but here, Robin (Joshua Griffin) is trying to find his personality by observing other men in his orbit. He almost never initiates the action and is mostly reticent about his reactions, but he […]
Variety•Murtada Elfadl13 Sept
“Happily Ever After,” the follow-up feature from Taiwanese director Feng-i Fiona Roan, is bowing in the Toronto Film Festival’s Special Presentations lineup, arriving amid heightened attention following the success of her acclaimed debut, “American Girl.” “American Girl” premiered in the Asian Future section of the Tokyo International Film Festival before earning seven Golden Horse Award […]
Variety•Naman Ramachandran13 Sept
Abinash Bikram Shah’s “Elephants in the Fog” has been sold to distributors across 10 territories, Best Friend Forever has revealed, as the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner plays at the Toronto Film Festival with Nepal’s Oscars international feature submission also confirmed. New deals put the film with MetFilm Distribution in the U.K., Filmin […]
Variety•Naman Ramachandran13 Sept
Reaping upbeat initial reviews, Italian film “Idda” had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the TIFF Platform competition, whose non-English language winner, starting this year, will be directly eligible for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Directed by Irene Dionisio (“Pawn Street,” “Shores”) and starring Tecla Insolia […]
Variety•Roberto Prieto13 Sept