British royal family news reveals that failed princess Meghan Markle is full of regrets for how she treated the royal family, but make no mistake, she still needs that apology from them before everything is 100.

Meghan desperately “wants to make peace” with Princess Catherine even though she is still “genuinely feeling hurt” over the feud.

Meghan Wants Peace

This is a different anthem than the one Meghan normally spins. The former game show girl and one-time “Suits” character has not bothered to see the Princess of Wales for almost two years.

The last time Meghan was in town was for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in September 2022. Since then she has reached great heights as a jam maker.

Princess Catherine is undergoing preventative cancer treatment, so it’s an awkward time for Meghan to demand Kate’s time. But a source told InTouch that Meghan “doesn’t want any bad blood between them.

Exclusive: British agent Holly Bott has launched Little Arrow, a new management company that counts Traitors host Claudia Winkleman among its clients.

Bott is the former Global MD of Ymu Entertainment and her new operation is pitched as a business development hub and management company for a select group of clients. It goes out of the gate with a lineup of household names in its quiver. As well as Winkleman, who is flying high after the success of Traitors, broadcasters Gabby Logan and Emma Barnett have signed, as has British designer Anya Hindmarch.

At Ymu, Bott worked with talent including the aforementioned Winkleman and Logan, as well as the likes of Davina McCall, Amelia Dimoldenberg, Rylan Clark, Munya Chawawa, and Olympic diving champ Tom Daley.

Emma Barnett, Anya Hindmarch and Gaby Logan

Bott also worked with Fearne Cotton on the creation of the ‘Happy Place’ wellness brand, which has notched over 100 million podcast listens,...

The last time Netflix’s The Witcher looked like it was off to a good start was before it even premiered. While having an avid fan of the franchise as its lead star could have been a great advantage to the TV show, it quickly turned out that neither the showrunner nor the writer’s room cared about the source material. Frustrated by having to constantly fight for every bit of lore, Henry Cavill quit the series after S3.

But Netflix simply sent a new Geralt of Rivia our way… Much to fans’ dismay.

Netflix Drops First Look at Hemsworth’s Witcher

Recently, Netflix released the first official teaser trailer of The Witcher Season 4 — the first season where Henry Cavill will be replaced by Liam Hemsworth. There’s not much to go off of in the teaser as it shows the Witcher from behind for the most part, but in...

The first iteration of the Cannes Film Festival, planned for 1939, was scuppered when Germany invaded Poland to trigger the start of World War II. But when the festival finally got off the ground in 1946, Indian cinema came out swinging. Mounted shortly after the conclusion of the war, the first “real” Cannes Film Festival featured competition entries from Billy Wilder (The Lost Weekend), Roberto Rossellini (Open City), and David Lean (Brief Encounter). In the spirit of post-war peace and reconciliation, the competition jury, headed by French historian Georges Huisman, handed the top prize — then the Grand Prix — to films from 11 of the 18 countries represented that year.

This included India, with Chetan Anand’s social-realist drama Neecha Nagar, and, for a decade at least, the country was a regular fixture in Competition. After Anand came V. Shantaram with Amar Bhoopali (1952), then Raj Kapoor with Awaara (1953), and Bimal Roy with Do Bigha Zamin...

German comedy drama The Zweiflers was named best series at the seventh annual Canneseries festival that ran April 5-10 in Cannes.

The six-part series produced by Turbokultur from creator and showrunner David Hadda about a colourful Jewish family in contemporary Germany also won the prize for best music and the High School Award for Best Series voted upon by local students.

Led by an ensemble cast, the series centres on the inheritance of a family delicatessen as the past and future clash among several generations of Zweiflers.

Hadda told Screen of the win, “It was really always my dream to bring the series to Cannes.

CBS Studios and the BBC’s period drama series “King & Conqueror” has revealed additional cast members, including “The Crown’s” Luther Ford and “Game of Thrones” actor Joseph Mawle, as it begins production in Iceland.

According to its official plot description, “King & Conqueror” is “the story of a clash that defined the future of a country – and a continent – for a thousand years, the roots of which stretch back decades and extend out through a pair of interconnected family dynasties, struggling for power across two countries and a raging sea. Harold of Wessex and William of Normandy were two men destined to meet at the Battle of Hastings in 1066; two allies with no design on the British throne, who found themselves forced by circumstance and personal obsession into a war for possession of its crown.”

Additional cast members include Eddie Marsan, Juliet Stevenson, Jean-Marc Barr, Geoff Bell, Elliot Cowan,...

AMC Networks is sharing updates on Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe, including casting notes, premiere date and a production update for hits Interview with the Vampire and Mayfair Witches, as well as development news for a potential third series.

As revealed on Tuesday during the network’s TCA presentation, AMC is currently developing a potential third series in the franchise, written and executive produced by Oscar-nominated John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side), based on the secret society, The Talamasca, featured in several of Rice’s novels.

Interview with the Vampire will premiere its second season on Sunday, May 12 on AMC and AMC+ with David Costabile joining as a guest star. He will portray Leonard, a seasoned TV personality who has a run-in with Molloy (Eric Bogosian). Additionally, recurring guest stars this season include Roxane Duran as Madeleine and Bally Gill as Real Rashid.

Paris-based Urban Sales has acquired Jean-Claude Monod’s queer period drama Girl For A Day and Jul and Jean-Paul Guigue’s hybrid animation Silex And The City and is launching sales for both films at Unifrance’s Paris Rendez-Vous next week,

Set in the 18th century, Girl For A Day is Monod’s debut feature and is based on the true story of a person called Anne Grandjean who was urged to dress as a man and change her name due to her attraction to women, and was then brought to trial. Marie Toscan stars alongside Call My Agent’s Thibault de Montalembert,...

Marlowe is a movie directed by Neil Jordan starirng Liam Neeson. With Diane Kruger and Jessica Lange. It is based on a novel by John Banville.

Marlowe is one of those films that probably shouldn’t have been made, and let me explain why: the main character has all the connotations of a classic that has reached a “sacrosanct” status and is probably the one of the most untouchable characters in the history of cinema, then played by the greatest star in the zenith of the golden age the seventh art – Humphrey Bogart.

About the Movie

Whether it was well-made, brilliant, or even if Orson Welles had directed it, I would have reason to be a bit reticent with this film. And, indeed I am, for the obvious reason that it dares revisit an untouchable classic.

Liam Neeson provides us with a similar role – if not identical – to Bogart’s,...

Marlowe is a movie directed by Neil Jordan starirng Liam Neeson. With Diane Kruger and Jessica Lange. It is based on a novel by John Banville.

Marlowe is one of those films that probably shouldn’t have been made, and let me explain why: the main character has all the connotations of a classic that has reached a “sacrosanct” status and is probably the one of the most untouchable characters in the history of cinema, then played by the greatest star in the zenith of the golden age the seventh art – Humphrey Bogart.

About the Movie

Whether it was well-made, brilliant, or even if Orson Welles had directed it, I would have reason to be a bit reticent with this film. And, indeed I am, for the obvious reason that it dares revisit an untouchable classic.

Liam Neeson provides us with a similar role – if not identical – to Bogart’s,...

Los Angeles, May 4 (Ians) Poppy Delevingne will star in ‘The Gun on Second Street’, a new drama from the Emmy-nominated Indian American writer, producer and director Rohit Karn Batra, reports ‘Variety’.

The film is described as “an allegory of the gun crisis in the United States”. Its plot follows two Pittsburgh police partners and best friends who are called to an uneventful domestic violence dispute on Second Street.

This, according to ‘Variety’, quickly escalates to a violent confrontation as Officer Tj Meadows III shoots and kills his partner, Officer Kevin Cooper, with his backup gun.

Years later, no longer a cop and still traumatised, Meadows moves back to Pittsburgh and finds his way to his partner’s widow, Kacie (Delevingne). They slowly fall in love as Kacie confronts the history she’s been avoiding, including telling her 15-year-old son, Ralph, Tj’s back-story.

The film, adds ‘Variety’, is produced by...

Poppy Delevingne will star in “The Gun on Second Street,” a new drama from writer, producer, and director Rohit Karn Batra.

The film is described as “an allegory of the gun crisis in the United States.” Its plot follows two Pittsburgh police partners and best friends who are called to an uneventful domestic violence dispute on Second Street. This quickly escalates to a violent confrontation as Officer Tj Meadows III accidentally shoots and kills his partner, Officer Kevin Cooper, with his backup gun. Years later, no longer a cop and still traumatized, he moves back to Pittsburgh and finds his way to his partner’s widow, Kacie (Delevingne). They slowly fall in love as Kacie confronts the history she’s been avoiding, including telling her 15-year-old son, Ralph, Tj’s back-story.

“I’m thrilled to be collaborating with Poppy on ‘The Gun on Second Street.’ She is effortlessly sophisticated and truly a one-of-a-kind talent,...

Fast-rising writer Ripley Parker, whose first TV project Everything Now (previously entitled The Fuck It Bucket) is launching on Netflix later this year, is set to adapt YA fantasy novel Lies We Sing to the Sea for film with the rights have been acquired by Kris Thykier’s U.K.-based banner Archery Pictures.

The debut novel of Sarah Underwood, Lies We Sing to the Sea is a magical coming-of-age drama set in a sun- and blood-soaked Ancient Greece, inspired by the myth of Penelope’s hanged maids. In the cursed kingdom of Ithaca, each spring brings the hanging of 12 young women, a tithe to the vengeful Poseidon. But when Leto awakens from her death on the shore of a magical island, its enigmatic keeper Melantho tells her that she has been chosen by the Gods to break Ithaca’s curse. Leto must return home and kill the prince.

Snapped...

The story behind the rise of Viagra is getting a TV feature treatment for the BBC.

Written by Matthew Barry (Industry, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) and exec produced by Russell T. Davies (Doctor Who, It’s a Sin, Years and Years), Men Up comes from Quay Street Productions (behind Davies recent drama Nolly and founded by Nicola Shindler, who exec produced It’s a Sin) and Boom.

Men Up is inspired by the true story of one of the world’s first medical trials for what would become the now world-famous drug, which were held in Swansea’s Morriston Hospital in Wales in 1994.

The cast includes Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones, Misfits, Riviera), Aneurin Barnard (Dunkirk, The Pact), Alexandra Roach (Killing Eve, Sanditon, No Offence), Phaldut Sharma (Sherwood, Romantic Getaway), Paul Rhys (A Discovery of Witches, Rellick), Steffan Rhodri (House of the Dragon, Temple), Mark Lewis Jones (Gangs of London, The Phantom of the Open...

The BBC is making a feature-length drama about the remarkable true story of one of the world’s first medical trials for the drug that became Viagra, which once again pairs It’s A Sin’s Russell T. Davies with Nicola Shindler.

Shindler’s Quay Street and Welsh indie Boom are behind Men Up, starring the likes of Iwan Rheon, Aneurin Barnard, Alexandra Roach and Steffan Rhodri (House of the Dragon), and penned by Matthew Barry. Davies and Shindler are EPs.

Years before the little blue pill changed the lives for millions across the globe, a group of ordinary middle-aged Welsh men underwent the extraordinary, taking part in one of the first clinical trials for an unknown drug which later became Viagra. This group of men had one thing in common: impotency, and were living their lives drowned in shame and silence before being offered a lifeline.

British actor Phil Davis says he has resigned his membership from BAFTA in the wake of Sunday’s BAFTA Film Awards which he called “an embarrassing travesty.”

In a Twitter post, Davis, who was a Supporting Actor BAFTA nominee for his role in Mike Leigh’s 2004 Vera Drake, wrote, “The BAFTA awards were an embarrassing travesty. Cutting deserving winners speeches for toe curling non interviews. Poor Richard E Grant pretending to arrive in a Batmobile and no Bernard Cribbens in memorium. I resigned my membership”

The BAFTA awards were an embarrassing travesty. Cutting deserving winners speeches for toe curling non interviews. Poor Richard E Grant pretending to arrive in a Batmobile and no Bernard Cribbens in memorium. I resigned my membership

— Phil Davis (@PhilDavis6) February 22, 2023

His comments came following Sunday’s ceremony which has received criticism. Inside the Royal Festival Hall, the show that attendees saw hit a lull after around the two-hour mark,...

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit.

I don’t know about you, but I spent my Valentine’s Day evening onstage at the Arlington Theatre for the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s American Riviera Award tribute to Brendan Fraser. I have to say it was definitely a love affair between the sold-out audience in that huge venue and the Oscar-, SAG- and BAFTA-nominated and Critics Choice Award-winning star of The Whale.

(L-r) Pete Hammond, Brendan Fraser and Sarah Michelle Gellar pose with the American Riviera Award

Sbiff produces these elaborate two-hour tributes to various Oscar nominees each year, and this year’s crop has included Cate Blanchett, Angela Bassett, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Colin Farrell & Brendan Gleeson together. I have been doing these for the past two decades and this one was so much fun to do, and you couldn’t find a more deserving or genuinely nice recipient.

Since the launch of its cash rebate in 2018, which covers up to 40 of qualifying expenditures along with 30 in tax relief, Greece has become one of Europe’s hottest filming destinations. But domestic production is surging as well, and the industry reached new heights in 2022, with the rebate scheme supporting 132 international and domestic projects.

Here’s a round-up of some of the top Greek feature films currently in the pipeline:

Buzzheart

Director: Dennis Iliadis

Producers: Amanda Livanou, Dennis Iliadis

The veteran director, who helmed the 2007 remake of Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left,” returns with a film that asks: If you had to make sure that someone could truly love without any moral limitations, how far would you go?

Sales: N/A

My Soul Startled

Director: Syllas Tzoumerkas

Producers: Maria Drandaki, Nadia Trevisan, Julie Paratian

The acclaimed director returns with 18 interwoven love stories of gods, titans, nuns, madmen,...

Neil Jordan is an Irish film director, screenwriter, and novelist who has achieved international acclaim for his work in both film and literature. His films, which often deal with themes of identity, family, and Irish history, have won numerous awards, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Jordan is renowned for his visual style, which combines elements of fantasy and realism to create unique and powerful images. 

About Neil Jordan

Neil Jordan is an Irish filmmaker and novelist, who has written and directed a number of acclaimed films and television series.

He has directed nine feature films, including The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire, The Butcher Boy, Byzantium and Ondine.

He has also wrote for several television series including the BAFTA award-winning The Borgias and the British series, Riviera.

He was born in Sligo, Ireland on February 25th, 1950 and is married to actress Brenda Fricker.

In 2020, he was...

Ahead of the film’s market premiere at Berlin’s European Film Market, Beta Cinema has announced first deals for “Operation Napoleon” to France (Mediawan), Spain (Twelve Oaks), Poland (Hagi Film), Former Yugoslavia (MegaCom), Japan (Tohokushinsha) and Taiwan (Av-Jet).

The English-language thriller is based on the eponymous best-selling novel by Icelandic crime author Arnaldur Indriðason and stars Icelandic newcomer Vivian Ólafsdóttir (“It Hatched”) and Iain Glen, best known for his role as Dr. Alexander Isaacs in the “Resident Evil” film series and as Ser Jorah Mormont in “Game of Thrones.”

The sweeping story takes us from modern Iceland to America and Nazi Germany at the end of World War II. It centers on young Icelandic lawyer Kristin, who gets drawn into the vortex of an international conspiracy when she receives grainy footage of an old airplane wreck, recently revealed by the melting of one of Iceland’s largest glaciers.

The...

Exclusive: Veteran Saw cast member Shawnee Smith is circling the newest installment in the billion-dollar horror franchise from Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures, which is currently in production in Mexico City, Deadline hears.

While the studio declined to comment on Smith’s casting, we understand that it has continued to expand its cast for the tenth Saw film following the closing of deals for Synnøve Macody Lund (Ragnarok), Steven Brand (The Sandman) and Michael Beach (Dahmer). Then, there’s horror icon Tobin Bell, who will return for another go-round as Jigsaw Killer John Kramer, as previously announced.

Details as to the plot of the new film are under wraps, though we know that franchise veteran Kevin Greuter — who helmed Saw VI and Saw: The Final Chapter, and edited Saw I through V and Jigsaw — has returned as director. While there’s no word yet on the characters to be played by Lund,...

Cannes’ Critics Week winner Laura Ferrés’ debut feature The Permanent Picture is among the projects.

Cannes’ Critics Week winner Laura Ferrés’ debut feature The Permanent Picture and the new film from Tribeca winner Elina Psykou are among 14 feature projects in post-production selected for the 2022 in-person edition of the Les Arcs Film Festival Work in Progress session.

The annual industry event designed to help projects find international sales agents, distributors and festival premieres will run on Sunday, December 11 as part of the Industry Village at the 13th edition of the festival (December 11-19).

Scroll down for the full list of projects

This year,...

Judy Counihan joins as scripted creative director.

London-based Pulse Films has brought in Archery Pictures executive Judy Counihan as scripted creative director.

The renowned Counihan, who has 25 years’ experience working in international TV and film, will help grow Pulse’s scripted slate, which includes recently recommissioned Sky/AMC series Gangs Of London, An Olive Grove In Ends adapted from by Moses McKenzie from his novel, Anna Friel-fronted The Perfect Girlfriend, and an upcoming as-yet-untitled Lewis Capaldi feature documnetary, being sold by UK outfit Independent Entertainment.

As Archery’s creative director, Counihan has worked across all drama series and feature films which includes series Riviera,...

“Gangs of London” banner Pulse Films has hired “Fate: The Winx Saga” producer Judy Counihan as its new scripted creative director.

Counihan, who was most recently creative director at Archery Pictures, has worked across Europe and the U.S. in both film and television for the last 25 years. She officially joins the company in the new year.

The executive has twice won the Oscar for best international feature film, first in 2001 for “No Man’s Land,” and in 1995 for “Antonia’s Line.” Counihan also produced the Oscar-nominated “Before the Rain,” which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and best foreign film at the Independent Spirit Awards.

At “Riviera” and “Operation Mincemeat” production outfit Archery Pictures, Counihan worked across film and TV drama. She was executive producer on two seasons of Netflix’s global hit “Fate: The Winx Saga.”

Prior to joining Archery, Counihan was CEO of All3Media-backed Solution 3 Productions.

“Phoenix Rise,” fresh off its world premiere at Cannes’ MipJunior, is a “show about second chances,” say creators Matt Evans and Perrie Balthazar.

Produced by Canada’s Sinking Ship Entertainment and BBC Kids & Family Productions, it sees six marginalized students forming a bond at their new school in the U.K.’s West Midlands. With 20 episodes clocking in at 30 minutes, it’s targeting an audience of 10 years and older.

Alex Draper, Luca Alves, Lauren Corah, Tara Webb, Krish Bassi, Imogen Baker and Orla McDonagh star.

“Kids lead frantic lives. We wanted to capture that energy while also giving emotional moments some room to breathe,” Evans and Balthazar tell Variety in a joint statement.

“It’s a fast-moving show which reflects the chaos and confusion of being a teenager. Something we all can remember!”

Previously, Evans has been a writer on “EastEnders” or “Riviera.” He will also work on the upcoming...

Veteran film executive Kylie Munnich has joined leading Australian independent producer Goalpost Pictures as its CEO.

She takes up the newly-created position from Nov. 1, 2022, after recently departing from Screen Queensland, which she headed for the past three years.

Prior to Screen Queensland, Kylie worked as a scripted sales and co-production executive for Seven Studios, Australia. Before that, she was senior VP for distribution Asia-Pacific for Sonar Entertainment overseeing sales for premium drama series such as Tom Hardy’s “Taboo” and Pierce Brosnan’s “The Son.”

Munnich returned to Australia in late 2016, after five years in London to take the Sonar role. Her most recent role in the U.K. was as director of drama & comedy for Sky Vision (now Sky Studios), a role she held for two years. At Sky Vision she was responsible for acquiring scripted content such as “Britannia,” “Riviera” and “Fortitude.”

Previously, Munnich was senior VP U.

Shetland’s Series 7 return is a bittersweet one for fans of the Scottish BBC crime drama. The six-episode run will be actor Douglas Henshall’s last in the lead role of Di Jimmy Perez. Henshall’s departure though, doesn’t mean the end for Shetland, which has been renewed for an eighth series due to arrive in 2023. A new, as-yet-unannounced, lead actor will be joining the returning cast for that run.

Series 7, which starts on BBC One on Wednesday the 10th of August at 9pm, promises to tie up Perez’s loose ends and follow up on last series’ will-they-won’t-they frisson with Irish carer Meg. Before Perez says his final goodbye to the evidence board though, there’s a missing person case to solve, and a host of new characters to interrogate. Here’s who he’ll be meeting…

Shauna Macdonald as Rachel Cairns

Rachel Cairns is the mother of Connor and Abbey,...

Exclusive: Sundance Now has joined Sky’s British comedy-drama series The Lovers, bagging itself rights in the U.S. and Canada. The AMC Networks streamer has been expected to board the show for a number of weeks and Deadline can now confirm its participation.

Sundance Now will become a co-producer on the show, which comes from Pure, Life and Doctor Foster producer Drama Republic in association with Sky Studios. Roanna Benn and Rebecca de Souza are executive producers for Drama Republic, with commissioning editors Liz Lewin and Manpreet Dosanjh as executive producers for Sky Studios. Hannah Pescod also serves as executive producer, with Chris Martin as producer. David Ireland is the writer and Justin Martin the director.

Roisin Gallagher (The Fall), Johnny Flynn and Conleth Hill (Game of Thrones) star, and Alice Eve (Star Trek Into Darkness) will play a major supporting role, as we told you a few weeks back.

The Showtime limited series “Fellow Travelers” is rounding out its cast.

Variety has learned exclusively that the series has cast Will Brill, Chris Bauer, Erin Neufer, Matt Visser, and Christine Horne. in recurring roles. They join previously announced series leads Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, and Allison Williams and series regulars Jelani Alladin, Noah J. Ricketts, and Linus Roache.

The series is based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Mallon. Bomer will play handsome, charismatic Hawkins Fuller, who maintains a financially rewarding, behind-the scenes career in politics. Hawkins avoids emotional entanglements – until he meets Tim Laughlin (Bailey), a young man brimming with idealism and religious faith. They begin a romance just as Joseph McCarthy (Bauer) and Roy Cohn (Brill) declare war on “subversives and sexual deviants,” initiating one of the darkest periods in 20th-century American history. Over the course of four decades, Hawk and Tim cross paths through...

Exclusive: Rita Ora (Fifty Shades franchise), Nora Arnezeder (The Offer), Saïd Taghmaoui (John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum) and Joey Bicicchi (Black Bird) have signed on for roles in the action pic Tin Soldier, which is in production in Greece.

They join an ensemble that also includes Jamie Foxx, Scott Eastwood, Robert De Niro, John Leguizamo and Shamier Anderson.

The film from director Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer) tells the story of The Bokushi (Foxx), who preaches to hundreds of veterans who have been drawn to the promise of protection and purpose under him. Surrounded by his devout, military-trained followers, he has built an impenetrable fortress and amassed an arsenal of weapons. After several failed infiltration attempts, the government — in the form of military operative Emmanuel Ashburn (De Niro) — recruits Nash Cavanaugh (Eastwood), an ex-Special Forces asset, who was once a disciple of The Bokushi. Nash agrees to use his vulnerable past...

The Cannes Film Festival has set its lineup for this year’s Cannes Classics program, which shines a spotlight on restorations of classic movies and features contemporary documentaries about film. Kicking off the sidebar is Jean Eustache’s controversial film The Mother and the Whore, the 1973 Cannes Grand Prize winner which incited riots at the time. Also included in the program are films by Vittorio de Sica (Sciuscià), Satyajit Ray (The Adversary), Orson Welles (The Trial) and Martin Scorsese (The Last Waltz), as well as a new 4K master of Singin’ in the Rain to mark the movie’s 70th anniversary.

Among the documentaries is Ethan Hawke’s study of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, The Last Movie Stars. Executive produced by Scorsese, it features Karen Allen, George Clooney, Oscar Isaac, Latanya Richardson Jackson, Zoe Kazan, Laura Linney and Sam Rockwell among others in an exploration of the iconic couple and American cinema.

Munich-based sales agency Beta Cinema has picked up international thriller “Operation Napoleon,” and will kick off presales at the Cannes Film Market.

Shooting wrapped recently at the Langjökull glacier in Iceland, and the production has now moved to Mmc Studios in Cologne, Germany.

The Icelandic-German co-production is based on the eponymous best-selling novel by Iceland’s Arnaldur Indriðason, and features a stellar cast, led by Icelandic newcomer Vivian Ólafsdóttir (“It Hatched”), Jack Fox and Scottish actor Iain Glen, best known for his role as Dr. Alexander Isaacs in the “Resident Evil” film series and as Ser Jorah Mormont in “Game of Thrones.”

The sweeping story takes the viewer from modern Iceland to America and Nazi Germany at the end of World War II. It centers on young Icelandic lawyer Kristin, who gets drawn into the vortex of an international conspiracy when she receives grainy footage of an old airplane wreck,...

Kris Thykier’s Archery Pictures, whose credits include John Madden’s “Operation Mincemeat” and Sky thriller “Riviera,” has acquired the television rights to Ned Beauman’s highly anticipated new novel “Venomous Lumpsucker.”

The dark comedy is a madcap adventure story set in a dystopian world ravaged by climate change.

The story is set in the near future, when tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year, and a whole industry has sprung up around their extinctions, to help preserve the remnants, or just assuage humankind’s guilt (depending how you look at it).

Humanity’s last hope is the biobanks, impregnable vaults where the DNA of every organism can be preserved forever, until one day an audacious cyberattack obliterates them in their entirety.

In the aftermath, a troubled conservationist and a crooked mining exec must team up in search of the venomous lumpsucker, a lost fish that they both desperately need to save.

Luther star Idris Elba will turn hostage negotiator in a tense thriller drama series for Apple TV+.

The seven-part Hijack is the first fruit of Elba and his Green Door Pictures’ first-look deal with Apple TV+ struck in July 2020.

The multihyphenate will star as Sam Nelson, an accomplished business negotiator forced to use his guile to save the lives of passengers onboard a hijacked plane making its way to London.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Hobbs & Shaw actor Elba will executive produce the series, which 60Forty Films and Idiotlamp Productions are making in association with Green Door.

2022 Apple TV+ Pilots & Series Orders

Lupin and Criminal creator George Kay is writing Hijack, with Jim Field Smith directing. The pair, who own Criminal producer Idiotlamp, also are executive producers, along with Kris Thykier and 60Forty co-founders Hakan Kousetta and Jamie Laurenson.

Thykier’s Archery Pictures, the London-based producer behind Sky drama Riviera...

When we sit down with Thierry Frémaux he is in pensive mood. As is his wont.

Perhaps more than ever, the longtime Cannes Film Festival artistic director says he and his team of selectors were given pause for thought this year. In the age of Twitter and TikTok, do audiences still want to connect with the demanding art of auteur filmmakers?

This was just one of the subjects of our chat following Thursday morning’s Cannes lineup reveal in Paris.

On the whole, the event’s 75th anniversary selection doesn’t disappoint. The Competition features four previous Palme d’Or winners: Hirokazu Kore-eda, Cristian Mungiu, Ruben Ostlund and the Dardenne brothers. There are fresh faces and heavyweights. Stars set to tread the carpet include Tom Cruise for Top Gun: Maverick, Kristen Stewart and Lea Seydoux for David Cronenberg’s Crimes Of The Future and Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton...

AMC Networks isn’t satisfied with knowing you like “The Walking Dead,” “Better Call Saul” and “Killing Eve” — they want to know why you like those shows. The owner of AMC, BBC America and streaming service AMC Plus has signed a multiyear deal with entertainment-data-mapping company Katch to get the answer to that question, Variety has learned exclusively.

Katch, which has previously provided data-driven insights to a variety of partners in the world of film, is entering into the television space with its AMC Networks deal. Under the pact, Katch, the creator of the world’s first “human-powered media genome” for the entertainment industry, will offer insights in support of AMC Networks’ linear channels — AMC, BBC America, IFC, SundanceTV and We tv — and growing portfolio of targeted streaming services — AMC Plus, Allblk, Shudder, Acorn TV, Sundance Now and Hidive — by mapping audience preferences.

The Katch Genome, designed by former Pandorma architect Dr.

Exclusive: Fresh from his Oscar nomination, Belfast star Ciarán Hinds is joining Netflix spy drama series Treason.

Hinds, who scored a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in the Kenneth Branagh-directed film, will star alongside Olga Kurylenko, Oona Chaplin and Charlie Cox in the six-part series, which comes from Oscar-nominated Bridge of Spies screenwriter Matt Charman.

The drama follows Adam Lawrence, trained and groomed by MI6, whose career seems set. But when the past catches up with him in the form of Kara, a Russian spy with whom he shares a complicated past, he is forced to question everything and everyone in his life. A triangular relationship forms between Kara, Adam and his wife, Maddy; three people who are trying to expose one another’s secrets, navigate political and diplomatic relationships, whilst hanging onto their personal lives and those they love most.

2022 Netflix Pilot & Series Orders

He plays Sir Martin Angelis,...

Netflix has become the first global streamer to ink a deal with the French film industry that will see the window between theatrical and SVOD release significantly reduced.

It is now official that Netflix will be able to show movies 15 months after their theatrical releases in the country, slashing the previously long-held 36-month mandatory window by more than half.

“This agreement is a new step towards our virtuous integration in the unique French cinema ecosystem. It reflects both our constructive contribution to the Avms negotiation process and our commitment to be part of the French cultural exception,” said a Netflix spokesperson on Tuesday.

“Netflix is now able to offer movies 15 months after their release in theaters. This is a significant improvement for our members who had to wait for 36 months until now. Netflix will however continue to promote an earlier window to better reflect consumers’ actual viewing habits.”

Netflix will...

One of the highlights of the Berlinale Series Market is the pitch event Co-Pro Series, which looks to match projects with suitable co-producers and financiers.

Ten international series projects from Europe, Canada and Latin America have been selected to pitch at this year’s Co-Pro Series, where they will also have the opportunity of meeting one-on-one with potential partners.

Taking place over two days (Feb. 15-16), and held online once again due to the pandemic, Co-Pro Series has a track record of showcasing drama projects that have not only gone on to be produced, but that have also achieved success.

International hit “Babylon Berlin,” Austrian-German crime series “Freud,” Norwegian-German domestic terrorism drama “Furia,” Icelandic thriller “Blackport” and 1920s-set German drama “Eldorado KaDeWe” have all participated in previous Co-Pro Series pitches. In total, 19 projects have been made since the event launched in 2015.

Co-Pro Series is curated and organized by the Berlinale Co-Production Market,...

Exclusive: Rupert Graves has joined Hulu’s anticipated limited series Washington Black as a series regular, with Shaunette Renée Wilson signing on to a recurring role.

Graves and Wilson join a previously announced series regular ensemble led by Ernest Kingsley Jr. and Sterling K. Brown, which also includes Eddie Karanja, Tom Ellis, Iola Evans, Edward Bluemel and Sharon Duncan-Brewster.

Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is adapting the nine-episode drama series based on Esi Edugyan’s international bestselling novel of the same name. It will follow the extraordinary 19th-century adventures of George Washington (“Wash”) Black (Kingsley Jr.)—an 11-year-old boy on a Barbados sugar plantation who must flee after a shocking death threatens to upend his life. As previously announced, Brown is playing the gregarious, larger-than-life Medwin Harris, who traveled the world after a traumatic childhood as a Black refugee in Nova...

Exclusive: Netflix is heading into spy territory.

The streamer has ordered six-part drama Treason, starring Quantum of Solace star Olga Kurylenko, Game of Thrones star Oona Chaplin and Daredevil star Charlie Cox.

The series comes from Oscar-nominated Bridge of Spies screenwriter Matt Charman.

The drama follows Adam Lawrence, trained and groomed by MI6, whose career seems set. But when the past catches up with him in the form of Kara, a Russian spy with whom he shares a complicated past, he is forced to question everything and everyone in his life. A triangular relationship forms between Kara, Adam and his wife, Maddy; three people who are trying to expose each other’s secrets, navigate political and diplomatic relationships, whilst hanging onto their personal lives, and those they love most.

The series is produced by Binocular Productions, Charman’s production company, and marks its first major project. Creator Charman will write,...

Sky’s outgoing director of drama Cameron Roach has launched Rope Ladder Fiction, a Manchester-based independent production company.

The company’s focus will be on providing training and development opportunities to new talent and to create scripted content. It is already working with some of the industry’s most prolific broadcasters and commissioners on a range of projects, with the aim of production commencing in 2022.

Rope Ladder Fiction will also build upon Roach’s first solo project, curating Flip the Script, a training program to provide 12 paid placements for aspiring script editors in the U.K.’s Northwest run by social enterprise Sharp Futures.

Roach began his career in script and series editing on long-running drama series such as “Casualty,” before landing his first producing job on season 6 of the hit prison drama “Bad Girls” for Shed Productions. He went on to produce two seasons of “Footballers’ Wives.”

He joined...

“Line of Duty” star Vicky McClure is co-producing a new drama with Left Bank Pictures, the makers of hit Netflix series “The Crown,” Variety has confirmed.

McClure, who played detective Kate Fleming on “Line of Duty” for nine years, will also star in the new show, which is tentatively titled “Redemption” and is scheduled to air on ITV.

The show will also reportedly be filmed in McClure’s home town of Nottingham, in England’s Midlands region.

Incidentally, McClure starred in a 2013 feature film called “Redemption” alongside Jason Statham, although the U.K. version was re-titled “Hummingbird.” McClure played Statham’s former partner and the mother of his children in the movie.

McClure is also teaming up again with “Line of Duty” creator Jed Mercurio on a new series, “Trigger Point,” for ITV, in which she will lead a London-based bomb disposal unit as ex-military officer Lana Washington. The show,...

Exclusive: Poppy Delevingne (Riviera) is to co-star opposite Alex Pettyfer (Magic Mike) in biopic The Chelsea Cowboy, based on the life of actor, gangster and lothario John Bindon.

Suicide Squad and Hobbs & Shaw star Idris Elba has boarded the production as executive producer.

Delevingne will play the role of aristocrat, model, actress and original It girl Lady Victoria Hodge, who provided Bindon with access to the high life the working class boy craved. The glamorous couple endured a thirteen-year tumultuous relationship that defined Bindon’s life and serves as the backbone of the story.

UK outfit Moviehouse is repping world sales on the film at Cannes. Ben Cookson (Waiting for Anya) will direct.

Bindon was spotted in a London pub by Ken Loach who asked him to star in his film Poor Cow in 1967 and went on to play a violent mobster alongside Mick Jagger in Performance (1970) and a London...

Michelle De Swarte (The Duchess) is set as the lead in HBO/Sky’s horror comedy The Baby. Amira Ghazalla (Riviera) and newcomer Amber Grappy also have been cast as series regulars in the eight-episode series from debut screenwriter Siân Robins-Grace, Lucy Gaymer and Cherynobyl producer Sister. The series is a co-production of HBO and Sky and is currently in production in the UK.

Questioning who gets to choose “motherhood” and who doesn’t, The Baby, is co-created and written by Robins-Grace and Gaymer. It is a funny, raw examination of motherhood as an institution: a set of unspoken and often horrifying rules that affect women differently depending on how they’re viewed by society. If you’re not scared by that, you should be.

De Swarte plays 38-year-old Natasha, the friend who’s never made long-term plans. So when she is unexpectedly landed with a baby, her life of doing what she wants,...

Exclusive: AMC Networks is bringing together its international programming group across its linear cable networks and streaming services in a bid to find its next global hit.

The company has expanded the scope and focus of the group, which will be led by Kristin Jones, as it searches for follow-up shows to the likes of A Discovery of Witches, Humans and The Night Manager.

Jones, who has been at AMC Networks since 2014 and is EVP, International Programming, will oversee the group searching for global commissions, co-productions and acquisitions, across its linear networks AMC, BBC America, IFC and Sundance TV and streaming services Acorn TV, Sundance Now and the newly launched AMC+.

Other global shows include McMafia, State of the Union, Top of the Lake and Riviera as well as Gangs of London and The Salisbury Poisonings.

Jones’ team now includes Catherine Mackin, Don Klees, Shannon Cooper and Noel Manzano.

Former...

British actor and model Poppy Delevingne, Chad Michael Collins, Casper Van Dien and Jeff Fahey are set to star in thriller-suspense film “Assailant,” from Msr Media and written and directed by Tom Paton (“400 Bullets”).

The pic turns on a couple going through marriage counseling who decide to head to the Caribbean on a “make or break” sailing holiday. But when the husband gets into a local bar fight the night before a difficult trek over a coastal trail, the duo finds themselves relentlessly chased by the aggressor and forced to work together in order to survive.

Msr Media’s Philippe Martinez and Highfield Grange Studios’ Alan Latham will produce, with Lee Beasley and Karinne Behr from Msr Media, Alastair Burlingham of Sherborne Media and Charlie Dombek serving as executive producers. Production financing is provided by Sherborne Media. Msr Media International is handling worldwide rights for the film.

Principal photography...

In today’s Global Bulletin, Sky commissions supernatural thriller “The Rising” and Channel 4 and Peacock wage “The Undeclared War”; The Garden, BBC Studios Productions and Constantin Film Development reveal senior appointments; Rakuten TV expands AVOD offering; and Disney India picks up kids series “Dr Tenali Rama Hmkd” from Cosmos-Maya.

Commissions

Sky original series, supernatural crime thriller “The Rising,” is the first series produced entirely in-house from Sky Studios, Sky’s production and development arm. It tells the story of Neve Kelly who discovers that she is dead, and is determined to find her killer and get justice, believing that it was someone she knew.

The cast includes Clara Rugaard (“I Am Mother”), Nenda Neururer (“A Brief History of Struggle”) and Solly McLeod (“Boxing Day”), alongside Daniel Ings (“I Hate Suzie”), Emily Taaffe (“Rare Beasts”), Alex Lanipekun (“Spooks”) and Robyn Cara (“Ackley Bridge”).

The eight-part drama was commissioned by Zai Bennett,...

The way profound grief can become a path leading to belief in reincarnation and other supernatural phenomena forms the thematic tarmac for SXSW competitor Here Before. This wintery, unsettling drama, flecked with horror tropes in the tradition of Don’t Look Now, Birth and other British-made meditations on loss, marks a distinctive and impressive debut for writer-director Stacey Gregg, who has worked mostly in British and Irish theater as well as writing episodes for TV shows such as Riviera.

Set in a quiet suburb on the edge of proper countryside in Northern Ireland, where Gregg herself grew up, the film wraps itself snugly around ...

The way profound grief can become a path leading to belief in reincarnation and other supernatural phenomena forms the thematic tarmac for SXSW competitor Here Before. This wintery, unsettling drama, flecked with horror tropes in the tradition of Don’t Look Now, Birth and other British-made meditations on loss, marks a distinctive and impressive debut for writer-director Stacey Gregg, who has worked mostly in British and Irish theater as well as writing episodes for TV shows such as Riviera.

Set in a quiet suburb on the edge of proper countryside in Northern Ireland, where Gregg herself grew up, the film wraps itself snugly around ...