Beyond Fest will celebrate the career of Guillermo del Toro with a 12 feature retrospective series, Está Vivo: The Gods and Monsters of Guillermo del Toro. This year’s festival runs from Sept. 23 to Oct. 8 at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Calif.

In partnership with the American Cinematheque, Está Vivo will include new restorations, special director’s cut and rare 35mm screenings spanning from Del Toro’s debut with “Cronos” to his most recent film, “Nightmare Alley: Vision in Darkness and Light.”

del Toro will join the celebration for four specially curated blocks of programming, during which he will share his personal stories, dreams, and nightmares from his life behind the lens. Ahead of his forthcoming film “Frankenstein,” releasing later this year, the series will be divided into themes of monsters, humanity, and imagination.

“Guillermo del Toro’s films have inspired generations of filmmakers and audiences alike in a way unlike...

The “Tomb Raider” live-action series at Amazon Prime Video is getting ready to shoot.

The series adaptation of the video game franchise is officially set to begin production on Jan. 19, 2026. In addition, Amazon MGM Studios has confirmed for the first time that Sophie Turner will star in the series as Lara Croft. The show was originally greenlit at Prime Video in May 2024, with Turner’s involvement first reported in November of that year. The show was first reported as being in development at the streamer in January 2023.

As previously reported, Phoebe Waller-Bridge will serve as creator, writer, and executive producer on the series.

David Corenswet will dust off his red trunks soon, as a sequel to James Gunn’s summer hit “Superman” will fly into theaters in less than two years.

Director and DC Films co-head James Gunn took to social media on Wednesday to announce an official title and release date for the project. “Superman: Man of Tomorrow” will hit theaters on July 9, 2027.

In his announcement, Gunn included a comic book image of Superman standing next to Lex Luthor in his Warsuit, a pretty clear signal that the sequel will continue to focus on Luthor’s antipathy for the Man of Steel. In the DC comics, Luthor (played by Nicholas Hoult in the film) creates the suit in order match Superman’s strength and abilities; it seems that after the failure of his plan to use a clone of Superman to defeat him in Gunn’s first film, Luthor has decided that...

Jordan Peele’s fourth film as a director appears to be taking longer than expected.

Universal Pictures has unset the Oscar winner’s next project from its release calendar, which was last dated for October 2026. Peele is currently at work on the film, which has yet to roll cameras, an individual familiar with the project told Variety.

Originally, the follow-up to his 2022 hit movie “Nope” was scheduled to open over Christmas 2024; following the guild strikes, the film was then pushed to next Halloween. Universal had no comment. Reps for Peele did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As per usual with Peele’s directorial efforts, nothing is known about the movie’s plot, though its been categorized as a horror thriller. But speaking on the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast in Jan. 2024, Peele said, “I do feel like my next project is clear to me, and I...

Graham Greene, the Oscar-nominated actor from Dances With Wolves, died Monday in Stratford, Ontario, after a lengthy illness, his rep told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 73.

“He was a great man of morals, ethics and character and will be eternally missed,” Greene’s agent Michael Greene said in a statement to THR. “You are finally free. Susan Smith is meeting you at the gates of heaven,” referring to the actor’s longtime agent, who died in 2013.

Born on June 22, 1952, in Ohsweken on the Six Nations Reserve and a graduate of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre Program in 1974, the Canadian actor made his small-screen debut on the 1979 Canadian drama series The Great Detective and film debut in Running Brave (1983).

However, it was his role as Kicking Bird in the 1990 film Dances With Wolves that earned him a best supporting actor Oscar nomination. Out of its 12 nominations, Dances With Wolves won seven Academy Awards,...

Guillermo del Toro is getting the Beyond Fest treatment.

The filmmaker, who is coming off the Venice Film Festival premiere of his latest monster fantasy, Frankenstein, will be getting a 12-movie retrospective from the biggest genre film festival in the country that will showcase his three decades of bringing fantasy, dreams and nightmares to the screen.

In partnership with American Cinematheque, Beyond Fest is putting on Está Vivo: The Gods and Monsters of Guillermo del Toro, featuring new restorations, special director’s cuts and rare 35mm screenings of del Toro’s oeuvre, taking audiences from his debut with Cronos to his most recent, Nightmare Alley. This year’s festival runs Sept. 23 to Oct. 8.

“Guillermo del Toro’s films have inspired generations of filmmakers and audiences alike in a way unlike any other artist we’ve experienced,” said Beyond Fest head of programming Evrim Ersoy in a statement. “To welcome him...

Hot of the heels of its racing drama blockbuster “F1: The Movie” and Emmy-nominated limited series “Adolescence,” Brad Pitt’s L.A.-based Plan B Entertainment is planting its flag in London. Ed Macdonald, the well-respected British producer of “Baby Reindeer,” is on board to run the offspring banner which is part of Mediawan, the European powerhouse headed by Pierre-Antoine Capton since 2022.

The London banner marks the first international outpost of Plan B, the Oscar winning company co-led by Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. It’s also part of a global strategy bolstered by its parent company, Mediawan, the Paris-headquartered powerhouse headed by CEO Pierre-Antoine Capton that comprises over 80 production labels across 13 countries.

Luring Macdonald is a major coup for Plan B and Mediawan. He’s joining from Clerkenwell Films, where he worked for nearly 16 years and spearheaded a string of hits, including the BAFTA-winning “The End of the F***ing World...

The NeueHouse chain of members only clubs catering to those working in creative industries will shut down on Friday. The company confirmed the decision with a lengthy message posted on its website.

NeueHouse owners cited “legacy liabilities” as the reason why the business could not continue.

“Although NeueHouse has created an extremely valuable business that is prized by members and event hosts, unfortunately, it has been burdened by legacy liabilities,” according to a statement attributed to the NeueHouse board. “Despite our best efforts to find a sustainable path forward – including exploring every possible solution to address these challenges – we have made the very difficult decision to wind down the business and close NeueHouse. Our last day of operations will be this Friday, September 5th.”

News of the swift shutdown surprised many industry insiders. NeueHouse locations in Los Angeles have become staples on the meeting and party circuit since the venture began more than 10 years ago.

Sony Pictures Classics has scheduled a week-long awards-qualifying run starting on December 5 forRebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life starring Jodie Foster, which gets its Canadian premiere as a TIFF Gala screening on September 9.

‘A Private Life’ review

The French-language female noir will open on January 16, 2026. The drama received its world premiere in Cannes followed by the recent US premiere in Telluride.

After TIFF, where Foster will receive a TIFF Tribute Award, it plays in Spotlight at the New York Film Festival on October 5 and 6, and will open the American French Film Festival in Los Angeles on October 28.

In A Private...

Everyone's a critic, even towards a guy who redefined cinema with the majority of movies he's been bold enough to give us. Yes, even after giving us two "Avatar" films that broke the box office and a third that's just itching to do the same, somehow James Cameron's billion-dollar franchise has taken its hits from those who just aren't buying what he's selling. But even though the rest of the world might have invested in seeing interplanetary whales belly flop on highly advanced battleships, Cameron still gets rightfully frustrated with the naysayers of the Na'vi.

In an interview with Empire, Cameron spoke about how even 16 years after being in the public consciousness,...

Is the cause of Wings something that really needs to be … evangelized? Apparently so. When “Man on the Run,” a documentary about Paul McCartney’s 1970s Wings period, had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival over the weekend, you could hear patrons talking about what a revelation it was that he generated so much good music in the wake of the Beatles’ breakup, as if he hadn’t remained one of the biggest artists in the world throughout the subsequent decade. So maybe there’s some desire for further vindication that has driven McCartney to write a book about those years (coming out in the fall) as well as executive produce this Morgan Neville-directed doc (hitting select theaters and then Prime Video next year).

Maybe everyone who sold McCartney’s post-Beatles period short previously has their reasons for putting blinders on, even in the face of that inescapable a juggernaut.

Listening to documentarian Morgan Neville and actor Paul Mescal dive down the Paul McCartney rabbit hole at the Telluride brunch was one of my festival highlights. Both are McCartney experts at this point, as Mescal is returning to rehearsals in London to play Paul in the first of Sam Mendes’ four Beatles movies, and Neville has spent the last three years prepping “Man on the Run,” his post-Beatles portrait of McCartney as he created his solo albums and assembled the band Wings. When I was growing up in ’70s New York, I loved McCartney albums Cherry and Ram, but was never a Wings fan. Now I see how many of his catchy songs have seeped into the culture: I’m adding a bunch to my playlists.

“Man on the Run” reveals an artist who must reinvent himself without the Beatles and with his great ally and love, Linda McCartney. But...

Writer-director Matt Reeves' sequel to "The Batman" (currently known as "The Batman Part II") is scheduled to finally begin production next spring. Reeves and his writing partner Mattson Tomlin completed the script back in June, and some of the cast have gotten to read it; Colin Farrell (Oz Cobb/The Penguin) called it "extraordinary" in an interview with Deadline.

Actors expected to return alongside Farrell are Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Andy Serkis as Alfred, and Jeffrey Wright as Lt. Jim Gordon. We deemed Wright's Gordon one of the first movie's MVPs back in 2022. This Jim Gordon isn't the police commissioner (yet), so he does a lot of...

As we enter the first week of September, the past few weeks have been filled with summer blockbusters and independent films for audiences to discover. From films about twins to speaking with the supernatural, this season is full of blockbusters for everyone to watch on the big screen for the next few weeks.

The widest release of this week will be Warner Bros, “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” starring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson. “The Conjuring: Last Rites” follows Lorraine and Ed Warren as they investigate the infamous Smurl haunting, where they were called to investigate in 1986.

The limited release of this week is Vertical Entertainment’s “Twinless,” starring Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney. The film follows two young men who strike up an unlikely friendship after meeting at a twinless twin support group.

Check out all the new releases hitting theaters this weekend:

September 5, 2025

“The Conjuring: Last Rites”

(Warner Bros,...

It’s hard to be a movie star and a dad at the same time — just ask Channing Tatum.

On the latest episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, Daniel D’Addario, Variety chief correspondent, details his reporting for Variety’s Sept. 2 cover story featuring Tatum and director Derek Cianfrance discussing how they brought a stranger-than-fiction true crime story to life in Paramount Pictures’ “Roofman.”

Tatum and Cianfrance came together as collaborators at a time when both of them were regrouping in their careers. Tatum is extremely open in discussing the challenges of juggling movie shoots around the world with his most important job of being a parent to his 12-year-old daughter.

Tatum, D’Addario notes, is at a key transition point in his career as he reaches his mid-40s. “Roofman,” which premieres Saturday at the Toronto Film Festival, tells the story of a blue-collar North Carolina man, Jeffrey Manchester, who wound...

In Oren Jacoby’s documentary “This Is Not A Drill,” three grassroots environmentalists team with descendants of John D. Rockefeller to take on the country’s most powerful oil and gas companies.

Justin J. Pearson rallies a multiracial grassroots coalition to try to defeat a crude oil pipeline in Memphis, Tenn. Roishetta Ozane, a mother of six from Louisiana, transforms personal loss from multiple unprecedented hurricanes in her town into political action, taking her fight from the storm-ravaged streets to the halls of Congress. And Sharon Wilson, a former oil insider turned methane hunter, uses infrared cameras to expose invisible, deadly gases pouring from fracking sites and pipelines in Texas.

Backing them are rebellious Rockefeller heirs, who have turned against their family’s oil empire to expose ExxonMobil’s “decades-long cover-up deception.” Together, according to the film’s production notes, the coalition uncovers what they call Big Oil’s “Big...

Oscar Isaac scored his second Venice ovation in five days as Julian Schnabel’s literary epic “In the Hand of Dante” premiered to eight minutes of applause on Wednesday night. Isaac also leads Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” which debuted on the Lido Saturday to a rapturous 13-minute reception.

As the credits rolled on “In the Hand of Dante,” in which Isaac plays both the 14th-century poet Dante Alighieri and 21st-century author Nick Tosches, the actor embraced his director and waved to a crowd of adoring fans.

Earlier on the red carpet, Isaac posed for photos with co-star Jason Momoa, who wore a baby pink suit with matching Birkenstocks. Though Momoa walked into Venice’s Sala Grande with his director and cast — including Louis Cancelmi, Franco Nero and Benjamin Clementine — the actor soon made an exit before the film started and was not present for the ovation. The film’s co-stars Gal Gadot,...

Channing Tatum is finally a member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after debuting as Gambit in “Deadpool and Wolverine,” but it turns out he tried to enter the mega-franchise years earlier as Thor. In his latest Variety cover story, Tatum opened up about bombing his audition to play the God of Thunder in Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 superhero movie.

“I didn’t really want to be Thor,” Tatum admitted. “But I wanted to audition in front of Kenneth Branagh.”

The audition itself did not go well. As Tatum explained: “After I did one take, [Branagh] was like, ‘You’re not allowed to move. Put your hands on this chair.’ And I froze. He nailed my crutch. I spent the next five years really trying to learn stillness.”

Chris Hemsworth would ultimately win the part of Thor, with Tatum later moving on to develop a Gambit movie at 20th Century Fox as part...

This article contains spoilers for season 2 of "Wednesday."

You might remember the Goth-coded Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) dance from the first season of "Wednesday" (where she spookily grooves to The Cramps' "Goo Goo Muck"). This memorable moment was turned into a viral sensation on TikTok, with the official soundtrack being replaced by a sped-up rendition of Lady Gaga's "Bloody Mary." Gaga enthusiastically embraced the trend back then, expressing her appreciation for the show's titular character and her trusty sidekick, Thing (Victor Dorobantu). Fast forward to season 2, we have an official Gaga track tied to "Wednesday," titled "The Dead Dance," which is featured in the penultimate episode of the new season.

It’s official: 2025 is the year of the double. This year, cinemas have been flooded with movies in which actors play, quite literally, against themselves, taking on the roles of twins, clones, and strangers who look uncannily like each other.

In February, Theo James played two diametrically opposed brothers in Osgood Perkins’ horror film “The Monkey” this February. In March, Robert Pattinson played a series of clones in Bong Joon Ho’s aptly-named “Mickey 17.” By April, Michael B. Jordan had joined the fray, playing a pair of twin brothers in Ryan Coogler’s smash hit “Sinners.” And that was just the first half of the year.

There’s just something about a doppelganger that feels uniquely cinematic. A person who looks like you, thinks like you, and maybe even lives like you has always been a subject of fascination and dread in literature and philosophy, a concept that raises...

Andy Serkis recently told Metro that he is heading to New Zealand this month to begin work on “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” the new “Rings” movie that he is starring in and directing. Warner Bros. has already announced the movie will open in theaters Dec. 17, 2027. “Gollum” will be the first live-action “Rings” movie since 2014’s “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” directed by Peter Jackson.

“I’m very excited to go back. I leave for New Zealand on Saturday [Sept. 6],” Serkis said. “We’re going down to start prep and working on it, because I’m directing. I’m thrilled to return to the family that I’ve loved working with for many years, and a character that I cannot escape from.”

Warner Bros. first announced “The Hunt for Gollum” in summer 2024 and originally said it would be ready for theaters in 2026. It then...

Ciao! The 82nd annual Venice Film Festival is underway and the stars have hit the canals, with this year’s world premieres including Yorgos Lanthimos kidnap thriller “Bugonia,” Noah Baumbach’s showbiz dramedy “Jay Kelly,” Guillermo del Toro’s lavish adaptation “Frankenstein,” Luca Guadagnino’s college campus thriller “After the Hunt” and Benny Safdie’s UFC biopic “The Smashing Machine.”

New films from Mona Fastvold, Kathryn Bigelow, Paolo Sorrentino, Jim Jarmusch, Park Chan-wook, Gus Van Sant, Lucrezia Martel, László Nemes and Kaouther Ben Hania are also in the lineup. This year’s jury is headed by Alexander Payne, the director of films like “The Holdovers,” “Election” and “Sideways.”

Venice often serves as the launch of awards season, coming ahead of an onslaught of other fall festivals including Telluride, Toronto and New York that distributors use to lay the foundation for campaigning in the coming months.

See all of Variety’s...

If Dylan O’Brien plays the drums on Taylor Swift’s upcoming new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” he’s certainly not giving away that scoop. “Oh, I can’t say!” the actor told me Tuesday night at the premiere of his new indie “Twinless” at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. “You know, I can’t say.”

O’Brien’s drum-playing was credited on “Snow on the Beach” from Swift’s 2022 album, “Midnights.” “It was an all-time bucket-lister for me,” he said.

He also starred opposite Swift and Sadie Sink (“Stranger Things”) in Swift’s “All Too Well: The Short Film.”

O’Brien insists he hasn’t asked Swift to listen to her new album. “I respect the space,” he said.

In “Twinless,” a dark comedy with a twist you will not see coming, O’Brien and James Sweeney star as Roman and Dennis, new friends who meet...

The heavens opened over London’s Leicester Square on Wednesday evening as “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” had its world premiere, with pouring rain drenching the media line and fans who waited for hours to glimpse the beloved cast. It was a quintessentially British franchise finale marked by quintessentially British weather, with the skies relenting only briefly for the ensemble to walk the red carpet before the storm returned — a suitably dramatic backdrop for the farewell to one of Britain’s most enduring screen sagas.

Outside the Odeon Luxe, producer Gareth Neame said the show’s global success came from its “expressly British” mix of class structure, family drama, comedy and romance. “I think first and foremost is hoping that the fans love this movie and feel it’s the final button on the whole thing,” he noted. While stressing there are “no real plans” for more, Neame acknowledged that...

Any film festival worth its salt will program a movie or two that’s more rooted in delirium than common sense. If you had to choose the wildest, loopiest big swing of a movie to play at the Venice Film Festival this year, it would likely come down to two choices: “The Testament of Ann Lee,” Mona Fastvold’s 18th-century cult Shaker musical (imagine “The Crucible” set in a “Handmaid’s Tale” world where the women are their own puritan oppressors), and “In the Hand of Dante,” Julian Schnabel’s impossible-to-pigeonhole literary gangster mystery, which might be described as “The Da Vinci Code” retold as a violent underworld fairy tale with 14th-century footnotes. But “The Testament of Ann Lee” is a forbiddingly austere slow-motion ramble. “In the Hand of Dante,” by contrast, is a folly that pulsates with life. Even when it doesn’t add up, it’s the kind...

Warner Bros. has released the official trailer for director Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights,” starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.

Fennell serves as writer, director and producer of the classic Gothic romance, based on Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, which explores love, revenge and social class. The film stars Robbie as Cathy, Elordi as Heathcliff, Hong Chau as Nelly Dean, Alison Oliver as Isabella Linton and Shazad Latif as Edgar Linton.

Owen Cooper (“Adolescence”) and Charlotte Mellington (“Matilda the Musical”) are also featured in the cast. Cooper is set to portray a teenage Heathcliff, the novel’s antihero whose all-consuming rage affects those around him. Mellington will play a young Catherine, whose passionate and complex relationship with Heathcliff ends in tragedy. Also set to make an appearance is Vy Nguyen as a younger Nelly Dean, who serves as the main narrator in the original novel. The new adaptation of “Wuthering Heights...

Hot on the heels of “Saltburn,” Emerald Fennell and Jacob Elordi have teamed up for another work of British class commentary. The “Euphoria” star leads Fennell’s upcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel “Wuthering Heights” alongside Margot Robbie, a project that instantly became the talk of the town when it went out to market in 2024.

The film eventually landed at Warner Bros. (despite reports of a more lucrative offer from Netflix for a streaming-only release), which has it slated for a Valentine’s Day weekend 2026 release.

Despite the star power attached on both sides of the camera, “Wuthering Heights” was the source of some controversy when it was first announced. Elordi plays Heathcliff, the romantic anti-hero who is discovered on the streets before being taken in by a wealthy member of Britain’s landed gentry, only to fall in love with their daughter. Language in Brontë’s original novel...

News of Lady Mary’s divorce is presented with impeccable seriousness in a watchable outing that shouldn’t be the last

Grand finale? Oh please. Let’s get real; there is no reason why this particular brand of gibbering, wittering, blithering and surreally enjoyable nonsense shouldn’t go on for ever, like Frank Sinatra’s farewell tour or shortbread manufacture in the Scottish Highlands. Both of the previous Downton films had a sentimental last-hurrah message that didn’t preclude another one dropping off the production line. We could make the next film Downton Abbey: The Royal Finale and the one after that Downton Abbey: The Imperial Finale.

The last but...

The following contains spoilers for "Alien: Earth" season 1, episode 5, "In Space, No One..."

The Xenomorph is a perfect organism. An apex predator, the icon of the "Alien" franchise is naturally the single best movie monster of all time, as we've argued here before at /Film. The creature's psychosexual design by H.R. Giger and the way it kills its prey, combined with its horrific life-cycle, makes the Xenomorph scary beyond words. And though we've seen several variants of the Xenomorph in the "Aliens" films by now, including hordes of them moving together in "Aliens" and the "Alien vs. Predator" films, the property has yet to recapture the fear factor of a...

Every arthouse filmmaker with staggering ambition gets their “Heaven’s Gate,” their “Southland Tales,” their, yes, “Megalopolis,” a movie so boundlessly overachieving that it winds up alienating audiences and, in the worst of cases, derailing their careers.

While I’m not about to declare painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel’s career as jettisoned to artistic purgatorio, especially after the radiance and wonder of artist-driven portraits like “Basquiat” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and pieces of “At Eternity’s Gate,” his decade-in-the-kiln “In the Hand of Dante,” which itself spans 70 decades from 14th-century Florence to almost-present-day Venice and New York, is epically miscalculated despite sequences and stretches of grandeur.

This gargantuan shrine to Dante Alighieri, his “Divine Comedy,” and somehow the gangster movie genre, makes a huge misstep in trying to depict in period detail the life and times of Alighieri in the 1300s in chintzily costumed fashion — giving us not...

Film about five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza leave much of audience and many journalists sobbing

A gut-wrenching new film about a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli forces in Gaza last year received a 23-minute standing ovation after its premiere at the Venice film festival on Wednesday.

The Voice of Hind Rajab, directed by Tunisian film-maker Kaouther Ben Hania, had been described by critics as ‘‘the most powerful and urgent entry of this year’s festival”. It left much of the audience and many journalists sobbing as it was screened for the first time.

Oscar winner and advocate Angelina Jolie has signed on to the producing team of “Muganga, The One Who Treats,” which is inspired by the true story of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege and the plight of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence globally, particularly the women he champions in Eastern Congo.

Jolie, who first met survivors of rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2013, has known and worked alongside Dr. Mukwege for over a decade, campaigning for an end to impunity for the use of rape and sexual violence as weapons of war. Mukwege, Jolie notes, has treated tens of thousands of survivors of rape, despite attacks on his life, for decades.

In a statement, Jolie saluted Dr. Mukwege for his work on behalf of women and children in his country, calling him “a healer of minds and bodies,” and described “Muganga, The One Who Treats” as “an urgent and powerful film.

Shirley MacLaine’s latest movie, “People Not Places,” wrapped production in Atlantic City a year ago. Ever since, dozens of crew members have been trying to get paid. In May, the New Jersey Department of Labor obtained a $672,749 judgment against Jeff Katz, the principal financier.

He has simply refused to pay.

In an interview with Variety, Katz acknowledges the judgment, but says the state is powerless to collect.

“They can’t enforce a judgment against me,” Katz says. “They can only put [liens] on things I have in New Jersey – which I don’t have.”

So now what?

Even in the often unsavory world of independent films, it’s unusual for a whole crew to simply go without pay. “People Not Places,” which also stars Stephen Dorff, is a labor of love for director Brad Furman. But it’s been a nightmare for those who have spent a year waiting for their checks.

This post contains massive spoilers for "Wednesday" season 2, part 2.

Season 2, part 2 of Netflix's "Wednesday" picks up right after the ominous cliffhanger in season 2, episode 4, "If These Woes Could Talk," declaring Wednesday's potential death. Of course, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) cannot be absent from her own show, so it makes sense that part 2 wastes no time in rousing her from a coma. However, something seems to be amiss: Our kooky protagonist is being shadowed by a new spirit guide, who is none other than former Nevermore principal Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie). Weems' unexpected return is a lovely addition to the mystery, as her sarcastic banter with Wednesday swerves naturally into genuine moments of allyship.

I imagined it as a fun icebreaker. “Hey, Chandler, are you perhaps in the market for a new best friend?” was the vision. What came out to filmmaker Chandler Levack during a recent interview was more like, “Do you need a new friend? Because I loved your film, I felt so seen by it,” almost immediately followed by my throat closing up and my eyes welling in a way that was undeniably obvious, even in a tiny Zoom window.

At least my inclination was right: the “Mile End Kicks” filmmaker got what I was saying. “I’m going to cry,” Levack said in her first interview for the film. “That means the world to me. That really, really does.”

It’s only fitting that Levack’s film would stir big emotions in both its maker and its audience. Much like her debut, “I Like Movies,” “Mile End Kicks” is based on her own experiences.

A new day for the DC Universe is officially dawning, as we now have a better idea of how James Gunn's flagship franchise will continue after the success of this year's "Superman." For months, the writer/director/studio co-head has talked up his plans for a sequel film involving David Corenswet's new take on the Man of Steel. But what other characters would come along for the ride, and what challenge could the Big Blue Boy Scout possibly face next? Those questions have just come closer than ever before to being answered. Thanks to Gunn's bombshell announcement, we know that the next Superman-related film will be...

Westbrook, the entertainment company founded by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, has signed a first-look deal with Paramount. In a release touting the pact, Paramount said that Westbrook will focus on creating “global, four-quadrant theatrical movies” that have the potential to launch franchises and are based on pre-existing intellectual properties. Will Smith is expected to star in the films and Jada Pinkett Smith is expected to produce them.

Paramount said that two projects are already in development. “Sugar Bandits,” a thriller that is based on a book by Chuck Hogan called “Devils in Exile.” There’s also “Rabbit Hole,” which is being written by Jon Spaihts, one of the screenwriters of the “Dune” films. Westbrook will be based on the Paramount lot in Hollywood as part of the deal.

It’s the latest in a long line of splashy moves by Paramount following the completion of its $8 billion merger with Skydance.

David Ellison’s ambitious Paramount has signed a multi-film first-look deal with Will Smith and Westbrook, which includes the action thriller Sugar Bandits that Smith was previously attached to star in.

The arrangement will focus on global, four-quadrant theatrical features through IP-based material and potential franchise-starters, which Paramount willdevelop and position as starring vehicles for Smith.

The actor-producer had been attached to star in Sugar Bandits before dropping out as the lead due to scheduling conflicts.

AGC Studios pre-sold the package at the markets last year and terminated the deals when Smith exited his role. AGC head Stuart Ford sold...

It’s been three years since Will Smith, on the night he won his first Academy Award for his performance in “King Richard,” changed his career forever (and for the worse) by slapping Chris Rock on the Oscars stage. In the immediate aftermath, Smith was banned from the Oscars ceremony for 10 years, and he’s spent years rehabilitating his public image, including most recently going back to his rap roots as The Fresh Prince.

Hollywood appears to have forgiven him.

Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and their company Westbrook have now signed a first-look deal with Paramount that will see Smith starring in and producing multiple features, ones the studio is labeling “global, four-quadrant theatrical movies.” Under the pact, Paramount has already announced two projects that are meant to star Smith and that the studio also hopes could be the start of new franchises. Westbrook will also get some fancy office space on the Paramount lot.

Set during the violent 2017 protests in Venezuela that resulted in nearly 200 deaths and thousands of injuries and arrests, the Édgar Ramírez-produced “It Would Be Night in Caracas” (Aún es de noche en Caracas”) world premieres at Venice’s Spotlight on Sept. 4, to be followed by its North American debut at TIFF on Sept. 9.

Helmed by directing-writing-producing partners Mariana Rondón and Marité Ugás, “It Would Be Night in Caracas” follows Adelaida who buries her mother as clashes between anti-government protestors and police forces intensify. When she returns from the cemetery, she discovers that her apartment has been taken over by a woman aligned with the regime. She takes refuge in the flat next door where she finds her neighbor’s corpse. As she falls into a tight, terrifying cycle of fear and despair, Adelaida realizes that in order to stay alive, she has to let go of who she is.

September arrived with Emily Blunt and teary-eyed Dwayne Johnson premiering their Oscar-buzzy “The Smashing Machine” during the Venice Film Festival. Also at the fest were Idris Elba, Greta Lee, Sofia Coppola and Marc Jacobs, among many others.

Post Malone debuted his clothing line Austin Post with a fashion in Paris.

Red carpets were rolled out in New York City for Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor at the “The History of Sound” premiere and in Los Angeles for the premiere of “Twinless” with stars Dylan O’Brien, James Sweeney, Chris Perfetti and Aisling Franciosi.

As usual, the US Open was celeb-filled with likes of Jeremy Allen White, Jason Clarke and Marcello Hernandez of “Saturday Night Live.”

Make sure to keep checking back here all month long for more of September 2025’s best celebrity pics.

More from VarietyLaura Dern and Bloomberg Philanthropies' Patti Harris to Be Honored at Oceana's New York Gala (Exclusive)Kaitlyn Dever,...

James Gunn has announced his follow-up to "Superman." Gunn is the co-head of DC Studios at Warner Bros., and ever since his new take on the Man of Steel hit theaters, he has been teasing a sequel of sorts. Now, the "Guardians of the Galaxy" filmmaker has pulled back the curtain to reveal the next entry in the saga of David Corenswet's Superman. Get ready for "Man of Tomorrow" in summer 2027.

Man of Tomorrow. In theatres July 9, 2027. pic.twitter.com/hegJEuRMTk

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) September 3, 2025

Taking to social media, Gunn revealed a new piece of artwork by comic book legend Jim Lee that sees Superman standing next to Lex Luthor in his power suit.

It is said that Eleonora Giulia Amalia Duse, the leading lady of the Italian stage in the late 19th/early 20th century, was an intensely private, introverted woman who once told a journalist that, outside the theater, “I do not exist.” One wonders, therefore, what she would have made of “Duse,” Pietro Marcello’s worshipful portrait of the artist as a no-longer-young woman, in which Duse, played by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, is a woman who very much existed — volubly, exquisitely and in extraordinary, throaty paroxysms of despair and delight — every tremulous, momentous instant of her offstage life.

Renowned in her time for her intense naturalism and her immersion in the great roles of the day, Duse enjoyed a renown only rivalled by that of her contemporary Sarah Bernhardt, who features here in an eye-catching cameo and a show-stopping wig, played by Noémie Lvovsky.

Now, there may be many reasons, none of them just,...

One of the buzzier documentaries to come out of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, Jen Gatien and Billy Corben’s “Men of War” is also one that sticks with you — even as confusing and contradictory and thoroughly knotted the story it tells is. Now the trailer for “Men of War” is here.

It tells the mysterious saga of Jordan Goudreau, a forty-something Green Beret turned mercenary who accepted $200 million from Venezuelan dissidents to put together a team and attempt the overthrow of Nicolas Maduro’s dictatorial government — possibly with tacit support from the first Trump administration.

If this incident, codenamed Operation Gideon, didn’t make a ton of headlines, it was because it occurred in May 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when attention was very much elsewhere. But those aware of it nicknamed it the Bay of Piglets for the small-scale nonsense of it. Was it ever meant to succeed?...

The franchise exits stage right with this final go around, in which our middle-aged exorcists take their time getting to the jump-cuts

The first Conjuring, released in 2013, was a profitable hangover from the previous decade’s Omen, Amityville and Exorcist retreads, goosing 21st-century audiences with things-going-bump-in-the-night tricks copped from comparable 1970s theatrical and TV movies. Yet despite sequels that went big and then sideways (2021’s true crime-adjacent The Devil Made Me Do It), the series’ underlying mechanics have proved stubbornly resistant to change. The current multifaceted horror renaissance makes this an apt moment for the franchise to exit stage right; facing these upstart punks, the generally sluggish Last Rites presents...

Painting an attractively-composed picture of Italian theater legend Eleanora Duse (1858-1924), festival favorite Pietro Marcello has for his latest feature swapped an underdog striving to achieve — as seen in 2019’s “Martin Eden” — for an achiever striving to maintain. In a post-war landscape where everything is uncertain, the decades-strong and since-retired actress Eleanora Duse (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) announces her return to the stage, signaling the start of a singular rise and a simultaneous fall; an ever-tightening grip on her passions whilst her relationships with those she loves and is loved by disintegrate around her.

It should be noted that Eleanora Duse is a historical figure of whom there is very little documentation. Hardly anything was recorded of her acting or voice, which is why Marcello — who has equally worked in documentary forms over the years — has opted for a fictitious exploration of her life. It is a shame then that the...

“The Voice of Hind Rajab” premiere at the Venice Film Festival proved to be a hugely emotional event, with very few dry eyes in the Sala Grande.

One of the most talked-about films going into the festival, the powerful and gut-wrenching drama — from Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania — tells the true story of 5-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed in the early stages of the war in Gaza. The feature received a huge 22-minute standing ovation, the longest of the festival so far. As the ovation surpassed 20 minutes, and in a clear effort to get the room to disperse, the lights were dimmed in the theatre. The clapping continued.

While fleeing with her family from Gaza City in January 2024, the car Rajab was traveling in was shelled, killing her uncle, aunt and three cousins. She was left stranded for hours in the vehicle while on the phone to...

The last edition of the Toronto Film Festival came and went with a shrug. Movie lovers would be forgiven if they’ve never heard of any of the fest’s high-profile world premieres, such as “Eden,” “Unstoppable,” “Nightbitch” and “Nutcrackers,” despite boasting stars like Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney, Jennifer Lopez, Amy Adams and Ben Stiller.

The unmemorable lineup stood in stark contrast to the glitzy affair over at the Venice Film Festival, which took place a week earlier and unveiled a slew of awards players and box office hits, including the Brazilian drama “I’m Still Here,” Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and “Babygirl” with Nicole Kidman. Along with the Cannes Film Festival, Venice has soared in popularity and notoriety as their North American counterparts — most notably Toronto and Sundance — have struggled to remain relevant.

As indicators of Cannes’ and Venice’s growing influence after Covid shook up the movie business,...

Paris Jackson is refuting recent claims made by Colman Domingo regarding her alleged involvement in “Michael,” the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic from director Antoine Fuqua and writer John Logan. Oscar nominee Domingo stars in the film as Jackson family patriarch Joe Jackson.

While hosting the amfAR benefit gala in Venice, Italy, Colman was quoted exclusively by People magazine as saying that Paris and her brother, Prince, are “very much in support of our film.” Paris and Prince are Michael Jackson’s children. Paris Jackson was performing at the amfAR event, to which Domingo added: “I’m excited to be here at amfAR tonight with Paris. It feels like that’s a nice way for us to be together.”

People magazine also noted: “Domingo adds that Paris has been ‘lovely’ to him, and calls Prince ‘a man of the film.'”

Paris Jackson responded on her Instagram story to People’s...

In 2004, Sumner Redstone was looking to add TV stations to the CBS portfolio and needed the approval of a then Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission. At the time, President George W. Bush was facing a tough opponent in his bid for reelection in Democrat nominee John Kerry. The late Viacom chairman made little secret of who he wanted to prevail in the race for the White House.

“The election of a Republican administration is a better deal,” said Redstone. “Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in.”

The Bush endorsement wasn’t just a shocking political reversal for a self-described “liberal Democrat.” It coincided with a campaign against Dan Rather, the broadcast legend and face of CBS News stemming from his “60 Minutes II” report that questioned Bush’s military service. As a downstream employee of Redstone, Rather would soon be out of a job, just like...