Variety

The London West End stage adaptation of “Fawlty Towers” will be free of racial slurs, creator John Cleese has said. “Fawlty Towers – The Play” is based on the classic 1975 sitcom and is written by Cleese and Connie Booth and adapted for the stage by Cleese. Cleese, who co-wrote the original 1975 TV series with […]

Iranian authorities are exerting heavy pressure on director Mohammad Rasoulof to pull his latest work “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” from the Cannes Film Festival by harassing the film’s producers and actors who have been summoned for questioning and banned from leaving the country. Human rights lawyer Babak Paknia, who is Rasoulof’s lawyer, said […]

Spain’s push to position itself as a premier player in the world’s film and TV industries extends to the documentary zone, as both audiences and industry delegates discovered in the impressive display of the country’s finished and work-in-progress films and co-production know-how at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival this week. According to the European Audiovisual Observatory’s […]

Simon Curtis (“My Week With Marilyn,” “Downton Abbey: A New Era”) has lined up a quartet of stars for upcoming comedy “Encore” from “Twilight” banner Temple Hill Entertainment. The film — announced by Protagonist Pictures, which is launching worldwide sales ahead of Cannes — will reunite eight-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close with Oscar winner Jeremy Irons […]

Memento International has boarded “Gazer,” the debut feature of American filmmaker Ryan J. Sloan which will world premiere at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. Set in New Jersey, the paranoia thriller stars Ariella Mastroianni as Frankie, a young mother with a rare degenerative brain condition called dyschronometria. Struggling to perceive time, she uses cassette tapes for guidance and […]

Following the success of “The Curse,” Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder and A24 are teaming up again to take on the cutthroat world of chess. The studio has won the rights to the hot feature package “Checkmate,” based on a book proposal by author Ben Mezrich, whose works were adapted into “The Social Network” and “Dumb […]

“The Battle for Laikipia” offers a prescient perspective by focusing on the communities that are living with the consequences of climate change right now: the ranchers and pastoralists of Laikipia, located on the equator in Kenya. These people, their cattle, their farms — their means of life — have been dealing with drought. Over a […]

Indian streamer SonyLIV has unveiled the cast and a first look for its magnum opus series “Freedom at Midnight.” Based on the 1975 non-fiction book by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, the political drama delves into India’s independence movement, weaving together untold tales and critical moments from the era when the country’s then British colonial […]

Affairs, lies and life-ruining consequences from online dating are on display in the trailer for the Netflix docuseries “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal.” “Life is Short. Have an Affair” was the slogan for the online dating site AshleyMadison.com, which is an adult online dating site for married people to cheat on their partners. The […]

Richard Tandy, the keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist whose tenure with the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) spanned more than 50 years, has died, according to a statement from Jeff Lynne, the group’s frontman and co-founder. No cause of death was given, although sources said he had been ill for several years; he was 76. “It is with […]