Variety
-
The Gotham and Variety Partner on Variety Gotham Week Amid 2023 Project Market Cancellation
The Gotham (Filmmaker‘s publisher) and Variety announce today Variety Gotham Week, a multi-day event celebrating the Broadway, film, television and audio creative communities, which will take place in NYC from October 2-6. Also announced today is the cancellation of the 2023 Gotham Project Market in accordance with WGA strike rules. Those that have already submitted to this year’s Project Market have been notified and invited to participate in Variety Gotham Week programming instead. Variety Gotham Week programming will include screenings of new films (featuring corresponding events and after parties), panel conversations with relevant arts and cultural figures, the second annual […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jun 8, 2023 -
STANDING KNEE-DEEP IN WATER — THE AFTER-SUNDANCE BLOG
I empty my pockets of biz cards, coffee receipts and contacts written on scraps of napkins and sing-think to myself, ala Rosemary Clooney – “Is that all there is?…” “Let us know when you want to have dinner” a filmmaker Sundance vet texts. “The post Sundance blues are real. Believe it.” These thoughts must be truthfully reported in this blog even though reading about luxury problems like this would typically make me want to punch the writer. I was secretly expecting that once you got into Sundance you simply had to hand out butcher tickets to distributors and dig out […]
by Erin Greenwell on Feb 6, 2012 -
MEETING ROBERT REDFORD: THE “DURING SUNDANCE” BLOG
I’ve been considering many cold opening quotes to this “During Sundance” blog ranging from, “Bagels again?” to, “Marina Abramovic is in the next bathroom stall!” I’ll let Robert Redford start it with, “There’s Sundance here,” as he points towards the floor at the Directors Brunch “And then there’s Park City,” he indicates down the mountain. “Park City is not Sundance.” We directors nod. Bob understands. We won’t buy into the machine of the market place. Our film is already the gold and Bob is warning us to stay grounded. We then instantly bum rush him as soon as his speech […]
by Erin Greenwell on Jan 26, 2012 -
STICKY SEATS AND THE ORIGINS OF NYC DIY
I got a kick out of Bette Gordon’s blog post “Remembering the Past, Segueing into the Future” over at Truly Free Film. Gordon remembers the 1983 premiere of her feature Variety, for which she and producer Renee Shafransky rented the now-demolished and condo-ized Variety cinema, a porn house, on 3rd Avenue and 13th St. I attended that premiere and one of my memories was of the woman who sat next to pulling out her New York Times and placing it underneath her as she sat down. So, of course, I laughed when I read this: In the 80’s, there was […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2010 -
ROOM FOR EVERYTHING
Peter Debruge in Variety gets to the bottom of an urban mystery (subscription required for link): what kind of movie that billboard on Highland in L.A. featuring a guy’s headshot and a movie title (The Room) is actually advertising, and how said movie has managed to run for years at the Sunset 5? The face on the billboard leers down over Highland, half-lidded and haunting in black and white. The image — actually the headshot of helmer Tommy Wiseau — has branded “The Room,” a self-distributed directorial debut so hopelessly amateurish that auds reportedly walked out during its two-week run […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 9, 2006 -
SO YOU WANT TO BE A PRODUCER?
The bloggers at Spin and Stir have been writing about the Bob Yari vs. the Producers Guild of America lawsuit and in this post offer perhaps a more nuanced account of the reality of the producing business today than the PGA’s more idealistic definition. The end of the post has a hilarious producer breakdown comparing a good independent film (Capote, 12 producers) and a bad studio film (Pink Panther, 3 producers), countering all those Variety reviews that love to count off producer credits as if a lot of producers is a bad thing. Here’s from the end of the piece: […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 17, 2006 -
LINDE GOES TO UNIVERSAL
Both Indiewire and The Hollywood Reporter reported today that Focus Features co-president David Linde will become co-chairman of Universal Pictures, effective immediately, and Mark Schmuber has been appointed chairman. Shmuger has served as the studio’s vice chairman since 2000. Variety posted a longer article on the story later in the day that reports that the two jobs are equal in stature and that Shmuger received the “chairman” title due to his “longer tenure at Universal.” The two will work collaboratively and replace Stacey Snider, who recently announced her departure to become co-chair and CEO at Dreamworks. From the Hollywood Reporter: […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 16, 2006 -
BLOGLESS AND CLEARANCES
I haven’t been posting much recently due to an overall work crunch — the putting to bed of the new Fall issue of Filmmaker, and two new films my company is producing both going into production. Hopefully I’ll get back into the blogging swing of things in the next few days, but I couldn’t help posting this piece in Variety about Paul Dinello’s film Strangers with Candy. According to the trade, Warner Independent is not releasing the film, which was slated to open October 21, “out of concern that the producers didn’t secure all the needed rights, including for such […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 11, 2005 -
“…LIKE THE NEW COKE”
Variety has an amusing (subscription only) piece by Nicole Laporte today about a bi-coastal party this past Thursday attended by 200 Miramax current and ex-staffers (pre-maturely dubbed “Mir-Anon’s” by the trade paper). Held at Barney’s Beanery in L.A. and a rooftop in downtown Manhattan, the evening marked for the distributor’s staff the end of the Weinstein era. From the piece: “Rick Sands, a Miramax alum who’s now chief operating officer at DreamWorks, planned to be there. Asked if the Weinsteins knew about the soiree, Sands said, ‘Absolutely not! They’ll be the subject of conversation. They won’t want to be there.’ […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 25, 2005 -
THE END OF RENAISSANCE
Via this article in Variety comes sad news: Renaissance, the London-based sales company, has shut down, declaring bankruptcy and pinkslipping its employees. A company that mades its name as a producer of such films as The Madness of King George and Wings of a Dove, Renaissance was one of the international sales companies that took an active interest in the American independent sector. It invested production coin in films like Rose Troche’s The Safety of Objects and was sales repping such films as We Don’t Live Here Anymore, Todd Louiso’s upcoming Macbeth, Gregg Araki’s upcoming Creeeps and two 2005 Sundance […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 7, 2005
