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Husband-wife filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly to write, direct.

101 Studios is to fully finance and handle global distribution on a drama about the investigative reporter who took on Purdue Pharma, makers of the drug OxyContin that has been at the centre of the Us opioid epidemic.

Husband-wife filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly (Beneath The Harvest Sky) will direct from a screenplay they will write based on Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Armstrong’s research.

Over the course of four years, Armstrong discovered evidence that members of the Sackler family, sole owners of Purdue Pharma, supported Purdue’s concealment...

David Glasser’s 101 Studios has acquired the U.S. rights to “La Belle Epoque,” a French comedy from director Nicolas Beods starring Daniel Auteuil and Guillaume Canet, the distributor announced Wednesday.

“La Belle Epoque” first premiered out of competition at the Cannes Film Festivall, followed by a North American premiere at Tiff in 2019. 101 Studios has now slated the film for a spring 2020 U.S. theatrical release.

Auteuil and Canet star with Dora Tillier, Fanny Ardant and Pierre Arditi in the comedy that’s been described as a high-concept, Charlie Kaufman-esque narrative of romance and the irresistible allure of the past.

Also Read: 101 Studios Nabs Rights to True Story of Paradise Fire Tragedy

Disillusioned sexagenarian cartoonist Victor has lost his job and is on the outs with his wife Marianne when enterprising entrepreneur Antoine approaches him with an intriguing proposition — the chance to revisit the glory days of his youth,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today that 344 feature films are eligible for the 2019 Academy Awards.

To be eligible for the consideration, the films must open in a commercial motion picture theater in Los Angeles County by Dec. 31, and begin a minimum run of seven consecutive days. Academy rules also state that a feature-length motion picture must have a running time of more than 40 minutes and must have been exhibited theatrically on 35mm or 70mm film, or in a qualifying digital format.

Nominations for the 92nd Academy Awards will be announced on Monday, Jan. 13, 2020. The ceremony takes place on Sunday, Feb. 9, airing live from Hollywood on ABC.

“Abominable”

“Ad Astra”

“Adam”

“The Addams Family”

“The Aeronauts”

“After the Wedding”

“The Aftermath”

“Aga”

“Aladdin”

“Alita: Battle Angel”

“Always Be My Maybe”

“The Amazing Johnathan”

“American Factory”

“American Woman”

“Angel Has Fallen”

“The Angry Birds Movie 2”

“Anna”

“Annabelle Comes Home...

101 Studios has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to “Mosul,” an Iraq War drama funded and produced by Anthony and Joe Russo’s production company Agbo, an individual with knowledge of the deal told TheWrap.

Matthew Michael Carnahan, who wrote the Agbo film “21 Bridges” starring Chadwick Boseman opening this month, wrote and directed “Mosul.” It’s inspired by an article in The New Yorker by Luke Mogelson about the Nineveh Swat team, an elite police squad of soldiers composed of local Iraqis all fighting Isis. The drama first premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, followed by Toronto, and 101 Studios will now release the film in 2020.

Waleed Elgadi, Suhail Dabbach and Adam Bessa star in the film as a police squad moving block by block to reclaim their city from Isis, all while nursing their own personal traumas at the hands of the terrorist group.

Also Read: '...

Exclusive: 101 Studios has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Mosul, the Matthew Michael Carnahan-directed drama that is the among the first films generated by Agbo, the monied production company launched by Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo. Agbo financed the film, and produced with Condé Nast Entertainment.

Carnahan wrote the script based on a Luke Mogelson article in the New Yorker about an elite police unit made up almost entirely of native sons of Mosul and their desperate fight, block-by-block, to reclaim their city from Isis. All of the men bear physical and emotional scars from having lost loved ones to the terror group — one carries video of his older brother’s beheading by Isis — so they have no shortage of motivation for their thankless heroic job. Mosul was shot in secret this past spring on location in the Middle East by Oscar-winning cinematographer Mauro Fiore (Avatar...

David Glasser's 101 Studios has taken the U.S. distribution rights to Mosul, Matthew Michael Carnahan's directorial debut based on true events, which premiered at Venice before shifting to Toronto.

101 Studios plans a 2020 release for the Arabic-language, Iraq-set thriller that is based on a New Yorker article and was produced by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. Mosul, about the real-life members of the Nineveh Swat team, was written and helmed by scribe-turned-director Carnahan (World War Z).

Adam Bessa and Suhail Dabbach lead a film cast drawn from the Middle East, North Africa and the Iraqi diaspora....

Two years ago, the Academy documentary branch had to grapple with a record 170 documentary feature submissions for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. This year, it’s not so bad: only 159 were entered. The short list of 15 will be announced, along with eight others, on December 16.

All year, branch members have been getting lists of secure online screeners available to watch on the Academy website, increasing in volume, with more to come. Each voter is assigned a list of about 22-23 films to screen, so they all get covered. But it’s a burden to see them all, so the ones with the most attention move to the top of the much-watch list.

Give the advantage to box-office hits that were made available earlier in the year such as Neon’s “The Biggest Little Farm” and “Apollo 11,” as well as high-profile titles from HBO (“Diego Maradona” and “The Apollo”), Netflix,...

Two years ago, the Academy documentary branch had to grapple with a record 170 documentary feature submissions for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. This year, it’s not so bad: only 159 were entered. The short list of 15 will be announced, along with eight others, on December 16.

All year, branch members have been getting lists of secure online screeners available to watch on the Academy website, increasing in volume, with more to come. Each voter is assigned a list of about 22-23 films to screen, so they all get covered. But it’s a burden to see them all, so the ones with the most attention move to the top of the much-watch list.

Give the advantage to box-office hits that were made available earlier in the year such as Neon’s “The Biggest Little Farm” and “Apollo 11,” as well as high-profile titles from HBO (“Diego Maradona” and “The Apollo”), Netflix,...

A total of 159 documentary features have qualified in the Oscars’ Best Documentary Feature category, the Academy announced on Tuesday.

Last year, 166 documentaries qualified. In 2017, a record 170 made the cut.

All of the films are now available to members of the Documentary Branch to stream on the Academy’s secure members website. The films have been placed there over the last six months, with 23 added to the site in June, 24 in July, 26 in August, 19 in September and 62 in October and only five in November.

Also Read: 'Maiden' Star Tracy Edwards Kept Her Story 'Messy' to Serve the Next Generation of Women Athletes (Video)

Each member is randomly assigned 20% of the films as mandatory viewing but is free to see any additional films beyond those that are assigned. A preliminary round of voting will produce a 15-film shortlist, with a second-round narrowing those 15 to the five nominees.

This year is...

Hollywood union publicists have selected the Russo Brothers to receive the Motion Picture Showman of the Year Award.

Anthony and Joe Russo, who directed “Avengers: Endgame,” will receive the award at the 57th Annual Publicists Awards ceremony on Feb. 7 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The publicists are part of the Intl. Cinematographers Guild, Iatse Local 600.

“Anthony and Joe Russo have made a huge impact in cinema with the record-breaking ‘Avengers’ and ‘Captain America’ films,” said Lewis Rothenberg, national president. “They have taken audiences around the world on a wild journey with their unique and imaginative brand of storytelling and are two of the most exciting innovators in our industry today. We are thrilled to celebrate their cinematic showmanship and commitment to nurturing new talent.”

The brothers also directed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Captain America: Civil War” and “Avengers: Infinity War.” “Avengers: Endgame” is the highest-grossing film of all-time...

“Avengers: Endgame” co-director Joe Russo isn’t surprised that Sony is pulling Spider-Man out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but he thinks their decision to go without Marvel Studios and its prodigious head Kevin Feige is a bad move.

“I will say, stepping back and trying to be objective as possible, that I think it’s a tragic mistake on Sony’s part to think that they can replicate Kevin’s penchant for telling incredible stories and the amazing success he has had over the years. I think it’s a big mistake.”

In an interview with The Toronto Sun, Russo and his brother Anthony spoke about the split and their plans to follow-up the biggest box office hit of all time with a new studio that will produce smaller movies. The new studio, Agbo, was founded with “Avengers” co-writer Stephen McFeely and launched at Toronto last week with “Mosul,...

Kirsten Howard Sep 12, 2019

Joe and Anthony Russo aren't done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe yet. Could they revitalize X-Men or Fantastic Four?

Joe and Anthony Russo haven't left the Marvel Cinematic Universe completely behind after wrapping up the huge amount of work they did on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. In a new interview with SyFy Wire at the Toronto International Film Festival, they've been chatting about which Marvel Studios projects could see them return to direct a potential new blockbuster.

"I grew on up [John] Byrne's X-Men run," Joe Russo said. "Ben Grimm was a favorite character growing up, the Thing. And Fantastic Four is now in the Marvel fold. There's a lot. Silver Surfer is an amazing character. Going really big in cosmic would be a lot of fun. So there's a lot of things that could attract us."

Joe went on to explain that after directing four McU films,...

The Russo Brothers are confident that they will work with Marvel Studios again in the future. After the epic success of Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the directing duo are taking a break from working with Marvel to focus on smaller scale projects. They are currently out promoting their latest movie Mosul, which was shot completely in Arabic and pretty far away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With that being said, the story behind the movie was introduced to the Russos by Avengers: Endgame co-screenwriter Stephen McFeely. But what would excite the directors enough to come back to Marvel Studios?

Joe and Anthony Russo feel very fortunate about the amount of work they were able to do with Marvel Studios. "We love that level of filmmaking that Marvel afforded us," says Anthony. He also stated that he and his brother are going to get back into switching between big movies...

In June 2014, the Iraqi city of Mosul fell to Isis (also known as Daesh or the Islamic State). A joint-forces campaign to reclaim it began two years later and ended with the re-establishment of Iraqi control of the devastated, decimated city in July 2017. Matthew Michael Carnahan (brother of Joe and screenwriter of “The Kingdom” and “Deepwater Horizon”) picks through the debris of that campaign of barely two years ago for his directorial debut, “Mosul,” a well-made but troublingly generic war-is-hell pulse-pounder that inevitably prompts the question: How recent is too recent when it comes to turning a theater of war into pure theater, pure Hollywood spectacle?

The past is supposed to be another country, but 2017 feels barely an exploding city block behind us. And most of us can probably still recall that part of the horror of the Mosul campaign, which was described in vivid detail in a 2017 New Yorker article by Luke Mogelson,...

The Russo Brothers are using the clout they earned from directing “Avengers: Endgame” and several other Marvel movies to get some interesting projects off the ground. Take “Mosul,” a jittery, intense thriller about an elite group of Iraqi soldiers facing off against Isis in a bombed-out city. There’s little about the film, which relies on a cast of unknown actors, all of whom speak only Arabic, that screams blockbuster.

“We know it’s unconventional,” said Anthony Russo, who, along with his brother Joe Russo, produced “Mosul” through their company Agbo. “But we hope that the global cinema market is open to new ideas and excited by new ideas.

“Joe and I want to use the capital we’ve built up to help films like this find an audience and get made,” he added.

There were other risks involved. Matthew Michael Carnahan had written the scripts to hits and notable...

It’s often said that specificity is the key to making something feel universal. It’s much less often said that universality is the key to making something feel specific. Matthew Michael Carnahan’s intense, relentless, and undeniably visceral “Mosul” — which takes both of these approaches at the same time as if trying to flank the truth from each side — provides all the evidence you’d ever need as to why that might be the case.

A true enough story inspired by Luke Mogelson’s 2017 New Yorker article “The Desperate Battle to Destroy Isis,” “Mosul” is essentially about a renegade Iraqi police unit who disobey orders and push towards the heart of darkness in order to save what’s left of their beloved home city. It is, so far as this critic can tell, the most accurate dramatization of an anti-Isis street fight that has ever been committed to the screen.

There may be few directors with more one-for-them, one-for-me chips to cash in than Marvel’s in-house brothers, Joe and Anthony Russo. Which makes sense, of course. When your last two movies cleared nearly $5 billion at the global box office, you begin to develop a thing called clout.

Now with both “Avengers” films in the rearview mirror, they’re making good on some hard-won sway — in this case, producing screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan’s directorial debut, the ripped-from-the-headlines war drama “Mosul.”

On paper, “Mosul” does indeed sound like the kind of project that could use a few patrons willing to take risks. Adapted from a 2017 New Yorker article about an elite Iraqi Swat team taking the fight to Isis, this is an Arabic-language film without a single recognizable performer, set entirely in the concrete remnants of a bombed-out city. The major studios aren’t exactly rushing to make those.

Also...

Joe and Anthony Russo might have chosen to rest on their laurels for the rest of this year, having turned Avengers: Endgame into the highest grossing movie in cinema history. Instead, they continue to develop projects at their new studio, Agbo, which is financed to tell the kind of stories they have always been attracted to: disparate narratives of many different sizes and scales, but all of them connected to the human experience.

The first such project to release since the madness of Endgame’s launch will be Mosul, which makes its world premiere in Venice this week. Directed by Matthew Michael Carnahan, the film is based on a New Yorker article—aptly called “The Avengers of Mosul” when it appeared in print—about an elite Iraqi Swat team who fought back against the rise of Isis, with each of their number having faced loss or injury at the hands of the terrorist group.

Roman Polanski’s “J’Accuse,” Todd Phillips’ “Joker,” Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” and Steven Soderbergh’s “The Laundromat” are among the films that will screen at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival, Venice organizers announced at a press conference in Rome on Thursday.

This will mark Polanski’s first appearance at a major festival since his May 2018 expulsion from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with the decision by the AMPAS Board of Governors referencing his 1978 guilty plea to a charge of statutory rape.

“J’Accuse,” which had been screening for buyers under the title “An Officer and a Spy,” is his dramatization of the Alfred Dreyfus scandal in 19th century France, and has been considered by some, sight unseen, as a comment of sorts on the #MeToo movement.

Also Read: Oscars Academy Defends Expulsion of Roman Polanski

Other films in the Venice Film Festival main competition include James Gray’s “Ad Astra,...

In today’s film news roundup, a film about a white lion named Charlie is getting a U.S. release, 3 Arts makes a key hire and Gravitas buys the documentary “Mosul.”

Release Date

Ledafilms Entertainment Group has set an April 12 release for the family adventure film, “Mia and the White Lion,” Variety has learned exclusively.

Shot over the course of three years, the film centers on a willful young girl named Mia whose family decides to leave London to manage a lion farm in South Africa. She bonds with a white lion cub named Charlie but become distraught by the thought that he could be in harm and sets out on a journey across the South African savanna in search of another land where Charlie can live out his life in freedom.

French director Gilles De Maistre shot the film at the Welgedacht Reserve in South Africa. The film...