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The “American Story” franchise at FX is still expanding. Executive producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, who have been working with Ryan Murphy since “American Crime Story” premiered in 2016 (and served as executive producers on “Pose”), confirmed that “American Love Story,” which recounts the story of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, will be moving forward at FX.

“We’re very much intending to [tell that story],” Jacobson told Variety during a recent interview.

“We have great scripts on that. We’re trying to figure out when it’ll land,” Simpson added. “It is a story that really resonates right now. It’s amazing. A lot of younger women are looking to her as sort of a representational icon of a certain period of time that’s really fascinating, and hopefully, we’ll be able to bring that to the screen soon.”

The new series was initially announced in 2021, along with “Studio 54: American Crime Story,...

FX’s latest installment in Ryan Murphy’s American Story franchise, American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, is ready to hit TV screens. The 10-episode limited series follows the real life rise and fall of disgraced former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez.

The show, which stars Josh Andrés Rivera as Hernandez, is based on The Boston Globe and Wondery podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc. The podcast dug into Hernandez’s life and career, along with his arrest, eventual conviction for murder and his death by suicide inside a Massachusetts maximum security prison.

In June 2013, authorities discovered the body of semi professional football player Odin Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins, about a mile away from the then-football player’s home. Just nine days later, Hernandez was arrested on a murder charge in connection with Lloyd’s death at his North Attleborough, Mass.

Matt Tyrnauer’s Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid, one of the buzziest documentaries set to premiere at this weekend’s Telluride Film Festival, has been acquired by CNN Films for television and SVOD. It will debut on CNN on Saturday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. Et, and will stream on Max later this fall, when it separately will receive an Oscar-qualifying run and theatrical release.

Carville, which was produced by Altimeter Films, chronicles an 18-month period during which its subject, legendary Democratic political strategist James Carville, was at the forefront of the charge to convince incumbent president Joe Biden to not seek re-election in 2024. The inimitable “Ragin’ Cajun” famously declared “It’s the economy, stupid” while running Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

The film also looks back at Carville’s rise from the bayou to the Beltway; includes footage of him at home in New Orleans with his wife, Republican strategist Mary Matalin,...

“The oddest throuple in Telluride,” joked the filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer, while driving from his Beverly Hills home to the film fest in Colorado, will be Tyrnauer and the colorful characters at the center of the two verité documentaries that he is premiering in the Rockies this Labor Day weekend: the legendary Democratic political strategist James Carville, subject of Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid, and sushi chef and restaurateur extraordinaire Nobu Matsuhisa, subject of Nobu.

Tyrnauer, 56, a longtime Vanity Fair editor-at-large and special correspondent turned prolific filmmaker of numerous critically and commercially successful nonfiction works — among them 2009’s Oscar-shortlisted Valentino: The Last Emperor, 2017’s Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, 2018’s Studio 54 and 2019’s Where’s My Roy Cohn? — previously had a film at the fest in 2022, his Benington College doc The End of the World. But coming with two docs, both of which are still seeking U.S. distribution deals,...

Jeopardy! champion, Issac Hirsch, has clapped back at haters on social media. Fans are expecting to see Issac around for a while. As of yesterday, he has four consecutive wins on the game show. However, some people do not like something about him. He has stuck up for himself on social media and let them know that they cannot bother him. Keep reading to find out more.

Ken Jennings Gets Slammed For Denying His Answer

Ken Jennings got slammed by fans after he denied one of Issac Hirsch’s answers. There was a question about the Edgar Wright films. Issac clicked the buzzer and answered “Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe”. However, Ken denied this answer as the correct one was “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”. Fans were not happy about this. They started to question if there were legit rules in the show as a host. Some thought he did...

Sometimes, a metaphor just works. For Sarah Paulson and her career, it’s a train comparison — something that came up multiple times during our chat about her Emmy nomination for portraying Linda Tripp in “Impeachment: American Crime Story.”

“It was the most entirely unexpected thing in the world,” she says of her nom for lead actress in a limited series or anthology — the sole acting mention for the FX series. While she never expected any of her accolades, when she portrayed Marcia Clark in “The People vs. O.J. Simpson,” there was a different lead-up: “It was like a train running that was very clearly headed in a particular direction.”

This time around was different.

“The Linda train left the station really empty-handed with a whole haul. This one, I guess, just didn’t resonate with people and that’s fine — painful, but fine,” she says. “I was surprised I was there at all.

Ryan Murphy may have a rich Netflix overall deal but he’s not done building his American Story franchise for Disney and FX.

The prolific showrunner has set two American Story spinoffs — anthologies American Sports Story and American Love Story — at FX as the John Landgraf-led cable network is already working with Murphy on a potential fourth season of American Crime Story that will focus on Studio 54.

American Sports Story will expand the franchise to re-examine a prominent event involving a sports figure through the prism of today’s world and will tell the story from multiple perspectives. The first season will be based on the Boston Globe and Wondery podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc. It will chart the rise and fall of the former New England Patriots tight end who was convicted for murder and ultimately took his own life. Thematically, it will explore the disparate strands of his identity,...

It’s a Halloween showdown!

Both Today‘s Savannah Guthrie and Good Morning America‘s Ginger Zee channeled Olivia Newton-John for their Halloween costume on Thursday morning.

The Today show celebrated the spooky holiday with dance-themed costumes. Guthrie enlisted her co-host Carson Daly for a Grease-inspired couple’s costume.

Donning a blonde wig and black-leggings, Guthrie epically channeled Newton-John’s iconic Grease character Sandy for the morning show, while Daly dressed as her summer lover, Danny.

And Guthrie even got the nod of approval from Newton-John herself.

“I heard a rumor that you’re going to dress up as me for Halloween,...

Broadway doesn’t really do thrillers anymore. Unless we expand the definition to encompass the wailing banshees of The Ferryman or the occasional Martin McDonough blood drench, the stage has mostly ceded the genre to Hollywood. Yet that scarcity goes only so far in explaining the odd power of Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside, a remarkable psychological mystery starring the ever-astonishing Mary-Louise Parker and her sole co-star, the up-to-the-challenge Broadway newcomer Will Hochman.

The word “thriller” might be misleading – The Sound Inside, directed by David Cromer with a hushed surety and opening tonight at Broadway’s Studio 54 – includes no obvious crimes, no hint of the supernatural or anything else we associate with bump-in-the-night tales. Rapp instead has written an intensely quiet play of two lonely people circling one another, each as wary of the other and both seeming to reach out more as instinct than plan. To say...

Matt Tyrnauer: "When you start to drill down into important moments in American history and really understand them and try to organise them in a way as this film does, where an audience can comprehend them and really connect with them, you realise how little we're taught." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In the second half of my conversation with Matt Tyrnauer (Valentino: The Last Emperor; Citizen Jane: Battle For The City; Scotty And The Secret History Of Hollywood; Studio 54 on Ian Schrager) on his latest documentary Where's My Roy Cohn? we discussed what George McGovern told him about the 'Big Lie', how Robert Taylor, Gary Cooper, Ronald Reagan and others were used during 'The Blacklist', and Joseph Welsh's historic response during the Army-McCarthy hearings and Welsh's role in Otto Preminger's Anatomy Of A Murder, starring James Stewart, Lee Remick and Ben Gazzara.

Matt Tyrnauer: "In the post-war period in this country,...

Exclusive: U.S. art house distributor Kino Lorber is launching film and TV VOD streaming platform Kino Now, we can reveal. The service, which includes options to rent and buy, currently hosts 600 titles from the company’s catalog and includes early access to new releases. The number of titles is set to double by the end of the year.

Kino Lorber, which will unveil the platform at a stateside event this evening, tells us the service will be annually refreshed with more than 50 new theatrical releases from Kino Lorber’s first-run and repertory divisions and more than 500 yearly additional titles as “festival direct” exclusives and indie art house digital premieres.

Movies will be generally available around 30-90 days after their theatrical release but some will also get day-and-date releases. Most titles will be $9.99 or less. New releases and certain films that are considered premium will be $14.99 or $19.99 if they are day-and-date releases.

A documentary about the McCarthy-era lawyer who eventually became Donald Trump’s mentor, a story about a corrupt billionaire prime minister, a corporate retreat that might or might not end in casual cannibalism, a dramatic thriller about the gig economy and a light-hearted Indian romance about luck and cricket — the films on deck for this weekend’s Specialty box office are terrifying, funny and have a dash of heart. Here’s a preview of what’s coming.

Where’s My Roy Cohn?

Director: Matt Tyrnauer

Subject: Roy Cohn

Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

When Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker first saw Matt Tyrnauer’s Where’s My Roy Cohn? he did not hesitate to acquire the rights to the documentary about the life of the lawyer who was the epicenter of McCarthyism, the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and, many say, the rise of Donald Trump. Needless to say,...

Matt Tyrnauer's Where's My Roy Cohn? on the streets of New York: "Cohn, I think, was the person who sat between those two worlds and was the gatekeeper between the underworld and the overworld of politics and money and power." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

There is only one filmmaker who has documented Valentino Garavani (Valentino: The Last Emperor); Scotty Bowers (Scotty And The Secret History Of Hollywood); Jane Jacobs (Citizen Jane: Battle For The City), and Ian Schrager (Studio 54). And now Matt Tyrnauer has added Roy Cohn to the list with his insightfully dark Where's My Roy Cohn? Last fall, Matt told me that the idea for the film came out of his Studio 54 work, as Roy Cohn was the lawyer for Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, and showed up prominently in the archival of the infamous club.

Matt Tyrnauer on Gore Vidal: "He was prescient and brilliant.

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?” asked Senator Joseph Welch of Joseph McCarthy and his young colleague, Roy Cohn, during the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings. On the basis of Matt Tyrnauer’s stellar documentary, had the latter been struck by a rare honest impulse, he would have categorically responded in the negative. Inspired in part by the director’s 2018 triumph “Studio 54” (in which Cohn played a part), “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” details the rise and fall of the legal bulldog, who stood by McCarthy and mentored Donald Trump with a ruthless unscrupulousness that knew no bounds, and who died in 1986 of an AIDS affliction he denied to the end. A biographical portrait that doubles as an origin story for today’s amoral political landscape,

The words “manipulate” and “power” are heard ad nauseam in “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” — a fact that speaks to the near-universal consensus about the...

There are few better ways to tell a complicated true-life story than a well-made documentary. From Hulu and Netflix’s competing Fyre Festival documentaries, which both capture the mega-disaster of the exclusive event that never happened, to groundbreaking docuseries that rocked the music industry, like Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly” and HBO’s “Leaving Neverland,” 2019 has been the year for riveting documentaries.

And if you’re still itching to see more powerful scammers get exposed, Netflix has you covered. “Dirty Money” chronicles real cases of corruption and corporate greed as it takes shape in drug dealing and politics, while “The Great Hack” reveals how Cambridge Analytica became a propaganda machine during the 2016 election. Other political docs include “Knock Down the House,” “Flint Town,” “Reversing Roe” and “Trump: An American Dream.”

But if you’re craving something more upbeat, you can always watch Beyonce’s “Homecoming,” which chronicles the singer’s...

Just a few streets away from a protest in front of the Equinox in West Hollywood on Friday night, “Pose” star Billy Porter weighed in on the controversy. “Leave,” he told Variety in response to the uproar that came after Equinox and SoulCycle owner Stephen Ross hosted a fundraiser for President Trump at his Hamptons estate.

“That’s what activism is,” Porter continued. “It doesn’t work unless you hit these people where their bank accounts are. You don’t get to have these views and rape and pillage from us. That whole business is built on queer people, people of color, the whole business is built on that. So we need to go. It is an us and a they. That’s what it is. I didn’t do that part. That’s where we are and so therefore, my Equinox membership is canceled.”

Angelica Ross, who plays Candy Ferocity on “Pose,...

"Attack. Don't settle, don't apologize." Sony Classics has unveiled the trailer for the doc film Where's My Roy Cohn?, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year. This is the latest documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer and it connects the dots between Cohn and our worrisome current state of affairs. "If you were in his presence, you knew you were in the presence of evil." He's terrifying. One of the most controversial and influential American men of the 20th Century, Roy Cohn was a ruthless, unscrupulous lawyer and political power broker whose career ranged from acting as chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy's Communist-hunting subcommittee to molding more corrupt politicians that still reign today. Reviews praised the film stating that, "a diabolical public figure mesmerizes from the grave." Worth a watch, if you can stomach this. Here's the official trailer for Matt Tyrnauer's doc Where's My ...

Halston with Liza Minnelli wearing an Elsa Peretti cuff Photo: Berry Berenson Perkins

In the second instalment of my conversation with Frédéric Tcheng we discuss Halston's relationship to Charles James and costume designer John David Ridge, Truman Capote's Black and White Ball, Studio 54, the Amazon director's cut, envisioning a miniseries "Mad Men with the fashion world and Halston at the centre", and an upcoming project.

Halston is a story of inclusion and exclusion. His models, the Halstonettes, included Pat Cleveland, Anjelica Huston, Heidi Goldberg, Karen Bjornson, Beverly Johnson, Nancy North, Chris Royer, Alva Chinn, Connie Cook, and Pat Ast. Halston made most of the masks for Truman Capote's legendary 1966 Black and White Ball - but wasn't officially invited. The fragrance, and the designs of the 1976 U.S. Olympic uniforms helped this important fashion designer spread his wings.

Halstonettes - Pat Cleveland, Chris Royer, Alva Chinn, and Karen Bjornson...

Exclusive: Paramount Pictures has picked up Party Girls, an original pitch from the Legally Blonde screenwriting duo Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith and Karen McCullah, with Todd Garner attached to produce via his Broken Road Productions banner. Garner is the producer behind such films as Paul Blart: Mall Cop and its sequel, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, The Possession of Hannah Grace and Isn’t It Romantic.

Party Girls is a female ensemble comedy about a group of party girls from the Studio 54 era who reunite in the present day, now in their 70s, to continue the party.

Together, McCullah and Smith also co-wrote the screenplays for teen rom-coms 10 Things I Hate About You and She’s the Man as well as served as executive producers on The House Bunny and The Ugly Truth.

Smith co-created the upcoming Netflix series, Trinkets, which is based on her young-adult novel of the same name.

Kino Lorber has acquired the North American rights to “Synonyms,” which won the Golden Bear for Best Film at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, the distributor announced Thursday.

Nadav Lapid directed the feature loosely based on Lapid’s own experience as a young man who rejects his Israeli heritage and flees to Paris. This is Lapid’s third feature following his critically acclaimed “Policeman” and “The Kindergarten Teacher,” which Kino Lorber also released stateside.

Kino Lorber plans to release the film theatrically this fall, followed by a VOD and home video release this winter.

Also Read: 'Studio 54' Acquired by Kino Lorber, Zeitgeist Films

“Synonyms” stars Tom Mercier as Yoav, a young Israeli expat and ex-soldier who refuses to speak Hebrew and goes to Paris with nothing but his French-Hebrew dictionary and a backpack that eventually gets stolen. He develops a relationship with Emile and Caroline,...

Thompson founded A&E IndieFilms and has a string of documentary producing credits.

Molly Thompson, the founder of A&E IndieFilms and executive producer of documentary films including Jesus Camp, Life, Animated and City of Ghosts, has joined Apple as the tech giant’s head of documentaries.

Thompson founded A&E IndieFilms, feature production arm of Us cable channel company A+E Networks, where she also served as head of documentary films.

A&E IndieFilms releases have included the Watergate docuseries, Sundance entry Studio 54, Cartel Land and Murderball. Thompson also served as executive producer on The Tillman Story and The Imposter...

Thompson founded A&E IndieFilms and has a string of documentary producing credits.

Molly Thompson, the founder of A&E IndieFilms and executive producer of documentary films including Jesus Camp, Life, Animated and City of Ghosts, has joined Apple as the tech giant’s head of documentaries.

Thompson founded A&E IndieFilms, feature production arm of Us cable channel company A+E Networks, where she also served as head of documentary films.

A&E IndieFilms releases have included the Watergate docuseries, Sundance entry Studio 54, Cartel Land and Murderball. Thompson also served as executive producer on The Tillman Story and The Imposter...

Apple snagged a big fish to run their documentary content division. New York-based A&E Networks documentary veteran Molly Thompson will bring her expertise in supervising documentary films and TV series to Apple, which has recently ramped up its content production, mostly on the television side. As demand for documentaries grows, A&E is losing a valuable player.

Of course, Apple has not yet announced exactly how it plans to release its content, documentary and otherwise. At Apple’s recent presentation, Oprah Winfrey revealed that she’s prepping documentary projects for Apple TV+, including investigations of poisonous work environments and the mental health industry. Apple also acquired the documentary “Elephant Queen” at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. At Sundance, the filmmakers told me that the film has an ambitious and proactive social-action global release plan that could include theaters. One strategic Apple partnership with indie distributor A24, which will produce films for Apple,...

Apple snagged a big fish to run their documentary content division. New York-based A&E Networks documentary veteran Molly Thompson will bring her expertise in supervising documentary films and TV series to Apple, which has recently ramped up its content production, mostly on the television side. As demand for documentaries grows, A&E is losing a valuable player.

Of course, Apple has not yet announced exactly how it plans to release its content, documentary and otherwise. At Apple’s recent presentation, Oprah Winfrey revealed that she’s prepping documentary projects for Apple TV+, including investigations of poisonous work environments and the mental health industry. Apple also acquired the documentary “Elephant Queen” at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. At Sundance, the filmmakers told me that the film has an ambitious and proactive social-action global release plan that could include theaters. One strategic Apple partnership with indie distributor A24, which will produce films for Apple,...

Molly Thompson has joined Apple’s upcoming streaming service as its head of documentaries.

Thompson previously founded A&E Indie Films, the feature film production unit of A+E Networks. She was also previously the head of documentary films for A+E Networks. Recent documentaries she has executive produced include “The Clinton Affair,” Charles Ferguson’s “Watergate” docuseries, “Studio 54,” and “City of Ghosts.” She was also an executive producer on celebrated documentaries like “Life, Animated,” “Cartel Land,” “Murderball,” and “Jesus Camp.”

She also executive produced Amir Bar-Lev’s “The Tillman Story” and Bart Layton’s “The Imposter,” as well as two narrative features for Lifetime Films. Those were “Lila & Eve,” starring Viola Davis and Jennifer Lopez, and “Paris Can Wait,” starring Diane Lane and Alec Baldwin.

Additionally, Thompson served as executive producer on all feature films produced under the History Films banner, including Werner Herzog’s “Meeting Gorbachev” and “Cave of Forgotten Dreams,...

Apple is continuing to fill out its executive ranks.

The streaming service AppleTV+ has hired former A+E executive Molly Thompson as the company's head of documentaries. She brings with her three decades of experience in the field, having founded A&E IndieFilms, the feature film production arm of A+E Networks, and served as head of documentary films for A+E Networks.

Thompson executive produced such titles as The Clinton Affair; Charles Ferguson’s docuseries Watergate; Studio 54; and City of Ghosts from Oscar nominee Matthew Heineman. Among the additional projects she has shepherded are Roger Ross Williams’ Emmy Award-winning Life, Animated; Cartel Land; Murderball; and Jesus Camp....

Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche will bring back Twentieth Century for a one-night-only benefit reading next month at Broadway’s Studio 54: The two actors will reprise their roles from a 2004 Roundabout Theatre production of the classic 1932 Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur comedy.

The event is set for Monday, April 29, 7:30 pm at the Roundabout’s Studio 54 theater. Walter Bobbie, who directed the 2004 production, will be back in the same capacity for the reading.

The announcement was made today by Todd Haimes, Roundabout Theatre Company’s Artistic Director/CEO. All proceeds benefit the not-for-profit Roundabout Theatre Company and its programs. Tickets go on sale today.

As with the 2004 revival, the benefit will use playwright Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of the Hecht-MacArthur comedy. Additional cast members and creative team will be announced soon..

As Roundabout describes Twentieth Century: Bankrupt, with his career on a downslide, egomaniacal Broadway director Oscar Jaffee (Baldwin) boards the Twentieth Century Limited and encounters his former discovery and ex-chorus girl Lily Garland (Heche), now a temperamental Hollywood star. He’ll do anything to get her back under contract and back in his bed, but his former protégé will have nothing to do with him. All of the action takes place on board the legendary Twentieth Century train from Chicago to New York City where Oscar has 20 hours to persuade Lily to return to Broadway in his upcoming show. If he fails, it’s the end of the line.

The 2004 production of Twentieth Century kicked off Baldwin’s continuing association with the Roundabout: He subsequently starred as “Ed” in Entertaining Mr. Sloane at the Roundabout’s Off Broadway Laura Pels Theatre. He currently serves on the Roundabout’s Board of Directors.

The BBC is making its own film about Michael Jackson – days before the controversial HBO and Channel 4 co-pro Leaving Neverland is set to air.

The British public broadcaster has commissioned Michael Jackson: The Rise And Fall (w/t), written and presented by Jacques Peretti. The British journalist has previously made three films about the Thriller singer – Michael Jackson: What Really Happened, Michael Jackson’s Last Days: What Really Happened and Michael Jackson’s Secret Hollywood.

The doc, which will be broadcast on BBC Two later this year, will explore the life and career of Jackson, asking how and why he became who he did.

The film will explore his early years with The Jackson 5 in Gary, Indiana, to his time in New York (and the notorious nightclub Studio 54), his relationship with the media, retreat into fantasy and creation of Neverland, to the preparations for his This Is It concerts shortly before his death.

Review by Roger Carpenter

For 33 months in the late 70’s New York City became the epicenter for perhaps the most famous nightclub in the world. Birthed from the dreams of a couple of twenty-somethings and miraculously constructed in mere weeks, the rise and ultimate fall of the hottest discotheque in the world—Studio 54—is the stuff of legend.

Originally constructed as an opera house in 1927, there were a succession of owners until CBS Studios purchased the property in 1943. There the studio broadcast some of its most famous game shows like What’s My Line? and The $64,000 Question, as well as The Jack Benny Show and even Captain Kangaroo until they moved to a new location and started shopping the property around.

Enter two young hotshots named Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, who purchased the property and proceeded to renovate it with the backing of Jack Dushey. Rubell was a brash entrepreneur while Schrager,...

Matt Tyrnauer captures Karl Lagerfeld's proclamation backstage at Valentino's 45th anniversary fashion show in Rome in his Valentino: The Last Emperor

Matt Tyrnauer, the director of Where's My Roy Cohn?, Studio 54, Scotty And The Secret History Of Hollywood, Citizen Jane: Battle For The City, and Valentino: The Last Emperor, sent the following remembrance in honour of Karl Lagerfeld, who died yesterday in Paris at the age of 85.

"Karl Lagerfeld was an astonishing force of nature. One thing I noticed about fashion legends is that it usually takes two to tango: the creative force and more silent business partner. Think Valentino and Giammetti; Saint Laurent and Bergé. In the case of Karl, he was more of a lone wolf, a one-man-band who managed to keep the legend alive, the business going, and the creativity flowing for generations as a solo act. He was also one of the most witty...

“A Star Is Born” took home multiple wins at the 9th Annual Guild of Music Supervisors Awards, held tonight at the theater at the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The event celebrates the highest achievements in music supervision, recognizing exemplary work in 18 categories across movies, television, games, advertising, and trailers (read Variety‘s Gms Awards preview here.)

See the full list of winners below.

Best Music Supervision for Film Budgeted Over $25 Million

Julia Michels and Julianne Jordan – “A Star Is Born”

Best Music Supervision for Film Budgeted Under 25 Million

Tom Wolfe and Manish Raval – “Green Book”

Best Music Supervision for Film Budgeted Under $10 Million

Margaret Yen and Alison Litton – “Vox Lux”

Best Music Supervision for Film Budgeted Under $5 Milli on

Joe Rudge – “Eighth Grade”

Best Song/Recording Created for a Film

“Shallow” from “A Star Is Born”

Music Supervisors: Julia Michels and Julianne Jordan

Artists: Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper

Songwriters: Stefani Germanotta,...

Bad people tend to make for good documentaries, and Roy Cohn was one of the worst. A conniving Rasputin figure who advised Senator Joseph McCarthy, forged Donald Trump into the man-like thing he is today, and cravenly laid the groundwork for a political climate that encourages the pursuit of power at the expense of foundational American principles, the infamous “fixer” left this mortal coil with a well-earned reputation for being as morally bankrupt as anyone who ever walked the earth. And yet, Matt Tyrnauer’s “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” — while erudite, well-researched, and all too relevant — is an unilluminating chore to watch, even as it convincingly argues the profound extent to which its subject helped blemish the moral complexion of the modern world.

As a lawyer, Cohn overpowered the legal system with the brute force of his ad hominem attacks and backstage maneuverings (he would say that knowing the...

A&E IndieFilms and Sundance Institute have selected four recipients for their inaugural “Brave Storytellers Award,” an honor that is intended to provide financial support for documentary filmmakers. The winners are Cecilia Aldarondo, Jemka Autry, Margaret Brown, and Yoruba Richen.

Each honoree will receive $25,000 in seed funding, as well as year-round mentorship from staff of the Sundance Institute, a non-profit filmmaking organization. A&E IndieFilms will then work with Sundance Institute to support the recipients’ projects through development, production and distribution.

The projects being supported by the grants cover a range of subjects. Richen’s “American Reckoning” will grapple with the FBI’s recent series of investigations into hundreds of unsolved civil rights era murders. Autry’s “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” examines the prosecution of the jazz singer on drug charges. And Aldarondo’s “You Were My First Boyfriend” reexamines life in high school.

Brown’s project is dubbed “Africatown,...

Netflix is having a very good start to 2019. In addition to landing its first Best Picture nomination for Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” (the film tied with “The Favourite” for most nominations — 10), the streaming service took another step towards industry legitimacy by officially joining the MPAA this week. The site’s original film slate continues to broaden and diversify, and the streamer seems to pull an infinite number of rabbits out of its expertly-branded red hat.

As the Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week, the Jake Gyllenhaal vehicle “Velvet Buzzsaw” will play in the Premieres section. But Netflix viewers won’t be missing out for too long; the art heist genre thriller debuts on Netflix on the first day of February. That might make a nice double feature with the Kristen Stewart-starring “Personal Shopper,” or Matt Tyrnauer’s impeccably made disco doc “Studio 54.”

Another exciting premiere with a charismatic male lead,...

It’s not entirely surprising that portrait documentaries dominate this year’s Sundance nonfiction lineup. Two of the biggest nonfiction films of 2018 – “Rbg” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” – are profile films that premiered at last year’s Sundance and later made the Oscar docu shortlist.

The success of both docs could help explain why Sundance senior programmers David Courier and Caroline Libresco were bombarded with nonfiction biopic submissions for Sundance 2019. “The trick is to find those [profile docs] that are really cinematic and that transcend this notion of traditional biopic,” says Libresco.

Both programmers didn’t seem to have a problem doing just that. Case in point, 12 of the 13 films that make up the fest’s Documentary Premieres section are portrait docs. Steve Bannon, Miles Davis and Harvey Weinstein are among the many famous and infamous figures being explored. Bio films are also prevalent in the Docu Competition and Docu World Cinema Competition categories.

Indie producers usually don’t have the luxury, or inclination, to adapt a Disney theme park ride or Marvel comic into a film. Their closest to sure box office bets, aside from low-budget horror fare, now appear to be projects with pre-sold themes and subjects that are often based on celebrities — the indie world’s version of brands. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Sundance’s biggest 2018 doc hits and many famous names in its 2019 lineup.

On the heels of last year’s indie hits about Mr. Rogers, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Ku Klux Klan, this year’s doc slate features such well-known (and sometimes infamous) subjects as alleged sex offenders Michael Jackson and Harvey Weinstein, Trump’s infamous mentors Roy Cohn and Steve Bannon, David Crosby, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Halston, Miles Davis, Mike Wallace, Leonard Cohen, Anton Yelchin, Toni Morrison, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Apollo 11, the Satanic Temple and...

“A Star Is Born,” “Black Panther” and “Mary Poppins Returns” are among the films that have received multiple nominations from the Guild of Music Supervisors, which announces the nominees for its 9th Annual Guild of Music Supervisors Awards on Thursday.

All three of those films were nominated in the Best Music Supervision for a Film Budgeted Over $25 Million category, alongside “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Peter Rabbit.” They were also nominated for individual songs: “A Star Is Born” for Lady Gaga’s “Shallow,” “Black Panther” for Kendrick Lamar’s “All the Stars” and “Mary Poppins Returns” for Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s “Trip a Little Light Fantastic.”

The other nominated songs are Dolly Parton’s “Girl in the Movies,” from “Dumplin’,” and Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower” from “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” the only song nominated by the Gms that is not on the Academy’s short list of...

In the 1970s, Studio 54 was the epicenter of New York nightlife. With wildly theatrical sets, a guest list of celebs, and jet-setters that included everyone from Andy Warhol to Grace Jones, and a pulsating disco beat, the nightclub helped define the Me Decade. But its reign was short lived. In 1980, founders Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were convicted of tax evasion after skimming nearly $2.5 million in unreported income.

The club and Rubell and Schrager’s rise to the top of the Manhattan social ladder are documented in Matt Tyrnauer’s acclaimed new documentary, “Studio 54.” Rubell died of complications from AIDS in 1989, but the film boasts in-depth interviews with Schrager, who has been hesitant in the past to publicly reflect on that heady time.

It’s easy to see why he’d be wary of revisiting the more painful parts of his past. Schrager successfully reinvented himself, helping to...

Director Matt Tyrnauer finds himself in contention for awards this year with not one but two feature-length documentaries. Taken together, they offer a unique social and cultural history of America from the late 1940s into the 1980s.

Studio 54 centers on the latter end of that time period, when entrepreneurs Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager transformed an old theater space in Manhattan into “the greatest nightclub of all time,” as Tyrnauer and many others consider it.

“You could look at other genres of nightclub like the Stork Club and say, ‘That was great, too,’” the director notes. “But there was certainly nothing in the modern era that ever approached Studio 54, as hard as everyone tried.”

From 1977 to 1979—the height of the disco era—the club became a magnet for celebrities and the non-famous, who cavorted in a drug-fueled atmosphere of revelry and wild abandon.

“It was the perfect expression of...

Except for the lucky few who entered the legendary nightclub on New York’s 54th Street, most people’s impressions of Studio 54 come from newspaper photographs and an extremely fictionalized 1998 movie. But director Matt Tyrnauer opens the doors to the general public with his new documentary, Studio 54.

Tyrnauer told the crowd after a showing of his film at the International Documentary Association’s annual screening series that “in a way, it’s the most-told story but it’s the least-told story.”

Studio 54 may have produced iconic pictures and made headlines for years, but few know the real story. Rubell died in 1989, and Schrager hadn’t spoken about it publicly — until Tyrnauer’s film.

Matt Tyrnauer on Norma Kamali in Studio 54: "She looks extraordinary and she's articulate and so real and was very open and had great insights." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

There is only one filmmaker who has documented Valentino Garavani (Valentino: The Last Emperor), Scotty Bowers (Scotty And The Secret History Of Hollywood), Jane Jacobs (Citizen Jane: Battle For The City) and Ian Schrager (Studio 54). In the second half of my conversation with Matt Tyrnauer, we discuss those films, the work of cinematographer Tom Hurwitz, Michael Jackson, Ron Galella, a Steve Rubell - Roy Cohn connection, and why he choose not to interview Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross and Sylvester Stallone for Studio 54.

By "total coincidence", Matt Tyrnauer had seen The Lifespan Of A Fact, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones and Bobby Cannavale at Studio 54, the evening before we met at Kino Lorber.

Matt Tyrnauer on Valentino Garavani with Giancarlo Giammetti...

Amazon Studios opened Beautiful Boy to one of the year’s best debut weekend per theater averages. Starring Steve Carell and Timothy Chalamet, Beautiful Boy grossed $221,437 in four theaters, averaging $55,359, the fourth highest debut PTA of 2018. PBS Distribution’s Charm City did just that in an exclusive run, taking in $10,854. Sony Classics bowed Rupert Everett directorial debut The Happy Prince in 8 locations to a slower start, taking in $40,267.

Abramorama opened animated doc Liyana this week with an exclusive run for $5,030 in the three-day, while Roadside Attractions and Topic Studios launched The Oath by Ike Barinholtz in ten theaters, taking in an initial $29,237. Zeitgeist added runs for Studio 54’s second outing, grossing a solid $23,700. The fall doc box office star, Free Solocontinued to mount impressive numbers, grossing over $859K in its third frame. Searchlight’s The Old Man & The Gun expanded with a solid $912K in its third weekend.

This weekend, new Oscar-contender “A Star Is Born” offered stiff competition for the older urban moviegoers who are drawn to specialized films. The strong limited-city opening of “The Hate U Give” (20th Century Fox) — designed to build word of mouth — and the expansion of the rock climbing documentary “Free Solo” (Greenwich) stood out as most impressive.

Both are well set up for wider successful results. The second weekend expansion of the Robert Redford anchored “The Old Man and the Gun” (Fox Searchlight) had a decent reaction, though not at the same level. It has positioned itself ahead of most other fall releases and could still thrive ahead.

Documentary “Studio 54” (Zeitgeist) also opened well, taking in $15,000 in its initial exclusive hometown New York date.

Not reported is Netflix’s unprecedented 21-screen release for Tamara Jenkins’ well-reviewed (Metascore: 83) Sundance premiere “Private Life,” which was well-received at the New York Film Festival.

Sundance doc Studio 54 played a solo New York engagement over the weekend, taking in $15K with sold out shows. The film is the second release for filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer who also had Scotty And The Secret History of Hollywood in theaters over the summer.

20th Century Fox rolled out The Hate U Give in three dozen locations, grossing a half million. Racking up the big numbers, though, was Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s Free Solo, topping a million over the weekend with a $590K three-day gross in 41 theaters.

Cohen Media Group bowed fellow doc The Great Buster: A Celebration with two runs, taking in $7,234. Fox Searchlight expanded Robert Redford starrer The Old Man & The Gun to 49 theaters, grossing $385K. Neon jumped Monsters And Men to 143 theaters in its second frame grossing $146K, while The Orchard planted All About Nina in 23 theaters in its second frame, taking...

The heavy roster of Specialties heading to theaters in the post-Labor Day period is ebbing a bit this weekend. Cuba Gooding, Jr. makes his debut as writer-director with thriller Bayou Caviar, in which he stars with Famke Janssen and Richard Dreyfuss in a day and date bow this weekend via Gravitas Ventures. Sundance fest debut documentary Studio 54 is the second recent theatrical feature by Matt Tyrnauer, following this summer’s Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood. Zeitgeist opens the title about the legendary New York nightclub in, of course, New York, before heading West next week. Vertical Entertainment is opening drama-thriller A Crooked Somebody directed by Trevor White and starring Rich Sommer, while Music Box is spearheading SXSW’s Finnish metal music-comedy, Heavy Trip.

A couple of studios are also giving their movies a limited start, including Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz starrer, Loving Pablo from Universal, while...

Sneak Peek the new documentary "Studio 54", directed by Matt Tyrnauer, opening October 5, 2018:

"...'Studio 54' was the epicenter of 70's hedonism, in a space that not only redefined the nightclub, but also came to symbolize an entire era. 

"Its co-owners, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, two friends from Brooklyn, seemed to come out of nowhere to suddenly preside over a new kind of New York society.

"Now, 39 years after the velvet rope was first slung across the club's hallowed threshold, a feature documentary tells the real story behind the greatest club of all time..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Studio 54"...

In the past few years, Matt Tyrnauer has made it his stock-in-trade to pry into the seamy undersides of glitz and glamour — and all the sexy secrets that go along. Earlier this year, his documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood attempted to shock and awe with the tales of Scotty Bowers, legendary “pimp to the stars,” and his potentially scandalous conquests of famous men and women. He also delved into the backstory of fashion royalty with Valentino: The Last Emperor. But let’s not forget he also gave...

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood Director Matt Tyrnauer is back with a new feature-length documentary which takes us behind the velvet rope of the world’s most famous nightclub, New York’s Studio 54. Although the club was open in its original incarnation for only 33 months, looking back it encapsulates so much of what defined that late Seventies disco era before the arrival of HIV/AIDS. Largely thanks to the images of its celebrity patrons and anecdotes about the club’s strict door policy, it has remained an indelible icon of popular culture for four decades.

Ahead of Studio 54’s New York opening today, Friday 5th October at the IFC Center before a nationwide Us expansion, James Kleinmann spoke with Matt Tyrnauer about setting out to reveal the untold tale of the club’s history.

Liza Minelli, Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol, and Halston at Studio 54. Photographer: Adam Scull.

The nightclub Studio 54 sought to be a disco paradise in the 1970s, a utopia made up of sex, drugs, dancing, and celebrity display. Many gay men of a certain age in Manhattan still claim to have been one of the shirtless waiters in tight shorts at Studio 54, and like so much else about that club, these claims are hard to verify.

Documentarian Matt Tyrnauer (“Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood”) sits down with the two surviving co-owners of the club, Ian Schrager and Jack Dushey (the latter functioned as a silent partner), and tries to get them to reveal the tale behind its rise and fall, but this often proves difficult for him. Steve Rubell, the exuberant public face of Studio 54, died of AIDS-related complications in 1989, and so he isn’t around to tell his part of the story. The feeling persists in “Studio 54” that we are...

Liza Minnelli, Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol, and Halston at Studio 54: "The rest of the world sees it as a triumph and a golden age of something that was a kind of paradise lost."

Matt Tyrnauer, the director of Valentino: The Last Emperor, Scotty And The Secret History Of Hollywood, and Citizen Jane: Battle For The City (a 2016 Doc NYC highlight and the opening night selection) joined me for a conversation on his latest documentary Studio 54. I came down from Lincoln Center, following the 56th New York Film Festival morning screening for High Life and press conference with Claire Denis and Robert Pattinson to meet him at the offices of Kino Lorber.

Anthony Haden-Guest, author of The Last Days Of Disco (not Whit Stillman's film), is seen commenting on the crowd outside of Studio 54: "It's like the damned looking into paradise." Ian Schrager "the Greta Garbo...