Film & TV | Variety Magazine
21 March 2023
The cocaine bear in Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear is an impressive feat of visual effects wizardry, but there was an actual person behind the 227-kilogram, drug-addicted beast, and that person was New Zealander Allan…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
19 February 2023
When The Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin pitched a role in the series to New Zealand-born actor Melanie Lynskey, he started with a bang: “He called me and said, ‘I would love for…
Film & TV | New York Times (The) | Variety Magazine
15 January 2023
New Zealand director Gerard Johnstone’s latest film, the comedy horror M3GAN, is well reviewed in Variety, with critic Owen Gleiberman describing it as “creepy, preposterous and diverting”.
“Gemma (Allison Williams), a robotics engineer, works for…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
11 July 2022
Studiocanal CEO New Zealand-born Anna Marsh has been named International Distributor of the Year at CineEurope, the exhibition conference which took place in June, in Barcelona.
Andrew Sunshine, president of CineEurope organiser Film Expo Group,…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
30 April 2022
At just 21, Thomasin McKenzie, who plays Ursula in the four-part BBC series Life After Life, already has a list of impressive credits including Leave No Trace and Last Night in Soho. BAFTA winning…
Music | Variety Magazine
29 April 2022
Walk into the unembellished black building tucked away in Morningside, Auckland, later this year and there’s no telling what musical superstars one might find, Leena Tailor writes in an exclusive story for Variety. The…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
16 March 2022
“Illuminating tracks from the superb 2019 Bad Seeds album Ghosteen and Nick Cave’s 2021 collaboration with Warren Ellis, Carnage, this remarkable performance documentary may be for the Nick…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
23 December 2021
When Amazon announced in August 2021 that its billion-dollar Lord of the Rings TV series would shift production to England, fans were stunned. Though J.R.R. Tolkien was British and though the settings are fictional,…
Business | Variety Magazine
18 November 2021
Unity Software, a 3D game-development platform, is expanding its VFX footprint in a big way with the US$1.625 billion acquisition of the technology division of Peter Jackson’s New Zealand-based Weta Digital, Todd Spangler reports…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
28 October 2021
“When French filmmaker Julia Ducournau took the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year for Titane, her wild explosion of body horror and gender politics, Jane Campion’s status in film history shifted slightly: no longer…
Music | Variety Magazine
13 October 2021
For Variety’s 2021 Power of Women issue, the magazine spoke with several women in the entertainment industry, including New Zealand pop singer Lorde, who are using their voices to benefit worthy causes.
After grappling with…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
5 January 2021
“In a brilliant move, the Beatles him to work on the 56 hours of…
Music | Variety Magazine
19 October 2020
Created by American Jason Derulo using Aucklander Joshua Stylah’s instrumental “Laxed (Siren Beat)”, the track “Savage Love” has topped the charts in the UK, New Zealand and Australia, surpassed 1.1 billion streams and was…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
26 September 2020
“Imagine how Ripley of Alien would handle a Nightmare at 20,000 Feet-style gremlin attack. Sound wild? Roseanne Liang’s female empowerment thriller delivers on that premise.” Variety’s Peter Debruge reviews the New Zealand director’s film…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
4 September 2020
Anonymous Content, the company behind True Detective and The Revenant, has acquired the TV rights to the New York Times bestselling novel Code Name Hélène written by Ariel Lawhon about Wellington-born World War II heroine…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
18 March 2020
Among the documentaries premiering at this year’s TriBeCa Film Festival in April is New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based Stacey Lee’s debut feature-length project, Underplayed, about the gender inequality in electronic music, Lily Moayeri reports for…
Business | Variety Magazine
20 February 2020
New Zealander Anna Marsh, the newly appointed CEO of leading European film and TV group Studiocanal, comes off as self-contained and mild-mannered, but her bullish track record at the company and relationships with big-name…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
18 February 2020
Lead produced by Working Title Television, distributed internationally by Fremantle and coming soon to BBC Two, period thriller The Luminaries, adapted from New Zealand author Eleanor Catton’s prize-winning novel, has initiated a global roll-out,…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
13 November 2019
For a small country with a film industry that is export-driven, the quality of New Zealand’s incentives is critical, Variety’s Asia bureau chief Patrick Frater reports.
Despite the kudos and tourism dollars delivered by producing…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
14 September 2019
Dunedin-born filmmaker Daniel Borgman, 31, whose latest film Resin world has premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in the Contemporary World Cinema section, is now developing “a pair of high-concept projects”: the crime…
Business | Variety Magazine
2 May 2019
New Zealander Tom Mockridge is exiting his role as CEO at UK cabler Virgin Media and will return to Italy to be with his family. He has had a long career in pay TV…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
13 March 2019
The “Thor: Ragnarok” director is set to helm Apple’s TV adaptation of Terry Gilliam’s 1981 fantasy flick Time Bandits, which is currently in development,” writes Bill Thorne in an article for Variety.
“The…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
15 December 2018
Aquaman star Jason Momoa has wowed fans when he led a massive red carpet haka at the film’s premiere on Thursday night. Variety reports.
“For the uninitiated,…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
28 September 2018
Eva Green (“Casino Royale”), Eve Hewson (“The Knick”) and Marton Csokas (“Into the Badlands”) will star in “The Luminaries, “the TV adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s award-winning novel,” writes Stewart Clarke in an article for…
Film & TV | Screen Daily | Variety Magazine
19 September 2018
New Zealander Anna Paquin’s new film, Tell It to the Bees may be set in a small Scottish village in the 1950s, but it deals with issues that are still…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
15 August 2018
New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi and actors Naomi Watts and Christoph Waltz join the main jury of the Venice Film Festival, which will be presided over by director Guillermo del Toro, the winner of…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine | Wall Street Journal (The)
31 July 2018
“Castle Rock is a giant basket of Easter eggs for King people, but for the rest of us it’s a decent show layered with supernatural secrets waiting to be decoded,” according to John…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
15 July 2018
“Sitting down with Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge, Paquin discussed the release of her newest independent movie at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic.” Tara Bitran reports for
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
5 June 2018
Auckland-born actor Jay Ryan, 36, has been cast as the adult version of Ben Hanscom in New Line’s It: Chapter Two, sources confirmed to Variety.
Ryan joins Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Bill Hader, who…
Music | Pitchfork | Variety Magazine
29 April 2018
Despite working with a “micro-budget”, music supervisor Chris Swanson weaves an inspired sonic accompaniment to the Netflix hit Wild Wild Country, a documentary about the controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers….
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
17 February 2018
New Zealander Anna Paquin plays Detective Anna Ryder in the Canadian television series, Bellevue. “Paquin, whose onscreen presence guarantees an otherworldly, alienating grace, is doing more work than is first apparent,” Variety TV critic…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
15 January 2018
New Zealand actor Beulah Koale’s role in the 2017 film Thank You For Your Service has been deemed a “breakout” performance of the year by industry publication Variety.
“As more people discover this quiet gem…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
14 November 2017
Alias Grace, Netflix’s limited series from writer/producer Sarah Polley and director Mary Harron based on Margaret Atwood’s novel, dives deep into the life of the convicted murderer, but whether or not she was truly…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
31 October 2017
“Miles Teller hits the true note, and so does the rest of a superb cast , in a drama of Iraq War veterans that sidesteps all the coming-home clichés,” Variety’s Owen…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter | Telegraph (The) | Variety Magazine
24 October 2017
Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok has an “oddly beautiful scuffed-plastic aesthetic”; it’s “funny, charming, dazzling, gorgeously designed, and full of actors you already like,” with Waititi managing “to finally imbue Marvel’s dullest Avenger with a…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
3 October 2017
“A sub-Antarctic research station is the setting for Human Traces, a twisty psychological thriller from promising New Zealand director Nic Gorman,” Richard Kuipers writes in a review for Variety.
“Isolation is anything but splendid in…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
15 September 2017
“The upcoming Showtime comedy series SMILF has cast New Zealand-born actress Kimberley Crossman in a recurring role,” reports Joe Otterson for Variety. Crossman will play Kit-Cat, the roommate of…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
11 September 2017
Auckland-born actor Callan Mulvey, 42, is joining the cast of upcoming American-Scottish historical action drama Outlaw King, which will be aired on Netflix.
According to Variety, Mulvey will be playing the role of Sir John…
Music | Variety Magazine
4 September 2017
There’s certainly a great deal of thematic resonance in the first series of Top of the Lake and this one, beginning with women immersed in a body of water, a narrative of pregnancy secretly…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
23 June 2017
“Breathtaking landscapes have long made New Zealand a prime filming location. Where else, after all, can one find alpine glaciers side by side with subtropical seacoasts?” entertainment trade magazine Variety writes.
“Plus, the country’s highly…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
9 March 2017
New Zealand’s newest production facility, the Kumeu Film Studio is to launch thanks to a three-way partnership built around the China-Hollywood co-produced, action-adventure film Meg, according to an exclusive story in Variety.
The studio facility…
Film & TV | Guardian (The) | Variety Magazine
7 February 2017
The presciently titled I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, starring New Plymouth-born actor Melanie Lynskey, pulled off a surprise victory at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Awards ceremony taking the grand…
General | Variety Magazine
15 September 2016
New Zealand and Canada have “signed a co-production treaty that will allow enhanced film and TV industry cooperation between the two English-speaking territories,” writes Patrick Frater for Variety. “The treaty was signed…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
18 March 2016
New Zealand actor Sam Neill will star in the AMC television network drama The Son, playing the patriarch of a Texas family in a multigenerational story of the clan’s rise and fall.
Production on the…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter | Sundance Film Festival | Variety Magazine
5 February 2016
New investigative documentary, the “engrossing” Tickled, co-directed by New Zealanders David Farrier and Dylan Reeve, has received rave reviews from critics and punters after its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
18 November 2015
Even after the end of Peter Jackson’s ‘Lord of The Rings’ movies, the New Zealand film and TV business is thriving and “turning the land that once served as Middle-Earth into a host of…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
17 November 2015
New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis says that returning to New Zealand to tell local stories keeps him sane.
“It sort of grounds me and gives me a sense of purpose,” said Curtis.
His next project alongside…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
16 October 2015
The trailer for the fourth and final season of small-town crime drama Banshee has been released. January 29 has been set as the show’s premiere date.
New Zealand actor Antony Starr is starring as Lucas…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
1 October 2015
New Zealander Cliff Curtis, 47, who portrayed speed chess genius Genesis Potini in The Dark Horse, will be honoured by the American Cinematheque at a ceremony on 11 October at the Aero Theatre in…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
23 September 2015
Golden Globe and Academy Award winner Anna Paquin has been cast in a new role opposite Forest Whitaker in the epic television miniseries, Roots, which is based on Alex Haley’s 1976 novel as well…
Film & TV | TIFF | Variety Magazine
19 September 2015
“Auckland, New Zealand may seem a world away from the heart of hip-hop culture in the US, but the local dance crews featured in Born to Dance totally own it”, writes Justin Lowe for
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
18 September 2015
Special effects maestro New Zealander Richard Taylor will direct the design of characters in the upcoming American film version of The Monkey King, a Chinese blockbuster.
“There has been a rush to bring Western-originated movies to…
Film & TV | Indie Wire | Variety Magazine
16 September 2015
Jake Mahaffy’s evocation of a borderline unbearable true-life tragedy, Free In Deed is a bracing, bruising corrective to the “faith-based filmmaking” movement, according to Indiewire. The New Zealand-raised director’s third film, set in and…
Film & TV | Stuff | Variety Magazine
9 September 2015
Recently rated by Variety magazine as one of 10 cinematographers to watch, New Zealander Nigel Bluck, 43, has been working as director of photography on the second season of popular…
Film & TV | San Francisco Chronicle | Variety Magazine
9 March 2015
New Zealander Niki Caro is the director of McFarland, USA, a Disney film based on the true story of a 1987 cross country team from a predominantly Mexican-American high school starring Kevin Costner. McFarland,…
Film & TV | Salt Lake Tribune (The) | Sundance Film Festival | Variety Magazine
9 February 2015
The Utah filmmakers who begat Napoleon Dynamite made a triumphant return to the Sundance Film Festival with New Zealand actor Jemaine Clement playing opposite American funnyman Sam Rockwell in Don Verdean, a movie about…