Updated every Friday 12:00 PM
February 28 - March 6

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Apple TV+ announced an eight-episode season two for celebrated German-language dark comedy “Where’s Wanda?” produced by UFA Fiction. The series stars International Emmy Award nominee Heike Makatsch (“Love Actually”), German Comedy Award winner Axel Stein (“The Vault”), multiple award-winning actress Lea Drinda (“The Gryphon”) and Leo Simon, as they return for season two of this “colorful, quirky caper.”...

Ayo Edebiri is set to write and is in talks to star in the Barney movie at A24. The project has been in development since 2019 when it was annoucned that Mattel Films and Daniel Kaluuya’s 59% Productions would be partnering with the studio on the project about the beloved childhood TV character. Barney & Friends, which was produced from 1992 to 2009, was a childhood staple and introduced viewers to Barney, an imaginary and perpetually optimistic tyrannosaurus rex that teaches lessons about friendship through song and dance. Barney will be overseen by Kevin McKeon and Andrew Scannell for Mattel, with Mattel head Robbie Brenner producing, along with Kaluuya and Rowan Riley. Edebiri will next be seen in A24 horror thriller Opus, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival; the Bear break-out will be seen in the fourth season of the FX series that earned her an Emmy. Other upcoming projects include James L. Brooks’ Ella McCay and Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt. Edebiri’s writing credits include Dickinson and What We Do In the Shadows...

Brazil will be the official country of honor at this year’s Marché du Film, the Cannes film market, an acknowledgment of the growing strength of Brazilian cinema internationally. Brazilian cinema is riding a wave right now, helped by the global success of Walter Salles’ political drama I’m Still Here, which is up for 3 Oscars this weekend: Best International Feature, Best Actress for lead Fernanda Torres, and Best Film. The Brazilian industry will have a strong presence throughout the Marché, which runs from May 13 to May 21 during the 78th Cannes film festival, with key industry figures featuring in events and panels devoted to strengthening international ties and expanding the global reach of Brazilian storytelling. Brazilian cinema has been a near-constant feature in Cannes over the decades, going back at least to 1962 when Anselmo Duarte’s religious drama The Given Word won the Palme d’Or. Recent Brazilian Cannes competition entries have included Karim Aïnouz’ 2024 erotic thriller Motel Destino, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s social drama Aquarius (2016), and Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ neo-Western Bacurau, which won Cannes’ jury prize in 2019....

Werner Herzog’s The Twilight World, the German director’s first feature animation and new projects from leading animation directors including Anca Damian, Alain Ughetto, Filip Pošivač, Vincent Paronnaud and Alexis Ducord, will be among the projects presented at European co-production and pitching event Cartoon Movie, taking place in Bordeaux, France, from March 4-6. The Twilight World, at concept stage, is being made as a French-German co-production between Psyop Media Company Germany and Sun Creature France. Based on Herzog’s novel of the same name, it follows the true story of World War II intelligence officer Hiroo Onoda, the last Japanese soldier to surrender, who continued fighting a personal, fictitious war in the Philippines jungle for 30 years...

Martin Scorsese, Jane Campion and Wes Anderson are among the signees of an appeal to stave off the impending threat that a substantial portion of Rome’s movie theaters could be converted into shopping centers and supermarkets under proposed regional legislation. Alarm over the future of the Eternal City’s cinemas was prompted last month after asset management companies Colliers Global Investors and Wrm Capital won a Rome real estate bankruptcy auction and acquired nine movie theaters for a reported €50 million ($52 million). Meanwhile, a new regional piece of legislation is being drafted — and is up for approval this week — that would remove norms that currently prevent Rome movie theaters from being converted into any other type of business besides being a cultural space....

The DreamWorks Animation film “The Wild Robot” is the sole contender with a story that reflects the planet's ecological crises, per consulting firm Good Energy. “The Wild Robot” is the only one of 30 films nominated for Academy Award honors this year to reflect the ecological crises that are bearing down on the planet. That’s the conclusion of a study by the nonprofit environmental consulting firm Good Energy that examines how contemporary films represent climate change. Of the 30 films nominated for Oscar accolades this year, 10 met the eligibilty requirements for assessment — namely that the story takes place on planet Earth and in the time frame of the present day, recent past or near future. “The Wild Robot” has earned many laurels, including an Oscar nom for best animated feature, since its September premiere. Variety‘s review dubbed the film from director Chris Sanders to be “a gorgeous computer-generated cartoon with a human heart beating beneath its sleek, state-of-the-art surface” and “a radical new visual approach to CG animation.” The movie revolves around a robot built to serve others that winds up stranded on an inhabited island, where it dutifully adopts a gosling. The story reflects concerns about rising sea levels with a scene depicting whales swimming over the Golden Gate Bridge. It also reflects a world beset by extreme weather conditions...