‘Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse’ Stays Atop U.K. Box Office as ‘Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts’ Makes Strong Debut

The Batman spinoff series The Penguin has been given an adult rating.The Max crime drama series, which is expected to premiere in 2024, stars Colin Farrell as the titular character (aka Oswald Cobblepot), Gotham City’s crime kingpin and one of Batman’s key enemies. The series will pick up after the events of The Batman.According to LADbible, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has given the upcoming DC miniseries an R-rating.

Peter Caranicas Deputy Editor Studio operator Shawn Papazian is set to lead the development and operation of The Fields Studios, Chicago’s newly minted studio and soundstage complex. The announcement was made by real estate developer and The Fields Studios owner Knickpoint Ventures, which appointed Papazian as its newest partner to oversee all of its studio-related activities. The Fields Studios, launched last month, is set to start filming operations in the first quarter of 2024. Papazian has been involved with the design, development, operations and management of motion picture and television studio facilities for over 25 years.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO’s streaming walled garden is coming down, it seems.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer SPOILER ALERT: This story mentions a few significant plot developments in “The Flash,” currently playing in theaters. In the climax of “The Flash,” Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) watches helplessly as his timeline-hopping escapades cause several other superhero universes to careen into each other and become obliterated in the process. Ironically, Warner Bros. is facing almost an identical dilemma — and the stakes could be nearly as existential. “The Flash” is the second of four mega-budgeted DC adaptations the studio is set to release this year, starting with “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” in March, and followed by “Blue Beetle” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” in August and December. Yet these movies were conceived and greenlit by an executive team that all have departed the studio; in their place, new DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran have announced they will reboot the DC franchise in 2025, starting with Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy.”

More top brass from Turner Classic Movies are on their way out as Warner Bros. Discovery layoffs are underway across the conglomerate’s TV division, TheWrap has learned.

Pola Changnon, who runs Turner Classic Movies (TCM), is the latest executive to leave as part of the Warner Bros. Discovery shakeup.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Once upon a time in New York City, the three shopping havens for those in the know were referred to, in the words of Blair Waldorf, “the three B’s”: Bendel’s, Barneys and Bloomingdale’s. Bendel’s shuttered after 123 years in 2018. Next came the Hollywood-adored Barney’s, who closed its doors in 2020. Now, the last old-school, luxury retailer standing is Bloomingdale’s — and one more bold-faced “B” to revel in its glory: Barbie. In honor of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” which releases July 21, Bloomingdale’s decided to go all out in celebrating Mattel’s iconic plastic doll, who we can only assume would be a loyal Bloomies customer if she ever manages to escape Barbie World. On June 20, the retailer announced a series of Barbie-themed exclusive products, collaborations and pop-up shops ahead of the film’s anticipated release on July 21.

EXCLUSIVE: As Deadline revealed in May, Warner Bros. Discovery is undergoing another round of layoffs in its television business and it’s starting today.

EXCLUSIVE: Following the release of her critically acclaimed documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West, filmmaker Ashley Avis has taken on new management over at Sugar23.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros.’ superhero film “The Flash” debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £4.2 million ($5.4 million), according to numbers released by Comscore. In second place, in its third weekend, Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” swung to £2.6 million for a total of £20.3 million. In third position in its fourth weekend, Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” earned £1.3 million and now has a splashy £22 million total. Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts” collected £1.1 million in fourth place in its second weekend for a total of £4.99 million. Elysian’s “Greatest Days” debuted in fifth position with £536,955.

Last week was a good one for the NHL’s Golden Knights, who won the Stanley Cup, but not for The CW’s Gotham Knights, which was canceled after its freshman season. Today Misha Collins, also starred as the dashing, idealistic District Attorney and Gotham City mayoral candidate Harvey Dent, took to social media to reflect on the superhero series and that its Bat Brat fans.

**Spoilers for “The Flash” below. You’ve been warned…** After years of delays (including multiple filmmakers coming and going, as well as a global pandemic), Warner Bros.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent ANNECY — Bathed by gorgeous sun, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and MIFA market came of age as a major industry and artistic event last week at the fairy-tale looking town nestling in the laps of the French Alps.  Takeaways from this year’s extraordinary edition, which ran June 11-17: Annecy Blasts Attendance Records The Annecy Festival and MIFA market smashed prior attendance figures to smithereens, recording 15,820 accreditations, 20% up on last year’s then all-time record of 13,200. That reflects “the extraordinary dynamism of the animation industry; more and more countries producing: our support of a lot of talents in emerging countries who want to come, of course; the [year-round outreach] in terms of meetings, and the official selection,” Mickaël Marin, CEO of the Festival and MIFA organizer CITIA, told Variety. “The festival was a great success, in its record numbers of attendance, exhibition booths and companies and dynamism and sensation of an extraordinary energy,” agrees Olivier Lelardoux, Blue Spirit Studio.  

DC and Warner Bros.’ long-in-the-works superhero movie “The Flash” opened to $55 million in its first three days in North American theatres, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros. Discovery has announced three new Thai HBO Asia Originals: action-fantasy blockbuster “Khun Pan 3”; fun-filled cooking series “MarkKim + Chef” and reality series “Deane’s Dynasty.” The shows will be available exclusively to HBO and HBO GO in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Thai TV content is currently growing in popularity among Asian TV audiences and has recently been seen pioneering soft homo-erotic series known as the ‘Boys Love’ genre, that has appeal to mature female audiences. BL is conspicuously absent from the new additions to the HBO Go slate.  “Khun Pan 3” is the final instalment of the “Khun Pan” franchise and represents a journey from 1950 after World War ll, as sorcerer cop Khun Pan is persuaded to take on another dangerous mission. This time he is hunting down two bandits and uncovering a conspiracy that challenges everything, he believes in. 

Stan Refreshes Lionsgate Output Deal

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Warner Bros.’s “The Flash” and Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental” made theatrical debuts in China that were in line with their soft starts in North America and other international territories. “The Flash” captured the top spot in China with a $13.4 million (RMB94.8 million) opening weekend ($13.8 million including previews), according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. It deposed “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” which opened a week earlier and which slipped to second place in its sophomore frame. “Transformers” took a 69% fall and recorded $12.4 million between Friday and Sunday in China. That produces a $61.7 million cumulative after ten days in Chinese theaters.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter After struggling at the domestic box office, this weekend’s two major releases — the Warner Bros. superhero adaptation “The Flash” and Disney’s Pixar adventure “Elemental” — failed to catch fire with international audiences. “The Flash” pulled in $75 million in its international box office debut, which doesn’t sound all that bad… except when considering the movie is available in 78 overseas markets. That means it failed to hit $1 million in the vast majority of the territories in play. China led the way with a lackluster $13.8 million, followed by Mexico with $9.4 million, the United Kingdom with $5.3 million, Korea with $3.7 million and Brazil with $3.5 million.

Refresh for latest…: Warner Bros/DC’s The Flash sped into 78 overseas markets this weekend, grossing $75M, below the $85M-$95M we saw coming into the frame. With domestic’s slow-crawl three-day included, that makes for a $139M global opening. This is lower than projections, with general audiences not rushing out to see the deeper universe pic.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “The Flash,” a superhero adventure starring Ezra Miller, emerged victorious over Pixar’s “Elemental” in a battle of the box office lightweights. This weekend’s two new releases were once expected to ignite the summer box office but instead entirely missed the mark, as “The Flash” stumbled with $55 million and “Elemental” collected just $29.5 million in their respective debuts. Both of those films fell short of already-low expectations. And worse, they were pricy endeavors, costing $200 million to make and roughly $100 million to market, so they are shaping up to be huge disappointments in their theatrical runs. In the lead-up to “The Flash,” executives at Warner Bros. worked hard to convince the public that the film is “one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.” Directed by Andy Muschietti, the story picks up as Miller’s Barry Allen a.k.a The Flash travels back in time to prevent his mother’s murder and inadvertently cracks open the DC multiverse. (Cameos abound!) But its tepid “B” CinemaScore from opening weekend crowds suggests that the moviegoing masses didn’t entirely agree with the lavish praise bestowed on the film by the people who made it. Without positive audience scores or strong word-of-mouth, “The Flash” will struggle to rebound in the coming weeks, especially as summer season heats up with the release of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” on June 30, “Mission: Impossible 7” on July 12 and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” on July 21.

Joe Goldberg himself (aka Penn Badgley) is giving us a glimpse of what’s to come in the upcoming fifth and final season of Netflix thriller series You, from Warner Bros. Television and studio-based Berlanti Prods.

“The Flash,” the long-in-the-works standalone superhero film that DC co-chief James Gunn called “one of the best superhero movies I’ve seen.” Starring Ezra Miller, the film brings together multiple DC worlds as The Flash races into the multiverse to change the past, crossing paths with Michael Keaton’s Batman from the Tim Burton films, a brand new Supergirl (played by Sasha Calle) and plenty more courtesy of some major cameos and surprises.Right now, “The Flash” is playing exclusively in theaters. But you may be wondering, when is “The Flash” movie streaming on Max? All your questions answered below.The film was released exclusively in theaters on June 16.Like all Warner Bros.

The Flash (★★★☆☆), look no further than IMDb, which has listed every single (uncredited) appearance on the movie’s full cast list. Some cameos are clever, while others are slightly creepy –- yet another example of CGI eerily resurrecting the dead.

J. Kim Murphy Nine years after it was first announced, “The Flash” has finally dashed into theaters, speeding toward a debut ahead of the box office competition. But the DC Studios film isn’t exactly matching the lightning pace of its superhero. The Warner Bros. release got started with $24.5 million on opening day, which includes $9.7 million in Thursday previews. That’s enough to set the Ezra Miller film on a surefire pathway to a No. 1 debut on domestic charts, but it’ll be tough for the film to match its projections heading into the weekend — some bullish ones predicting a four-day bow as high as $85 million through the Juneteenth holiday.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned this weekend, but chief among them, is what’s it like for a major motion picture studio to open a movie with largely a number of its cast, primarily its main star, not available to do press. That’s the big looming question which has been on everyone’s minds in the wake of Ezra Miller’s tabloid laden 2020-2022 in regards to Warner Bros. DC’s $200M The Flash, which isn’t looking good with a 3-day around $60M, off from the $70M-$75M the studio was expecting. The studio is still expecting the Juneteenth holiday to deliver and get the film to $70M over 4-days (if that’s the case, that’s the first time the Federal holiday, which has not proven itself to be a big moviegoing day yet, has yielded a daily gross for a movie north of $10M; last year Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion made only $8.6M on the Juneteenth Monday holiday). The pic did $24.5M yesterday (which includes Thursday previews). Other studios see these figures lower. Given the $9.7M previews last night, at a glance, it looked like Flash had the potential to over-deliver and beat its weekend estimates, and that’s looking less likely now. Should the movie have gone straight to Warners streaming service Max? Absolutely not. They need to make as much money as they can, and that’s through windows.

Miller’s well-documented antics in the months following filming — it was the first time the actor had been seen in public in almost a year.Sporting a white suit jacket with black detailing and long wavy hair with a topknot and braids, Miller told “Flash” director Andy Muschietti on the red carpet: “I love you, maestro. I think you are amazing, and I think your work is monumental.”It was the actor’s first public comments since a raft of stories last year about erratic behavior in Hawaii and Iceland as well as their home in Vermont.Miller, who uses them/they pronouns, has been holed up at their Vermont farm for the past year while undergoing outpatient mental health treatment, their publicist told The Post.“The Flash” has gotten good-to-mixed reviews, with The Post’s Johnny Oleksinski calling it “good fun” and raving that Miller “is DC’s much-needed answer to Tom Holland’s embraceable Spider-Man.”Meanwhile, Twitter was awash with criticism of the actor this week, calling Miller an “abuser” and a “groomer,” but their rep said Miller is getting real help and is recovering.“This is not a publicity thing,” the rep said.

Christopher Vourlias Amid turbulent times for global streaming services who continue to course correct after years of pursuing subscriber growth at all costs, TV writers and producers in Eastern Europe are pondering the next step for a region still searching for its first international breakout hit. “The biggest challenge is the great Netflix correction — the recalibration, the reassessment of dollars,” Ioanina Pavel, who served as creative producer on the HBO Max original series “Spy/Master,” said Friday at the Transilvania Film Festival. “It’s not a bad thing, but it is a challenge. There’s been a glut. The Golden Age of TV is now coming to a close. It’s not a bad thing; it just means a reallocation of money.”

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent ANNECY — London-based Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe is set to initiate production next week on “Beast Boy: Lone Wolf,” the first time than a DC title that will be made out of the U.K. The announcement was made at a studio focus for Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe, whose fan favourites had a student/exec audience hollering in approval.  Introduced by Sam Register, president of all three companies, the focus must rate at the fastest-paced of all big studio unveils at Annecy, packed by never-seen-before footage of multiple shows. Register didn’t talk strategy: The audience wanted to see shows, and studio execs were excited to show them. 

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for Warner Bros. and DC Studios’ “The Flash,” now playing in theaters. Ezra Miller’s speedy superhero tears apart the DC Universe in the multiverse-hopping movie, “The Flash.” After first appearing in cameos in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad,” the Flash finally gets his own standalone movie, full of surprise appearances and shocking cameos.

The Flash” is here, and if you’ve seen it, you probably have a lot of questions about what it all, especially that cacophonous ending, means for the DC Universe.In the film, Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) travels back in time and to other dimensions in an effort to save his mom’s life (and that of his father, who was wrongly convicted of her murder). Along the way he interacts with at least two actors playing Batman — Ben Affleck from Zack Snyder’s films, and Michael Keaton, who last played the role in 1992’s “Batman Returns” — alongside a whole lot of other characters.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director SPOILER ALERT: This story contains minor spoilers from “The Flash,” now playing in theaters nationwide. Reviews for Warner Bros.’ long-in-the-works “The Flash” movie have been largely favorable to mixed, but most critics agree the film is the latest comic book tentpole to suffer from unappealing visual effects. Leaked scenes on social media have also led to fan bafflement over the film’s VFX, especially an opening sequence in which Ezra Miller’s superhero speeds to Gotham City to save a bunch of falling babies from a collapsing hospital. To say the VFX babies in “The Flash” opening scene are rendered in a hugely un-human way would be an understatement. The same goes for all of the human characters who appear during the movie’s many time travel sequences. Suffice to say, none of them look human at all.

Jordan Moreau “The Flash” is racing ahead at the box office, picking up $9.7 million in previews at the box office. The Warner Bros. film, starring Ezra Miller as the DC Comics speedster and helmed by “It” director Andy Muschietti, has endured a long and rocky road to theaters, but it’s finally opening this weekend. “The Flash” is projected to earn around $70 million in its first weekend, with some predictions as high as $85 million and others as low as $68 million. That expected opening is in line with previous DC Studios projects like last year’s “Black Adam” and 2018’s “Aquaman,” which both debuted to $67 million — but Warner Bros. is surely hoping that “The Flash” takes more after his “Justice League” companion than Dwayne Johnson’s antihero. “Black Adam” stalled out with $168 million domestically and less than $400 million globally, while Jason Momoa’s “Aquaman” surfed to $335 million in North America and $1.14 billion worldwide. Without question, “The Flash” will perform better than March’s “Shazam: Fury of the Gods,” which opened with $30 million and ended its domestic run with just $57 million. In terms of Thursday previews, “Black Adam” collected $7.6 million, “Aquaman” had $9 million and “Shazam: Fury of the Gods” made $3.4 million.

Earlier this month, “The Flash” and “IT” director Andy Muschietti emerged as the “top choice” of Warner Bros. to helm the new DCU‘s upcoming “Batman: The Brave And The Bold.” Now Variety confirms that Muschietti has indeed landed the project.

The Flash director Andy Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti have confirmed that Tom Cruise called them to praise the latest DC superhero film.Speaking to Total Film Magazine, Andy Muschietti said that Tom Cruise and Stephen King were sent early copies of the film, and that both of them had praised the movie. King publicly praised the film in May, writing on Twitter: “As a rule, I don’t care a lot for superhero movies, but this one is special.

When Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer” hits theaters next month, it marks the first film by the director not produced by Warner Bros. in nearly 20 years.

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros./DC’s The Flashper box office sources is playing like a deeper universe superhero movie with around $9M in Thursday night previews which began at 3PM. While the pic’s critical score on Rotten Tomatoes has fallen to 67% fresh from 71% fresh, audiences are enjoying it more at 88%. That’s a good sign.