Twitch CEO Emmett Shear Resigns After 16 Years at Streamer

Surprise! Dustin Lance Black and Tom Daley have welcomed their second child together!

Marta Balaga Norwegian animation “Pesta,” directed by Hanne Berkaak, will head to the Frontières Platform in May. Directed at genre film professionals, the event is organized by the Fantasia International Film Festival with the Cannes’ Marché du Film. The film, set in 1349 during the outbreak of the Black Plague, will see two teenagers, Astrid and Eilev, fighting for their forbidden love among the apocalypse as Astrid, a nobleman’s daughter, struggles with her growing desire for “the outcast heathen.”  Granted development funding from the Norwegian Film Institute, “Pesta” is produced by Mikrofilm’s Tonje Skar Reiersen and Lise Fearnley. It’s also named after a shadowy figure from Norwegian folklore, a personification of the plague itself.

Ben Croll Running concurrent with the wider festival, NewImages’ mercantile section has become an event unto itself, hosting a global who’s who from the XR scene while helping in no small part to reshape the field. As it stands to welcome nearly 250 participants – roughly half divided between market participants and heavyweight decision makers – this year’s fully in-person event should do little to reverse that trend. “We’re very international,” says XR market head Ellen Kuo. “With more than half of our participants coming from outside Europe, and with several coming from the U.K., Italy, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Poland, I call [our network] Paris beyond Paris.”

Olivia Wilde wants the court to intervene in her dispute with Jason Sudeikis.

Marta Balaga Nina Kiri, known for her role as Alma on “The Handmaid’s Tale,” has joined the cast of dystopian sci-fi adventure “Absolution.” The title will be brought onto the market at Cannes’ Marché du Film Frontières platform, featuring in its Proof of Concept strand.    The Serbian-Canadian actor is no stranger to genre, having appeared in “The Heretics,” “The Haunted House on Kirby Road” or “Let Her Out.” Soon, she will also be spotted in Christos Nikou’s “Fingernails” alongside Jessie Buckley.  Directed by Filip Kovacevic, “Absolution” – a co-production between Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro – takes place in a barren wasteland, far removed from the mythical city of gods, with only one human settlement left. 

Ben Croll Paris’ NewImages Festival and parent organization Forum des Images have recently launched NewImages Hub, a support network offering XR professionals a set of complementary creative and mentoring programs throughout the year. Divided into three poles, the new lab will help immersive projects across development, production, and distribution, offering residencies and networking assistance at each phase. Administered by Forum des Images – a non-profit cultural organization subsidized by the City of Paris – and supported by France’s CNC, NewImages Hub will oversee international writing residencies both in Paris and abroad, while developing additional workshops with partners in Taiwan, Chile and South Africa. The new lab will also administer existing programs in Rome, Ecuador and Taipei, while making industry analysis available to all.

Ben Croll Running April 5 – 9 at Paris’ Forum des Images, this year’s NewImages Festival reflects a young medium ever on the move, an ecosystem looking backwards and ahead in order to reimagine itself for the here-and-now. “We don’t want to be limited by someone else’s vision,” festival director Michele Ziegler tells Variety. “We don’t want the metaverse of tomorrow to dictate what is art and culture today. We want to stir things up.” Encompassing VR games and documentaries to mixed media installations and AR works for social media, the 13 projects competing for the NewImages top prize collectively trace the wider currents remaking a protean industry – while this slightly smaller selection compared with previous years reflects a young festival itself undergoing some change.

Frank Rizzo Some Broadway wags might have scoffed at the idea of a cornpone musical comedy and its punny promotions. But with its exuberance, heart and non-stop yucks, “Shucked” is the surprise delight of the season. Minus stars and featuring a new Broadway composing team and an original book, this old-pro production is a throwback to the joys of lightweight musical comedy: where fresh talent is discovered, songs are catchy, jokes are plentiful and characters are appealing, fun and sweetly simple. Yet as one character in the show says, “There’s a cornfield of difference between simple and stupid. That’s a simple mistake stupid people make.”

Ben Croll Paris-based XR distributor Diversion Cinema has scooped up a pair of award-winning titles, adding director Singing Chen’s “The Man Who Couldn’t Leave,” and both director Thierry Loa’s “21-22 China” and his follow-up “21-22 USA” to a premium catalog of prestige immersive fare. Produced by The Walkers Films and Outland Film Production, “The Man Who Couldn’t Leave” won the top prize at last year’s Venice Immersive and will be presented in competition at this year’s NewImages Festival. Directed with aplomb by Singing Chen, the heartbreaking docudrama recounts the history of political repression in mid-century Taiwan, filling a 360 screen with handsome chiaroscuro compositions supporting classical film language.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Neopol Film, a production company based in Frankfurt, and Munich-based sales agency The Playmaker have teamed for a second time with writer and director Lukas Rinker, following their collaboration on his debut feature, black comedy “Holy Shit!,” which was sold by The Playmaker to multiple territories last year. Producers Tonio Kellner, Andrea Simml and Jakob Zapf will be pitching Rinker’s latest feature film project, eco-horror “Paws,” at Frontières, a market and networking platform focused on genre film financing and co-production between Europe and North America. Frontières is organized by the Fantasia Intl. Film Festival, in partnership with the Cannes Film Market, and takes place on May 20 and 21 in Cannes.

Amazon Studios’ robustly entertaining, real-life drama definitely has the makings of one. It’s far and away the most likable film released so far this year.There’s a starry cast led by Matt Damon, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman and Ben Affleck, who also directs his best movie since “Argo” 11 years ago. Running time: 112 minutes.

When we spoke to Louis Tomlinson ahead of the release of his Number 1 album Faith in the Future last year, he couldn't have been more complimentary about collaborators DMA'S.

A man says he is living every young lad’s dream after earning up to £50,000 a year by playing FIFA in his bedroom for eight hours a day. Alex Shaw, 24, first became hooked on the hit EA Sports football game when he bought FIFA 12 for his PlayStation 2 aged 13.

Drivers making journeys this Easter weekend are being warned to expect severe queues on roads, with up to 17 million leisure trips predicted to be made.

The list of candidates has been released for the ‘all-out’ local elections in Wigan for 2023 with every seat on the council up for grabs.

Just how good are Manchester City this season?

Rylan Clark fans have told the star 'it should have been you' as he mocked up a version of his own movie poster just before it was revealed that he had landed a huge soap role. The BBC Radio 2 host took to Twitter with a picture of himself in an ad for the new Barbie movie.

Activision Blizzard has detailed recent changes to its Ricochet anti-cheat system, including developer-side match replays and a number of creative ways to frustrate Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 cheaters.In a blog, posted yesterday (March 5), Activision Blizzard confirmed that its kernel-level anti-cheat software Ricochet had been updated with “several new layers of security and detections” to battle cheaters.One such feature is a new replay investigation tool, which will allow teams at Activision Blizzard to watch any completed match to review its footage for signs of cheating.At the “highest tiers” of ranked in Modern Warfare 2, Activision has shared that matches will be automatically recorded in case they need to be investigated for cheating.“Though it’s a new tool for Team Ricochet, Replay has already helped with investigations into suspicious accounts resulting in permanent bans,” shared the company.Additionally, Ricochet has been updated with new software to detect third-party hardware, which can be used to minimise recoil for users. Anyone caught using this sort of hardware will first receive a warning about their device, but continued use can lead to suspensions or even bans.Elsewhere, a number of creative in-game solutions from Call Of Duty: Vanguard have been implemented in an attempt to frustrate cheaters during matches.

Mae Muller has spoken to NME about her hopes for the competition, and how her song aims to “make people feel empowered”.Last month it was announced that Muller will be representing the United Kingdom at the 67th Eurovision Song Contest, heading to Liverpool in May with her track ‘I Wrote A Song’.Co-written with Karen Poole (Kylie Minogue, David Guetta, Galantis) and Lewis Thompson (Anne-Marie, Little Mix, Steve Aoki), the song seeks to pull victory from the jaws of defeat following a breakup, as Muller explained.“A lot of my music can come from a place of pain, even though the outcome is quite sassy and liberating,” she told NME. “This was one of those moments where I wanted to write something that made people feel empowered.

SZA has been announced as the latest headliner set to appear at the 2023 Open’er festival, which will take place in Poland this summer.The long-running festival will be held at Gdynia-Kosakowo Airport in Gdynia and will run from June 28 to July 1.The singer-songwriter – whose real name is Solána Imani Rowe – will perform on the second night of the festival (June 29), in the headline slot. She also joins other previously announced headliners at the four-day stint – including a co-headline set with Lil Nas X and Lizzo on June 28, and Kendrick Lamar, who will close the festival with his performance on July 1.Arctic Monkeys were the first leading act to be added to the bill.

This week, DMA'S look set to score their highest-charting UK album of their career with their fourth studio record How Many Dreams?

A royal expert claims Prince Harry has "ended any relationship" he had with his family as he "knew exactly what he was doing" when he publicly hit at out at them on numerous occasions.

It seems like everywhere we turn celebs are giving their long hair the chop, and the latest A-lister to become a fully fledged member of the bob fan club is supermodel Cara Delevingne.The 30 year old model-turned-actor has never been afraid of a dramatic cut, and has experimented with pixie cuts, waist length extensions and even a shaved head, as well as trying out platinum blonde, red, and dark brunette colours over the years. Although she has recently returned to what is considered her signature a style – a warm blonde shade that reaches her chest – it seems Cara is already ready for a fresh new look, and has gone for a dramatic chop, cutting several inches off the length.

Lewis Capaldi teased a SKIMS' partnership with Kim Kardashian in a hilarious new photoshoot which left fans all saying the same thing.

A ladies clothing retailer has confirmed the closure of a popular store in Paisley.

Lola Lennox was so nervous about singing her own songs that she wrote them in secret so her mum, Eurythmics star Annie, wouldn’t hear them.

The Radford family have been hit by scandal as daughter Millie slammed her parents Sue and Noel for 'making money out of their grandkids'.

Livingston Women’s manager Paul Jaconelli challenged his players to bounce back from just their second defeat of the campaign - and admitted the SWF Championship title won’t simply be handed to them.

Rio and Kate Ferdinand have spoken candidly about how they nearly called time on their relationship when it proved hard for his kids to adapt to life with a step-mum. The former The Only Way is Essex star, 31, married former footballer Rio Ferdinand in 2019, She recently started a podcast call Blended, where she opens up about being a step-mum to Rio's children and speaks to other families in similar situations.

A mother and son were caught illegally smuggling Vietnamese nationals into the country inside the trunk of their car. James Liddiard and Andrea Cavanagh were among six Merseyside-based traffickers caught trying to transport stowaways into the UK from France within the space of a week.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor TikTok, trying to fend off potential U.S. government ban over security fears related to the app’s Chinese ownership, is touting new figures reflecting how pervasive and popular it is in America. TikTok announced that as of February 2023, the short-form video app has more than 150 million monthly active users in the U.S. In addition, it said, it has almost 7,000 employees in the United States. And it also claims that TikTok “has evolved into the preferred platform” for nearly 5 million American businesses, most of which are small and midsize companies. “We’re honored to be a home for our immensely diverse community in the United States, made up of nearly half the country’s population, including book lovers, foodies, families, emerging artists and so much more,” the company said in the announcement.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Spotter, a digital media company that pays YouTube creators cash for the rights to monetize their video libraries and helps them grow their fanbases, hired Paul Bakaus as executive VP, product and creator tools. At Spotter, Bakaus will focus on developing products and tools to serve creators and deliver on Spotter’s mission to provide value and resources to YouTubers in addition to capital. Bakaus will dual-report to Spotter CEO and founder Aaron DeBevoise and chief strategy officer Rob Gabel. Bakaus most recently served as head of creators at Koji, ecommerce platform designed for for social media sellers. Prior to joining Koji in April 2022, he spent more than eight years at Google, most recently as head of creator relations where he launched and led the “Google for Creators” program. Before Google, Bakaus worked at games company Zynga. He also is the creator of jQuery UI, a widget and interaction library that has been used by millions of websites to build interactive web applications.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After a strategic review, Amazon intends to lay off 9,000 more employees — on top of the 18,000 job cuts it previously announced, CEO Andy Jassy announced Monday. The latest round of cuts will mostly affect employees in Amazon Web Services (AWS), People, Experience and Technology (PXT), advertising and Twitch divisions, according to Jassy. The company’s senior management team expects to make final decisions on which jobs will be eliminated by “mid to late April,” the CEO said. “This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term,” Jassy wrote.

Twitch co-founder and CEO Emmett Shear is resigning his post after a 16-year run atop the Amazon-owned livestreaming company.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is pink-slipping another 10,000 employees, coming on the heels of laying off 11,000 last fall. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s co-founder and CEO, announced the planned cuts in a memo to employees Tuesday as an “update on our Year of Efficiency.” The 10,000 layoffs represent 11.6% of the 86,482 full-time employees Meta reported as of the end of 2022. Zuckerberg said Meta also is instituting a hiring freeze, canceling about 5,000 open job positions. “Overall, we expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired,” Zuckerberg wrote in the memo (read it below).

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Sarah Rosen, who left Twitter last year shortly after Elon Musk’s takeover over the social network, has joined Reddit as senior director of content partnerships. At Twitter, Rosen most recently was head of North America content partnerships, leading all efforts in the region across entertainment, news and sports. After eight and a half years at Twitter, Rosen quit in November, less than a month after Musk closed the $44 billion acquisition. In her new role at Reddit, Rosen will oversee the content partnerships team focused on media, sports, gaming and entertainment verticals. According to Reddit, in the last year, the content partnerships team has expanded collaborations with organizations including the NFL (for the Super Bowl), Netflix (for “Stranger Things”), Lionsgate (“John Wick 4”), HBO (“The House of the Dragon”), Amazon’s Prime Video (“The Lord of the Rights: The Rings of Power”) and the Washington Post.