News

A new feature documentary has secured exclusive access to the story of Peter McAleese, the Scottish mercenary and ex-Sas operative who was hired by a Colombian drug cartel to assassinate drug baron Pablo Escobar.

Produced by Glasgow-based Two Rivers Media and Salon Pictures, the producers of David Bowie film “Stardust,” “Killing Escobar” is told in McAleese’s own words and features never-before-seen footage of his 1989 Colombian mission. The doc also reveals how McAleese’s violent upbringing in Glasgow, Sas training and experience as a mercenary in Africa led him to take on the daring — and seemingly suicidal — assignment.

Commissioned by BBC Scotland, the film is backed by fledgling distributor Abacus Media Rights, who hold international distribution rights, as well as The National Lottery through Screen Scotland. Directed by award-winning filmmaker David Whitney, the film will bow at the Glasgow Film Festival on March 7 and air on BBC Scotland later this year.

Exclusive: Joe and Anthony Russo’s next big-budget action pic at Netflix is building quite the ensemble. Sources tell Deadline that Jessica Henwick, Wagner Moura, Dhanush and Julia Butters are joining the Russos’ The Gray Man. Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans and Ana De Armas are already on board to star.

The Russos have been developing the project for some time at Sony, and when the package went back on the market over the summer, Netflix was quick to acquire it and set Gosling and Evans to star. The film will be the biggest-budget film in Netflix’s history on the feature side.

The Russos penned the script with a recent polish by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The Russos along with Mike Larocca will produce on behalf of Agbo along with Joe Roth, Jeff Kirschenbaum and Chris Castaldi through their Roth Kirschenbaum banner.

The Gray Man is based on the debut novel by Mark Greaney,...

Netflix renewed the crime drama “Narcos: Mexico” for a third season on Wednesday. The upcoming season of the show will not include series star Diego Luna, who portrayed drug cartel leader Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo earlier in the series.

Luna’s departure from the series had been anticipated; the actor told IndieWire earlier in the year that the show’s heavy subject matter had weighed him down and he was eager to dedicate time to comparably lighter projects.

“Not for now, not for now, no, no, no,” Luna told IndieWire in April when asked about filming more “Narcos: Mexico” episodes. “At the beginning it was fun, but then it became really heavy for me. I need rest, those two years were really intense for me.”

Per Netflix, “Narcos: Mexico” Season 3 will also feature a new showrunner; Eric Newman will hand over day-to-day showrunning duties to co-creator and long-time collaborator Carlo Bernard.

Narcos: Mexico will smuggle onto Netflix for a third season, amid showrunner changes as Eric Newman steps down and hands the day-to-day showrunning duties to co-creator and longtime collaborator Carlo Bernard. Netflix has renewed Narcos: Mexico for season 3, with Narcos alum Wagner Moura confirming his return as Pablo Escobar — and as a director of multiple episodes. Narcos: Mexico will see […]

The post ‘Narcos: Mexico’ Season 3 Renewed by Netflix, With a New Showrunner and Without Diego Luna appeared first on /Film.

Netflix is keeping Narcos: Mexico around.

The streamer has confirmed that a third season has been ordered, almost nine months after the sophomore run dropped.

There will be some changes behind-the-scenes ahead of the new season.

Series co-creator Carlo Bernard is taking over as showrunner reins from the longtime Narcos boss Eric Newman.

Newman is currently under an overall deal with the streamer on both the feature side and the television side and he will segue into overseeing a broadening Netflix slate that includes the previously announced opioid TV drama Painkiller, Escape From Spiderhead starring Chris Hemsworth and Miles Teller, and The Upper World starring Daniel Kaluuya.

Newman will continue to executive produce alongside Bernard and Jose Padilha, so he will still have input on the show.

In addition, Wagner Moura, who starred as Pablo Escobar during the first two seasons of Narcos, will return to the series, directing two episodes in the new season.

Netflix has ordered a third season of drug-trafficking drama series Narcos: Mexico. When it returns it will be without series lead Diego Luna, who portrayed drug cartel leader Félix Gallardo, and with a new showrunner.

Season 2 ended with Luna’s Gallardo sentenced to prison for his drug trafficking crimes and there had been much speculation he would not return if the series was renewed for a third season. Luna is set to reprise his Cassian Andor character in Disney+’s Star Wars spinoff series Rogue One, which is currently in pre-production.

Series co-creator Carlo Bernard will be taking over day-to-day showrunning duties from Eric Newman who is stepping back after five seasons. Newman will continue to executive produce the series alongside Bernard, Jose Padilha, Sidonie Dumas, Christophe Riandee, Nicolas Atlan, Doug Miro and Andrés Baiz. Wagner Moura, who starred as Pablo Escobar during the first two seasons of Narcos, also will return to the series,...

Nearly nine months after Season 2 came and went, Narcos: Mexico has been renewed for a third season at Netflix. In confirming the news, the streamer also announced a big change behind-the-scenes: Series co-creator Carlo Bernard will take the showrunner reins from the longtime Narcos boss Eric Newman.

The Narcos franchise first launched on Netflix back in August 2015. Its first two seasons focused exclusively on Pablo Escobar, while Season 3 turned its attention to the rise of the Cali Cartel in the wake of the cocaine kingpin’s death. Opting not to order a fourth season, Netflix in 2018 instead launched Narcos: Mexico,...

“Narcos: Mexico” has been renewed for Season 3 at Netflix.

Along with the renewal, Netflix announced that Wagner Moura — who played Pablo Escobar in the first two seasons of “Narcos” — will board Season 3 in order to direct two episodes of the season.

In addition, series showrunner Eric Newman will exit that role after five seasons and turn things over to series co-creator Carlos Bernard.

“I am grateful for my five years at the helm of ‘Narcos’ and ‘Narcos: Mexico’ and am immensely proud of what this spectacular team has achieved with these shows,” Newman said. “Carlo Bernard is the first person I ever spoke to about this project, over ten years ago, and I am extremely pleased to leave the steering of Season 3 of ‘Narcos: Mexico’ in his very capable hands.”

Originally intended as a fourth season of “Narcos,” which focused on the rise of the cocaine business in Colombia under Escobar and his Medellín Cartel,...

Netflix has renewed “Narcos: Mexico” for a third season, but showrunner Eric Newman is handing over the reins to Carlo Bernard.

Newman had been showrunner for all five seasons of the “Narcos” franchise, including the first three that centered on Pablo Escobar. The two most recent seasons, called “Narcos: Mexico,” shifted both the setting and time period, along with the majority of the cast.

Newman is under an overall deal with Netflix and will transition to overseeing the streaming service’s upcoming opioid drama “Painkiller,” “Escape From Spiderhead” with Chris Hemsworth, and “The Upper World” with Daniel Kaluuya. He will remain executive producer on “Narcos” alongside Bernard and Jose Padilla.

“I am grateful for my five years at the helm of ‘Narcos’ and ‘Narcos: Mexico’ and am immensely proud of what this spectacular team has achieved with these shows,” Newman said. “Carlo Bernard is the first person I ever spoke to about this project,...

A month and a half after being elevated to Head of Global TV at Netflix, Bela Bajaria has reorganized the streamer’s U.S. TV operation with an increased focus on tentpole shows and getting the most from mega overall deals. The realignment also enhances the portfolios of some executives on her international bench.

The U.S. streamlining includes the closing of the Young Adult/Family series department whose duties will be absorbed by the Drama and Comedy teams. The consolidation has led to the departures of fewer than 10 members of the series content team below VP level. Brian Wright, who ran the YA/family group, will now head a new Overall Deals department, while Jinny Howe and Renate Radford will lead the drama team. Meanwhile, Peter Friedlander, who led the Genre & Thrillers subsection of the drama department, will now head a new Spectacle/Event programming department that will be separate from drama and comedy.

Exclusive: Wagner Moura, a Golden Globe nominee for his role as Pablo Escobar in the Netflix acclaimed series Narcos, has signed with WME.

Moura, who was previously repped by UTA, can currently be seen starring in two Netflix film; Sergio, which he also produced, and Wasp Network, opposite Penelope Cruz and Gael Garcia Bernal.

Wagner made his directorial debut with Marighella, which premiered at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival. Other credits include Walter Salles’ Behind The Sun for Miramax, Sony’s Elysium, opposite Matt Damon, and Jose Padilha’s Elite Squad, which won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival.

Moura continues to be repped by Brent Travers and attorney Greg Slewett.

Matthew Heineman has spent his entire career shooting hell from the inside out, and after a string of hyper-visceral films about drug smuggling (“Cartel Land”), the Syrian civil war (“City of Ghosts”), and a journalist who died covering it (“A Private War”), you’d be forgiven for assuming that his “The Boy from Medellín” is a real-life version of the guts and glory Pablo Escobar biopic that Vinny Chase starred in on “Entourage.” But it turns out that Heineman’s latest documentary is a very different vision of Colombia — one seen through the eyes of a very different (but no less famous) Colombian. And while it’s not short on political violence and volatility, the hell that it captures is of a more interior sort, and seemingly only a stone’s throw away from heaven.

Not that the Escobar connection is an accident. and as a Colombian in the tumultuous...

Smithsonian Channel will mix forensics, true crime, and well-known names in its new series The Curious Life and Death of… Hosted by famed medical historian Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris, the show performs post-mortem examinations on some of the most puzzling deaths in history. The six-part series will premiere on Sunday, Sept. 6 at 9 p.m. Et.

“Whether its 90s icon Brittany Murphy, Rolling Stone founder Brian Jones, or axe-murderess Lizzie Borden, the lives of these fascinating individuals are revealed through tests, investigation and autopsies as medical historian, Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris provides a curious and sometimes macabre glimpse into a biography from the morgue,” according to the press statement.

Over the run of the season, a revolving cast of experts, including Scotland Yard detectives, medical examiners, and weapons gurus will probe the mysterious death of Harry Houdini and the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar. The team will also attempt to identify a tiny body,...

Before the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the world, we wrote about a fascinating Netflix movie in development called Cocaine Hippos, which touches on the exotic animals that notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar had imported to his personal Colombian estate. It’s a wild story, and perhaps unsurprisingly, that subject matter is so compelling that we now have […]

The post ‘The Hunt for Escobar’s Hippos’ Means There Are Now Dueling Cocaine Hippo Projects in the Works appeared first on /Film.

Bolstered by generous incentives that have sparked a production boom, Dominican filmmakers are exploring a diversity of genres, both mainstream and alternative.

Growing in equal measure are the ranks of below-the-line crew working on both local and international projects. Training programs abound for grips, lighting technicians, and so on. Pinewood Dr holds workshops in underwater filming as well as in production accounting, location management, Upm, production design and set construction, among others. More film workshops and courses have been introduced at universities or technical institutes, giving rise to a new generation that have studied at home.

“My generation had to go abroad to study film, this latest crop will have a new perspective,” says Andres Farias, an assistant director on such Dominican films as “Cocote” and “Carpinteros.”

He has taught his craft at the Chavon School of Design, which will transfer its campus to Santo Domingo by September, says its film studies director Tanya Valette,...

The producer of Narcos takes us on a walk through some of the movies that made him.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Contagion (2011)

Panic In The Streets (1950)

Rififi (1955)

Night And The City (1950)

Thieves’ Highway (1949)

Never on Sunday (1960)

The Karate Kid (1984)

The Game (1997)

The Dirty Dozen (1967)

The Great Escape (1963)

Children of Men (2006)

Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (1971)

If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969)

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

The Godfather (1972)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Animal House (1978)

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

Trading Places (1983)

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004)

Fellini Satyricon (1969)

The Beastmaster (1982)

Sheena (1984)

High Risk (1981)

Ghostbusters (1984)

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Piranha (1978)

Gallipoli (1981)

Witness (1985)

The Killing Fields (1984)

Mad Max (1980)

Max Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)

Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)

The Last Wave (1978)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

The Hobbit (1977)

The Return of the King (1980)

Class (1983)

The Great Santini (1979)

Fast Times At Ridgemont High...

Netflix is undoubtedly one of the best streaming services in the world right now and if you are looking for action & adventure Netflix won’t make you disappointed! With access to hundreds of different series, films, and documentaries within a large variety of genres, they have almost become a benchmark for what quality and variety are expected of an online streaming platform in the UK. With so many options to choose from, the biggest problem one has is to choose what to watch. As a complete nerd of films starring “bad boys”, I put together a list of my top 5 favorite Netflix films and series that have just knocked it out of the park. Here they are:

1. Breaking Bad

Many people regard this series to be the most successful and entertaining of them all. It ran for 62 episodes between 2008-2013 and was turned into a film in 2019. The series follows...

Exclusive: On the eve of the Amazon Prime launch of his FIFA-Gate futbol scandal series El Presidente, Argentinian Academy Award winning writer-filmmaker Armando Bó has launched About Entertainment. The new production company will produce elevated scripted, non-scripted, and brand-integrated content across all genres. Bó is accompanied by a diverse and seasoned team: Content Development will be led by Mercedes Reincke, a former Vice President of Content Development at Viacom; Natacha Cervi (Rizoma Films) leads Production & Operations; Mariana Levy leads the Screenwriting division and Ezequiel Olemberg leads the Financial and Legal department.

Bó shared the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay with Nicolás Giacobone, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and Alexander Dinelaris for Birdman. The quartet also won the Golden Globe. He followed by writing/directing and producing Animal. Bó is putting together the first projects for About Entertainment but hasn’t solidified the first slate.

Bó’s series El Presidente is Amazon Prime...

The coming together of the creative brains behind two of Netflix’s biggest international hits, The Crown and Money Heist, certainly sounds like an eye-catching proposition on paper. For Netflix, it was irresistible.

Left Bank Pictures boss Andy Harries and Vancouver Media’s Álex Pina flew into La in February 2018 to sell their vision for a sun-soaked, sepia-toned saga, set in the breathtaking climes of the Balearic Islands.

Netflix was their first stop, with their meeting coming just weeks after Money Heist had taken off like a rocket on the streaming service. “They basically bought it in the room,” Harries recalls.

Fast-forward more than two years and Netflix is dropping White Lines this Friday, a 10-part series that tells the story of a British Ibiza DJ who is brutally murdered in the 1990s and his sister’s investigation into his death 20 years on.

Not only is the drama set across two different periods in time,...

"Sergio" stars Brazilian ace Wagner Moura -- that's Pablo Escobar in "Narcos" for you -- with Cuban origin actress Ana de Armas. You've seen her knock on the doors of global stardom with "Knives Out" so far, and she is the next Bond girl in "No Time To Die". The mainstream marquee introduction would be enough for most to check out this biopic.

Those who dig deeper into international cinema, though, would perhaps want to check out the name of the director. Greg Barker's resume as a chronicler of contemporary human history includes brilliant documentary efforts as "Koran By Heart" and "The Longest War". That in itself gives this project added heft.

With "Sergio", Barker moves into feature film terrain. The film is a bio-pic of Brazilian United Nations diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello, a titan of world socio-politics whose efforts at international harmony and security left a global impact.

Like many authors navigating the Covid-19 pandemic, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt has continued to promote her new book, The Gift of Forgiveness, through virtual chats. On Tuesday, the author gave advice about the importance of forgiveness and communication for married couples—drawing from her own relationship with new husband Chris Pratt.

Her suggestion? Talk to each other.

“I’m a big communicator—I got married last June. Communication constantly is really the most amazing gift you can have in a partnership and relationship,” Schwarzenegger Pratt, 30, said during a chat with Amy Nelson, founder and CEO of The Riveter, a community and...

BossLogic has revealed an Avengers: Endgame poster design that didn’t go to market.

“Kode Abdo announced an exclusive Endgame poster for Atom Tickets on April 2, 2019. The poster features the surviving Avengers (post-Snap) with a column of flames ripping through the center. At the base of the fire, Thanos wields the Infinity Gauntlet, far above him is Captain Marvel, forecasting an epic showdown between the two Marvel characters.”

Read more at Inverse.

The Honest Trailer spoof of 2019 box office flop Cats is here, and it’s brutal.

“It’s no secret that we here at Tms are big fans of the gang over at Screen Junkies, and their addictive video series Honest Trailers. So of course as soon as the critically reviled Cats movie was released, we’ve been waiting for their signature take on 2019’s biggest box office flop.”

Read more at The Mary Sue.

It shouldn’t need to be said,...

The Last Dance, one of the most ambitious sports documentaries to come from ESPN since the birth of its 30 for 30 series 11 years ago, is set to air its first two episodes at 9 p.m. Et Sunday, April 19 on the network and its streaming platform.

Over the next five Sundays, the 10-hour miniseries from director Jason Hehir will tell the story of Michael Jordan’s final NBA championship run with the Chicago Bulls during the 1997-98 season. That runtime eclipses even the Worldwide Leader’s lengthy Academy Award-winning marathon doc by more than two hours.

The 30 for 30 franchise and its related endeavors from ESPN Films have produced scores of enthralling feature films, shorts, and podcasts since 2009. For those looking to fill this time without live sports, it’s hard to go wrong by simply picking something at random from the back catalog of sports documentaries available through an ESPN+ subscription.

But...

You might recognize Wagner Moura starring as the late United Nations diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello in Netflix’s new film “Sergio.” Or maybe not. Moura looked a lot different when he earned a Golden Globe nomination in 2016 for his work as Pablo Escobar in the first two seasons of the streamer’s “Narcos.”

He packed on 40 pounds for his portrayal of the notorious Colombian drug kingpin. “I was hanging out with [my kids] and eating whatever they were having — pizzas and burgers,” the Brazilian actor says during an appearance on this week’s episode of the Variety and iHeart podcast “The Big Ticket.” “But there was a point when that started to make me feel really bad because that wasn’t my body and I was just eating junk food.”

Fortunately, playing Vieira de Mello — who spent more than three decades as the U.N. diplomat from Brazil brokering peace...

If a movie about geopolitics centered around the true story of “Sergio” Vieira de Mello, a United Nations diplomat from Brazil, doesn’t strike you as must-viewing during a pandemic, you couldn’t be more wrong. What better time to celebrate a man who put human rights above politics as usual? Sergio, a Sundance sleeper debuting on Netflix on April 17th, is history brought to life, with a few extra bells, whistles, and caveats. Director Greg Barker, working from a frustratingly soft script by Craig Borten, takes dramatic license with...

Den of Geek Staff Feb 21, 2020

Foldable smartphones, Princess Diana's handwritten letters, the best memes of 2020 so far, plus more in today's Link Tank!

Foldable smartphones are the latest rage within the tech industry, but the average consumer may not be as taken with them as previously thought.

"Foldable smartphones are a big trend in the tech world lately, from Samsung's Galaxy Fold and its upcoming Z Flip to the resurrection of the Motorola Razr. Even Pablo Escobar's brother is launching one (sort of). But what they all seem to have in common is a lackluster reception from consumers, who are not quite ready to invest more than $1,000 in one of these devices."

Read more at PCMag.

A collection of Princess Diana's handwritten letters are going up for auction, along with a number of other personal items of hers.

"On June 25, 1997, just months before Princess Diana’s death in August,...

I don’t know about you, but when I see the words “cocaine” and “hippos” next to each other, I pay attention. And when the context is that a major company is developing a movie called Cocaine Hippos, I perk up even more. So Netflix certainly has my attention with its new upcoming comedy, which, oddly […]

The post Netflix Developing ‘Cocaine Hippos’, a Movie About What Happened to Drug Kingpin Pablo Escobar’s Zoo Animals appeared first on /Film.

It is easy to see what "Narcos: Mexico" season 2 lacks. Just like season 1, it lacks Pablo Escobar. There are characters that transcend the space of fiction, to end up leaving the stamp of either cult status or sustaining popularity of the cinematic effort they belong to. The Wagner Moura-enacted Colombian drug baron Escobar did both, for the original "Narcos" series.

Aided by imaginative storytelling, Moura's Escobar set a high yardstick for the template of crime drama and criminal protagonists on screens small and big -- one that even its spin-off series, "Narcos: Mexico", has struggled to live up to once the story moved on beyond the Escobar saga.

"Narcos: Mexico 2" isn't a bad show. Only, it triggers off a sense of deja vu, in the sense that it leaves you with the same impression you had after watching the first season of this spin-off series. You begin to realise,...

Hollywood is a zoo, and Netflix is now home to some hippos.

The streamer has picked up the comedy package Cocaine Hippos, with comedian Jermaine Fowler set to star.

The story, which comes from writer Jordan VanDina, who is also writing the script, was inspired by the hippopotamuses that were brought into Colombia from Africa in the 1980s to populate the palatial estate of drug lord Pablo Escobar. When Escobar was killed in 1993, his menagerie of animals were taken to zoos or sold, save for the hippos, who were left to their own devices and populated, becoming an invasive species. ...

Hollywood is a zoo, and Netflix is now home to some hippos.

The streamer has picked up the comedy package Cocaine Hippos, with comedian Jermaine Fowler set to star.

The story, which comes from writer Jordan VanDina, who is also writing the script, was inspired by the hippopotamuses that were brought into Colombia from Africa in the 1980s to populate the palatial estate of drug lord Pablo Escobar. When Escobar was killed in 1993, his menagerie of animals were taken to zoos or sold, save for the hippos, who were left to their own devices and populated, becoming an invasive species. ...

In early 2017, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee inadvertently kicked off a global Latin pop renaissance with their reggaetón lento, “Despacito.” The song gave a second wind to the Puerto Rican artists, both of whose respective heydays seemed to have come and gone in the 2000s. Soon, they would once again dominate Latin music charts in the United States.

Justin Bieber happened upon the song while club-hopping in Colombia; he liked it enough to propose a remix with Fonsi and Yankee, who gave their green light with gusto. With some help...

Tony Sokol Dec 2, 2019

Crime is part of the American experience, says Paul Eckstein, creator of Godfather of Harlem.

Martin Scorsese's The Irishman appears to be a swan song for an era of the gangster film. But Epix's Godfather of Harlem, which just closed out its premiere season, is keeping the genre fresh.

The series bridges generations of actors to tell the story of a mob kingpin who bridged the criminal worlds. Bumpy Johnson, played by Oscar-winning actor and director Forest Whitaker, ran Harlem under Mafia protection in a deal brokered by "Lucky" Luciano which lasted forty years. By the time he was 30, Johnson had spent almost half his life in prison. He went back in for a 15-year stretch in 1951 for conspiring to sell heroin. The series paints him as a standup guy, who did time rather than implicate his Mafia partners.

Johnson was a poet who contributed to...

A court has sided with Netflix in a “Narcos” copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Virginia Vallejo, a Colombian journalist and former girlfriend of drug lord Pablo Escobar.

The suit, filed in Florida district court in Jan. 2018, accused the producers and distributors of the show of two counts of copyright infringement, saying the company borrowed from Vallejo’s 2006 memoir to inform two specific scenes, called “Caress of a Revolver” and “That Palace in Flames.”

Florida district court judge Rodney Smith granted Netflix’s motion for summary judgment and denied Vallejo’s Friday.

Also Read: Netflix Sets Premiere Date for Kenya Barris' 'Astronomy Club' - Watch the First Sketch (Video)

The memoir, “Amando a Pablo, Odiando a Escobar”, details Vallejo’s relationship with Escobar and her cooperation with Colombian and U.S. authorities in prosecuting an ex-Colombian senator as well as drug cartel bosses. In “Narcos,” Vallejo’s likeness is portrayed...

It took a few attempts, but Netflix and Gaumont Television finally prevailed against a Colombian journalist who alleged Narcos infringed her memoir about Pablo Escobar. On Friday, a Florida federal court granted summary judgment to defendants. The ruling avoids a trial that was scheduled to begin this month.

The plaintiff in the case was Virginia Vallejo, who wrote about her close relationship with the notorious drug kingpin in the 1980s. A popular television journalist, her memoir was titled Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar, which itself became the basis for a film starring Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz in 2017.

In May, a ...

Virginia Vallejo, a Colombian journalist who wrote about her close relationship with Pablo Escobar in the 1980s, may soon get to tell a Florida jury how Netflix's Narcos infringed her memoir. On Monday, a federal judge rejected arguments from Netflix and Gaumont Television premised on Vallejo's own deal with movie producers. The two sides appear to be preparing for a trial that could begin early next month.

Vallejo, once a popular television journalist in Colombia, is the author of Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar.

In May, U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore narrowed Vallejo's lawsuit. She couldn't ...

Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, best known for his role of Pablo Escobar in "Narcos", is set to visit India in November, as a guest at International Film Festival of India (Iffi) in Goa.

Moura's directorial debut "Marighella" is in debut competition at Iffi this year, and he will be there at the festival to present his film.

Also Read:?Jennifer Lopez looks like an ageless beauty

While at Iffi, Moura and will also attend an In Conversation session titled 'The Magnificent Artist', where he will talk about his journey as an actor and a filmmaker.

The 43-year-old Moura is also known for his performances in the "Elite Squad" film series, besides in the acclaimed Brazilian film "Carandiru" and the Matt-Damon-starrer Hollywood sci-fi hit, "Elysium".

This year, Iffi celebrates its 50th edition and will take place from November 20 to 28.

The jury for International Competition has renowned names such as French filmmaker Robin Campillo,...

CBS Corp.'s Smithsonian Channel, a joint venture between Showtime Networks and the Smithsonian Institution, has commissioned new series The Curious Life and Death of..., which will explore mysterious deaths of famous people.

Host Lindsey Fitzharris, an author and medical historian who has a doctorate from the University of Oxford, will "use science, tests and demonstrations to shed new light on famous murders, suicides and freak diseases," the network said in unveiling the news at Mipcom in Cannes. "Working alongside a variety of experts and eyewitnesses, Dr. Fitzharris will uncover the secrets of icons ranging from ...

Discovery Channel has renewed “Finding Escobar’s Millions” for a second season, TheWrap has learned exclusively. This one will feature new DEA agents hunting for Pablo Escobar’s buried treasure.

We’ve also secured your first look at what’s the boys are unearthing this time around. Watch the Season 2 trailer above.

Below is the lengthy-yet-interesting Season 2 description.

Also Read: Discovery's David Zaslav Says Regional Sports Networks Have Ruined Skinny Bundles: It's 'Depressing'

“Most people know that notorious crime lord Pablo Escobar brought in outrageous amounts of money during his reign. At the height of his power, Escobar raked in billions of dollars a year, making him one of the richest men in the world. Escobar strategically buried stashes of cash all over Colombia, yet much of it hasn’t been found. With unprecedented access and permission from the Colombian government, two former DEA agents, Chris Feistl and Jerry Salameh,...

After eight scintillating seasons as TV’s most compelling serial killer on “Dexter,” Michael C. Hall is playing for the other team. Looking like a grown-up version of Jonathan Groff’s Holden in “Mindhunter,” Hall plays a detective hunting an elusive serial killer in a new thriller debuting on Netflix later this month. Directed by Sundance award-winning director Jim Mickle, “In the Shadow of the Moon” sets out to catch a repeat killer leaving a string of dead bodies with mysterious bite marks on their necks. The recently released trailer promises an intriguing dose of supernatural elements to keep the viewer on their toes.

Here’s the official synopsis: “In 1988, Philadelphia police officer Thomas Lockhart (Boyd Holbrook), hungry to become a detective, begins tracking a serial killer who mysteriously resurfaces every nine years. But when the killer’s crimes begin to defy all scientific explanation, Lock’s obsession with finding...

Santiago, Chile – “Marighella,” Wagner Moura’s contentious directorial debut, is slated to bow in Brazil on Nov. 20 but Moura fears that its domestic release could be hampered by ongoing calls to boycott it by conservatives and the government of President Jair Bolsonaro who claims, among other things, that Brazil’s 21 years under military rule – between April 1964 and March 1985 – was not a dictatorship.

Budgeted at an estimated $4 million, a higher-than-average budget for Brazil, “Marighella” tracks the titular Carlos Marighella before he was gunned down by the military. Described as a Marxist politician, a writer and a revolutionary, he sought to end Brazil’s nefarious military dictatorship that began with a coup d’état in1964.

A scuttled domestic release is probably not an outcome Moura wants for his directorial debut. The actor-director-producer shot to fame with his lead roles in Jose Padilha’s “Elite Squad” films but his stardom rose to new...

A pair of documentaries in the Emmy race reveal how the notorious Fyre Festival went from a “you don’t want to miss it” music event to a “get me out of here” catastrophe in the Caribbean.

Hulu’s Fyre Fraud earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program. The Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, meanwhile, scored four nominations including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and a directing nod for filmmaker Chris Smith.

As Smith’s documentary shows, the Fyre Festival began as the brainchild of young entrepreneur Billy McFarland, mostly intended to showcase a talent booking app he was launching with rapper Ja Rule. Variously described as charismatic and extremely persuasive, McFarland had surely mastered the art of hype.

“It’s going to be the biggest event in a decade, I promise you,” McFarland blared about the festival planned for spring 2017. “For...

Pamplona, Spain — Taking a new expansive step as an international content player, top Argentine production house Pol-ka, has optioned small-screen rights to “El cielo a tiros,” the latest novel from “Rosario Tijeras” author, Colombian novelist Jorge Franco.

Pacted via Scenic Rights, the deal sees Pol-ka planning to shoot a drama series based on the book in Medellín, Colombia in 2020.

“El cielo a tiros” will become the first Pol-ka series produced entirely outside Argentina, marking part of a long-term expansion at the Adrián Suar-headed company as it adapts to the challenges and opportunities of a new TV landscape.

Published in 2018, “El cielo a tiros” turns on the children of Medellín’s drug lords of the 1990s, following one, Larry, who returns to Colombia after 12 years abroad to reclaim his father’s remains from a mass grave. He reencounters his childhood best friend, Pedro, and his mother, a former Colombia beauty queen,...

By now, audiences have caught on to the way American distributors tend to stockpile their quality movies for end-of-year award-season release, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t treasures to be found in the first two quarters. In fact, sometimes it’s the movies that aren’t making a self-important Oscar push that wind up hitting closest to our hearts — and providing respite from such recent turkeys as “The Beach Bum” and “Wonder Park.” With quality to be found everywhere from blockbuster superhero sagas to niche-release art-house fare, it turns out 2019 is off to a good start. Variety chief critics Owen Gleiberman and Peter Debruge pick their favorite releases of the year so far.

Avengers: Endgame Marvel Studios

In his Variety review, Peter Debruge called it “the ultimate fan-service follow-up,” and that nails the riveting and cathartic satisfactions — and, just maybe, the built-in obsolescence — of this toweringly crafted and...

Pablo Escobar. A revolver. And a loving caress. Some things may be generic ideas, but according to a federal judge Friday, this scene from Netflix's Narcos could plausibly add up to copyright infringement.

The plaintiff in the case is Virginia Vallejo, an important figure in Escobar's life who documented her experience with the notorious Colombia drug lord in a memoir, Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar. In the 1980s, she was a notable television journalist in the country who struck up a relationship with Escobar, helped his brief foray into politics and ultimately cooperated with Colombian and United States authorities.

Vallejo is ...

In his first substantive interview in four decades, “The Silence of the Lambs” author Thomas Harris says he’s never “made up anything” — a surprising revelation given the nature of his biggest and most monstrous creation, Hannibal Lecter.

“I don’t think I’ve ever made up anything,” he told the New York Times in an interview published Saturday. “Everything has happened. Nothing’s made up. You don’t have to make anything up in this world.”

The article’s author, Alexandra Alter, wrote that Harris kept repeating this idea whenever she asked him about the origins of certain characters or plot details, adding that Harris has been “a keen observer and a chronicler of people and their darkest impulses.”

Also Read: 90 Best Movies of the '90s, From 'The Silence of the Lambs' to 'The Matrix' (Photos)

Harris, whose novels include “Black Sunday,” “Hannibal” and “Red Dragon,...

WTFilms, the sales company behind Quentin Dupieux’s Jean Dujardin-starrer “Deerskin,” which is opening Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, has boarded “Escobar by Escobar,” a documentary series about drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.

Pascal Richter will direct the four-part series, which is based on “Pablo Escobar: My Father” by Juan Pablo Escobar, who reflects on his father’s legacy. He became the man to kill when his father died in 1993, and spent his life looking over his shoulder after inheriting $30 billion.

“There have been countless films about Pablo Escobar, but with this documentary series we’re tackling an angle which has rarely been dealt with, shedding light on the aftermath of Escobar’s death and the consequences on the lives of his close ones,” said WTFilms co-founder Dimitri Stephanides.

Victor Robert, a well-seasoned French TV host and journalist, is producing the documentary series through his Paris-based company 10.7 Production and optioned the book.

For all the peril that darkens its fringes, there’s an indomitable youthful exuberance that thrums through Catalina Arroyave Restrepo’s debut feature “Days of the Whale.” It makes the slight, and somewhat familiar, small-scale story, following a few days in the lives of a pair of Medellín-based graffiti artists, feel fresh enough as to be wet to the touch — a neon-colorful, if not hugely deep, manifesto of optimistic defiance spray-stenciled on a newly white-washed wall.

It’s this unmistakable energy and unconcealed filmmaking glee, rather than any particularly strong narrative instinct that marks Arroyave as one to watch. And as a calling card, “Days of the Whale” has already performed well, garnering the writer-director a special recognition in the CherryPicks Female First Feature category at SXSW, following stints at the Cartagena and Tallinn Black Nights film festivals. And in providing such a markedly lively contrast to her countrywoman Laura Mora’s grittier,...

The New York premiere of Linda Vista, the latest work from Pulitzer and Tony winning August: Osage County playwright Tracy Letts, will begin previews Sept. 19 in a Second Stage Theater production at the Hayes Theatre, the company’s Broadway home. Steppenwolf’s Dexter Bullard will direct, with an opening night set for Oct. 10.

The play (pictured at its West Coast premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in January), is one of five Second Stage productions announced today for the company’s 2019-20 season. In addition to Linda Vista, the line-up includes two Broadway stagings and two Off Broadway world premiere stagings (Will Eno’s The Underlying Chris and Alexis Scheer’s Our Dear Dead Drug Lord).

Letts’ Linda Vista is described by Second Stage...

How To Get Away With Murder’s Karla Souza is set to star in Amazon’s FIFA drama El Presidente.

Andrés Parra (Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal) and Paulina Gaitán (Diablo Guardian) also star in the eight-part series, which is produced by Oscar‐winning director Pablo Larrain’s production company Fabula (A Fantastic Woman), Narcos producer Gaumont and Argentine producer Kapow.

Birdman’s Armando Bo will direct and exec produce the series, which is inspired by the real-life characters and events behind the 2015 “FIFA Gate” corruption scandal. The series explores the scandal from the angle of a small‐time Chilean football club president who rises from obscurity to become a key player in a $150M bribery conspiracy. Set against the backdrop of cities across Latin America, the U.S. and Europe, the series explores the sports scandal that rocked the world through the story of Jadue (Parra), a...

South MountainIn my last dispatch from Austin I pinpointed the Visions section as a shortcut to South by Southwest’s generally more adventurous programming, if only to facilitate sifting through a number of arcane plot summaries. High-profile acts are bound to the festival thanks to tradition, release date timing, and in some cases city loyalty (think Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and Terrence Malick’s Song to Song; both were shot in Austin and both ultimately premiered at SXSW). It would seem that some worthy but inconspicuous titles could easily fall between the cracks, though pioneers like Barry Jenkins prove otherwise. This year’s Global section I found particularly fertile, with titles ranging from X&Y, artist Anna Oddell’s experimental film inquisition of public personas and gender roles, to Marlén Viñayo’s Cachada: The Opportunity, a documentary about a group of working-class Salvadoran women that stage a performative re-enactment of their traumatic life stories.