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FX and BBC have announced the main cast for the upcoming “Great Expectations” limited series, Variety has learned.

The six-episode version of the Charlies Dickens classic will star: Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham, Fionn Whitehead as Pip, Ashley Thomas as Jaggers, Johnny Harris as Magwitch, Shalom Brune-Franklin as Estella, Hayley Squires as Sara, Owen McDonnell as Compeyson, and Matt Berry as Mr. Pumblechuck.

Steven Knight is writing and executive producing the series. Tom Hardy, Ridley Scott, Dean Baker, David W. Zucker, Kate Crowe, and Mona Qureshi for the BBC will also executive produce. The series is produced by FX Productions in association with the BBC, Scott Free Productions, and Hardy Son & Baker. Lucy Forbes will serve as lead director.

“Great Expectations,” which tells the coming of age story of orphan boy Philip “Pip” Pirrip, was originally released in weekly chapters beginning in December 1860 before being published in its entirety as a novel.

Penélope Cruz is running late. It’s lunchtime in Madrid, but she hasn’t had time to eat, so she excuses herself as she nibbles on a slice of jamón. “I need to eat something or my blood sugar goes down,” she says apologetically. Christmas is days away, but before she can even think about enjoying the break with her husband and two children there’s still a lot of work to do. In a few weeks’ time, her spy romp The 355 will hit screens, but more pressing is the U.S. release of Parallel Mothers, her seventh film with Spanish legend Pedro Almodóvar, and the very real possibility of a fourth Oscar nomination.

Parallel Mothers raised the curtain on awards season when it opened this year’s Venice film festival and, against stiff competition, it has stayed the course. It has also charmed audiences into keeping its secrets.

This is both agonizing timing and perfect timing. Sony Pictures Classics have just released this teaser for Parallel Mothers and have announced that the movie hits theaters on December 24th in the US. We fear that's way too late to build up the steam for a major Oscar play. International features often require a larger lead time to get conversation going. Factually speaking, all five of Pedro's Oscar-nominated films  have begun their stateside rollouts in November.  On the other hand it's perfect timing for our about to launch "All About Pedro" series which begins this Thursday with his first feature Pepi Luci Bom (1980). This is entirely accidental but that means the new movie arrives the day after our series wraps up! ...

Exclusive: Synchronicity Films is following up its BBC drama The Cry with another Helen Fitzgerald television adaptation — this time based on her 2009 novel Bloody Women.

The production company has signed up Lorna Martin, the co-creator of Women on the Verge alongside Sharon Horgan, to adapt the novel into an eight-part, darkly comedic thriller. All3Media International is distributing as part of its first-look deal with Synchronicity.

Bloody Women tells the story of 33-year-old Cat Marsden, who on the morning of her wedding is taken to a police station and shown a severed penis. She tries not to laugh but she can’t help herself. On close inspection, she confirms that it almost certainly belongs to her ex, Johnny. She also confirms that she slept with him in the hours before his death, the days leading up to her wedding. What she can’t confirm is whether or not she’s responsible for mutilating and murdering him.

This review of “The Human Voice” was first published after its premiere at the New York Film Festival on Sept. 24, 2020.

Cinema history will doubtlessly note “The Human Voice” as notable for being the English-language debut of Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar — and for its status as a pandemic-driven production — but it’s absolute Almodóvar through and through, from its production design and aesthetic shout-outs to its deep understanding of longing and heartbreak, viewed through the eyes (and the voice) of a hypnotic female lead.

There’s perhaps no actress on Earth more suited to shepherd the director’s first go-round in English than Tilda Swinton, and she’s an ideal creative partner. Her work finds that balance between understated empathy and grand theatricality that marks so many of the great performances in Almodóvar’s work, and as a physical being, she’s practically an architectural presence, much like one of his earlier muses,...

Once Upon a One More Time, the Broadway-bound musical set to Britney Spears songs has found its fairy tale cast, with Briga Heelan set to play Cinderella, Justin Guarini as Prince Charming and Emily Skinner as Stepmother among the performers announced by producers today.

The announcement by The Nederlander Organization comes six weeks before the musical begins its limited run at Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre. Dates and venue details for the Broadway production will be announced at a later date.

Also in the cast: Brooke Dillman as The O.F.G (Original Fairy Godmother), Aisha Jackson as Snow White, and Mimi Scardulla and Tess Soltau as Stepsisters Belinda and Betany.

With an original story by Jon Hartmere (The Upside) and songs by Spears – including “Oops! I Did It Again”, “Stronger,” “Toxic” and “Lucky” – Once...

In 2019, J.J. Abrams signed with WarnerMedia for $500 million, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss chose Netflix for $200 million, while Dan Fogelman extended his stay at Fox for a cool $125 million.

The latest 2019 studio-creator deal? Sharon Horgan, the creator of “Catastrophe,” who on Thursday inked an exclusive first-look deal with Apple.

The value of the deal is unclear, but it replaces the one Horgan previously had with Amazon, and is a clear representation of the booming market that creators have faced in 2019.

The market for talent was white hot in 2019 because the level of unprecedented competition for eyeballs at play. Disney+ and Apple TV+ have launched, while Peacock and HBO Max are waiting in the wings.

Studios have been committing huge sums to top tier talent for years. Netflix memorably signed a multi-year $100 million deal with Shonda Rhimes in August 2017, for example.

But the growing talent roster among tech studios specifically sets 2019 apart from previous years.

“Catastrophe” creator Sharon Horgan is getting into business with Apple. The actor and writer has inked an exclusive first-look deal with the company, which replaces one she previously had with Amazon and which has lapsed.

Horgan is in demand, having been behind “Catastrophe” and “Divorce,” among other shows. She also starred in “Catastrophe” with Rob Delaney, and her on-screen credits include “How to Build a Girl,” “Army Wives,” and “Women on the Verge.” She will be in the upcoming film adaptation of “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.”

Multi-hyphenate Horgan also has a BAFTA Award-winning production company, Merman, which she runs with Clelia Mountford. The firm recently inked a development deal with Sky’s new content unit, Sky Studios. That agreement sits outside of the Apple first-look deal. Merman’s shows include “Motherland,” a comedy series about a fraught mum and her social circle, which has fared well on the BBC in the U.

Strawberry Blond, the British production company run by former Disney and Warner Bros exec Steve Wynne, is moving into comedy by backing a Bristol-based business.

Super Best Quality Video Productions is run by former UKTV and Comedy Central commissioner Joe McVey and backed by The Playlist producer.

The company will specialize in scripted and non-scripted comedy. McVey was most recently commissioning editor at BBC Studios-backed UKTV, where he worked on shows including Sharon Horgan-exec produced Women on the Verge and formats such as Hypothetical and Judge Romesh. Priot to that, he has worked at Viacom’s Comedy Central in the UK, and producers Tiger Aspect, Roughcut and Objective.

McVey joked that being based in Bristol, the home of Planet Earth producer BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit, meant that he would “not rest until we’ve got David Attenborough a panel show”.

“After three great years at UKTV my...

Peaky Blinders' season five sees Irish actor Emmett J. Scanlan play Billy Grade, an ex-professional footballer and budding singer who reluctantly gets drafted into the Peaky Blinders gang. Having starred in numerous TV shows and movies, including Guardians of the Galaxy and The Fall, Scanlan is no stranger to our screens, but many of you probably know him best from his tenure on Hollyoaks. His résumé continues to impress with an upcoming role in the British crime drama Gangs of London. You can currently catch him on Treadstone, USA's Jason Bourne TV spinoff.

If you've been watching Peaky Blinders and wanted to know more about this scene-stealing star, read on for all the details.

Related: The Shelby Family May Be Fictional, but Peaky Blinders Definitely Isn't Just a TV Drama Emmett J. Scanlan was born on Jan. 31, 1979, in Dublin, Ireland. He studied history and sociology at Maynooth University before...

Starz is set to premiere European crime drama Dublin Murders on Sunday November 10. The Lionsgate-backed broadcaster has also unveiled the first trailer for the drama, which stars Killian Scott (C.B. Strike) and Sarah Greene (Penny Dreadful).

The series, which airs in an 8pm slot, is based on Tana French’s novels. Starz acquired the series, which was originally commissioned by the BBC, in December and it will air it in the U.S., Canada as well as on its Starzplay service across Europe and Latin America. It will launch on BBC One in the UK in October.

The psychological thriller is adapted by series creator and writer Sarah Phelps. Dublin Murders follows Rob Reilly (Scott) – a smart-suited detective whose English accent marks him as an outsider – who is dispatched to investigate the murder of a young girl on the outskirts of Dublin with his partner, Cassie Maddox (Greene...

Emily Blunt and Jon Hamm have joined the cast of the Irish romance film, Wild Mountain Thyme. They join the already cast Jamie Dornan, Dearbhla Molloy (Women on the Verge), Christopher Walken, and Holliday Grainger.

Bleecker Street has won the rights to the adaptation from the UK version, which is being written and directed by Oscar-winner John Patrick Shanley from his Broadway hit Outside Mullingar. Here’s the description courtesy of THR:

Wild Mountain Thyme will see Blunt and Dornan play obstinate star-crossed lovers, whose families are caught up in a feud over a hotly contested patch of land that separates their two farms.

Production is set to begin in Ireland at the end of this month. I’m a sucker for Ireland, and I love this cast so far. I’m totally in. Are you interested?...

BBC Studios and UKTV have commissioned crime drama “We Hunt Together” for UKTV’s Alibi channel. The six-part thriller, which is produced by BBC Studios, marks the second original scripted crime drama commissioned for Alibi, following “Traces,” which was announced in February.

The commission is the latest addition to UKTV’s expanding roster of scripted series, which also include dramedy “Flack” (pictured), starring Oscar-winner Anna Paquin. “Flack,” which aired on Pop in the U.S., debuted on UKTV’s W channel in the U.K. in February. Sharon Horgan and Lorna Martin’s comedy “Women on the Verge,” starring Kerry Condon and Nina Sosanya, also aired on W last October.

“We Hunt Together” is written by Gaby Hull, whose thriller miniseries “Cheat” aired on ITV in March. It follows two detectives as they try to outsmart a pair of killers, one a former child soldier desperate to suppress his predisposition...

Starz has acquired the crime drama series Dublin Murders from Fremantle. The eight-episode series is adapted from Tana French’s first two novels in the Dublin Murder Squad crime series, In The Woods and The Likeness.

The atmospheric, psychological thriller, which is currently in production in Belfast and Dublin, is adapted by series creator and writer Sarah Phelps and stars Killian Scott (C.B. Strike) and Sarah Greene (Penny Dreadful).

Dublin Murders follows Rob Reilly (Scott) – a smart-suited detective whose English accent marks him as an outsider – who is dispatched to investigate the murder of a young girl on the outskirts of Dublin with his partner, Cassie Maddox (Greene). Against his better judgment and protected by his friendship with Cassie, he is pulled back into another case of missing children and forced to confront his own darkness. As the case intensifies, Rob and Cassie’s relationship is tested to the...

Sharon Horgan’s burgeoning shingle Merman is launching a new digital arm, Mermade, and has brought in a clutch of seasoned industry execs the run the new U.S.- and U.K.-based business. Mermade will focus on shortform series for streamers, brands, and publishers.

Rene Rechtman and Dan’l Hewitt, formerly of Disney-backed Maker Studios, will be non-executive directors. Joshua Buckingham, a former commissioner for Channel 4 and its digital service, All4, will be the U.K. managing director. In the U.S., Melanie Donkers will be Mermade’s development director. She joins from Vice Media-backed producer Pulse Films and has also been at Fullscreen.

Merman Global managing partners Jeremy Rainbird in London and Kira Carstensen in Los Angeles will run Mermade, alongside Horgan and producer Clelia Mountford, who co-founded Merman in 2014.

“Mermade gives creators control over their output, fostering new and original voices with subject...