The Specials, the latest feature from The Intouchables filmmaking duo Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, has been set to close out the 72nd Cannes Film Festival — just don’t call it the “Closing Film.” Cannes organizers said today that they’re doing away with the distinction, preferring to brand the final pic of the…

French actress and director Valérie Lemercier (Avenue Montaigne) is set to star in ambitious European feature The Power Of Love (Famous), a fictionalized story inspired by the life of Céline Dion. According to producers, the big-budget (around €23M) French-language project has buy in from Canadian star Dion and will…

Amazon Studios has greenlit production on Do, Re & Mi, an animated musical series for preschoolers, from Kristen Bell, Jackie Tohn (GLOW, A Futile and Stupid Gesture), Michael Scharf (Moon and The Son: An Imagined Conversation), Ivan Askwith (Veronica Mars) and Gaumont. The 52-episode 11-minute series will premiere…

Gaumont has made a deal to turn Julian Lennon's book trilogy Touch The Earth into an animated TV series. The second volume, Heal The Earth, gets published this month by Sky Pony Press. Lennon and his children's book collaborator Bart Davis will be executive producers and will work on the project with Gaumont President…

As it continues to grow internationally, Narcos producer Gaumont is set to open a new London-based television subsidiary this coming August. Gaumont UK will be run by Alison Jackson, the Kudos executive producer whose credits include Sky Atlantic/Amazon’s Tin Star. The move into the UK follows word last week that…

Bollywood epic Padmavati, now titled Padmaavat, will see its worldwide release beginning tomorrow. The Deepika Padukone-starrer has throughout production and to today sparked a furor in India, inciting violence and death threats. It finally cleared censors last week after a December date was delayed amid escalating…

EXCLUSIVE: Paul McCartney's long-gestating animated film High In The Clouds has moved a step closer to the big screen after finding its writer. Jon Croker, who wrote The Woman In Black: Angel of Death and worked on the production draft of Paddington, has signed up to pen the movie. The project has been in development…

EXCLUSIVE: The Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, a temple of the art house movie scene in New York for 30 years, is at the end of its lease and is scheduled to close in January, Deadline has learned. While we have been told that others are exploring ways to step in to preserve the site as a movie theatre, if the influential…

Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie and his producing partner Heather McQuarrie have signed a first-look deal with Gaumont (Narcos). Under the pact, Christopher McQuarrie will write, direct and produce multiple scripted drama projects for the independent studio. The duo’s first project under the deal is STL…

Gaumont said today that it has promoted Tim Stephen to Head of U.S. Business and Legal Affairs, based in its Los Angeles office. His responsibilities encompass the TV, animation and distribution divisions. Since joining the company as SVP U.S. Business and Legal Affairs in October 2014, Stephen has worked on projects…

EXCLUSIVE: Paul McCartney's long-in-the-works animated film High In The Clouds will have to wait a little longer. The project, which has been in development since 2009, has been optioned by Gaumont, the French company with offices in Beverly Hills. The new deal marks the first animated feature project for Gaumont in…

French mini-major Gaumont, the world's oldest film company, is selling its 34% stake in its exhibition business, Les Cinémas Gaumont Pathé, for €380M ($401.1M) to fellow shareholder Pathé. The divestment, which is a sure sign of Gaumont's strategy to refocus on production activities, will see Pathé control France's…