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The 1991 spoof Hot Shots! found itself to a small degree mirroring the front pages of the newspapers – and 20th Century Fox was worried.

Save for a few sporadic examples – the first Scary Movie, for instance, and more recently The Goes Wrong Show on the BBC – it feels like the era of the successful screen spoof came to a juddering halt in the 1990s. In 1993, we had the second of two Hot Shots! films, and in 1994 the Naked Gun trilogy came to an end. After those? It was slim pickings.

There were further attempts to breathe fresh life into the spoof – Spy Hard, Jane Austen’s Mafia!, Wrongfully Accused – but nothing that could live up to some of the movies we got in the 80s and early 90s.

In 1991 in particular, the spoof was a box office draw. This was the year when many big budget Hollywood productions came in well below box office expectations.

Jim Abrahams, a film director and writer behind hit slapstick comedies like “Airplane!,” “Hot Shots!,” the “Naked Gun” series and more, died Tuesday, his son Joseph confirmed to Variety. He was 80.

With his childhood friends Jerry and David Zucker, Abrahams formed the filmmaking trio, called Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, and popularized the spoof genre of the 1980s.

“Jim Abrahams redefined the boundaries of humor through groundbreaking works like ‘Airplane!’ and ‘The Naked Gun’ series. Together with Jerry and David Zucker, he transformed satire into an art form, inspiring generations of comedians and filmmakers and leaving an indelible mark on the world of comedy,” said the National Comedy Center executive director Journey Gunderson in a statement.

With the Zucker brothers, Abrahams founded the The Kentucky Fried Theater while they all attended college together at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1971. That led to them making their film debut with the indie sketch...

Russian-Kazakh multi-hyphenate Timur Bekmambetov has teamed up with MarVista Entertainment, Endeavor Content and Pulsar Content on a slate of feature films in his pioneering Screenlife format that will be presented to buyers at the TIFF market.

Bekmambetov told Variety during the Toronto Film Festival, that the rapid growth, critical recognition and box-office success of Screenlife films – which take place almost entirely on smartphones and computer screens – prove the format is “more than just a gimmick.”

“It is the first time the presence of Screenlife movies at a major film market is so prominent,” he said. “Just a few years ago, film festivals and industry events used to have only one or two [Screenlife] pictures in the program or in the sales slate, but now it’s already multiple studios and distributors producing and promoting dozens of movies set on a computer or a smartphone screen.”

Two of the six titles Bekmambetov...

Amazon Studios has confirmed twenty additional cast members who have joined the streamer’s The Lord Of The Rings TV series, an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels. Production on the sprawling drama, which was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, is currently underway in New Zealand. It resumed in late September.

Top British comedian Lenny Henry, Ozark and Westworld‘s Peter Mullan, Lloyd Owen, Augustus Prew (CBS’s Pure Genius), The Lotr movie franchise’s Peter Tait, Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), Cynthia Addai-Robinson and Simon Merrells (Spartacus: War of the Damned) are among the new additions, along with Maxim Baldry, Ian Blackburn, Kip Chapman, Anthony Crum, Maxine Cunliffe, Trystan Gravelle, Thusitha Jayasundera, Fabian McCallum, Geoff Morrell, Alex Tarrant, Leon Wadham and Sara Zwangobani.

No information is provided about the characters the actors are playing; Owen is believed to play Loda,...

Steve Aoki has transformed the Crass classic “Banned From the Roxy” into a scorching blast of electro-clash with a new remix set to appear on a 12-inch vinyl single, Normal Never Was III.

The release, out Friday, August 21st, via One Little Independent Records, is part of Crass’ ongoing remix project, and all proceeds will be donated to Refuge, a U.K.-based organization that aids women and children facing domestic violence.

“Banned From the Roxy” appeared on Crass’ 1978 debut, The Feeding of the 5000, a snarling bit of pushback aimed at the titular London club.