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The cast of the upcoming “Star Trek: Section 31,” a direct-to-streaming Paramount+ film starring Michelle Yeoh, Sam Richardson (“The Afterparty”), Omari Hardwick (“Power”) and Kacey Rohl (“The Magicians”), stopped by Variety Studio, presented by Google TV, at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con.

Richardson, Hardwick and Rohl were joined by director Olatunde Osunsanmi and executive producer Alex Kurtzman to talk about the franchise’s upcoming interstellar venture.

A spin-off from the series “Star Trek: Discovery,” the film follows Philippa Georgiou (Yeoh) as she works with Section 31, a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets.

“The movie is a lot of things. It’s action, drama, comedy, it’s equal parts all of that,” said Richardson, who plays a Quasi, a shapeshifting chameloid. “So, it’s not just up to Quasi to be funny, everybody’s funny in it, and everybody’s serious and the stakes are there for everybody.

Clockwise left to right: Get Out (Universal Pictures), This Is Spinal Tap (MGM Home Entertainment), That Thing You Do! (20th Century Studios), Lady Bird (A24)Graphic: The A.V. Club

It’s always neat when someone you’ve admired shows off a hidden talent that makes you see them in a different light.

Love Is Blind‘s very premise relies on two romantics connecting on personalities and common interests instead of looks.

However, some have felt that many of the reality show’s contestants have been above-average in the looks department. Because of this, an argument’s been made that this could contradict the concept of the show.

Chris Coelen once addressed the issue of ‘Love Is Blind’ contestants being too attractive Chris Coelen, Alexis Maloney, and Hunter Parr | Charley Gallay/Getty Images

The presentation of Love Is Blind has sometimes caused a slight divide among its fanbase. Some feel most of the contestants on the hit reality show are mostly average-looking, with a few standouts mixed in the group. Others believe that Love Is Blind romantics have been attractive for the majority of the time.

The show’s most recent season might’ve only heated up the argument, with a few of...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2023 Emmy Predictions:

Outstanding Television Movie

Weekly Commentary: It’s a “weird” season, but there have been pleasant surprises.

“Prey,” the Predator prequel, which was filmed in the Stoney Nakoda First Nation west of Calgary nabbed six inspired nominations including outstanding television movie, directing and writing. And while Indigenous Peoples...

Exclusive: Director Daniel DelPurgatorio has rounded out the cast for his sci-fi horror mystery Marshmallow, with Paul Soter (Super Troopers), Giorgia Whigham (Waco: The Aftermath), Alysia Reiner (Better Things) and Maxwell Whittingham-Cooper (Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies) coming aboard for roles in the indie soon heading into production.

The actors join an ensemble that also includes Kue Lawrence, Kai Cech, Max Malas, Corbin Bernsen and Pierson Fode, as previously announced.

Written by Andy Greskoviak (Black Friday), Marshmallow is set at a secluded summer camp, where Morgan (Lawrence), a timid and introverted 12-year-old, is thrust into a waking nightmare when a once-fabled campfire tale becomes real. As a mysterious figure descends upon the camp, Morgan and his newfound friends must embark on a treacherous journey and uncover a sinister reality buried beneath the surface. Little do they know that the truth harbors a secret that will test their resilience and...

To celebrate National Streaming Day, Hulu is offering new and select returning users a very special deal. The last time they ran a discount like this was on Black Friday and it hasn’t gotten this low since.

Customers who sign up for Hulu’s ad-supported tier can get the service for just $2 per month for their first three months. If you don’t have a calculator handy, that’s a 75% savings over the $23.96 it would normally cost to subscribe to the service for that length of time. This is a limited-time offer, so act fast; the deal ends at midnight on May 27th.

How to Get Three Months of Hulu for Just $2 Each Click here to activate the deal. Click “Select” under the ad-supported Hulu plan. Enter your information and complete the sign-up process. Get Hulu’s Streaming Day Deal $2/month hulu.com 75% off normal monthly price of ad-supported...

Broken Lizard is back with a historical epic. Okay, perhaps it’s not quite historical or epic. Yet Quasi put a smile on my face for its entire run time. The latest from Jay Chandrasekhar, Steve Lemme, Kevin Heffernan, Erik Stolhanske, and Paul Soter is a charmer. Yes, it’s crude and very silly, and I genuinely enjoyed seeing these fellas go the cosplay route. It also helps that they were smart enough to cast the lovely and talented Adrianne Palicki as their Queen. And if you’d like to check this one out, you can watch it right now, over on Hulu.

Speaking with Adrianne Palicki is always a good time. I recently sat down on Zoom to talk about her latest, and she was happy to chat about working with the guys. She opened up about connecting with comedy and getting the chance to improv along with her co-stars.

One of these days, you’re going to find yourself scrolling through the countless options to find a ridiculous comedy to watch with your friends on a mellow afternoon, and that would be your cue to give a shot to “Quasi.” Owing nothing to a grander scheme of things, any deep socio-political message, or even the Victor Hugo novel it’s a loose adaptation of, for that matter, the film is unapologetic about its wildly lame and ludicrous sense of humor that is likely to fill up your sack of jokes for a year at least. And if you’re like me and nothing makes you crack up loud like dad jokes, cringy puns, and intentionally bad French, this Broken Lizard satire might just be the film for you.

Spoilers Ahead

Plot Synopsis: What Happens In The Film?

Brian Cox’s baritone gets us acquainted with the wild-wild 13th-century France...

Much to the surprise of no one, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is coming in well ahead of the competition in its third week of release with what is, as of right now, projected to be a $56 million weekend. I stipulate that that number is “as of right now” because for the last two weeks Super Mario Bros has blown past projections. The international box office for the film is currently at at $725.7 million, putting it over the worldwide totals of Sonic The Hedgehog and Sonic The Hedgehog 2… combined (the two films accumulated $725.1 million total.) With no competition at the box office until Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3 hits on May 5, you can expect Mario to dominate the charts for another two weeks.

Second place looks to be the newest entry in the iconic horror franchise Evil Dead Rise with what is projected to be around $22 million after grabbing $2.5 million on Thursday.

"Quasi" (as in 'Quasimodo') is a new satirical comedy feature, based on the 1831 novel "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame", written, directed and starring Kevin Heffernan, with 'Broken Lizard' writer/actors Steve Lemme, Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, plus Adrianne Palicki, streaming April 20, 2023 on Hulu:

"...a hapless hunchback yearns for love....

"...but finds himself in the middle of a feud between the 'Pope' and the 'King of France'...

"...when each orders the hunchback to kill the other..."

Click the images to enlarge...

Broken Lizard, the five-man comedy troupe which formed in 1990 at a fraternity on the upstate New York campus of preppy Colgate University, have been stoner icons since the very first scene of their 2001 breakout hit “Super Troopers.” That’s when Jay Chandrasekhar’s mustachioed Vermont cop Lieutenant Arcot “Thorny” Ramathorn pulls over a car full of potheads and proceeds to terrorize and freak them out.

Like they did in 2018 with “Super Troopers 2,” their newest film, “Quasi,” a reimagining of Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” is a no-holds-barred, scatological combination of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” crossed with Mel Brooks’ “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.” It premieres today — April 20 — as a Hulu Original through Fox Searchlight.

Boasting their own cannabis brand, Smokin’ Lizard, Chandrasekhar notes, “When we get high with friends like Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg, they take it seriously enough to try to smoke us...

Whenever people whine about movies that "couldn't be made today," they're usually referring to comedy films with a grossly outdated sense of humor or storylines that are blatantly discriminatory. Seldom are they referring to the truly ridiculous swings of comedy films made from the 1970s-1990s, a style that has mostly dissolved into our collective memories and only reappears when some brave soul makes an absurd laugh riot like "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar."

The sad result of every blockbuster franchise slowly attempting to push us into a nostalgia-mad monoculture has been a lack of weirdo cinema. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of folks out there making unique films, but they're typically released independently and without the marketing budget or publicity they deserve. This makes greenlighting offbeat comedies a risky move for studios and denies audiences fresh, experimental comedy adventures. The Broken Lizard comedy troupe...

A colleague of mine, Marc Edward Heuck, once compared the films of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe to 7-Eleven hot dogs. The comparison was meant to be favorable. In both cases, the thinking went, the artisans in question know full well that they are not offering haute cuisine. Instead, the consumer is getting something efficiently constructed, barely flavorful enough, and perfect for a night when the edibles hit a little harder than expected. Broken Lizard's films have never elevated beyond the realm of raunchy, frat boy-style chuckle-fests, but have possessed just enough zingers, oddball gags, and precision-strike profanity to entrench themselves in the friendly cult trench inside the human brain. They possess an affable, thrown-off quality that makes them weirdly appealing, even as the jokes periodically fall flat.

Their newest film, "Quasi," directed by Kevin Heffernan, and written by the entire troupe is a "Carry On"-style sendup of Victor Hugo...

Not to be confused with an adaptation of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” comedy troupe Broken Lizard’s “Quasi” tells a story that’s truer to the Oxford definition of its title than the 1831 Victor Hugo novel that inspired it. Kevin Heffernan settles uneasily into the director’s seat usually occupied by colleague Jay Chandrasekhar for an underdog story more interested in leveraging funny pronunciations of French words for underwhelming laughs than in creating real characters — much less a visual backdrop that doesn’t look like a second-rate Renaissance Faire.

Set in a 13th Century France that narrator and sometime Broken Lizard collaborator Brian Cox helpfully informs us “sucked,” the film centers on Quasimodo (Steve Lemme), a social outcast who works in the torture chambers of King Guy (Chandrasekhar). There, in a search for a cure to his own physical deformity, he develops the hottest, most pain-inducing device on the market,...

The fellas behind Broken Lizard have been bringing the funny for awhile now. From the cult favorite Super Troopers to Club Dread, the comedy troupe continue to bring a bit of joy to fans. You could even find Kevin Heffernan and Steve Lemme taking on the small screen with the terrific comedy, Tacoma Fd over at TruTV. Yet with their latest, Quasi, they take the sweetness up a notch, and still manage to make you smile. Yes, it’s great to see Kevin, Steve, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, and Jay Chandrasekhar back for another flick together. And they are joined by the terrific Adrianne Palicki. It’s truly a laugh and smile inducing good time.

Recently, I spoke with the crew. For Kevin, Steve, Paul, Erik, and Jay, they talked about how long it took to make Quasi. As well, they revealed who played what, and how they would...

Twenty-five years ago, before they made their seminal cop comedy "Super Troopers," comedy troupe Broken Lizard were tossing around ideas based on a character who was a lovable loser who managed to become a hero. Fast-forward to today, and those ideas have solidified in the form of "Quasi," a satirical take on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" that traps hunchback Quasimodo (Steve Lemme) in a battle between the King of France (Jay Chandrasekhar) and the Pope (Paul Soter). If you ever wanted to see the guys behind "Beerfest" and "Club Dread" tackle medieval history with their unique brand of sweet stoner humor, then "Quasi" is the flick for you, and it's hitting Hulu on April 20, 2023, just in time for the holiest of pot-smoking holidays. 

I had the chance to chat with Broken Lizard and ask them all about this cinematic adventure 25 years in the making. They shared the highs and lows of playing multiple roles,...

Searchlight Pictures has pushed back the release date for Taika Waititi‘s Next Goal Wins, the Michael Fassbender-led soccer comedy, which the Oscar winner wrote with Iain Morris. The Hawaii-set feature is now set to open on November 17th, having previously been dated for September 22nd.

Competitors for Next Goal Wins in its opening weekend at the box office will include Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, TriStar’s Eli Roth pic Thanksgiving and Uni’s Trolls Band Together. Pic had previously been set to open against Lionsgate’s The Expendables 4 and Sony’s The Book of Clarence.

Reteaming Waititi with Searchlight on the heels of his Oscar winner Jojo Rabbit, Next Goal Wins tells the story of the American Samoa soccer team, which suffered the worst loss in World Cup history, losing to Australia 31-0 in 2001. With the 2014 World Cup approaching, the...

The month of April for Hulu is jam-packed with TV and film goodies, from Adam Sandler’s 1999 comedy “Big Daddy” to Fox’s hit sitcom “New Girl.”

On top of Hulu’s rollout of a new interface, it’s also adding some major film and TV titles to its platform. Some of the highlights that set off the first day of April include “American Psycho,” “Shrek” and its sequel “Shrek 2,” plus the Tim Story-directed “Think Like a Man.”

Anime series will be all the rage on Hulu with the dubbed version of the new popular series “Chainsaw Man” arriving, along with “Spy x Family” and “Black Clover.” If you’re looking for something a little bit more kid-friendly, the family can al enjoy “Despicable Me” and “Despicable 2,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days” and “Nanny McPhee.” For the lovers and heartless romantics, “Dear John” and “Date Night...

Hulu’s list of new releases for April 2023 don’t feature many blockbusters, but if we dig a little, I’m sure we can find some gems.

Perhaps the most promising items are on the TV side of things. Tiny Beautiful Things premieres on April 7 and stars Kathryn Hahn as “a floundering writer who becomes a revered advice columnist while her own life is falling apart.” That will be followed by comedy Am I Being Unreasonable? on April 11 and two documentaries: high school football story Algiers, America (April 19) and Tupac Shakur piece Dear Mama (April 22).

The best TV candidate this month, however, is probably Saint X on April 26. This series, told via multiple timelines, “explores and upends the girl-gone-missing genre as it explores how a young woman’s mysterious death during an idyllic Caribbean vacation creates a traumatic ripple effect that eventually pulls her surviving sister into a dangerous pursuit of the truth.

One of the most anticipated television releases of April is coming to Hulu on April 7. “Tiny Beautiful Things” stars Kathryn Hahn as troubled writer Clare. Ironically, she becomes a great advice columnist as her life falls apart. Her marriage is in trouble and her teen daughter hates her. Plus, her writing career is going nowhere. Based on the best-selling collection by Cheryl Strayed, the limited series explores the author’s journey toward healing herself and others.

Check out the “Tiny Beautiful Things” trailer:

Also arriving on Hulu in April is the series adaptation of the best-selling novel “Saint X.” The series is based on Alexis Schaitkin’s novel of the same name and follows a woman’s dangerous pursuit of her older sister’s disappearance on an idyllic Caribbean vacation. Through multiple timelines, the series explores all the traumatic ripples the mystery created for countless people. The series will star Alycia Debnam-Carey,...

The Broken Lizard comedy troupe returns as they follow in the footsteps of Mel Brooks and Monty Python with a period satire based in medieval France. The trailer for the new Hulu comedy, Quasi, has just dropped from Searchlight Pictures. The troupe, who is known for their past outings, including Super Troopers, Beerfest, and The Slammin’ Salmon, now takes on a satirical look at the famous story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The official synopsis reads,

A hapless hunchback yearns for love, but finds himself in the middle of a murderous feud between the Pope and the king of France when each orders the hunchback to kill the other.

This film was written by the Broken Lizard crew and is directed by Kevin Heffernan. The comedy is produced by Richard Perello and comes from Searchlight Pictures for a release on Hulu courtesy of their distributing partnership. Quasi stars Jay Chandrasekhar,...

The "Monty Python" film series is something of a legend in and of itself. The franchise is utterly beloved by comedy enthusiasts, and though we've had a lot of great comedic groups come together to make films since — The Lonely Island, anyone? — none have had quite the same spark as those English comics. That said, we may finally get our generation's answer to "Monty Python's The Holy Grail" in "Quasi," a new Hulu comedy that centers on a satirical look at Quasimodo, aka the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

In the film's trailer, we meet Quasi, a hunchback who wins the papal lottery in his village and gets to have his confessions heard by the visiting Pope — a prospect that is seemingly positioned as a way for him to turn his life around with a stroke of a miracle he never expected. Considering this is a comedy from the team that made "Super Troopers" and "Beerfest,...

As explained on their website, Broken Lizard is a five-person comedy filmmaking group “devoted to intense sunshine, Floridian deep tissue massage, and the advanced study of keeping it realism.” The quintet is most famous for “Super Troopers” but has also made comedies like “Beerfest,” “Club Dread,” “The Slammin’ Salmon,” and “Puddle Cruiser.”

Read More: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2023

After returning for “Super Troopers 2” in 2018, the group—which comprises director Jay Chandrasekhar and writer/actors Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske— have returned once more for a new hunchback-in-love comedy called “Quasi.”

This new one features the same gang, Steve Lemme, Kevin Heffernan, Jay Chandrasekhar, and Erik Stolhanske, but also adds Adrianne Palicki as the damsel of the picture set in medieval times.

Continue reading ‘Quasi’ Trailer: The Broken Lizard Gang Return For A Comedy About A Hunchback That Yearns For Love at The Playlist.

"In a tale of love, betrayal, and scandal – everyone plays a part, or two." Hulu has revealed the official trailer for Quasi, the latest Broken Lizard comedy created by all five members of the troupe. Produced by Searchlight Pictures, they're dropping this direct to streaming, skipping theaters - but it should be good to grab a bunch of friends for a fun night to watch anyway. Quasi is the story of a hapless hunchback who only yearns for love, who then finds himself in the middle of a murderous feud between the Pope and the King of France when each orders the hunchback to kill the other. The satirical take on Victor Hugo's classic novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame will debut on their usual stoner day, 4/20, next month. The film stars Bl's: Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme (as Quasi), Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske, along with Adrianne Palicki and Michael Yurchak.

Even if you’ve signed up for every streaming service out there, it can feel monumental when a title moves from one to another. In April, Netflix mainstay “New Girl” moves to Hulu; still streaming, but not where fans are used to finding it — like rearranging the furniture in your apartment and waking up surprised every day that the couch is over there now.

But what’s important is that “New Girl” lives on, now joining Hulu’s own TV and movie library and originals from Freeform, FX, National Geographic, and more. Later in the month, Leila Gerstein’s “Saint X” — based on the novel by Alexis Schaitkin — premieres with three episodes, recounting the story of a young girl found dead during a family vacation and the sister piecing it together years later. Alycia Debnam-Carey, Josh Bonzie, West Duchovny, Jayden Elijah, Bre Francis, Kenlee Anaya Townsend, Betsy Brandt, and Michael Park star.

Searchlight Pictures has set the release date for Broken Lizard’s Quasi, a satirical take on The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The film will be available to stream starting April 20, 2023, on Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ in all other territories.

Quasi stars Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske and Adrianne Palicki. Heffernan serves as director and penned the script alongside Lemme, Chandrasekhar, Soter and Stolhanske.

Quasi is the story of a hapless hunchback who only yearns for love, but finds himself in the middle of a murderous feud between the Pope and the King of France when each orders the hunchback to kill the other.

Heffernan and Chandrasekhar are represented by UTA, Lemme by CAA, Soter by Echo Lake Entertainment and Stolhanske by Csp Management. Palicki is repped by WME.