It's Official: 'Moonrise Kingdom' will open Cannes

AndersonWes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom" is placed to spread out the 65th Cannes Film Festival.Cannes delegate general Thierry Fremaux introduced Thursday the film have been selected for that fest's exclusive opening-evening slot, although it remains unclear whether or not this will have in or from competition.Cannes begins May 16, within 24 hours "Moonrise" is slated to spread out in French theaters through Studiocanal. A Croisette berth has appeared likely since Focus Features introduced the pic would open May 25 Stateside.An ensembler occur sixties Colonial and including Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDorman, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman and Bob Balaban, "Moonrise Kingdom" is Anderson's live-action follow-as much as his 2009 stop-motion toon, "Fantastic Mr. Fox."Fest has tended to spread out with U.S. studio/niche-division game titles recently, for example Disney-Pixar's "Up" (2009), Universal's "Robin Hood" (2010) and The new sony Classics' "Night time in Paris" (2011).Fest runs May 16-27. Contact Justin Chang at justin.chang@variety.com

Big spoiler slips out at 'Housewives' trial

Spoiler alert! The biggest revelation to come out of former "Desperate Housewives" actress Nicollette Sheridan's wrongful termination trial on Thursday was that she won't be the only primary character killed off from the show. Under questioning from one of Sheridan's lawyers, one of the show's executive producers George Perkins, revealed that James Denton's character Mike would be killed off in Sunday's episode. When he blurted it out, there was laughter in the courtroom. "Should we quarantine the press?" Adam Levin, Marc Cherry's attorney, asked half jokingly. "I can't issue those" orders, Judge Elizabeth Allen White responded. The revelation essentially ruins of the element of surprise, but it actually could bolster Cherry's case that the killing off of even primary characters was not out of the question. Sheridan sued Cherry and Touchstone television, claiming that her character was killed off from the show in retaliation for complaining about a confrontation with Cherry. At a break in the proceedings, Cherry just shrugged at the idea that a secret was blown in open court. Denton testified earlier in the day that he was "always" concerned his character would be killed off. Contact Ted Johnson at ted.johnson@variety.com

Songkick can get boost from Sequoia Capital

U.K.-based music startup Songkick has become $tens of millions of in funding from VC firm Sequoia Capital. The funding was created by Boss/co-founder Ian Hogarth in the company blog, who noted: "We opting for a lengthy-term undertake this industry, which we understand that to actually make concerts for everyone, there is available a lot of work before us." The service, which compiles records for live music occasions and sends alerts to clients when shows utilizing their favorite bands are introduced, was started in 2007. Ever since then, it's grown to five million monthly clients, apparently which causes it to be the second most broadly used live music site after Ticketmaster. Songkick has forged a flurry of partners in the last couple of years, different from Vevo and YouTube to Spotify, and launched its apple apple iphone application last summer season. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com