“Running a mile each morning has been curtailed by COVID, so I am working on getting ‘The Pet Set’ rereleased, and feeding the two ducks who come to visit me every day,” she said. (If you’re curious, “The Pet Set” was a 1971 series starring White wherein celebrities and their pets would come and chat with her. The series is set to be rereleased on February 23 to celebrate its 50th anniversary....
Warner Bros. announced in February that acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates was writing the screenplay for a new Superman movie to be produced by J.J. Abrams. Insiders told THR that “Warners and DC are committed to hiring a Black director to tackle what will be the first cinematic incarnation of Superman featuring a Black actor, with one source adding that putting Abrams at the helm would be ‘tone-deaf.’” The Hollywood Reporter continues: “In a fitting twist, the director search is pitting DC against none other than Marvel....
The former “Mr. Show” co-creators are reuniting for Paramount+ series “Guru Nation,” the streaming service announced February 1. Bill Odenkirk, who previously produced “Mr. Show,” is also attached to the upcoming half-hour, docu-style comedy series. The “Better Call Saul” star and “Arrested Development” alum will play “rival cult gurus who manipulate the minds of their deluded followers,” per a press release. The series is set to be directed by Jason Woliner (“Borat 2”)....
“Bullet Train” is not a good film, but Pitt is having a truly palpable amount of fun in it, and the energy that radiates off of him as he fights Bad Bunny over an explosive briefcase or styles his hair with the blow dryer function of a Japanese toilet is somehow magnetic enough to convince us that we’re having fun, too. Even though we usually aren’t. Even though this over-cranked story of strangers on a Shinkansen — a late summer write-off that feels like what might happen if someone typed “Guy Ritchie anime” into DALL-E 2 — tries so hard to mimic Pitt’s natural appeal that you can feel the movie begging for our bemusement with every frenetic cut-away and gratuitous flashback....
“The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” took top spot for all theaters in both countries, grossing around $910,000 in 300 theaters. The Russell Crowe-starring thriller “Unhinged” was #2 with about $580,000 on 284 screens. “Peninsula,” the Korean “Train to Busan” sequel, made $119,000 in 45 theaters. This opens in 115 U.S. theaters this Friday. In 2015, “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water” opened to $55 million ion North America, and Canada generally earns about 10 percent of the two-country total....
Earlier: Oops. The Cannes Film Festival ceremony audience was in for a shock Saturday evening as jury president Spike Lee accidentally announced Julia Ducournau’s “Titane” as the winner of the Palme d’Or, the event’s top prize. Lee made the slip-up at the top of the ceremony, just before announcing Caleb Landry Jones as the Best Actor winner for “Nitram.” To his credit, Lee was told in French to announce the “first prize,” but misinterpreted that to mean “first place....
The unraveling of the Dobrik mythos was a jarring reversal of fortune for a face emblematic of modern-day YouTube stardom, and Casey Neistat captured all of it. A prolific Vlogger himself, Neistat started making a movie about Dobrik in 2017, aiming to explore a unique form of 21st century stardom. When Dobrik’s story took a sudden dark turn, Neistat’s movie went with it. His new documentary, “Under the Influence,” tracks the subject’s rise and fall as a wakeup call to the dangers of unregulated fame that have come to define the social media era....
It was late February 2020 and Sciamma, who has long pushed back on the sexist, patriarchal state of the French film industry, wanted to make a big statement. These days, as she gets on the phone from Paris to discuss her new movie, it’s the last thing she wants to talk about. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I’ve been far away from that for a year and that’s a long time....
By comparison, “Avengers: Endgame” had reportedly over 2,000 VFX shots. The under-300 number is also low for Nolan himself. “The Dark Knight Rises” had 450 VFX shots according to VFX supervisor Paul Franklin, while Wired reports “Batman Begins” had 620 VFX shots and “Inception” had around 500. “Visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson was responsible for coming up with our safety net,” Nolan said about the film’s effects. “We wanted it all in-camera, but if it couldn’t be done, what choices are there in postproduction?...
“What’s happening across the documentary universe that’s troubling is we’re seeing more of the prestige outlets that have been traditionally for filmmakers to speak their truth and speak their story, they’re starting to dwindle,” said one talent representative within the documentary world, who spoke with IndieWire on the condition of anonymity. “To me, it feels very short-sighted,” said another documentary executive. “This is part of the larger crisis that is facing the industry right now....
Wu, who only uses the production member’s initial, alleged that he controlled her, demanded she ask for approval for all her business ventures, and told her what to wear. Wu claimed she at first viewed him as a friend and mentor, but she then became fearful about what would happen if she didn’t oblige. “‘Fresh Off the Boat’ was my first-ever TV show. I was thrown into this world,” Wu told The New York Times....
Plus, “Cyrano” boasts two new Oscar-contending original songs: “Every Letter,” sung by Bennett, and “Somebody Desperate” (appearing over the end credits), an all-Nationals collaboration sung by Berninger, who wrote with Bryce and Aaron. In 2021, the Academy rules were changed for the category, lowering the minimum percentage of original music from 60 to 35 percent of the total music in a movie — a threshold easily cleared by “Cyrano.” If nominated, though, ”Cyrano” would be unique since it didn’t originate as a movie musical....
“I’ve been told that I’m intimidating,” Ridley said. “That was on ‘Chaos Walking.’ I was having my hair done, having my wig put on. I remember thinking, ‘God, should I be smaller? Should I be quieter?’ I’ve been called aggressive, too. My energy is ‘quite aggressive.’ That was during a meeting with a director.” “I was thinking: ‘But why? Is it because I maintained eye contact? Is it because I’m passionate about what we’re talking about?...
Next up: his beefiest superhero role yet, starring in James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” as the haunted Polka-Dot Man, whose awkward “powers” — throwing toxic polka-dots at people — mask a dark backstory befitting Dastmalchian’s dramatic chops. No one is more amused than Dastmalchian about the impact superhero movies have had on his career, especially as a kid who grew up obsessed with comic books. “I’ve spent so much time invested in genre and sci-fi and the world of comic books, and I believe that they are a space in which deeper questions can be explored,” Dastmalchian said in a recent interview with IndieWire....
The 1999 film began streaming last month on Tencent Video in China, albeit with a censored ending featuring Narrator (Edward Norton) not killing his split personality Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and blowing up a city skyline with love interest Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) by his side. The iconic explosion sequence was removed, and instead a caption appeared onscreen: “Through the clue provided by Tyler, the police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding,” the title card reads....
The distinction is subtle until the moment it’s not. Which isn’t to say that Melinda Van Allen was innocent in Highsmith’s version, only that Lyne’s faithful but slyly transformative adaptation — its script credited to the MadLibs-worthy duo of “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson and “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium” writer-director Zach Helm — is galvanized by the suggestion that she gets off on the idea of her husband’s crimes. The old Melinda was plenty sadistic towards hubby Vic, but she immediately began plotting her escape once it was clear that she could be married to a serial killer....
“After a thorough review of ad policies across its linear networks and streaming platforms over the last few months, Disney is now aligning Hulu’s political advertising policies to be consistent with the company’s general entertainment and sports cable networks and ESPN+,” Disney said in a statement, first reported by Axios. The news comes after lawyers and Democratic lobbyers blasted Hulu for turning down ads that criticized the GOP on abortion rights and gun issues, following the Supreme Court overturn of Roe v....
World Premieres at the festival include Nelson G. Navarrete and Maxx Caicedo’s “A La Calle,” Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker’s “The Meaning of Hitler,” Gong Cheng and Yung Chang’s “Wuhan Wuhan,” Sian-Pierre Regis’s “Duty Free,” Noah Hutton’s “In Silico,” Nancy Buirski’s “A Crime on the Bayou,” Jeff Daniels’s “Television Event,” Ilinca Calugareanu’s “A Cops and Robbers Story,” Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz’s “Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters,” and Cheryl Dunn’s “Moments Like This Never Last,” among others....
“Well, we had to do it three times! If you were to ask all four of us, ‘Pick a scene you can guarantee you only have to do once and not go back to,’ we probably would have said Grey Havens, just cause we were all there weeping like children,” Monaghan said. “So, doing it three times, I definitely think that the third version that I did, the one that’s in the film, is probably not quite as hysterical in terms of the state that I’m in as the first one, or possibly even the second one....
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company said in a blog post. “In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action....
