Marvel’s Misfits Have Mainstream Appeal: “Thunderbolts*” Strikes Box Office Gold

Thunderbolts*, the Florence Pugh-led Marvel Misfit epic, struck box office gold in its opening weekend.

SXSW 2025: Tapping Into Texas’s Vast Potential to Become the Next Cinematic Frontier

This year’s SXSW film festival in Austin blew into town with a considerable tailwind of enthusiasm for the Lone Star state’s film and TV future. Every state in the union can claim unique cultures, geographies, and mythologies, but there’s no disputing that Texas looms very large in our collective cultural imagination. It’s a state that takes very seriously the notion that it’s really a country.

Texas’s hold on our imagination is evident in how many great films and TV series are set there (whether they’re actually filmed there or not—we’ll get to that in a second),

“Nickel Boys” Writer/Director RaMell Ross on Camera as Consciousness in His Oscar-Nominated Film

An introspective, promising teenager hitchhiking to college gets a ride in a car that turns out to be stolen. The driver is Black, and so is the boy. Deemed an accomplice despite his innocence, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is remanded to Nickel Academy, a segregated Florida reform school. Nickel Boys, the Oscar-nominated film based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys, follows the harrowing path Elwood is placed on by the Jim Crow South.

Benetone Films Co-Founder Kulthep Narula on Taking Thailand’s Film Industry to the Next Level

From Hollywood to Bollywood, Benetone Films has provided production services for over 100 feature films, TV series, and 1,000 TV commercials in over two decades. The Bangkok-based company is also a key provider for foreign productions filmed on location in Thailand. Ten projects have been approved through Thailand’s incentive scheme, including 2020’s The Forgotten Army for Amazon Studios and 2022’s Blood & Treasure season 2 for CBS Studios.

In recent years,

“Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin” Namesake & Co-Writer Robb Armstrong on His Peanuts Immortality

Robb Armstrong’s JumpStart is the most widely syndicated daily comic strip by an African American in the world. He was inspired to his career as a cartoonist, in part, by reading the Peanuts comics by Charles Schulz and started drawing images from the famed strip as a child. Of course, one major influence was Franklin, the first Black character in Peanuts, who was introduced in 1968. Early in his career,

“Say It Loud” Director Deborah Riley Draper on Telling the Complex James Brown Story

It doesn’t take much to get filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper going when it comes to the topic of James Brown. Her new documentary James Brown: Say It Loud (airing Feb. 19 and Feb. 20 on A&E) chronicles the music titan’s remarkable journey from his 1933 birth in a South Carolina shack through his early days as a “buck dancer,” his imprisonment at age 16, the 1956 breakthrough hit Please Please Please,

“The Witcher: Blood Origin” Trailer Reveals 4-Part Special Prequel Series

The great Michelle Yeoh centers our first look at The Witcher: Blood Origin, the new prequel series set in an elven world 1200 years before the events in The Witcher. Blood Origin takes place during the Elven Golden Era, before the arrival of humans or monsters (some might claim they’re one and the same?), yet all is not well even in this, non-monstrous realm. The first trailer for The Witcher: Blood Origin introduces us to seven warriors,

Best of Summer: “Ozark” Director Amanda Marsalis on Ruth, Wendy, and Bittersweet Goodbyes

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

When Ozark came to its bloody, sin-soaked end this year, you might have found yourself, Marty Byrd (Jason Bateman) style,

“Day Shift” Director J.J. Perry on His Lean, Mean Jamie Foxx-led Feature Debut

Director J.J. Perry is one the most seasoned action directors in the business, despite Day Shift (streaming August 12) representing his feature debut. Perry has directed some of the most thrilling sequences over the past two decades, working as a second unit director and stunt coordinator (sometimes both in the same film) on the first two John Wick films, Skyscraper and F9. With Day Shift, Perry marshaled his talent for practical stunts and effects,

“Ozark” Director Amanda Marsalis on Ruth, Wendy, and Bittersweet Goodbyes

When Ozark came to its bloody, sin-soaked end this year, you might have found yourself, Marty Byrd (Jason Bateman) style, sitting there quietly for a moment to do some accounting. The Byrd family had, against all odds, survived the chaos they’d been plunged into four seasons back when Marty’s business partner in Chicago made the mistake of cheating the wrong client. That put Marty in a life-or-death situation that would carry on for over a year—make matters right by laundering money for a powerful Mexican cartel,

5 Outrageous Hays Code Rules Ryan Murphy’s “Hollywood” Breaks

Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood on Netflix is a dreamy, inspiring, and triumphant glimpse at what mainstream storytelling might have accomplished if female, Black, and queer artists had been openly driving the narrative on our screens since the 1940s.

Like many of the actors in Hollywood, Dylan McDermott plays a character within a character. McDermott’s Ernie West dallies on the fringes of the entertainment scene but is never able to break into the industry until his former employees ascend the movie studio ladder and collaborate on the most groundbreaking script to hit Tinseltown.

Good Deeds Give us Reason to Hope (And Applaud)

If you’re lucky enough to be able to social distance and healthy enough to “simply” worry and absorb a relentless amount of bad news, then you’re probably primed for a little bit of positivity. If you live in a city where there’s nightly applause for our heroic healthcare workers, you’ve gotten a taste of how good it feels to take a moment to marvel at the courage and compassion of people all around us. People we usually don’t think about that much about.

Amy Adams & Jennifer Garner Team Up to Help Kids Affected by COVID-19

While all of us are trying to come together—mostly, and crucially, by staying apart—to help flatten the curve of the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate the damages, it’s nice to see those with a large platform doing their best to spread the word. There was Max Brooks’ hilarious and heartfelt message, alongside his dad, the legendary Mel Brooks, for people to keep their distance from one another.

A message from me and my dad,

New Dark Phoenix Poster Revealed Ahead of Trailer

While nearly all the focus in the superhero world has been mostly Captain Marvel-related, there’s another super powerful superhero ready to rise. Fox has released a new poster for writer/director Simon Kinberg’s Dark Phoenix, starring Sophie Turner as the X-Men’s most potent mutant, Jean Grey. The poster hints at Jean’s divided nature, between her controlled self and the uncontrollable Dark Phoenix force.

The two different looks include two specific callouts: on the left-hand side,

Tolkien Trailer Reveals the man Behind The Lord of the Rings

Long before millions of people were obsessed with Game of Thrones and the seven kingdoms of Westeros, there was J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic, masterly “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. The densely layered, vastly populated world Tolkien created in Middle Earth was one of the most astonishing feats of world-building, ever. It eventually became a massive trilogy on the big screen, too, thanks to director Peter Jackson‘s Herculean efforts to adapt Tolkien on an appropriately grand scale.

How’s this for Size? Warner Bros. Will Release Six Movies in ScreenX Format

Forget a 180 — how would you like to do a 270? Warner Bros. recently declared that it is releasing six movies in the ScreenX format worldwide, which allows for films to be viewed at a whopping 270 degrees.

The Hollywood Reporter stated that among the six proposed, three have already been announced: Shazam! and The Curse of La Llorona by New Line Cinema, out April 5 and April 19,

The Mandalorian Adds Gina Carano to the Cast

The Mandalorian floodgates seem to be opening. After weeks of mystery surrounding the project, we received confirmation yesterday that Pedro Pascal would star in the title role. Now, THR has reported more casting news. Gina Carano has officially joined the series.

Carano had a big break in 2016 when she appeared in Deadpool as Angel Dust. Prior to that, however, Carano was more famous for her MMA fighting.

Michael Sends a Terrifying Message in New Halloween Clip

Halloween is still 16 days away, but Halloween is a mere four. Michael Myers is back in all his gory glory, and Universal has shared one of the most grimacing scenes from the film ahead of the theatrical release. EW exclusively shared the terrifying moment between the maniac murderer and one of his many victims.

Rhian Rees plays Dana, a journalist pursuing the true story of what happened between Michael (James Jude Courtney) and Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) four decades ago.

NYCC: A New Mortal Engines Trailer Reveals a Surprising Connection Between Hester and Valentine

A new Mortal Engines trailer dropped today at New York Comic Con and it gives us a look at what the world was like before civilization collapsed. Oceans were roaring and crystal blue, sunlight was golden and flowers grew. People even flew in personal aircraft and were free to roam about the land. It’s a stark contrast to the industrial metal cities that emerged.

Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) and her mother,

AMC Has Plans to Turn The Walking Dead Into a Major Franchise

The Walking Dead is as difficult to put down as the walkers themselves. In fact, it seems to be spreading. Andrew Lincoln is exiting the original series, but that still isn’t the kill shot that will put this franchise down. And why should it? So many strong characters have emerged over the course of the series. Rick would never have made it this far without Michonne (Danai Gurira), Daryl (Norman Reedus), Maggie (Lauren Cohan) or Carol (Melissa McBride).