The City of Love: How Production Designer Claire Bennett Made Los Angeles the Heart of “Nobody Wants This”
Production designer Claire Bennett helped make Los Angeles a star of Netflix's "Nobody Wants This." She discusses using real neighborhoods, businesses, and character-driven locations to create the warm, authentic world that surrounds Kristen Bell and Adam Brody's beloved romance.
Hell on Wheels: Ryan Gosling Revs Up Marvel’s New “Ghost Rider”
Marvel Studios delivered one of Hall H's biggest surprises when Ryan Gosling was revealed as the MCU's new Ghost Rider. Reuniting with director Shawn Levy, Gosling will bring the flaming Spirit of Vengeance roaring back to the big screen.
“The Diplomat” Casting Director Julie Schubert on Building a Razor-Sharp Ensemble Around Keri Russell
Casting director Julie Schubert reveals how she built the ensemble behind “The Diplomat,” from choosing Keri Russell as its anchor to pairing her with Rufus Sewell and adding standouts like Allison Janney to create a cast that truly sizzles.
Stitch, Surf, and Studio Magic: DP Nigel Bluck Takes Us Into the Wild World of the Live-Action “Lilo & Stitch”
Lilo & Stitch is charming audiences across the globe. Disney’s latest live-action remake, directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, is not only a box-office smash but also a heartfelt reimagining that has tapped into the power of Zillennial nostalgia in a big way. Based on the 2002 animated film, the new live-action Hawaii-set buddy comedy between young Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and her new alien pal, Stitch (voiced by Chris Sanders), is full of energy and light, thanks in no small part to cinematographer Nigel Bluck...
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, the company has extended its expertise from production services and branched out into making its own original content for the Thai and international markets...
“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, he was able to meet Schulz,...
“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, his legendary 1964 TAMI Show appearance,...
“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, sitting there quietly for a moment to do some accounting...
“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, @Melbrooks...
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, and later Warner Bros.’ and Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla: King of the Monsters on May 31...
