Leading Lawmakers Celebrate the Motion Picture Association’s Centennial
“We are a nation of visionaries,” Vice President Kamala Harris says at the top of her remarks about the Motion Picture Association’s centennial. The Vice President was one of nine leading lawmakers to speak about the centennial and the importance of the MPA’s work advocating on behalf of the film and television industry. “Members of the Motion Picture Association, for a century you have written the lines we will never stop quoting. You have created the images we will never forget...
“After Yang” Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb on the Spare Sci-Fi Beauty of Kogonada’s Latest
After Yang cinematographer Benjamin Loeb knew the minute he met South Korean-born director Kogonada that theirs would not be a standard show biz collaboration. When Loeb called from his native Oslo to Zoom interview for the DP job, he and Kogonada barely mentioned the project at hand. Instead, they talked about ramen. “We spent hours talking about the complexion of broth and what makes the broth look good and feel good,” Loeb recalls. “We equated how all your ingredients need to push in the same direction...
“Turning Red” Co-Writer Julia Cho on Writing Pixar’s Tender New Film
Pixar’s new movie Turning Red follows straight-A student Meilin, whose perfect 13-year-old life implodes when she starts turning into a giant panda every time her emotions get out of control. Heir to a fierce ancestral spirit that’s affected women in her family for generations, Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) defies her domineering mother Ming (Sandra Oh) and joins her friends to see Four Town, a boyband that sounds very much like NSYNC thanks to the period-perfect pop songs crafted by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell. ...
New “Morbius” Look Reveals the Marvel Antihero’s First-Ever Screen Appearance
“What excited me the most about playing Morbius was the fact that he’s never been on screen before,” Jared Leto says at the top of this new look at Morbius. Leto will give us our first-ever depiction of Marvel’s blood-sucking antihero, with director Daniel Espinosa’s film revealing the origin story of Dr. Michael Morbius. Morbius is a brilliant but doomed scientist trying desperately to not only to do good in the world but save himself in the process...
MPA Creator Award Recipient Writer/Director Nikyatu Jusu on her Stunning Debut Feature “Nanny”
Deploying West African folklore to interrogate the myth of the American dream, writer/director Nikyatu Jusu‘s debut feature Nanny is a remarkably assured genre-melding experience. Nanny also gives viewers something that’s sadly still quite rare—it evocatively places us inside the head, heart, and aching soul of Aisha (Anna Diop), an undocumented Senegalese immigrant trying to navigate the mystifying codes of the United States to create a stable place to bring her son, Lamine (Jahleel Kamara). Jusu’s nimbly executed deployment of supernatural characters to critique the myth of the American dream would be a difficult feat for a veteran writer/director,...
“Deadpool 3” Will See Shawn Levy Direct Ryan Reynolds in Marvel Movie
An all-star team will be bringing you Deadpool 3. The Hollywood Reporter confirms that Free Guy and The Adam Project director Shawn Levy is in negotiations to reunite with Ryan Reynolds to direct the long-awaited third Deadpool film. Deadpool and Deadpool 2 screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese will return to write. This is major news and confirms that Marvel’s rowdiest, most irreverent superhero is that much closer to coming back...
“Dune: Part Two” Eying “Elvis” Star Austin Butler for Major Villain Role
We recently learned the sensational Florence Pugh is in talks to play Princess Irulan, the Emperor’s daughter, in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. Now, Deadline scoops that one of the biggest roles in the sequel is close to being cast. Austin Butler, set to make his big breakout in Buz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, is in negotiations to play the villain Feyd-Rautha, the cunning nephew of the Baron (played by Stellan Skarsgård) and arguably the biggest new role in the film...
Colin Farrell’s “The Penguin” HBO Max Series Reveals Fresh Details
Colin Farrell made the absolute most of his turn as Oswald Cobblepot, better known as the Penguin, in Matt Reeves’s thrilling The Batman. Reeves’s reboot, which starred Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and dropped in on him in year two of his vigilante work as Batman, featured a Rogue’s Gallery that included Paul Dano’s headlining villain, Edward Nashton/the Riddler and Zoë Kravitz’s Selina Kyle/Catwoman. While Farrell had a bit less to do in this film, he did manage to steal every scene he was in as the ambitious if overlooked underworld macher...
Disney+ Celebrates Women With Peek at “Ms. Marvel” & Their Massive Content Library
Disney+ has dropped a timely peek at their massive library of female-centered content considering it’s International Women’s Day. What’s more, the trailer offers a peek at Iman Vellani, who will be playing Kamala Khan in Marvel’s Ms. Marvel on the streamer. The upcoming series, centered on the titular young superhero who grew up adoring Captain Marvel—only to discover she’s got superhuman abilities herself—is one of Marvel’s most intriguing upcoming projects. Vellani isn’t just starring in Ms. Marvel, ...
Telling Stories With Singapore-Based Producer Si En Tan
Singapore-based producer Si En Tan already has an impressive resume in a relatively short career. After working as an assistant producer on Kirsten Tan’s Thai-Singapore co-production Pop Aye (2017), she went on to produce Anthony Chen’s Wet Season (2019), which won a string of awards at film festivals and the Golden Horse Awards held annually in Taiwan. Her producing credits also include Chen’s segment of the seven-part anthology film The Year Of The Everlasting Storm,...
Smiely Khurana is Leading the Sustainability Charge in Canada With Reel Green
Smiely Khurana is the face of the sustainability movement in Hollywood North. As Creative BC’s in-house Sustainability Lead with Reel Green™, she’s cutting a singular path for the industry in Canada; one that is quickly being modeled in production hubs across the country. Through Reel Green™, Khurana is accelerating knowledge sharing and working to deepen local industry expertise. She’s leading the charge on training and developing new tools to help Canada’s film community green its story and transition to a circular economy. ...
Ben Affleck & Ana de Armas Are Diabolical Lovers in “Deep Water” Trailer
What a combination of talent and source material. Director Adrian Lyne has summoned Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas to take us into Deep Water, Lyne’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name that follows the very dangerous games played by two deeply troubled lovers. Now, Hulu has dropped the official trailer, revealing Affleck and Armas as Vic and Melina Van Allen, a seemingly picture-perfect couple who have a serious dark side. Highsmith has already furnished cinema with great source material from her shimmeringly dark novels,...
Keanu Reeves is Batman in New “DC League of Super-Pets” Trailer
Robert Pattinson and Michael Keaton aren’t the only Batmen in town. Enter Keanu Reeves, who is lending his voice to Batman in Warner Bros. upcoming animated film DC League of Super-Pets. Reeves joins a massively talented cast, including Dwayne Johnson as Krypto the Super-Dog, in directors Jared Stern and Sam Levine’s upcoming animated adventure. One of Batman’s helpers in the film, Ace, is voiced by Kevin Hart. Reeves, Johnson, and Hart are joined by the likes of Vanessa Bayer as PB,...
“The Batman” Soars to Epic Opening Weekend
Box office prognosticators felt fairly confident that Matt Reeves’s The Batman would join Spider-Man: No Way Home in the $100 million and more club in its opening weekend, and they were right. The Batman has now become only the second film in the pandemic era to reach that milestone, scooping up $134 million this past weekend.
Meanwhile, Reeves’s reboot of the beloved DC icon, played by an edgy Robert Pattinson and filled out with top-notch performers including Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman,...
“The Batman” Prepared to Join “Spider-Man: No Way Home” With an Epic Opening
We’ve covered The Batman exhaustively since we first heard that writer/director Matt Reeves’s vision for a gritty, noir-tinged reboot had been greenlit by Warner Bros. in what feels like several lifetimes ago. Now, after collecting a slew of great reviews this week, Reeves’s The Batman is in theaters, and early indications are that it could become only the second film since the pandemic hit to cross the $100 million mark in a single weekend. Box office prognosticators say The Batman has a very good shot scooping up at least $140 million in its first three days of release,...
“The Batman” Spinoffs That Will Create a Batverse on HBO Max
You may have heard that a little film called The Batman is in theaters now? Writer/director Matt Reeves’s thrilling franchise reboot is finally out, with many critics openly wondering whether it’s not the best Batman film of all time. (If there’s a consensus, it’s that The Batman is in contention with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.) Robert Pattinson stars as a vengeful, nearly out-of-control young Bruce Wayne trying to restore order,...
Jason Momoa is Playing the Villain “Fast & Furious 10”
It’s official—Jason Momoa is playing the villain in Fast & Furious 10. We first heard Momoa was in talks to join the Fast family via The Hollywood Reporter, and now Momoa has confirmed the news with Entertainment Tonight.
“It’s fun, I get to play the bad guy, which I haven’t gotten to do for a while,” Momoa told ET...
Director Ben Proudfoot on his Oscar-Nominated Short “The Queen of Basketball”
Lusia “Lucy” Harris’s basketball resume includes leading Delta State University in Mississippi to three consecutive national titles and representing the US at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. She made history as the first woman to score a basket at the Olympics as she led the team to a silver medal and became one of the first two women inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Her trailblazing feats in the 1970s so impressed NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal that he signed on as executive producer of The Queen of Basketball,...
How “The Batman” Writer/Director Matt Reeves Embraced Fear
“I think he has a really good understanding of fear,” Robert Pattinson says of The Batman writer/director Matt Reeves in this must-read profile of Reeves in Variety. “I think a lot of people try to bullshit themselves that they’re not afraid of anything. But Matt really acknowledges things that have scared him in his life and things that scare him presently, and can project those into his movies.”
Reeves had a lot of reason to be fearful when his passion project,...
First “Bullet Train” Trailer Reveals Brad Pitt in Upcoming Action Thriller
Yesterday, Sony teased Bullet Train with a glimpse at the Nippon Speedline, the titular mode of transportation that will be carrying director David Leitch’s story along. At the very end of the teaser, which functioned as an ad for the bullet train, we saw Ladybug (you know him better as Brad Pitt), looking a little worse for the wear. Now, Sony has delivered the first official trailer, revealing Pitt and a star-studded cast in what promises to be one of the summer’s most eagerly anticipated films...
