Unorthodox Director Maria Schrader on Creating Netflix’s Surprising Hit Series

Maria Schrader is best known for her award-winning acting roles — she starred in the acclaimed wartime romance Aimee and Jaguar (1999) and plays Stasi agent Lenora Rauch in the spy thriller Deutschland 83 and Deutschland 86 now on Hulu — but she’s also an esteemed director. In both her exquisite biopic about the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2016) and, now, as director of all four episodes of the hit Netflix series Unorthodox,...

Selah and the Spades Star Celeste O’Connor on the Power of Tayarisha Poe’s Film

Amazon Studios has premiered writer/director Tayarisha Poe’s new indie Selah and the Spades to near-universal acclaim. It’s the story that takes place in an elite boarding school, where seventeen-year-old senior, Selah Summers (Lovie Simone), runs the Spades, a powerful clique that supplies illegal drugs to the student body. That’s just one of the vices these cliques, or ‘factions,’ offer, which also includes gambling and illegal parties. When her right-hand-man Maxxie (Jharrel Jerome) gets distracted,...

Under Lockdown, Tech & Film Meet in New Ways to Un-Stall an Industry on Hold

The first feature film made entirely over Zoom may still be a blessed long way off, but in accordance with COVID-19 social distancing procedures, formerly eschewed technologies are finding a current warm welcome among the film and television industry. Whether it’s a newfound acceptance of older, familiar names like Skype, or industry-specific digital tools being put to creative off-label uses, it’s thanks to technology that film crews can, in any capacity, make the show go on...

Tom Hardy is Capone in Surprise New Trailer

The title may have changed, but director Josh Trank and star Tom Hardy are still delivering their long-awaited Al Capone film. Formerly called Fonzo, Trank took to Twitter to reveal the trailer for his newly titled film Capone, with distributor Vertical Entertainment releasing this look into the gangster’s later years on digital on May 12.  Trank revealed the trailer yesterday, on Tax Day, a fitting date considering the crime that eventually took Capone down was tax evasion...

How Motherland: Fort Salem Cinematographer Jon Joffin Casts a Spell

It may not be an infinite playlist, at least not yet, but if quarantine lasts much longer, who knows? In any case, cinematographer Jon Joffin, ASC, was waxing virtually about some of the shows he’s been watching in lockup:

Among them were Amazon’s ZeroZeroZero, the Gabriel Byrne-starring series which follows a shipment of cocaine from Mexico to its cartel purchasers in Italy, which Joffin describes as shot “in a beautiful, natural way.” The look of the episodes was divided between Italian DPs like Vittorio Omodei Zorini (Medici,...

The Mandalorian Gets a Documentary Series on Disney+

For all you Star Wars fans out there mourning the end of the Skywalker Saga and the gaping, galactic hole between now and any fresh films or TV series, Disney+ has some good news for you. You will now be getting an eight-episode docuseries that will reveal how their first-ever live-action Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, was made.

Assuming you’ve already watched The Mandalorian (and The Clone Wars),...

Let’s Take a Closer Look at Those Dune Images

On Monday Vanity Fair gave us a glimpse of Timothée Chalamet in director Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. Then yesterday, they revealed their deep dive into the film with a full spread of photos. Now Warner Bros. has made the entire cache available.

One of the juicy details from the VF piece includes the fact that Villeneuve decided that Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel was simply too epic to try and fit into a single film...

Sam Raimi Confirms he’s Directing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

It’s finally official—Sam Raimi, the director of the original Spider-Man trilogy—is helming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Raimi confirmed that he’s helming the Doctor Strange sequel on a conference call with ComingSoon.net to discuss his new Quibi show 50 States of Fright. 

Before we share the quote, here’s a little context. Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, arguably the superhero movie that raised the bar for all the Marvel and DC films to follow,...

See How Netflix’s Epic Action Film Extraction Was Made

Netflix’s upcoming high-octane action flick Extraction feels like the kind of relentless shot of cinematic adrenalin we could use right now. Directed by Sam Hargrave, longtime stunt coordinator on many of Marvel’s biggest films (he was both stunt coordinator and second unit director on Infinity War and Endgame), Extraction stars Chris Hemsworth as Tyler Rake, a black market mercenary going on a suicidal mission to rescue the kidnapped son of a big-time crime boss...

See Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya & More in New Dune Images

Yesterday we shared this first look at Timothée Chalamet in Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune, courtesy of Vanity Fair. Now VF has published their deep dive into Warner Bros. upcoming sci-fi epic, and the spread and is a doozy. It features new images of Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya and more from Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic 1965 sci-fi novel, as well as a great story from writer Anthony Breznican about the film’s equally epic production...

The Cast of That Thing You Do is Reuniting for a COVID-19 Fundraiser

The spread of COVID-19 has been devastating in ways big and small, yet it has also brought out the best in people. While the virus has physically separated most of us, it has brought us together in appreciation (and, in some cities, nightly applause) for the astonishing courage and commitment of our healthcare professionals. COVID-19 has also managed to remind us that there are heroes all around us; the folks who work at our grocery stores, clean up our hospitals and clinics and deliver our food...

Episode 3 of John Krasinski’s Some Good News Features Another Epic Cameo

John Krasinski and his talented family released the third episode of their now beloved YouTube series Some Good News yesterday, and, spoiler alert, it was just as charming as the previous two episodes. After managing to get the entire original cast of Hamilton together for episode two, Krasinski was back with a new episode that featured another look at the heroic healthcare professionals fighting the spread of COVID-19. Krasinski and his nimble production team (which includes his super-talented wife,...

Your First Look at Timothée Chalamet in Dune

Looking ahead even a week at this point feels almost like hubris, considering how fluid—and how scary—everything is. Yet looking ahead is also a way to maintain a little hope, and there are some things to be hopeful about. For sci-fi lovers, the fact that director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation (and reboot) of Dune was already in the can before the spread of COVID-19 shuttered productions all over the globe is one small but potent kernel of joy...

SNL Delivered Their First-Ever Remotely Produced Episode

Joining their late-night, weeknight comedy brothers and sisters in delivering episodes from home, Saturday Night Live filed their first remotely produced episode during the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering the large ensemble, highly complex sets, celebrity hosts and musical guests, SNL is a very hard show to pull off remotely. You can’t just whip up an instant classic digital short like Grouch via Zoom. And while the wildly talented cast can elicit laughs from just about anywhere,...

Run DP Melds Drama and Rom-Com Elements in HBO’s New Series

Merritt Wever won a comedy Emmy for Nurse Jackie, picked up a drama Emmy as the rifle-wrangling pioneer in Godless and last year wowed critics for her empathetic turn as a sex crimes detective in Unbelievable. Now she’s mixing it up in HBO’s black-humored thriller Run (it premiered this past Sunday night, April 12). Job one for cinematographer Matthew Clark: capture the chemistry between Wever’s bored housewife Ruby and Domhnall Gleeson,...

Check out the Surprise Trailer for Groundhog Day 2!

When Sony Pictures released this trailer for what they said was Groundhog Day 2, we thought that this was the all-time greatest sneak reveal of a film we had no idea had even been in the works, let alone shot and completed! What better surprise film than a sequel to the legendary 1993 comedy by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray as a misanthropic weatherman forced to relive the same day over and over and over again, when our own reality seems like the same (terrifying) day over and over and over again?...

Taika Waititi Teases His Thor: Love and Thunder Script

You had to know that if Thor: Ragnarok and Oscar-winning screenwriter of Jojo Rabbit Taikia Waititi is going to “live-watch” his own film on Instagram, he’s going to bring it. And that’s precisely what the mega-talented writer/director did last night when he showed up on Instagram to live-watch Ragnarok and ended up dishing about his upcoming sequel, Thor: Love and Thunder, introducing special guests, and generally having a blast...

Disney+ Reveals Maggie Simpson Short Film Playdate With Destiny Coming Tomorrow

Yes, your streaming options are bountiful, but there’s something special about finding out there’s a brand new animated short revolving around The Simpsons’ most reliably adorable character, Maggie. Disney+ has announced that Playdate With Destiny, a new animated short film starring the one and only Maggie, will be available for streaming starting tomorrow, Friday, April 10. Disney+ made the announcement via Twitter, with a note from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening.

Straight from the source...

Matt Reeves Talks The Batman & His Favorite Previous Caped Crusader Films

On January 28 of this year (a lifetime ago, I know), The Batman began filming in London. Writer/director Matt Reeves was finally shooting his vision of the Caped Crusader (played by Robert Pattinson) plying his dangerous trade in a grittier, more noir version of Gotham. Reeves had been working on the script for years and had assembled a fantastic cast and crew. Then production was shut down on  March 14—along with essentially over other major film and television series—due to the spread COVID-19...

Netflix Reveals First Images of Steve Carell’s Space Force + Release Date & Cast

When Netflix announced that it had tapped Steve Carell and The Office creator Greg Daniels to create a new show for the streaming giant, hopes were high that we’d get something as irresistibly funny (and perfectly cast) as their now legendary collaboration. We now have our first glimpse at their effort, Space Force, which stars Carell as four-star general and highly accomplished veteran pilot Mark R. Naird, whose dreams of running the Air Force are dashed when he’s instead tapped to lead the titular (and brand new) sixth branch of the US Armed Forces...