Sundance 2016: Nate Parker’s Huge Night & More
We wrote yesterday about the rapturous response to Nate Parker’s Sundance-shaking Nat Turner biopic, The Birth of a Nation. Today, reports are flooding in that the whopping, festival record-setting $17.5 million offer the film got from Fox Searchlight was actually less than what Netflix was willing to part with.
THR reports that writer, director and star Parker, who had put $100,000 of his own money into the film to fly around the country in an attempt to find financiers (he eventually had a dozen investor groups,
Actor Alex Jennings On The Lady in the Van, his New Netflix Show & More
Alex Jennings is no stranger to playing real-life characters on stage or on screen. He was Prince Charles in Stephen Frears’s 2006 movie The Queen with Helen Mirren and is playing The Duke of Windsor in Peter Morgan’s upcoming 10-episode series The Crown for Netflix — a role that just might make this longtime star of the British stage better known to audiences stateside.
The Duke of Windsor became King Edward VIII
Sundance 2016: A Roundup of Reviews, Part II
Let’s take a look at what the critics are saying about some of the films that have premiered at Sundance.
Nate Parker and Tony Espinosa in 'The Birth of a Nation.' Photo by Elliot Davis. Courtesy Sundance Film Festival.
Earlier today, we took a look at Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation,
Sundance 2016: Fox Searchlight Nabs Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation
Nate Parker, writer, director, and star of The Birth of a Nation's seven year commitment to his labor of love has paid off in a distribution deal with Fox Searchlight Pictures, The Wrap reports. Parker's epic is currently the talk of Sundance. The Hollywood Reporter Rebecca Ford writes that Parker’s film earned a rapturous standing ovation at its' premiere in Eccles theater in Park City,
Sundance 2016: A Film Review Roundup
Earlier we looked at some of the films that have premiered at Sundance that have found homes in a variety of studios, from IFC to Amazon. Now let's take a look at some of the films reviews coming out of the festival this year, perhaps gleaning what will be next on the bidding block.
Vulture's Bilge Ebiri has written that Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea,
Sundance 2016: Complete Unknown, Morris From America & More are Sold
As the first major film festival of the year, and arguably one of the most important on the ever expanding festival circuit, the Sundance Film Festival is something of a taste maker. Studios small and large vie for the distribution rights of a number of films, while unknown talents can, in a single Park City night, become hot commodities. Here's a look at the news coming out of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
Before we get into what films have sold thus far,
Talking to the Writer/Director of the Epic Balkan Western Aferim!
It’s a safe bet that you’ve never seen a movie quite like Aferim!
An epic Balkan Western shot in 35mm black-and-white, Romanian director Radu Jude’s third feature earned a Silver Bear for best director at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival and was the Official Selection at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.
Aferim! (an Ottoman Turkish expression that apparently translates as “bravo!” and is used ironically in the film) is set in the barren landscape of mid-19th-century Wallachia.
10 Episodes to Get Caught up on the X-Files Before Sunday’s Premiere
Thanks to its hefty publicity campaign, you’re probably aware that Fox has announced an official revival of the beloved science fiction show X-Files. And while reboots might strike fear in the hearts of many, this ground-breaking, well-reviewed and highly-rated show seems fitting, considering it changed the landscape of television before the cable explosion and putting the network on the map. It premieres this Sunday, January 24, at 10ET/7PT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1SmJUBT5q0
Most importantly,
Not Just For Kids: Best Animated Feature Nominees
Though it wasn’t added to the Oscars slate until 2001 (when Shrek took home the statue), the Best Animated Feature category is more interesting than ever this year, pitting Inside Out, Pixar’s most astonishing and well-reviewed film in quite a few years, against the equally beloved but decidedly adult Anomalisa. Outside of the two front runners, the category remains a refreshing combination of stop motion,
Watch Key & Peele’s Hilarious, NSFW First Trailer for Keanu
Plug in your headphones so you can enjoy this trailer at work, because this is Key & Peele in Red Band mode for the first trailer for their film Keanu. It's fitting the title of the trailer includes "from the minds of Key & Peele," because Keanu looks like a feature-length skit from their hit Comedy Central show, and that, my friends, is a good thing. Key &
Production Designer Jon Billington Talks Alien Invasions in The 5th Wave
Director J Blakeson brings Rick Yancey’s novel The 5th Wave to the big screen this week, a blockbuster version of the popular young adult title. Chloë Grace Moretz stars as Cassie, a suburban teenager fighting for her life while searching for her younger brother, taken by aliens in the fifth of a series of deadly attacks on humanity. The unseen alien invaders, creative for their type, have explored a variety of ways to kill off humankind during the first four waves,
Dates Set for Dates for Star Wars: Episode VIII & Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Walt Disney Studios has announced new release dates for two of their biggest upcoming films, hoping (and very likely) to recapture the magic that The Force Awakens managed in its mid-December slot.
Owing to the crazy huge success of J.J. Abrams first installment in the new trilogy, Star Wars: Episode VIII, originally scheduled for release on May 26, 2017, will now debut on December 15,
Creating Clouds, Cigarettes, Feet & More in Anomalisa
We've already written about Starburns Industries, the mechanics behind the magic of Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's Anomalisa. It's a film of tiny things. In order to populate every frame of Michael Stone's business trip to Cincinnati with those life-like things, the creators of Anomalisa were tasked with creating thousands of beautiful, identifiable elements in exacting, miniature detail. Thanks to a series of behind-the-scene featurettes released by Paramount Pictures,
Watch Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Extended Look
And the final piece of last night's "DC Films Presents: Dawn of the Justice League" on The CW that we want to share with you is the three minute deep-dive into the film that's going to bring the Justice League to the big screen, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Director Zack Synder, and Batman and Superman themselves, Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill, discuss the evolution of their characters and why,
Justice League Reveals First Looks at Aquaman, Cyborg & The Flash
As part of the The CW's "DC Films Presents: Dawn of the Justice League” special that revealed the first footage of Wonder Woman in action in her own film (it only took 75 years), there were a whole bunch of other reveals worth mentioning. We'll let the clips do the talking.
Here's the first look at Aquaman, starring Jason Momoa in the title role.
Suicide Squad Drops Gleefully Bonkers First Official Trailer
It's tough to think of a better song to open the first official trailer for director David Ayer's superbad superhero movie Suicide Squad than Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." "Is this the real life, is this just fantasy…caught in a landslide, though escape from reality." All playing over the images of our incarcerated anti-heroes, who will know soon enough will be sprung from their subterranean cells to apply their special brand mayhem for a just cause—the capture of an even worse criminal and psychopath.
Check out the First Footage of Wonder Woman in Action
You probably already know that Wonder Woman, played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, has a pretty decently sized part in the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. While her involvement in the film was always known, we finally got to see her in action, briefly, in the most recent trailer. And ironically, when she arrives it wasn't Superman (Henry Cavill) whose hide she saves at the nick of time,
Pee-wee is Back in new Trailer for his Netflix Original Film
“Heh, heh,” time for a winter’s giggle and bit of zany whimsy. Pee-wee Herman is hitting the road after a 30 year hiatus, and it's as if time stood still for the childlike Pee-wee. Netflix just released the first 39-second trailer for its original film, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, in all its Rube Goldberg glory. This feature will star the ageless Paul Reubens, reprising the role he created in the mid-1980s for his television show,
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising Unleashes First Official Trailer
If you saw the first Neighbors, you got a lot of topless dude action, much of it in the jiggly form of Seth Rogen and the anything but Zac Efron. As you can see in the above photo, the dudes and their respective exposed torsos are back for Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. Before we look at the new film, a refresher on the first;
Watch Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Benicio Del Toro & More in THR’s Actors Roundtable
It's an uncensored group of some of the finest actors working today, all seated around one big table, talking about their craft. The Hollywood Reporter's annual roundup of some of the best and brightest in the industry never fails to impress. This year's actor group includes Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight), Will Smith (Concussion), Samuel L. Jackson (The Hateful Eight),
