Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Screenwriter Linda Woolverton on Shaping Strong Female Leads

She’s back! Maleficent, the great horned fairy, is lighting up the screen once again in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, the sequel to the 2014 Disney hit. Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning return as Maleficent and Aurora, respectively, and are joined on this journey by Michelle Pfeiffer, who portrays the villainous Queen Ingrith. When Aurora becomes engaged to the queen’s son, Ingrith sets in motion a diabolical plan to take the Moors,

Screenwriter Scott Z. Burns & Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Jake Bernstein on The Laundromat

Steven Soderbergh’s new film The Laundromat boasts a stellar cast. Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, Jeffrey Wright, and Gary Oldman are all part of Soderbergh’s latest, which is currently streaming on Netflix. Though shown through a decidedly absurdist lens, the film is based on some very serious and true stories about how the rich and powerful of the world manipulate and perpetuate a corrupt financial system. Longtime Soderbergh collaborator and screenwriter Scott Z.

Writer/Director Jill Culton on her Animated Feature Abominable

At the beginning of the new animated feature Abominable, tomboy Yi (Chloe Bennett) is grieving for her dad, who has passed away. When she finds a wounded Yeti hiding on the roof of her apartment building, she names him Everest, after where he’s from, and determines he needs help getting back to the famed mountain. She and her friends Peng (Albert Tsai) and Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor), travel all the way across China to get him back home.

How the Spider-Man: Far From Home Writers Crafted a Swinging Summer Hit

They first worked together on TV satire American Dad, then mastered the dysfunctional dark comedy of Community before breaking into features by subverting superhero conventions with their neurotic title character in The Lego Batman Movie. Now, screenwriters Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna are riding high as the team who scripted Spider-Man: Far From Home. The rare summer hit that’s won over critics as well as audiences,

Toy Story 4‘s Story Supervisor Valerie LaPointe on Bo Peep, Gabby Gabby & More

The trilogy of the first three Toy Story installments may have seemed complete, but Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the gang are back for another round in director Josh Cooley’s addition to the franchise, and they’ve got a new set of responsibilities to the child in their life, Bonnie. The story gets going with the tyke’s reluctant entry to pre-school, a topic of much debate among her playthings. Woody (Tom Hanks) is no longer top toy,

Los Espookys Co-Creator & Breakout Star Ana Fabrega on her new HBO Series

On June 30, New York City will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which catalyzed the contemporary gay rights movement as we know it. As a gay filmmaker and comedic performer who was born the year Stonewall took place, I’m thrilled that, especially in the last few years, mainstream entertainment has embraced a new unashamed and unfiltered breed of LGBTQ comedian. Case in point: The superb new HBO comedy Los Espookys.

Mindy Kaling & Nancy Meyers on Writing, Producing & More

With a history just over a decade old, the “Produced By” conference in L.A. is a gathering that promises, if not exactly unfettered access, at least a chance to be in the same room with many accomplished producers, and hyphenates: producer-actors, producer-directors, etcetera.

Run by the Producers Guild, and currently hosted on the Warner Brothers backlot (an “above the line” analog to the Cine Gear show held at Paramount, the week before),

Director Olivia Wilde & Screenwriter Katie Silberman on the Hilarious Booksmart

The creative team behind Booksmart wanted to showcase women being funny. Not one or two women, but many women.

“That’s how it is in our lives. All my female friends are as funny as my male friends. They’re not comedians; they don’t think of themselves as funny,” said screenwriter Katie Silberman, who shares writing credit with Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, and Sarah Haskins.

Silberman credited Olivia Wilde, the actress who makes her feature directorial debut on Booksmart,

Craig Mazin on Getting the Details Right for the Shocking Chernobyl

In April 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded, sending radiation into the atmosphere and ultimately causing many radiation-related deaths. While the disastrous accident, attributed to faulty reactor design and insufficiently trained operators, is widely known, the details of its aftermath are less so. Screenwriter Craig Mazin looks to change this and up the knowledge base with Chernobyl, a five-part miniseries starting May 6 on HBO that is directed by Johan Renck and stars Jared Harris,

Savannah Knoop on Adapting her Memoir Into the Fascinating J.T. LeRoy

It’s often said that truth is stranger than fiction. No doubt this adage applies to the remarkable story of Savannah Knoop, who as a young woman assumed the persona of J.T. LeRoy, an adolescent author admired for his gut-wrenching semi-autobiographical books with themes of childhood abuse and prostitution. In actuality, LeRoy didn’t exist. He was the creation of Knoop’s sister-in-law and the real writer, Laura Albert. When the public began clamoring for LeRoy, Albert asked Knoop to play the part.

Taraji P. Henson & the Team Behind The Best of Enemies on Crafting History

The Best of Enemies is based on the true story of an African-American activist named Ann Atwater and a KKK official named C.P. Ellis who were forced to work together in a fight over school desegregation in 1971. In an interview with The Credits, star Taraji P. Henson, who plays Ann, writer/director Robin Bissell, and producer Dominique Telson talked about bringing this potent true story to the screen.

Taraji,

Writer/Director Anthony Maras on his Harrowing Debut Hotel Mumbai

For his debut feature, Hotel Mumbai, out March 22, Anthony Maras wore many hats: director, executive producer, and co-writer. The film chronicles the siege by terrorists at the upscale Taj Hotel in Mumbai in 2008 that took the lives of more than 160 people and injured countless others.

Maras conducted months of research to pen the script, which weaves a tapestry of stories set throughout the hotel. He also assembled an outstanding ensemble cast led by Dev Patel,

How I Am the Night‘s Creator Built Noir Series Around a Nearly Mythic True Crime

True crime fans have long obsessed over the “Black Dahlia” murder that first made headlines in 1947 when 22-year old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short turned up mutilated on the streets of Los Angeles. Mystery writer James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential) authored a book about the case after his own mother was murdered in a similar fashion. A 2006 Black Dahlia movie further chronicled the mystery surrounding wealthy doctor George Hodel,

How A Dog’s Way Home‘s Director Found his Path

Remember Terry the Toad, the adorable nerdy high school kid who had a wild night in American Graffiti? And the government researcher out in the remote, bonding with the wolves out in the Arctic in Never Cry Wolf? Both were played by Charles Martin Smith, now a director who has specialized in films about kids and animals including the two Dolphin Tale movies and the current release,

Serenity Writer/Director Steven Knight on Creating a Twist no one Will See Coming

Writer-director Steven Knight is no stranger to making unconventional films. In the 2013 thriller Locke starring Tom Hardy, the entire plot takes place inside a car. For Serenity, underneath the allegory about a fisherman obsessed over catching an elusive bluefin tuna, lie deeper existential themes.

Knight admits directing can be daunting in a phone call having wrapped Peaky Blinders Season 5. “Every time I do,

How The Favourite‘s Oscar-Nominated Co-Writer Tony McNamara Twisted History

With 10 Oscar-nominations, Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite was matched only by Alfonso Cuaron’s elegiac masterpiece Roma for the largest haul of the year. The films couldn’t be much more different, but then again, every film Lanthimos makes couldn’t be much more different from his peers. The Favourite is nothing like anything the Oscar-nominated Lanthimos has made in the past, either, concerning itself with two rivals, Lady Sarah (Oscar-nominated Rachel Weisz) and Abigail (Oscar-nominated Emma Stone) for the affection and patronage of Queen Anne (Oscar-nominated Olivia Colman) in 18th century England.

Oscar Watch: Writer/Director Nadine Labaki on her Riveting Drama Capernaum

Lebanese writer-director Nadine Labaki took to the streets to make her third feature, Capernaum, which centers on a neglected young boy. Furious with his parents after they sell his barely pubescent sister to an older man, the boy runs away from his ramshackle home. He befriends an Ethiopian refugee and then becomes the caretaker for her baby after the woman is arrested.

Playing a child who shares his own first name,

A Grieving Detective Drives the Action in Film Noir State Like Sleep

Like her brooding State Like Sleep heroine Katherine Grand, filmmaker Meredith Danluck lost a close friend to suicide. Like Katherine, she moved from the United States to Belgium to live with a highly secretive partner. And like Katherine, Danluck rushed to a Brussels hospital after her mother suffered a stroke. Now currently available on Digital, On Demand, and in select theaters, State Like Sleep may draw many of its plot points from Danluck’s adult life but one of its most offbeat sequences comes straight out of a movie she saw at the age of seven.

How Ruth Ginsberg’s Nephew Wrote On the Basis of Sex

Before he experienced the memorial service epiphany that led to On the Basis of Sex, writer Daniel Stiepleman had knocked around for a few years, working in the Peace Corps, teaching high school English and producing TV commercials in Wisconsin. Then, he attended the 2010 funeral of his uncle Martin, the late husband of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. “Martin’s friend gave a eulogy and mentioned in passing that discrimination on the basis of sex was the only case Ruth and Marty ever argued together,”

Writer David Magee on Recreating the Magic in Mary Poppins Returns

The character Mary Poppins has been as well known for a very long time. She was beloved in the pages of P.L. Travers’ eight-volume children series, and then she became something of a global sensation thanks to Disney’s 1964’s Mary Poppins. Julie Andrews made the role an icon, not just for the magical nanny’s ability to effortlessly tidy up, but to do so with her wit, vanity, and compassion ever intact. The film’s early seamless blend of live action and animation,