Here we have Darren Aronofsky's longtime DP, Matthew Libatique, confirming the two are running AI tests before shooting their next feature together.
Thursday numbers are in, and they hint at a quiet weekend, especially with no big wide release, unless you count "Christmas at the Kringles" as one. It managed $200K in previews from around 1800 screens.
The studio has unveiled "The Angel Promise," a sweeping new content policy that bans on-screen sex, nudity, F-words and any misuse of God's name in its films.
Seyfried just came off “The Testament of Ann Lee,” which, Corbet’s partner, Mona Fastvold directed and co-wrote with him. Corbet also served as second unit director on that film.
This year’s 12th edition of the Scary Movies festival at Film at Lincoln Center premiered Ari Aster’s extended version of “Midsommar” this past Saturday.
Hollywood is at it again, deciding to make an English-language remake of a soon-to-be-classic foreign film.
Deadline is reporting that Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are attached to star in the upcoming Fox Searchlight film “Downhill,” which is an English-language remake of the Swedish film “Force Majeure.” The film is set to be directed by the duo of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash ("The Descendants," "The Way Way Back") and scripted by “Four Lions” writer Jesse Armstrong.
Read moreThe original director for the third season of HBO's 'True Detective" was supposed to be Jeremy Saulnier (“Green Room,” “Blue Ruin”) but “creative differences” with creator Nic Pizzolatto, following the completion of just two episodes, had Saulnier entirely scrapped from the project. Enter the hiring of director Daniel Sackheim, known for directing several episodes of FX‘s “The Americans,” and Pizzolatto himself who would be directing around 60% of the show. Good God. You go from hiring a cinematic talent such as Saulnier to getting a TV director to replace him?
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THR is reporting that Ridley Scott is returning to the world of "Gladiator."
No, this is not The Onion. The Oscar-winning director is indeed moving forward on a followup of the best picture winner, which would follow Lucius (son of Lucilla and the nephew of Joaquin Phoenix's villainous Commodus). If you remember, Maximus saved the boy from his uncle in the 2000 film.
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The Initial release for David Robert Mitchell's "Under the Silver Lake" was supposed to be this summer (June 22nd), but A24 cut the chord and set it for release this coming December 7th. Now it looks like that release date will not even happen. In fact,'Silver Lake' has been bumped to next year.
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It seems, at least based in part on past comments from Tim Allen, and now Tom Hanks's recent comments on the The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, that Pixar is going for something very big with the ending of "Toy Story 4."Hanks claims this finale will be "a moment in history" which is an absurd statement, but, hey, I'm willing to take the bait. Here's what he had to say about that ending:
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Christopher McQuarrie seems to have become the go-to script doctor for Tom Cruise. The 49-year-old writer-director was called on to write or re-write "Ghost Protocol," "Edge of Tomorrow" "Valkyrie" and "The Mummy" — not to mention having written and directed Cruise in the last two 'Mission: Impossible' flicks and "Jack Reacher."
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Director Mathew Cullen's "London Fields' was delayed for more than three years before finally being released this past Friday. Cullen’s feature film debut had what The Playlist dubbed as one of the worst box office debuts in history, not to mention its 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes -- suffice to say, you don't want to be Mathew Cullen right now. Not just that, he is also contractually obligated to do press for the film. And so, with all being said, do you blame him for admitting that, yeah, the bad reviews are well-deserved? Yep, in a new interview, Cullen not only agrees with that 0% RT score, but he also says that he should be the scapegoat for the film’s failure.
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Earlier today, IFC announced that Lars von Trier's "The House That Jack Built" will be getting a special release later this year. Two versions of the film will be screened — the “director’s cut” that was shown at Cannes and the “R-rated cut” that is supposed to be 'tamer,' at least by Lars von Trier standards. Both will be available on VOD and in select theaters. However, what most people are talking about today is not the IFC release announcement but rather a promotional campaign that had film journalists being robocalled at random by a creepy voice. This was most definitely a prank call and the victims are none too pleased about it, describing it as “creepy,” “aggressive,” “terrible,” and “twisted.”
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The BBC polled 209 film critics across 43 countries, and came up with the 100 greatest achievements in foreign-language film. Sitting at the top of the list was Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai.” Kurosawa has two movies in the top five, “Rashomon” being the other.
BBC.com, which organized the poll, has the full list of 100 movies. But here is their top 10, in order.
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From the book Story Of Science Fiction, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron discuss the ending of War Of The Worlds.
In the book he tells Cameron that he "never could figure out how to end that darn thing," referring to the abrupt finale. He outright said, "The film doesn't have a good ending."
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The questions remains as to exactly what kind of film Quentin Tarantino is making with the upcoming "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood." The film will either be a) an absurdist revisionist genre film like 'Inglourious' and 'Django' or it'll be b) A film grounded in the dark, realist violence of "Reservoir Dogs," "Jackie" and "Pulp Fiction." Something tells me it's the latter. QT has even mentioned that '‘Once Upon A Time’ is “probably the closest to ‘Pulp Fiction’ that I have done.”
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Another day, another “Batman” rumor which always seems to contradict the last report. And it’s the same kind of back and forth pendulum-swinging story. Gossip and hearsay have swirled for months on whether or not Ben Affleck will be staying on as Batman in the DCEU.
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Sasha Stone's Best Actor analysis over at Awards Daily— “On Heroes, Failed Heroes, Anti-Heroes,“ summarizes where we are at right now in terms of the pretenders and contenders:
“This year, at least right now, it looks like we’re putting a failed hero (A Star Is Born‘s Bradley Cooper) up against a straight-up hero (Green Book‘s Viggo Mortensen) and an anti-hero (Vice‘s Dick Cheney).
Sigourney Weaver was asked by THR about Roman Polanski, whom she's worked with in the past, on the 1994 film “Death and the Maiden.” When asked about how it was working with Polanski, Weaver immediately voiced support for the director:
“I have to say, looking back, and I wasn’t really in Hollywood [at the time of the Polanski crimes], but things that I would hear, it was a much different time and that’s no excuse for what he did at all but all I’m saying is it stands out more now than it did at the time because people were desperate to be in movies and I think it’s unimaginable now for a mother to drop off a thirteen-year-old with someone like Roman,” she explained.
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'Guardians' Michael Rooker didn't mince words when it came to defending fired director James Gunn (via Comicbook.com). “It’s terrible, isn’t it? Yeah, but oh well, guess what? He’s on a gig already. ‘Suicide Squad,’ that’s right. He’s writing it and directing it as well,” Rooker said at Walker Stalker Con in Atlanta.
It's good to hear some kind of confirmation that, indeed, Gunn is directing 'Suicide Squad 2.' Up to this point the DCEU and WB were, and are still, only confirming that Gunn is writing the screenplay with the 'possibility' of him directing the picture as well.
Before I tackle the Best Picture Oscar race, here are a few important takeaways when it comes to this weekend's box-office totals:
The slasher genre has most definitely been reignited with "Halloween." David Gordon Green's sequel to the 1978 classic topped the box-office yet again, in its second week of action, with a strong $32M weekend. That puts its 2-week total at a whopping $132M. Watch out for a major bump this week as it seems to be the only Halloween-centered movie currently in theaters and many will want a fright night at the cinema on the 31st.
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I haven't watched The Simpsons since, oh gosh I don't know, Season 11, I think? It's now entered its 25th season, but, goddammit if that stretch they had between 1990-2000 wasn't one of the finest in TV history, right up there with "Seinfeld," "The Sopranos," and "Breaking Bad."
Read moreThe downside of the merger has begun. AT&T is the owner of WarnerMedia, Turner andWarner Bros. Digital Networks, and they've decided to shut down Filmstruck because it isn't a cash cow. I've been a subscriber since late last year and absolutely fell in love with the site, a partnership with Criterion, which has hundreds upon hundreds of hard-to-find classic films. Filmstruck will be axed on November 29th. Variety is reporting that AT&T “is looking to eliminate peripheral projects that aren’t major producers of revenue.” Fuck 'em.
We all thought a Boba Fett movie was happening, with James Mangold directing, but, with all the chaos happening today in Kathleen Kennedy's Star Wars world, consider us not surprised that it has been reportedly scrapped. Kennedy confirmed the news as she was attending a special screening of “Black Panther” (source: Erick Weber on Twitter).
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Ha, Cannes head Thierry Fremaux says that arch nemesis the Venice Film Festival are obsessed with American movies [via Screen Daily].
“I don’t understand this obsession with American movies. My friend [Venice director Alberto] Barbera didn’t have Kore-Eda’s film, nor Korean, Egyptian or Lebanese movies in Competition. I think a festival must show the cinema of the whole world,” explained Fremaux.”
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Is “The Exorcist” truly the greatest horror film ever made, or has time crowned a new champion of fear? Maybe it’s “The Shining,” ‘Texas Chainsaw,’ “Psycho,” or something entirely unexpected that still keeps you up at night.