On Friday, L.A. influencers were drooling all over social media after having seen Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II.” Yesterday, I mentioned how, internally, I’d been hearing more mixed takes from critics.

Gizmodo, a reliably popular tech site, has kind of buried the lede in their Holland/Nolan casing story. They got word from a reliable source that Christopher Nolan’s next film is a vampire movie set in the 1920s.

Empire City is now reporting that Warners will actually be releasing Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2” in only 30 theaters, and not the previously reported 50. The rollout seems to be getting smaller by the day.

Tom Holland has been cast in Christopher Nolan’s next film, which is still untitled and has a July 17, 2026 release date. This comes after Matt Damon had been previously announced as the lead of the film (via THR).

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Battle of Baktan Cross,” which is rumored to have a budget anywhere between $140M-$175M, wrapped its six-month shoot in early September. It is now very much in the editing stages. The film was given an August 8, 2025 release date, via Warner Bros.

Miramax recently landed the rights to “Roofman” which is set to be Cianfrance’s first film in over 8 years. It’s based on a wild true crime story that happens to take place in McDonald’s restaurants and, if you can believe it, Toy ‘r Us.

Deadline is hearing that Flanagan will be adapting another Stephen King novel; their next collaboration will be “Carrie,” this time done in 8-episode limited series format for Amazon.

The film was shot in black and white and was influenced by slapstick of the 1920s and 1930s. ‘Hundreds of Beavers’ stars Tews as an applejack maker in a conflict with beavers, trying to win the hand of a merchant's daughter.

Early reactions for Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II,” although they should be taken with a grain of salt, have raved the epic, but internally, I’ve been hearing more mixed takes from critics. We’ll see.

On Monday, chairman of Disney’s board of directors, James Gorman confirmed current CEO Bob Iger’s successor will be announced in “early 2026.” Nobody has a clue who it will be.

Danny Ramirez just spoke to Variety and told them, “The most recent update is ‘hopefully” the [film is happening],” which is a stark contrast to producer Christine Vachon claiming, a few months back, that the film was shelved — many trade sources had confirmed her statement.

This opens up the possibility for the ever-prolific Linklater to have TWO films premiering on the Croisette next year. Coincidentally, the last time Linklater was at Cannes, in 2006, he also premiered two films (“Fast Food Nation” and “A Scanner Darkly”).

These numbers are an improvement over previous tracking numbers which had the “Smile 2” opening at around $20M. No doubt word of mouth spread throughout the weekend, and numbers kept improving from Friday on. It’ll be interesting to see how it holds next weekend.

NEON’s exclusive six theater rollout of Palme d’Or winner, Sean Baker’s “Anora,” has turned into a major success. We’ll see how it does in the coming weeks, as it continues to expand nationwide, but these numbers are major.

In 2019, Roman Polanski premiered one of the best films of his career. He even won the Grand Jury prize at Venice for it. A few months later it was nominated for 12 French Cesar awards, and it later won Polanski the Best Director award. Yet the film still hasn’t been released in the US and UK.

Coming off his Golden Lion winning “The Room Next Door,” Pedro Almodóvar, who turned 75 in September, is already prepping his next film. It's titled "Bitter Christmas" and will be his return to Spanish Cinema.

It turns out that Haneke has retired from filmmaking, at least according to Isabelle Huppert who took part in a masterclass session at the Lumiere Film Festival alongside Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux.

Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” had its first screening at the Paramount Studios lot in Los Angeles, where critics, media and industry got a first look at the film.