Movie News

Radha Blank is a failed playwright who turns to rapping in The Forty-Year-Old Version, out October 9th on Netflix.

Shot in black-and-white 35mm, the trailer opens with Radha, formerly one of Spotlight Magazine‘s “30 under 30 Playwrights to Watch,” teaching a playwrighting class in New York City. “Remember, if you put in nothing, it will be nothing,” she tells her students, to which one retorts, “Like your career?”

As she approaches 40, Radha has several hilarious encounters with white men who question her failed career and inquire what happened to her. She

Disney is just about ready to release its live-action reimagining of “Mulan” — just not in U.S. theaters. The studio is taking a bold risk putting the film on its streaming service for subscribers to purchase, but its previous success with shifting the musical phenomenon “Hamilton” to Disney+ from theaters paints a roadmap for “Mulan,” and gives the entertainment company a test case if it chooses to continue releasing films on streaming without a run through theaters. The media giant has been clear that it sees “Mulan” as just an experiment, but the move represents a massive shift in thought on the entertainment giant’s content distribution strategy. The studio has shown a willingness to pull some of its smaller family films from theaters, moving “Artemis Fowl” and “The One and Only Ivan” to Disney+ earlier this year. But last month’s release of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway hit “Hamilton

Samuel Goldwyn Films has bought North American rights to “Cowboys,” which won best actor for Steve Zahn and best script for Anna Kerrigan at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival competition.

Zahn stars as a troubled but well-intentioned father who has recently separated from his wife Sally, played by Jillian Bell. Aghast at Sally’s refusal to let their trans son, played by newcomer Sasha Knight, live as his authentic self, he runs off with the son into the Montana wilderness. They are pursued by Ann Dowd’s detective character, whose resolve is tested as she learns more about the family.

“Sasha Knight gives an outstanding premiere performance in ‘Cowboys,” said president Peter Goldwyn. “As a parent, this film took on a whole new level for me.”

This year’s physical Tribeca Film Festival, originally scheduled for April 15–26, was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Zahn and Kerrigan received their

Russell Crowe’s road-rage drama “Unhinged” expanded to 380 sites and increased its take by 31% to collect £178,821 at the top of the U.K. and Ireland box office, according to final figures released by Comscore.

The Altitude Film Distribution title has now taken £962,191 in four weeks of release.

Disney’s “Onward” was in second position with £142,108 from 369 locations, a leap of 54%, for a total of £6,226,845.

In third place, Warner Bros.’ 10th anniversary rerelease of Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” declined 43% to £117,415, from 441 sites, for a two-week total of £432,449.

In its fourth week and in fourth place, Vertigo U.K.’s “100% Wolf” grew 25% to £105,518 from 380 locations, for a total of £498,737.

In fifth place, another Vertigo title, Matteo Garrone’s “Pinocchio,” starring Roberto Benigni, slid 9% in its second week, taking £99,277 from 456 sites, for a total of £324,179.

The biggest climb in the top 10 was Universal’s “Jurassic Park” rerelease that rose 133% to reach £67,626 from 239 locations in 7th place.

Remember El Camino, aka El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie? There was a lot of buzz when rumors about the film started popping up, but then it came and went and seemed to not make much of an impression. Which is weird, because not only did it bring us back to the world of the still-popular Breaking Bad, […]

The post ‘Breaking Bad’ Movie ‘El Camino’ Headed to Blu-ray, With Plenty of Special Features appeared first on /Film.

When Quentin Dupieux’s “Mandibles,” a buddy comedy about two bumbling dolts and a giant CGI bug, premieres out of competition at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 5, the screening could mark a mainstream breakout moment for the idiosyncratic director, and reaffirm French genre filmmaking as a market draw.

Beginning with 2010’s “Rubber,” Dupieux’s absurdist, genre-tinged features have launched out of sidebars in Venice and Cannes, and have played the main slates in Sundance and Toronto; his last film, “Deerskin,” opened the Directors’ Fortnight last year. But his off-kilter style, marked by pitch-black humor and surreal shifts, has thus far limited his commercial footprint, keeping him a cult act both at home and on the international stage.

In France, the filmmaker has burnished and expanded his reputation by touring smaller, regional genre festivals with each new work, returning often to niche events in Sitges, Neuchâtel and Strasbourg. Those events,

Starlight Media, the Hollywood-focused Chinese film financier behind “Crazy Rich Asians,” is to go further in its promotion of filmmaking diversity. It has unveiled details of a $100 million film and talent development fund.

The company’s Stars Collective initiative will support aspiring female and Bipoc filmmakers and creative storytellers. The fund is to be headed by Starlight’s creative executive Jennifer Zhang Juefang.

Stars Collective will support 30-50 emerging filmmakers with a fund of at least $50 million, which may be scaled up to $100 million depending on applications. Of that total, some $5-10 million will be used for development, with the balance earmarked for pre-production and physical production.

Stars Collective will also seek out filmmakers based on their existing work in the marketplace and at film festivals. Invited filmmakers will be asked to submit original properties intended to be produced as feature films.

“Never has there been a better moment to

London’s Leicester Square, a bustling area best known for its glitzy film premieres, was eerily quiet on Wednesday morning. Flashy billboards for Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” lit up the adjacent Odeon and Cineworld venues, but audience members were in short supply.

Cineworld claimed one of the earliest London showings of the film with a 10 a.m. 2D screening, followed by an 11 a.m. IMAX appointment. In pre-pandemic times, you might have expected a decent turnout for the earliest screening, but a Cineworld manager told Variety only four tickets were sold in the 80-seat venue — a low figure, even if some of those seats would have been blocked out due to Covid-19 measures.

Mario Coral was one of those ticketholders. The early start was simply the most convenient time for his schedule, but he admits that, traditionally, you’d see these screenings fill up when other, more popular times, sell out.

David weighs the risk and reward to see Tenent in theater while Jeff raves about #Slashtag, the hashtag used to recommend movies to the whole gang. For the feature of the week, David, Devindra, and Jeff are joined by Roxana Hadadi to review Boys State. See what this winner of Sundance Documentary Grand Jury, directed and produced by Jesse […]

The post /Filmcast Ep. 581 – Boys State (Guest: Roxana Hadadi) appeared first on /Film.

Gang Dong-won (Peninsula) and Bae Doona (Cloud Atlas) are also starring in the film, produced by Zip Cinema and Cj Entertainment.

Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda is set to direct his first Korean film, Baby, Box, Broker, with a trio of Korean stars – Song Kang-ho (Parasite), Gang Dong-won (Peninsula) and Bae Doona (Cloud Atlas).

Korean production house Zip Cinema (#Alive) is producing and Cj Entertainment (Parasite) is backing and distributing the film, which they say Kore-eda first conceived about five years ago and has since been working on the original script with local production staff.

The story is about people who

Who is responsible for Commissioner Gordon‘s death in the Gotham Knights video game? Which recording artist recently cosplayed in a photoshoot as Barb Wire? How does a new Daredevil comic rewrite the superhero’s history? Will Supergirl be referenced in Zack Snyder’s Justice League? Want to see a fanmade trailer for an Agents of Shield spin-off […]

The post Superhero Bits: Fanmade ‘Quake’ Spin-Off Trailer, ‘Gotham Knights’ Theory, ‘Daredevil’ History Changes & More appeared first on /Film.

It’s been 7 years since Breaking Bad aired its series finale, bringing to a close one of the most critically acclaimed drama series of the past few decades. But creator Vince Gilligan gave fans one last ride with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) last October in the Netflix film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. And now those fans can look forward to a limited edition Blu-ray release of the film absolutely stuffed with special features and packaged in a handsome steelbook case. El Camino serves as an extended epilogue to the series, following Jesse immediately after the events …

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Blake Lively, Richard Gere and Diane Keaton are attached to star in the romantic comedy “The Making Of,” with Endeavor Content handling sales at the upcoming Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz are producing through their Bedford Falls Company banner with production planned for the spring. The duo is also writing the script, which revolves around a pair of married filmmakers (played by Gere and Keaton) casting actors (portrayed by Lively and Miranda) to play the younger versions of themselves — while their own marriage is falling apart.

The Toronto festival will open its 45th edition on Sept. 10 with a mixture of physical events and virtual screenings, and will showcase many movies in drive-ins as a way to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Zwick and Herskovitz have collaborated on the features “Traffic,” “Legends of the Fall,” “About Last Night” and “The Last Samurai” and the television

The struggles of an undocumented immigrant who is also a trans woman in the Brighton Beach area of New York are given a subtle, delicate and ultimately powerful treatment in “Lingua Franca,” by filmmaker Isabel Sandoval.

Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing will virtually debut the film in select theaters and on Netflix Aug. 26.

Sandoval, who’s currently in North Carolina writing her next feature, made history last year when she became the first trans woman with a film in the Venice Film Festival.

She said although it was “nerve-wracking” being chosen by one of the most important A-list festivals in the world, it was also a vindication, “because I got pushback from investors.

The Venice selection was a true validation [of] my vision as a storyteller.”

Sandoval wrote, directed and starred in the film as Olivia, an undocumented trans woman working as a live-in caregiver to Olga (Lynn Cohen), who suffers from dementia.

Independent distributor WellGo USA has secured North American distribution rights for action-packed sci-fi comedy “Max Cloud.” The company plans to give it a digital on-demand release in December. A theatrical release remains a possibility, but will be determined by the state of the coronavirus-strained exhibition sector.

Rights are handled by U.K.-based Fae Film & Television, which announced the sale at the virtual edition of Hong Kong’s FilMart. The company says that while many international rights have been sold to Spi International, a handful of territories remain available, including Japan, Australia, Germany, the U.K. and China.

The film, which delves into a retro gaming era, is directed by Martin Owen (“Twist”). It stars martial artist Scott Adkins alongside John Hannah, Lashana Lynch and Tommy Flanagan.

The story involves a teenage girl who finds herself trapped in an intergalactic prison home to dangerous villains. To escape the terrifying planet,

“Star Trek: Discovery” is being beamed into CBS’ fall broadcast lineup. The sci-fi series, which is currently only available on the CBS All Access streaming service, will air its full first season on CBS starting September 24.

CBS, which unveiled a revised fall broadcast lineup Wednesday, billed the impending rollout of “Star Trek: Discovery” Season 1 as a promotional run to lead into the show’s third season, which will launch October 15 exclusively on CBS All Access. Network executives followed a similar maneuver when “Star Trek: Discovery” first premiered: airing the pilot episode on CBS as a way to funnel prospective viewers to the company’s new streaming service.

This decision is likely motivated by other needs. The news that “Star Trek: Discovery” will run on broadcast is likely part of CBS’ efforts to fill a broadcast lineup that has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, which halted production on numerous shows

What do you feel like doing the remaining days of summer? "Staying inside doing whatever I can on my TV because the global pandemic prevents me from going anywhere else?" Yep, me too. Lucky for us, Activision has made sure our summer's twilight won't go down without a firefight. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Warzone are getting two fantastic updates soon: Season Five Reloaded and Games of Summer. Season Five Reloaded begins on August 24 at 11pm Pst. In this new update, Modern Warfare players will get a new weapon available, the FiNN Lmg, …

Many actors get the honor of playing at least one iconic character in their career, but Keanu Reeves has gotten to play three. Not only that, but Reeves will get to reprise all three of those characters in highly anticipated upcoming sequels. In the press tour for the first upcoming sequel, Bill and Ted Face the Music, […]

The post Who Would Win in a Fight Between John Wick and Neo? Keanu Reeves Knows the Answer appeared first on /Film.

Lionsgate has extended the contract of longtime chief executive officer Jon Feltheimer three months, now expiring on Aug. 21, 2023, with options to push it into 2024 or 2025.

Feltheimer has been CEO of the entertainment conglomerate since 2000, teaming with vice chairman Michael Burns during the subsequent two decades. He will turn 69 in September.

His contract was previously set to expire on May 22, 2023. It can now be extended to either Aug. 21, 2024 or Aug. 21, 2025. The company made the disclosure Wednesday in an 8-k filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It said the board’s compensation committee approved a new employment agreement on Aug. 21 for Feltheimer, replacing the agreement from 2013, which was amended in 2016.

Feltheimer’s new deal will pay him at the same compensation level. Lionsgate disclosed in a proxy filing last month that Feltheimer’s compensation for the fiscal year that ended March 31 had increased from $6.6 million to $11.07 million, due to a $6.3 million bonus.

On the August 26, 2020 episode of /Film Daily, /Film editor-in-chief Peter Sciretta is joined by /Film senior writer Ben Pearson and writer Hoai-Tran Bui to talk about the latest film and tv news, including Justice League, AppleTV+, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Lord of the Rings, nutty Professor, Powerpuff Girls, and Tenet. In The News: Ben: […]

The post Daily Podcast: Justice League, AppleTV+, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Lord of the Rings, Nutty Professor, Powerpuff Girls, and Tenet appeared first on /Film.