20 articles
‘Game of Thrones’ Casts ‘UnREAL’ Star Freddie Stroma for Season 6
13 hours ago | Variety - TV News | See recent Variety - TV News news »
“Game of Thrones” has added Freddie Stroma, star of Lifetime’s “UnREAL,” for season six, Variety has confirmed.
Stroma will play Dickon Tarly, brother of Samwell (John Bradley), in the HBO series’ upcoming season. We’re expected to meet the rest of Sam’s family, including his father, the ruthless Randyll Tarly, in the new season.
In addition to his breakout role as Adam Cromwell on the Lifetime drama — which has already been renewed for a second season — Stroma is best known for playing Cormac McLaggen in the “Harry Potter” franchise.
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- Laura Prudom
‘The Transporter Refueled’ Revs Up $365,000 at Thursday Night Box Office
13 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
“The Transporter Refueled” revved up a modest $365,000 at the Thursday night previews on 2,200 screens. The action thriller is expected to make between $8 and $9 million over the four-day Labor Day weekend. In the fourth film in the “Transporter” franchise, newcomer Ed Skrein takes over for Jason Statham as a European deliveryman with highly specialized action-hero skills. The film also stars Ray Stevenson, Yuri Kolokolnikov and Loan Chabanol. Also Read: Newbie 2-Punch vs. 'Compton': Can 'Transporter' Reboot, Redford Drama Break N.W.A Biopic's Streak? The $22 million production is the first wide release from Relativity EuropaCorp Distribution, a joint venture between the French company. »
- Beatrice Verhoeven
Can ‘Black Mass’ Get Johnny Depp Back in the Awards Game?
14 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Venice — A decade ago, Johnny Depp appeared to be fast closing in on his first best actor Oscar. After having acquired a reputation through the 1990s as one of Hollywood’s most singularly creative leading men — giving award-caliber performances in the likes of “Ed Wood” and “Donnie Brasco” — his first nomination was a belated one. He was 40 in 2003: It was a testament to how much respect Depp had earned during his formative years that the Academy finally welcomed him to the club for his flamboyant gonzo turn in “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” It was, needless to say, the polar opposite of an Oscar-chasing vehicle. You don’t get nominated for a jokey Disney summer blockbusters unless your peers really, really like you.
He lost to Sean Penn, of course, but it was a close-run thing; Depp had pulled off an upset win at the Screen Actors Guild awards, »
- Guy Lodge
Venice Reviews: Is Tom Hardy Bad or Brilliant As Twin Mobsters in 'Legend'?
15 hours ago | Thompson on Hollywood | See recent Thompson on Hollywood news »
Despite his intermittently superb turn as identical twins Ronald and Reggie Kray, larger-than-life gangsters who rose to infamy in 1960s London, Tom Hardy can't save writer/director Brian Helgeland's "Legend" from its unwieldy, strangely glossy construction. Critics are split on the actor's dual portrait, but most agree that the underlying problem is the clash between the overcooked direction and half-baked script. Helgeland ("L.A. Confidential," "Mystic River") plays up the Swinging Sixties vibe—the Kray brothers rubbed shoulders with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland via their West End nightclub—but the comic-book aesthetic struggles to bridge the divide between Reggie, the straight tough, and Ronnie, a psychotic, violent gay playboy. The film's narrator, Reggie's wife, Frances (Emily Browning), offers a side door into the story, but this is, as Variety critic Guy Lodge notes, a "compromised" strategy: "Legend" employs »
- Matt Brennan
How Captain America’s Stuffed Cast Caused a Marvel Civil War
14 hours ago | Vulture | See recent Vulture news »
As Marvel continues its quest to stuff everyone who's ever so much as glanced at a SAG card into next year's Captain America: Civil War — except Mark Ruffalo, sorry, Mark Ruffalo — THR reports that the film's growing cast was the impetus for a behind-the-scenes rift that culminated in a corporate reshuffling last month that put Marvel Studios under the aegis of Disney, rather than Marvel's own executive board. The move was supposedly to get Marvel studios head Kevin Feige out from under the hands of "famously frugal" Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter, who had attempted to slow down Civil War's ever-increasing budget. This is perhaps bad news for anyone who thought Marvel films were already too jam-packed with cross-promotional character appearances — but it's great news for the McU's middle class of actors, who, under Perlmutter, were held to cheap contracts that didn't pay them any merchandising royalties. »
- Nate Jones
Vaca Films, Atresmedia Cine Develop Next Dani de la Torre Title (Exclusive)
34 minutes ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Spain’s Vaca Films, and Atresmedia Cine, producers of Venice Days’ opener “Retribution” (El Desconocido) from director Dani de la Torre, are developing his potential followup picture, a true-event inspired thriller.
De la Torre is reteaming with “Retribution” writer Alberto Marini on the yet-to-be titled project’s screenplay, a character-driven thriller, with the aim of shooting in 2016, producer Emma Lustres told Variety.
The Spanish director’s second feature would very possibly be made in international co-production. Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Retribution” in Spain.
De la Torre’s project marks the latest cooperation between Vaca, whose credits include some of the country’s biggest hits of recent years such as Daniel Monzon’s “Cell 211” and “El Nino,” and Miguel Angel Vivas’ “Extinction,” with Matthew Fox and Jason Donovan.
The film arm of broadcast group Atresmedia, Atresmedia Cine has backed Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” Clive Owen-starrer “Intruders” and 2015 Goya winner “Marshland. »
- John Hopewell
Latido Adds Ripstein, Recha to Slate (Exclusive)
46 minutes ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Positioning itself as one of the main vendors of Latino cinemas in general and Mexican and Spanish cinema in particular, Madrid-based Latido Films has acquired world sales rights to Arturo Ripstein’s “La calle de la amargura” (Bleak Street), which plays out of competition at the Venice Festival.
Latido has also swooped in on Marc Recha’s “A Perfect Day to Fly,” which world premieres in competition at the San Sebastian film fest.
Ripstein, one of the world’s most resilient auteurs, will be honored at the Venice festival with a Biennale Award to celebrate his career.
“Bleak Street” re-creates a real-life crime that occurred in 2009, when two prostitutes accidentally killed two wrestlers on the Mini Estrella circuit. Shot in black and white, “Bleak Street” is a “heartrending crime story, written with stark tenderness by Alicia Paz Garciadiego,” said Antonio Saura, Latido Films CEO.
“A beautiful fable,” Saura said, “Perfect Day »
- John Hopewell
Kristen Stewart-Nicholas Hoult Drama ‘Equals’ Clinches Major Sales (Exclusive)
46 minutes ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
“Equals” has run up key major territory sales before it world premieres in competition Sept. 5 at the Venice Film Festival. Pic is being sold by Mister Smith Entertainment, and is directed by Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Drake Doremus (“Like Crazy”) and stars Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult.
Stewart and Hoult will be attendance for the pic’s bow Sept. 5 in what will be one of the Lido’s highest-wattage bows.
Produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free and New York’s Route One Films, “Equals” has closed U.K. with Icon Film Distribution, Svensk Filmindustri in Scandinavia, Selective Films/Orange in France and Italy’s Adler Entertainment. Lucky Red will handle distribution for Adler. Brought onto the international market at 2014’s Cannes, the forbidden love story was reported to have racked up 35 territory deals off a first flurry of pre-sales.
Set in a futuristic utopia where emotions have been eradicated, »
- John Hopewell
Telluride Film Review: ‘Room’
58 minutes ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
The cramped 11-by-11-foot interior of a sealed, sound-proof garden shed isn’t the only thing keeping a boy and his mother prisoner in “Room,” a suspenseful and heartrending drama that finds perhaps the most extreme possible metaphor for how time, regret and the end of childhood can make unknowing captives of us all. It’s a testament to the story’s underlying integrity that, even when deprived of some of the elements that made Emma Donoghue’s 2010 book so gripping, director Lenny Abrahamson’s inevitably telescoped but beautifully handled adaptation retains considerable emotional impact as it morphs from a taut survival thriller into a hauntingly conflicted drama of loss, mourning and gradual reawakening. With enough critical favor (especially for Brie Larson’s superb lead performance), plus a savvy marketing campaign that emphasizes the story’s killer hook, A24 might just have the call-your-mom-sobbing-afterward movie of 2015 on its hands.
It »
- Justin Chang
Meryl Streep Intros 'Suffragette' at Telluride
1 hour ago | Thompson on Hollywood | See recent Thompson on Hollywood news »
Opening night at Telluride featured dueling world premieres as A24's "Room" and Focus Features' "Suffragette" were programmed opposite each other. Meryl Streep and Rooney Mara ("Carol") both attended the first showings of documentary "He Named Me Malala" (review here) and "Suffragette," in which Streep delivers a brief but potent cameo as wealthy Emmeline Parkhurst, who led scores of turn-of-the-century British women to fight for the right to vote. "We have been ridiculed and ignored," Parkhurst cries. "Deeds and sacrifice must be the order of the day." Carey Mulligan carries this movie as ably as she did "Far from the Madding Crowd." She plays Maud, a 24-year-old workhorse laundry drudge who is drawn into the suffragette cause by a co-worker (the excellent Anne-Marie Duff) and local pharmacist (Helena Bonham Carter). The harshness of Maud's daily work life (her shoulder is scarred from past burns), »
- Anne Thompson
New ‘Empire’ Teaser Reveals Terrence Howard’s Lucious Behind Bars (Video)
1 hour ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
A new teaser for the upcoming season of Fox’s “Empire” gives a glimpse of Terrence Howard‘s life behind bars as series patriarch Lucious Lyon. “It’s crazy how I can love you and hate you at the same moment,” Howard’s Lucious tells Taraji P. Henson‘s Cookie as she visits him in jail toward the video’s end. “I call it torture,”she tells him. The news season of “Empire” premieres Sept. 23 on Fox at 9 p.m. Watch the video here. »
- Daniel Holloway
Doctor Doom to Sailor Moon: Best of Day One at DragonCon 2015
1 hour ago | Hitfix | See recent Hitfix news »
Every a year for Labor Day weekend Atlanta, Ga is invaded by geeks of every flavor. From horror and steampunk to superheroes and video games, DragonCon has something for everyone. And the best part? When you send up a flare for every fandom, the cosplayers come out in droves. Unlike the “big box” conventions like Sdcc and Nycc that take place in a single building, DragonCo is spread out over a complex of hotels interconnected with skyways. With a larger layout and byzantine labyrinth of hallways to break up the crowds, it’s easier for cosplayers to go crazy with bulky or highly accessorized ideas! And it’s definitely easier for photographers to get wide group shots! After the jump, check out the nearly three dozen stunning and intricate costumes we caught on the show floor during the first full day of DragonCon 2015! »
- Donna Dickens
Review: Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay are remarkable in moving new drama 'Room'
1 hour ago | Hitfix | See recent Hitfix news »
Telluride, Co – “Room” is not a movie about the horrors of abduction (although it is). “Room” is not a movie that wants to focus on the tabloid sensationalism of such abductions (although that aspect is used for a specific purpose). Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room” is simply a movie about mother and son trying to adapt to the outside world after years of forced captivity. And the surprise is how succinctly it captures this drastic life change from the perspective of five-year-old. When we first meet Jack (an impressive Jack Tremblay), he’s celebrating his birthday in Room. Room is a 10 feet by 10 feet living space that has everything Jack thinks he needs. There’s wardrobe (where he hides during Old Nick’s nightly visits), sink, TV, chair one, chair two, door (which only Old Nick can open) and, most importantly, skylight, his window into space. Jack has spent his entire life in Room. »
- Gregory Ellwood
Telluride Film Review: ‘Heart of a Dog’
2 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
Dogs have clearly become an avant-gardist’s best friend. First Jean-Luc Godard delivered a funny 3D valentine to a pooch named Roxy Mieville in “Goodbye to Language,” and now the New York-based musician/performance artist Laurie Anderson has woven a tide of personal stories, insights and visual-musical riffs into a more accessible but no less singular consideration of the species in “Heart of a Dog.” While this alternately goofy, serious, lyrical and beguiling cine-essay serves primarily as a loving tribute to the memory of Anderson’s rat terrier, Lolabelle, its roving, free-associative structure brings together all manner of richly eccentric musings on the evasions of memory, the limitations of language and storytelling, the strangeness of life in a post-9/11 surveillance state, and the difficulty and necessity of coming to terms with death.
Wielding a darkly playful sense of humor that cuts through any poetic preciosity, Anderson’s unexpected but entirely »
- Justin Chang
Venice Review: Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult Make Love in a Dystopian Future in 'Equals'
3 hours ago | Thompson on Hollywood | See recent Thompson on Hollywood news »
Drake Doremus is clearly turned on by untenable attraction, whether it’s the long-distance relationship (“Like Crazy”), the adulterous (“Breathe In”) and, now, love in a dystopian future where people aren’t allowed to feel any emotion at all. And there you have a key problem with “Equals” – it feels as though the director is stretching for his theme. We’ve had so many science fiction films in which society is controlled in one fascist way or another, whether “Logan’s Run," where people are killed when they reach 30, “Gattaca” (eugenics) or “Divergent” (extreme stereotyping), to name but three, that the premise of “Equals” feels terribly old hat. That said, it’s one of the most beautifully designed films I’ve seen in ages, with a very effective romantic pairing. After the granddaddy of all wars, it’s been decided that the only way to avoid another one is to »
- Demetrios Matheou
‘He Named Me Malala’ Telluride Review: Film About Teen Pakistani Activist Draws Tears and Applause
3 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
On a day when everybody was talking about the documentary that didn’t screen at the Telluride Film Festival, Sydney Pollack’s blocked-by-injunction Aretha Franklin film “Amazing Grace,” the festival unveiled another non-fiction film in the “secret screening” slot to kick off the 42nd Telluride. Davis Guggenheim‘s “He Named Me Malala,” about the teenage Pakistani girl whose activism on behalf of female education and human rights won her the Nobel Peace Prize but also made her a target of the Taliban, seemed at first like a strange choice to open the festival. But it moved the Telluride audience to tears and applause, »
- Sasha Stone
Sony, NFL Brace for Headaches Over Will Smith’s ‘Concussion’
4 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
As Sony Pictures kicks off its publicity campaign for the Will Smith football drama “Concussion,” the National Football League is preparing its offense. “We are encouraged by the ongoing focus on the critical issue of player health and safety. We have no higher priority,” Jeff Miller, NFL Senior Vice President of Health and Safety Policy, said in a statement to TheWrap. The league is bracing for more mainstream attention on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (Cte), a sports-related injury caused by repeated head trauma that has afflicted scores of former pro football players. Also Read: Will Smith Tackles NFL Neurological Injuries in »
- Matt Donnelly
Malala Yousafzai Beams into Telluride After World Premiere of 'He Named Me Malala' (Video)
4 hours ago | Thompson on Hollywood | See recent Thompson on Hollywood news »
Davis Guggenheim, who joined Al Gore in his fight against global warming with the Oscar-winning "An Inconvenient Truth" and championed education with "Waiting for Superman," is now taking social action documentaries to a new level with "He Named Me Malala." The movie is a father-daughter documentary that jumps between teenager Malala, who celebrates her 16th birthday in Birmingham, England in the film--something the Taliban in her Pakistan village sought to prevent when they shot the 11-year-old in the head, rendering her comatose until doctors brought her back to consciousness--and the story of a shared outspoken activism about education for all, especially women. Her father Ziaauddin Yousafzai attended Telluride and participated in a press conference with Guggenheim moderated by Ken Burns, who eventually connected via live stream to Malala in Birmingham. See video below. Producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald acquired the rights to Malala's »
- Anne Thompson
Telluride Offers Surprises as ‘Malala’ Kicks Off Fest
5 hours ago | Variety - Film News | See recent Variety - Film News news »
The Telluride Festival got off to a buzzy start Friday, with a screening of the documentary “He Named Me Malala,” the unexpected yanking of the Aretha Franklin docu and, for a nice theatrical touch, a vivid double rainbow over the town.
Fox Searchlight execs were accepting congrats for “Malala,” which received a vote of confidence when fest toppers placed it in the high-profile “surprise” slot, an afternoon screening for fest patrons, press and industry that marks the unofficial start of the four-day fest.
There were audible sniffles at the end of the film, which seems a definite awards contender. However, the road won’t be easy: There’s plenty of competition in a great year for documentaries, and Searchlight’s bigger challenge is getting voters to see the film. Many people may feel that they already know the tale of Malala Yousafzai, her recovery from Taliban bullets to the head, »
- Tim Gray
TBS Cancels ‘King of the Nerds’ After 3 Seasons
5 hours ago | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »
TBS has canceled the reality competition series “King of the Nerds” after three seasons. Host Curtis Armstrong announced the news on Twitter on Friday. “Dearest nerds! Deeply sorry to announce that @KingofNerdsTBS will not be returning for a 4th season. Hard to find words now,” Armstrong wrote, accompanying the tweet with the hashtag #nerdsrule. Hosted by Armstrong and his “Revenge of the Nerds” co-host Robert Carradine, the series put a group of self-proclaimed nerds to the test, challenging their intellect, ingenuity, skills and pop culture prowess. Also read: Samantha Bee Reveals TBS Show Name - And Her '10-Pound Lady »
- Reid Nakamura
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