Movie News

The Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences met Friday morning to discuss the consequences for actor Will Smith following his slap of presenter Chris Rock during the 94th Oscars telecast, and voted to ban Smith from all Academy events including the Oscars for 10 years.

Smith, who resigned from the Academy last week, replied soon after in a statement, saying “I accept and respect the Academy’s decision.”

Here is the Academy’s statement:

“The 94th Oscars were meant to be a celebration of the many individuals in our community who did incredible work this past year; however, those moments were overshadowed by the unacceptable and harmful behavior we saw Mr. Smith exhibit on stage.

During our telecast, we did not adequately address the situation in the room. For this, we are sorry. This was an opportunity for us to set an example for our guests,

The pre-summer semi-blockbuster season is well underway, with the past two weekends being the first time in 2022 we have had two 30+ million (or even two 20+ million) openings in a row. This weekend will keep the streak going and up the stakes as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 races into 4,232 theaters and is set to become one of the year’s top openers yet. Add to that next weekend’s release of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which begins its international rollout this weekend, and it is clear we are in the midst of the strongest slate of films since last October.

The new Sonic comes just over two years after the original Sonic the Hedgehog opened to 58 million in February 2020. Its 149 million domestic and 320 million worldwide finishes were pretty solid for the 85 million budgeted franchise starter, especially when you consider that the breakout of the Covid-19 pandemic cut its run short.

Updated on April 8, 2022 at 9:26 p.m. Et to reflect the Season 6 renewal of CBS’ “S.W.A.T.”

April showers give way to May flowers, and April meetings among broadcast-television executives often give way to May renewals and cancellations of existing series. With so many shows currently sans such a decision, we’ll get plenty cancellation/renewal news this month as well.

IndieWire is a bit early to the game this year, but there’s already been a few broadcast TV shows scrapped. Among them, however, were some preplanned decisions like the ending of NBC’s “This Is Us,” CBS’ “Bull” and ABC’s “Black-ish.” But then there is ABC’s “Promised Land,” which followed two Latinx families vying for wealth and power in California’s Sonoma Valley. “Promised Land” performed so unpromisingly that it was banished to the predominantly Disney-owned Hulu (Comcast’s NBCUniversal still owns 33 percent of the SVOD service

From Dirk Diggler to a deacon, Mark Wahlberg has played it all.

The “Boogie Nights” star most recently transformed into a Catholic priest for the new film “Father Stu,” out April 13. Wahlberg also produced the film based on the true story of a boxer turned priest.

“The Fighter” star told Entertainment Tonight that “Father Stu” is a turning point in his career.

“I feel like this is starting a new chapter for me in that, now, doing things like this [with] real substance can help people,” Wahlberg said. “I definitely want to focus on making more. I wouldn’t say necessarily just faith-based content but things that will help people.”

He added, “Hopefully this movie will open a door for not only myself but for lots of other people in Hollywood to make more meaningful content.”

Wahlberg has called “Father Stu” a “dream role” that chose him to do “God’s good” work.

Twenty-four years ago, director Michael Bay had yet to dream up the high-speed car chases in “Ambulance,” but was instead focused on a team of deep-core oil drillers who were tasked with saving the world from an asteroid the size of Texas.

Perennial action hero Bruce Willis headlined the 1998 space movie, playing Harry S. Stamper, leader of the rough-and-tumble crew of newbie astronauts. It may be hard to imagine now, but “Armageddon” was only Bay’s third feature, so landing Willis was a major coup, particularly since the director had been inspired by the action star’s movies (especially 1988’s “Die Hard”) since early in his career.

In a recent interview, Bay reflected on Willis legacy and told Variety what makes the actor — whose family announced last month that he will be stepping back from acting — so iconic.

“Bruce, he’s a movie star,” Bay said simply. “He can command the screen.

If anyone deserves to be called a Hollywood legend, it's Jack Lemmon. John Uhler Lemmon III was born on February 8, 1925, in Newton, Massachusetts, to Irish Catholic parents. During World War II, Lemmon served as an ensign on the Naval aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain — it was only after the war ended and he graduated from Harvard in 1947 that his acting career began.

Lemmon's first feature film role was an uncredited appearance in 1949's "The Lady Takes a Sailor." In 1954, he landed a part opposite Judy Halliday in "It Should Happen to You," and the rest is cinematic history. The Massachusetts son is...

The post The 20 Greatest Jack Lemmon Roles, Ranked appeared first on /Film.

Jessica Alba is headed to Netflix with a series based on New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger's novel, "Confessions on the 7:45." Alba will star and Charise Castro Smith will act as showrunner and writer of the "Confessions on the 7:45" adaptation.

"The 7:45" refers to the train in the book's Hitchcockian plot. According to Variety, "Confessions on the 7:45" is "described as a psychological thriller about a working mom (Alba) who meets a stranger on a train as she is commuting home who upends her life."

Alba had her breakthrough role in the Fox series, "Dark Angel," before crossing over into movies like "Sin City" and...

The post Jessica Alba To Star in Netflix Series Confessions on the 7:45 appeared first on /Film.

It was as important to creator and executive producer Soo Hugh to think about what “Pachinko” wasn’t as what it is. The series is a story that spans several generations of Korean immigrants, centered around matriarch Sunja, played variously by Yu-na Jeon, Minha Kim, and Youn Yuh-jung at different points in time. As she discusses in this episode of the Filmmaker’s Toolkit podcast, Hugh could imagine how 99 percent of the world would create an adaptation of the novel, and wanted to lean into the 1 percent difference. Working with directors Kogonada and Justin Chon, Hugh developed a sense of style and tone that avoided the glossy, removed, traditionally epic look of a Masterpiece Theater piece and instead chased ways of storytelling from framing and composition to the rhythm and pauses in the edit that felt as in-the-moment as the characters’ emotions are to them.

Listen to the full episode below,

When you write about the movie industry for a living, you quickly come to realize there's just as much drama going on behind the scenes as there is on screen. It's why I welcome the reminders that there are, in fact, those in Hollywood who are not only courteous in the way they treat their co-workers, but are more than willing to help them out for selfless reasons (the same way people in any other line of work do).

Take, for example, Robin Williams, who starred in Steven Spielberg's "Peter Pan" sequel "Hook" in 1991. He...

The post Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman Played a Key Role In Casting Jurassic Park appeared first on /Film.

Michelle Pfeiffer will never work with Emmy-winning writer, producer, and showrunner David E. Kelley. Why? Because it’s best for their real-life marriage.

“Big Little Lies” writer Kelley has frequently collaborated with Nicole Kidman on “Nine Perfect Strangers” and “The Undoing.” The mega producer also is behind Netflix’s “Anatomy of a Scandal” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” series, plus the upcoming HBO Max limited series “Love and Death.”

“Nobody writes, honestly, better for women than he does,” Pfeiffer said during “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” April 7. “It’s unbelievable. And yet, I value our relationship more than a good part.”

The “First Lady” star has been married to Kelley since 1993 after their blind date at a bowling alley. But their shared passion for filmmaking is a double-edged sword.

“I just think it’s too risky,” Pfeiffer continued. “We’re both kind of fierce when we work, so if I

Seventeen years after the release of Academy Award–winning “Brokeback Mountain,” star Jake Gyllenhaal is revisiting its neo-Western legacy.

Gyllenhaal played cowboy Jack Twist, who starts a secret, decades-long affair with ranchhand Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), despite them both having wives at home, portrayed by Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams.

In a new video interview with Vanity Fair, Gyllenhaal looked back on the legacy of “Brokeback Mountain” almost two decades after its 2005 release.

“The relationship between me and Heath while we were making this movie was something that was based on a profound love for a lot of people that we knew and were raised by in our lives, a deep respect for their love and their relationship,” Gyllenhaal said.

The “Ambulance” actor added, “There were many jokes being made about the movie, or poking fun at, things like that. And [Ledger’s] consummate devotion to how serious and important the

(Superhero Bits is a collection of stories, updates, and videos about anything and everything inspired by the comics of Marvel, DC, and more. For comic book movies, TV shows, merchandise, events, and whatever catches our eye, this is the place to find anything that falls through the cracks.)

In this edition of Superhero Bits:

"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" was originally supposed to arrive today.

Stephen Amell would maybe return to the Arrowverse.

"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" sold a lot of tickets already.

The Ezra Miller situation gets even more complicated.

All that and...

The post Superhero Bits: Mr. Knight Arrives At Avengers Campus, Rare Captain America Comic Sells For A Fortune & More appeared first on /Film.

For Bat-fans introduced to Gotham City via "Batman: The Animated Series," Mark Hamill will always be the No. 1 Joker. He strikes the essential balance of zany and scary — often within the same scene. Sometimes his Joker is content to just poison the fish of Gotham Harbor with laughing gas; other times he's torturing Robin, then brainwashing the broken Boy Wonder into becoming his sidekick.

The only thing predictable about the Joker is that Hamill will give an excellent performance whenever he voices the villain. No Joker is complete without a trademark laugh, and Hamill's is downright bloodcurdling no matter the register it arrives at. The...

The post The Inspiration Behind Mark Hamill's Signature Joker Voice appeared first on /Film.

Michael Bay's film "Ambulance," in theaters today, is about a pair of brother bank robbers (Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who have to hijack the eponymous vehicle after their heist goes awry. With a comatose cop slowly bleeding out in the back, and the city's best paramedic (Eiza González) looking for a way to escape, the ambulance races throughout Los Angeles trying to shake the police escort on their tail. The Abdul-Mateen character is the level-headed one, looking for a practical way out of a situation clearly out of his hands, González is the moral center encouraging her captors to give up, and Gyllenhaal...

The post Jake Gyllenhaal Came Up With The 'Sailing' Duet in Ambulance appeared first on /Film.

Comic book movies generate billions of dollars at the box office, not to mention the amount of money they end up producing in terms of merchandising and other ancillary revenue after the fact. That might lead one to believe that the creators of the characters that go on to inspire these movies are wealthy. In many cases, they are not, and the live-action debut of America Chavez in the upcoming "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" helps to illustrate why, as the creators of the character have not received any money for it, and they have only been offered...

The post Marvel Has Paid America Chavez Co-Creator 'Nothing' for Her Appearance in Doctor Strange 2 appeared first on /Film.

Post-slap, Will Smith has been banned from attending the Oscars ceremony along with other Academy events for 10 years. The Academy’s Board of Governors met April 8, to finalize their response to Smith’s physical attack on presenter Chris Rock on stage during the March 25 awards show.

Smith previously tendered his resignation from the Academy. Speculation swirled that his Best Actor Oscar could be rescinded or he might be declared ineligible for future nomination, but here’s why both of those outcomes were unlikely.

The sole precedent for overturning a win came in 1969, when feature documentary “The Young Americans” was found to be ineligible due to its release date. In that case, runner-up “Journey Into Self” received the statuette and the original one was returned.

There is a more significant precedent for barring someone from nomination in an otherwise eligible film, but it was an ugly chapter of Academy history that,

Good Deed Entertainment has not only provided us an exclusive extended clip from the forthcoming documentary "Alaskan Nets," but they've also let us have a short Q&a with the moving documentary's executive producer Chris Pratt of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Jurassic World" fame. Yes, that Chris Pratt. The superstar spent much of his youth in Alaska and recognized the story's importance, and it's always wonderful when someone of his caliber puts his weight behind a project with a social impact like this one. 

The winner of the Audience Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, "Alaskan Nets" hails from director Jeff Harasimowicz and tells the story...

The post Chris Pratt Talks Alaskan Nets Documentary; Watch A New Clip [Exclusive] appeared first on /Film.

"All of Us Are Dead" operates on all cylinders as a deeply-moving examination of humanity. While the explosive — and sometimes nauseating — violence and gore are entertaining, the characters are what keep you invested in the story. The show, which was co-directed by Lee Jae-kyoo and Kim Nam-su, is based on a popular Webtoon comic and centers around a group of Hyosan High students. It's a raw and honest glimpse into a post-apocalyptic world that contains grounded, complex performances and examines the lengths that human beings will go to survive.

Along the way, the characters make poor decisions that add richer...

The post The Worst Decision Every All Of Us Are Dead Main Character Has Made appeared first on /Film.

Hulu miniseries "The Dropout" has come to an end. The show served as a dramatic retelling of the rise and fall of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes (played by Amanda Seyfried) as she schemed her way to fame and fortune with imaginary medical tech and a bad Steve Jobs cosplay. The finale, "Lizzy," pivots between the events leading up to the Theranos lab shutdown and the aftermath thereof, with bits of Elizabeth's deposition spliced in. It can be a little confusing for viewers to follow, especially if they had no prior knowledge of the real-life events the miniseries is based on.

Much of the episode focuses...

The post The Dropout Ending Explained: The Jig Is Up appeared first on /Film.

Zack Snyder's space-set epic is rounding out its cast: "Rebel Moon" has added Cary Elwes, Corey Stoll, Michiel Huisman, and Alfonso Herrera to its growing ensemble, per The Hollywood Reporter.

The "Justice League" director's project is reportedly a massive one for Netflix, with the filmmaker telling BroBible last fall that he wants "Rebel Moon" to be made "on a scale that is, frankly, as big as you can make a movie." The film's plot follows a young woman who goes on a search for warrior allies across planets when an army led by a tyrannical ruler threatens her home colony. The lead character will be...

The post Cary Elwes and Corey Stoll Board Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon appeared first on /Film.