Movie News

Here’s another signpost on the film industry’s road back to normal: The summer blockbuster season is back to kicking off with a huge Marvel movie on the first weekend of May with “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” And just like the last film to feature Doctor Strange, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” this MCU entry arrives with the sky-high expectations one would expect from a pre-pandemic blockbuster. Projections currently have “Doctor Strange 2” earning a weekend of at least 160 million, with some analysts and rival distributors expecting a figure closer to 200 million. Disney, as usual, is dampening expectations, projecting that the film will top the 134 million launch of “The Batman” to become the top opening of 2022 and the second highest since theaters reopened behind “No Way Home.” Such expectations are a far cry from the comparatively modest 85 million opening that the first “Doctor Strange” earned back in November 2016. Naturally,

Ariana DeBose is heading back to the Tony Awards, this time as host.

The Academy Award winner will take to the stage at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 12, to host the show on CBS (it’s also streaming live on Paramount+).

“I’m coming home! I’m so honored to celebrate 75 years of excellence in theater, but more importantly every member of this community who poured themselves into making sure the lights of Broadway have the opportunity to shine brightly once again! This is a dream come true, and I’m excited to see you all on June 12,” DeBose said in a statement.

DeBose recently won the Oscar for her performance as Anita in Steven Spielberg’s remake of the classic musical “West Side Story.” She was nominated for a Tony in 2018 for playing mid-career Disco Donna in “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical.” She was also in the

Meg Ryan is returning to her romantic comedy roots and will star and direct a film called “What Happens Later” that will co-star David Duchovny.

“What Happens Later” is described as an evolved and nostalgic take on the rom-com. Bleecker Street has acquired the U.S. rights to the film and is planning a 2023 theatrical release. HanWay Films has also come aboard the film to handle international sales and distribution, and will kick off sales at Cannes this month.

Production on the film will begin later this year in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Here’s the logline and full synopsis: “What if late one snowy night you came face to face with someone from your long ago? Someone who once held your secrets, because once, long ago, that person held your heart.

Ex-lovers Willa (Ryan) and Bill (Duchovny) are reunited for the first time since their split decades prior when they both find themselves snowed in,

Paramount+ and Showtime topped a combined 62 million subscribers at the end of the first quarter, Paramount Global revealed along with its earnings report Tuesday. From that Q1 total, 6.8 million are Paramount+ sub additions, bringing that streamer’s solo tally to almost 40 million customers.

Paramount’s total streaming base is up 6.3 million from the 56 million subscribers that the company reported it had by the end of 2021. In that fourth quarter, 80 of Paramount’s new streaming subs — or 7.3 million — were strictly Paramount+ additions.

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Global Screen has acquired the animated family feature film “The Last Whale Singer” for global distribution, and will launch pre-sales at the Cannes Film Market. The movie is an epic and emotional family entertainment adventure written and directed by Reza Memari, creator of hit movie “Richard the Stork.”

The film’s characters are based on designs by Uwe Heidschötter, best known for films such as Academy Award nominated and BAFTA Award winning “Revolting Rhymes,” the Academy Award nominated and Golden Globe winning “Missing Link,” and the Annie Award nominated “Zog.” The film is produced by Maite Woköck (“My Fairy Troublemaker”) at Telescope Animation.

Memari, co-ceo at Telescope Animation, said: “This is the story of a young humpback whale who, after the sudden loss of his parents, is confronted with a seemingly impossible task: to discover the song that will save the oceans from destruction. It’s a story about radical

The group encompasses UK agencies The Artists Partnership, Sayle Screen, Sara Putt Associates, The Development Partnership and Be Heard Voices.

London-based talent agency Own It! is the latest company to join The Partnership Group.

The Partnership Group formed in June 2021, and encompasses UK agencies The Artists Partnership, Sayle Screen, Sara Putt Associates as well as production arm The Development Partnership and voice agency Be Heard Voices.

Own It! was created by founders Crystal Mahey-Morgan and Jason Morgan as a way to address a lack of representation for minority groups within the arts and creative industries. It started as a publisher,

For a certain subset of younger readers, bestselling author Sarah Dessen’s books — mostly sweet teen romances about nice kids working out their problems and falling in love in the process, typically set in and around Dessen’s adopted home state of North Carolina — are must-reads. For nearly three decades, Dessen has been churning out her novels to, if not always strong acclaim, at least good sales and a dedicated fanbase.

And yet, until Netflix picked up options for a trio of Dessen’s books back in 2019, the author’s back catalog of inoffensive charmers scarcely got the movie treatment. Back in 2003, two of her books were turned into the Mandy Moore vehicle “How to Deal,” but it’s taken almost two decades for Dessen to get another crack at the screen. Netflix, which has given new life to the exact kind of fare Dessen writes — from the darling to

Head of production Andrew Reid warned that the production boom in Northern Ireland is a bubble and “eventually all bubbles burst”.

Northern Irish freelance crew have been urged by Northern Ireland Screen’s Andrew Reid to lower their rates amid fears the “bubble will burst”.

In an email seen by Screen’s sister publication Broadcast, head of production Reid wrote to freelancers to inform them that the industry body has received reports that crew members have been asking for rates of pay that “far exceed even the direst inflationary predictions” and suggested that they consider what is “coming down the

If we're going to talk about "Star Trek" and the Prime Directive, we need to talk about rats.

According to an article published by Columbia University, Norway rats were first introduced to the American continent in 1776 when Hessian soldiers -- and the rats -- arrived on ships to fight the American colonists. Rats, being hearty, quickly spread across the continent, thanks to their ability to reproduce quickly, their large size when compared to native rodentia, and their aggressive behavior. They also eat a lot, consuming two-thirds of their body weight in grain daily. The Norway rat has long been considered a destructive...

The post General Order One: The Prime Directive in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Explained appeared first on /Film.

After the end of World War III, humanity will be left scattered and destitute. Colonel Phillip Green will lead a freelance army of eco-terrorists, controlled by drugs, to the slaughter of 37 million people. Nuclear bombs will be dropped, and much of the planet's surface will be seared by radiation. All the governments will have fallen, and torturous kangaroo courts will take the place of truth and justice. People will move into small enclaves throughout the world, modestly enjoying their limited resources and waiting for a proper economic system to restart. 

In the middle of this terror, Earth will also experience its greatest day. On April 5, 2063,...

The post First Contact in the Star Trek Universe Explained appeared first on /Film.

UK-based Independent Entertainment will launch sales in Cannes.

Felicity Jones, Jonathan Bailey and Jason Isaacs have signed to star in Simon Amstell’s Maria, which UK-based Independent Entertainment will introduce to international buyers at Cannes this month.

Filming will take place in the UK and US this autumn.

The comedy is produced by UK outfit Emu Films and is about a young woman who hits it off with her new stepbrother on her father’s wedding day but then discovers her father is terminally ill.

Amstell made his debut feature Carnage in 2017, followed by Benjamin which premiered at the BFI

Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release in North America for late 2022.

German sales powerhouse Beta Cinema has announced multiple deals on its Second World War drama The Forger, which will be screening in the Cannes Marché following its Berlinale premiere last February.

The film has sold to North America (Kino Lorber), Australia and New Zealand (Palace Films), China (Huanxi Media Group), Hong Kong (Edko), Taiwan (Moviecloud), Spain (Vercine), Former Yugoslavia (Discovery) and Scandinavia (Future Film).

Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release for late 2022, followed by a digital rollout on all platforms including Kino Now.

The Forger is written and directed by Maggie Peren,

A former mk2 films sales executive has been brought in to scout for international co-production opportunities.

Nord-Ouest Films, the French production house behind the cult classic Irreversible and more recent Berlinale title The Passengers Of The Night, has hired former mk2 films sales executive Ola Byszuk as a producer to expand its international footprint.

In her new role, Byszuk will focus on forging links with international talent and producers outside of France.

At mk2 films, Byszuk was responsible for Asia and sealed a number of deals that resulted in some of the biggest box office successes for French-language films in the region in recent years,

Film grossed over 20m on release in Japan.

UK-based Sc Films International has acquired international sales rights to Japanese animation Poupelle Of Chimney Town, based on Akihiro Nishino’s picture book.

The film grossed over 21m on release in Japan last year; Sc Films will launch sales at Cannes, on both the Japanese and English audio versions.

Poupelle is the story of a chimney sweep who befriends a man made of garbage; the young chimney sweep yearns to know the truths his father always told him about.

It is directed by Yusuke Hirota, and produced by Yusuke Kitahashi for Yoshimoto Kogyo Co.

Malkovich and Ardant previously appeared on the big screen together in the 2015 period drama Casanova Variations.

France tv distribution has released a first image of John Malkovich and Fanny Ardant in Gilles Legardinier’s comedy-drama Mr. Blake At Your Service! as it gears up to launch sales on the title at Cannes later this month.

The film is adapted from Legardinier’s best-selling French novel Complètement Cramé! and sees Malkovich stars as a recently widowed British businessman who takes a job as a butler in a manor house in northern France, in a bid to get closer to the memory of his late French wife.

French director Alain Ughetto’s explores grandparents’s journey as Italian immigrants settling in France at the turn of the 20th-Century.

Paris-based company Indie Sales has signed world sales rights for French filmmaker Alain Ughetto’s animated feature No Dogs Or Italians Allowed ahead of its world premiere in competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival (June 13-18).

The stop-motion animation explores the real-life story of Ughetto’s grandparents who left their homeland in the Piedmont region of Italy to settle in France at the turn of 20th century, changing the destiny of his family forever.

French actress Ariane Ascaride

Progress Film, the historic distributor established in 1950 to handle the release of films produced by communist East Germany’s state-owned film studio, has announced plans to relaunch theatrical distribution and international sales.

The company has also acquired Sergei Loznitsa’s “The Natural History of Destruction,” which will have its world premiere as a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Progress is handling world sales as well as distribution in Germany, where it’s planning a theatrical release.

Based on WWII archive footage, “The Natural History of Destruction” puts forward the questions: Is it morally acceptable to use civilian populations as a means of war, and is it possible to justify mass destruction for the sake of higher “moral” ideals? Those questions remain as relevant today as they were 80 years ago, becoming ever more urgent amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

Progress Film was founded in East Berlin in

Titles include ’Aftersun’, ’Enys Men’, ‘Birchanger Green’ and ‘A Gaza Weekend’.

Cannes premieres Aftersun, sold by Charades, and Enys Men, sold by Protagonist Pictures, are among the titles selected for year’s Great 8, the annual Cannes buyers’ showcase of UK films from emerging directors.

The other six titles are all in post-production.

Now in its fifth edition, the 2022 Great 8 showcase is funded and run by the BFI and the British Council, in partnership with BBC Film and Film4.

Unseen footage from all of the titles will be introduced by their filmmakers and screened on May 12 exclusively to buyers and festival programmers during the online-only showcase,

I'll admit, I had a bad feeling about this episode right when the first-look images dropped, featuring a glaring absence of the Master Chief, Dr. Halsey, or anyone else that the overarching storyline of "Halo" has focused on up to this point. Those concerns only increased as early as the "Previously on 'Halo'" segment, which took us all the way back to the opening minutes of the premiere to remind us of the situation taking place on the planet of Madrigal in the aftermath of the Covenant invasion. Though we've ever-so-briefly checked in on the subjugated inhabitants of Madrigal and their...

The post Halo Episode 7 Puts The Master Chief On The Backburner For A Detour Into The Desert appeared first on /Film.

Minnelli brings the razzle dazzle to a Berlin determined to ignore the gathering storm in this cinematic masterpiece

‘Still think you can control them?” Dizzied by their divinely decadent menage à trois in Weimar Berlin, cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), shy scholar Brian Roberts (Michael York) and suave aristocrat Baron von Heune (Helmut Griem) linger in a beer garden to watch a creepy blond boy singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me with the entire crowd ecstatically joining in – a satanically catchy and authentic-sounding Nazi marching song, brilliantly pastiched by Cabaret’s writer and composer, John Kander and Fred Ebb. It is a sensational moment in this addictive movie, based on the stage show Cabaret and Christopher Isherwood’s original stories about prewar Berlin, uniquely choreographed and directed by Bob Fosse and rereleased now for its 50th anniversary.

Maybe its views on gender fluidity and consent are confrontationally tactless in 2022 compared