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Exclusive: Manager and producer Doreen Wilcox Little has joined Echo Lake Entertainment after more than a decade at Anonymous Content.

A protégé of Steve Golin, Wilcox Little executive produced Killer Joe during her run at Anonymous, the thrilling drama directed by her late client Oscar winner William Friedkin, starring Matthew McConaughey. She was also an EP on Mapplethorpe, the biopic about the iconic photographer, directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ondi Timoner. Wilcox Little’s film credits include the adaptation of Mason Deaver’s YA novel, I Wish You All The Best, written and directed by her client Tommy Dorfman. Alongside the Oscar-winning producers at Macro, Wilcox Little is currently producing I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter for Orion Pictures. The film adaptation of the popular novel is being directed by Oscar-nominated actress America Ferrera this year.

Wilcox Little’s client roster includes notable actors such as Sophie Thatcher, known for her roles in Yellowjackets,...

Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin in 1841's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is the first fictional detective to appear in literature, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is hands down the most well-known detective in all of pop culture. 

Identifying himself as a "consulting" detective, Sherlock Holmes is intelligent beyond all reason, analytical to a fault, and emotionally distant due to his obsessions with logic. But when he's hot on the case in an investigation, his flair for the dramatics kicks in and he lives to show off his findings. Not because he wants to be the center of attention, but because he must let everyone know just how brilliant he is for cracking the case. He's also a morally questionable individual, who has no problems lying to law enforcement or committing petty crimes of his own if it means getting one step closer to solving the mystery.

CBS Studios is developing Broadmoor, a drama series intended for the UK/International premium and streaming market. The series, created by screenwriter/playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, is produced by Fulwell 73, which counts James Corden among its partners, in association with CBS Studios, where the company is based, and Miramax, in which ViacomCBS owns 49%.

Inspired by true events, Broadmoor is based on the famous British high-security psychiatric hospital, originally known as the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. It features overlapping stories about the staff, the visitors and, of course, the patients that included maniacs, stranglers, slashers and serial killers. Set against the backdrop of a crumbling 1970s-80s Britain on the edge of violent social change, the series follows a young woman who goes to Broadmoor believing that murderous behavior can be understood, treated, even tamed, only to find she has entered a warehouse for England’s fears, the locked attic where its...

Based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Searle, director Bill Condon's, "The Good Liar" is a smartly mounted and fabulously meshed tale of con and revenge, where the manipulation is apparent and yet intriguing and not a put-off.

If you have seen the trailer of this film, you'd be convinced that it is about con artists who are out to outshine each other. Instead, we get more: An offbeat tale packed with mystery.

Set in London 2009, the narrative begins with a well-to-do, recently widowed, septuagenarian Estelle, using an online dating service. She sets up a date with a chivalrous gentleman named Brian. They soon meet face to face for the first time at a local caf?.

During the meet, they open up to each other confessing that they have used false names since they were initially suspicious of each other. Brian, to gain Estelle's confidence, is...

Geffen Playhouse presents the world premiere adaptation of Key Largo, directed by Tony Award winner Doug Hughes Doubt, Farragut North and featuring Academy Award nominee Andy Garcia Mama Mia Here We Go Again, The Godfather Part III as Johnny Rocco. The Geffen Playhouse production is adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher and Andy Garcia, based on the play by Maxwell Anderson and the screenplay by Richard Brooks John Huston. Original music is composed by 10-time Grammy Award winner and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Arturo Sandoval.

Christian Bale and Matt Damon’s racing drama “Ford v Ferrari” is set to win the weekend box office by a long shot with an esimated $29 million from 3,528 domestic locations.

Elizabeth Banks’ “Charlie’s Angels” reboot could land in a distant second in its debut weekend with about $8.2 million, but the second frame of Roland Emmerich’s “Midway” may come out on top, with about $8.6 million.

“Ford v Ferrari,” which stars Bale and Damon as British driver Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby, respectively, took in nearly $11 million on Friday. Directed by James Mangold, the Fox film follows the pair as they attempt to build a car that can beat Ferrari at the behest of Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) in the 1960s. Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and Jason Keller wrote the script, and Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe, Josh Lucas, Noah Jupe, Remo Girone, and Ray McKinnon also star. Critics have favored the film,...

Sir Ian McKellen is 80 years old; Dame Helen Mirren is 74. Individually, these veteran thespians, each with decades of work on stage and screen under the belts, are capable of out-acting, outrunning and outgunning performers one third their age. This is not disputable. They can both go big, broad, and Full Metal Bard when needed, or be very subtle and nuanced. Whether these two are in big-budget blockbusters or quaint period-piece dramas, they are respectively dynamic as hell. Put them together, and theoretically it’s like pairing the immovable force with the irresistible object.

This time last year, 20th Century Fox was riding high as “Bohemian Rhapsody” was in the midst of a theatrical run that would finish with $903 million grossed worldwide and four Oscars. But as the now Disney-owned studio prepares to release the acclaimed “Ford v Ferrari” into theaters, their fortunes have completely soured.

In 2019, the studio has not released a single film with a domestic total of over $100 million, with the top-grossing film being January’s “Alita: Battle Angel” with $85 million domestic and $403 million worldwide. After Fox’s merger with Disney was completed in March, the studio released “Dark Phoenix,” a film that ended Fox’s “X-Men” series on a huge bomb with just $252 million grossed worldwide against a $200 million production budget and pushing Fox into an operational loss of $170 million in its first financial quarter under Disney.

Also Read: 'Ford v Ferrari' Film Review: Christian Bale and...

“The Good Liar” — starring Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen — may be a major studio picture, released by Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. But, in form, it is a slow simmering alchemy of Hitchcockian suspense, Sophoclean tragedy and the dramatic minimalism of a two-person play.

“I’ve gotten a chance to make bigger movies in my life, where you have armies of people on the set,” director Bill Condon told Variety at Wednesday night’s premiere at 787 at Seventh in New York City. “And for me, when you’re in the middle of those, you dream about having a clever script and a few great actors. This movie, specifically, is really a two-hander between these two legends.”

The story of lifelong conman Roy Courtnay who’s set his mark on Betty McLeish, a widow worth millions, “The Good Liar” pairs McKellen and Mirren in a delicate dance of deception, as...

The veteran pair duel hypnotically in a mystery thriller whose occasional silliness is masked by storytelling gusto

This mystery thriller is outrageous and irresistible, an old-fashioned drama with dashes of Patricia Highsmith, Patrick Hamilton, John le Carré and maybe Elizabeth Jane Howard’s memoir Slipstream. It features delicious performances by Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen – I don’t think McKellen has had such a juicy role since his turn in the 1998 drama Apt Pupil – and the film has such storytelling gusto that you’ll overlook bits of implausible silliness involving smartphone-type “handsets” with which large financial sums can supposedly be transferred from one bank account to another.

The director is Bill Condon, and it’s adapted by screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher from the bestselling 2016 novel by first-time author Nicholas Searle who caused a flurry of his own by announcing that he was “not allowed to say more about his career than...

Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) is a widow in her 70s who lives in a home full of tasteful pastel furniture in a calmly boring suburb of London. She’s sweet, pretty, pert, and polite, with glowing skin framed by an impeccable gray-white coif; if Doris Day had been a conventional middle-class Englishwoman, she might have looked and acted like this. The opening sequence of “The Good Liar” hops back and forth between Betty filling out the user questionnaire on a website called Distinctive Dating and the man she’s just met on the site doing the same thing. The tone is genial and spry, very senior-citizen “You’ve Got Mail,” and the film then cuts to Betty arriving at a posh London restaurant, where she and her date are meeting for dinner.

He walks in, looking like a hound dog in a trench coat, and sits down opposite her with his eyes a-twinkle.

“So little is what it seems to be,” the press notes for “The Good Liar” promise. And that’s true, in the sense that one might expect a great deal more from a project that brings together so much talent.

Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen get to act opposite each other for the first time ever, under the direction of estimable filmmaker Bill Condon (“Kinsey”). Together, this trio boasts eight Oscar nominations. In fact, Condon won an Academy Award for writing “Gods and Monsters,” which also earned McKellen a nod.

So what strange sleight of hand conspired to drain all the life out of their torpid crime drama?

Also Read: Helen Mirren at 2019 CinemaCon: 'I Love Netflix... but F-- Netflix'

Adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher (“Mr. Holmes”) from a novel by Nicholas Searle, “The Good Liar” really wants to be either a thriller or a caper. Unfortunately, it has neither the...

On their first night out together after meeting on a dating site for widowed septuagenarians (Ok Boomer?), Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellen) and Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren) take in a screening of “Inglourious Basterds” at a London cinema. It’s the summer of 2009, and neither of these characters knows what happens at the end of Quentin Tarantino’s revisionist World War II extravaganza. Leaving the theater, Roy scoffs at what they’ve just watched: “Young people will think that’s what actually happened.” Betty isn’t so sure — she argues that the modern world has done more to clarify history than it has to obscure it.

More than just a crafty bit of foreshadowing (the full mirth of which isn’t clear until almost two hours later), this early scene appears to set up a pleasantly middle-brow thriller about our power to alter the past. If Bill Condon’s “The Good Liar...

To celebrate the release of The Good Liar on 8th November, Warner Bros. is giving away a very special bundle of goodies, including a webcam sticker, a mirror phone grip, a colour-changing mug and a double-sided tote bag.

Consummate con man Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellen) has set his sights on his latest mark: the recently widowed Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren), worth millions. And Roy means to take it all.

From their very first meeting, Roy begins plying Betty with his tried and true manipulations, and Betty, who seems quite taken with him, is soon going along for the ride. But this time, what should have been a simple swindle escalates into a cat-and-mouse game with the ultimate stakes—revealing more insidious deceptions that will take them both through a minefield of danger, intrigue and betrayal.

Legendary actors Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen star together on screen for the first time,...

We’ve got the most intense second trailer for you to check out from the upcoming dramatic thriller The Good Liar. The film stars the great Helen Mirren (The Queen) and Ian McKellan (The Lord of the Rings) as a couple of mysterious and well-to-do people, playing what may turn out to be the greatest game of cat and mouse of their lives. The movie is directed by Bill Condon from a novel written by Nicholas Searle and adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher. Here’s the synopsis for the film:

“Career con artist Roy Courtnay (McKellen) can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Mirren) online. As Betty opens her home and life to him, Roy is surprised to find himself caring about her, turning what should be a cut-and-dry swindle into the most treacherous tightrope walk of his life.”

The film also stars Jim Carter (Downton...

Warner Bros. has launched the first trailer for the Bill Condon drama ‘The Good Liar’ featuring Sir Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren.

Bill Condon, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Gods and Monsters,” directed and produced the film from a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher (“Mr. Holmes”), based on the widely acclaimed novel by Nicholas Searle.

Russell Tovey (TV’s Quantico) and Jim Carter (TV’s Downton Abbey) also star alongside McKellen and Mirren.

Also in trailers – Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith are the modern day Bonnie and Clyde in trailer for ‘Queen and Slim’

The film is released in the UK November 8th.

The Good Liar Synopsis

Career con artist Roy Courtnay (McKellen) can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Mirren) online. As Betty opens her home and life to him, Roy is surprised to find himself caring about her, turning what should be a cut-and-dry swindle...

Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen's The Good Liar will release in India on November 29.

The film will be brought to India by Warner Bros. Pictures, read a statement.

Directed by Bill Condon, the film is based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Nicholas Searle. It tells the story of con artist Roy Courtnay (McKellen), who meets wealthy widow Betty McLeish (Mirren) on a dating website. The film shows the tension and drama that arise when things turn more intense than just a simple con job.

Condon helmed it from a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher.

The Good Liar also stars Russell Tovey and Jim Carter. Greg Yolen also served as producer alongside Condon. The Good Liar was filmed in London and Berlin.

Warner Bros. has released a brand new trailer for The Good Liar. This is the latest from director Bill Condon, who most recently helmed Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast. He was originally supposed to helm Universal's remake of Bride of Frankenstein. But when the Dark Universe fell apart in a hurry, he instead decided to tackle a more grounded thriller with two excellent leads in the form of Ian McKellen and Hellen Mirren. This looks right up his alley and like the rare kind of non-blockbuster movie in the modern marketplace that could actually prove to be a hit.

The trailer kicks off with a pretty great shot of Ian McKellen rocking a mustache and a million dollar grin. Once that's over with, we get to the heart of the matter, which has him meeting up with Helen Mirren for an online date. They hit it off...

Ian McKellan and Helen Mirren star for the first time together in The Good Liar, which released its first official trailer on Wednesday. The film is out November 15th.

The film, based on the popular and acclaimed novel by Nicholas Searle, tells the story of con artist Roy Courtnay (McKellen), who meets wealthy widow Betty McLeish (Mirren) on a dating website. What initially starts off as a cut-and-dry con job turns into something far more complicated: as Betty opens her home up to Roy, he must choose between his feelings...

Everyone knows Oscar voters love a dame. That’s Dame Helen Mirren to be precise, who stars alongside Sir Ian McKellen in the awards-friendly fall release “The Good Liar,” a tense romantic thriller from “Kinsey” director Bill Condon. The Oscar winner (Mirren) and two-time Oscar nominee (McKellen) play two people in a new courtship with deceptive underpinnings. Russell Tovey (“Looking”) and Jim Carter (“Downton Abbey”) round out a cast of heavy hitters that is sure to pique certain Oscar voters’ interest.

Per the official synopsis: “Career con artist Roy Courtnay (McKellen) can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Mirren) online. As Betty opens her home and life to him, Roy is surprised to find himself caring about her, turning what should be a cut-and-dry swindle into the most treacherous tightrope walk of his life.”

Condon reunites with McKellen for a fourth time since directing him in “Gods and Monsters,...

Helen Mirren laid down her thoughts on streaming platform Netflix during Warner Bros.’ presentation at 2019 CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

“I love Netflix… but f— Netflix,” Mirren said to promote her upcoming film “The Good Liar.” “There is nothing like sitting in the cinema, the lights go down, the incredible moment of excitement…”

Mirren continued to explain that watching a film in a communal environment like a theater is incomparable.

Also Read: Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren Drama 'The Good Liar' Dated for November 2019

Nato chief John Fithian assured movie theater execs in Las Vegas that streaming services like Netflix don’t have to be seen as a threat to their bottom line and that they can coexist.

While Fithian did not mention Netflix by name, he cited a 2017 Ernst & Young report that showed that moviegoers who frequently went to cinemas also spent more time on streaming services at home.

© 2019 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Photo Credit: Chiabella James

The New Line Cinema drama The Good Liar pairs Oscar winner Helen Mirren (“The Queen”) and two-time Oscar nominee Ian McKellen on the big screen for the first time.

Bill Condon, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Gods and Monsters” directed and produced from a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher (“Mr. Holmes”), based on the widely acclaimed book The Good Liar, by Nicholas Searle.

© 2019 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Photo Credit: Chiabella James

Career con artist Roy Courtnay (McKellen) can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Mirren) online. As Betty opens her home and life to him, Roy is surprised to find himself caring about her, turning what should be a cut-and-dry swindle into the most treacherous tightrope walk of his life.

The Good Liar also stars Russell Tovey (TV’s “Quantico”) and Jim Carter (TV’s “Downton Abbey”). Greg Yolen also served as producer,...

Warner Bros has set a November 15, 2019, release date for The Good Liar, director Bill Condon’s drama starring English screen vets Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren.

Scripted by Jeffrey Hatcher based on the novel by pseudonymous author Nicholas Searle, it focuses on Roy (McKellen), a veteran conman and born liar who meets wealthy widow Betty (Mirren) online and believes she’s an easy mark. Roy is sure he can pull off the final coup of his career, but as the narrative entwines Roy’s and Betty’s futures, it also delves deeply into their pasts, revealing nearly a century of secrets. Before Roy can close the deal, there is a reckoning to be made.

Russell Tovey, Jim Carter, Mark Lewis Jones and Laurie Davidson co-star.

The Good Liar will face off a year from now against Universal holiday rom-com Last Christmas, Fox’s untitled Kingsman threequel and Warners’ own Melissa McCarthy holiday comedy Margie Claus.

Warner Bros. has dated “The Good Liar,” a drama starring Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren, for on Nov. 15, 2019.

The film is arriving at the height of next year’s awards season.

Bill Condon directs the drama about career con artist Roy Courtnay (McKellen) in an adaptation of a novel by Nicholas Searle. Courtnay meets a wealthy widow named Betty (Mirren) online and moves into her home with the intent to swindle her. And though she’s an easy mark, he slowly comes to care for her. McKellen’s character in the book has been compared to Patricia Highsmith’s “The Incredible Mr. Ripley.”

Jeffrey Hatcher, who also wrote Condon’s “Mr. Holmes” starring McKellen as the aging detective, wrote the screenplay based on Searle’s book from 2015.

Also Read: Ian McKellen Searched for His 'Inner P-ssy' - to Prep for 'Cats' Movie Musical (Video)

Warner Bros. also announced that it...

Bill Condon directs drama which will also shoot in Berlin.

Principal photography has begun on New Line Cinema drama The Good Liar, starring Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen.

Bill Condon, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Gods And Monsters, is directing from a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher (Mr. Holmes) based on the book by Nicholas Searle.

The film follows a career con artist (McKellen) who meets a wealthy widow online (Mirren). Also in the cast are Russell Tovey and Jim Carter.

Director Condon is also producing alongside Greg Yolen. Executive producers are Jack Morrissey, Nick O’Hagan, Aaron L. Gilbert, and Jason Cloth.

New Line Cinema has confirmed that Russell Tovey and Jim Carter have joined the cast of Bill Condon’s “The Good Liar.” The drama, which is scheduled to start shooting later this month, stars Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren.

Based on the debut novel by British author Nicholas Searle, “The Good Liar” tells the story of a con artist (McKellen) who can hardly believe his luck when he meets a rich widow (Mirren) online. As she opens her home and life to him he is surprised to find himself caring about her.

Condon will direct from a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher, who previously worked with the director on his 2015 film “Mr. Holmes,” also starring McKellen. Condon will also produce with Greg Yolen.

Tovey, whose breakthrough came in the celebrated original West End stage production of “The History Boys” alongside Dominic Cooper and James Corden, has recently starred in ABC’s...

The name Jerry Springer isn’t one you’d likely connect with Off Broadway’s prestigious Lucille Lortel Awards, but there he is, or the opera named after him anyway, with 4 nominations.

The Off-Broadway League announced nominees for the 2018 Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway today. See the full list of nominees below.

This year’s awards ceremony, to be hosted by Laura Benanti and Jason Jones, who appear together on TBS’s The Detour, is set for Sunday, May 6, at the NYU Skirball Center. The evening will honor Tony-winning playwright and performer Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and longstanding Off-Broadway company Wp Theater for their Outstanding Body of Work.

Also this year, the Lortel Awards will posthumously elect composer Michael Friedman onto the Playwrights’ Sidewalk in front of the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Manhattan’s West Village. The 41-year-old Friedman, who won an...

X-Men’s Ian McKellen and Red’s Helen Mirren have been cast in Bill Condon’s adaptation of psychological thriller, The Good Liar.

The project, which is directed by Beauty and the Beast’s Condon from a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher (Mr Holmes), has been adapted from Nicholas Searle’s debut novel. The story focuses on the career of con artist Roy Courtnay (McKellen), who can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Mirren) online. As Betty opens her home and life to him, Roy is surprised to find himself caring for her, turning what should be a cut-and-dry swindle into the most treacherous tightrope walk of his life.

Also in the news – Denis Villeneuve reveals his plans to make Dune into two films

McKellen and Condon have also previously worked together before on pictures such as Beauty and the Beast, Gods and Monsters and Mr Holmes.

Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren have been cast in The Good Liar, a thriller set up at New Line Cinema to be adapted from Nicholas Searle's debut novel and directed by Bill Condon. The pic reunites McKellen and Condon from their collaborations on Gods and Monsters and Mr. Holmes. Jeffrey Hatcher wrote the script for Good Liar, about career con artist Roy Courtnay (McKellen), who can hardly believe his luck when he meets well-to-do widow Betty McLeish (Mirren) online. As…...

Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren are teaming up for The Good Liar, a thriller from New Line directed by Bill Condon. Mr. Holmes writer Jeffrey Hatcher penned the script based on a novel by Nicholas Searle. New Line acquired the rights to Searle’s book in 2015 after a bidding war. Searle is actually the pen-name of an anonymous author who used to work as a civil servant in the UK.

Exclusive: Kelly Carmichael, the former production exec at The Weinstein Company and Miramax and co-founder of indie film and TV production company 375 Pictures, has been hired as president of production and development at Jessica Chastain’s Freckle Films. In her new role she will oversee the New York-based production and development company’s original slate with a focus on nurturing and supporting female talent across all aspects of production.

Carmichael is right now overseeing production on Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s The Current War starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon and Untouchables starring Bryan Cranston. Both of those pics are at The Weinstein Company, which inked a first-look deal with her 375 Pictures last year. While at the Weinstein companies her exec producer credits included My Week With Marilyn and Rob Marshall’s Nine.

She most recently was head of production at Ivanhoe Pictures and there spearheaded the acquisition of Crazy Rich Asians...

Displaying a transparency that few filmmakers of his fame and / or caliber would even bother with, Steven Soderbergh has, for a couple of years, been keen on releasing lists of what he watched and read during the previous twelve months. If you’re at all interested in this sort of thing — and why not? what else are you even doing with your day? — the 2015 selection should be of strong interest, this being a time when he was fully enmeshed in the world of creating television.

He’s clearly observing the medium with a close eye, be it what’s on air or what his friends (specifically David Fincher and his stillborn projects) show him, and how that might relate to his apparent love of 48 Hours Mystery or approach to a comparatively light slate of cinematic assignments — specifically: it seems odd that the last time he watched Magic Mike Xxl, a...

Put on the kettle and make yourself a cuppa tea. The story of the world’s greatest detective, Mr. Holmes, has arrived on Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand.

Sir Ian McKellen joins Laura Linney in the mysterious and intriguing film from Lionsgate Home Entertainment and Miramax.

Based on Mitch Cullin’s novel “A Slight Trick of the Mind,” written for the screen by Jeffrey Hatcher (The Duchess), and directed by Academy Award winner Bill Condon (Best Adapted Screenplay, Gods and Monsters, 1998), Mr. Holmes finds a retired Sherlock returning to close the book on the one mystery he could never solve.

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2015 Sydney Film Festival and released theatrically in July by Miramax and Roadside Attractions, the film is Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh.

See the world’s most famous detective as you’ve never seen him before, portrayed by acting legend Ian McKellen,...

This one's a keeper, a film that generates a meaningful emotional charge. Ian McKellen and director Bill Condon re-team for an intensely felt portrait of Sherlock Holmes in his sunset years, holding on to his intellectual capacities as he reappraises a tragic case from years before. Laura Linney is his housekeeper, who fears Holmes is a bad influence on her son -- but the relationship is mutually beneficial. Mr. Holmes Blu-ray + Digital HD Lionsgate/Miramax 2015 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 94 min. / Street Date November 10, 2015 / 24.99 Starring Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker , Hiroyuki Sanada, Hattie Morahan, Patrick Kennedy, Roger Allam, Philip Davis, Frances de la Tour, Charles Maddox, Takako Akashi, Zak Shukor, John Sessions, Nicholas Rowe, Frances Barber, Colin Starkey, Sarah Crowden. Cinematography Tobias A. Schleisser Film Editor Virginia Katz Original Music Carter Burwell Written by Jeffrey Hatcher from a novel by Mitch Cullin from characters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Produced by Iain Canning,...

Huntington Theatre Company, the 2013 recipient of the Regional Theatre Tony Award and Boston magazine's Best Theatre of 2013 and 2014, presents the world premiere production of A Confederacy Of Dunces, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by John Kennedy Toole, directed by David Esbjornson Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and All My Sons and featuring Nick Offerman of NBC's 'Parks and Recreation.' Performances will run tonight, November 11, throughDecember 13, 2015 at the Huntington's mainstage, the Bu Theatre.

Stars: Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Hattie Morahan, Milo Parker, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hattie Morahan, Patrick Kennedy, Roger Allam, Philip Davis, Frances de la Tour, John Sessions | Written by Jeffrey Hatcher | Directed by Bill Condon

In 1947, the world famous sleuth has retired to a remote Sussex farmhouse, living in relative anonymity with only his housekeeper Mrs Munro and her young son Roger for company. Cantankerous, demanding and frustrated with the mis-representation of him in Watson’s best-selling novels, he diverts his attention to an unsolved case. As the mystery deepens, Sherlock tries desperately to recall the events of 30 years ago that ultimately led to his retirement.

I had high hopes for Mr. Holmes. After all, not only does the film star Ian McKellan in the central role but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character is, typically, guaranteed to provide some intriguing crime-solving action. Not so here.

Instead Conan Doyle’s iconic detective...

Sir Ian McKellen just accepted the Mill Valley Film Festival's Life Achievement Award, among others coming his way these days. He's been getting kudos for his role as "Mr. Holmes," which Miramax/Roadside Attractions has turned into a sleeper specialty summer hit ($17.7-million). This could mark his third Oscar nomination after James Whale in "Gods and Monsters" and Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." Reuniting with his "Gods and Monsters" director Bill Condon, McKellen plays a geriatric Holmes who is trying to hang on to shards of his memory of a pivotal case. The movie cuts back and forth between his writing down that earlier mystery and his daily life in the bucolic English countryside with a housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her engaging young son (Milo Parker). The movie is produced by Anne Carey, Iain Canning, and Emile Sherman from a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher...

The Huntington Theatre Company presents the world premiere production of A Confederacy of Dunces, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by John Kennedy Toole, directed by David Esbjornson Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and All My Sons and featuring Nick Offerman of NBC's Parks and Recreation. Performances begin November 11, 2015 and will run through December 13, 2015 at the Bu Theatre Avenue of the Arts.

It looks lovely and Ian McKellen is amazing, of course, but it’s not very Holmesian. I suspect Holmes himself would snort in derision at its sentimentality. I’m “biast” (pro): big fan of Sherlock Holmes and Ian McKellen

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

I have not read the source material

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

I love Sherlock Holmes in all his many incarnations, and when I heard that director Bill Condon was making a movie about an elderly Holmes played by Ian McKellan, I cheered. The two had previously collaborated on the wonderful Gods and Monsters — about the classic Frankenstein filmmaker James Whale in his later years — so this new film was bound to be great, wasn’t it? I was a tad sorry to learn that Mr. Holmes, though based on a novel, was not based on the fabulous Mary Russell...

Elegantly executed through sincere emotions, graceful maturity and tremendously striking performances, Mr. Holmes is a wonderful return-to-form for director Bill Condon. Following a series of disappointing efforts like the muddled The Fifth Estate and exasperating The Twilight Series: Breaking Dawn movies, the filmmaker channels what made him such a haunting force, further humanizing Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary fictional figure and quaintly extenuating his character's story with tons of heart, wit and poise. Based on Mitch Cullin's 2005 novel "A Slight Trick of the Mind", this iteration of Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) finds the notorious detective in 1947, 93-years-old and living under the exaggerated shadow created by his late partner Watson's pen. With a failing mind and continuously haunted by the one mystery he couldn't solve, the retired celebrity returns from Hiroshima, Japan to once again live under the care of his housekeeper Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney) and her young son...

Mr. Holmes

Written for the screen by Jeffrey Hatcher

Directed by Bill Condon

UK, 2015

Sherlock Holmes is a character so ingrained in our cultural imagination that it’s hard to think up any new spin on him. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle invented a character who became an archetype, even for procedural television, as the airwaves are still littered with brilliant assholes who owe their very existence to the original detective of 221B Baker Street.

Mr. Holmes, the latest depiction of Holmes, directed by Bill Condon and based on Mitch Cullin’s novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, manages to find new ground by emphasizing the character’s vulnerability and, thus, his humanity. Ian McKellen plays an aged Holmes past his mental prime, struggling against encroaching senility to remember the conclusion to his final mystery. The enigmatic case unfolds only as quickly as Holmes can remember it, which is to say,...

Lets add another entry to the long, long list of feature films concerning the fictional character that’s been in more movies than any other (perhaps this new one will put him past Dracula, or at least in a tie with the Count). Just who is it? To evoke the old cliché, it’s elementary, film fans, for it’s none other than “the world’s greatest detective”, Sherlock Holmes. Most recently director Guy Ritchie cast Robert Downey, Jr. in two big screen blockbusters set at the start of the 20th century (while Sherlock jumped to the modern-day for TV shows on CBS and the BBC). This new film is also set in the 20th century, but our sleuth is not the bare-chested, bare-knuckle brawler from the Ritchie flicks. No, this is set in the middle of said century, with our hero well, well past normal retirement age. Sir Ian McKellen,...

The game is afoot in Bill Condon’s Mr. Holmes, and it’s a game as tired and apocryphal as such a phrase being credited to Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle had no more control of the phrases and details his most famous creation would appropriate than he did the maddening popularity of the character. Like the great detective himself, any studied follower of the Holmes short stories and novels can separate the facts from the hearsay. Mr. Holmes has some fun as a mini-exegesis on what does and doesn’t belong in the Holmes canon, but makes for an otherwise humdrum addition to that canon on its own terms.

After two rounds with the teenage offspring of cinema’s most popular character, Condon’s interpretation of another silver screen regular has an intriguing setup. Adapted from Mitch Cullin’s “A Slight Trick of the Mind,” Mr. Holmes tells the...

Bill Condon chats to us about Sir Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Beauty & The Beast, and Mr Holmes...

We caught up with director Bill Condon recently to chat about his new film Mr Holmes, a fictional biopic of the famous Baker Street sleuth played by Sir Ian McKellen. Condon has a vast and wide-ranging career in the movies with titles like the outstanding Gods & Monsters and Kinsey sitting beside showstoppers like Dreamgirls and The Twilight Saga.

Despite suffering from a bout of hay fever (your author was suffering too, dear reader), Bill was warm and friendly, and we bonded over our mutual love for the Disney animated film Beauty And The Beast (which he is currently directing a live action remake of).

How did Mr Holmes come about? Was this a project that you were keen to do?

Actually, Anne Carey, the producer, came to me with the script, based on...

Director: Bill Condon; Screenwriter: Jeffrey Hatcher; Starring: Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Roger Allam, Frances de la Tour; Running time: 104 mins; Certificate: PG

Sherlock Holmes has never been more popular, what with Robert Downey Jr, Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller all putting their stamp on the character in a big-budget movie franchise and concurrent TV series respectively. With low-key drama Mr Holmes, director Bill Condon goes farther out into imagined realms, casting Ian McKellen as the Baker Street detective at 93, when that famous intellect is beginning to fail, leading him on a fascinating, quite poignant search of his own soul.

Mitch Cullin's source novel A Slight Trick of the Mind takes a mischievous leap by crediting the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the recently deceased Dr Watson. These books are an endless source of bemusement for Holmes who, in 1947, is retired and living in the Sussex countryside,...

Courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.

Love & Mercy

Written by Oren Moverman & Michael A. Lerner

Directed by Bill Pohlad

USA, 2015

Based on the life of The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Love & Mercy depicts the singer’s descent into mental illness at the peak of the band’s popularity in the 1960s, while in the 1980s a chance meeting with a car saleswoman promises to save him from the brink of destruction. Paul Dano, as the young Wilson, is endearingly awkward yet creatively brilliant, capable of creating harmonies that most wouldn’t dream of. While years later his forward-thinking vision would earn the 1966 album “Pet Sounds” a place in the pop music canon, at the time it caused major tension within the band. Twenty years later, Wilson, now played by John Cusack, is a neurotic, washed-up and over-medicated version of his former self thanks to a dangerous codependency on his...

Neil Armfield.s Holding the Man, Simon Stone.s The Daughter, Jeremy Sims. Last Cab to Darwin and Jen Peedom.s feature doc Sherpa will have their world premieres at the Sydney Film Festival.

The festival program unveiled today includes 33 world premieres (including 22 shorts) and 135 Australian premieres (with 18 shorts) among 251 titles from 68 countries.

Among the other premieres will be Daina Reid.s The Secret River, Ruby Entertainment's. ABC-tv miniseries starring Oliver Jackson Cohen and Sarah Snook, and three Oz docs, Marc Eberle.s The Cambodian Space Project — Not Easy Rock .n. Roll, Steve Thomas. Freedom Stories and Lisa Nicol.s Wide Open Sky.

Festival director Nashen Moodley boasted. this year.s event will be far larger than 2014's when 183 films from 47 countries were screened, including 15 world premieres. The expansion is possible in part due to the addition of two new screening venues in Newtown and Liverpool.

As previously announced, Brendan Cowell...

Though Batman may stand as the modern-day pretender to the crown, it is Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes who has held the title of the World’s Greatest Detective for the longest period, appearing in numerous works of fiction since his inception back in 1887. Throughout this sprawling history, many, many actors have donned the monocle and top hat as the British genius, and that mantle has been passed to none other than Ian McKellen for Bill Condon’s Mr. Holmes.

As a more mature, cantankerous rendition of the legendary sleuth, The Lord of the Rings star will play Sherlock Holmes when he is 93 years of age. Struggling to enjoy the remainder of his retirement, our protagonist soon sets out to right some wrongs left by his former parter-in-crime, John Watson, but it isn’t too long before the detective turns his attention to one problematic, unsolved case from a time gone by.

Photo credit: Giles Keyte

Roadside Attractions and Miramax announced on Wednesday that director Bill Condon’s Mr Holmes will be released Friday, July 17 in select Us theaters.

Mr Holmes is a new twist on the world’s most famous detective. 1947, an aging Sherlock Holmes returns from a journey to Japan, where, in search of a rare plant with powerful restorative qualities, he has witnessed the devastation of nuclear warfare. Now, in his remote seaside farmhouse, Holmes faces the end of his days tending to his bees, with only the company of his housekeeper and her young son, Roger. Grappling with the diminishing powers of his mind, Holmes comes to rely upon the boy as he revisits the circumstances of the unsolved case that forced him into retirement, and searches for answers to the mysteries of life and love – before it’s too late.

Laura Linney, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hattie Morahan, Patrick Kennedy,...

After the first clip from Mr. Holmes landed last month, Miramax has now planted a full trailer online. Sir Ian McKellen takes center stage as an older, wiser version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s career-defining character, Sherlock Holmes. Shifting the focus from his early days as a studly detective, in this forthcoming movie, Holmes has become what we all will eventually – old.

At the helm is McKellen’s Gods and Monster director Bill Condon, whose take on Sherlock finds the crime-solving sleuth living a quiet life by the sea. With just his housekeeper and her son for company, he finds himself a little bored. A not entirely unexpected predicament considering he spent the best part of his life up to his neck in investigations. Eager to rekindle the spice of life, Holmes re-opens an old unsolved case, stirring up memories of days gone by.

The elements are all in place for a schmaltzy melodrama,...