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Worldwide box office: March 21-23 Rank Film (distributor) 3-day (world) Cume (world) 3-day (int’l) Cume (int’l) Territories 1. Snow White(Disney) $87.3m $87.3m $44.3m $44.3m 52 2. Ne Zha 2(various) $15.4m $2.10bn $15.2m $2.08bn 9 3. Mickey 17(Warner Bros) $12m $110.0m $8.1m $69.8m 70 4. Black Bag(Universal) $7.4m $24.1m $3.9m $9.2m 43 5. Captain America: Brave New World(Disney) $7.2m $400.8m $3.1m $208.7m 53 6. Novocaine(Paramount) $6.3m $21.1m $2.5m $5.3m 53 7. The Alto Knights(Warner Bros) $5.1m $5.1m $1.9m $1.9m 9 8. Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy(various) $3.3m $126.5m $3.3m $126.5m 76 9. The Monkey(various) $3.3m $65.1m $1.7m $27.2m 61 10. Paddington In Peru(Sony) $3.1m $190.1m $1.8m $146.4m 52

Credit: Comscore.

I’m old enough to remember when Jacques Rivette films were the domain of dark-web networks and substandard DVD rips, a conspiratorial network worthy of his cinema. It’s still a little strange seeing that April will feature a 10-film, one-short Criterion Channel program that combines of his canonized masterpieces with decidedly lesser-seens––plus Va Savoir, which I really hope is the recently unearthed four-hour cut for which there’s no substitute. Penélope Cruz is also subject of a retrospective in April, which––more than making me pine for a Rivette collab that never was––will include both Abre Los Ojos and Vanilla Sky, some Almodóvar, and another in the Channel’s ongoing let’s-add-a-Woody-Allen-movie campaign, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

For themed series, J. Hoberman has curated a series on the dangers of ’60s and ’70s New York that runs from Michael Roemer’s recently restored The Plot Against Harry and...

Exclusive: Lucy Punch (Amandaland) has been cast as a series regular in AMC and AMC+’s untitled Jonathan Glatzer Silicon Valley drama headlined by Billy Magnussen. Also added as a series regular is Everett Blunck.

The series, produced by AMC Studios, is set within the delusion bubble of Silicon Valley. The story follows an ethically compromised tech CEO (Magnussen) who is outrunning reputational damage as he tries to rescue his company from the brink of failure by any means necessary. Dragged into his chaos are his family, his kid’s elite prep school, an assortment of Sv power players and his psychiatrist (Sarah Goldberg).

Punch will play tech CEO’s wife who is having a retaliatory affair after her own husband’s infidelity. Blunck will play a high school student who moves to Silicon Valley to stay with his mom and stepdad.

In addition to Magnussen and Goldberg, they join fellow series regulars Meaghan Rath,...

Japanese actor Koji Yakusho, known for his critically acclaimed performances in films such as Perfect Days and Shall We Dance?, is to receive the lifetime achievement honour at the 18th Asian Film Awards.

The veteran performer will accept the award at the ceremony in Hong Kong on March 16. As part of a schedule of events associated with the awards, he will attend a screening of Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days on March 15. Yakusho’s role in the film, as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo, won him the best actor award at Cannes in 2023 and the same honour at last year...

Turns out, when you’ve won Best Picture, most of the time, the only place you can go after that high is down.

Opening this weekend at the box office is “Mickey 17,” the first film from director Bong Joon Ho since his film won Best Picture for “Parasite” back in 2019. “Parasite” was something of a unicorn, an international film that crossed all borders and became a $259 million global commercial hit and an awards circuit sensation. Even with Robert Pattinson helping his cause, that’s going to be a tough benchmark to surpass. Warner Bros. is projecting a $40-50 million global opening weekend.

The difference this time is director Bong is working with a major studio, Warner Bros., rather than indie distributor Neon, and “Mickey 17” will open wide on 3,400 screens domestically, whereas “Parasite” at its peak only hit 2,000.

But when a director’s movie wins Best Picture, does their next one perform better?...

In the end, it was Anora all along. Sean Baker’s outrageous comedy won Best Picture at the Oscars on Sunday night, one of five awards the film took home during the ceremony, including a historic four wins for Baker. The Anora Best Picture win put a bow on this year’s wild and unpredictable awards season, but the result was far from unexpected. Here are the three reasons why Anora won Best Picture.

It was the frontrunner that looked like an underdog

With its small budget, a cast of largely unknown performers, and Baker’s indelible independent sensibilities as a filmmaker and producer, Anora looked more like upstart Best Picture winners Coda and Parasite than dominant blockbusters Oppenheimer or Everything Everywhere All at Once. However, its underdog patina belied a great strength that was obvious since its Palme d’Or win at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Despite...

When The Curse of the Black Pearl was released in 2003, a somewhat lackluster Disney theme park ride suddenly received international attention. A $140 million budget and a cast of memorable characters, including Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, helped the first Pirates of the Caribbean film earn more than $650 million at the worldwide box office. With a fan base eager for more swashbuckling adventures, director Gore Verbinski returned to the Caribbean with Dead Man’s Chest in 2006 and At World’s End in 2007.

While neither was as critically successful as the first, each managed to secure about $1 billion at the worldwide box office. And, the impressive looks of Davy Jones, the Kraken and more are still considered some of the best uses of CGI in live-action films. When Verbinski’s third Pirates of the Caribbean film was released in 2007, the franchise should have ended, as viewers got a conclusion to...

Ozzy Osbourne could have been in Pirates of the Caribbean. Ozzy's wife and long-time manager, Sharon, recently appeared on "The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan" podcast, and revealed the legendary singer was offered the chance to audition for a role.

"Do you want to know the biggest mistake I ever made with Ozzy? He got offered to go and read for 'Pirates of the Caribbean' — and I’ve never said this to anyone. I said no. Now, wouldn’t he have been perfect?"

It would have been an inspiring casting decision had the "Prince of Darkness" landed a part in Pirates of the Caribbean. But Sharon was quick to say, "Johnny [Depp] … wanted Keith [Richards] to be a pirate, you remember?"

Depp famously based his performance as Jack Sparrow on The Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards. So it made sense that the actor pushed for him to play Jack's long-lost father,...

Originally published Feb. 7, 2025 at 1 p.m. Pt; updated Feb. 16, 2025 at 1:05 p.m. Pt after the BAFTA Awards results.

Some Oscar categories remain highly volatile and unpredictable. Before the Directors Guild Awards, Best Director did not appear to be one of them. Whoops! Sean Baker won top honors from the Directors Guild for Anora, grabbing this year’s race away from The Brutalist filmmaker Brady Corbet. Corbet was so far out in front that before the DGA Awards no Gold Derby expert expected him to lose at the Oscars on March 2. But is Corbet back after the BAFTA Awards win? Here’s our analysis of the Oscar Best Director race.

Frontrunner: Sean Baker, Anora

If Anora had been the Best Picture frontrunner all along — after all, the Neon release and Palme d’Or winner had been the top pick in the Gold Derby odds for months this past fall — maybe...

Maybe Anora was the frontrunner all along.

In the weeks since the Oscar nominations were announced, Oscar pundits and awards strategists have treated the wide-open Best Picture race like an adaptation of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, searching somewhat fruitlessly for a contender that felt “just right.” However, on Saturday night, Sean Baker won Best Director at the Directors Guild Awards, and about an hour later, Baker and his film took top honors at the Producers Guild Awards. What had been considered a toss-up is now trending back to where the consensus was throughout the fall.

How did we get here, and what comes next? Ahead, here are three takeaways from the big weekend for Anora.

When it comes to Best Picture, always wait for the industry

For months, Anora stood atop the Gold Derby Best Picture charts. But after the Neon release got blanked at the Golden Globe Awards...

“Anora” director Sean Baker has won the DGA Award for Theatrical Feature, gaining significant Oscar momentum ahead of final voting.

With its surprising best picture win at the Critics Choice Awards — its only prize of the night — the $6 million dramedy, which claimed the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, has solidified itself as a major contender in an unpredictable awards season.

“I feel like the luckiest guy in the world to be able to do thing I knew I wanted to do since I was 5 years old,” Baker told the crowd Saturday at the conclusion of the 77th annual DGA Awards, held at the Beverly Hilton.

A wide-open year has unfolded with plenty of twists and turns, including campaign controversies and surprising Oscar snubs like DGA nominee Edward Berger and recent Critics Choice shocking victor Jon M. Chu for “Wicked.”

Legendary filmmaker Ang Lee, a two-time Oscar-winning director...

As the films of 2024 alone have demonstrated, there's still a good amount of confusion about how a movie musical should function in our modern age. Even 2016's "La La Land," the film that ended up bringing back the popularity of the movie musical in a big way, wasn't interested in fully leaning into its ode to the movie musicals of classic Hollywood, using it instead as a jumping off point, a wry commentary on the subgenre and cinema itself. Since then, it's felt like each new movie musical has had to find some offbeat justification for its existence: this one is a multi-part blockbuster event ("Wicked"), this one is an anti-musical musical ("Emilia Pérez"), this one has a monkey in it ("Better Man"), and so on. Even "Chicago" director Rob Marshall, who for many years seemed to willfully bear the torch of keeping the more traditional movie musical alive, has...

Fighting back tears and fresh from receiving the first of two standing ovations, Jennifer Lopez told a Sundance Film Festival audience on Sunday night that starring in Bill Condon’s movie musical Kiss of the Spider Woman made a lifelong dream come true. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Talking to The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet ahead of the world premiere at Park City’s Eccles Center Theatre, the superstar entertainer revealed that she had auditioned for some of Hollywood’s best known modern movie musicals, only to get passed over.

“I remember auditioning for Evita, I remember auditioning for Chicago and for Nine — getting very close on Nine,” said Lopez, outfitted for the premiere in a very method ensemble, a glittering spiderweb gown by designer Valdrin Sahiti. “There was a lot of things that I had always hoped that I could do and just wasn’t the right time.

Jennifer Lopez is not one of those actresses who disappears into a role. For one, she’s too famous to allow the audience to separate artist from character entirely. Often, those characters, whether Selena or in last year’s “Unstoppable” as a sports mom, are extensions of her persona, astral projections of her stature as a global pop superstar into a fantasy movie world that depends on her song-and-dance gifts. For another, a Jennifer Lopez joint is always more about her presence — her name on the marquee, her face under the big bright lights — than her skills in vanishing inside a character.

Writer/director Bill Condon’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a new screen version of the John Kander and Fred Ebb Broadway musical itself inspired by Manuel Puig’s novel and Héctor Babenco’s 1985 Oscar winner, could do no better casting than Lopez as Ingrid Luna, a fictional...

There can be no question the Broadway musicals of John Kander and Fred Ebb have been charmed when it comes to movie adaptations. Bob Fosse’s 1972 film reinvention of Cabaret won eight Oscars. Director Rob Marshall and screenwriter Bill Condon’s cinematic interpretation of Chicago in 2002 is still the last musical to win the Best Picture Oscar. Both made the musical format work, even for those who hate movie musicals, by integrating the songs so they don’t collide with the narrative but seamlessly fit in with it.

It’s nice to report that the stunning new film adaptation of their 1993 Tony-winning musical Kiss of the Spider Woman joins Cabaret and Chicago as a master class in how to find the cinematic soul of...

Calling all Formula 1 fans hungry for more as they await the start of the 2025 season – BBC’s F1: Back At Base podcast returns with exclusive access into two of the sport's most historied teams, McLaren and Aston Martin, as they fight to the finish line in the final ten races of the 2024 season. Joined for the first time by actor and motorsport fan Josh Hartnett as narrator, F1: Back at Base returns for an eight-part season two, ’How To Go Racing’, beginning January 22, wherever you get your podcasts.

With F1 experts Sarah Holt and Holly Samos as guides, F1: Back At Base – How To Go Racing will take listeners inside the top-secret factories of McLaren and Aston Martin during the final 10 races of the longest – and one of the most unpredictable – seasons in F1’s history.

Produced by Img, the podcast includes exclusive interviews with the...

The 2023 film Wonka has been a hit with critics and families. As a prequel to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Wonka stars Timothée Chalamet as a young version of the titular character. Throughout the film, Willy Wonka goes from a dreamer full of ideas to being the chocolate maker that audiences know and love. It makes for a hearfelt homage to the original movie, and particularly to Gene Wilder's pitch-perfect embodiment of the character.

People who loved Wonka's heartfelt story, whimsical sense of adventure, splendid visuals, and inclusion of musical numbers can find other related films. From live-action remakes like The Little Mermaid and Alice in Wonderland to beloved family features like Fantastic Mr. Fox and Paddington 2, there are numerous movies Wonka fans can watch next, or pair with the movie as a double bill.

Updated on January 10, 2025 by Robert Vaux: Musicals are enjoying a surge in popularity,...

The best Awkwafina movies and TV shows highlight the unique talents - especially when it comes to vocal delivery - that have ensured she’s cemented a legacy as an inimitable comedic talent. Born in New York in 1988, Awkwafina (real name Nora Lum) has been an active performer since 2005. She first began using the stage name Awkwafina at age 15, conceiving the alter-ego as a semi-parody of the way many brands adopt feminine slants on their name to appeal to female consumers.

While now known as an actor, Awkwafina originally made her big break as a rapper with the 2012 parody song “My Vag”, releasing her solo album Yellow Ranger two years later in 2014. Her music echoes the same comedic talent as her acting, so it’s no surprise she’d eventually find her feet as a comedian. After an appearance on MTV’s Girl Code between 2014-2016, Awkwafina got her big...

The Directors Guild of America (DGA) has revealed its nominees for the upcoming 2025 awards, and it’s a high-stakes Oscar season, proven by the notable snubs and surprises. The five filmmakers contending for the prestigious DGA Award for Directorial Achievement in Feature Film are the following:

Jacques Audiard for “Emilia Pérez” Sean Baker for “Anora” Edward Berger for “Conclave” Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist” James Mangold for “A Complete Unknown”

It’s a category entirely of first-time DGA nominees. Most notably, this is significant for Mangold, who nabbed the first of his career for the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” which continues to pick up momentum coming after its haul at the SAG Awards noms. After helming films like “Walk the Line” (2005), “Logan” (2017) and “Ford v Ferrari” (2019), this piece of notoriety seemed long overdue.

This is also huge for German auteur Berger, who missed out on a director nom...

Warning: This article discusses sensitive topics, including child abuse and sexual assault.

The Oscars have hosted a lavish ceremony celebrating the best of the best in cinema every year, but some people were banned and asked not to return. The first Academy Awards happened in 1929, and since then, hundreds of performers, directors, producers, art directors, and even musicians have been honored for their work in the film industry. The year's most anticipated event has boosted the popularity of many notable titles worldwide and made them some of the best movies of all time.

Throughout the year, audiences started to form theories about which movies would be big winners at the Academy Awards, and predictions for the 2025 Oscars began within weeks after the 2024 event ended. However, it has only been in recent years that the Academy has banned public figures from attending their events and casting their votes. The Academy of...

How Did Penelope Cruz’s Sister Help Her Film Pirates Of The Caribbean During Pregnancy? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

Throwback to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides—Penelope Cruz was busy slaying her role as Angelica. But there was one catch: the actress was pregnant. Cue her lookalike sister, Monica Cruz, swooping in as her body double for those sword-fighting, action-packed scenes.

Director Rob Marshall had to get creative when Penelope found out she was expecting her first child with husband Javier Bardem. Enter Mónica, a trained dancer with serious sword skills. “Monica came at the end to do some scenes,” Penelope revealed as per She Knows. “She’s a dancer and very good with a sword because she’s done a film herself.” Talk about sister goals!

Rob Marshall loved the dynamic. “Towards the end of the shoot, we asked Monica to help us out for some shots,” he shared.

Well folks, despite studios' utter sheepishness about it, the musical seems to be back in a big way. The singing may not be advertised in the marketing (even Wicked mostly managed to obscure its songs in the trailers), but this year alone has seen Mean Girls, Joker 2, Emilia Perez,...

Although the extent to which the iconically dark-shaded and silver-streaked Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) can truly be accepted as a Federico Fellini surrogate is a source of endlessly inconsequential debate, we tend to take the lightly fictive director at his word when he dismally claims that he had planned to make a truly honest and direct film this time around. 8½ represents the most unceremonious and abrupt transition in the development of Fellini’s cinema from putatively neorealist ideologies to unabashedly oneiric claptraps about the onus of an overly imaginative but waning masculinity—and it is, for all its Freudian bitchery and post-libidinous angst, one of the few personal statements in film utterly unhindered by stretches for social or cosmic relevance.

There are some aphoristic generalizations related to living the creative life, most of them articulated by Guidio’s lean script advisor and logos personification Daumier (Jean Rougeul)—“Destroying is better...

While it’s not uncommon for a filmmaker to earn an Oscar nomination for directing their first narrative feature—directors to do so since the turn of the century include Emerald Fennell, Jordan Peele, Benh Zeiltlin, Tony Gilroy, Rob Marshall and Spike Jonze—it’s very rare for a film debut to win best director. Only six have accomplished the feat: Marty’s Delbert Mann, West Side Story’s Jerome Robbins (sharing the Oscar with co-director Robert Wise), Ordinary People’s Robert Redford, Terms of Endearment’s James L. Brooks, Dances With Wolves’ Kevin Costner and American Beauty’s Sam Mendes. This year, the best director race is packed […]

The post Awards Season Analysis: First Time Filmmakers in the 2024 Race first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

While it’s not uncommon for a filmmaker to earn an Oscar nomination for directing their first narrative feature—directors to do so since the turn of the century include Emerald Fennell, Jordan Peele, Benh Zeiltlin, Tony Gilroy, Rob Marshall and Spike Jonze—it’s very rare for a film debut to win best director. Only six have accomplished the feat: Marty’s Delbert Mann, West Side Story’s Jerome Robbins (sharing the Oscar with co-director Robert Wise), Ordinary People’s Robert Redford, Terms of Endearment’s James L. Brooks, Dances With Wolves’ Kevin Costner and American Beauty’s Sam Mendes. This year, the best director race is packed […]

The post Awards Season Analysis: First Time Filmmakers in the 2024 Race first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

If “Wicked” had been one movie as originally planned, the subplot involving all the animals of Oz and the backstory on the magical book the Grimmerie were due to be left on the cutting room floor. Instead, Winnie Holzman — who wrote the book for the stage musical and co-wrote the screenplay for the smash-hit “Wicked” film — said that by expanding the adaptation into two parts, they now “have room for everything.”

Holzman pulled back the curtain on the long process of turning “Wicked” into a movie during TheWrap’s “Art of Adaptation” panel at Power Women Summit on Tuesday in Los Angeles alongside producer Lucy Fisher (whose “Gladiator II” is currently in theaters), producer Nina Jacobson (the “Hunger Games” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” franchises) and actress Ariana Madix (a recent revival of “Chicago”) for one powerhouse conversation.

The first part of “Wicked” is in theaters now and has...

“Wicked” is an undeniable smash.

In its opening weekend, it scored $112.5 million, enough to make it the third biggest opening of 2024 and the best-non sequel opening of the year. It was also the biggest opening for a movie based on a Broadway musical. Just a couple of days ago, it posted the biggest Monday ever in November, making more than $15.8 million. People clearly love this movie.

But a “Wicked” movie being a smash hit was far from a sure thing. For many years it seemed like the project may not ever actually happen.

Universal acquired the rights to “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” by American novelist Gregory Maguire shortly after it was published in 1995. And in 2003 they opened the Broadway musical, eventually becoming the second most successful Broadway music ever (after Disney’s “The Lion King”).

By 2011, a feature version of the musical was being planned.

Of all the moments in Wicked that I thought might make me cry, I certainly didn’t think it would be “Dancing Through Life”—the upbeat ensemble number where Winkie prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) decides to “corrupt” his fellow university students by sneaking them into a local dance club. The song starts as a fun,...

The moment in the 1939 film version of The Wizard Of Oz where Dorothy Gale emerges from the sepia-toned world of Kansas into the Technicolor splendor of a faraway fantasyland is probably one of the five most broadly indelible American movie images in the medium’s history. Any subsequent work dealing with the Land of Oz,...

Who knew pop star Ariana Grande was an adept musical comedienne? That surprise discovery should land her an Oscar nomination for Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the global hit musical “Wicked”, which will prove a box-office juggernaut. On that much “Screen Talk” co-hosts Ryan Lattanzio and Anne Thompson agree; but he hates the cheesy visuals and loves Jonathan Bailey’s charismatic supporting turn as the romantic interest of both witches-in-training, while Anne admires the music, well-produced by Marc Platt and delivered with gusto by Cynthia Erivo and Grande.

“Wicked” follows Steven Spielberg’s recent “West Side Story,” which earned seven nominations in 2022 and a win for another supporting discovery, Ariana DeBose. And Rob Marshall’s film version of Bob Fosse’s “Chicago” (2002) was also one of 10 musical Best Picture winners. But we agree they were executed with more visual and technical mastery.

‘Juror #2’Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Both co-hosts...

Oscar-winning actor Catherine Zeta-Jones recalls meeting “Chicago” costume designer Colleen Atwood in her workshop before the musical began filming.

“It was this explosion of costume and dancing fishnet tights hanging from every hook,” says Zeta-Jones. “I remember meeting her for the first time and looking at her designs, giddy with anticipation, and looking at her vision and just going ‘Wow! This is amazing.’”

Zeta-Jones had an instant respect and admiration for Atwood and her craft. She’s not the only one. Directors Rob Marshall and Tim Burton have her on speed dial as one of their first go-to department heads and collaborators when starting their new films. I needed that same group from ‘Chicago’ because we speak the same language and shorthand at this point,” Marshall says. He used Atwood on Disney’s 2023 live action “The Little Mermaid.”

Atwood is set to be honored for her work at the Scad...

Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” is getting a new print from Cyclops Print Works and artist Craig Drake — and you’re going to want to make space on your wall.

Drake, who is known for his highly graphic, Patrick Nagel-inspired pieces, does the same for King Triton’s most precocious daughter. It’s really stunning and can be purchased with the classic title treatment or without. The print, which debuted at this year’s D23, Disney’s fan convention in Anaheim, California, will be available for member preview and presale Tuesday, Oct. 22, with public sale on Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 11 a.m. Pt.

Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” of course, was written and directed by Ron Clements and John Musker and opened in theaters on Nov. 17, 1989. With original songs by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, it immediately captured the zeitgeist and ushered in a brand-new golden era of Walt Disney...

Meryl Streep and Martin Short are continuing to fuel romance rumors, and their latest outing saw them out with another big Hollywood couple!

The 75-year-old Oscar winner and 74-year-old comedian and actor grabbed dinner at Giorgio Baldi on Wednesday (October 16) in Santa Monica, Calif. It looks like they were joined, or at least bumped into, director Rob Marshall and his partner, producer John DeLuca.

Meryl was seen holding John‘s arm as they said goodbye outside the restaurant. Rob directed Meryl in 2018′s Mary Poppins Returns and 2014′s Into the Woods. John produced those 2 movies as well!

At the 2024 Golden Globes back in January, real-life romance rumors began circulating when Meryl and Martin were seated next to one another. At the time, his rep released a statement about the rumors. Over the summer, they held hands at the Only Murders premiere. Their characters on the show are about to get married!

There will be plenty of reasons thrown around for the box office failure of the big-budget supervillain sequel Joker: Folie À Deux, and it’s easy to imagine one will be the genre where the movie dabbles quite heavily at times: the movie musical. Trailers for Joker 2 didn’t...

When people say the name Pamela Anderson, you might think about her Playboy beginnings or sultry turn as C.J. Parker on the lifeguard series “Baywatch,” but now, the Canadian model and actress is looking to change the perception of her built in many people’s minds. Her determination to do so, she shared in a recent interview with Variety, comes after two decades of deep, emotional struggles.

“I look at it now and it feels like I went from ‘Baywatch’ to Broadway,” Anderson said, recognizing her run as Roxie Hart in the Broadway production of “Chicago” as a turning point for her. “I don’t know what happened in between, it’s all a big blur. I am just happy to be here, in this moment, because I think I have had depression for a couple of decades.”

Anderson went on to discuss how Rob Marshall, who directed the Oscar-winning film adaptation of “Chicago,...

“Cops and women don’t mix?” It seems they do, as Pamela Anderson is readying for “The Naked Gun” with Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr., produced by Seth MacFarlane and Erica Huggins.

“Liam is hysterical in it,” she said at Zurich Film Festival.

“I just finished it. I am also doing ‘Rosebush Pruning’ with Karim Aїnouz in Barcelona. We rehearsed every single scene and we did a lot of improvisation in character – we even had family dinners in character. Karim is unbelievable,” she said about the buzzy next project, an ensemble drama featuring Elle Fanning, Callum Turner, Riley Keough and Jamie Bell.

Aïnouz is behind “Firebrand,” while Efthimis Filippou (“Kinds of Kindness”) wrote the script.

Anderson, in town to present Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl” and receive Zurich’s Golden Eye Award – as well as talk up upcoming cookbook “I Love You: Recipes From the Heart” – opened up...

Academy Award nominee Rob Marshall is rolling the dice on a remake of Guys and Dolls. Many attempts have been made over the years to get a new movie adaptation of Guys and Dolls off the ground, but according to Variety, a lucky hand might have been dealt as filmmaker Rob Marshall has now signed on to the latest effort. Marshall and his long-time producing partner, John DeLuca, will write the script with John Requa & Glenn Ficarra, whose previous credits include Crazy Stupid Love, Bad Santa, and Jungle Cruise. Sonys TriStar Pictures will produce the film as they acquired the remake rights from MGM, the original short stories, and the Broadway musical.

Based on two short stories by Damon Runyon titled "Blood Pressure" and "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown," Guys and Dolls was a hit Broadway musical that debuted in 1950 that follows the story of gamblers Sky Masterson and Nathan Detroit,...

Gather around, folks! The remake of the 1955 musical film Guys and Dolls is still in motion, and there seems to be a new director in charge. Variety reports that Rob Marshall (Chicago) is set to helm the project for Sonys TriStar Pictures. He is also writing the script alongside John DeLuca, John Requa, and Glenn Ficarra. Not to mention, Marshall is replacing Bill Condon, who was hired as a director for the remake back in 2021.

Rob Marshall is in talks to direct a film adaptation of Frank Loesser’s “Guys and Dolls,” the classic Broadway musical and 1955 film of the same name, for TriStar Pictures, according to an insider with knowledge of the project.

John Requa and Glenn Ficarra are in talks to write the screenplay with Marshall and John DeLuca. John Goldwyn, Marc Toberoff and Marc Platt are producing with Marshall and DeLuca.

Previously, the studio purchased the rights to the original short stories written by Damon Runyon that inspired the musical, to the Broadway musical book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows and its music by Loesser, as well as the remake rights to the ’55 film “Guys and Dolls” as released by the Samuel Goldwyn Company.

Runyon originally wrote the short stories “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown,” “Pick the Winner” and “Blood Pressure” about a gambler and his relationship with a missionary girl.

Rob Marshall is rockin’ the boat!

The “Chicago” director is in talks to helm the remake of “Guys and Dolls” for Sony’s TriStar Pictures. Marshall and John DeLuca will write the script with John Requa & Glenn Ficarra.

John Goldwyn, Marc Toberoff and Marc Platt will produce alongside Marshall and DeLuca, while TriStar president Nicole Brown and Shary Shirazi will oversee the project for the studio.

Bill Condon was previously attached to direct the film back in 2021.

Sony purchased remake rights in 2019 for the original Damon Runyon short stories about gamblers and gangsters, as well as the rights to the Broadway musical The studio also acquired remake rights to the previous 1955 film adaptation from the Samuel Goldwyn company.

That version of “Guys and Dolls” starred Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, and Vivian Blaine, and was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who also wrote the screenplay.

“Guys and Dolls” opened...

Is the musical… back? Much as Hollywood has tried to hide its affinity for song and dance, musicals have been getting made. Wonka was a holiday hit; The Color Purple got Oscar nominations. This fall the Broadway blockbuster Wicked hits the silver screen, and now it seems the time is...

This one has taken awhile, but maybe Lady Luck finally has turned for an updated movie musical of Guys and Dolls. TriStar Pictures has teamed Chicago helmer Rob Marshall to direct a new film adaptation of Frank Loesser’s box office smash hit musical. Marshall and John DeLuca will team with John Requa & Glenn Ficarra to write the script.

John Goldwyn, Marc Toberoff and Marc Platt are producing with Marshall and DeLuca. Nicole Brown and Shary Shirazi are overseeing for the studio.

Based on stories by Damon Runyon about gamblers and gangsters in the 1920s and ’30s, Guys and Dolls premiered on Broadway in 1950, where it ran for 1,200 performances and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. The show has had several Broadway and London revivals, as well as a 1955 film adaptation starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine. The 1992 revival starring Nathan Lane and Faith Prince...

The 2009 film "Nine" — not to be confused with the 2009 film "9" — was an Oscar darling in the most frustrating possible way. It was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress (Penélope Cruz), Best Art Direction, Best Costumes, and Best Original Song. That was just enough nominations for mad Oscar completists to have to see "Nine," a movie that, many agreed, looked dull and baffling. The critics seemed to think so, anyway, as "Nine" only has a 39% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's the lowest approval rating of any film to star Daniel Day-Lewis.

"Nine" requires some explanation. Firstly, the film was based on a Broadway musical that debuted in 1982. The original production starred Raul Julia, playing a character that was very similar to, but legally distinct from, real-life Italian master Federico Fellini. The character, named Guido Contini, found both his marriage and his creative spirit flagging in the face of a midlife crisis.

When Sean Connery opened the envelope in 2003 for Best Supporting Actress, he simply pronounced the winner as “Catherine.” Such was the expectation of her win and the sensation she had caused in the film “Chicago” that his former co-star didn’t even feel the need to pronounce her full three names: Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Zeta-Jones initially was known to American audiences for her statuesque and striking beauty. She first gained notice on these shores in a television mini-series about the Titanic. The series aired a year before James Cameron‘s film of the Titanic story swept into movie theaters. She then began appearing on the big screen in a number of ingenue roles.

What American audiences didn’t know was that Zeta-Jones was hiding a couple of secret talents, namely that she was a superb singer and dancer. She had started out on the London stage when she was just a...

The Disney Animation studio is a pioneer when it comes to delivering successful animated films. Especially the decade from 1989 to 1999 was dubbed as Disney Renaissance, due to the release of several record breaking movies.

A still from The Little Mermaid (1989) | Credits: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

The Little Mermaid (1989) was a phenomenal success and later movies only strengthened Disney’s winning streak. Some initially didn’t have faith in the female-led big-budget film, like the then-Disney President, Jeffrey Katzenberg. Not only did the film create a lasting impression, but it also went on to inspire a 2023 live-action adaptation centered around controversy.

The movie which changed the animation world

The massive financial failure of The Black Cauldron (1985), an adaptation of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series, forced Disney to re-evaluate. They had to produce a project which could reinstall people’s faith in the animation studio.

RELATEDAfter The Little Mermaid and Moana, Disney...

Bringing together the best of Indian cinema, the world’s biggest celebration of Indian cinema—the International Indian Film Academy (Iifa) Awards announces its 2024 Technical Awards Winners. Experience an unparalleled celebration of Indian cinema as the highly anticipated Iifa Festival is set to take place from September 27th to 29th, 2024, at Yas Island, Abu Dhabi

The historic celebration of cinematic excellence, the festivities kick off on Friday, 27th September, with Iifa Utsavam, a grand celebration of the four vibrant South Indian film industries. The excitement continues on Saturday, 28th September, with the prestigious Iifa Awards.

The festival culminates on Sunday, 29th September, with Iifa Rocks—an exclusive, invitation-only event where the Technical Awards Winners will be honoured in a grand celebration. The Iifa Technical Awards will honour the outstanding achievements that underpin Indian cinema, celebrating excellence in Cinematography, Screenplay, Dialogues, Editing, and Choreography. Sound Design, Sound Mixing, Background Score, and...

Why is the Joker so beloved? It's a question worth pondering, primarily because the character's worship seems baffling on paper. Sure, it makes sense why he's popular; he's one of the all-time great villains, and a hero like Batman is only as good as their villain. Yet the Joker's status as an icon has grown beyond his function as a foil to the Dark Knight. The hysteria surrounding the late Heath Ledger's portrayal of the character in "The Dark Knight" was totally explicable given Ledger's James Dean-esque tragic mystique, yet Joker mania has only increased since that film. The character is on the same level as other fictional villains like Walter White, Michael Corleone, and Freddy Krueger. In terms of morality, none of these characters should be revered, yet they are.

There is an easy answer to this question, of course: such despicable villains have always drawn the...

I must admit, I didn’t know what to do with Todd Phillips’s “Joker” at first. The polarizing supervillain drama, based on Batman’s greatest nemesis, dazzled many viewers with its epic photography, its righteous indignation at broken social systems, and Joaquin Phoenix’s eerie and fragile performance as Arthur Fleck. But beneath all that there was a frustrating lack of specificity about what it was actually angry at, and a distracting lack of originality, since it cribbed wholesale from several obvious sources — especially Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy.”

It took some time but I finally found where I stand with “Joker,” and it’s halfway between the praise and the criticism. All the film’s fine qualities and all of its deficiencies are in a symbiotic relationship, and the derivativeness is their connective tissue. After all, “Joker” is the story of a failed...

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” costume designer Colleen Atwood will be honored with Variety’s Creative Impact in Costume Design award at the Scad Savannah Film Festival.

Atwood, who has worked on “Chicago,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” has worked on over 80 films and has won four Academy Awards for her work in costume design.

“Scad is thrilled to continue its partnership with Variety in presenting this year’s Creative Impact Award to the legendary costume designer Colleen Atwood,” said Christina Routhier, Executive Director of the Scad Savannah Film Festival. “Colleen Atwood’s unparalleled creativity and meticulous craftsmanship have left an indelible mark on moviemaking, with her recent iconic projects including ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,’ ‘Masters of the Air,’ and ‘Wednesday.’ Her work exemplifies the transformative power of costume design in storytelling, which will provide our students—particularly those in film and television, production design, and fashion degree programs...

Though his personal tragedies and demons have sometimes overshadowed his work, there’s no denying the impact Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski has had on cinema.

Born in 1933 in Paris and raised in Poland, Polanski’s childhood was marked by tragedy when he was separated from his parents during the Holocaust. As a child, he escaped the Krakow ghetto after his mother was killed in an Auschwitz gas chamber. When the war ended, he was reunited with his father and returned home.

He turned to filmmaking as a student, making his directorial debut with the international hit “Knife in the Water” (1962), which earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. His followup, the psychological thriller “Repulsion” (1965), was an even bigger hit, and he was soon drafted by Hollywood to direct the occult horror film “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), which earned him a Best Adapted Screenplay bid.

It was during this time that he married Sharon Tate,...