Month: July 2021

Returning director Adam Robitel had production designer Edward Thomas raise the stakes for the sequel to 2019’s “Escape Room.” The new challenges in “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions,” in theaters July 16, include a subway train, a gorgeous vacation beach that soon turns into quicksand and a high-security bank. Thomas found an old art deco

Alex Wolff has never been unacquainted with fame. After starring in Nickelodeon’s “The Naked Brothers Band” movie and series when he was a kid alongside his older brother Nat, he quickly rose to stardom as a young actor and musician. More than 15 years later, Wolff has appeared in a wide array of feature films,

One has to imagine that conceptualizing a shark attack scene must be relatively easy. There’s a reason that these animals have (unfairly, as any marine biologist will tell you) become such evergreen villains in nature thrillers, and the basic cinematic architecture of an attack scene hasn’t changed all that much since “Jaws.” But the scariest

Netflix is implementing some important leadership changes as it works to create more broadly entertaining film projects. As part of that shift, executives Kira Goldberg and Ori Marmur have both been promoted and will head up a team tasked with developing and producing big-budget and four-quadrant films. Their team will be autonomous from the one

Justin Kurzel’s exceptionally disturbing, horribly plausible “Nitram” opens with an excerpt from a 1979 Australian news report on firework accidents. A boy of about 12 is being interviewed from his Hobart hospital bed, and when the posh, compassionate voice of the presenter asks if the injuries he sustained will discourage him from playing with fireworks

Nicolas Cage knows how to get the best performances out of his co-stars — even if that co-star is a pig. The Oscar winner reveals what it took to get Brandy, the pig that plays his truffle-hunting porker in the new Neon drama “Pig” to act on cue. “Brandy was very payment oriented, she liked

Magnolia Pictures has nabbed U.S. rights to “Anais in Love,” a French-language comedy that marks the feature directing debut of Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet. The film is a Cannes Critics’ Week selection and centers on a spirited young woman who falls in love with the novelist wife of the man with whom she’s having an affair. Anaïs

Bill Murray is among the cast of Wes Anderson’s new film that will begin production in Spain in August, Variety has learned. Sources close to the project have confirmed Murray’s casting. The actor has appeared in nine of Anderson’s movies to date, excluding the new pic. The as-yet-untitled film also stars Tilda Swinton, as she

Action star Sammo Hung will take the helm of the production of “Seven Little Fortunes,” a feature film re-telling Hung’s childhood story where he and a generation of Hong Kong action movie icons such as Jackie Chan were coached by their mentor, Peking opera master Yu Jim-yuen. Co-produced by Yuen Biao Films Production, Beijing Renxing

When Regina King was asked to take part in this year’s Oscars as a presenter, the “One Night in Miami” director had no idea what she was in for, and found out just 24 hours before the ceremony that she would in fact be opening the whole show with a “country mile” jaunt into the

“Fists in the Pocket” director Marco Bellocchio has long woven elements of autobiography into his work, threading personal themes of siblings, madness and suicide through his most intimate films. Far less apparent until now was how the maestro sublimated himself behind the fiction, using cinema to address such elements on screen so as to avoid

DOCUMENTARY Channel 4 in the U.K. have commissioned Flicker Productions to produce “Football Trolls” (working title), an hour-long documentary on the relationship between social media, racism and soccer, hosted by former Newcastle and Tottenham midfielder-turned BT Sport pundit Jermaine Jenas. The commission comes amid outcry about racial abuse suffered by England players Marcus Rashford, Jadon

Sales agency Finecut has secured a flurry of Asian and European deals for supernatural horror film “The Medium,” which is directed by Thailand’s Banjong Pisanthanakun and produced by Korea’s Na Hong-Jin. From Europe, buyers include France’s The Jokers Films, and Koch Films for German-speaking Europe. Within Asia the film has been licensed to Edko Films

Wim Wenders and Orian Williams (“Control,” “Shadow of the Vampire”) are executive producing an upcoming feature from debut director Michał Chmielewski based on the mysterious disappearance of Connie Converse, the singer-songwriter who vanished without a trace in 1974. “Roving Woman” is produced by Marta Lewandowska (“Erotica 2022”) of Friends With Benefits and Lena Góra, who

Saul Williams spent nearly a decade bringing his directorial debut “Neptune Frost” to the screen, but not even the multi-talented, multi-disciplinary artist could have scripted the mad dash it took to take his passion project from the rolling hills of East Africa to the Croisette in Cannes. Shot on location in Rwanda over the course