Movies

Fran Drescher has been elected to a second term as president of SAG-AFTRA, as the union’s first studio strike in 43 years nears the two-month mark. Drescher was elected with 81.4% of the vote, defeating Maya Gilbert-Dunbar, who took 18.6%. Joely Fisher took 70.3% in her race for a second term as secretary-treasurer. Her opponent,

“Finestkind,” the name of both Brian Helgeland’s new film and the high-line fishing boat Tommy Lee Jones captains within it, is one of those words that New Englanders find hard to define, but seem to have no trouble using in a sentence. It means quality — of fish, of people, of principles — and it

The creative team behind “Dumb Money” drew parallels between the battle between Reddit investors and Wall Street tycoons over GameStop and the actors and writers strikes that are roiling Hollywood at the Toronto Film Festival premiere. “We just watched a film about the system being rigged. It’s rigged on Wall Street and it’s rigged in

Sony Pictures’ “Dumb Money” could be the most frightening horror movie this year, and the Oscars would be smart to embrace it. From the critically acclaimed director Craig Gillespie, his smart and at times tragic look at the GameStop stock story of 2021 entertained the audiences of the Toronto Film Festival on Friday night where

The Writers Guild of America urged members Friday to stay strong, and argued that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will have to soften its hard-line stance in order to end the four-month strike. The WGA suggested that legacy studios that want a “fair deal” with writers will have to either assert their

A studio head once told me that CAA’s top three leaders – Bryan Lourd, Kevin Huvane and Richard Lovett – had claws beneath their velvet gloves. It was a backhanded compliment, as the CEO was praising the trio’s devotion to their incredibly famous clients while also bemoaning their hard-driving negotiating style. Those gloves will now

Michel Franco’s heartbreaking drama “Memory” earned a strong eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival on Friday night as stars Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard wiped away tears. Franco, Chastain and Sarsgaard embraced as the audience cheered them on, with each taking their turn in the spotlight to accept the applause. After the crowd

According to Jerry Seinfeld, Rolling Stone’s recent exposé on Jimmy Fallon includes an “idiotic twisting of events.” The magazine published a report on Sept. 7 in which several former “Tonight Show” staff members claimed the series had a toxic work environment, which included alleged outbursts from Fallon himself. Two employees said they witnessed Fallon berate

Justice for Nickelback? “Hate to Love,” a documentary about one of the most ragged on bands of all time, had its world premiere on Friday afternoon at the Toronto Film Festival and (maybe?) shed new light on the Canadian rockers. But given their reputation on some corners of the internet, Cameron Bailey, the CEO of

Freestyle Digital Media has acquired the North American VOD rights to “State of the Unity,” the 2022 deep-dive documentary about the history of music in America. The feature film will be available via internet, cable and satellite platforms starting Oct. 6. The project started back in 2016, following the Brooklyn band The Bergamot on their

Pope Francis is apparently a huge Sylvester Stallone fan. The “Rocky” star visited the Vatican on Sept. 8 and met the Pope alongside his wife, Jennifer, and his three daughters, Sophia, Sistine and Scarlet. A video of the meeting shared by Vatican News shows Stallone and Francis quickly throwing some fake punches with each other

“On the Go,” a spirited, freewheeling road movie capturing the first lead performance in a movie of ‘Elite’ star Omar Ayuso, has clinched its first major sales, selling to Salzgeber for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and to Cineplex for Taiwan.   Paris-based MPM Premium picked up world sales rights to “On the Go” in the run-up

“Memory” feels like the “Silver Linings Playbook” of Michel Franco’s career: an unexpectedly accessible romance between two damaged human beings, from an independent director who’s been known to put characters through some of life’s most punishing indignities. The previous film of Franco’s that it most resembles is “Chronic,” though the tough-love auteur spares us the

Prolific showrunner Greg Berlanti is donating nearly $1 million to current and former employees affected by Hollywood’s ongoing labor strikes and urging “other industry workers in a fortunate enough situation” to do the same. An email from the “Love, Simon” director circulated Friday afternoon and was addressed to any Berlanti staffer in recent years who

London- and Paris-based Film Constellation has boarded sales on 2D family animated feature “Carmen,” a contemporary adaptation of the opera, to be directed by 2023 Annecy Film Festival winner Sébastien Laudenbach. Variety revealed first details of the project last year exclusively. Laudenbach, who won the best film award at Annecy for “Chicken for Linda!,” is

When Patricia Arquette decided to make her feature film directing debut with “Gonzo Girl,” she made a promise to her cast. “I told them that I would always edit everything for the acting — even if the camera work wasn’t the best in that take or some thing didn’t match from a continuity perspective,” she says

Spanish mini-major Filmax has picked up international sales rights to “Teresa,” the new feature by Paula Ortiz (”The Bride,” ”Across the River and Into the Trees”), a fictional story turning on the prominent Spanish mystic and religious reformer Saint Teresa of Jesus.  “Teresa” marks the big screen adaptation of Spaniard playwright Juan Mayorga’s stage play

The U.K. has a robust presence at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, and several of the films screening there find contemporary resonance while exploring historical subjects. In Thea Sharrock’s 1920s-set “Wicked Little Letters,” Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley play neighbors who get on each other’s nerves in a small English town where residents

There will come a time, perhaps not even too far from now, when films like “Woman Of…” may feel, if not old hat, at least familiar, part of a genre unto itself: not a coming-of-age story but a coming-of-self one, tracing the particular life stages of identifying oneself as transgender, accepting oneself as such, and

London and Paris-based Film Constellation has taken international sales on Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky’s hotly anticipated Saudi-set travel movie “Hajjan,” ahead of its Toronto Film Festival world premiere.  “Hajjan,” which will launch from Toronto’s Discovery section, is a followup to Shawky’s first feature “Yomeddine,” which had the rare distinction of making the competition cut

Strong summer season performances by movies across the world have sped up the movie industry’s global recovery. And for the second time this year, analysis firm Gower Street Analytics has revised its forecast for the 2023 cinema year upwards. The London-based firm is now forecasting that the full-year global gross box office will weigh in

The countdown to Halloween has officially begun, with “The Nun II,” the ninth and latest chapter in Warner Bros.’ “The Conjuring” universe hitting theaters this weekend. The horror movie scared up $3.1 million in previews at the box office. The movie is expected to open to around $30 million to $33 million this weekend, a

Kevin Williamson, the creator of the “Scream” horror franchise who penned the scripts for “Scream” (1996), “Scream 2” (1997) and “Scream 4” (2011), appeared on the “Happy Horror Time” podcast and urged executives involved with the series to pay Neve Campbell what she’s worth so she can return as Sydney Prescott. Campbell headlined every “Scream”

Jack Huston’s directorial debut “Day of the Fight” will make its North American premiere as the opening film for the 46th Mill Valley Film Festival on Oct. 5. The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival, where Huston was honored with Variety’s Breakthrough Director Award. “Day of the Fight” stars Michael Pitt, Ron Perlman, Joe

When people discuss busy U.S. production hubs outside of Los Angeles and New York, they tend to namecheck Georgia and New Mexico. But since Massachusetts enacted a 25% film and TV credit in 2007, the commonwealth has quietly established itself as another top destination for Hollywood, attracting a large volume of high-profile projects, including the

Jessica Chastain made an impassioned appeal to U.S. actors, urging them to promote indie movies on Friday at the Venice Film Festival press conference for Michel Franco’s drama “Memory.” “I was very nervous about coming,” said Chastain, who was wearing a black “SAG-AFTRA on Strike” T-Shirt, revealing that “there were actually some people on my

A raucous, deliriously madcap midnight premiere of “Dicks: The Musical” closed out the first day of the Toronto Film Festival. A24’s first-ever musical, which leans hard into its R-rating and puts an irreverent, queer spin on “The Parent Trap,” played to laughs, cheers, audible gasps and shrieks and, yes, a few groans from the Royal

“No More Bets,” the smash hit Chinese crime thriller that has earned more than half a billion dollars in its home market, is hurriedly adding new territories to release. It will release in the U.K. and Ireland from Friday through distributor Trinity Cine Asia. It will release in Hong Kong, on Sept. 21, through Haven

The Toronto International Film Festival kicked off its 48th edition with the North American premiere of “The Boy and the Heron,” the first feature from animation icon Hayao Miyazaki in a decade and the picture that is likely to serve as his cinematic swan song. The 82-year-old filmmaker isn’t doing any promotion for the film,

More often than not, Hayao Miyazaki’s heroes have been young women — from Ponyo to Princess Mononoke, mischief-seeking Kiki to the two sisters spirited away by furry forest guardians in “My Neighbor Totoro.” That’s the most obvious departure the anime maestro’s fans will notice in “The Boy and the Heron”: It’s about a boy, Mahito