Movies

Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” stars Glen Powell as Gary Johnson, a milquetoast philosophy professor who moonlights as an undercover cop set on flushing out people who hire contract killers. One day, Johnson gets the call to pose as a killer for hire, and proves he has a real talent for impersonation — and arrests. He

Marc Becker, CEO of the Tangent Agency and former Universal executive who worked on campaigns for films including “Despicable Me” and “Fast & Furious,” died Aug. 27 of cancer. He was 37. “If you have worked with us over the years, you have no doubt gotten to experience the larger-than-life presence that was Marc,” Tangent

Documentary veterans Natalie Bullock Brown, Kirsten Johnson, Mary Lampson and Jacqueline Olive are the inaugural documentary film fellows for the documentary film in the public interest research initiative by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center. As the first cohort of doc film fellows, the foursome will join the center for the fall 2023 semester. There, each fellow will

Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” received a spirited five-minute standing ovation on Tuesday night, as the director handed out high fives. The action comedy, which stars Glen Powell, received cheers from the beginning, with the crowd clapping throughout the film during various scenes. During the standing ovation, Linklater looked overwhelmed by the applause, mouthing “thank you

Liam Neeson appeared on a recent episode of the “Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend” podcast (recorded prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike) and again shaded the “Star Wars” franchise for diluting itself with so many sequels and spinoffs. The actor, who played the Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn in George Lucas’ “Star Wars: Episode I — The

French TV sales broke an all-time record of €214.8 million ($230 million) in 2022, a 15.4% year-on rise, bolstered by premium TV series such as Newen’s procedural “HPI,” Federation’s spy series “The Bureau” and Banijay’s period show “Marie Antoinette,” according to a study unveiled by the National Film Board and promotion org Unifrance. The French

Annapurna Interactive’s award-winning video game Stray will be getting its very own movie adaptation from the indie studio’s animation branch, Annapurna Animation. Stray, a 2022 adventure game from BlueTwelve Studio, takes players on a journey playing as a drone-equipped, stray cat trying to survive against robots and machines. The Stray adaptation was announced by Robert

Entertainment executive Liz Jenkins has been named to the newly created role of chief business officer for the NBCUniversal Studio Group. The former COO of Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine joins the company with an expansive title to oversee strategy and business operations, reporting to studio chairman and NBCU Chief Content Officer Donna Langley. “Liz has

Rodrigo Reyes’s “Sansón and Me” and Bernardo Ruiz’s” El Equipo” are among PBS’ Award-winning docuseries Independent Lens’ fall slate of documentary films. The portfolio of documentaries will showcase the stories of marginalized communities, with coverage surrounding timely topics including immigration, incarceration, human rights, the Muslim American experience and religious freedom, ITVS announced Tuesday.  Reyes’s “Sansón

Everyone remembers their first R-rated movie. Maybe you snuck into a theater trying to pass as 17, or maybe your parents didn’t care for censorship. Either way — whether it’s a movie with gore, expletives or nudity — that first experience leaves an impression. Max Handelman, who co-founded Brownstone Productions with his wife, Elizabeth Banks, recalls watching

Count Olivia Rodrigo as one of the many moviegoers disturbed by Ari Aster’s “Beau Is Afraid,” which A24 released in theaters earlier this year. Speaking to fellow musician Phoebe Bridgers for Interview Magazine ahead of the release of her sophomore album “Guts,” Rodrigo admitted she had to walk out of “Beau Is Afraid” because it

David Slade, the director of the Emmy and BAFTA-award winning “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch,” has signed with 42, the Los Angeles and London-based management and production company. The company will manage the filmmaker, who also joins 42’s commercials offering OB42 for representation in the U.K.   Slade’s previous work has received critical acclaim, with his first feature “Hard Candy” winning

About 20 minutes pass in “Enea” before someone asks the young, handsome, splendidly attired title character what he does for a living, during which time audiences are likely to be wondering the same thing. This, to be fair, is not a negligent omission in writer-director-star Pietro Castellitto’s script, which tells us early on that Enea,

Saudi Arabia’s top local film distribution player CineWaves Films has announced the opening of a China office that it claims makes it the first Arab cultural entity to establish a physical presence in the world’s second-largest movie market. The official announcement was made over the weekend during the Arab-Chinese Animation Forum by Zha Yindong, the

Alejandro Monteverde, the director of 2023’s surprise box office hit “Sound of Freedom,” has set his next film, “Cabrini,” for a theatrical release on March 8, 2024. From “Sound of Freedom” indie distributor Angel Studios, “Cabrini” tells the story of Francesca Cabrini, an Italian American religious sister who founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred

The QCinema International Film Festival in the Philippines has beefed up its industry program by introducing a project market strand, QCinema Project Market (QPM). It acts as a networking and funding platform for Filipino and Southeast Asian projects in advanced development.  With the support of the Quezon City Film Development Commission (QCFDC) and the Quezon

Richard Linklater said production on his musical comedy “Merrily We Roll Along” is set to resume soon — pending that the ongoing Hollywood strikes are resolved. During the Venice Film Festival press conference for his upcoming movie “Hit Man,” Linklater briefly discussed “Merrily,” which will be filmed periodically over the course of 20 years. Principal

Zoe Roellin’s VR animation “Perennials” – presented at Venice Immersive and produced by Meta – will hit the VR Animation Player next. “It makes me very happy, because it will be available to practically everyone with a VR headset,” says the Swiss artist, based in Italy, opening up about her collaboration with Ryan Genji Thomas

CAA Media Finance’s Roeg Sutherland, Goodfellas’ Vincent Maraval and Cinetic Media’s John Sloss look set to attend the San Sebastian Festival’s second Creative Investors’ Conference, co-organised once again with CAA Media Finance. Bringing to San Sebastian the biggest bevy of high-powered U.S. execs and industry movers-and-shakers to attend the Spanish Festival, further CIC attendees include

The Busan International Film Festival put aside many of its recent internal and local political problems to Tuesday unveil a large selection ranging from bleeding edge art titles to international festival favorites. “The difficult times are not behind us, but hard work has made this year’s festival better than ever,” said programmer and interim festival

Indie studios IFC Films and Neon are facing off with the hopes of one of their films being selected as France’s official submission to the Oscars for the international feature film prize. Neon aims to position Palme d’Or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” as the best option for the country. IFC is making its case

Woody Allen received a three-minute standing ovation at the Venice premiere of “Coup de Chance” on Monday night, which would have gone on longer had the filmmaker not started to exit. After two minutes and 30 seconds of sustained applause once the film finished, Allen began to make his way toward the door, cutting the

If you’ve ever been around a runner or went to high school pretty much anywhere, you’ve probably seen the cross country shirts with the message, “Your team’s punishment is our team’s sport.” It’s not untrue that runners are usually not shy to talk about running, whether they’re asking you to make a donation in support

Robert Klane, screenwriter of films including “Weekend at Bernie’s” and “Where’s Poppa?,” died from kidney failure on Aug. 29 at his home in Woodland Hills, Calif. He was 81. Klane’s son Jon shared the news with Variety in a statement, which reads, “Klane’s satirical and daring writing pushed the boundaries of good taste, while depicting

To borrow a lyric from her famous husband’s hit song, Priscilla Presley was all shook up at the Venice Film Festival premiere of “Priscilla.” The subject of Sofia Coppola’s drama wiped away tears from her face on Monday night in Italy as the audience on the Lido exploded in a 7-minute standing ovation for the

If you’re looking for an inviolable law of cinema, one that you can more or less can take to the bank, the Venice Film Festival just confirmed an ironically delightful one. It is this: Murder agrees with Woody Allen. We already knew that, of course. We knew it from “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” a drama that

The last time Sofia Coppola made a movie about a teenage royal living in a rococo palace that turned out to be a lavish prison, it was 2006, and the movie, “Marie Antoinette,” was a stylized dream of history — the story of the young queen as naïve and isolated rock star. Coppola’s new movie

“The Equalizer 3” is still on track to earn the second-biggest Labor Day opening weekend in history with an estimated $42.3 million. While the holiday isn’t traditionally a box office draw, Denzel Washington’s assassin-thriller surpassed the previous Labor Day debut runner-up: Rob Zombie’s 2007 “Halloween” remake, which grossed $30 million through Monday. Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and

While receiving amfAR’s Award of Inspiration at the AIDS nonprofit’s Venice gala on Sunday night, Ava DuVernay recalled the first time she fell in love with movies. “It was the original ‘West Side Story,’” DuVernay said. “The colors, the Brown people, the romance, warring gangs, dance fighting, Maria and Tony… it ignited my passion for

More than a decade after its 2007 debut, Will Smith’s post-apocalyptic horror “I Am Legend” is receiving a sequel. After signing a multi-year deal with Warner Bros, “I Am Legend” writer Avika Goldsman confirmed that “I Am Legend 2” is in the works. The original film grossed $585 million worldwide, serving as an adaptation of