Movies

With “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” riding high to the tune of $1.3 billion in global receipts, and as Pharrell Williams lay in the wings to offer the producer a lifetime achievement award, Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri made sure to direct the lion’s share of attention to “Migration” director Benjamin Renner as the pair sat

GETTING IN FRONT OF THE COMPETITION The International Olympic Committee said on Thursday that Swiss-based, Chinese-owned Infront Sports & Media would handle broadcast right sales in much of Asia for the next series of Summer and Winter games. The deal covers 22 territories including Afghanistan, Brunei, Cambodia, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,

When you see a documentary about a game-changing pop star, you assume you’re going to get the story of the music, and also a good look at the life, and that there’ll be enough (on both counts) to go around. I was eager to see “Let the Canary Sing,” a documentary portrait of Cyndi Lauper, because

If you’re going to make a movie about a kraken — those giant multi-tentacled sea monsters believed to wrestle ships from below — then computer animation is hands down the way to go. The trouble with doing so at a major American studio is that it comes with the imperative to turn these fantastical creatures

Andy Muschietti is suiting up to direct a new Batman film, Variety can report exclusively. The film is one of several new DC Studios titles mapped out by leaders James Gunn and Peter Safran earlier this year. Muschietti, behind this weekend’s superhero release “The Flash,” will direct “Batman: The Bold and the Brave.” The project

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” will not be released in the United Arab Emirates after failing to pass the country’s censorship requirements, Variety has confirmed. A scene featuring a poster in the background of the frame that depicts the transgender flag and reads “Protect Trans Lives” is said to be one of the concerns that prevented

“She’s 100% a professional, and this is a great night for professionals,” said the actor Juliet Mills as she accepted Glenda Jackson’s first Best Actress Oscar on the absent winner’s behalf at the 1970 Academy Awards. On the face of it, it sounds an oddly impersonal thing to say in the circumstances — almost as

“Cypher,” a drama about the astronomical rise of rapper Tierra Whack, and “A Strange Path,” which follows a young filmmaker who returns to his country of Brazil during the pandemic to reconnect with his father, won the top prizes for U.S. narrative feature and international narrative feature, respectively, at this year’s Tribeca Festival. “Between the Rains,”

If it was up to Samuel L. Jackson, then his Marvel character Nick Fury would be in every Marvel movie. The actor spoke about his Marvel tenure to Entertainment Tonight on the red carpet for “Secret Invasion,” the upcoming new Marvel series on Disney+ that features Jackson’s Nick Fury in the lead role. “I don’t

Denmark is the latest European country to push for a levy on streamers’ local turnover to fund local TV and film content. It’s now coming closer to pulling through a bill which could allow for extra subsidies to finance the production of Danish movies, fiction series and documentaries. After failing to receive support with its

“Argylle,” a new globe-trotting spy adventure from director Matthew Vaughn, is coming to theaters in 2024. The film, which is being produced by Apple Original Films and distributed by Universal Pictures, will land on the big screen on Feb. 2 before streaming on Apple TV+ on a later date. “Argylle” follows Henry Cavill as a

Samuel Goldwyn Films announced today that the company has acquired U.S. rights to the “The Three Musketeers,” a two-part adaptation of the swashbuckling French adventure story by Alexandre Dumas. The two films were shot back-to-back, with the first film “The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan” released in France this past April, earning $35 million at the international

Chris Hemsworth has no idea what the future has in store for Thor, which is currently the only character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be at the center of four standalone movies (although Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is surely next). Hemsworth’s last Marvel outing, 2022’s “Thor: Love and Thunder,” turned off many Marvel fans with

Eva Longoria jokes that she’s taking an extended vacation to get some rest after her whirlwind promotion of “Flamin’ Hot,” her feature film directorial debut. “I am going to sleep for about three months,” Longoria told me Thursday morning. “When I come up for air, I hopefully will know what I’m doing next.” Joking aside,

“The Incredible Hulk” is smashing its way to Disney+ on June 16, the streamer announced Thursday. The film was initially released and distributed by Universal on June 13, 2008, and the company held the rights to the title for 15 years. Now, in a notable shift, the rights have reverted to Marvel Studios, leading to

Isabel Herguera’s upcoming feature debut “Sultana’s Dream” will be divided into three parts, San Sebastián-born animation artist said at Annecy. “Innocently enough, I thought it would make things much easier. It didn’t,” she deadpanned, comparing the process to walking a tightrope. “You don’t know if you are going to fall or not.” In the film,

In the fall of 1990, in the dying days of the Soviet Union, fighting broke out in the breakaway republic of Transnistria between Russian-backed separatists and forces loyal to the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, a territory on the cusp of its own successful campaign of independence from Moscow. The Transnistria War hardly registers as more

When the American Film Institute announced last year that it was merging AFI Docs, the organization’s annual Washington, D.C., documentary film festival, into the Los Angeles-based AFI Fest, Jamie Shor called Sky Sitney. Shor, president of PR Collaborative, and Sitney, director of the film and media studies program at Georgetown, had both previously worked for

The California Legislature this week agreed to a significant change in the state’s film and TV tax credit, and one company in particular appears poised to benefit: Netflix. The state issues $330 million in tax credits every year to keep production jobs in California. The credits can be used to offset corporate income tax and

Wes Anderson announced in an interview with IndieWire that his upcoming Netflix movie “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” based on Roald Dahl’s 1977 short story collection, will only be 37 minutes long. The film is Anderson’s second Dahl adaptation after “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel and Ben Kingsley.

Growing up in South London, “They Cloned Tyrone” star John Boyega would sit on his mattress watching Jamie Foxx act up on “The Jamie Foxx Show” or his Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles in “Ray.” So, getting the opportunity to team up with Foxx for the conspiracy caper “They Cloned Tyrone,” was a dream come

Italian actor-turned-director Andrea Di Stefano, whose sleek cop thriller “Last Night of Amore” just had its U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, is in advanced stages of development on “Karski” a feature about Jan Karski, the World War II Polish resistance fighter who risked his life to blow the whistle on the Holocaust. Di

A funny thing happened during our worldwide lockdown in 2020. With theaters shuttered, our immediate movie-going futures looking bleak and escapist entertainment becoming a therapeutic necessity, along came the rise of The Streaming Service Blockbuster — most notably “Extraction.” Stuntman-turned-director Sam Hargrave’s muscular albeit convoluted actioner, centered on a mercenary sent to rescue the kidnapped

Glenda Jackson, who segued from a successful actress — Oscars for “Women in Love” and “A Touch of Class” and two Emmys for “Elizabeth R” — into a 23-year career as member of the U.K.’s House of Commons, has died. She was 87.   Jackson died after a brief illness at her home in London, her

MALAYSIAN MISSION Hong Kong icon Johnnie To will head the jury of the sixth edition of the Malaysia International Film Festival (MIFFest) next month. Other jurors include: Truong Ngoc Anh from Vietnam, Ryuichi Hiroki from Japan, Zizan Razak from Malaysia, and Eric Khoo from Singapore. The event will open with the world premiere of “Eraser,”

Hungarian director and screenwriter Ildikó Enyedi brought some art-house royalty to the Shanghai International Film Festival this week with a masterclass that focused on her process and the struggle to maintain a unique voice. At one point in her on-stage discussion with Chinese director Zheng Dasheng, she called filmmaking “essentially a sole desperate cry, hoping

There is a whole new Batman in town. Despite that familiar name, upcoming “Aztec Batman: The Clash of Empires” will introduce an original hero, assured its team during their riotous presentation at Annecy. Overseen by Warner Bros. Animation and DC, the film is produced in Mexico in partnership with Ánima and Chatrone. “This is a

Emerging talent Eugénie Bouquet and her illustrated dialogue on the intricacies of sex work “Not In Love” (“Pas Amoureux”) explores one of the few remaining real taboos in Switzerland: Sex Work.  Written, directed and animated by Bouquet, and competing at Annecy among graduate shorts, the four-minute chat centers on Judith, who recalls experiences with disabled

It is a paradox worthy of Zeno himself that significant dumbing-down is necessary in order to make tales of extraordinary genius comprehensible to us lay audiences. But in her own attempt at grandly unifying these opposing poles, French director Anna Novion (“Grown Ups,” “Rendezvous in Kiruna”) splits the difference so often she delivers in “Marguerite’s

Over the course of his first three features — “Ilo Ilo,” “Wet Season” and this year’s “Drift” — Singaporean director Anthony Chen has developed a signature style. It is a graceful, lucid classicism, a mode that in its straightforward sincerity is not fashionable in our abrasive moment, but can yield significant satisfactions. That is certainly