Joe Wright — the director of serious period pieces such as “Atonement,” “Anna Karenina” and “Darkest Hour” — would like to set the record straight. He loves Adam McKay’s comedies. “I’m an enormous fan of ‘Anchorman’ and ‘Talladega Nights,’” Wright says. Both behind-the-camera veterans are in New York City. They’d rather be in the same
Movies
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” has generated even more money in its box office debut than initially reported. Sony’s epic finale in the Tom Holland-led comic book trilogy collected a mind-blowing $260 million in North American theaters over the weekend, above Sunday’s estimates of $253 million. It means “No Way Home” has now surpassed “Avengers: Infinity
Plans are underway for the Berlin Film Festival to take place in February as a physical event with movie theaters at full capacity, the same number of films as in pre-pandemic times, and a red carpet visible to fans. Yet given the highly transmissible nature of the Omicron COVID variant, Berlinale executive director Mariette Rissenbeek and
Abu Dhabi and Dubai have made huge strides in attracting foreign film and TV productions to the United Arab Emirates as part of an ongoing effort by the federation of states on the Persian Gulf to diversify from their oil-based economy. They have come a long way since 2006 when Matt Damon and George Clooney-starrer
In this first-person account, Blake Stuerman, 30, details his experiences over his four years with the filmmaker Bryan Singer, who came to prominence as a director with 1995’s “The Usual Suspects,” and directed several blockbusters, including “X-Men,” “Superman Returns,” and, most recently, 2018’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Stuerman met Singer in 2009 in New York City when
Robert Eggers, the director behind “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” has released the first trailer for his latest movie, “The Northman,” starring Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe, Ethan Hawke and Björk. The film takes place in Iceland during the 10th century and follows a viking prince named Amleth, played by Skarsgard, who
Japanese actor and musician Kanda Sayaka died on Saturday evening in Sapporo, Hokkaido. She was 35. Her sudden death was confirmed by her agency and on her official website which removed all other content and replaced it with a notice. “I would like to report to everyone who has supported Sayaka Kanda so far. Kanda
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” shrugged off new health restrictions in South Korea to earn the biggest box office opening weekend since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film earned $15.0 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council. Over the full five days
In another quiet weekend in China, Korean War blockbuster “The Battle at Lake Changjin” was at last eased out of the top five for the first time since its Sept. 30 debut. It was replaced by a new Korean War film with lower production values. “Crossing the Yalu River” from China Media Group debuted Friday
In a year-end movie landscape marked, on the one hand, by a stream of prestige adult dramas that struggle more than ever to find actual adults to see them, and on the other hand by the kind of oversize fantasy event films (“Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the upcoming “The Matrix Resurrections”) whose job it now
Peter Kerekes’s “107 Mothers,” a Slovak drama about women living and working in a Ukrainian prison, won the Crystal Arrow Award at the 13th edition of Les Arcs European Film Festival. The festival, which wrapped on Dec. 18, took place as an-person event with “The Artist” director Michel Hazanavicius presiding over the jury which also
Peter Kerekes’s “107 Mothers,” a Slovak drama about women living and working in a Ukrainian prison, won the Crystal Arrow Award at the 13th edition of Les Arcs European Film Festival. The festival, which wrapped on Dec. 18, took place as an in-person event with “The Artist” director Michel Hazanavicius presiding over the jury which
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” is turbocharging the global box office, generating a mighty $587.2 million over the weekend despite rising concerns about the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The film, starring Tom Holland as Marvel’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, isn’t only crushing pandemic box office benchmarks — it’s notching all-time records. With this weekend’s global tally, it
Don’t underestimate Peter Parker. That’s the takeaway this weekend after Sony’s comic book adventure “Spider-Man: No Way Home” crushed box office expectations, generating a mammoth $253 million from 4,336 theaters in North America. It was easily the best domestic opening weekend turnout of any movie in pandemic times. Prior to this weekend, no other COVID-era
Personal and political life in Haiti are brought sharply into focus in “Freda,” a powerful and resolutely unsentimental drama about a determined young university student who must decide whether to stay in her deeply troubled country or seek a future elsewhere. Weaving documentary footage of civil unrest into an intelligent and compassionate screenplay that examines
The trusty old tale of a city slicker teacher being posted to a school in the sticks is given a fresh coat of paint in the delightful Bhutanese comic drama “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.” Gloriously filmed on staggeringly beautiful locations around the most remote school on Earth and wonderfully performed by a cast
The second film submitted for Oscar international feature contention by Southeast African nation Malawi, following Shemu Joyah’s “The Road to Sunrise” in 2018, “Falsani: A Tale of Survival” offers an earnest depiction of struggle against poverty and corruption. Director Gift Sukez Sukali and writer Gilbert Moyo’s debut is technically competent if more haphazard in storytelling
Longtime “Spider-Man” series producer Amy Pascal and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige have an offbeat filmmaking partnership, as they demonstrated in a new interview. In a conversation with the New York Times’ Brooks Barnes about “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and the future of the franchise, the pair addressed Pascal’s previous comments that Tom Holland would
If you’re sick of finding pandemic parallels in everything, no need to worry about Péter Bergendy’s period horror “Post Mortem,” the Hungarian Oscar entry. It manages to avoid saying anything about our current moment despite being set during the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918, when that virus was well on its way to killing 50
“Holy Beasts” doesn’t work on every level, but it hits the bullseye where it matters most: as a cinematic reclamation project in honor of the late Dominican director Jean-Louis Jorge. Murdered in 2000 at age 53, Jorge only completed three feature films, but his predilection for kitsch and blurring the line between dreams and reality
Henry Vallejo’s unassuming, near-vérité drama “Powerful Chief” takes its title from the originary figure who founded the Incan Empire. Yet that historical reference, no doubt lost on those not well-versed in Andean indigenous history, serves less as necessary context for the film than as an added bit of perspective. The specter of the vast Incan
In “Memoria,” out now in theaters, Tilda Swinton, hearing a loud “bang” at daybreak, begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while navigating her way through the jungles of Colombia. The film causes one to ponder why sound design is often only mentioned in connection with superhero movies laden with explosions, crazy, loud music and effects
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) voted on the best achievements in film in 2021 on Saturday, announcing its award winners through its Twitter account. As previously announced, Mel Brooks received the association’s 2021 career achievement award. This year’s winners will be honored alongside Brooks during a ceremony in 2022. Last year, the LAFCA
Fans hoping that “Spider-Man: No Way Home” star Tom Holland would swing into their theater on opening night had no such luck this go-round. The actor and another special surprise guest (for the sake of spoilers, we’re not naming them) planned to pop in and surprise movie-goers at early evening screenings on Friday in Los
After months of pandemic-wary patrons and tepid numbers, this year of recovery for the domestic box office is at least going out with a bang. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” webbed up a truly mind-boggling $121.5 million on Friday from 4,336 locations, putting itself on the path toward a projected $242 million opening weekend. That’s a
Hollywood’s historic Cinerama Dome theater could finally be getting ready to reopen, as an application for a license to sell alcoholic beverages was filed Friday. There are plans to open the theater sometime in the first half of 2022, a studio executive confirms. The license was filed Friday under the name Cinerama Hollywood on behalf
Filmmaker Joel Coen wanted “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” his adaptation of the Shakespearean staple about the ambitious Scottish king, to be rooted in theatricality but to avoid looking like a filmed play. For his first solo movie as a director, he chose to shoot in the stark black and white of classic expressionist works. The
On Monday, Sony Pictures Entertainment hosted a raucous premiere for “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” a superhero adventure widely expected to generate a new COVID-era record opening weekend. The red carpet outside Westwood’s Regency Village theater — where industry elites and A-listers gathered after showing proof of full vaccination and a negative PCR test to watch
In Variety‘s Up Next, we asked four Oscar winners to pick the one person who represents the future of Hollywood. Pedro Almodóvar describes his scripts as making a dish. “They need a lot of cooking time in the oven,” he says. Applying that logic to “Parallel Mothers,” it took about 10 to 12 years. Almodóvar
It can take a moment to adjust to the quiet, grave rhythms of the impossibly gorgeous “2000 Songs of Farida,” where the imagemaking is so resplendent as to be disorienting, given how accustomed we are to a cinema in which the pictures primarily serve the storytelling. But Yalkin Tuychiev’s film, which is Uzebkistan’s entry for