‘Hacks’ Actor Johnny Sibilly Signs With CAA

EXCLUSIVE: Matt Shakman, who last year landed the highly coveted Fantastic Four directing job, has signed with CAA. Shakman beat a number of directors for the job in August on the highly-anticipated Marvel pic with production expected to star next year.

In short order, indie filmmaker Ari Aster has become one of the most exciting writer/directors on the planet. Following the one-two punch of two amazing, psychologically bruising horrors, “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” the filmmaker returns with his most ambitious film, “Beau Is Afraid” which stars Joaquin Phoenix, is a dark, surreal, black comedy nightmare odyssey.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Emma Stone was blunt. “Are you okay, man?” she asked Ari Aster after a surprise screening of his latest film, “Beau Is Afraid” at Brooklyn’s Alamo Drafthouse on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Audiences around the country may be asking variations of the same question after they emerge from the occasionally creepy, often hilarious and deeply weird horror-comedy. It’s a movie about a neurotic man (Joaquin Phoenix) with serious mommy issues, who must endure a phantasmagoric odyssey as he labors to get home following a family tragedy. Over the course of his journey he will be kidnapped by a suburban couple (Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan), stalked by a hulking vet with PTSD, menaced by a paint-drinking teenage girl and embraced by an experimental theater troupe. There’s also an animated sequence, as well as a recurring gag involving Phoenix’s distended testicles, plus a sex scene with Parker Posey that may rank among the wackiest ever committed to film. Oh, and did we mention the whole thing is three hours long?

Ari Aster pulled an epic April Fool’s prank on moviegoers expecting to see a screening of Midsommar but instead were treated to a screening of his newest film Beau Is Afraid starring Joaquin Phoenix.

EXCLUSIVE: Whitney Peak, who recently starred as Becca in the Disney+ sequel Hocus Pocus 2, has signed with CAA.

EXCLUSIVE: Michael C. Hall has signed with CAA for representation. 

EXCLUSIVE: UTA has signed rising Australian actor Luke Bracey for representation in all areas.

One of the most anticipated films of 2023 is, without a doubt, Ari Aster’s “Beau is Afraid.” Not only is it the third film from the writer-director of “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” but it also stars Joaquin Phoenix in what looks to be another tour-de-force performance. And according to Aster, the joy found in making ‘Beau’ has changed him as a filmmaker and will likely lead to yet another film collaboration with Phoenix in the future.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International “Blue Jean” director Georgia Oakley has signed with CAA. The up-and-coming British filmmaker made her debut feature with the Venice-premiering “Blue Jean,” which bowed to wide acclaim on the Lido in September. Set in northeast England in the 1980s, the pic is centred on a closeted gym teacher (played by Rosy McEwen) who is forced to confront her sexuality after taking a gay student under her wing. The film tackles the Margaret Thatcher era’s controversial Section 28 law, which prohibited British schools and councils from “promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.” The law was passed in 1988 and stayed in place until 2003.

So far in his short career, filmmaker Ari Aster has become an indie auteur in the vein of Jordan Peele in just two short films. His films may not be of the same scale—yet—but they are just as ambitious.

Naman Ramachandran Writer-director Jesper Ganslandt has signed with CAA for representation. Ganslandt made his debut with “Falkenberg Farewell” in 2006. The coming-of-age film followed a group of friends who grew up in the titular town of Falkenberg and spend a last summer there before moving to the big city. The film debuted at Venice and had a stellar festival run including Toronto, Reykjavik, Tallinn Black Nights and Goteborg. It was nominated for the Nordic Council’s Film Prize, chosen as Sweden’s submission for the Academy Awards, and was nominated in several categories at the Guldbagge Awards in 2007, including best film, best direction and best screenplay. It won the FIPRESCI Award at the IndieLisboa International Independent Film Festival.

Richard Kuipers The third feature directed by Vietnamese superstar Ngo Thanh Van — better known to western audiences as actor Veronica Ngo in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” and “The Old Guard” — lives up to its title with a furious display of female revenge set in the seedy streets of late-’90s Ho Chi Minh City. Despite a routine plot and some abrasive tonal shifts, this tale of a motherly mentor turning three damaged young women into deadly assassins is packed with exciting action and boasts fine performances from four killers bound by blood, bullets and all manner of deadly weapons. Following a series of rowdy screenings in SXSW’s Midnighters section, “Furies” will stream worldwide as the first Vietnamese Netflix original feature on March 23.   

BreAnna Bell Kamie Crawford has signed with CAA for representation. She continues to be represented by Range Media Partners and Brecheen, Feldman, Breimer, Silver, and Thompson. Perhaps most known for her role as a host on MTV’s “Catfish: The TV Show” (which she’s hosted since 2018), Crawford recently inked an overall deal with MTV Entertainment Studios in January and has since been named as the host of Paramount+’s “Are You The One?” and MTV’s “Ex on the Beach.” The former series, which ran for 8 seasons on MTV before jumping to the streamer, returned after three years off the air in January. She also hosted HBO Max’s “Sweet Life: Los Angeles” reunion special.

EXCLUSIVE: Artist International Group has signed French actor Kev Adams whose work spans acting, screenwriting and producing.

BreAnna Bell Jerah Milligan has signed with CAA for representation. A multi-hyphenate creative artist, Milligan co-created and starred in Netflix’s “Astronomy Club,” which was executive produced by Kenya Barris and Dan Powell, and co-wrote, executive produced, and starred in an original presentation of “Sherlock Homies” for HBO Max. As a director, he recently directed the sketch segments of Yvonne Orji’s latest HBO Special “A Whole Me.” Milligan’s short film “Mahogany Drive,” which he directed and co-wrote, was recently screened at the Slamdance Film Festival. His additional directing credits include Showtime’s “Desus & Mero” and MTV’s “Wild ‘N Out.” Milligan is a product of Viacom’s Viewfinder: Emerging Directors Program.

EXCLUSIVE: Writer, producer and director Florian Sigl, the filmmaker behind the recent movie version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, has signed with CAA for representation.

EXCLUSIVE: Manu Rios, known for his starring role on Netflix’s popular Spanish YA series Elite, has signed with WME for representation.

EXCLUSIVE: CAA on Tuesday announced its signing of Allison Janney — the Academy Award-winning actress who has also been recognized over the course of her career with six Emmys, a Golden Globe, 7 SAG Awards, 2 Critics’ Choice Awards, a BAFTA, an Independent Spirit Award and other accolades.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Nearly 125 years after her assassination, the Empress Elisabeth of Austria — or Sisi to her enduring cultists — continues to inspire a veritable industry of portraiture in Europe: In the last year alone, a novel, two TV series (one of them a glossy Netflix affair) and two feature films have been dedicated to the tightly corseted royal icon. Viewers outside the Continental sphere of Sisi-mania may only have registered one of those films, Marie Kreutzer’s chic, subversive anti-biopic “Corsage,” which might make the second, German director Frauke Finsterwalder’s lush, irreverent “Sisi & I,” seem to them a too-soon spare — coincidentally repeating several tricks from Kreutzer’s anachronistic playbook with its modern feminist inflections, contemporary soundtrack cues and sensational fashions, albeit with plenty of its own panache.

Controversial actor Robert Blake (born Michael James Gubitosi) died today in Los Angeles from heart disease, according to his niece, Noreen Austin. He was 89 years old.