theplaylist.net - 16 281 Showbiz News and Updates

Of all the famously unmade and never materialized film projects, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s bleak and brutal Western, “Blood Meridian,” has to be near the top of the list. But as you likely know by now, if you’re a fan of this supposedly “unadaptable” book, a new film version is already in the works.

Oscar-nominated actress Amy Adams was everywhere over the last decade, but the actress seemingly took a beat after a busy 2021. Since 2022’s “Disenchanted,” the actress hasn’t appeared in anything, not one film or TV project.

How did Jim Henson inspire generations of dreamers? Director Ron Howard chronicles the life and legacy of this master puppeteer in “Jim Henson Idea Man.” The documentary follows Henson’s life from working on local television to crafting a highly regarded filmography. Along the way, he would see The Muppets become pop culture icons in their own right with a TV series and several box office hits.

“Dune” filmmaker Denis Villeneuve has a lot of options for what he could make next, and one of them could be his long-gestating “Cleopatra” movie based on the Stacy Schiff novel “Cleopatra: A Life” for Sony Pictures (he has a couple of options, one of them being a third “Dune” movie too). Before that, however, some may remember the era when filmmaker David Fincher had a version of the movie set up at Paramount, circa 2012, that would have starred Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie  (long before the competing Gal Gadot incarnation with Patty Jenkins and Kari Skogland).

There’s an intriguing show somewhere buried within the mysterious shrouds of “The Veil,” the new FX international spy drama from creator/writer Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”), that’s just a little too slippery for its own good. Truthfully, it’s there front and center from the start, a series about shapeshifting spies that lose their sense of identity and self because of all the surreptitious double lives they are leading, a strong concept.

Visionary filmmaker George Miller returns to his gasoline-fueled wasteland fantasy action universe this summer “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” The latest installment of his post-apocalypse saga is a prequel centering on a young Furiosa (this time played by Anya Taylor-Joy instead of Charlize Theron), but it apparently almost went in a totally different direction, using a totally different medium In a new interview with Total Film (via Games Radar), producer Doug Mitchell recently revealed how the prequel came about and how it was actually ready 15 years ago story-wise, with the original intention of becoming an anime project, not the live-action thriller that arrives in May.

It’s kind of been a minute since we’ve heard from Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur. Starting his career with acclaimed Icelandic films and thrillers like “101 Reykjavík,” “The Sea,” and “A Little Trip to Heaven,” he then graduated to Hollywood filmmaking, taking on commercial action and thriller efforts like “Contraband,” “2 Guns,” and the mountain climbing film “Everest” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and an ensemble American cast.

Projects centered around the left-wing revolutionary group, the Black Panther Party, continue to fascinate popular culture. In 2022, Daniel Kaluuya won an Oscar for portraying the betrayed deputy chairman, Fred Hampton, in the bio-crime drama, “Judas and the Black Messiah.” Now, a new limited series, “The Big Cigar,” based on a Playboy Article by Joshuah Bearman (known for the Wired Article that inspired “Argo”), tells the too-good-to-be-true story of Black Panther co-founder Huey Percy Newton’s escape to Cuba with the assistance of a famous film producer.

Back in 2016, writer/director Shane Black (“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”) released “The Nice Guys,” a comedic two-hander that starred Ryan Gosling (“Blade Runner 2029”) and Russell Crowe (“Gladiator”) in an unlikely team-up an odd-couple pair of private eyes investigating a missing girl and the mysterious death of a porn star. However, while the film was considered a solid effort, it didn’t do gangbusters at the box office, only earning $71.2 million globally against a budget of $50 million.

One of the most talked about series of 2024 is FX’s feudal Japan series, “Shōgun,” which just ended its ten-episode run on Hulu. The acclaimed series centers on the collision of two ambitious men, an English sailor (Cosmo Jarvis), who is shipwrecked in Japan, and Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), a shrewd, powerful Japanese feudal lord, at odds with his own dangerous, political rivals.

Between shows like “Halston,” “The New Look,” “The Collection,” and Ridley Scott’s movie “House Of Gucci,” stories about the fashion empire seem to be on the neverending rise. And in the era of Peak TV—which hasn’t really subsided despite reports to the contrary—it seems like almost anyone is worthy of their own mini-series.

We almost wish “One Day” was a continuous series. Not because we wanted to extend the narrative of David Nichols’ original novel, but because if it was a drama series we’d be assured stars Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall would almost be guaranteed to receive the Emmy love they deserve.

Late last week, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino shocked the film industry. All set to start shooting his tenth and would-be final film, “The Movie Critic,” or at least a handful of scenes to be eligible for a tax credit and then resume in 2025, the filmmaker pivoted, changed course, and then canceled the film.

The subject of a timely new Variety profile praising his versatility, British actor Dan Stevens is having a moment. The actor is currently competing with himself at the box office with two different films: MonsterVerse installment “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” for Warners and directing duo Radio Silence’s new vampire movie “Abigail” for Universal.

Despite winning his defamation trailer against his ex-wife Amber Heard following her allegations of domestic violence, actor Johnny Depp is still a persona non-grata in Hollywood, by and large. The actor hasn’t starred in anything significant since he was fired/resigned from the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise in 2020, but that hasn’t really stopped the less-discerning European film market from tapping his talents.

We don’t often see the release of an Oscar-nominated animated movie released in theaters after the Academy Awards ceremonies had aired (there are, of course, outliers), as most studios want to capitalize on the buzz of a nomination. But “Robot Dreams” is breaking with tradition as the Spanish/French animation pic is heading to the big screen next month.

Zoë Kravitz sure turned heads with the announcement of her directorial debut, a crazy island thriller initially titled “Pussy Island.” Eventually changed to the less provocative, more-marketable “Blink Twice” —a reference to being kidnapped and blinking to convey you’re in danger—the film is a psychological thriller about a cocktail waitress who becomes infatuated with a tech billionaire and travels with him to his private island, where things begin to go wrong.

The Peabody Awards are revealing their 2024 nominees in two batches this year and today was an opportunity to shine the spotlight on the non-narrative works. Among the Documentary, News, Public Service, and Radio/Podcast nominees were a slew of Oscar-nominated films including “The Eternal Memory,” “Bobi Wine: The People’s President,” and “All The Beauty and the Bloodshed.” Oh, and this year’s Academy Award winner, “20 Days in Mariupol.” READ MORE: 10 pressing questions for the 2024 Emmy Award Season This year’s narrative nominees will be revealed on Thursday.

For years, streaming had been a great home to canceled series, revivals, and sequels. However, an attempt to get Netflix to bite on a sequel to the late Heath Ledger’s medieval rom-com “A Knight’s Tale” was recently passed on thanks to a clinical computer assessment.

Jennifer Lopez has had a mixed year so far. Her back-to-back documentaries, “This Is Me… Now: A Love Story” and “The Greatest Love Story Never Told” for Prime Video, seemingly did well enough with critics.

Between his massively successful sitcom “Seinfeld” and his popular Netflix streaming talk show “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee” and his various stand-up specials, comedian Jerry Seinfeld has long established himself as arguably a master of comedic television. Seinfeld has spent nearly four decades on television, but after all this time, the funny man is finally making the jump to movies with “Unfrosted,” a comedic take on the origin of the beloved breakfast pastry Pop-Tarts, which he both stars and directs.

With the advent of intimacy coordinators and more evolved forms of safeguards, the film and acting industry has dramatically changed for the better in the last few years in the post #MeToo era. But it used to be much worse.

Some shows are big cultural hits and juggernauts, and some quietly go on season after season; maybe not a huge critical giant, but there are enough ardent fans to justify their existence. And that’s probably where Apple TV+’s “Trying,” a heartwarming British comedy television series created by Andy Wolton (“The Amazing World of Gumball”), lands; it has its fans, and it keeps successfully chugging along, though to be fair, it does have its U.K.

With two studios running point for the rock biopic, “Back To Black,” Studio Canal in the U.K., and Focus Features in the U.S., you essentially get two kicks at the promotion can. From director Sam Taylor-Johnson (“Fifty Shades Of Grey”), “Back To Black” is a biopic of the late pioneering blues and soul R&B artist Amy Winehouse, who became a smash sensation globally in the early aughts.

To quote Robert Downey Jr. in ‘Infinity War,’ “Your math is blowing my mind.” Last month, director Zack Snyder appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience (you can watch/listen below) to promote his latest film, “Rebel Moon: Part Two” (read our review).

Rawandan-British actor Ncuti Gatwa is on the rise with roles in “Sex Education,” “Barbie,” and currently, as the lead of “Doctor Who,” the wildly popular BBC sci-fi comedy series that first aired in 1963. Gatwa’s casting in “Doctor Who” saw the actor face an extreme level of racist backlash, reminding us all over again of the sexism that fellow “Doctor Who” alumni Jodie Whittaker experienced when she was hired to play the Doctor in 2017 (the role has mostly been portrayed by white men so far).

From almost all accounts, it seems like Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino has another hit on his hands with “Challengers,” a new tennis drama from MGM Studios that’s actually more of a love-triangle romance bundled into the sports genre. Starring Zendaya (Marvel’s “Spider-Man” franchise and the “Dune” series), Josh O’Connor (“Dr.

Rebecca Ferguson is becoming close to a household name. O.K., maybe “close” is a slight exaggeration, but her profile is bigger than her social media presence, and that’s primarily because her resume over the past decade is filled with one banger after another.

Let’s catch up on all things Cannes Film Festival. For one, if you haven’t seen it, Cannes recently revealed its 2024 poster, featuring a scene from “Rhapsody in August,” directed by the great Japanese master Akira Kurosawa, 81 at the time (see it below in full).

2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994, winning the Palm d’Or and cementing the filmmaker’s career in the process. The Los Angeles-set crime anthology with intertwined stories not only was behind the career revival and rebranding of John Travolta but also helped elevate Samuel L.