theplaylist.net - 16 386 Showbiz News and Updates

By the power of Greyskull! Deadline reports that Amazon MGM has dated their live-action reboot of “Masters Of The Universe” to arrive in two summers: June 5, 2026, to be exact. The co-production with Mattel Films has been long in the making.

Nine years after “Mad Max: Fury Road” blazed madly on screen, reinvigorating the “Mad Max” franchise in the process, filmmaker George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is just a few short weeks from release. Set for a May 24 release, we’ll get word even sorry in mid-May at the Cannes Film Festival, where the film will make its world premiere.

Following her breakthrough role as the dark Force user pupil Shin Hati in Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars” series “Ahsoka,” actress Ivanna Sakhno has secured her next major role. The actress has secured a leading role in “M3GAN 2.0,” the follow-up to the critically acclaimed film from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse, according to Deadline.

As May arrives, that means summer is here, at least for movies. And it means the theatrical rollout of tentpoles and blockbuster event films, which start out strong this year with the romantic-comedy actioner “The Fall Guy.” It’s a big month for major releases both for the bigger budgeted features but also for indie films that have gained strong word of mouth through festival selections.

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival arguably was among the best years for recent breakout filmmakers. Several new filmmakers jumped out as promising voices: Cooper Raiff with “Cha Cha Smooth,” Nikyatu Jusu with “Nanny,” and Julian Higgins with “God’s Country.” But arguably, the film that popped the most, perhaps because of its second life on Netflix and streaming services, was John Patton Ford’s “Emily The Criminal” starring Aubrey Plaza.

By now, fans of the “Harry Potter” books, films, and overall franchise are likely well aware that J.K. Rowling, the author of the series, is no ally to the trans community and has been rather public, defiant, and unwavering about many of her bigoted and hateful transphobic comments over the last few years.

One year after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the New Zealand black comedy “Bad Behaviour,” starring Jennifer Connelly (“Top Gun: Maverick,” “Snowpiercer”), is finally coming out in North America. The film is the directorial debut of actor-turned-filmmaker Alice Englert.

If there is any Emmy field that is utterly wide open it’s Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Despite the decline of Peak TV, there should be enough submissions for six nominees as was the case the past four years.

Photojournalism and the objectivity around it has been a massive topic of late thanks to Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” a drama about a group of photojournalists and journalists racing to the White House to cover an impending attack in a near-future dystopian setting. And so the new trailer for “Lee,” starring Kate Winslet as one of the first-ever famous war photojournalists, Lee Miller, seems incredibly well-timed.

Filmmaker Barry Jenkins has made some astounding progressive leaps in his career. In 2016, after one acclaimed but tiny-budgeted micro-indie, “Medicine For Melancholy,” he won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 89th annual ceremony for his highly successful and critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama film “Moonlight.” While he’s made one film, “If Beale Street Could Talk”) and one series since (“The Underground Railroad”), Jenkins turned a lot of heads and arguably even shocked some—especially in the indie and arthouse film communities where he started—when it was announced that he would direct Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a live-action photorealistic computer-generated imagery prequel to the similarly made 2019 “Lion King” film by Jon Favreau.

Some categories are competitive this Emmy season and some categories are not. Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series certainly qualifies as the latter.

Yes, “Presumed Innocent” was a late 1980 legal thriller directed by Alan J. Pakula, and starring Harrison Ford, and well, everything is due for a remake of some kind these days, right? Enter “Presumed Innocent,” based on the same source material, the limited series from TV super producer David.

The 2024 Emmy category for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series is so wide open that not only is picking the nominees a crapshoot, but we’re not even sure there is a legitimate frontrunner yet to win it (or ever will be). The reason is a rare one in Emmy land, it appears none of 2023’s nominees are eligible this go around.

Last year, when Australian twin filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou—best known previously for their YouTube channel “RackaRacka”— released their debut feature horror film “Talk to Me,” it not only managed to rake in an impressive $92 million against a budget of $4.5 million, but it also garnered rave reviews and announced the arrival of two bold new voices that would surely reinvigorate the genre.

Is it possible we have a snub or even two in the Lead Actor in a Comedy Series category? The Ladies may be searching high and low for two nominees to round out the field, but the gentlemen face a somewhat more competitive race. And that’s a big emphasis on “somewhat.” One thing is for sure, last year’s winner, Jeremy Allen White, will absolutely be nominated again and is once again the frontrunner for his performance in season two of “The Bear.” Comedy legend Martin Short should also earn his third nod for “Only Murders in the Building.” Beyond those two actors, however, things may or may not get interesting.

Filmmaker Zach Cregger’s next film, the thriller “Weapons,” looks like it’s armed and ready to do fire. Yesterday, Alden Ehrenreich joined the cast, which already includes Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, indicating how fast Cregger shot to the A-list of directors.

If you think waiting for the Amy Adams thriller, “Nightbitch,” is agonizing, just imagine how directing Marielle Heller feels. A horror comedy about a woman who pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mom, but then domesticity takes a wild and surreal turn, “Nightbitch” began shooting back in October 2022.

Coming off the two-time Academy Award-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front,” German-born Austrian and Swiss director Edward Berger has gotten a lot of traction for many of his follow-up projects. The first one moving forward, however, is the Netflix film “The Ballad Of A Small Player,” which just received another infusion of talent.

There was a fleeting moment in the early and mid-00s when being selected for the Slamdance Film Festival could mean something for a filmmaker’s career. Sure, it wasn’t the same as being part of the more prestigious and larger Park City, Utah film festival, but the edgier offshoot event gave a voice to independent films that didn’t have an industry connection or agency influence to make the Sundance cut.

Following the announced team-up of director Olivia Wilde and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap productions for the adaptation of “Deadpool” creator Rob Liefield’s “Avengelyne,” the project is receiving some serious upgrades. For one, Robbie, who was initially announced as only a producer on the project, is now attached for the lead role.

South Korean cinema continues to be a thriller forerunner in many genres, especially horror, and the new horror thriller, “Sleep,” seems to be continuing the tradition. The film is the feature-length directorial debut of Jason Yu, a second unit director on Bong Joon-Ho’s sci-fi-ish thriller “Okja.” The connections to Joon-Ho don’t end there either, as “Parasite” star Lee Sun-Kyun is among the cast members.

With just eleven days away from release and anticipation building for “Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes,” 20th Century Studios has dropped one final trailer for franchise fans to feast their eyes on before the full movie hits theaters on May 10, 2024. Directed by “Maze Runner” filmmaker Wes Ball, the film serves as a standalone sequel to 2017’s “War for the Planet of the Apes,” which closed out the initial trilogy of films that began with “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” and was then proceeded by “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes.” It’s the fourth installment in the reboot series and the tenth film overall.

While known for their blockbuster, saving-the-world narratives and often billion-dollar grossing earnings, given their costs and expectations, superhero films frequently have a reputation for the way studios often interfere in their making, the endless noting, the insistence of reshoots and sometimes, even the sidelining of the director (see “Thor: Dark World” filmmaker Alan Taylor who has said in the past that Marvel effectively locked him out of the editing process).

For most of his career, Dwayne Johnson / The Rock has forged a reputation as a hardworking, dependable, likable actor with a boatload of charisma, leading superhero movies, actioners, and 4-quadrant friendly comedies. During his “Fast And Furious” days, Johnson butted heads with the franchise star Vin Diesel, reportedly over the latter’s lackadaisical schedule and unprofessional reputation.

Fasten those seatbelts because Netflix is ready to deliver an new exhilarating sports racing series, “Senna,” directed by Vicente Amorim and Júlia Rezende. Brazilian Formula One-winning racing driver Ayrton Senna‘s historic victory at the 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos marked the driver’s first victory in his hometown of Sao Paulo after a difficult race in which he was mostly stuck in sixth gear.

When Taika Waititi released “Thor: Ragnarok” in 2017, the refreshingly comedic take on God Of Thunder was overwhelmingly well received, with fans loving the more irreverent take on the Norse God. Most critics and fans still consider it the best “Thor” film.

Although legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is still trying to find a distributor for his decades-in-the-making new drama, “Megalopolis,” we finally have our first official look at “The Godfather” director’s brand new epic sci-fi-ish drama via Vanity Fair. It’s Coppola’s first feature-length film in nearly thirteen years, following 2011’s experimental “Twixt.” Released via Vanity Fair, the first look from the film reveals Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel scanning the horizon atop a building in a futuristic-looking New York City, READ MORE: Cannes 2024: New Films From Yorgos Lanthimos, Frances Ford Coppola, Sean Baker & Andrea Arnold Written and produced by Coppola, the “Apocalypse Now” filmmaker first came up with the idea for the ambitious epic back in 1979 before actively developing the project in 1983.

When the highly-anticipated blockbuster superhero film “Deadpool & Wolverine” slashes its way into theatres this July, fans can expect to see the nostalgic return of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and probably a whole ton of cameos, if the rumors and meta trailer jokes are any indication. However, as already reported, one character that viewers may have wanted to see but sadly won’t be in the anticipated blockbuster is Josh Brolin’s Cable, who previously appeared in “Deadpool 2.” Brolin’s absence from the film is already known; he was never reported as part of the film, and there’s no trace of him in any of the recent trailers; he even joked that he had beef with “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds.

While Greta Gerwig’s Academy Award-nominated “Barbie” was the highest-grossing film of 2023, as we’ve seen over the course of the last year, it angered and irritated many. From Oliver Stone to Kelly Reichardt to Ruben Östlund, seemingly everyone had a take on “Barbie” they were willing to share.

Following a provocative interview with GQ where he proclaimed the “movie business was over”—despite having directed his first movie—comedian Jerry Seinfeld is back at it, delivering more controversial statements, this time about TV comedy and liberal culture. While promoting his feature film “Unfrosted,” the comedian said in an interview with The New Yorker that “P.C.