Movie News

Disney has issued a response over its upcoming live-action “Snow White” remake following criticisms made by Peter Dinklage. The “Game of Thrones” Emmy winner blasted the Disney remake during an interview on Marc Maron’s “Wtf” podcast, calling out the fairytale’s “fucking backwards” depictions of dwarfs.

“To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community,” a spokesperson for Disney said in a statement to Variety. “We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period.”

The live-action “Snow White” film is being directed by Marc Webb, best known for helming “500 Days of Summer” and the Andrew Garfield-starring “Amazing Spider-Man” movies. “West Side Story” breakout Rachel Zegler is starring in the title role, with Gal Gadot also on board as the villainous Evil Queen.

For the first time since leaving Dunder Mifflin, “The Office” co-stars Steve Carell and John Krasinski will reunite on-screen in Paramount’s new family movie “If.”

Krasinski will write, direct and star in the film. Along with Carell, “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “Roots” star Louis Gossett Jr., “Minari” breakout Alan Kim, and “The Walking Dead” actor Cailey Fleming have also been added to the call sheet. They will join previously announced cast members Ryan Reynolds, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Fiona Shaw.

The official logline has yet to be revealed, but the story is based on Krasinski’s original idea about a child’s journey to rediscover their imagination. It is similarly unclear who anyone will be playing in “If.”

The film is scheduled to be released on Nov. 17, 2023, just before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Krasinski shared his excitement on social media, writing “Ah, what if one day I could assemble my dream cast?

An assembly line follows a simple formula. Use the most efficient way to mass-produce something and repeat. Some filmmakers can get away with that approach for a time. The ones who challenge themselves to work outside their comfort zones add skills to their tool kits, and, not coincidentally, often find themselves in the mix when awards season rolls around.

Steven Spielberg has directed dozens of films in many genres, but this year’s “West Side Story” adaptation marked his first movie musical. Even for a director who has brought aliens, dinosaurs and the invasion of Normandy to the screen, the project spurred anxiety. “Fear is my fuel and confidence is my enemy,” Spielberg told the Guardian about the project. “If I’m on my heels, I get better ideas than, let’s say, coming in to do the sequel to ‘Jurassic Park.’”

That fear of working in uncharted waters helped

Barbara Gordon has officially found her roommate.

Ivory Aquino has been cast in the HBO Max feature film “Batgirl” as Alysia Yeoh, the best friend of the titular superhero, a.k.a. Barbara Gordon (Leslie Grace).

Both Aquino and Yeoh are transgender, marking the first time a live-action feature film adaptation of a DC Comics title will feature an openly trans character. Yeoh first appeared in a 2011 issue of “Batgirl” written by Gail Simone and penciled by Ardian Syaf.

News of Aquino’s casting first leaked online in mid-January after Grace posted a photo seemingly from the set of the film to her Instagram story, tagging Aquino and captioning the shot (of two women crossing the street) with “Barbara and Alysia

He’s back…and it didn’t take very long for his return either. A week after getting bumped from the top spot at the domestic box office by the latest Scream installment, Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home retook first place in its sixth weekend in theaters, racking up $14.1 million in receipts. Not bad for a movie that’s already been around for a month and a half. Meanwhile, there were two new wide releases over the weekend…not that anyone would notice. Universal’s faith-based romance, Redeeming Love, snuck into fourth place with a $3.7 million debut while the mothball-scented historical fantasy, The King’s Daughter, was finally unspooled after sitting on the shelf for seven years and proceeded to belly-flop into eighth place.

After letting another movie see what a first-place opening feels like, Spider-Man: No Way Home resumed its reign as the number one film in North America

Emerald Fennell — who won the Academy Award for best original screenplay last year for her directorial debut “Promising Young Woman” — has set up her next project. Though plot details are being kept under wraps, it’s said to be a story of obsession.

MRC Film is the studio behind the movie, and LuckyChap Entertainment, which produced “Promising Young Woman,” is in talks to produce this project as well. “Promising Young Woman” received a total of five Oscar nominations — for best picture, director, actress (for Carey Mulligan’s performance), editing (Frédéric Thoraval) and original screenplay (which Fennell won).

Fennell is currently meeting with actors to cast for the top-secret project, and plans to begin filming this summer. As was the case with “Promising Young Woman,” she will once again direct, write and produce.

In a December 2020 cover story for Variety about “Promising Young Woman,” Fennell said she decided she wanted to

Cannes 2019 discoveries Mounia Meddour and Maryam Touzani are among the Mena filmmakers with works in post-production.

Middle Eastern and North African cinema enjoyed a high profile on the 2021 festival scene thanks to a raft of works from the region including Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch’s Casablanca Beats, Egyptian Cannes Critics’ Week winner Feathers, Lebanese filmmaker Mounia Akl’s Costa Brava, Lebanon, and Tribeca selection Souad by Egyptian filmmaker Ayten Amin.

Will this trend continue into 2022? Screen rounds up key titles from the Middle East and North Africa that are likely to excite festival programmers this year.

Am-Bi-Gu-i-Ty (Tun)

Dir. Nada Mezni Hafaiedh

The International jury will be headed by US director M. Night Shyamalan.

The Berlin International Film Festival has confirmed its full juries for the 2022 edition, with Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Brazil’s Karim Ainouz joining president M. Night Shyamalan on the main international jury.

Also on the seven-person international jury are German director Anne Zohra Berrached; Tunisian-French producer Said Ben Said; Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangaremba; and Danish actress Connie Nielsen.

The international jury will select the winners of the Golden and Silver Bears from the 18 films playing in Competition. Shyamalan was selected as jury president in October last year.

They were led by Sony’s ‘Peter Rabbit 2’ and Roadshow’s ‘The Dry’.

Australian films and co-productions garnered 11.8 % of the local box office market in 2021, the biggest share for 35 years, according to figures from Numero/Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (Mpdaa).

Sony’s Peter Rabbit 2, an Australian-us production, was the highest grossing local film, with a gross of US$16m, but with Roadshow’s literary adaptation The Dry, starring Eric Bana, snapping at its heels with a 2021 gross of $14.6m (total gross is $15.5m thanks to 2020 previews).

The other biggest local performers were Warner Bros’ Mortal Kombat

Ceremony for awards voted on by 4,363 members of the César academy will take place on February 25.

Xavier Giannoli’s literary adaptation Lost Illusions is the frontrunner in the nomination stage of the 47th edition of France’s César awards, followed by Leos Carax’s Annette and Valérie Lemercier’s Aline.

France’s Academy of Cinema and Arts and Sciences unveiled the nomination list online on Wednesday morning (January 26), ahead of the ceremony scheduled to take place on February 25.

Giannoli’s adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s eponymous 19th-century novel, which premiered in competition at Venice last year, was nominated in

The streamer is expanding into countries including South Africa, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the Palestine territories. 

South Africa, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Israel and the Palestine territories are some of the 42 countries that US streaming giant Disney+ will be available in this summer across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea).

The service launched in the US in November 2019. As of the fourth quarter of 2021, Disney+ hit 118 million total global subscribers. Disney+ is currently available in 18 countries in the Emea region, all of which are in Europe, including the UK, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Italy.

The film had been set to open the festival before the online move.

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will host in-person screenings of Mijke de Jong’s docudrama Along The Way on its closing weekend, with cinemas in the Netherlands set to reopen from today, January 26.

Along The Way was announced as the opening film on December 15, before being removed from that slot due to rights issues when the festival was moved online a week later due to Covid restrictions in the Netherlands.

The world premiere of the film will play in cinemas in Rotterdam, Groningen and Amsterdam on the

The latest awards issue features interviews with Aaron Sorkin, Celine Sciamma, Paolo Sorrentino and Guillermo del Toro

Read Screen’s January 26 digital edition, which this week focuses on the improbable journeys of several international feature contenders; plus interviews with high-profile directors in awards contention.

Aaron Sorkin, Celine Sciamma, Paolo Sorrentino and Guillermo del Toro are among those to feature; as well as Pawo Choyning Dorji, director of Bhutanese Oscar entry Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.

Click here to read the digital edition

Read Screen’s digital editions

Cinema admissions in Japan increased by 8% over 2020, to 115 million. Box office grosses improved by 13% to $1.42 billion in the same period, according to figures released on Wednesday by the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (Eiren).

But compared to earnings of $2.29 billion on admissions of 195 million in the pre-pandemic era, last year was still way behind. In 2021, attendance was 41% below 2019 levels. Gross box office was 38% down.

Local films, with earnings of $1.13 billion, grabbed a 79% market share, compared with 76% in 2020. They accounted for nine of the top ten box office titles for the year. Number one was “Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time,” a sci-fi anime film written and directed by Anno Hideaki, that made $90 million following its March 2021 bow.

The highest ranking live-action film, at number four with $40 million , was “Arashi Anniversary Tour 5×20 Film “Record of Memories,” a concert film of the boy band Arashi, which retired at the end of 2020 after a county-wide concert tour.

Studio consulting with dwarfism community.

Disney said on Tuesday (25) it was taking a “different approach” to its live action Disney’s Snow White project after Peter Dinklage hit out at the adaption based on 1937 animation Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.

Dinklage, star of awards season contender Cyrano and a multiple Emmy winner on Game Of Thrones, told Marc Maron’s Wtf podcast that while the upcoming project was “progressive in one way” for casting Latina star Rachel Zegler from West Side Story in the lead, the studio was ”still making that fucking backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together”.

He continued,

Christopher Nolan is a household name in filmmaking, creating big-budget theatrical epics while still maintaining an intimate hold over his craft. Considering the wide array of genres his filmography explores, it's no wonder that the renowned director's influences run the gamut of everything from hard-boiled detective stories to speculative science fiction.

Despite this variety of storytelling, there's a particular type of narrative style that defines Nolan's films, which tend to follow a non-linear course. Both visually and within the script itself, Nolan likes to experiment with the perception of time and uses editing techniques to shift the audience's idea of continuity. Even in his films that don't...

The post The Many Inspirations Behind Christopher Nolan's Signature Style appeared first on /Film.

Like Mike Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger, or really any horror hunk rising up back from the dead, Johnny Knoxville isn't quite ready to let the "Jackass" franchise die. The MTV show turned film series that also birthed a million other MTV shows, will break its 12-year hiatus when the latest movie in the franchise debuts in February 2022. Although the title "Jackass Forever" paradoxically sounds like a goodbye, Knoxville has no interest in closing that door. When he says "Jackass Forever," he sure as hell means it.

In an interview...

The post Is Jackass Forever the Final Movie? Here's What Knoxville Thinks appeared first on /Film.

There’s an extraordinary scene in the middle of “Navalny,” a must-watch documentary that tells the story of Alexei Navalny, the vitally popular Russian opposition leader who, as a presidential candidate, became such a threat to Vladimir Putin that the Kremlin tried to poison him. Most of the documentary, which was unveiled as a last-minute “surprise” entry in the U.S. Documentary Competition slate at Sundance, was shot in 2020 in Germany, where Navalny, tall and ruggedly handsome, with piercing blue eyes and a caustic intelligence (he’s like Daniel Craig’s towering boxer brother), holes up after the poisoning and tries to investigate what happened to him.

He teams up with the lone-wolf Bulgarian journalist hacker Christo Grozev (known as Bellincat), who in scenes worthy of a “Bourne” thriller is able to suss out the identities of the men who tailed Navalny to Tomsk, all on different flights, as part of an Fsb hit squad.

Undocumented Mexican immigrants may find joy in being able to give birth to a generation of first-born children with American citizenship. But for many of them, it's just the beginning of an even riskier affair. With the threat of deportation always looming, there's an immense amount of pressure on these first-generation Americans to live up to the potential of the American Dream in order to keep their family from being pulled apart by the government. The documentary "Mija," which translates to "my daughter," follows the hardships that come with being the first-generation American children of illegal immigrants.

Enter Doris Anahí Muñoz, a 26-year-old...

The post Mija Review: The American Dream for First-Born Immigrants Comes with Immense Pressure [Sundance 2022] appeared first on /Film.

Compared to the stars of today, Humphrey Bogart looked different. He talked different. This was not a man of this time, which tracks for a star born in the 1800s. The icon's wealthy New York family members were direct descendants of the city's first Dutch settlers, and welcomed baby Bogie to the world on Christmas Day, 1899.

Like many actors, Bogart started on Broadway. He made his stage debut in 1921, playing a Japanese waiter who had one line, according to the Associated Press. Through the 1930s he would become a respected character actor, but it took him 20 years to land the role that changed film...

The post The 15 Best Humphrey Bogart Movies Ranked appeared first on /Film.