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Let the fireworks begin.

The long July 4th holiday weekend is turning into a bonanza for Hollywood as Minions: The Rise of Gru heads for a huge four-day opening of 129.2 million domestically, according to early estimates. That includes 109.5 million for the three days. (Some rivals think it has a shot at approaching 140 million by the end of Monday.)

Overseas, the movie will cross 86 million by Sunday for a global booty of 200 million-plus.

Forget about breaking pandemic-era records for a family title; the Illumination and Universal movie will boast one of the top starts ever at the domestic box office for an animated Hollywood tentpole, not adjusted for inflation.

Friday’s haul alone was around 48 million from 4,400 theaters, including a hefty 10.8 million in previews.

The movie’s performance is significant in that it confirms that parents and younger kids are ready to return to the multiplex in droves.

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Illumination and Universal’s July 4th event movie Minions: The Rise of Gru began landing in select North American theaters Thursday afternoon, grossing an excellent 10.8 million in previews from 3,350 locations.

By Friday, the family animated pic will be playing in approximately 4,400 theaters in the U.S and Canada. The movie — which saw its release delayed by more than a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic — will test the strength of the family box office just weeks after Pixar and Disney’s Lightyear failed to soar into the stratosphere.

The Rise of Gru is a sequel to 2015’s Minions and is the fifth entry in the Despicable Me franchise, which is the top-grossing animated series in history, not adjusted for inflation.

Tracking suggests that Minions 2 will open in the 70 million to 80 million range for the four-day holiday, but the strength of previews means it could well come in higher.

For millions, Mandy Moore is best known for playing Rebecca in the TV hit This Is Us. But before that she was a teen queen of pop. As the series comes to an end, she explains why she’s going back to music

In March 2020, Mandy Moore was supposed to be basking in the glory of releasing her first album in 11 years and preparing to hit the road for the first time in 13 years. It appeared to be the perfect moment for a musical comeback – and a hard-won triumph after a long sabbatical. But the world had other plans. A week after the release of Silver Landings, her sixth studio LP, America’s lockdown began.

After so many years away from music, it must have felt like a false start?

Bookmark this page for all the latest festival date changes.

To help keep track of the changing schedule, Screen is keeping this page updated with the latest film festival and market dates, postponements and cancellations.

Festivals taking place online or as hybrid events due to Covid-19 are noted. If not specified, the festival is currently set as a physical event.

To submit details of a change to your festival dates/status, please contact us here with the name, dates, and website for the event, and if it is running online, physically, or both.

Ongoing

Bentonville Film Festival, US - June

Czech screenwriter and director Beata Parkanova says she had a rich mine of real-life characters and scenes to draw on in crafting her second feature, the retro drama “The Word,” competing in the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival’s main event, the Crystal Globe race.

The filmmaker behind “Moments,” a drama that competed in Kviff’s East of the West section in 2018, is screening her sophomore feature at Karlovy Vary in what artistic director Karel Och calls a “masterfully told and highly original intimate drama” built around the family of notary Vaclav Vojir, “a small-town moral authority,” and his fiercely loyal wife, Vera.

The story follows its protagonists through a political and societal ordeal in the summer of 1968, with nuanced performances by Martin Finger and Gabriela Mikulková.

Finger’s principled probate notary and his suffer-no-fools wife, played by Mikulkova, were both inspired by Parkanova’s own family, she says.

“I

The comedian on his Sundance hit film about a homemade robot, why Ricky Gervais persuaded him to give up his day job, and being a hopeless romantic

The actor, comedian and former gardener David Earl, 48, got his breakthrough by creating standup character Brian Gittins. He’s best known for his collaborations with Ricky Gervais, appearing in the TV series Derek and After Life and the film Cemetery Junction. He co-hosts podcasts Chatabix and My New Football Club with Joe Wilkinson, with whom he also co-created sitcom The Cockfields. Earl co-wrote and stars in Brian and Charles, a film about a lonely inventor who builds a robot best friend, out next week.

Your film Brian and Charles won the audience award at last month’s Sundance festival in London. Was that a proud moment?

We didn’t even know there was an award, so it was lovely. I never win anything

Based on the true story of a lone gunman who killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996, Justin Kurzel’s drama is a complex study of a lethal misfit

At a crucial moment in this quietly harrowing drama from Justin Kurzel, director of Snowtown, Macbeth and True History of the Kelly Gang, a young man walks into a gun shop with a bag of money and walks out with an arsenal of firearms. What’s remarkable is how horrifyingly matter of fact the scene is, with its casual talk of throwing in ammo rounds and “nice” carrying bags. Yes, there’s a slightly sticky moment when the young man reveals that he doesn’t have a licence, but that’s circumvented when he agrees not to register his purchases. So the deal is done; hands are shaken, money is exchanged and lethal weapons are sent out into a world where no one is safe.

The beloved character was created in 1928 and the cartoon is widely regarded as a pioneer in animation

As a consequence of US copyright law, entertainment giant Disney could soon lose the exclusive rights to some of the characters most responsible for the brand’s universal recognition, including the mouse that acts as its mascot.

Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain in the year 2024, almost 95 years after his creation on 1 October 1928 – the length of time after which the copyright on an anonymous or pseudo-anonymous body of artistic work expires.

Costume designer Anna Robbins has been immersed in the world of "Downton Abbey" since the launch of its fifth season back in 2014, and stepped back into the role in 2019 to design costumes for the "Downton Abbey" movie. For the most recent addition to the series, and what might turn out to be its last, Robbins returned once again as the costume designer for "Downton Abbey: A New Era."

Over time working on these projects, a rapport develops between cast members and the designer. It's oftentimes a collaborative process, and with constant adjustments, changes, and fittings to...

The post How Downton Abbey: A New Era Finally Fulfilled a Years-Long Dream For One of Its Actors appeared first on /Film.

The Emmy race is heating up and, per usual, HBO’s “Succession” is poised to be a frontrunner in quite a few categories. One of the many actors in the mix for a nomination is Brian Cox, who plays family patriarch Logan Roy. But while other stars turn on the charm and watch what they say during an awards campaign, Brian Cox continues to offer provocative, declarative responses to the delight of everyone listening. In a new interview with The Times, Cox said he thinks his villainous character is “not a horrible man at all” and is, in fact, a “very misunderstood man.”

“What I love about Logan is he’s got a wicked sense of humor,” Cox said. “He knows how to get people going, and he deliberately shakes people up. He’s constantly making people wake up, even though it’s brutal in a way. I have a lot of respect for him.

(Welcome to Year of the Vampire, a series examining the greatest, strangest, and sometimes overlooked vampire movies of all time in honor of "Nosferatu," which turns 100 this year.)

"The Moth Diaries" is a moody horror piece directed by Mary Harron ("American Psycho"), based on Rachel Klein's gothic novel of the same name. It was lambasted by critics for its dour atmosphere and flat narrative, with Hollywood Reporter calling it "about as scary and menacing as the harmless lepidoptera in the film's title," and Parallax View saying the film "fails to frighten, titillate or otherwise engage the imagination." 

But what's special about "The Moth Diaries" is...

The post Year of the Vampire: The Moth Diaries Puts A Teen Girl Twist On Traditional Vampire Tropes appeared first on /Film.

Stephen King is one of the most celebrated horror authors of all time, and many of his books have been turned into classic films. From “Stand By Me” and “The Shawshank Redemption” to “Carrie” and “Misery,” King has been an almost constant presence at the multiplex since he began publishing books in the 1970s. King is also unafraid to share his strong opinions about movies, famously distancing himself from Stanley Kubrick’s beloved adaptation of his novel “The Shining” for years. His Twitter account has long been a hotbed of the author’s pop culture takes, and this week, he turned his attention to one of Hollywood’s most polarizing franchises: Michael Bay’s “Transformers” movies.

“I have walked out of only one movie as an adult: ‘Transformers.'” King tweeted. And in case there was any doubt about which “Transformers” flick he was referring to, the author later specified “Michael Bay.

Tommy Morgan, a harmonica soloist who contributed to hundreds of movies and TV shows including “Roots” and “Dances With Wolves,” died June 23. He was 89.

Morgan played on film soundtracks and record dates going back to the early 1950s. His estimated 7,000 recording sessions, according to statistics on his website, suggest that more people have heard his harmonica work than that of any other player of the instrument.

That’s Morgan’s harmonica on Quincy Jones’ “Sanford and Son” theme, Mike Post’s “Rockford Files” theme and the scores for numerous shows including “Maverick,” “The Waltons,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “China Beach,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Family Guy.”

He played on the Emmy-winning score for “Roots” and its sequel, “Roots: The Next Generations.” And his bass harmonica was the signature sound of Arnold Ziffel, the pig on “Green Acres.”

In addition, Morgan played on dozens of classic films including “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,

Should the apocalypse strike and any of us happen to survive it, you can’t accuse the movies of leaving us unprepared. Dystopian futures are a dime a dozen in science-fiction cinema these days, with a generally shared aesthetic that leads us to expect, for better or (probably) worse, a lot of damp, ashy slurry and unflattering sackcloth. In some ways “Vesper,” with its drenched khaki palette and all-encompassing air of ruin, conforms to this forecast. In others, Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper’s solemn, elegant fantasy surprises with its textured, sometimes iridescent world-building: There’s beauty to be found in this vision of Earth in a state of ecosystemic collapse, even if it’s hard-won and harder still to nurture.

Premiering in the main competition strand of this year’s Karlovy Vary festival, “Vesper” marks a long-awaited return to feature filmmaking for Lithuanian director Buozyte and her French writing partner Samper,

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” filmmakers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert were recently interviewed by Edgar Wright for Sight and Sound, where they discussed maximalist cinema and why their indie multiverse hit has resonated so strongly with audiences around the globe. The directors, collectively known as the Daniels, said that while the film largely avoids exploring the Internet in favor of traveling to other universes, the themes of over-stimulation and abundance of choice were fueled by internet culture.

“I realized that we never say anything about the Internet,” Scheinert said. “We don’t really point at anyone’s phone. No one is looking at social media. But the movie is totally a reaction to that. Jobu/Joy is like a character that grew up on the internet who is struggling to be understood by her mum, who did not grow up on the internet. I don’t want to tell

Although “Nope” is only three weeks away from hitting theaters, Universal has been keeping a lid on plenty of the details of the film, beyond distributing some intriguing images of unidentified flying objects and ranch living in the movie’s trailers. Now, director Jordan Peele is offering a deeper look at the world of the film, sharing a link to a website for “Jupiter’s Claim,” a fictional institution that appears to be headlined by Steven Yeun’s character.

Peele shared the Jupiter’s Claim website on his Twitter Friday afternoon, pointing users to the domain to peruse the world of “Nope.”

https://t.co/lHwKzovotw

— Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) July 1, 2022

Website visitors are immediately greeted with a salutation from Yeun’s character Ricky “Jupe” Park, who introduces himself as a “former child actor and reality TV star… of ‘Kid Sheriff’ fame.’ A booming hero ballad also begins to play upon visiting the website.

Anyone who recently purchased a CBD product because they thought it was the preferred drug of “Cry Macho” star Clint Eastwood is in for some bad news.

In 2020, Eastwood filed two lawsuits accusing companies involved in the cannabis industry of stealing his likeness as part of a scam to drive traffic to CBD retailers. He claims that the marketing campaigns, which included fake news articles using his name and image, implied he was endorsing the cannabis products. Eastwood has no formal involvement in the cannabis industry and maintains that he would have been uninterested in endorsing any CBD products.

Now, the actor can claim victory in one of those suits against Norok Innovations, a California-based Internet marketing company. The ruling (via The Hollywood Reporter) found that Eastwood is entitled to 2 million in compensation, which would have been his market value if the company had hired him as a spokesman.

“Without Mr.

Well, this past week has sucked. I can't speak for all my fellow American uterus-havers, but the revocation of the Roe V. Wade decision has forced me to rethink a lot of my personal safeties and rights in ways I naively thought would never actually be possible. There's still a lot to process regarding where the country is currently going, but one thing was made immediately clear when the decision was overturned – those in power have a very twisted idea of how cisgender women should be able to use their bodies, having even worse ideas for trans men and nonbinary people...

The post Homelander Has Some Very Screwed Up Ideas About Women's Bodily Autonomy (How Apropos) appeared first on /Film.

When "The Boys" premiered, it seemed like just another nihilistic, gross, gory look at superheroes, where hope doesn't exist and depravity is the word of the day. It became clear rather quickly, though, that the show was actually hiding some satisfyingly sharp satire. Sure, there is over-the-top gore and action, and yes the series is incredibly gross and upsetting at times, and it's also definitely still rather dark. But now the show finds hope, even in its nihilism.

In its third season, "The Boys" has become one of the most poignant satires on TV: upping the stakes, the comedy and also the depravity, opening with one...

The post Why A-Train's 'Cure' Is the Heart of The Boys Season 3 appeared first on /Film.

One of the most anticipated films of the summer is “Nope,” Jordan Peele’s mysterious horror project that he promises is “the Great American UFO Story.” Fans have slowly begun to piece elements of the story together from the film’s multiple cryptic trailers. But if “Us” and “Get Out” taught us any lessons, it’s that when Jordan Peele is behind the camera, you never know what you’re going to get.

On Friday, fans got another hint about what they might be in for when the movie hits theaters later this month. Peele tweeted a link to a new website for “Jupiter’s Claim,” a fictional amusement park inspired by the California Gold Rush.

https://t.co/lHwKzovotw

— Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) July 1, 2022

The interactive website details the many attractions at the fictional amusement park, including the Theatre, Bank, General Store, and Winkin’ Well. Visitors to the site are guided by Ricky “Jupe” Park,